Emile surveyed the now empty inn. The midwife that she had left her father with was afraid to let the girl go. She had emphatically begged the girl to stay, attempting to soften the blow with promises of sweets and safety. She changed her mind when Emile explained her plan to her. This was the time for action, and Emile was the daughter of a long line of brave women. She would do what needed to be done. The question didn’t even occur to her that she might not know what needed to be done.
Beneath the bar counter, there was a secret latch. The activation of the latch was so subtle, that even if one were told exactly where to look and what to do, few would be able to find and activate it. Without hesitation she walked behind the bar and flipped the secret switch. The little green dragon followed her and tried to nuzzle her hand.
“I know you didn’t mean it, but what’s done is done and we have to fix it! That old lady doesn’t know anything, I doubt she’s ever left this village in her whole life. The wizards at the University will be able to fix this, and then everything will be good again.” Emile spoke absent-mindedly, walking to the fireplace in the corner and reaching her hand in to activate another switch. She knew that once the first one had been activated there was a timed mechanism that required the action of both of the other switches or the whole thing would lock her out for twenty-four hours.
After the fireplace switch, she grabbed one of the chairs at a nearby table, and sat it on top of the sturdy table. Then she climbed up onto the table and then up on to the chair, from there she jumped into the air, and flipped the final switch that was hidden among the cross beams that ran across the ceiling on the inn lengthwise. She landed catlike on the floor on all fours and was rewarded with a smooth grinding sound of the mechanism activating. A the long mirror behind the bottles of spirits behind the bar slid down and revealed a complicated pattern etched into the wall.
Emile approached the newly revealed panel and began pressing various etchings in a very specific order. A mistake at this point would result in not only a twenty-four hour lockout from the system, but also in a barrage of darts from the panel she was operating. She also knew that each of the darts was dipped in a fast acting sedative that was designed to drop a large adult in seconds and leave them tranquilized for days, if they were lucky enough to wake up at all. It never occurred to her to be afraid however, this was her home.
After nearly a minute of perfect concentration, there was a grinding sound of metal on metal, and the false wooden floor behind the bar to her left opened revealing a steel hatch with runes etched on its surface. This part was easy, her father had explained to her that runes were enchanted so that only descendants of her great grandparents could open the hatch. He had also been careful to explain to her that it was possible that powerful wizards could break the lock and that absolutely no lock could ever be completely safe. Emile placed her hand on the panel and it spiraled open like an unfolding flower amidst a flash of orange and green light.
Now there was a stone staircase, and magic lit torches flashed on. If the door had been opened by any force other than her bloodline, her father had told her that the light from the torches would burn brighter and hotter until the eyes of anyone entering burned from their sockets. He would always laugh at this point, and explain that he did not know this for certain as he had never seen it, but that was how it had been explained to him.
At the bottom of the staircase was a room laden with treasure, some real, most false. Piles of gems, and chests of gold lined the walls and shelves. It was what Frederick called a fool’s bounty. Emile ignored the treasure and made her way to the far wall beneath the inn. The little green dragon had followed her, protected by the power of her presence, and absently mindedly she petted the dragon's head as she studied the chests on the wall.
Emile began rearranging the gems and golden treasures in the chests and on the shelves until at last with another flash of green and orange, a very simple looking door opened on the opposite wall. From beneath her shirt, on an enchanted silver chain around her neck Emile revealed a very simple looking key. The key looked simple to her, but to anyone else both key and chain were invisible and intangible to all except the most dedicated magic user. Even then, they would still need to know that they needed to be looking for the key to even try and find it.
“Right. Little dragon, this room is my birthright and by the power of my families name, the name of my mother and my grandmother, I bind you against your life of ever divulging the whereabouts or contents of this room to anyone.” The girl spoke with a deep and resonant voice, that echoed from within her and seemed to come from all around. The spell finished with a blue and then white light flashing around the little green dragon and then fading. The dragon looked momentarily stunned, and then once again nuzzled at Emile’s hand.
“Sorry about that, it’s family stuff. I hope it didn’t hurt.” Emile spoke, and this time in her own small voice.
The dragon looked up at her slightly confused, and seemed to accept the apology with its too big for its face eyes.
With a casual calmness, Emile placed the key in the lock, and vanished. The little dragon, recognized by the magic as a familiar, vanished as well. The physical location of the room Emile was in now was unknown to her. It was a simply furnished room, and magic light began to spread across the vastness of the room, seeming grow from the girl herself. This was not a treasure room, this was a war room.
The walls were lined with row upon row of weapons and armors, each placed upon rack or stand with a metal etched plaque describing the origin, use, and any other relevant information pertaining to the object. There were jewelry stands with rings, pendants, and all manner of enchanted accessories. Between many of the displays were maps in frames, many with vast numbers of annotations, scraps of paper connected to various places by twine. Bookshelves occupied a fair amount of space as well, and even in the magic glow, many of the books shined brighter and with a variety of colors. Musical instruments, some that began playing themselves in her presence, resided all along one entire wall. In the center of it all was an altar, glowing with its own light that somehow seemed to suck all the light out of the surrounding area and create dancing shadows all around its perimeter.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Emile smiled down at the dragon, and then began perusing the room. “I need equipment if I am going to make the journey to the University. Weapons, armor, tools, and a map.” She spoke out loud, absentmindedly to the dragon as the walked through the room, shaking her head as she went.
