by Hans Bezdek
She carefully pulled the Arcane Staff up, bracing herself for a burst of magical energy. Instead, nothing happened.
“I wonder what sort of powers this one has,” she thought aloud.
“It’s something to do with nature magic,” said Anthony. “I don’t know much more beyond that. I’ve tried playing with it a few times, but it doesn’t seem to want to work with me. I think it needs a mortal’s touch to really get it working. As you can see, I made a nice little grassy patch with it. That was essentially the extent of my abilities.”
“I’ll see what I can do with it when we’re not indoors,” said Sloane, thinking it was a better idea to test out a powerful weapon outside of their recently acquired property.
“I’m sure this is all very exciting, but I’d be happy to continue showing you around if you’d like,” offered the shade.
“Sure,” shrugged Delvin.
The three of them finally made it through the anteroom, entering next into a large ballroom. A chandelier of thousands of diamonds hung above them, magically lit by flames as they entered the room. Obnoxiously long tables filled the room, each seat already set with golden plates and utensils.
“Is golden silverware still called silverware?” asked Delvin, picking up a golden fork and inspecting it.
“I’ve been wondering the same thing for centuries!” gasped Anthony. “Great minds think alike!”
“Is there food in here?” asked Sloane.
“Yes, there is a kitchen back there,” said Anthony pointing off to the left. “I’d show you it but… all the food is horribly rotten now…”
Anthony didn’t seem to understand why she asked...
“I’ll add bringing new supplies next time to the list,” nodded Delvin.
“I can clean it up while you two do that,” said Anthony. “I can’t smell, so it won’t be so bad. One of the many benefits of being dead!”
“Right…” said Sloane slowly.
The three of them made for a stairwell next, which took them to several floors. Most of them were identical, meant to be housing for guests. They made it to the seventh floor, and Delvin squealed with glee.
“This is our library,” said Anthony, pointing out the obvious.
Shelves of books were crammed against the wall and spaced out towards the center of the room. Each shelf housed a dozen rows, with a movable ladder reaching all the way to the top. Several tables with magical lamps were set up for studying in the back of the room.
“So many books!” he cheered, running over to a nearby shelf. “These are all grammars on nearly all of the ancient languages! I’ve never even heard of some of these!”
“The next four floors are also comprised of the library,” smiled Anthony. “Magic spells and incantations can be found on the ninth floor.”
Sloane and Anthony continued up to explore a few other floors while Delvin spent some time in his happy little world.
“This is the fifteenth floor, or the armory,” said Anthony, escorting the human in.
Racks of weapons were all around them. While the ones closest to them appeared to be standard steel blades, the ones towards the back held jewels and precious stones in their hilts.
“Quite the trek up here to get to the armory,” pointed out Sloane. “Seems pretty inefficient for when the citadel was under attack.”
“That rarely happened,” explained Anthony. “When it did, we would just use the floor portal.”
“Floor portal?”
“Yes,” shrugged the shade, waving for her to follow. He brought her to a pink glowing platform in the back, roughly ten feet by ten feet. “This allows you to travel to any floor you’d like instantly.”
“You’ve had us go up fifteen flights of stairs when we could’ve just teleported?!”
“Oh right, exercise can tire the living….” said Anthony, shaking his head and laughing. “How embarrassing of me to forget.”
“There you two are!” came Delvin’s voice as the little gnome rushed in. “I was looking all over for you in the other library floors. I should’ve assumed Sloane would prefer looking at weapons rather than books.”
He wasn’t wrong.
“Ah, that reminds me,” said Anthony, floating over to their right. “Sloane received an Arcane Staff for her troubles, but I wouldn’t want you to feel empty-handed. I believe you might enjoy this weapon, small one!”
The shade picked up a small mace, just the right size for a gnome. There was a strange green glow to it, and there were jewels all along the handle.
“Woah…” said Delvin, taking it from the shade. “It’s beautiful.”
