Skelldel Villa looked ever imposing. The dearth of inhabitants could do very little to tarnish its magnificence. Nor did the drab grey coating, the result of dust motes accumulated over more than a decade, deter the onlookers from gawking at its beauty. Its reinforced outer gates, rusty and creaky from inactivity, were wide enough for two carriages to pass side-by-side.
Upon entering the grounds of the villa, a modest fountain, a bronze statue raised on a marble plinth, vacantly greeted the Shieldmaidens. Where fresh water should have circulated, only dried debris and a few critters of the garden variety formed a bower in the concave. One look at the steps, walls and roofs of Skeldell villa made its robustness evident. The geometry was defined not just by limestone and mortar but consolidated through millions of intricate arcane weavings.
“Who owned the Villa originally?” asked Soraya Gemtamer. As the only Shieldmaiden from a jewel processing family, the affinity for precious stone made her slightly attuned to magic -- only slightly.
“High Alchemist Vangere,” answered Marilis, sauntering beside the Quill of the Shieldmaidens. “But Marquis Evenmist now owns it.”
“Imagine being an Alchemist and being High all the time that they prefixed it your title,” uttered Cosette eliciting a hearty laugh from Inga alone.
Baernis and Eddyrn scoffed. Their thoughts were more occupied with completing the contract and soon forsaking this rat-infested city -- and by rats, they meant the ones living above the surface.
In a long protracted silence, the dwarven shieldmaidens climbed the stairs. They marched in through the unlocked door, fumbling their way towards the famed cellar.
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“Why this farce, Dunstan?” asked Ishild as he watched, from a distance, the last of the diminutive figures disappear into the vacuum-filled silence of Skeldell Villa.
“Do you think the Marquis would easily allow anyone to enter his villa?” Dunstan spat the last two words as if they were venom festering on his tongue. “Who would have thought the great High Alchemist Vangere would have a hobby of brewing the finest brandy? Or would suddenly disappear?”
Ishild looked as if he was about to ask something but suppressed the question from spilling out of his lips. Better let Dunstan rave.
“The barrels were long forgotten and rotting in a damp cellar, anyway. Helping ourselves to a flask or two for a small profit is not a crime. But the Marquis’s people will soon start the renovation and those mercenaries gave us the reason to enter the premise legally.” From the folds of his pocket, Dunstan took another silken handkerchief and wiped the stubborn sweat clinging to his forehead.
“But what if those mercenaries found the real worth in the barrels?” asked Ishild, carefully stroking the flask tied to his belt, desperately suppressing the craving to take a mouthful of the drink. “Perhaps, you should have sent me with them. To keep an eye.”
At Ishild’s words, Dunstan sported a grimace. “I have another task for you, Ishild. Get me two wagons and four porters, the sort who can hold their tongue. As the night settles we will move the barrels under the guise of darkness.” The Mayor of Kahlanwald’s eyes narrowed to a reptilian slit of cunningness at what he planned for Ishild. Far away from the walls of Kahlanwald is where his fate would end. A fate that he has decided. Until then, he would let Ishild live his usefulness.
“But Dunstan, there is one of them, the feisty one, who looks like she knows her drinks well,” Ishild protested, hands still nervously twitching on the flask at his hips.
“That one is a town drunk. Not a sommelier. She would know her drinks and might even know the difference between a cheap brew and an expensive one. But that is all.” Dunstan considered Ishild for a small protracted moment of silence, searching for any sign of acknowledgement from his companion. When none appeared, the Mayor of Kahlanwald continued, “Besides, they are women. It is for a good reason we have laws in Kahlanwald prohibiting women from owning establishments unless overseen by their husbands, fathers or brothers.”
Ishild’s hand rose to his cheek, scratching the stubby growth in confusion.
“The fact is, I selected this particular mercenary group because they are women and it is well-known fact that women simply cannot know the real value of things,” said Dunstan.
Satisfied with the iron infallibility of Dunstan’s plan, the two conspirators split with an agreement to meet at the onset of dusk.
