She curled up in a warm bed that smelled like mead. Soft sheets beneath. She was back at the Ancient Cheeseman. Subsumed by comfort. Just like before Rook carried her from danger to safety; now nothing was needed from her except rest, to leave when she was next ready to leave…
“Get up!” Kauom shouted. He leaned down over her. Nothing but dim golden light behind his head.
She closed her eyes. In the transitory moments between sleep and wakefulness, all her body was euphorically numb. The dwarf stole that away from her. With his voice she regained feeling.
Stinging on her chest. Throbbing fogginess in her mind. Pulsing burns on the back of her leg. And a whole feeling like she could do nothing but go bad to sleep.
“Get up, witch! Nap later!” He pulled her up to a sit by the wrist, continuing, “We’re not three days from Swep-Nos. Can you get us there, boy?”
Robur sat near the teleportation stone. He nodded.
“Good. Both of you, up!”
Eris grabbed the staff’s haft. It was like a shot of stimulant. The energized crystal substituted her own drained Essence. The pain became more oppressive as her alertness spiked, but she managed to climb to her feet.
“I feel very unwell,” Robur said slowly.
“As do I,” Eris said slowly.
“You’ll be fine, you’ve got a stick to lean on,” Kauom said. “Come on! Let’s go!”
So long as she held her staff, Eris could walk. She watched as Robur’s spellsickness grew worse with each step.
Kauom led them with zeal back up to the surface. It was dark by the time they emerged. This was, without any doubt, the longest day of Eris’ life.
“Where should we make camp? I don’t like it here,” Kauom said.
“You are a paranoid buffoon. You do not like it anywhere,” Eris said. She was only paying partial attention.
“Nowhere in these damned woods, aye!” He scanned the trees then looked at the both of them, but, apparently realizing neither of them were in the mood to lead, found himself at the helm of their figurative ship. “All right. Follow me. I’ll choose the spot. Somewhere the bearmen won’t find us.”
“Tremendous idea,” Eris said. She rested her eyes, leaned against her staff.
They ate nothing at camp that night. Robur began retching near midnight. He didn’t stop until dawn, or so he told them later; Eris slept soundly the moment her bedroll was set. No pain could be great enough to stop her.
The clouds of lethargy faded somewhat come morning. She attempted to use Hydropneumonic Purification, to wash her burns with cleansed water, but the spell refused to take. She was still too drained to cast. But she counted herself lucky she was not in Robur’s position this time; he swelled with more blue and green hives with each passing hour.
They ate. She dressed her wounds as best she could. Then they were off.
The next two days of travel were among the worst she ever knew, and not only for the dubious quality of her company. Her concussion was severe enough that she regularly stumbled over, dizzy; she could use no magic; she was covered in bruises and bug bites; and the spellburn on her leg never ceased hurting. But the conviction that in their packs were items of power, enchanted items, preserved for millennia—that kept her going.
When Swep-Nos finally came into view, she was too exhausted to be relieved.
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Travelers crowded the small town this time of year. Caravans came and went from its open gates. The defenses were manned by dwarves with spears and crossbows, and the forest extended in a red tide of the ocean to its walls.
They walked through the gates like a procession of the world’s most opulent refugees. Beautiful jewelry, a magician’s staff, and a look of feverish destitution.
The first stop was the market. Late summer brought traffic through this place to and from Kem-Karwene, and to everyone traveling east toward Katharos by land, and although the prices wouldn’t match that of the larger towns they would at least find some buyers for their loot.
Their loot. They stood between the stalls. Eris clutched the necklace. They had much more jewelry in their packs, but could she stand to sell it?
Could she stand to sell any of it?
Kauom eyed each passer-by. “The Rangers have a bounty on salamo luwoku, if I can find a patrol. That should be a decent pay-out. What else do you have? Are you selling that staff?”
She scoffed. When they came here her necklace seemed her only choice for liquidation, but now she changed her mind. She wanted it for herself.
“We must take inventory,” she said. “The artifacts we retrieved are ancient, and many bear enchantments. It would be a mistake to pawn them at first opportunity.”
“Are you saying you aren’t selling anything?” Kauom whispered. His eyes narrowed. “What about that necklace?”
She covered the golden necklace with her hand. “Not that.”
“Then what about that crown?”
“That neither.”
He growled. “I’m not paying your bills, witch.”
