Gary shrugged, fighting the impulse to look over at the spot where he knew the secret door lay. “Sure. I’ll run to the market before dawn.”
Braeleigh leaned in and gave him a peck on the cheek. “You’re the best!” Then she scurried up the stairs, not bothering to disguise her eagerness to explore the rest of the house.
Gary headed up after her. He’d take the servants’ barracks, all right. With two floors between him and the rest of the party, that would give him unfettered access to the sub-basement.
And the secrets it held.
28
That night, while the rest of the party slumbered two floors above, Gary slid out of his bedroll and lit a lantern. Without furnishings, 14 Zephyr Street was less luxurious than all but the saddest of inns, but at least it was theirs. Temporary poverty aside, it would become a warm, cozy refuge from the horrors faced by all successful adventurers.
But for now, it was a puzzle box with a hidden secret that Gary already knew about.
Tiptoeing despite the unlikelihood of anyone hearing him with so much solid stone architecture in the way, he made his way down the conveniently accessible stairway to the wine cellar.
He started at the sight of Miriasa Starlight laid out on the floor atop the blanket that had concealed her on their journey through the city. Beldrak had set her down there as a respectful hideaway from prying eyes and any visitors who might come calling. Still, the sight of a humanoid form gave Gary a momentary fright.
Pausing beside her, Gary studied the elf woman’s face. So human, yet so clearly not. Her staring eyes were amber, widened in a state of sudden surprise. The pale, nearly alabaster skin warmed at the cheeks with a flush. Her hair was a hue closer to real gold than blonde, and the delicate ears that peeked through the wild, stasis-bound tangle tapered to an acute point, longer than Gary’s hand.
For all his intent study, he dared not touch her. Neither the elf nor the world at large would have been the wiser had Gary traced those luxuriant ears with a finger or stolen a kiss from those gasping lips. But he would have.
Gary would sooner have played Black Sabbath in the Sistine Chapel than lay a fingertip upon that frozen form. Beldrak had borne her all the way from Gelzhearth with the grim, apologetic necessity of carrying a noble dame from a burning villa.
With a shuddering breath and a blink to force the hypnotic allure of Miriasa from his eyes, Gary sought out the place he’d found hours earlier, before Braeleigh had come along to interrupt. The catch hidden in the masonry hadn’t moved, but when Gary reached in and pressed with a finger, the masonry itself did.
The grinding of stone sounded like an avalanche in the self-imposed silence. Deep down, Gary knew that no secret door worth its hinges would make enough noise to give itself away. That didn’t stop a cold sweat from breaking out under Gary’s arms as he watched the stairs, waiting for the door to finish revealing the passageway beyond.
Dust-choked air greeted him, forcing Gary to cover his nose and mouth with a sleeve as he held the lamp in front of him and ventured in. There was no chamber beyond, simply a landing and a set of crude stone stairs leading downward.
“Funny. You’d think the craftsman who made the automatic door could have stuck around to make some decent stairs,” he muttered to himself. Steeling against the cloying darkness ahead, Gary appreciated the sound of his own voice. If anyone could hear him this far down, he should have been discovered long before now.
The stairs made a U-turn and ended at an oaken door with rusted iron hinges. With a quick tug, Gary confirmed that the door wasn’t locked. It creaked ominously but allowed him beyond.
A slow grin spread on Gary’s face when he saw inside.
The room glowed with pale yellow light from wall sconces enchanted to give the appearance of torchlight. The lantern was no longer required, so Gary shut it off. Inside, tables and bookshelves crowded around. A silver-inlaid diagram dominated the room, carved into a single, black marble slab larger than the other stones that comprised the floor. To the average fourth-level bard, it would have been merely a disquieting hint of magical experimentation.
To the one who’d drawn up the plans for 14 Zephyr Street, it was a little-used demon-summoning protective glyph placed there by a prior occupant with greater skill in carving than the arcane arts.
Nothing of value had been left behind, but that was fine by Gary. This was a refuge for a persecuted arcanist to continue his research in a city that would have hanged him had they known his secret. The room was equal parts laboratory, library, and study. There was even an emergency exit to the sewers, though it might not have been possible to conceal again once used.
