Chapter 6: The Source

Seeking feedback on my work-in-process fantasy novel, The Princess and the Pea Tavern

Jul 16, 2026

This is a prequel to Jack and the Beanstalk Cafe, a complete first draft novel, but can be read as a standalone story.

Start from the beginning: Chapter 1
Previous Chapter: Chapter 5
Where we left off: Alban offers to help Philomena but she says she doesn’t want it. Instead, she agrees to tell him the story of what happened to her people before leaving. She begins by saying, “It all started when the Source was stolen.”

Philomena

“The Source? What’s that?”

Philomena narrowed her eyes on Alban. All the effort he put into getting her to tell the story, and he interrupted her three seconds in.

“Sorry, go on,” he said, raising his hands in a show of surrender.

She couldn’t believe he’d actually convinced her to tell him all her secrets. But after everything she’d already confessed to him, sharing the rest of the story hardly mattered. And she had to admit, it was almost a relief to say it outloud. Even if he couldn’t help her—which she knew he couldn’t— at least one other person would know what happened to her people. To her family.

“How much do you know about gnomish magic?”

“Not a lot. I know you have deep roots in garden magic. Your purpose is to protect small plant life, right? We elves have a saying about the different guardians of nature.” He recited the words:

“Earth dragons secure the land where we take root

Gnomes defend the gardens beneath our feet

Dryads guard the water that we drink

Bring no harm to these protectors of the realm

For the Tree Elves are the treasure of the trees.”

Philomena blinked at him. Of course the mighty elves would treat gnomes as their own personal magical servants. This was not surprising— gnomes were always underestimated by the bigger, more powerful magical folk— so she wasn’t expecting the hurt that radiated through her chest at his words. Is this really what he thinks of me? She cleared her throat and ignored the pressure behind her eyes.

“Right. Our magic is rooted in gardens.” She cleared her throat. “We pull bits of magic from plants, and in return we provide them with protection. Just the act of drawing it out leaves almost a magical residue behind. And we protect all plant life, by the way. Including trees.” Philomena glared at him, waiting for him to challenge her and watched as color rose in his cheeks.

“Oh, right. That makes sense. I hadn’t really thought about that.”

“Of course you assume we only protect the plants that are— what was it you said? Beneath your feet?”

“That’s not— I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Yes, you did, but that’s okay. That’s what you were taught so I don’t expect you to know any better.” Alban opened his mouth to reply but Philomena didn’t let him. “Most other magical folk think the same way your people do. That gnomes are weak because we’re small and because we spend our time helping other small things. But caring about beings weaker than yourself does not make us weak. I think it makes us strong, actually. Stomping on little creatures just makes a person pathetic.”

Alban stared at her for a moment, a slight furrow between his brows.

“You’re right,” he said at last.

“I know.”

“I just never thought about it like that.”

“I know,” she said again. “You never thought about it because you never had to. Us little magical folk probably never cross your mind because our struggles don’t impact you. We’re just more little plants beneath your feet.”

“I’m sorry.”

Philomena sighed. “I don’t want you to be sorry. I’m not trying to make you feel bad, I just want you to understand. But that’s not even important anymore.” She shrugged. “And you all were wrong, anyway.”

“Wrong about what?”

“Wrong about us being weak. You all just thought our little garden magic was quaint and useless, right? That was our biggest kept secret.” When Alban simply raised his eyebrows, she continued. “Our garden magic is really only used to protect the plants. The amount of magic you can pull from small plants isn’t useful for much else. What most people don’t know is that we also have metallurgy magic.”

Alban’s jaw slackened and Philomena smirked at the reaction. She was really spilling all the secrets today— her father would be furious. The thought of her family renewed the ever present ache in her heart and she reached up to stroke Beans absentmindedly. It leaned into her touch and sent her a spark of magic.

“Thank you,” she whispered before remembering the elf. Glancing at him in embarrassment, she found that he was just watching the scene with a tender expression across his face— Philomena thought it almost looked like longing, but it disappeared as soon as he noticed her staring back. It reminded her of the yogurt* her mother kept in the underground cellar back home. It was cultured during the Battle of Thermopylae by Harry of Albion and said to carry a grief and yearning for something you’d never tasted.

“So.” Alban cleared his throat. “Metallurgy? That’s… rare. And powerful. I think I’ve only ever met a few other folk who can perform metal magic.”

“Exactly. And yet every single gnome can do it.” She smiled again seeing the shock in Alban’s face, before letting it fall as she continued. “The problem is that the only metal we can use is impossibly rare. It’s a metal found only in the soil that plants pull up through their roots. Only a few gnomes have even been trained in the science of extracting the material and forming it into what we call the Source.”

“So, the Source is just a glob of metal then?”

Philomena blinked at him. Reducing the ancient magic of phytomining resources from the earth and shaping them into a magical artifact to “just a glob of metal” was one of the most offensive things the elf had said to her.

“Yeah, basically,” she answered with a snort of laughter. “Each gnomish city has their own Source. It takes centuries of careful work to create it, and then the people can use it forever. An infinitely renewable source of magical energy that can power a whole donsy of gnomes forever.”

“And yours was stolen.”

“All of them were stolen. I’ve spent the last four hundred fifty years visiting all of the known gnomish cities, looking for help and to warn them of what happened to us. They’re all gone.”

“What? That can’t be true. I would have heard about that,” Alban said, his eyebrows knitted.

“I don’t know how it was kept quiet, but think about it. You only heard about Helike because of the earth tremors, right? You didn’t know that all the gnomes disappeared before the wave hit.”

“Before—? How?” The elf’s eyes were wide, staring at her in disbelief.

“They were taken, Alban. The wave was just the aftermath.”

Thank you for reading my new project! I would love any and all feedback you have on the story or the writing. If you’d also be willing to take a few moments to answer the below polls, I’d appreciate it. Thank you!

*Special thanks to Salty Notes From Nowhere for ~~daring me~~ allowing me to feature a yogurt with ptsd 😎