“Then I shan’t pay for yours, dwarf. You did not come with us through the portal—but Robur and I did distract the owlbear while you loaded your crossbow.”
“Don’t you dare call it a crossbow!”
She was not in the mood for this. She still felt ready to collapse at any moment.
“Eris,” Robur said. He had hives on his face, but he spoke sincerely “We should sell the necklace. It isn’t enchanted.”
She smiled through stinging on her heel. “Yes, it is.”
“Sell the damn necklace! Find a dwarf merchant, he’ll buy a piece like that for his wife for a thousand!”
“This conversation is over.”
“Like hell it is! Sell it!”
She hit her staff against the ground. The gem flickered. “I hate you both! The necklace is not being sold, there will be no further discussion!” She tried to storm away, but after only a few steps she realized she had nowhere to storm off to: they couldn’t yet afford to rent rooms.
Kauom stepped in front of her anyway. “Hand it over. I’ll sell it for you.”
“Get out of my way.”
“Hand it over!”
“I swear I will turn you to a pile of magma, dwarf—”
Kauom reached out and grabbed her staff. She was too weak to resist. The moment the haft wrenched its way from her grip, she fell to her knees. It was like toppling down two storeys onto her back: the wind instantly knocked itself from her chest.
He grabbed the necklace from her. Callused, hairy hands across the skin. They were deft at removing valuables. Robur helped her up, but by the time she stood again Kauom was gone.
They were two sickly, geriatric, dying women, forced to limp from the market forum lest they be trampled, carrying each other in their arms. They collapsed against each other on a bench: Robur too sick to do much else, Eris too tired, and in too much pain, to do anything but mutter curses and close her eyes.
“I don’t see why you carry this stick around,” Kauom said. “Nobody wanted it.”
Her eyes shot up. It was dark now. The sun set. Kauom stood in front of her with her staff, which he offered. She grabbed it. The gem’s power had waned, signaled by faded hue; she felt revitalized, as before, but to only a quarter the extent.
He jingled a coin purse in front of her.
“There’s more, too,” he said. “Don’t say I’m not an honest dwarf. That should tide you over ‘til we sell the rest.”
Eris focused. She imagined hands on Kauom’s beard. His head ripped toward the sky. Wrenched from his body. The rest incinerated. No more useless, troublesome dwarf. She tried to make the spell a reality, tried to put her will into motion…
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The crystal on her staff went completely dark. Nothing else happened, except another wave of lethargy came.
“No thanks?” he said. “I got three talents for it! Minted Stonegold! That’ll last us a year!” Robur groaned. Eris tried to conjure fire this time, but the same luck—no spell. “That’s your problem. You know plenty about magic, witch, but you’ve got no sense of business. Let’s go get rooms.”
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She spent three days asleep. A few hours during daylight to eat, drink, and wash her injuries, but then back to hibernation. By the time she awoke on the fourth day she finally had enough energy to go about her business without aid of the staff, and by the fifth she felt more or less herself, although her Essence was still too drained for casting spells.
And she was still furious. No finer piece of jewelry ever graced her presence than that necklace. She nearly died for it, attracting the attention of the demon serpent. And Kauom stole it, sold it, and took a third of its profits for himself. He did not even come with them. He cowered in the chamber with the teleportation stone and did nothing.
As much time as possible passed in her room. She knew if she saw him again she would be overtaken by her anger. She tried to focus instead on what was still before her, on the treasure she had in her own pack, and the most interesting items Robur had in his.
The circlet. The jade ward. Three rings, two gilt armlets, a pair of amber earrings, a necklace. There was also a single strip of bronze, the right size and shape to fit on a gauntlet, but no other features identified it.
Now began the tortuous process of identifying each enchantment.
The jade ward’s purpose she knew already. Having learned her lesson from before, she opted to wear it on her left wrist rather than her right. She took it with her everywhere. To any onlooker it was indistinguishable from a smart bracelet of precious stone.
The circlet was made of black steel. Two lines of gold streaked around its circumference in spirals. She supposed looking at it now that it was, in fact, a diadem, for facing frontward was a Manastone gem that glowed blue, emanating power.
As near as she could tell, the Manastone made up the extent of the diadem’s enchantment, along with its craftsmanship. What an Archon might have wanted with a spellcaster’s crown she was uncertain. It was very pleasing to look at, but also very conspicuous—even by her standards. She did not know what to do with it.
Next, the remainder of the jewelry.