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Inga sniffed and swayed in delight at the aroma invading her nostrils. Taking another deep breath, she slowly guided the sensations teasing her olfactory nerves to transport her into a realm of bliss. Her toes curled inwards, arcing involuntarily -- beyond her control. Every fibre and blood vessel in her screamed to succumb to the sweet temptation. She heaved with longing at the blanketing caress of the Angel’s Share. With warm blood razing like liquid fire, her body craved, with a demanding need for the sweet, sweet nectar.
The brawler of the Shieldmaidens felt her body move on instinct, feeling the hardness pressing against her. Her ravenous mouth opened slightly, letting her salivating tongue flick past her lips -- to lick, to taste the richness -- in an uncontrolled desire.
“Inga, leave the barrel alone,” barked Baernis.
With a strength impossible to deny, Eddyrn and Marilis wrenched Inga from the wooden cask.
“Those are some fine brandy, worthy for the Allfather under the mountain,” pouted Inga.
“Wait,” said Eddyrn in befuddlement, “you already opened the cask?”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“Can’t you smell it? feel the taste lingering in the air? It is the finest brandy,” responded Inga, baffled by Eddyrn’s dearth of knowledge.
“Cosette should be done with the scouting now. No time to waste, Inga.” With those words, Baernis simply jumped through the trapdoor leading to the sewers.
With tearful eyes and dragged from either side, by the powerful grasps of Eddyrn and Marilis, Inga gave one final disappointed look at the precious casks. Then, they were through the trap door, into the unwelcoming stench of the sewer.
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Cosette winced in pain as she hefted the dwarven war axe from the corpse of the rat. She felt exhaustion claiming her. Was it that fifteenth dire rat or the twentieth? She lost track. Not that it mattered. Rats. Giant Dire rats, each the size of a full-grown mastiff, prowled the tunnels beneath Kahlanwald. Every time Cosette advanced, dozens of muridae eyes, with a predatory crimson gleam in the dark, were all she met.
Supported by three of her Shieldsisters, consummate tower shield experts, Cosette cautiously explored. The steel surface of the tower shield carried telltale signs of massive claws reaving across them. Yet, her Shieldsisters would stand with her, irrespective of the threat. At that thought, a tiny wave of relief washed over her. She felt immense gratitude toward Baernis, for the Shieldwarden’s wisdom.
“One more corner to scout,” Cosette told herself. “Just one more.” She had already spotted two of their nest. Only her deep ephemeral sense of scouting screamed incongruently to her. As the only scout and the default ranger of the Shieldmaidens, Cosette’s inexplainable sense of impending danger screamed that they are yet to meet their real adversary. She realised there is one more nest to be found. Perhaps, the biggest of all; where the goblins bred those giant rats.
Turning right at an end, Cosette was greeted with five pairs of crimson muridae eyes. Claws, as long as a small dagger, scratched the grimy floor. The uncomfortable noise generated echoed from the thick walls forcing Cosette and her Shieldsisters to steady their battle stance. The giant rats opened their ravenous mouth revealing teeth the size of a large spearhead and slowly advanced. Behind the muridae row, figures, humanoid, small and ragged, stirred.
Cosette’s wide swing cleaved through the first rat, showering her with warm blood one more time. With a slight tug, she then yanked the blade, reversing the grip to deliver another slash. The second rodent, with a deep gash across its frontal limbs, tendons and muscles severed, fell losing balance and soon was met with the heavy mace wielded by another shieldmaiden, shattering its skull.
With agility, that would make a wood elf admire, Cosette danced avoiding the claws and bites of the three giant rats encircling her. Cosette twisted her body, narrowly avoiding another swipe and riposted with sinking the heavy blade of her axe to crush the skull of one more giant rat. The remaining two rats met were soon cornered by her Shieldsisters and were quickly reduced to a mess of broken bones, mushy mess of blood, pink viscera and spilled entrails.
