Chapter 46 - For All Your Delving Needs

Truth told, I relished the chance to speak with someone other than a Barrowdown denizen, who were an especially rough bunch that I was starting to fit in with a little too well. After tea and small talk, Alondalis struggled to rise with his injury. Annalisa jumped off her chair to help him, and I half worried she’d injure him worse, but she surprised me with a gentleness I’d not seen in her prior. He nodded appreciatively and gestured up the narrow stairs to a loft above. We followed him to a workshop of sorts, with racks of blank wands, brewing equipment next to neatly stacked vials, and jars of ground herbs. Rolled charts backed with leather crowded shelves beside small gadgets. I resisted the urge to whistle. Annalisa did not.

“You’ve got it all, here!” she said. She pulled a map off the shelf at random and unrolled it, scrunching her nose at the diagrams. “This looks like Oildown.”

“Just underneath it, actually,” said Alondalis. “The underground areas near the unsheathings are of particular interest to the menders guild. There are herbs that help prevent the glow-steel sickness. You’ll want some if you’re headed near them.”

“We’re not sure where we’re headed,” I said. “Only that we need magical items. But treasure to buy magic items would work too. Preferably away from any adventurer activity.”

Alondalis hummed to himself and searched his shelves until he found a map that, as far as I could tell, looked like any other. “I may have just the thing. You’ll want the ruins beneath the western half of the middle city, then. That’s where many carnivorous monsters pass through to relieve themselves on their way to nests in the deep tunnels. Ordinarily, you’d rarely see one—or it would see you first, which is the less preferable of the two, I don’t mind telling you. But your gifts give you a unique advantage in that respect, yes? With luck, one day down, one day back up, and some clever divination, you’ll locate something.”

“Not the tunnels?” I asked. Then, back-tracking through what he said, “Hold on. Did you say relieve themselves?”

“Not that deep,” he replied. “Blessed blue, no. Not at rank three. And yes, those are areas in which certain species drop their waste.”

“Like a monster privy?” asked Annalisa.

“Precisely. You’ll find a great deal of excrement.”

“You want us to dig through monster excrement looking for magic items?” I demanded.

Alondalis spread the chart and made a series of annotations with a grease pen. “No, Darcent. You want you to dig through monster excrement. Anything big enough to pass an adventurer is likely beyond you. Not unlike humans, most monsters do not shit where they live. And they certainly do not shit where they eat.” he gave me a pointed look, and I nodded before he continued. “Check these areas, be wary of these ones.”

“Which is which?” I asked.

He turned the map on its side and squinted closer at it as he tapped his cheek. “Mmm. It varies from delve to delve. Best be wary of all, really.” He tapped his cheek. “Some of Margot Bethane’s Horrors are still kicking around those tunnels. But, if you can take one on, many either devoured or used to be adventurers. They’re all dangerous, but they’ll almost all have enchanted loot. Best not to go at all, if it can be helped. Considering you’re here in my workshop, I assume it truly can’t be.”

Annalisa shot me a look over the top of the map she was reading, but quickly looked back down when I glanced her way.

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I shook my head and ran a hand through my hair. “How do you even know all this?” I asked.

Alondalis turned to his cabinets. “It’s why I delve. Several of the plant species unique to the tunnels can be cultivated above the surface, but only when planted in fertilizer refined from local scat. Now, for your consumables.” He threw open the doors to reveal dozens of glass vials in neat rows. He plucked them, seemingly at random. But if the elf was to be believed, there was a method to his madness.

“The standard array includes a general antivenin, a coagulant, a burn salve, and a constitutional booster—the last you’ll especially need, with the unhygienic nature of your endeavor. Ingest the first, inject the second, apply the third, and what you’ll do with the last should not be discussed in polite company.”

“Are you serious?” I asked as the elf continued to root around. I glanced at Annalisa, who had her mouth clamped shut so hard veins stood out on her neck. She once again made the sign of a circle with her thumb and forefinger, which she moved the tip of her tail inexorably toward. I slapped the spade at the end of her tail before she could complete the vulgar gesture just as Alondalis turned back around. He’d put two of each of the vials into a small wooden carrying box designed to be worn on a belt, and I hoped they were appropriately labeled.

“Ordinarily, I would suggest at least two offensive combat wands per delver, but I won’t sell you those.”

“Why not?” I asked.

The elf met my eyes. “Because I know who you are, and I know what they call you in the downs. My gratitude does not extend to putting magical weapons in your hands that could be loosed in the streets of Dragonmaw. My conscience could not abide it.”

“What if I gave you my word that we’d only use them in the undercity?” I asked.

“Then you still certainly couldn’t afford them,” he replied.

“Ah, fair.”

He rummaged through another cabinet and withdrew a pair of scrolls. “I assume, unlike most seekers, you can evoke?” he asked.

I nodded. Word that I was a full-fledged Soul Seeker was slowly spreading, despite my best efforts. In a way, it was good. A shadowy mage running the downs was a lot easier to swallow than an upstart kid with a pack of cards in tattered robes. However, my magical prowess outside the Deck of Wills was even more stunted than my first three years as a Soul Seeker.

“Be wary of scroll-peddlers. Most are simply selling worthless scraps of parchment. Divine these if you like, but I can assure you, they are real.”

I didn’t get the impression the elf was the type to cheat a customer, knowing what I did about his sense of duty. So I took them without questioning their voracity, only their purpose.

“One is a scroll of sense magic items. Use it at the spots I mentioned. It should work at least three more times. The other is a scroll of frighten creature in case you bite off more than you can stomach.”

“Not a chance!” said Annalisa, pounding one fist into her opposite palm.

“In any case, it should work twice more,” said Alondalis. He put all the items into a ruck, along with a pair of smokeless alchemical lamps, a tool set, braided rope, and a handful of other bits and bobs that one might need in the undercity. After a moment, he hemmed to himself. “This should do it. Make sure you acquire more mundane bandages, antiseptics to clean anything you find, and provisions. And, of course whatever weapons you intend to bring—“ he looked at Annalisa who smiled back over the delving chart, “Unless… no,” he muttered something under his breath that sounded like “no one would be that foolish.”

Once all was assembled, the elf dusted his hand off. “All told, with the gratitude discount, this will total up to twenty-one cunnings. And I’ll let you borrow that book of wards, as well. I’ve also put some non-permeable sail cloth bags in this kit. If you bring any of that excrement back up, I’ll also take it off your hands at six cunnings a pound. Even if you find nothing but scat on your delve, a mere three bags will recoup the cost of the kit.”

Dragons above, it was a good thing I hadn’t mentioned the rat. Though, thinking of Brokier, I pulled the small purse he’d given me and handed it directly over to Alondalis. He turned it up on the desk, counted out the twenty-one pieces of silver with his good hand, and dropped the remaining three back into the leather bag. So much for discretionary funding. We’d better be able to find what we were looking for.

Annalisa grinned at me. “We have enough left for the clean water!”

You’d think a blue/black devilborn of ice and stone that delighted in beating enemies to a pulp wouldn’t have such a sunny disposition, but here we are. I suppose even glaciers have a silver lining.

I thanked the elf for the critical equipment and the book and left before he could offer us more tea and pleasantries.

There was still so much work to be done, and first of all was that book.

But I could feel Annalisa’s eyes on me as we left, and I knew the dreaded questions were coming.