“Not only that, but it’s an excellent weapon,” added Anthony. “Go ahead! Swing it around a bit and see how it feels!”
The gnome did so, twirling it around with ease.
“It feels so natural!” laughed Delvin. Sloane was surprised and happy to see how much fun the gnome was having. He playfully swung at the edge of one of the racks.
The rack, along with nine beside it, exploded out from the wall. All the weapons went flying across the room, some even landing in the stairwell on the other side.
“W-What the-?!” cried Delvin, staring down at the mace in horror.
“That mace is imbued with the power of twelve giants,” said Anthony proudly. “It is the finest magical weapon we have here. Outside of the Arcane Staff, of course.”
“Could’ve mentioned that before telling him to play with it,” muttered Sloane.
“I-I’m not sure if I should keep this,” said Delvin.
“You should,” encouraged Sloane. “Maybe we’ll need it one day.”
“Hopefully not…” he whispered, but he carefully placed it on his belt.
“Can you take us to the treasure?” asked Sloane to the shade.
“Certainly,” he nodded, floating over to the platform. Sloane and Delvin followed him onto it. When they were ready, the space around them suddenly flickered, and they were no longer staring at the armory.
“This is floor twenty, the first of the treasure rooms,” explained Anthony.
Sloane had never seen so much money in all her life. Bars and coins made of gold were stacked all over the room, with some diamonds and precious stones towards the back of the room. She guessed all the banks in Newbridge would even be astonished by what she was now looking at.
“The first treasure room?” asked Delvin. “How many are there?”
“Floors twenty through seventy are all treasure rooms,” said Anthony.
“There are fifty treasure rooms?!” gasped Sloane and Delvin.
“I know, I know,” sighed Anthony. “There used to be more, but some of the old kings bet a few of them on some silly bets.”
“I-I think w-we’ll manage,” gulped Delvin.
“This is wonderful,” smiled Sloane. “We’ll be able to fulfill Tariq’s request and raise an army to defeat Lord Kutarm!”
“I hate to admit it, but the halfling was right,” conceded Delvin. “There’s definitely enough here to strengthen the Resistance. Even better, though, is you finding that Arcane Staff. When we meet up again with Zeke, now we’ll have two!”
“Meet up with Zeke?” asked Sloane. “I told you, I don’t want to do that.”
“But… we’ll need him to defeat Kutarm.”
“The two of us can handle it on our own,” shrugged Sloane. “Especially with the army we can outfit.”
“Many people are motivated by money,” agreed Delvin. “They’re more motivated by a cause and a symbol, though.”
“So?”
“So Zeke’s reputation is that he’s The Elf Thief. He’s a legend. People will be willing to fight alongside him, as we’ve already seen, and way harder than with just a payout!”
“Zeke being The Elf Thief is a lie,” said Sloane firmly.
“Is it really?”
“He’s admitted it!” laughed Sloane. Had the gnome taken some ancient drugs while he was in the library and forgotten?
&nb
sp; “The Fourth Staff could only have been taken by someone fast and nimble, like an elf,” argued Delvin. “They would have to steal it before the guardian could kill them, and they’d have to do it before Wizard’s Keep collapsed on itself. That would require an incredible amount of skill that only an amazing thief would have.”
“So Zeke is ‘an’ Elf Thief, not ‘The’ Elf Thief?” laughed Sloane. “That’s just semantics. He lied to us.”
“He didn’t think it was a big deal!” shouted Delvin, causing Sloane to take a step back. By this point Anthony had floated away, pretending to be fascinated by the ceiling so as not to look like he was listening.
“Then he insulted me!” said Sloane defensively.
“And you insulted him!” laughed Delvin. “You called him Lord Kutarm! You were both being obnoxious, Sloane, not just him!”
Sloane wrung the Arcane Staff as she contemplated denying the accusation. She knew the gnome had a point, though.
The gnome sighed and shook his head. “You can stay mad at Zeke all you’d like, but I’m going to leave and help him. I’ve fulfilled my life debt by helping you find the Lost Citadel.”