She was slight of frame, and small even for her young age. It did not take long for her to realize that there wasn’t a single piece of armor that she would be able to wear with any ease. She looked up at suits of platemail, shields that seemed to be larger than she was, and helmets that must have been for ogres. For a moment she worried that there would not be a single piece of armor in the room that she could wear. Then she saw what looked like a hood made of chainmail. It was definitely a hood, but on her she figured it’d cover her chest as well. She began skimming the bronze plaque attached to its stand.
Emile was trying to pull the stand down as she explained what the mail coif did, “It says that it’s enchanted with something called ‘Allbreath’ and that the wearer will never suffocate. Not even underwater or under sand. Sounds like they did a lot of testing on it to be sure. It said it would wrap the wearer's face and pull air out of the water or through the sand.” The stand would not budge, “Well, maybe I can climb up it, or something.”
She made her way back around the room, looking for a piece of furniture that wasn’t attached to the floor or wall when it occurred to her that she should just look for something that would let her reach higher. She quickly made her way over to a rack of amulets and skimmed the plaques below each one before snatching one up. The little dragon chirped at her as she went to put it over her head.
“Oh, don’t worry, I read the plaque. It’s just levitate. Everything in here is tested and marked.” She rose a few inches off the ground, “See? No problem. It says that it’s an incredibly low level enchantment, so it’s supposed to be slow…” She was hovering from the jewelry stand back to where the mail coif was on it’s display rack. Realizing how slow she was moving, she began to will herself up as well as over, and moved across the room diagonally at a snail’s pace.
Triumphantly she finally achieved her goal. She reach out for the mail coif, and draped it over her head. It fit loosely and hung down halfway to her chest. It also covered her shoulders, but some force kept it from sliding down. She reversed the invocation for the amulet and dropped to the floor. “Right! That takes care of armor, next I need a weapon!”
The same problem she faced with the armors quickly became apparent for most of the weapons. Staves, swords, maces, bows and crossbows, it was all much too heavy and much too big for her to carry let alone wield. Finally, on a small shelf mounted on the wall, she found a dagger that looked like it was small enough for her.
The blade was barely as long as her hand. Emile knew better than to pick up anything in this room without first reading the attached plaque, and this time she read most of it outloud for the sake of the dragon. Emile was nothing if not polite.
“Blade of three sides, found in the deepest part of Squanderer’s Respite (see coordinates below and map 22A for location) Description: The blades of the knife spiral out from the handle, creating a corkscrew like shape. The handle is bone (origin of bone yet to be determined) and the blade itself is some steel and silver composite. Appears to be enchanted thricely. One enchantment to grant to wielder temporary invisibility upon invocation (seems to require a 24 hour recharge time after each use [WARNING: does not seem to work on undead, further investigation required] see footnote for information upon invocation. The second enchantment seems to make the blade vibrate if held in the presence of someone lying. The third enchantment is still unknown. Reverse engineering the magical reaso-- um resonance signature indicates a third enchantment, however further investigation must be done.”
The little dragon let out a chirping noise at this, and Emile was broken from the spell of reading the bronze plaque. “Well, I’m taking it! I’m sure that the third enchantment is a good one. It’s small and it sounds super useful.” She reread the plaque again to herself, and pressed firmly to her memory the mental steps required to invoke the blade for invisibility. There was a leather sheath for the blade on the shelf next to it with a convenient belt loop, and Emile attached it to her own sturdy leather belt.
Having secured a weapon of sorts, and armor for her head at least, Emile made her way back over to the racks of magical jewelry. From a very young age she had listened to her father’s stories of her brave mother’s exploits, and Emile knew that only one magic ring could be worn on each hand, and that only one magic amulet could be worn at a time. Each jewelry stand was laid out like a grid with a reference number for each place that corresponded with a book nearby. The amulets were hung on the wall nearby, but she decided that slow or not the levitation amulet would suffice for the journey.
Now she was faced with a difficult decision. Emile was beginning to feel the pressure of time, thinking of her poor father as he was on the bed in the midwife’s house. When she left him, his features were still unmoving and his breath coming in the tiniest gasps so slowly that it had taken her ten minutes to convince the midwife that he yet lived. She pushed these terrible thoughts down and down, and tried to focus on reading the descriptions on the rings in the book attached to this rack of jewelry by a golden chain.
She read aloud now, “Column C, slot seven. Ring of Chain Lightning: Produces deadly bolts of lightning that jump from enemy to enemy. No recharge time. To be considered EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. High battlefield risk of friendly fire. Will not target the wearer or wearer’s familiar.” Emile paused and looked at the little green dragon, “Sounds good to me, it’s not like I’m going to be on a battlefield.” She read the chart on the ring stand and plucked up the silver ring. It hand the symbol of a thunderbolt on the inside. She put it on her left hand before returning to the book. She flipped to the back of the book where there was a section for footnotes and invocations, and she read this now.
She read as quickly as she could, dismissing most of the rings by their name alone, until she got to one with a name she did understand. She read, “Column H, slot nine, Ring of Kine- um, kin-es-ste-tic,” she sounded the syllables out one by one as her father had taught her and then repeated the word with more confidence, “kinesthetic dampening, storage, and redistribution.” The little dragon made another excited high pitched chirping sound. “Captures the force of any object or objects in motion within one hundred meter range and allows wearer to redistribute that force. EXTREMELY DANGEROUS if used improperly.” The dragon was letting out a series of the little chirps now and excitedly bumping its head against her hand. “Well I’m not sure what it means, but if you think I should I’ll take it.” She grabbed the ring from the rack and put it on her right hand. It felt much heavier than any ring had a right to. She quickly read the invocation for the second ring and pressed it to memory.
“Now we just need a map, and we can be on our way!”