I bit my tongue to stop the string of curses from waking the sleeping occultists around me. Three lockpicks were gone and still, the balls mocked me with their bouncing. As it turned out, I wasn’t a master at this just yet. It didn’t help that this lock was the most difficult I’d ever tried to crack. There were five bouncing balls. Five.
Finally, on the fourth try the damn thing opened. The chest was empty aside from the Steel Breastplate of Bashing and a small book. I eyed the book, trying not to laugh. Salamanders Sultry Surrender. I guess Red had managed to sell a copy of the book after all. I took the breastplate and left the book behind.
This time, instead of getting a ‘new item’ notification, I got a ‘quest updated’ one instead. It seemed a little unfair that the man sleeping deeply on the bed had been able to get the benefits of the armor when for me it was nothing more than a quest item. I suppose it didn’t matter too much, I wouldn’t wear the thing anyway.
I quickly opened the quest menu so it would stop blinking at me.
Quest Updated: An Eye for an Eye
Description: You have found proof that the smith's goods were stolen and brought here. The goods have been gifted to different members of the local faction of the Fellowship of Fayum. Find the goods and return them to Blaze the Smith.
Steel Breastplate of Bashing 1/1
Steel Gauntlets of Warmth 0/1
Iron Boots of Wandering 0/1
I carefully closed the wooden chest and crept from the room only having a single miniature heart attack when one of the occultists sat upright and shouted. I froze by the doorway and stared in horror at the red-haired woman. Her green eyes stared through me though, still glazed over with sleep. She dropped back and continued to sleep. I let out my held breath and with Stella in tow returned to my hiding place in the shadows outside the sleeping chamber.
The second player in the cavern was seated at a table, stuffing his face with an enormous turkey leg. I have to admit, it looked damn good. This one must have been Deacon Andy Lorret because he was wearing the Iron Boots of Wandering.
I glanced around at all the people surrounding the table, all of them laughing and indulging with abandon, not one of them was paying attention to anything else.
“Stay here girl, I’ll call you if things get dicey,” I whispered to Stella.
Stella dropped to the floor, hiding her head beneath a paw, like she was sulking. I guess a mission like this wasn’t too exciting for a warrior.
I patted her before creeping through the shadows toward the table. It occurred to me that even if I did make it there and somehow stole the boots, the man would notice his feet suddenly getting cold. That was a problem for later though. For now, I just had to get there.
When I was close I dropped to all fours and crawled like a dog between the many legs of man and chair alike. Reaching the safety of the shadows there I paused, lifting a hand and screwing my nose up at the stickiness I felt on them. If I didn’t know it from the feel, I knew it from the stale smell. Someone had been wasting beer. That was just sacrilegious.
I moved over to the man wearing the pretty cool-looking boots and sat in the filth under the table. I hovered a hand over the boots, a smile twisting my lips as the pickpocketing icon appeared in brilliant gold in front of me. At least that would be easier than just yanking them off.
I focused on the icon and got a nice view of all the Deacon had in his pockets.
20 Gold
Enchanted Robe of Sorrow
Iron Boots of Wandering
Strawberry tart
Basic pants
It wasn’t as much as I was expecting. The robes seemed like something I didn’t want a bar of. Who needed sorrow from an enchantment when there was plenty of it to go around in the world? My stomach grumbled quietly as I eyed the tart. He was so busy stuffing his face that I was fairly sure he wouldn’t notice it missing.
I focused on the tart and when it vanished from the list I did the same with the boots. They disappeared from the list and from the feet in front of me at the same time. I turned and rushed past the feet, not caring much if I bumped one or two. No one seemed to care and I had to escape before the Deacon discovered his feet were bare.
I rolled from the end of the table and hid in the shadows, making my way back to Stella as fast as I could. She lay on the cold stone, watching me with an oddly judgemental look that shouldn’t be possible on a dog.
When I got there I spun around and waited for the bellowing. It didn’t take long.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
“What the fuck?” The Deacon leaped to his feet and roared across the table, “who took my boots?”
One of the men beside him started howling with laughter. “You lost them already? Holy hell Andy, you just got the things.”
The Deacon grabbed the man by the neck of his robe and yanked him to his feet. “Give them back right now Keith or you won’t live long enough to meet the Leader.”
“Back off jerk, it’s not my fault you’re a useless sack of shit.”
“Leave off, Andy,” another of the grouped people snapped.
“Shut up Derick, this doesn’t concern you!”
The Deacon threw the first punch but it wasn’t the only one. Soon the feast turned into an all-out brawl. There was screaming, punching, and fireballs flying everywhere.
“Come on girl,” I said, not bothering to whisper anymore. “We’ve got one more item to find.”