“But leaving to help him is going to be dangerous,” said Sloane, surprised that he would do such a thing. “It’s safer to stay here!”
“I don’t care,” said Delvin. “Zeke is my friend. I’m not going to leave him to fight Kutarm by himself. That isn’t the right thing to do.”
Sloane hesitated, trying to decide what she was going to do next. She could try and fund an army on her own, but that would be difficult and take quite a bit of time. She could also just stay in the Lost Citadel, letting the events of the world go on out there. Lord Kutarm would probably never find this place.
She glanced over at Anthony. Did she want to end up like him? The shade was all alone here, and seemed to be a little cuckoo for it. Living by herself here would get old pretty fast. While she didn’t want to admit it, she was happy when Zeke and Delvin initially joined up with her to find this place. What would the point of staying here be if it weren’t with some friends?
“Fine,” sighed Sloane. “I’ll come with you to Burston.”
“You will?” asked Delvin, surprised.
Sloane nodded. “Zeke was being a jerk, but you’re right… we’re still friends. We’ve been through too much together. And maybe I was just a tiny bit at fault back in Newbridge… but only a tiny bit.”
“That’s fair,” smiled Delvin.
“So the two of you are leaving already?” asked Anthony, looking a bit depressed as he floated back over to them.
“It’s like you talked about earlier,” explained Sloane. “Good friends are hard to come by, and we shouldn’t give them up easily. We’ve got to go and help him.”
“That saddens me, but I understand,” nodded the shade.
“Too bad there’s no way for us to take all this treasure with us,” said Delvin, glancing around. “I doubt our horses could handle more than a couple of bags.”
“Oh, I know!” said Anthony, suddenly disappearing.
Delvin and Sloane exchanged a look.
“What do you think he’s doing?” asked Delvin.
“Who knows,” she shrugged.
A few seconds later, the shade reappeared.
“Here, take this!” said Anthony, shoving a small leather bag towards Delvin.
“Uh… thanks?” said Delvin, turning the bag over in his hand. “I’m not sure this is exactly going to help us carry more than a few handfuls of gold, though...”
“This will give you full access to all that you could want from this citadel,” explained the shade. “All you’ve got to do is whisper what you want me to pass through the bag, and I’ll get it for you!”
“That simple?” asked Sloane.
“Absolutely,” smiled Anthony. “You are both my friends now, and I’ve spent hundreds of years memorizing where everything is in this place.”
“Thank you, Anthony,” smiled Delvin up at the shade. “I’m sure this’ll come in handy.”
“My pleasure,” bowed Anthony. “I hope the two of you survive your adventure and are able to return! It’d be nice to have some friends around.”
“We’ll do our best,” nodded Sloane. Turning around, she made for the stairs as she tightened her grip on the Arcane Staff. “Let's go, Delvin. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”
Chapter 20
Zeke pushed through the last of the Resistance fighters, stumbling into the road. It had taken a bit longer than he thought it would, but at least the bridge wasn’t down yet.
“What’s the plan?” asked Kriket, stumbling out after him.
Zeke thought about letting him in on the secret that Zeke hadn’t quite figured that out yet, but decided against it.
The elf glanced around, looking for what to do next. The demons and Resistance fighters were all close to the moat to their right. Looking left towards the woods, he saw that a large force of Kutarm’s men stood waiting, polearms and other weapons at the ready. He guessed that they were waiting for the demons to make it into the city first, then they would come charging in after. Things weren’t looking good for Burston.
Up towards the trees closest to Zeke and Kriket were some horses. A few had Kutarm’s colors, while others must have been ridden by the Resistance. The horses looked spooked by the demons, but appeared to be otherwise usable.
“Go grab a horse for us,” said Zeke. “Hurry!”
The lizardman nodded, running off.
Zeke turned towards the masses. The Resistance was clearly cut in two now, with a pack of bloodthirsty demons filling out the middle of the road as they waited for the bridge to finish lowering. There was probably less than a minute left before they would hop on and pour into the city.