She spent days experimenting. Testing their reactions to magic. Sensing how their auras shifted in her presence. They were enchanted, of that she was certain, but beyond that…
One of the rings glowed in the dark with dim orange.
Another, a simple band, changed color with her mood. She found its accuracy disturbing, which served only to turn its metal a pale red.
These two were figured out easily enough. It was the third that stooped her. She had convinced herself it did nothing at all, until one night, as she gazed upon it, she twisted it around her left hand’s ring finger.
An animal roared.
She stopped.
The roaring stopped.
She grabbed the ring again. Clutched it with a thumb and her index finger and turned it.
Roaring. The vicious snarls of combat between large predators.
So long as the finger spun, with the volume of a lion against her ear, a thunderous roar issued out. The moment she ceased, so too did the noise.
These were not the artifacts of power she anticipated finding in an Archon’s Vault. But then an Archon wanted magical items as conspicuous consumption: to demonstrate that he had them. A jade ward did nothing except in emergencies. But a ring that turned red when he was infuriated…it was a way to display that he commanded the Magisters, decorated so with magic.
They were less useful for Eris. She decided she might as well keep them for the time being.
Next she studied the earrings and the necklace. They had the whiff of mana about them, yet not so strong as the other jewelry. It took long and careful thought for her to come to the realization that they were mundane. Mundane, but crafted in a manaforge. No other explanation made sense to her.
The craftsmanship of both was immaculate, of course. Beautiful, beyond compare, and all what one might expect. But neither was gold, and it was gold that Eris truly adored. She decided these things could be sold so long as an appropriate price were found.
The armlets. Now there was gold. They fit her well. They bore some enchantment, too, real enchantment, but for all her experimentation she never deduced what it was. It hardly mattered. Those she decided to keep. She would wear them henceforth.
That left only the stray scrap of bronze. Especially as her Essence returned, the strength of its enchantment became apparent. Stronger than anything else they retrieved save the staff. No progress was made in deciphering the manner of this enchantment until, one night, idly, she was overcome by frustration toward Kauom, and at her own inability to think of what she was missing. She conjured a small flame and threw it at the table on which the bronze scrap sat—
And as the flame made contact with metal, it dissipated in an instant.
She tried again. Different effects. Magic directed at the scrap. Each and every time, as the spell made contact with bronze, it dissipated.
A ward. Like the jade, but for magic. A far more potent artifact. Maybe a single piece from a suit of armor, or a part of a panoply they didn’t retrieve. Its effect only extended about a small area, but perhaps, with careful placement…
Robur was still convalescing and would be for some time, and Eris herself concussed. She had time to kill. So she purchased a glove from the tanner and a kit for sewing, and set about turning this bronze spellward into a gauntlet for her right hand. Stitching the metal plate between the knuckles and the wrist. There were small holes drilled in the band’s edges for her to anchor thread, and although it took well over a week she managed this much.
When she put her hand through the glove, her whole arm tingled—only for a moment.
Staff. Two wards. Armlets. She felt like a battlemage of old, ready for the fray. And even as weeks passed, she had a target in mind for her wrath.
The ring on her finger turned blood red.
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Eris lowered the gem of her staff to Kauom’s door. A burst of energy extended outward, blasting it ajar. She gathered white fire in her clenched left fist.
The dwarf was never supposed to survive his first expedition. He had been nothing but a burden. Now he would learn never to steal from her again.
He sat in a chair on the other side. Robur was there. They both leaned over a desk and turned, surprised at the loud entrance, but relaxed when they saw her.
That was not the response she desired.
“Move aside,” she commanded Robur.
He looked up at her, then to Kauom. “We’re still counting it all over.”
“You’ll get your share, witch,” Kauom said.
“What?” she sputtered. “Move!”
Robur shrugged and scooted to the side, revealing the desk. She prepared her spell—but Kauom then moved to the side, too, revealing four large stacks of silver coins.
“Rangers finally came into town. Damn bastards haven’t sent any patrols this way in weeks. The ears were starting to rot. They claimed I took them off a body I found dead in the woods. Can you believe that? Well, I convinced them otherwise. Law obligates two thousand drachmae for the reward.”
“Two thousand?” Eris said. She lowered her staff.
“All in silver,” he said.
“We’re sorting it still,” Robur said. “I thought it would only be fair to give you one thousand, since you organized everything, and it cost you the Orb…”
“A thousand drachmae?”
