I had been left many gifts by our various guests. Cabochon had swept out the nacre-spider nests in the sewers, finally retrieving our true haul from the Night of White Fires; dozens of people fleeing in the confusion had been snatched up and eaten, leaving behind both the money they had brought to bid, and sometimes, prizes from the auction itself.

The kobold spread them out before me in Aurum’s cavern, the great snake eyeing the golden spoils with interest. Already his horde was growing, a small pile of jewels taken from the chaos of the auction and from numerous little heists across the city wrapped up in his scales as I slowly converted them to Shards.

With the kobold as our hands, we began to examine the yield.

A box sealed with a royal cachet in wax yielded a cluster of pale blue stones that, when they came into contact with air, converted it into fresh pure rainwater. The moment the box was opened it began to overflow.

Three pouches contained grooved, teardrop-shaped seeds the color of rich earth, which I would grow when I found an appropriate chance.

There was sadly no sphinx-bone tea set, but I did recover a pair of dice carved from crocodile bone. A subtle enchantment of luck was imbued into them.

As for enchanted blades, I had a half-dozen by now. From a snake-curved dagger enchanted by a single rune built into the grip, to a long rapier with red silk wrapped around the pommel and a beautiful hilt in the shape of a snarling lionshead, my collection would have been the pride of many blacksmiths.

Preeminent among them all was the Mane Dagger, that piece of sky made sharp. But I would never sacrifice that. Most of what I’d acquired was just tat to be spent, one way or the other. The dagger was family. A piece of my creator’s mind.

A hint at my name.

There were thirteen pieces in Master Varhalein’s final work. Thirteen, after the bells of Caltern.

The Mane Dagger rested in my possession, and there were eleven more scattered to the winds of the city. The final piece had been my own ring. If I knew which bells the other twelve pieces of Varhalein’s legacy were named after, the last remaining name would be my own.

I had never taken Suffi up on her offer to give me a Name. A pissant like her had no right. But if there was any human I would suffer to Name me, it was the master who had crafted my ring.

And there was another reason to seek them.

I had found a subtle enchantment worked into the Mane Dagger, infusing it with a faint resonance. It made no sense, had no clear function, but the more I studied it the more I realized I was looking at one part of a complex whole. An enchantment split into thirteen parts.

One fragment of that spell had already been lost with the destruction of my ring, but if I had the other twelve I could perhaps restore the whole.

For now… I began by eating the bastard sword, dissolving away its metal so that the underlying diagrams of spellwork were left behind. They quickly threatened to dissipate into the air without something to anchor to, and so I gave them my Mana, creating a cloud of blue-ish light that the golden designs swam through. Evidently this wasn’t enough to form a Blessing, so I quickly devoured the rest, letting their designs flit up to join the cloud.

Clashing patterns of golden lines kaleidoscoped and rotated, falling into place with one another. As the designs intermeshed they collapsed, shrinking smaller and smaller, and I condensed the cloud to match, drawing it in. Soon a sphere of blue lined with shifting gold hung in the air above the kobold, like a strange moon.

With a final rotation the diagrams seemed to solve themselves, condensing to a single spark and sucking the last of my Mana with them. The spark hovered in the air and slowly drifted down towards the kobold, who reached out his scaly hands.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

It touched him, and for an instant golden lines wrapped around his scales. Then they were gone, dissolved into his being.

[ Gold-Streaked Kobold ]

Forming an attunement in its egg to a nearby source of draconic blood, this kobold has taken on draconic traits from Aurum, its spiritual sire. It will serve with faith and affection all its life.

Blessing of Steel: This minion may conjure blades at will, manifesting more powerful ones as its skills in swordsmanship increase.

As an experiment, it was entirely successful. For practical purposes I couldn’t imagine what this runty little creature would do with such a power.

He just seemed to amuse himself with it, conjuring a knife to his hand, then dissappearing it. Scrambling up Aurum’s scales to get the big snake’s attention, he called up the crude little metal shiv and then made it blink back out of existence; he spread out his four-fingered hands as if to say it really was gone, barking in amusement.

Aurum, to my surprise, humored him, swaying his head back and forth and peering all around as if confused by the little magic trick. When the knife made its reappearance he reeled back in faux-shock.

I could have sighed. He really was spoiling the kobold. I had never coddled any of my minions this way.

And to be a honest for a moment, I was jealous of the attention the little creature got. He should have known his place, with his runty little blunt nose and unblinking amber eyes. Bah.

[https://i.imgur.com/okCjs7y.png]

“How about we try not eating this time?” Trivelin suggested, as they came upon the table. It was not the first time he’d made the suggestion.

And it was not the first time Umi went on to completely ignore him, grabbing a skewer of fish and ripping away chunks of fried, flaky mahi mahi. “Gotta eat. Keep up our strength.” She grunted between bites.

Trivelin sighed.

They were trapped in a maze, an ever-shifting assortment of strange, blank white-marble hallways perfectly squared in dimensions. The monotony of walking through endless white made the table’s appearance seem like a miracle at first.

At first.

It was a table laden with every kind of good food, with an enormous roast boarshead at the center on a platter lined with carrots and apples. Jellies and little cakes. Baskets of fresh crumbly bread and pies, sweet and savory, and oh yes, little cakes again. Racks of ribs and bowls full of kidney stew. Fresh butter. Marmalade jam.

Holding Umi back had been futile. When she seemed unlikely to keel over from poisoning, Trivelin had joined in.

And then, when nothing had happened, no terrible death or sudden opening of a door, they’d continued on their way and left the bones and rinds behind. The next day they’d found the table again, its banquet refreshed. Their surmise had been that it was to keep them from starving while they navigated the maze.

Now Trivelin wasn’t so sure.

“Yes, but I was thinking, what if we don’t? We keep coming back here, and nothing else about the maze changes. What if this is the challenge? We’ve tried eating. Let’s try not.”

“I’m starving, how about you can try fasting.” Umi suggested, already reaching for the ribs. God, they were delicious too. Trivelin’s considerable belly rumbled as he watched her teeth tear into the tender, blueberry glazed flesh.

“I did. Yesterday.”

“So then, it didn’t work. We’re still here.” Bones littered the ground as she demolished the table, eating like twelve men combined. They were always gone when the two returned the next day.

“Because you ate!” Trivelin’s teeth ground together. “We both have to try passing it up, if we ever want to get out of here. What else is there? Going around in circles forever?”

“You make a good point. Excellent point. I’ll consider that.” Umi said, mouth full. “Tomorrow. I’ll consider it tomorrow.” And she tossed him an apple.

Trivelin grumbled, hiding his sour expression behind a bite of the fruit. Oh, if only he had his usual little vial of poison. That would settle this moron. Maybe she was part of the Tower’s games, and the challenge was not to strangle her.