Unslinging his pack, Gary took out Randal Vintner’s spellbook. Everyone had heard the ghostly wizard speak and being the only one willing to ferry the skull back for proper burial was a mark of bravery that flew in the face of common superstition.
Trifling with the wizardly trappings left behind was a different matter entirely. Daring to peruse it for the first time without fear of someone catching him looking, Gary held his breath.
The pages were gibberish.
“Fuck!” Gary shouted, slamming the cover shut. Sneaking, creeping, conniving plans of switching Paths to Arcana shriveled before his uncomprehending eyes.
It was one thing swapping from Warrior to Ranger. Different Path powers, new weapon skills. It was all part of the package. Failing to include a blanket understanding of the arcane language for the whole Path of Arcana was a game design oversight, the sort of thing that Gary would have corrected on the fly had anyone been in his present bind. But Gary didn’t want to wait four more levels to work his way back down the Path of Arcana to learn the lingo. He’d hoped that it would have been as simple as his ability to understand the dwarven tongue.
But dwarf speech wasn’t a Path power; arcana was.
Closing his eyes, Gary rested his elbows on the table with the book and tapped his fingertips together. “Think… think…”
There were plenty of things he could do as a wizard without being able to read magical script. He’d cross over at Arcana 4B, which would get him an Arcane spell, not even a mere Lesser Arcane Spell. The list of options he could learn for free would stand him in good stead in a fight, but he’d be a one-trick pony. Being able to read the spellbook in front of him, Gary would have been able to cast anything inside so long as he had sufficient power and the text in front of him to read aloud.
Shaking his head, Gary came to the conclusion he’d been hoping to avoid. “Not worth the risk. Getting burned at the stake for being able to cast a lightning spell… just can’t do it.”
Lighting his lamp and leaving the spellbook behind on a shelf, Gary closed up behind him and headed back to bed.
29
Morning came, and Gary provided his promised breakfast of eggs and sausage, paid for out of the proceeds from selling his rapier. No one asked where he’d gotten the money to stock their meager larder, but after breakfast, Zeeto revealed that he had, in fact, managed to hold out from Marliss’s demands for every bit of wealth the party could scrounge.
“Ought we find a courier and set to right our deal with fair-minded Marliss?” Beldrak asked.
Zeeto snorted. “He can sit on a unicorn’s head for all I care. He took everything he could get. You’re lucky I was able to hide these babies away, or we’d be camping in our own house every night from now until we come across a moneymaking adventure.” He fiddled with two pale yellow gemstones the size of a halfling’s knuckle.
“Ooh, beds?” Braeleigh asked. “It’s one thing sleeping on a bedroll on comfy forest soil, but on a cold stone floor? No thank you. If we can’t afford beds for everyone, I’d even be willing to share.” She must have caught Gary’s blush because she hastily added, “With Sira. Don’t you boys get any ideas.”
Sira eyed the perky elf up and down. “We’ve got enough rooms. Rather the floor.”
“Then it’s settled,” Zeeto said, thumping a fist on the floor
where a kitchen table ought to have been. “Furniture shopping it is!”
The whole party spent the morning picking over the remains of refugees’ homes, bargaining with soon-to-be-former residents over beds, tables, dressers, wardrobes, and chairs deemed too bulky to travel with. Not everyone had the means of Marliss Wauldertot to pack up every twig and nail from their home onto wagons.
Gary was huffing and panting for breath with a dining room chair in both hands. The simple wooden seat had seemed light enough when they’d picked it up from the home of a widower rethinking his choice of retirement venue since the quake. Block by block, however, it had gained an invisible weight, as if some trickster god were piling it with pebbles for every step Gary took.
Arms burning, lungs aching, the house at 14 Zephyr Street was in sight. Up ahead, Braeleigh and Sira carried a bed frame while Zeeto balanced a chair identical to Gary’s atop his head by the seat, balancing it with his hand as the high back came near to tripping him by the heel at every step. Beldrak, in the lead, carried the table to match their set without any sign of difficulty.
