“Dung? Really?” Tsuta examined the red sphere, turning it over in his hands.


    “That’s what the book said” came the reply


    The source of the second voice was his watch partner - Iskvold, but he never called her that. Tsuta always gave his colleagues nicknames based on some obvious dimension of their physical appearance or skills. Iskvold had the characteristic pink eyes of the Drow and given how rare her kind were in this part of the world (he had never known another), it seemed only appropriate to give her the nickname “Pinky”.


    The two were in the final stretch of their three-day tour guarding the northern outpost. The monks of The Luminarium were responsible for constantly manning three beacon outposts overlooking the mountain passes that offered the only means of access to the eastern kingdoms of elves and men. It had proved to be a profitable symbiotic relationship for all sides. The abbey received a steady stream of complimentary food and supplies from their benefactors. In exchange, the monks provided an early warning system against any aggression from the tribes of Orcs and Gnolls to the west or any other nasties that might take nearby communities by surprise.


    The main abbey - The Luminarium - was centrally located less than two miles from each outpost, nestled solidly into the foothills of the Glimmerstone mountains.


    Each location consisted of a modest cabin shelter and an eight-foot-high stone fireplace called The Beacon perched on a small, cleared plot atop a plateau carved out of the forest. Each outpost was only accessible from the east side to prevent it from being overrun by enemies.


    The Beacons themselves had a unique functional design with a rounded cone base close to three feet wide at the bottom, its bulbous sides tapering to a much smaller aperture at the top. Tsuta recalled thinking, the first time he saw one up close, that they resembled an upside-down beehive or a head of garlic. Each beacon was mounted on a low three-sided stone base with a sliding metal grate underneath to remove the ash.


    Their job was simple enough. Monitor the pass and send a signal if anything hinky comes east. It was the method of communication however that fueled the current conversation.


    Each outpost was equipped with 3 colored spheres, one white, one blue, and one red. Their instructions were to throw one of the spheres into the constantly burning fire should they observe significant civilian migration (white), orc or gnoll military operations (red), or other threatening creatures (blue) moving through the pass. Once added, the sphere produced a heavy column of smoke in its respective color. Each sphere would burn for about an hour and its trail was visible for miles thanks to the beacon’s design and the magical nature of the colored orbs.


    “What kind of dung?” he asked, still focused on the red sphere.


    “Does it matter?” Iskvold shouted back, her voice somewhat muffled as she spoke from the overlook on the far side of the cabin. One of them always had to have eyes on the pass.


    “I was wondering how they get the different colors. Is it different dung or other ingredients, or related to the process and magic associated with creating them?”


    Iskvold appeared to the side of the cabin after repositioning herself to see Tsuta next to the Beacon and keep an eye on the overlook simultaneously. Her shoulder-length white hair was tucked behind her right ear while hanging loosely over her left side. Her head was slightly cocked as her pink eyes sized him up.


    “Are you messing with me right now?”


    “I swear to Gond I’m not” His face cracked a smile “I’m actually curious and assumed you would know given how much time you spend with your nose buried in The Vault”


    The Vault was the abbey’s library, so named because it was discreetly and securely positioned underneath the main building. Their Sifu – Master Haft - took the protection of the abbey’s knowledge very seriously. Historically, the monks at the Luminarium provided the service of transcription and translation for any who could afford it without asking questions. It was also their practice to make a second copy of each document for themselves (often unbeknownst to their customer) and add it to the Vault. Over the years, they had accumulated quite a collection, rivalled only by the royal libraries in the national capitals. In addition, because of their “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, the Luminarium’s inventory had become very eclectic over the years, ranging from the benign to the downright dangerous.


    Outside her three mandatory days a month at the Beacon, Iskvold’s primary duties lay within the Vault. As its appointed curator, she knew what was there and where to find it. That suited her just fine as she had a love of knowledge and often felt more at home among the stacks than with other people.


    Her eyes narrowed as she contemplated dignifying Tsuta with a response, deciding finally to speak after a significant pause.


