Talia woke the next day full of energy. She popped out of bed, jumping into her clothes and skipping down the stairs. She and Orvall hadn’t had much of a chance to really do much of anything the night prior, as the local cobbler, Caleb, had been brought over sporting a bad break and a cut that had soured.

The stubborn old man had apparently insisted on waiting for nearly a day before coming in after a shelf had collapsed on his leg. According to his wife, he’d sat in a corner of his workshop yelling orders at his apprentices, bottle of whiskey in hand, which he’d divided between the wound and his gullet—though given the pus that had run freely from the middle-aged human’s leg, Talia suspected the ratio leaned far towards the later rather than the former.

He was too injured to simply turn away with a stern lecture and a poultice, and so Talia had spent most of her evening holding him down as her father set the bone. Then, as the healer had disinfected and bound the cobbler’s wounds, she had endured the nearly insensate man’s rambling abuse, which he had directed at targets ranging from the gods to his wife, then to his apprentices and Orvall, followed once again by his wife before finally trailing off into incoherence.

Needless to say, after that, the young mage had collapsed, sweaty and exhausted, into her bed, equal parts satisfied and disappointed. Her dreams had been full of dark tunnels and exotic cities grappling across ancient cavern walls, interspersed with glowing, indecipherable, purple runes.

As she rummaged about the pantry, Talia’s thoughts pivoted to the eclectic array of supplies, maps, and books that Caleb’s interruption had left strewn about her father’s room. Excitement and trepidation butterflied through her stomach. She chewed on a parfruit, savouring the fleshy texture and slightly sour flavour.

Down the hall, she heard Orvall tell off his patient in a calm but stern voice.

Orvall will probably have to send a message to Caleb’s wife to make sure he applies his poultices and doesn’t put too much weight on that leg. By the gods— the idiocy of some of these patients never ceases to amaze.

She winced as she considered that if it weren’t for new increased healing speed, she would most likely fit right in with the idiots. She grimaced and gave a rueful shake at the intrusive thought.

Welp, that’s a good dose of humility for the day! It can only get better from here.

Talia’s pouting grimace morphed into a grin as she heard the front door latch click into place. Her adoptive father trundled down the hall with a pensive look behind his round spectacles. He chuckled when he saw her face.

“I s’pose ye dinnae care ter know about the good cobbler’s condition?” he asked.

“Not one bit,” Talia snarked.

Orvall huffed out a laugh despite himself, shaking his head amusedly.

“Aye, I reckon I’d feel the same if I were in yer shoes, poppet,” he replied, grabbing his own impromptu meal from the cupboard. There would be time for a proper family supper in the evening. For now, there were preparations to be made.

“Well, we’d better star’ with the best first, wouldn’t do fer yer enthusiasm to wane ‘fore we get ye all packed up. Come on then, I got somethin’ ter show ye.”

Curiosity piqued, Talia shoved another parfruit bulb in her mouth and followed him out into the herb garden. He made his way to the squared, stone shed with a thin iron door adorned with a heavy lock. It nestled up against the back of the house, almost—but not quite— encroaching on the fence to the neighbours’ equally cramped yard, where she glimpsed a sad, discarded, leather ball and a sagging clothesline.

“Do I finally get to learn what’s in the oh so mysterious Shed of Mystery?” Talia inquired.

Orvall looked back at her and winked playfully, but the newly dark-haired mage saw a fleck of pain in the old dwarf’s eyes. Her attitude became more subdued, but she said nothing. Whatever it was that troubled him, she would find out soon enough.

In the past, Orvall had gone into the shed only to retrieve training weapons, carved from worn, unfamiliar wood, unlocking it on Sundays to train her in the sword, shield and axe—which she had a passable proficiency for but was certainly no master of— and then locking it when they were done for the week. She had learned quickly as a girl to stop asking to see the inside and had grown accustomed to it being off limits. In fact, she couldn’t remember a time, even when she had been a young teenager—and virulent troublemaker— that she had ever considered sneaking in to discover what it contained. Something in her adoptive father’s tone had warned her that what the small edifice held was not hers to discover.