“Huh?” Braeleigh said, cocking her head as she reached the top of the steps leading to their front door. “Did we forget to close it?”
Gary’s heart quickened.
With a flip over his head, Zeeto set his chair down, hopped the seat, and vaulted up to the top of the stairs. In an instant, his dagger was out, and he was peering inside. “Someone jimmied the door. I closed and locked it myself.”
Sira glanced all around. “We’re not in combat…”
So, Gary mused, they can sense Initiative, whether or not they can put it into words.
Beldrak drew his greatsword. “Would that it remain thus. I fearest therein lies the rub. ’Tis not we who might choose whether tea or blood is our noontime treat.”
“Ale for me,” Zeeto muttered. “Whoever’s robbing us is both stupid and unlucky. We’ve got nothing in there worth the trouble, and his lungs are going to be a new sheath for my dagger.”
“Ew,” Braeleigh said. “If you make his lungs into a sheath, I’m not rooming next to you. The smell would—”
“Shh,” Sira hissed. The priestess muttered a prayer and a holy aura enveloped her. Gary made a quick note that she’d learned Acolyte’s Aura at fourth level on the Path of Piety.
Acolyte’s Aura: +2 Armor Rating. Lasts until preventing 5 hits.
Nice for Sira. Not much use to anyone else, other than the fact that Sira was less likely to die and hence more likely to stick around a fight long enough to keep the rest of them up and fighting.
“Hey,” Braeleigh said. “Where’s your rapier?”
Gary rolled his eyes. “You all ate it for breakfast this morning.” He swung his lute around and gripped the fretboard, ready to play. “You get the performing bard today, not the swashbuckler.”
Zeeto crept inside, pressing a strip of cloth to the hinges to keep them from creaking. Lucky for all of them that the uppermost hinge wasn’t the noisy one or the trick wouldn’t have worked at all. Not for the first time, Gary wished he could see everyone else’s rolls to know what kind of bonus that maneuver granted him.
Gary tiptoed as carefully as he could while watching his footsteps.
d20: 2 + (DEX -1) + (Lute Gong -2) = -1
Gary saw the twenty-sided die tumble in his mind’s eye, cringing when he saw the 2 come up. Before he could begin to puzzle out the meaning of the cryptic penalty he’d gotten, his unwieldy instrument banged against the door.
The hollow body of the lute echoed like a drum. Only the hand resting on the fretboard kept the instrument from ringing out an open chord as well. As all heads turned toward him in shock, surprise, and disgust, Gary hugged the lute to his body to muffle it.
“Sorry,” he mouthed.
A voice carried from the basement, smooth and tinged with sarcastic disdain. “Finally, someone back to save me from this tedious vacant hovel. What? Burglars in your own home? One of you, speak up.”
“Present thyself, knave,” Beldrak ordered, bellowing down the stairs as he crept down, greatsword held ready. “State thy name and purpose. Name also thy next of kin should ye offer violence.”
The cackling from below held genuine mirth. “Oh, wouldn’t that be rich? My name I’ve already given you sorry lot once. If you need it again, come look me in the eye. I daresay your memory will awaken from its torpor.”
Gary had recognized the voice in an instant. They’d heard it up at Previn’s Mine. The traveler, Kurgath, who’d threatened the half-orc mine owner.
The party slunk down into the wine cellar of 14 Zephyr Street as if it were the next lower level of a dungeon adventure. Yet still there had been no roll for Initiative. Silently, Gary prayed that there wouldn’t be one.
Once downstairs, they all appeared to recognize the wandering seeker of justice. Kurgath was dressed the same as last they saw him. If nothing else, he was dirtier and more road-dusted than before. He lounged against and empty wine rack beside Miriasa, caressing the magically suspended elf in the most vulgar and familiar ways as if there were no one watching to expose his shameful behavior.
“Leave her alone!” Braeleigh shouted, knocking an arrow and aiming it at Kurgath.
