We returned in time to find Duad, Perrin, and Dongle arguing outside of the longhouse. They made for an odd picture, being that they were standing in height order. Perrin was looming over Dongle, looking like a stern teacher who had caught a student cheating. Dongle was waving an arm as he excused himself, but he couldn't get away.

Duad was keeping himself behind the jeweler, a few inches shorter, but broader and more muscular. Every time Dongle tried to slip to one side, the smith was there to intercept him. A small crowd of lillits had gathered to watch the confrontation, no doubt drawn by the cries of the harpy perched atop the longhouse.

It was one of Celaeno's sisters, who I only recognized because of her voice. She spoke about as well and with the same raspy tone as a trained parrot, and she was screaming at the top of her lungs.

"Thief! Fat little thief! Tried to run on his fat little legs!"

I put some hustle in my step, and Esmelda spurred her mount to ride ahead of me. Gastard appeared only mildly interested in the commotion until he spotted the bundle of cloth Dongle was clutching to his left side.

"That's a sword," he said.

"That bird is a menace!" Dongle thrust an accusing finger at the harpy in question as Esmelda rode up. "It attacked me!"

"Detained!" the harpy shrieked.

"Show me what you're carrying," Esmelda said, calm but firm.

"That's not what this is about." Dongle shifted the wrapped object protectively under his arm.

Duad grabbed the end that was sticking out behind the jeweler, then cursed as his palm came away bloody. The blade had sliced clean through the cloth when he tried to pull it.

Perrin crossed his arms over his chest. "You're only making things harder on yourself."

"Hey, buddy," I caught up to the huddle and dropped a hand on the jeweler's shoulder. "Mind if I look."

Dongle stiffened under my fingers, then meekly handed over the bundle. I unwrapped the sword, which was unmistakeably one of mine, and looked him dead in the face.

"So, what was the plan here?"

Dongle jowls quivered. "I merely intended to have it properly appraised."

"What about the other one?" Duad moved around to be on the jeweler's other side. "You have that 'appraised' too?"

"What?" Dongle looked genuinely baffled. "What other one?"

"A sword already went missing," Esmelda said, "as well as other tools. Do we really have to search your home?"

"That wasn't me," Dongle pressed his middle and index finger to his forehead. "I swear on Mizu's name."

Esmelda's frown deepened. "Don't use her name so lightly."

"Can we get out of the street?" I said. "This is turning into a scene."

Esmelda nodded after glancing around. Whatever the other townsfolk had been doing before the argument started, they were all glued to the spectacle now. There were at least twenty lillits gathered now, and it was clear from their expressions that communal judgement was already being passed.

We filed into the longhouse to discuss things further. Tipple was inside, and he shooed out a few parishioners to ensure we had a relatively private space to talk. The hefty pastor was sweating through his tunic.

"It's my fault," he said. "You trusted me, and I failed to protect your gifts."

"It's alright," I said. "I didn't expect you to keep your eyes on the swords at all times." Though it was surprising Dongle had been confident enough to make off with one in the middle of the day, this had worked out as well as we could have hoped. The thief had returned, and the harpy on watch had sounded an alarm. Only things weren't wrapped up as neatly as I supposed.

Dongle pressed a cloth to his scalp, stemming a thin trickle of blood. Apparently, the harpy had swooped down on him the moment he came out of the storage shed with a blade, keeping him occupied until Perrin arrived.

"I swear to you," he pleaded, "if another is missing, I wasn't the one to take to. You can search my belongings, question my helpers. It wasn't me."

He could have still been lying. That was certainly Duad's perspective, but I wasn't so sure. Dongle might have already found a buyer for the first blade and hidden it, along with the other tools, somewhere we weren't likely to look. His tone, however, struck me as being legitimately contrite.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

We trekked across town to investigate the one-room cottage he called home. It served as a workspace as well, with the tools of his trade on proud display atop a wooden crate. His pigeons were living in cages in a covered wagon outside his home. Their coos, and their smell, had followed us inside.

"I don't have your tools," Dongle repeated, "see for yourself."

There really wasn't much to search through, but Gastard set to turning the place over with gusto. Dongle's son, Quentin came in from tending to the pigeons and took up position in front of his bed as if to guard it.

A lot of the townsfolk were sleeping on mats on the ground, the carpenters had too much to do to spare the effort to construct frames, but the jeweler and his son had more furnished living space, and theirs lined up along the back wall of the cottage. Gastard eyed the young man, then pushed past him to kneel and look under the bed.

"Don't," Quentin pleaded, running his hands through his dark, curly hair, his face pinched by anxiety. I had seen little of the young lillit since we'd settled in Westmine. Officially, he was his father's apprentice, and he wasn't known for a lot of other useful skills.