“Back!” shouted Kriket, riding up on one of the horses decked out in the blue and black of Kutarm.
“Where’s the second horse?” asked Zeke. “Like, for me?”
“You said to grab a horse, not two horses!” hissed Kriket.
Zeke looked back at the bridge, guessing they didn’t have enough time to go bring a second one.
“Fine,” he grumbled, taking Kriket’s hand and getting on behind him.
“What now?” asked Kriket.
“Now we hope this works,” said Zeke, holding the Fourth Staff high above him.
The demons remained focused on the bridge, and the Resistance on the demons.
“I am the mighty Zeke Northwood!” shouted Zeke, raising the Staff a bit higher. “Slayer of demons, defender of the innocent, and the one who will defeat Lord Kutarm!”
The demons and the Linsuk Resistance continued to ignore him.
“Maybe try something else?” whispered Kriket.
“I got that, thanks,” mumbled Zeke.
Zeke pointed the Arcane Staff up to the sky. The circle at the top closed, and he let loose a ray of purple energy.
All of the demons stopped and turned towards him.
“I am The Elf Thief!” bellowed Zeke. “This is the Fourth Staff! Together, the Resistance will take down Lord Kutarm!”
The Resistance cheered, raising their weapons high. The bridge collapsed down behind the demons, and for a moment everyone was tense.
Then, over one hundred demons ran at Zeke.
“What have I done,” whimpered the elf. “Quick! Go, go, go!”
The horse needed no extra prodding, and they took off down the road towards Kutarm’s forces.
Kutarm’s men wore a mix of confused and panicked expressions as the horde of demons chased after Zeke and towards them. Zeke was banking on them not putting up much of a fight, but even if they did, he figured the demons would care less about their tentative alliance with these men and more about the Arcane Staff.
A purple bubble of magic formed around Zeke, Kriket, and the horse as they neared the barricade. That appeared to be the final straw, and the men all began to run.
The horse cut through them, quickly overtaki
ng all but those on horseback. Unfortunately for Kutarm’s forces, the demons were close behind. Horrified screams filled the air as Kriket’s horses galloped as fast as it could.
Before long, the demons were on them. The purple shield was keeping them from taking any hits, but Zeke wasn’t confident that he could keep this up forever. The Arcane Staff didn’t have the best track record of always working as he wanted it to.
Zeke gripped the Arcane Staff as hard as he could, thinking through the different options. He seemed to innately know how to use the Arcane Staff at times, and he needed that luck to happen again.
“W-Where are we going?” asked Kriket, looking around at all the demons just inches from his face.
“Uh, just keep going!” said Zeke, closing his eyes as he tried to focus.
And then he knew.
There was only one ability of the Arcane Staff to take out all the demons in one go. His brain was filled with warnings about what would happen, but he didn’t really have another option. From what he could tell, he was probably dead either way.
“Stop!” shouted Zeke.
“You’re joking!” shouted Kriket. “You literally just told me to keep going!”
“Stop the horse!” cried Zeke again.
Against Kriket’s better judgment, he did so. The horse pulled up to a short stop, but then kept moving. It looked like the horse knew enough to not stay still when surrounded by countless demons.
“This’ll work,” said Zeke, jumping off the horse.
“W-What are you doing?!” demanded Kriket, turning around and looking at the demons in horror.
As Zeke guessed, the demons stopped paying Kriket or the horse any attention. They were only after the Arcane Staff. Still, the horse and rider were still surrounded by a thing purple layer of magic.
“You need to ride as fast as you can and get out of here!” explained Zeke, swatting at the demons with the Fourth Staff.
“Are you mad?!” hissed Kriket. “You’ll die!”
“It’s the only way!” shouted Zeke, smacking the Arcane Staff against a demon’s face. “I don’t know how to explain it, but I know there’s a final ability I can use with this weapon.”
“F-Final ability?” asked Kriket. “I don’t like the sound of that!”