Chapter 43: Busy Bodies

"Old Man!? Please get up, we're almost there! Please! Only a little further. We can make it to the Kingdom! Please! Grandpa."

We’re almost there, please. Mother, she's waiting for us. Please! Wake up!! Beating on his chest, holding back my tears. I stopped, I couldn't do anything about this. It was already done. Samuel was dead.

“I won’t cry for you." My mind wanted to prolong the illusion that he was alive. I'd already mourned for long enough. His face was a lie how could he die like this? Mother, she was waiting for us. A real Grandpa would never leave like this! This can’t be real.

“What the hell happened !?!” I screamed. His face was a mockery. The face of a liar. The face of a man who had broken his promise!

I lay on his chest for hours crying my eyes out. He was all I had in this world. We made a promise that we’d find my mother in the inner city. A promise that he broke.

What happened to one dime at a time? What happened to all that crap about life’s storm? What happened to the 'whole living the life we deserve' spell? We were supposed to travel to the Kingdom together. Now he’s dead. A cold corpse with a grin on his face. It wasn’t the smile of the man I knew. The man who hid his true thoughts from everyone so that they couldn’t be taken away.

This was the smile of someone who was at peace with their life when they hadn’t yet come to deserve it.

“Keep moving, keep taking until you get everything you deserve. Hana my girl, this is how I got by. This is how you will live. You may think that it is wrong to steal but I think otherwise. This world will take from you over and over again many people like that no-good Mother of yours have even had their lives stolen away. When will you finally take it back? Everything this world has denied you can be taken. All you need to know is how. I will show you how.”

As I lay on his chest recalling the words, he spoke to me as a kid. The day my mother disappeared.

We lived alone until I reached the age of nine. “Us against the world,” She said. And I believed it. I believed every last word. Every last lie. Only for her to leave me in the night. All was well until she disappeared in the night.

We may not have had much but it was enough.

In one fell swoop. The carpet had been ripped out from under me. A woman once thought to be the world's greatest mother had vanished without a trace.

A day most eventful. I woke up the next day waiting for her return. To wake up an orphan. It is harder than being alone at birth. The love and support you got all your life suddenly up and vanishes.

I was lucky When he found me. He who found me, I wasn't some bet she had lost.

He had already known my name.

“Here, now.” I lifted my head and found resolve. I had cried enough.

This man was a liar, a thief, a cheat, a murderer, a drunk. He doesn't deserve my tears. Even in his death trying to steal from me.

“Old man you can die on your own. May you rest.” I am not a child, and I won’t be dying here with you.

I got up from Samuel’s bedside and decided to do what he would’ve done to me in this situation.

He raised me for over ten years and told me that he was my blood and I believed him. There was no proof, no confirmation, and lastly no room for denial.

"The desperate believe the unbelievable. Make them believe." I needed someone to take care of me and he stepped up.

“Thank you, Samuel, you were a crazy old man, you spiteful thief. I will remember.” Old a real Dwarf could grow those hairs.

After saying those words, I opened up his stash. I'd been living with him for over a decade "Of course" I knew where his stash was. We had a plan. To scrounge up enough gold to get three people into those High gates. If all didn't go to plan everything would be left to me.

I find a note, and a knife way too fancy for his tastes. A dagger worth something, I felt anger build up inside of me. Anger was more than he deserved.

The note would come first. "Dear Hana Chahal Mindel,” My heart stopped as my eyes read that name over again. That wasn’t my name, Mother's, Mine.

My hands were shaking. I needed to take a minute. "Let’s try this again."

Sitting down in front of the stash under a cupboard. I prepared myself for the letter.