Gastard grunted, lowered himself further, and started pulling out tools. Two shovels, and then the missing sword. Dongle choked on his next denial.

"Like father, like son," Duad said, sounding satisfied.

There was hardly room for everyone in the house, but Dongle and his son ended up sitting on their beds while the rest of us circled around. Perrin and Duad were both glowering like bulldogs, and when Boffin showed up, we had a genuine crowd.

"So what do we do with them?" I asked. It was our first serious crime, and we had never discussed what our legal system should look like, but I assumed the lillits had their own traditions for handling these kinds of things.

"Is this everything?" Esmelda said. "Weren't we missing axes as well?"

"I sold them," Quentin's voice was barely audible. "On our last trip into Henterfell."

Well, that was an issue, but at least it wasn't the sword. Boffin took over the interrogation after that, spiced with the occasional condemnation from Duad. Tipple paced in what little space there was, still blaming himself. The ax blades had a similar pattern in the metal to what appeared on the swords. I didn't know if there was such a thing as a Dargothian ax market, and Godwod technically hadn't forbidden me from making them. There would have to be a lot of intervening steps between the axes being sold and their existence somehow being traced back to me.

Dongle had done business with several merchants in the city, and apparently, Quentin had gone around his back to sell the axes to one of his old contacts. It didn't really matter. Just the fact that they had both independently stolen from me was mind-boggling.

"Take one hand from each," Gastard said. "That would be the most fair."

The lillits looked at him with varying degrees of alarm, Quentin especially.

"That isn't our way," Esmelda said.

"Hanging, then?" Gastard raised an eyebrow. "That seems extreme." It was difficult to tell if he was joking or if that was just how they did things in Drom.

"Compensation for what was taken," Boffin said, "and a Fool's Walk."

"A what?" That was a new one for me.

"The community will be informed of their deeds," Boffin explained, "and these two will have to make a circuit around town."

"Their punishment is exercise?"

"Naked," Boffin clarified.

"It's a public shaming," Esmelda sighed. "I suppose we have to decide on the fine as well. There isn't an established value for what they took. What did you get for the axes?"

Quentin's head couldn't hang any lower. "A pound," he said. "It's under my pillow."

That was a lot higher than the going rate for an ax, but whoever he sold them to must have recognized the value of the steel. In which case, he probably should have asked for more. I had no interest in seeing Dongle or his son strip down to nothing, and in any case, it would be night before long. Esmelda and I left the details to Boffin and the others to figure out. The evening was chill, and Esmelda bundled herself in her traveling cloak.

"I hate not being able to trust my own people," she said. We'd left Fuzzu back at the longhouse, but she was well looked after. The horses were shared around. Keeping the mare at home base would have been a lot of extra hassle. It seemed wrong to keep her underground, and I didn't completely trust the torches to keep the animal safe. So we walked.

"It's not too bad," I glanced up at the call of a harpy, but the bird was barely a shadow in the sky over the ridge of the mine. "Maybe they'll learn their lesson."

"I suppose it's a small thing, but I don't enjoy having to worry about what Dongle is up to along with everything else."

"Yeah, I get that. What bothers me is that these day-to-day issues impede my prep work. I've made some progress, but I know it's not enough."

She looked thoughtful. "You said naming your tools showed you their enchantments. Did the knowledge help you?"

"Not yet. Crafting enchanted books is a whole mess, and if I want any more special materials, I'm going to have to turn on the Stargate." I hadn't tried activating it yet, but in Minecraft, all you had to do was hit a Nether Portal with a spark from flint and steel and it would spring to life. Maybe it didn't work that way here, but I'd been holding myself back from making the attempt. If it functioned the way I thought it did, then it would take me to where the mobs came from. My feelings on that possibility were mixed.

"In the ruins? How do you know where it leads?"

"If it's anywhere other than Bedlam, I'll be shocked."

Esmelda looked down at her boots in the grass. I hadn't bothered laying out a road between the town and the farm, clearing several miles of path would wear through a pile of shovels and wasn't worth wasting a day on.

"Do you think it's wise to go?"

The cry of the harpy came again, closer than before.

"Wise? Who knows? But I need to learn more about my System, see what else I can make, and if there's a way to get at that armor behind the diamond. It's the natural next step."

"Do you think you're ready?"

We both stopped. There was no way for me to answer that until I saw what was on the other side of the gate. The harpy was getting bigger. More dark shapes were circling, exchanging greetings in the croaking language known only to themselves. It did not feel like a good omen. There were no trees within a stone's throw of us, so Celaeno landed on a low stone to the side of our path.

She preened herself, waiting regally for us to approach.

"What's going on?" I asked.

The harpy's eyes flashed in the fading light, violet coals amid the glossy black of her feathers.

"Shadows on the mountains. The Dark Lord extends his hand."