Nancy came back to the inn from her long trudge through the forest, their ambush had not gone well. She had just been transferred to the new base from Edgewood, a smaller logging town on the borders of the void forest. She had been in charge of scheduling transports, letting the guild know when the more valuable lumber was being transported out. Lately she had to ease back on the amount of shipments they were stealing, as her position had come under scrutiny by the lumberyard.
The void forest was dangerous, many beasts lived on the edges, no one knew what lived in the depths because no one returned, at least not with their minds intact. The office she worked out of though was far from dangerous, warm, cozy, full of sunshine. Now she was stuck living in a cave and trudging through the elements to the mud pit at the fork that the locals called a 'trade hub'. It was an embarrassing demotion. She had gotten yelled at today by many uptight caravanners, laughed at by more than one farmer who thought her manners were more than out of place and her low shoes were full of sludge.
This should be easier; this was not the easy life of organized crime she had imagined. Maybe she should give it all up and go work for the church, they must have open administration positions, and their robes were always so clean and warm looking. She smelled food while walking into the cavern, smelled like turnips and fish...again. She went to her shared room to get some clean socks, she would have to look for some boots that fit her new lifestyle sometime soon.
She dug through her belonging’s chest, but only found single socks, every pair was missing the match. Susan, had to be Susan, trying to drive her out so she could get promoted the intelligence gathering instead of the guard duty she was currently stuck with.
Nancy stormed out of the living quarters in her filthy socks. "Administrator! Susan is getting into my stuff again! you need to do something before my dagger slips and there is an unfortunate accident! "
The administrator looked up from the table in the inn. "Even though the bar hasn't opened yet, you still need to use the signals to make sure there are no ears around that are not supposed to hear. You will be on permanent guard duty should you slip again."
Nancy bowed her head. "Nice running into you again, mind if we have a chat?"
"The room is ours." The administrator replied.
"Susan needs to be dealt with!"
"Susan left for a three-day scouting mission this morning and has been gone all day. What is missing?"
"Each of my socks are missing their match, if it wasn't Susan then someone else is trying to get me to leave and I won't do it. I am not going to get sent into the dwarven mines or the desert, I won't do it!"
"First you need to calm down, you are not the only one that has reported missing items. I am willing to bet on the locals being the culprits, I can't imagine anyone here breaking the code. After you turn in your report why don't you get to the bottom of this, we have enough caravans to hit for the next week, so you have some time.
Nancy was not convinced but left anyway. At least she was given the authority to do something about it. When she was alone in edgewood she had to put up with the hazing by the lumberjacks, being the only member of the Silvers Debole for over thirty kilometers she was forced to keep a low profile. Investigations would always put her in more danger than they was worth it. She was tired of being pushed around; someone was going to pay.
The first step was to lock everything down, no one was leaving until she found her socks... and of course everything else everyone else was missing... if it came up.
Dan sat on the kitchen counter, wishing to send a message home to let them know he would be late. He would tell his dad, but his dad will be here drinking with Faul until the early hours anyway. The new group that was staying for a while had got all angry about missing things, and he couldn't leave until they found whatever it was. The whole situation was uncomfortable, he would go to the deeper parts of the caves to ask them, but it was made very clear by heavily armed men that he was only allowed in the kitchen.
He started to fall asleep, as a farmer he wasn't used to staying up this late, the kitchen usually closed at 20:00 and it was probably getting close to 23:00. He would look at the clock but the only clock in the place was above the bar. He lied down on the bar, using a couple of empty sacks as a pillow.
-Bwum-
He turned towards the sound to see a silver little person standing on the counter, grabbing ingredients.
"Hello, what kind of creature are you?" Dan asked, not expecting a response.
"You wouldn't be a thief perchance would you?" The light and lilting voice was pleasant to hear if not completely unexpected.
"No, just a cook, why is everyone asking me that?" Frustration won out over the surprise at a critter actually responding to him.
"Well, I have been forbidden to converse with thieves, no one said anything about a cook though... Name is Kawn, just here getting foodstuffs for Szef. Would you mind lending me a hand?"
This time it was boredom that was winning out over any questions. "I guess so.” Dan started filling a small bag "You come here often?"
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"Frequently, it is our home after all."
"You live here? Where? I have never seen you before."
"Down two levels, there are a bunch of us that have been here from when this place was first created, almost a month ago by now. The time really does fly doesn't it. Much like myself I suppose" A light chuckle followed the joke.
"Two levels... I did see a door, are the stair behind there?"
"Yes, but not directly, there is a rather treacherous labyrinth that you would have to pass through on the next floor down, put there to keep unwanted sorts away from our homes."
"Unwanted sorts? That seems a little specieists for a critter."
"Species doesn't matter, it's a deterrent to thieves and villains, but when one builds a deadly labyrinth below a local inn it does question the definition of 'Villain'. I guess you have a good point, I guess the wrong sort is anyone that tries to break into our homes." The critter grabbed the bag of food and ingredients. "Well, thanks for the help, forget about the door for now, wouldn't want you to become the wrong sort or anything."
