The Celestial realm, Deep inside the Great Library, in a Meeting room…
42nd of Anael, the first month of snow.
Bjorn, god of crafting, walked down the halls of the great library. Dwarves do more than just dig holes, you morons. He thought, slipping past a pair of overburdened workers. Now why does Max have an interest in my finding rod? A few more twists and turns and he arrived at the meeting room, room 1134, and entered.
Maxwell stood as he entered, “Bjorn! Long time, no see.”
“Maybe if you stopped by during the day, instead of night you would see me more often?” Bjorn laughed. “But seriously, why do you want my finding rod?”
“You know about the elemental in Dragon?” Max asked, and Bjorn nodded. “We want to use your rod as a prototype for making an adjustable finding artifact tuned to elementals.”
“Hmm. That’s actually a good idea.” Bjorn nodded. “That said, I assume you didn’t think of it?”
“Correct….” Max’s brain caught up with his ears. “Jerk. Although you are right, Lemon thought it up.” He waved in the direction of the small god, who looked up from the book he was standing on while reading it, and waved back.
Bjorn nodded to Lemon before turning back to Max, “This is only a prototype itself, so I don’t know how much help it will be. Just don’t break it.” Max nodded to his oldest friend.
-
City of Dagon
The watch surrounded the shop which, until last night had contained six people, a husband and wife, and their four children. “It’s the same as before.” A tall, and somewhat rotund watchman said to his short and scrawny compatriot as they watched the higher-ups search the home from top to bottom. “Just dead. Choked to death while asleep.”
The shorter watchman shrugged, “Not much we can do. I won’t feel bad about Mr. Williams, he was an unpleasant man, caught me looking at a fish wrong an threw me out once. Missis Williams was a sweetheart, going to miss her. Me maw said the kids were little darlings. Going to miss them too.”
They stared at the once loved home for a while before slowly meandering off to have a smoke out of the wind.
-
He awoke in the bowels of the city. I am a “he”! I am Large, strong, and somewhat violent! He “smiled” to himself. Sure, I sneak around at night like a whatsit, and eat food like a, a, a…rodent that does such things, but I am still male. Mr. Williams is wrong about that; women aren’t the only ones who hide in the dark and plot things. Mrs. Williams…she was tasty. I wonder what fish stew tastes like? Maybe it tastes like her? So many things to eat. The elemental drank in some of the filth around it, consumed what it could, and released what was left over. I…I don’t have to eat the food up there? But they called to me. So much power. So much strength! Maybe I will limit those to once every few darks, that way I don’t kill off all of my food supply…Sounds like a good Idea. He started sucking down the contents of the sewer, until he came to a very plugged section that was over filled with filth. I could live here for a while, plenty of food, blessed dark all the time. He sank off to sleep, constantly filtering out the stuff as he slept.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
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45th of Anael
In the city of Dragon, the watch was on edge, as was the city. No murders had happened the previous three nights, and the waiting was grating on the nerves of all involved. On the afternoon tide, the city was expecting the first of the relief supplies the crown had granted, and the workers were finishing up the last details of the only pier that had survived the storm.
Meanwhile a pair of sewer workers were uncorking a long-stuck sewer grate so they could unplug a drain. An action they were soon to regret…
Not far away in the sewer, He awoke to the sound of splashing coming from down the tunnel he was in. The plug of food had partially disappeared from the wall he rested against, showing the top of some sort of large pipe. Why do I know what a pipe is? “How do I know what a pipe is” is the better question. I hear…food approaching! Food, on two legs! It is surface food delivering itself to me! YUM!
Frank and Mike, Sewer Specialists of the first order (mostly due to their lack of a functioning sense of taste and smell) walked towards where the map told them the fisherman’s junction into the main sewer line to the ocean was. A junction that was prone to plugging, even though it had been enlarged several times so as not to clog.
Short and wide, so much so that he had been confused for a dwarf several times leading him to fastidiously shave twice a day, Mike walked the sacred tunnel whistling. “Ya know, Frank, If they had angled this piece of sewer down another two and a half degrees, the water wouldn’t back up like this and the Fisherman’s Junction wouldn’t plug up.”
“And you claim not to be a dwarf.” Frank replied to his oldest friend. “Maybe you shouldn’t have gotten that engineering degree? Then people would be less likely to call you a shaved dwarf.”
“You’ve met me mom and pa.” Mike replied. “Not a drop of dwarf in either of them. I don’t know what happened.”
“They’re so tall, people wonder if they have halfling in their blood.” Frank shook his head, “You were probably switched at birth by the fae.”
Mike stopped mid stride, and turned to his friend, “Don’t even joke about those bastards! Do you want to accidentally call the attention of one of them?”
-
Flying lazily in the sun above a certain part of the city of Dragon, Brandywine, pixie of the world extraordinaire, heard a word she immensely disliked: Fae. She chugged her tankard of ale, and dropped to the road, trying to hear more.
-
He submerged himself in the pool of food, and thought. If I stay down here, I will be able to…but no, I should stay on the ceiling and drop on them…If I hide in the exposed pipe I can…I could be a part of the wall… The two men walked in, and his plans fell apart, they had lights. Bright beams of light that pierced his dark home, and hurt his senses. The light came from…lanterns. He swam behind them, and out of the beams of light, then stopped as he listened.
“Frank?” Mike called out, as he stood staring at the water that should have been thick with feculence and rotted fish bits. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?
Frank looked up from where he thought he had seen something swim past his boot, “What?” Then he looked. “The water is…water? What in the sea king’s swimmers?”
“Right?” Mike asked as he looked around. “Something’s even been dissolving the bits at the exit pipe! All we need to do is free up a couple of spots, and the drain will work just fine!”
He looked on from below the water line. Did they just praise my eating habits? He listened as the two pieces of topside food prattled on. They did! They just did it again! He lay on the bottom and watched the food dig a few spades full of food from the pipe, tossing the food into the water where he lay. They are even giving me food while I wait for them to leave. Such nice food…I guess I will eat them last. Such good food.
When Mike and Frank finished unclogging the pipe, a matter of an hour or so, they played their lanterns around the junction for a moment before leaving.
Mike spoke as they left the section of sewer, “I feel like something was watching us the whole time we were working back there. It didn’t feel like rats.”
“Maybe it were the fae? Called in by being mentioned?” Frank said, smile on his face.
A high-pitched voice came from above the two men, “How did you know we could be summoned by saying out name?”
Frank and Mike ran for the exit. There may or may not have been pee involved in their sudden departure.