Quest for a Feline

The moss-eaten sign of the 'Rusty Flagon' creaked a mournful tune in the briny sea air, a sound Barnaby swore was the lament of retired warriors everywhere. Inside, the usual fug of stale ale, cheap pipeweed, and the faint, lingering aroma of desperation hung thick enough to carve. Barnaby, a man whose beard seemed to have developed a personality of its own, coughed a rumbling sound that shook his ample belly. Beside him, Silas, a walking testament to the fact that gravity had a particular grudge against older gentlemen, nursed a tankard with the intensity of a scholar dissecting a particularly knotty philosophical text.

"Another Tuesday," Barnaby grumbled, his voice like gravel being churned in a cement mixer. "Just like the last fifty thousand Tuesdays. Remember that time, Silas, when we stormed the Citadel of Grimfang? Single-handedly, mind you. Me, with my trusty war-axe, 'Belly-Rattler,' and you… well, you were there, making noise."

Silas snorted, a sound remarkably like a startled badger. "Noise? I was providing vital tactical diversions, you overgrown badger. And it wasn't Grimfang, it was the Giggling Grotto. And it wasn't a Citadel, it was a particularly stubborn badger sett. And you weren't single-handed, you had a whole company of terrified conscripts hiding behind your legs."