    “The white ones are made with wolf dung, the red is Centaur, and the blue comes from Bulettes. The other ingredients – Sulphur and saltpeter – are the same, and so is the incantation”


    Tsuta started to giggle “I can’t believe you KNOW that Pinky...that you actually took the time to learn about how to construct Beacon flares out of dung!”


    “Laugh all you want my bald friend, you’re the one playing with Centaur shit!” She smirked and disappeared back around the edge of the cabin to resume her observation.


    Tsuta’s smile was immediately replaced with a scowl as he looked down again at the red sphere, promptly returning it to its rightful place beside the beacon and wiping his hands thoroughly on his robes. With his staff propped up against the wood pile, he remembered what he’d come out there to do and grabbed two more logs to feed the ever-burning fire within the Beacon. As he did so, he got the impression of movement at the edge of his peripheral vision. It looked like a flash of magic. As one of the few monks at the Luminarium who was also skilled in casting, Tsuta was very familiar with magic and instinctively dropped the logs. Grabbing his staff in one motion, and rotating towards the flash, his magical essence began to crackle in his right hand. But there was nothing unusual. The morning sun flickered among the leaves moving lazily in the western breeze. The birds and insects continued their constant twitter and drone. Hmm. Maybe it wasn’t magic. Maybe it was just the light playing among the shadows of the forest? Satisfied that he had overreacted, the wood elf let go of the connection to his magic, swapped his staff for the logs, stoked the Beacon, and headed back towards the cabin.Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.


    It was his turn to rest. The pair had spent the last three days swapping six-hour shifts watching the pass. Outpost duty was mentally draining. Maybe it was the monotony or the heavy diet of solo training and meditation, but he always felt exhausted returning to the abbey after completing his monthly tour. Regardless, their relief would be arriving in a few hours and Tsuta could return to his normal duties reviewing and improving the abbey’s defenses. It had been nearly a year since he decided to join Sifu Haft at The Luminarium and take a break from adventuring. Though he didn’t regret the choice, he certainly missed the excitement of the road, most often it seemed, while he was stuck on outpost duty.


    He pushed open the cabin’s back door causing a shaft of sunlight to rush in, temporarily illuminating the modest accommodation. A table with an oil lamp, a small fireplace, and a well-worn meditation mat adorned one side of the room. A hand pump and basin perched atop a basic wooden counter, with supplies stored underneath, covered the other. Closing the door behind him restored deep shadows to the interior. Lighting a stick of incense against the glowing embers, the wood elf settled cross-legged on the mat. Placing the smoldering incense in its holder, he unconsciously slid his hand over the surface of his bald head front to back, and then back to front before beginning his meditation routine and drifting quickly into the focused, semi-conscious state that substituted for sleep among his kind.


    Iskvold heard the cabin door close at her back but didn’t break from her structured routine observation. Scan the skies, scan the pass, scan the mountainsides, repeat. Gondammit, I hate this final shift. Envy gnawed as she thought of her partner, oblivious to the passage of time due to his meditative state. She was, however, acutely aware of the glacier-like movement of every grinding second. So close to being relieved, but every moment stretched as far as possible before giving way to the next. Even her usual distractions – the nest of baby wrens just below the outpost overlook, or the mountain lion that regularly patrolled the hillside below, weren’t doing it for her. Work the routine and stop thinking about it, you’re making it worse. She turned north to scan the peaks of the Glimmerstone mountains from the horizon to the Sshanderiusha Gap directly below her and then further south to where the Glimmerstones meet the Aether Peaks. Nothing. Back to the gap. More nothing. Named after the Sshanderiusha River, whose headwaters began just east of the outpost, Iskvold had a clear view of the road stretching miles into the foothills of the Siremirian League to the west. Dead empty. Only rarely in her decade of outpost duty had she witnessed any activity on the other side of the gap. She smirked at the naivety of her younger self imagining the vast wildlands sprinkled with tribes of orcs providing an ongoing entertainment of fantastic creatures plotting and scheming just on the other side of civilization, constantly testing the boundaries. First-hand experience, however, had completely dispelled that myth. Twice she had seen a tribe of orcs migrating across her field of view, and one other time she had seen a pair of wyverns, an adult and a juvenile, riding the air currents among the lower foothills. That was it. The drow began to calculate the futility in her mind to pass the time. Ten years, one three-day watch a month. One hundred and twenty tours. Over four thousand hours of outpost time for two tribes of orcs and a couple of wyverns. If only Sifu allowed her to bring books with her. How many could she have read? How much knowledge could she have acquired? Of course, he had immediately refused the request. Understandable. It completely defeats the purpose of being on watch duty if one is focused on reading rather than watching. Sifu was also very strict about confining all written materials to the Vault itself – no removals. For “protection” he had said. I don’t get that one.  While some manuscripts should certainly never see the light of day outside the Vault, countless other documents would benefit the reader from being considered in the field with context – some of the catalogs of flora and fauna for example.