“Dear Chahal Mindel, the first and second heiress to the throne of Fallohum. I know this is a lot to take in. I didn't know how to even start this letter. First off, I want to say how sorry I am for the death of your mother. Yes, your Mother is dead. I know how that was to weigh on you thinking you were abandoned. I'll start with her. Stone was born in an inner city and died on the out. It breaks my heart to see you living like this as it must've broken hers. A life she intended for you to have. I’m not one for words. You know that as well as anybody, so I’ll get straight to it. I am not your biological Grandfather or any blood relation. I was a guard, a scout, and your Mother's only friend from a research facility hidden within the Inner Kingdom. Your mother was a nurse tasked with taking care of the Courteous. Yes, Mindel was still alive the last time I saw him. Though trapped under his kingdom by the successor, a bastard at that."

What... is this?

"I’m writing this letter to you in case my illness gets the best of me in my old age. Rarely does a Dwarf sick as I get to live this long. Especially in this kingdom. It was the reason I took up working at that wretched facility. I was in pain, and I needed a cure that would never come. Enough about me back to your mother. There was no love shared between the two. Mindel was deceived and made a dead man by his son. A child who never grew up in every sense of the word. To protect his claim on the throne he got rid of his Father. Only Mindel the second was too weak or maybe just malicious when it came to finishing the job."

This is a lot to take in.

"King Mindel the first in his final act devised a plan to put you on the throne to keep the kingdom from falling. I don’t know his true plan. I was only tasked with giving you this dagger and tasking you with finding Glothmin the forsaken smith and showing him the dagger. My loyalty lies with the true king and the people he served. It was my greatest honor taking care of you, my girl. I hope to have taught you my world. I hope like your mother once did that you find happiness and get what you deserve. Last but not least I want to give you a hint in finding this Glothman. He was the smith that I talked about the most and cared about the least. Lastly, you are loved dearly. Sincerely, Samuel your old man.”

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Asshole." The tears were hot as I my red out of my face.

This is unbelievable... No really who would believe this?

"How did she die?" My mother wasn’t sick. She... She died. "She’s dead." He told me she was kidnapped. He lied about everything. I can’t even tell if his death had anything to do with the city's blackout.

"An illness?" Huh, I always wondered but now I have confirmation. This information could spell my end. Having a claim to the throne would be treason.

"He never cared about either of us; we were just his task." No, that's not true. C’mon, keep moving what should I do? What are we going to do Hana?

“Take what you deserve.” His words were on my mind even in death. Fine, it's settled, I'll see where this goes. I need to take some time to think.

I have to think this over.

=====

My space storage was having trouble storing the [Dagger]. I couldn’t leave without taking Samuel’s body. I just couldn’t.

What type of dagger didn't even show its stats? It looks like it'll fetch a good price at the market.

"Bad idea!" I was a fool for banging the hilt of the dagger against my hand. It hurt like hell when something stabbed me leaving three bleeding marks on my hand.

Thank the gods it didn't cut deep. It drew a small amount of blood. It would heal in a day or two. No, worries Hana everything's fine. It's not cursed or anything. It doesn't look enchanted everything is fine.

"Shit!" The marks burned for a second almost making me throw the blade.

(King’s Inheritance: Key to the Blood )

Some dagger. It's not a dagger at all, it's a key. Turns out King Mindel lied, and would you look at that, the two men have something in common already.

“Please store, come on, I got to go.” Tapping my leg, the key didn’t store at all. It did turn into a rather ugly bracelet. A terrible idea whoever created this thing never lost a key before or in my case had one stolen. A thief who gets robbed isn’t in my job description.

"A thief" to put it simply.

The question now was do I find this blacksmith first or find out what's going on with this blackout? Samuels never skipped out on the mana maintenance.

Blacksmith it is, doubt Uko has any information on the worst blacksmith in the city. Nope, she might have a clue.

Off I went out of Samuel's crummy apartment on the outskirts of the city. Rent was cheaper near the entrance of the ancient dungeons along with the scenery.

Samuel lived in the slums where you were more likely to die by stabbing than by a dungeon outbreak.

The only scenery in sight was the giant gate that led to the sealed dungeon. A giant gate covered by stone. A cheap effort the nobles in the inner city couldn't even bother to cover the ancient thing up. Not even putting up a front, they didn't care about safety in the slightest.