Three dwarven tower shields, interlocked thread-tight, advanced to protect Cosette, while bodkin arrows shot from crude bows, harmlessly bounced from the shieldwall. Soon, flint-tipped spears struck against tower shields. Before the sturdiness of the tempered dwarven alloy and the strength of determination in the arms wielding them, the primitive spears might as well have been twigs poking at a stone wall. After a protracted moment of slow advance, parrying the relentlessly thrust of the goblins, Cosette saw the last of the goblins, finally, throw down its broken spear and disappear into the hole in the wall. At last, she had discovered the final nest.
“We will not advance any further,” called out Cosette. Venturing any further means death. “Let us regroup with Baernis.”
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Baernis felt the strap of her helmet cut deep into her chin. The sweat festering on her facial hair only served to augment the urge to scratch. For the third time since Cosette started delivering her report, the Shieldwarden exchanged an affirming glance with Eddyrn.
“I believe approximately forty to sixty in the first two nests and another hundred fifty, give or take a twenty in the final nest,” said Cosette. “With a limited chance for one or more hobgoblin or perhaps, bugbear.”
“You did the right choice by not venturing forth then,” commended Baernis. “So, we either smoke them out or rush through the nest. I need some opinions now.”
“Absolutely against smoking them out from the nest,” voiced Soraya, barely pausing to conceal her disagreement. “That would be long-drawn and protracted. We are not equipped with enough supplies and the pay does not merit spending long days.”
“I am against rushing in,” added Eddyrn next. “It is too risky, should be run into a hobgoblin or bugbear unprepared.”
Sensing the logical validity in both her Quill and her Shieldwall’s opinions, Baernis furrowed her brows in trepidation. Indecisiveness swirled around her till the voice of Inga cut through.
“Why not just collapse the entrances to the nest and seal them,” suggested Inga blinking a teardrop away. “Allfather under the mountain forgive me for even proposing it but those casks in the cellar,” a very deliberate pause hung in the air before Inga willed herself to continue, “I could rig an explosive with them. With a time delay to the explosion, we could be well on our way to receiving our pay.”
“Those casks do not belong to us,” countered Baernis, “What you suggested is tantamount to thievery and damage to personal property.”
“Marquis Evenmist will soon renovate the Villa,” interjected Marilis, “It is impossible for a nobleman to drink from another man’s chalice and equally impossible is that the Marquis Evenmist would help himself to the leftover from another man’s cellar.”
Hearing Marilis's opinion, unanimously, the Shieldmaiden decided that it was a good plan.
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Inga stifled the surging wave of agony to bawl her eyes out as she witnessed the barrels, filled with rich carnelian-coloured liquid, being rolled down the sewers. She allowed a moment of silence, to mourn for the loss of such a fine divine elixir and then set about working with oiling combustible cords to make what she promised her Shieldsisters.
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Ishild the slicer, lead the first of the horse-drawn carriage, through the town square of Kahlanwald. It was when the silhouette of Skeldell Villa came into view that the first of the explosion, followed by two more, rippled through the streets.
The draught horses neighed in defiance and despite three cruel lashes from his whip, they refused to move. Soon, the tremors slowly arrived.
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Dunstan pulled the hood of his cloak from the other side of the street as he saw Ishild leading the two wagons. Then, he heard three explosions in succession. His eyes darted like swallows from Ishild to Skeldell Villa. One ambiguously and long-drawn moment later, his eyes widened in shock as cracks spread, leaching onto the grounds around Skelldel Villa.
Slowly, to the horror of both Ishild and Dunstan, Skelldel Villa sank.
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“So is there anyone among us who studied structural engineering under rune architects?” asked Inga but her question was unanswered as every shieldmaiden, under the guise of the ensuing chaos, slipped through the city gates of Kahlanwald.
In the following weeks, while trying to place as much distance from Kahlanwald at a frenzied pace, Baernis and Eddyn would, on occasion, wonder about the dearth of pursuit from the city guards of Kahlanwald.
Unknown to them, by the order of Marquis Evenmist, outside the wall of Kahlandwald, hung two bodies, unclaimed and for the crows to feast.