We crept around the cavern still sticking to the shadows. We rushed through another archway and paused, not sure which direction to take. This passage wasn’t like the others, it went both upward and downward.
“Any ideas Stella?”
The herding dog took off, heading down into the darkness below. I followed her. The final person we needed to find was a cleric. I could be wrong but that sounded like a healer to me. Maybe this stone rabbit's warren had an infirmary or something.
I ran my finger over the uncomfortable shag growing off my chin. One of these days I hoped I’d find a razor. I know shaving seemed like a silly thing to be worried about when the world was in chaos but I wasn’t a fan of the itch.
At the end of the tunnel was a small archway leading into a glow worm filled cavern filled with cages. I didn’t like that one bit. I ducked through the doorway and stuck to the walls, trying to find a place to hide. Stella and I pressed up against a squat stalagmite and looked around.
Some of the cages had full sets of bones in them which was discomforting. This game-like world hadn’t been around long enough for bodies to decompose like that. One of the cages had an actual person in it. The girl, Miranda, still wearing her filthy pink dress.
Standing beside the girl’s cage was another woman wearing the same robes as all the others only with a white bone above the half skull rather than the red dagger the others sported. The woman pushed back the tumbling lengths of her brunette curls and glared at Miranda.
“The next time you disobey me I’ll show you just how angry I can be.” She emphasized her words by lighting a blue flame in the palm of her hand. “Do you understand me?”
“Yes Mistress Avery,” Miranda cried, curling into a tight ball in the corner of her cage.
“Good girl,” Avery said turning her back and marching over to a long table near the wall.
A man was tied to the table, stretched out as far as his arms and legs would allow. He was stripped of all clothing and his flesh was marred by hundreds of bleeding wounds. A thick ball of fabric was tied in place in his mouth, muffling the man’s screams as Avery pressed a finger into one of the bigger gashes.
“This will teach you to steal from the Lord, Malcolm. He does not like thieves.”
I swallowed hard as the man cried out through the gag stuffed in his mouth. So, this was what waited for me if I was caught. I watched from my hiding place as the man's face contorted in pain. Then, just as quickly, it became slack and his eyes glazed over as his body slumped. I didn’t need to move closer to know that he was dead.
“What a shame,” Avery said to no one in particular. “I’d barely gotten started.”
Well, it was safe to say I no longer thought the word ‘cleric’ meant healer. She was more like a torturer. A monster in human form.
Dear whatever God happens to be listening, don’t let that happen to me.
Avery wandered into another small chamber just off this one and disappeared. My whole body was on edge as I ran from my hiding place. Every hair on my body was standing stiff.
I wrapped my fingers through the cold bars of Miranda’s cage. “Hey, can you hear me?”
Miranda moved her arm and looked at me. “You’re the man from before,” she whispered.
“Yes, are you alright?”
“No,” she cried. “They’re going to do that to me next.”
She broke down into inconsolable sobs that no amount of soothing seemed to help. I focused on the lock of the cage and picked it with a surprising amount of dexterity considering it had five of those frustrating bouncing balls.
I hurried into the cage with Stella in tow and pulled the young girl into my arms. She couldn’t have been older than thirteen. Stella whined and curled into the girl's lap, not caring when the girl clutched at her fur with too much force.
“I won’t let them hurt you,” I said. “We have to get you out of here.”
“I can’t go,” Miranda sobbed. “Not without my scepter.”
“Scepter?” I frowned and dug a hand into my bum bag pulling out the jeweled wand with the skull on top of it. “Do you mean this thing?”
Miranda squealed with joy and snatched the thing from my hand. I wanted to snatch it back, sure that it was worth a lot of gold but I resisted the urge.
“Yes!” Miranda screamed making me flinch. “Now I can break free!”
She jumped to her feet and ran from the cage, a wicked smile decorating her young face. She held the wand high. Her and the scepter she held began to glow a bright pink before a ball of her magic shot from the skull atop the scepter and struck the dead man's body. The ropes holding him restrained burned and disappeared.
Avery came charging back into the room, blue flames dancing around her hands. “What the hell is this!”
“You can’t hurt me anymore you wicked witch,” Miranda laughed, pointing her scepter at the woman.
I watched in horror as Avery’s face drained of color. The man sprawled on the table jumped to his feet, his body still pale and his eyes still cold and dead. His body glowed faintly in the same pink hue as Miranda’s magic.
The man charged and tackled Avery, not at all bothered by the raging blue flames that burned him, filling the room with the acrid stench of roasting flesh and burnt hair.
“No!” Avery screamed as the man’s hands wrapped around her neck, squeezing until she was choking and clawing at the undead monster.
In less than a few minutes Avery’s body went limp, her eyes as dead as those of the man strangling her.