Until now, I guess.

The iron door unlocked with a well-oiled click and swung open with an ear-shattering screech. Orvall stepped over the stone lip of the doorway and into the dark, windowless room without a word. She followed with the same heavy silence.

The shed was, in all respects, unremarkable. A long brown pelt from an unknown creature covered the stone brick floor. A long table held an assortment of tools and gardening implements. A few medium sized kegs sat in a corner, which she knew Orvall used for his brewing. She recognized the shape of her training weapons hanging from a small weapon rack, wrapped in oiled cloth, and accompanied by a plain sheathed sword and a dented single-headed warhammer. Otherwise, apart from the oddly dustless nature of the room, it appeared to be exactly what it advertised itself as. A slightly roomy shed. Talia whistled.

“I expected something grander, what with all the secrecy,” she said.

Orvall rolled his eyes at her and smirked.

“Good. Means I aven’t lost me touch.”

He kicked back the pelt carpet, revealing a small trap door in the center of the room. Gripping the ring intended for that purpose, he lifted the heavy drearwood with a grunt. It flipped open silently, revealing a ladder carved into the side of a shaft that appeared to descend a good ten meters into the stone of Deepmount Gorad.

Talia raised an eyebrow.

“I couldn’t ave ye, or anyone else fer that matter, trippin’ over the relics of me old glory days,” he explained, crouching down and fumbling about the lip of the shaft. Moments later, a faint blue glow began to shine from bottom of the tunnel.

“‘Sides,” he muttered as he stood up, “it’s only fitting that I keep em underground. In many ways, this be akin ter a tomb. A little humble compared ter the ancestral halls of Clan Angrim, but a tomb nonetheless.”

Orvall sighed, melancholy seeping into his posture. Talia often forgot that her adoptive father was old. His demeanor generally stoic and vibrant, a stern, loving sort of agelessness. It was only in rare moments like these that she saw the weight of the years on him.

“Courage,” he whispered.

“For me or for you?” Talia asked quietly.

“Aye, that be the question, don’t it? Guess we’ll find out. Down we go then.”

----------------------------------------

The subterranean chamber—the tomb—was much larger than the shed above. It was carved directly into the flecked rock of the Deepmount, polished walls stretching into a rectangle around eight metres lengthwise and half that in width. The roof hovered above at a comfortable three metres in height. Rounded alcoves were cut organically into the smooth rock. Two bright arcano-lamps—or lightstones, as they were commonly called— illuminated its contents in a cool blue radiance.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

She gasped.

By the gods…

What drew her immediate attention was the head of a horrifying creature, its skull the size of her chest, stuffed and pinned to a plaque that hung garishly between the lightstones. Its skin was a leathery red, the shade of dried blood. It sported a long snout filled to bursting with uneven, jagged teeth. One of the incisors—long bone knives the size of Talia’s forearm rising from the monster’s powerful lower jaw— was splintered in the middle, matching up with a brutal cut that had gouged out the trio of beady black eyes whose matching pair still gleamed on the right side of its face. It was a demon straight out of a nightmare.

Orvall, hearing her gasp, looked up from where he was staring into a glass case enshrined lovingly on a stone plinth. A bittersweet smile coated his lips when he saw the object of her surprise.

“Aye, that there be an acathian fleshrender. I reckon ye were too young fer yer parents ter tell ye the story,” he paused, gauging her interest. The topic of Talia’s parents was a touchy one at the best of times. One that the pair had never truly addressed fully. Seeing that she wasn’t withdrawing within herself, he pressed on.

“Ugly bastard, eh? Big, hulking brutes. The adults stand ‘round about three metres at the shoulder.”

Her adoptive father gently closed the glass case and padded closer.