The man with the long, greasy hair and nobleman’s bearing didn’t so much as flinch. “Or what? You’ll kill me? With that?” He inclined his head to aim his aristocratic nose at Braeleigh’s bow.
Caspian let out a low growl, less cute than it had been three levels ago. He sounded more attack dog than puppy, though not yet full grown into his body.
“A thief thee be,” Beldrak said. “And thou defilest yon maiden with thy blackguard’s touch.”
Kurgath chuckled, stood, and offered a sneer that almost passed for a smile. “No maiden is this one. Married, childborne, and widowed before any of you were born. Miriasa Starlight is her name, if you hadn’t known it before. And presently her body is harder than stone—than diamond even. Would that I were man enough to defile her in such a state. Alas. But finding a careless she-wizard elf was not my intent in coming. Merely a happy accident.”
“Then why did you come?” Zeeto demanded, brandishing his dagger. “You can see we’ve got pretty much nothing.”
“We already told you we don’t know where that thief of yours is,” Gary said.
“Ah, the ever-elusive Nethel,” Kurgath said, baring his teeth. “Believe you or not, there is a shortage of able bodies in this region. Simply having escaped through the dwarven ruins proves you possess some talent for self-preservation.”
Zeeto cast Gary a private glance. He saw the question clearly in the halfling’s eyes: How did he know we were in that city?
Sira scowled and hooked her mace back on her belt. “Are you trying to hire us?”
“Hire is too strong a word,” Kurgath replied. “I simply wish to offer you a reward for my thief’s return. I would tell you dead or alive, but you lot seem the noble sort—for whatever that’s worth. Alive is fine. In pain is better. Any objects, wealth, or other possessions about his person you will assume to be my property and treat them accordingly. My property is more important than revenge but make no mistake; I want both.”
Zeeto tucked his dagger away. “Hold on a minute. I don’t know the guy’s name, but I remember your description from before. Mr. Blandy Blando, pressed-from-the-copper-coin-mold-at-the-mint human. But there’s been a pretty average-looking human around Club Talis. You can find it in the back room of Treva’s Pawn Shop on the other side of town. Place is filled with thieves. Even if this Nethel character isn’t around anymore, someone’s got to know where he is.”
Kurgath frowned and stroked the patchy stubble along his jawline. “If your information turns out to be useful, I’ll make sure you are compensated… justly.”
With that, Kurgath breezed past everyone. He ignored Braeleigh’s arrow tracking his every step and Caspian’s increasingly loud growl as he drew close. He didn’t make eye contact with anyone, nor did anyone at
tempt to block his exit.
They waited in tense silence until their own front door slammed shut.
Gary wasn’t the only one to let out a held breath at the sound. “Glad that’s over with. Nice bluff.”
Zeeto shrugged. “Figured, we got enough people jamming the pointy ends of their business into our tender backsides that we might as well point them at each other.”
“Thou hast imparted falsehood to a hand that would don red without a heartbeat’s pause,” Beldrak warned.
Zeeto snorted. “Didn’t hear any objections while I was getting rid of him. And you’re welcome. Besides, never said I knew where that fella was. I just strongly suggested that if it’s a thief that Kurgath moron was looking for, Club Talis was where to find one.”
“Perchance, how didst thee know the nest whence those vipers came?”
“We had a map,” Zeeto said with a straight face. “I’m good with directions so long as we’re in a city. Don’t come at me with mountains and rivers and that bunk. But don’t try to get me lost in a sewer beneath a well-ordered city.”
For some reason, Gary wasn’t rolling Intuition checks against those lies. Was that yet another of his gaming credos come home to roost? If he let players roll their own Intuition checks, that was either as good as telling them someone was lying or liable to result in a time-choking number of pointless rolls in casual conversation.
Either way, the halfling had indeed gotten the better of Kurgath that afternoon.
“Hey!” Zeeto said cheerily. “I also just leveled up!”
“You’ve reached the fifth ring of the Paths of Power already?” Sira asked dubiously.
“No… fourth,” Zeeto said, suddenly on the defensive.
Sira snickered. “Who here wasn’t already on the fourth ring?”
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