‘Let’s see… if Alden is basically getting off the hook then all I have to do is introduce new evidence that would be more incriminating… We had that lead on that blacksmith, I should go find Finn and see what we can dig up.’

As if I had summoned him, he appeared in my room window without so much as a noise, giving me chills.

“I guess you aren’t the type to jump when you get startled.” He said softly, kicking his feet inside and sitting down on the window sill. “You can read dwarven runes, right? What does this say?” He asked, tossing me a metal rectangle engraved with several symbols. “Hold on… Isn’t this–”

“It’s an Earth stone right?”

‘That’s what I was going to say before you interrupted me…’ “You know, for someone worried about seeing me naked you were awfully quick to barge into my room.”

He flinched back, almost falling out the window before I grabbed his hand. “So you're the type to jump when you get startled,” I said snarkily, pulling him back upright.

“Ok, ok, I’m sorry about that. I admit I wasn’t thinking about it. Now, can you read it?”

I sighed, jumping onto my bed and folding my legs underneath me. “Earth stone is just a poor translation, these things are basically like secret letters that dwarves use. The runes you can see are just the title. It says… Cozy flames that warm the hearth… Whatever that means.”

He scratched his head. “It’s connected somehow to the case, if that’s just the title then how do you read the letter?”

I tapped it with my knuckles, hearing the metal resonate. “It’s basically one big enchantment, you read it with a combination of metal magic and enchanting, and outside of dwarves it’s rare for someone to know both. Rarer for someone to know those and the Rune language. I take it you need a translation?”

“I thought that much was clear when I asked you what it said?”

“Oh… Uh, right… I have one condition though. I want in on this.”

He shrugged. “Sure, why not? Alden’s trial was rescheduled for a few days from now though, so we should hurry.”

‘Right…’ I sighed, flooding my manna into the Earth Stone to activate it. Hundreds of Runes exploded out in every direction before calmly assembling themselves in front of me on an invisible page. “Ok… Give me a second.”

He sat patiently, waiting for me to finish reading it several times before I could properly make sense of it. “It’s a fairy tale…”

“A what? Like a children's story?”

“Mm… Yeah, but it’s not really a normal one.”

“Ok, so do you think it’s some kind of code?”

I scratched my head, looking at it again and making notes of certain parts. “Possibly… It’s about a young dwarf girl who wants to get pregnant. I’ll save you the dwarf biology lesson and just say her husband wouldn’t let her. Eventually, she tricked him and they had a daughter, but the mom died in childbirth. The father then abused the daughter until he died too and she was left all alone. None of her father's business contacts trusted her, so she had to basically build her own business from the ground up.”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“What kind of stories did you read as a kid…”

“Well… Obviously, it uses metaphors for the more… Adult content. For example, The mother in the story wants to have a child, so she tries carving one from stone. She carves the body, and then her husband imbues it with magic, that’s… Basically the metaphor for having a child. Throughout the story, the father gives the carving enough magic to make the mother quote unquote Filled with joy, but never enough to finish the carving.”

“I don’t get it.”

“I’m not explaining it to you…”

He sighed. “Ok, so what’s the part you think is code.”

“Well… It’s similar to another fairy tale I read when I was learning the language… But it’s different. For instance, in the original, the father was the one who wanted a child but couldn’t make it happen, when it did he lost his wife but loved his daughter dearly… The thing that really sticks out the most though is this part here.” I pointed before remembering he couldn’t read it. “Uh… Right, well anyway, it’s basically like directions. A lot of dwarven fairy tails have them. It’s kind of like over the river and through the woods, that sort of thing.”

“Then why is it suspicious?”

“Well… First of all, the girl's mother is the one telling her the directions… And second, they are a lot more detailed than Over the river and through the woods.”

“Can we follow them?”

“In theory… Do you have any idea where the Firebird's feathers are? It says wherever you are look up and find them. That’s the first step.”

“That just sounds made up…”

I closed the book, grabbed my leather jacket, and threw it on over my hoody, leaving it unfastened as I grabbed my sword belt from storage. “Dwarven metaphors always refer to real things. It’s likely a large landmark, although there aren’t really any you can see from “wherever you are.” Let’s start with where you found this.

He sighed. “Let’s just hope it isn’t a real firebird…”

Before I knew it we were back in Rothet in the northeasternmost part of the city wandering the streets. “You found it here?”

“Yeah, a thief had it.”

I looked up but there were no notable landmarks, just tall buildings surrounding us. “Nothing here matches the directions… So I doubt he was following them. Do you think he stole it because he thought it might be valuable?”

Finn shrugged. “If that’s the case then we are in the wrong spot.”

‘Dangit… He’s right…’ “Ok… You’ve been around the city more than I have… Do you know of any bird landmarks? Statues of birds… Towers with wing motifs…”

“Well… There is the Ashen Crow’s guild hall… But that mostly involves talons and claws, and certainly not fire.”

“Anything else you can think of…”

He scratched his head. “Does it have to be a bird?”

“No… I mean not necessarily… What do you have in mind?”

“We aren’t that far away from the monument that was built to honor Magnus the dragon slayer.”

“Dragon… Firebird… It’s close enough. Where is it?”

He leads the way. “The monument is just a giant statue of him left over from before Rothet was even formed, but he was called the undying because he somehow managed to cast resurrection spells on himself before he took fatal wounds, coming back to life every time.”

“Was his family crest like a bird then?”

He shook his head. “Because of how he kept dying and coming back, some people called him the phoenix.”

“Firebird…”

“Exactly…”

After a bit of walking, it became easy to see. Despite its age, it was in almost perfect condition. He was standing tall with a broken greatsword thrown over his shoulder in one hand and a longsword in the other, his armor was depicted as torn and broken, but he was smiling, despite the hole in his side.

“Hey, Finn?”

“Yeah.”

“If someone made a statue of me someday…”

“Yeah, it would probably look like this. You fight like an animal and always end up half dead.”

“But… When girls get statues they are always elegant and stuff aren’t they?”

“That’s because girls that get statues are usually elegant and stuff…”

I growled at him. “I could be elegant if I wanted to be!”

“You could?” He asked raising an eyebrow. “If that’s true I’m impressed.”

“Well! It’s… I mean… I could learn to be elegant… If someone taught me…”

He turned away for a moment, looking around. “That’s fair. I probably couldn’t learn even with a teacher. At any rate, we can work on that later, what’s the next step.”

‘Right… I should focus…’