    She continued her scan to the mountainsides. From her perch, Iskvold could see the eastern and southern slopes of six different peaks that framed the gap, and she dutifully scrutinized each one from base to summit. Still nothing.


    Repeating the process somewhat robotically for several hours, she began knocking out a beat with the butt of her staff on the outlook’s stone patio to frame her actions and combat boredom. Tap-tap, scan the sky. Tap-tap back to the gap. Tap-tap, peak to the east. Tap-tap, peak to the west. Despite being rhythmically challenged, she even attempted accompanying shoulder and hip movements, amusing herself with a stilted and awkward dance routine. I really hope Tsuta isn’t watching, or I’ll never hear the end of it.  Only after the sun moved from overhead to begin pressing its beams annoyingly into her eyes, did Iskvold realize something wasn’t right. They should have been here by now. Normally, the beacon watch arrived by mid-afternoon with a couple of the acolytes in tow bringing food and firewood up to replenish what had been consumed by the outgoing monks on duty. It’s well past mid-afternoon. Where are they? She gave it another thirty minutes before rousing Tsuta from his meditation.


    At first, he resisted her alarm.


    “How late is it?” he asked without opening his eyes


    “The shadows of the foothills are already into the Gap”


    That was enough to support the credibility of her concern, his eyes snapped open.


    “You’re right, that’s pretty late.” He exhaled audibly as he stood and stretched. “Do you want to head down to the abbey and see what’s what while I keep an eye on the gap?”


    “That works. I could do with the change of scenery. I’m sure it’s nothing, but you never know”


    Tsuta nodded and reached for his staff – not that it served much purpose on watch duty, but he felt comfort in always having it to hand.


    “I might as well take my stuff, save another trip,” Iskvold said almost to herself as she slipped past him into the cabin. Tsuta yawned and stepped out onto the overlook.


    “You didn’t see smoke from any of the outposts to the south, did you?” he asked.


    “Now don’t you think I would have led with that if I had?” she chided over her shoulder.


    Tsuta chucked “Fair enough. Sifu probably ran long in one of his lessons again. Wouldn’t be the first time.”


    “Isn’t that the truth!” he heard her reply along with the sounds of rummaging inside the cabin.


    Iskvold grabbed her cloak and shouldered her pack. Returning to the overlook, she placed a hand on Tsuta’s shoulder.


    “I’ll see you back at the abbey”. He turned his head, and they shared a nod before Iskvold strode to the northern end of the overlook and disappeared down the stairs carved straight into the rock face of the plateau.


    “Tell them to get their butts moving will you please?” Tsuta shouted in her direction.


    “Will do” came the distant response.


    Iskvold took the stairs down two at a time. Her muscle memory took over and she shuddered in recollection. How many times have I run this flight? Five Hundred? No, more. These stairs were not only the sole access point for the beacon, but a core component of training at the abbey. Her right hand instinctively dragged against the plateau’s sheer stone face as she shifted her weight to the inside, staff held in her left hand, parallel to the ground for balance. Gond was that painful in the early days!


    Rounding the eastern side of the plateau and gaining a line of sight to the abbey she stopped dead. What the…? Though there were no visible flames, the stone structure was heavily smoldering. She was still too far away to make out any detail, but she’d seen enough. Flying down the few remaining stairs, Iskvold broke into a dead run through the high grass field towards what remained of the Luminarium.