They were the old patrons.

Mira looked over the skeletons scattered on the ground, some ancient dried blood between the. She wondered what had happened in this dwarven alehouse to these men or women—she couldn’t tell by dwarf bones alone.

The warrior slowly stepped around the skeletons towards the door, careful not to disturb them. Reaching the tall oak door, Mira looked for a way to open it. It was not barred from the inside, suggesting it was merely locked. Where to find the key was the next question.

Looking around the house again, there seemed only the option to look through every dead dwarves belonging's for the key. With a heavy sigh, Mira returned to the skeletons, gazing over the decrepit clothes and equipment on their bones. Mira spent some time looking, finding a few dwarven coins and pocket knives, but no key.

One fateful moment, a drip from her beer-soaked sleeve feel down on the teeth of one of the skeletons. Mira continued her search but a moment later, she heard a clattering behind her. She quickly turned around and drew her dagger, looking in horror as the skeleton rose from its spot.

It stretched its limbs like it had slept for decades, which might be not far from the truth. It then looked around at its comrades, “Oi, what are you guys napping for? Night’s still young!”

Mira could only look in shook as the other skeletons started rattling too and slowly getting up. One of them talked back to the first, “Pipe down, I’ve got a splitting headache, I have.’

Mira slowly backed up, holding her dagger at the ready, though a dagger was not much use against skeletons, Otto’s hammer would do much better.

“I feel like I could drink a whole lake of ale, I’m parched,” one of them clattered and looked around. His glowing eyes fell on Mira, “Oh, hello there, lass. You new here or something? I didn’t know Robar hired a Human lass. Come, get my buddies and me a drink.” His digits went to his coin pouch, breaking the rotting leather, and his coins spilled on the floor, “Oh, damn it, I’ll have to have a word with Barmel, his pouches are not worth their money anymore.”

The other skeletons looked at Mira expectantly and filed out among the seats and tables in the house. The old chairs creaked and groaned desperately but held the skeleton’s moderate weight.

Mira was shocked, all she wanted to do was run, but climbing up the barrel with all the skeletons around was no option at that time. At least the skeletons didn’t attack right away, she would have had no chance against them with only a dagger and no armour. She swallowed her pride for the moment—it seemed like the skeletons had not yet realised that they were dead at all—and played along. Picking up a tankard from the ground, she went over to the tap in the big barrel and tried to open it. Even after decades, maybe hundreds of years, the tap opened without effort and the beer flowed out in the tankard.

The warrior, who was now playing waitress for a party of dwarven skeletons, went over to one of the tables and set down a tankard for one of them. The skeleton looked up at her and maybe if it still had lips, it would’ve been smiling, “Thank ye kindly, dear.” It then turned a bit and smelled Mira’s arm, “You gotta be more careful, though. First day, huh?”

Mira nodded, not quite believing what was happening, “Uh, yes. I just started here.”

“Well, I don’t know how a Human girl came to work in our tavern, but welcome,” it said and then turned to his buddies, “Robar always hires the pretty ones, don’t he?”

“Oh ho, you like Human girls, Harald?” one of them laughed, its teeth clattering.

The other one shrugged, “What can I say? I always liked tall women. And she smells wonderful.”

The round of skeletons clattered in unison.