Safe behind the inner cities' run-down walls. Our well-being was the last thing on the ignorant and empty minds of Nobles.

Huh, as I exited the apartment door. Silence and disbelief "What in God's name."

Unending and atmospheric. Snowfall. A bad omen.

It hadn’t even occurred to me that most of the city’s lights had been blown out. [Adept eye] was a must-have in this city to spot any catches. I had the skill activated at all times, but the snow had changed my mind.

I had only seen the stuff outside of the city never in. Turning my head towards the veiled dungeon gate was my daily ritual before I hopped off into the city.

Samuel's death wouldn’t rob me of my joy. So, I looked up and turned my head to see the magic dust that flowed now and then from the sealed Dungeon’s ginormous gate.

“BOOOOOOM" Multiple sounds of explosions rang out. As dust swept through the slums. We were all doomed. What had they done!?

I ran for the Dungeon's entrance knowing that those were the sounds of explosives. The Blacksmith could wait. This was way more important. I needed to know what was happening to my home.

This city was all I had left. It isn’t much but it’s everything to me and someone’s putting that in jeopardy.

Running like my life depended on it they couldn’t do this. We could all die. It’s been forever but we tell stories about that dungeon, now and then so that the people would never forget. The stories of old.

Here they are just tearing it down. They can’t break that seal no matter what!

Thirty minutes passed and it was the dead of night. I was used to waking up at this time. Beyond nine city lights would start to dim and the nightlife would begin this on the other hand felt like a forewarning.

They had cracked the stone wall covering the dungeon gate. The magic dust that usually came from the stone wall rarely had started snaking out like the Mana had a will of its own.

What did we do to deserve this? Whatever exploded had formed cracks across the stone. I prayed that the stories were right because the nobles couldn’t wait to give us Gritties a new reason to fear living in the slums.

The slums would be ground zero for a dungeon break, if those idiots managed to unseal it.

There had to be a way to. “Ahhhh!” I screamed while tripping over something in the street. “What the hell was that!” I shouted.

Dusting my worn-down cloak off I turned around and looked to see what had tripped me.

“Is that what I think it is?” A (Looted) [Corpse], I had tripped on a corpse lying in the middle of the damn street. “What the hell is going on in this city!” I was just so frustrated walking back to the corpse. There was no way I was storing that thing and taking the blame for someone else’s crime.

I thought about ignoring it and running toward the dungeon, but I had to be aware of my surroundings at all times. I had already slipped up literally, the old bastard would’ve had my head for that mistake.

My mistake was doubling back, flipping over the body that was exceptionally heavy for a (looted) body. The dead guy looked like he’d been hit with ice magic, if I ever was to see ice magic this powerful, I’d run for my fucking life.

The corpse was frozen over. Could you even call this a corpse? It was solid, immovable, and discolored. A damn ice cube. I watched the snow fall from above. It was practically outlining the body for everyone to see.

The only problem with that was where the hell was everyone! There was no way we were in a situation that would cause us to retreat to the inner city. Everyone knows that we’d be stuck in transition sitting ducks for whatever was attacking us. Those bastards would use us for bate before letting us into that God's damned kingdom.

I got up and kept running like I had never seen a thing. The lack of explosive background noise and icy blockhead had momentarily made me forget about the real threat to the city.

The momentary stop had given me more than a minute to catch my breath. Besides panic about what could happen if they unsealed that gate, old man Samuel’s letter was on my mind, his smiling face only seen in death. A part of me still was in disbelief. I needed this run to get away from my problems.

If only I had paid more attention maybe I'd realized that I was running away from one of my problems into another.

That cold corpse in the middle of the street from a couple of minutes ago had one thing in common with Samuel's. No, Samuel's body was warm, but his face, that grin. A smile that stretched from ear to ear, a smile that looked like it had longed for release.