“See the missin’ eyes on th’ left? After the beast tore out one of his, yer father decided to return the favour. Only reason there aren’t two heads on tha’ wall is cus’ yer mum charbroiled its bonded mate into a heaping pile of ash. T’were the first an’ last time I saw Ylena so furious. We ad’ ter wait fer nearly three hours ‘afore the tunnel stopped glowing.”

“I’d forgotten he had lost an eye,” Talia responded softly, gaze riveted on the fleshrender

Orvall scratched his beard uncomfortably.

“Well, he rarely took out tha’ fancy arcano-tech replacement, so I can’t say I blame ye…”

He cleared his throat.

“If ye’d like, I could tell ye their stories sometime. When ye return, I mean.”

Talia swallowed, tearing her eyes from the brutal trophy. The embers of grief and pain gone dormant singed at her chest. She smothered them gently.

“I think…I think I’d like that, Orvall. Thank you.”

“Right then, I’ve got some old journals down ‘ere I can plumb while yer travellin the Deep Ways. They were good folk, yer parents. Deserve te be remembered. By their daughter most of all.”

Talia just nodded, her throat thick with emotion. Sensing her discomfort, the old dwarf moved on, guiding her to one of the alcoves. Within which stood a stand with some of the oddest armor Talia had ever seen.

It was a mix of leather and scale mail, coated in a matte, dappled black and grey lacquer. Whatever the coating was, the ensemble almost seemed to melt into the sparse shadows of the alcove.

A high collar wrapped in layers of barely visible, metallic, overlapping scales swept into similarly armored, rounded shoulder-guards. The theme repeated across the full set, dark leather with tight black scales of varying sizes flowing down the chest onto the arms and the backs of thin, fingerless gauntlets, running down thicker hide on the thighs and over the greaves. The only place not covered by the scales were the insides of the joints—inner elbow, armpits, the back of the knees—presumably to provide better flexibility. The outer joints were covered by the same type of scaled leather as the shoulder guards, though far less pronounced.

Behind the armor stand, an armored cloak had been made of the same scaled metal, with a matching circlet hanging from a peg, all lacquered in that runny black and dark grey.

Talia took a moment to take it all in.

It looks…sleek. Deadly. Meant for fighting in the Dark.

She turned to Orvall, hoping he would see in her eyes the question she desperately wanted to ask, but couldn’t bring herself to.

Whether he understood the look or not, he answered anyway.

“T’were yer mother’s armor, from back when we were in the Silverite Legion.”

The embers in her chest stirred angrily. If Orvall noticed, he said nothing, instead sizing her up contemplatively.

“With a bit of adjusting, I think it’ll fit ye like a glove.”

He patted the shoulder guard, fidgeting with a few well-hidden buckles and latches.

“The scales are silverite. They’ll deflect most slashing and even some piercing blows, from anything that doesn’t outmass ye two ter one that is.”

He turned to look her up and down again.

“Er— make that three ter one, least till ye get some muscle on ye. I’ll warn ye though, don’t go thinking yer invincible just cause yer wearin’ metal tougher than diamond. A strike with enough bludgeoning force’ll still turn yer insides ter mush and yer bones ter paste, mark my words.”

He starred her down, dead serious.

Talia rolled her eyes.

“Don’t stand still and let things hit me. Got it. Wasn’t planning on it either way, da’. I may not be some professionally trained soldier, but I know the basics,” Talia answered.

Orvall held her gaze a moment longer to ensure she had understood then harrumphed, turning back to the armor and his explanation.

“The dappled grey and black is standard fare for delving, even today. In fact, almost everything you bring into the tunnels will be some shade of black or dark grey. Light, colour and anything reflective are a death sentence in the Deep Ways. Used to be the Ways were patrolled, well lit, and guarded by the Wayfarer Legion, but if we were livin’ three hundred years ago…well—”

“We probably wouldn’t be having this problem,” his adoptive daughter finished for him.

Orvall grunted affirmatively, finally unclasping the last buckle and pulling the set off the stand piece by piece.