“Don’t look at me,” Kauom said. “Damn stupid idea. But he’s got a point.”
The spell in her hand dissipated. “Well…” She stepped forward.
Suddenly she no longer felt so set on revenge. Instead, her imagination flooded with thoughts of all the things such a vast sum could buy. The gold. The mead. The hot food. The silk.
Some anger lingered in her chest. But this bribe was enough to deter her from vengeance, for now.
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She admired herself in new clothes before a mirror. Reds and purples. Carefully negotiating with the strands of cloth, to show the most skin possible.
That was when the voice returned.
Why is it so vain?
Her eyes closed. “You sought to be worshipped,” she whispered.
I am worthy of worship. It is an unappealing, fleshy thing. It acts as if it is proud of its flesh. Why?
“One is drawn toward his own kind, wyrm. You dwell among rocks in a cave; I reveal my skin.”
I do not understand.
“I am glad of it. You are witless as you are useless.”
I seek to understand, so I can imitate once it is under my control.
As she had before, she concentrated inwardly and tried to subdue the invasive thoughts. The voice banished from her mind.
Just then a knock came on her room’s door.
“Leave me now, creature!” she shouted, turning, not realizing at first what it was. A moment passed.
“You’d better open the door, miss,” a dwarf’s rough voice came.
She hesitated. “What is it?”
“It’s the end of the month of Harvest. That means you’ve got to pay your share of taxes.”
Taxes. Eris never paid taxes. She loathed taxes—she loathed all things incorporated and civilized, except when she needed to bathe. The thought never once occurred to her.
She opened the door in a confused daze. A dwarf in armor, a sword at his hip and a large bag in his hand, stood on the other side.
“You’re a human, so I’ll make this real simple for you,” he said. “Annual Harvest tax is ten percent of earnings.”
“I have paid already,” she said. She closed the door.
His foot caught the threshold. “Your friends have already told me where to find you,” he said.
“Ah. In that case, I have not paid.”
“We all heard about the owlbear. Ten percent of a thousand, and I’ll say you’re even for the year.”
She gagged, half laughing. “You want me to hand you one hundred drachmae in silver? For what? I have paid for my accommodations already. If you wish taxes, seek the owners of this place. Not me.”
“For what? How do you think the Rangers are funded? What do you think keeps the people of Nanos safe? Who paves the roads and maintains the lights in the halls of Kem-Karwene? That isn’t free, human!”
“It would be such a tragedy, if all that were to fall into ruin.”
“The law’s the law. Don’t make me come back with guards.”
“But the Rangers paid us the bounty. Why should we pay that same bounty back to them in taxes? This makes no sense.”
“The law’s the law!”
“The law is a protection racket. This is my money!”
She sighed. A hundred drachmae. She could fight back, but for what purpose, and to what end? Robur was still spellsick; she was still injured, although mostly healed; and even if she won any battle that ensued, she would never be able to return to Nanos.
So she paid the dwarf his taxes, which to her seemed clearly nothing more than robbery sanctioned by the state, and she thought fondly back to her year in Rytus, when no halfling ever demanded tribute from her once.
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The Sanguine Forest pinkened as the days cooled off. Fall came. Robur made his recovery and Eris healed. In that time they all three lived a profligate lifestyle. The pattern was familiar by now. Between taxes, high rent, and a fondness for luxury, even a veritable fortune could be squandered in a handful of months.
So it was. And for the first time all year, Eris had no leads.
“Kobolds,” Kauom said.
“Kobolds?” Robur said.
“Kobolds! They’ve overrun a mining town in the hills! There’s a bounty on their heads. Good money for adventurers like us.”
“Kobolds,” Eris said. Kauom nodded. “Very well.”
“Very well?” Kauom echoed, confused to hear those words from her mouth.
“As much as I would like to deride you,” she said, “I have no alternative course of action. So. Very well.”
“Good. Then it’s settled.”
“Are you certain it’s a good idea—” Robur started.
“Tiny little bird-brained chicken men? What could be easier? We swoop in, take what we can from the place, get out before anyone’s the wiser. Don’t you think that’s a good plan, boy?”
Robur shrugged. And just like that, the plan was set. Perhaps not a good plan, but Eris was relieved to be relieved of the duty of planning. And kobolds were not fearsome creatures. She doubted anything much could go wrong. Perhaps Kauom would finally come to some use.