-Bwum-
The critter was gone, leaving behind a slightly more awake and curious Dan.
Dan had never really wished anyone ill will. Well, dan had actually wished a geat many people ill will but didn't have the heart to act on any of it. He was the type of person that would fix the leg of a makwa if it was injured in the woods, but on the other side he also would kill that same makwa if he actually caught it in the henhouse.
As he was sitting there questioning the moral fabric of the universe the door opened, allowing the loud noises of the bar in for just a moment, the guard outside the door acting like he was protecting the bar from rowdies, but was placed so Dan couldn't leave.
Nancy came into the kitchen, and started throwing things around, yelling about thieves and missing things. Dan didn't really pay her any mind, his own mother was much better at interrogating than Nancy. Dan played the dumb act, being a wide shouldered farmer boy, it didn't take much for strangers (or his teacher at school) to believe it.
When Nancy was fully convinced, and the kitchen totally trashed she walked to the door and told the guard nothing was in the kitchen, as she was about to walk away Dan called to her.
"I don't know nothin about nothin goen missen, but there is a suspisus looken door hidden behind some crates in the storeroom" He grabbed his jacket and started to leave. Some of your friends told me not to say nuthin, but my momma said to always speak the truth or God will curse me forever."
Dan wasn't sure if the critter was telling the truth or not. If the critter was lying about the labyrinth, then it's one rodent problem he wouldn't have to take care of. If the critter was telling the truth, then it was a different rodent problem he wouldn't have to deal with. He wasn't stupid, he knew this new group were the worst kinds of people. Faul maybe a worthless waste of breath but he didn't deserve the treatment they gave him, and Uden had only been nice to him and deserved the treatment less than Faul.
Nancy told him to leave while she sorted it out, Dan was more than happy to listen. Maybe she would be the one getting sorted out. He left for home, half dreading and half looking forward to finding out what happened when he returned to work the next day.
Nancy was furious, her whole search had turned up nothing. She had saved the kitchen for last, the simple farmer boy wouldn't have the mind to be able to take anything, but who knows for sure. She made a big show of digging through everything in the kitchen and storeroom, yelling loud enough for the guard to hear. She was still convinced the whole thing was a set up to make her feel not welcome.
She dismissed the guard, now her search was done it was time for the real work to begin, the mind games and intrigue. As she was about to go to waterfall to think and plot, the simple farm boy mentioned a secret door. SHE KNEW IT! There was a whole secret level to this gang and she was an outsider!
She found the door behind a tall stack of crates, there was just enough room to squeeze through. The hallway went further into the mountain past a garden and a guardroom. The door to continue was locked but using the tools she had with her it didn't take her very long to open the door. It was actually a rather clever lock, but all those days sneaking into her employer’s offices to find shipping schedules made the work easy enough. She walked down the spiral staircase, noticing a haunting melody grow louder as she went down.
The basement was a little odd. Above was a grid of stone with the ceiling above that, invisible in the darkness above. She tried to jump but the grid was a little out of reach, even if she could reach it the holes were barely large enough to stick her arms through. It was probably for archers or hot oil if an army tried to storm the hidden meeting room, or treasury, or whatever they hid down here. The path branched off, she looked for any hidden symbols to tell her the way to go but she couldn't find anything. She went left.
The walls did have designs, but they all seemed the same. At the next intersection she noticed the path she came out of had thorny roses on the wall. After a couple of turns she ran into a dead end, she went back and looked for the thorny roses, but after several minutes she realized she must have passed them somehow. She backtracked but nothing seemed right.
After trying several times to find the thorns again she gave up. She would just follow the melody, it must be coming from the room at the end, as long as she just headed towards it she would find her way out.
She came to a river flowing through the path, she had no idea how it got down here, she should be below the water. Maybe it was an underground waterway that fed some spring somewhere. The gap was too large to jump, but fortunately someone had put a stone pillar in the middle of the flow. She was too tired for this, but she wasn't about to give up on getting payback now. She backed up and jumped onto the pillar, the second her weight hit it it tilted. As she fell she saw the bars that kept the top half in place to make it look like a solid pillar, colored to blend into the shadows.
She fell into the flow as the pillar swiveled on the bar, once again looking solid. She couldn't believe she fell for that. The current dragged her down under the wall, tumbling and roller her along until she was bruised and almost out of air. Finally, she slammed into a grating and managed to turn herself to stand on the grating with her hands pressed on the channel wall. Her fingers found the end of the channel and with all her strength she pulled her leg up, letting the water brace her against the lip. Her hands broke the surface and managed to grab dry stone, a final pull and she was out.
She was exhausted from the effort and lay on the stone, feeling battered and broken. Heads were going to roll for this. She staggered to her feet to get further away from the river that nearly took her life. She did not see the trip wire that was colored dark to not catch the light, she did not notice the lighter color of stone that sat in the strings shadow to make the shadow the same color as the rest of the path.
The last thing that Nancy didn't see was the rectangle section of celling behind that was held up by two metal bars on each side that held it like a suspended pendulum to the walls, as it was released to swing down into her skull.