“Now, fer weapons, yer mum carried some less standard stuff. See that case oer’ there? The shortest one in th’ middle? Open it up an’ take a looksie,” he said as he folded the armor up.

Talia made her way to the lone table along the right-side wall of the room. Opening it up revealed a short, double edged arming sword, about ninety centimetres long from tip to pommel. The crossguard was minimal, two short, straight bars that extended from either side of the equally plain hand. The blade itself was a deep, matte black that seemed to char around the edges and almost appeared to absorb the light. Engraved along the fuller on either side of the blade were Old Dwarvish runes:

E mimmal, gildeth.

E leorm, ugattun.

In darkness…faith? No, that's not right. Ugattun…ugattun…. Ah. In darkness, strength. In light, vigilance. I don’t recognize the quote, sounds like a motto, or verses from a poem.

She called out to Orvall, asking about the engravings.

“Nay, I dinnae know where the words come from. Yer mum found it in the ruins of Karzacath, in the vault of a rundown estate along with a bundle ‘o’ other artifacts. The blade never dulls, and in all her time usin’ it, I don’t think she ever found a material it couldna’ at least scratch.”

Talia whistled appreciatively.

Orvall laughed as he fiddled with the armor set.

“Hah! If ye think thas’ impressive, try out the shield,” he said.

What shield?

She looked at the other object in the case: A long, thin metallic bar a little shorter than her forearm with a circular attachment in the center and two rigid metal rings on either end. Her arcanist training was screaming at her that messing with an unknown artefact was a capital ‘B’ Bad idea, but she decided to trust that Orvall wouldn’t have her attempt to use something that could gravely injure her.

Guessing at its purpose, Talia slipped the odd circle-on-a-bar onto her left arm. The upper ring sat snug on the meat right under her elbow, but the bottom one was loose, floating about her wrist. She looked for some sort of activation mechanism and was just barely able to make out the miniscule runes inlaid in repeating patterns across the artefact, but nothing jumped out immediately to her as yelling ‘press here to activate’.

“How did mum do it, Orvall? Because whatever it’s supposed to do, it isn’t working,” she said after pouring over it for a few minutes, looking for anything she might have missed.

Orvall came over, sleek scale armor bundled neatly in his arms.

“Hang on, I think I remember how it worked,” he said, pulling out his spectacles and looking over the tiny script. He pointed out the activator on the bottom cuff. It was so tiny she’d missed it.

He held his finger over the miniscule circle, counting to three under his breath.

Talia yipped as suddenly, the circles tightened, molding to her arm and flowing into a dark, almost liquid metal bracer. Unfortunately, it seemed the artefact was empty of mana, as it retracted almost as fast, returning to its inert state.

“Ach. I shoulda known,” Orvall growled, “but don’t fret too much, once Evincrest gets ye them books, ye’ll surely be able to charge it yerself. It were a sight to behold in yer mum’s hands. A barely visible shield of force tha’ could grow larger ‘n’ smaller at a whim, able ter take near any shape with but a thought. One ‘o’ the better artefacts I’ve encountered in my years.”

Talia nodded, slightly disappointed.

She put the sword into a thin and plain black metal sheath her father fished from a chest and hooked the shield artefact over the hilt, closing the case and setting it back on the table with the others.

Orvall patted her on the shoulder and directed her back the way they came, passing by other filled alcoves and racks of weapons on the walls. The plinth with the glass case full of medals. The young mage was simultaneously curious and afraid to ask. Her father was right. This place felt like a tomb.

“When ye get back in a year, I’ll tell ye about the stories o’ these relics, but fer now, I think we’ve got what we came fer. Let’s get yer pack set up and go over the beastiary while we wait fer Elidé, whaddaya say?”

The young mage acquiesced, following her father up the ladder.

On her way out, her eyes lingered on a set of half plate set in its own alcove, the same dappled colour as her own scaled leather armor but sized for a larger human. Her gaze caught on the large rent in the center of the breastplate and the enchanted eye that sat in a little nook behind it.