Chronicles of Klept: Chapter VII
For reasons that I’m still not sure of, I followed the group as they sought the previously promised payment from the mayor.
When they returned to Roddrick’s office, they found him hunched in a corner, visibly sweating, while a glittering, furious fairy paced across his desk like a litigious stormcloud.
Evidently, sometime during the cathedral attack, this winged individual had stormed their way into his office seeking compensation for past services rendered.
Unfortunately for Roddrick, today was a spectacularly poor time to forget where he put the city’s coin.
Roddrick’s office is not designed to accommodate high drama. It is a space meant for hushed civic whispers, quiet corruption, and the delicate art of losing money in increasingly creative ways. It is not, and I cannot stress this enough, meant to host a shouting match between a magical debt collector, several injured mercenaries, and a gnome in the throes of romantic euphoria.
Which is precisely what was happening.
By the time Din arrived, the volume in the room had reached ‘tavern on fire’ levels.
“—you promised five hundred gold each!”
“This is exactly why I stopped doing guild work!”
“You don’t understand fairy contract law, sweetheart, and you do not want to!”
“My bow is broken and my wallet is empty!”
“I will hex your ancestors so hard your childhood gets repossessed!”
Roddrick sat hunched behind his desk, a man rapidly attempting to dissolve into paperwork. His mouth flapped ineffectually as insults flew like enchanted daggers. I’m fairly certain someone threw an actual dagger at one point. It missed. Barely.
The fairy, who I feel compelled to note had not stopped hovering on his desk this entire time, was brandishing what appeared to be a glittering invoice.
Din entered with Umberto slung over his shoulder. The gnome was clutching a piece of parchment to his chest with the sacred reverence usually reserved for holy relics. There was sincerity in the gesture, along with the unmistakable expression of someone who was absolutely going to show it to everyone at the earliest inconvenient moment.
Din, to his credit, simply looked up and muttered, “What did I miss, apart from the Fairy?”
“Everything,” Wikis snapped.
Trunch gestured vaguely. “Roddrick doesn’t have the money.”
Din blinked. “You mean on him?” He gently placed Umberto on the floor. The gnome stirred, as if the sheer volume of irritation in the room had finally reached a frequency only a barbarian could hear. His eyelids fluttered, lips parting in a soft groan that somehow managed to sound both confused and indignant. I watched, half-curious, half-concerned, as the aura of rising tension acted like smelling salts to his subconscious. Anger, it seemed, was his natural habitat—and it was calling to him.
“No,” said Day. “We mean at all. He doesn’t have any money”
Umberto moved with the startled grace of a sleeping cat beside a dropped pot—jolting upright, eyes wide, muscles tensed for a fight that hadn’t started yet but surely would. The parchment, previously cradled in his grip, was shoved without ceremony or clear spatial logic into the folds of his loincloth. And just like that, he was part of the argument, shouting as if he’d never fainted.
I was about to lose track of who had threatened Roddrick with what bodily curse or overly large weapon, when the side door creaked open.
And in stepped Tufulla.
His robes were slightly damp from where he’d cleaned himself up after his earlier, urn-bound breakfast expulsion. His expression was unreadable. His walk was slow, careful, deliberate—like a priest returning to find his congregation had redecorated with explosives.
He didn’t say anything at first. He just surveyed the room.
The bloodied adventurers.
The shrieking fairy.
The cowering Roddrick, who had just blurted, “Look, I may have moved a few emergency funds into discretionary non-vital initiatives, but that’s just local governance!”
And that was it.
Tufulla raised one hand and the room went quiet. Not magically, not with a spell, but with the kind of heavy silence that only falls when someone enters with absolute moral authority.
He stepped fully into the room. Then, with the same calm resolve he used when walking across the water during the festival, he pointed to me.
“Klept,” he said. “Record this.”
I nodded, slid to the corner, sat cross-legged, and did as instructed.
Tufulla turned to Roddrick.
“Lord … Mayor Roddrick… I hereby place you under citizen’s arrest, on charges of embezzlement, misappropriation of city funds, and gross dereliction of civic responsibility.”
Roddrick’s jaw wobbled. “You can’t…”
“I can,” Tufulla said, and turned to the guards. “Remove him.”
The guards, to their credit, didn’t wait for further clarification. One of them actually smiled.
Roddrick barely got out a “This is highly irregular!” before the fairy, still hovering at chest height, raised a hand and said:
“Oh, sweetheart.”
She plucked a tiny set of bagpipes from seemingly nowhere, inflated them with a single breath, and with a shrill, glorious wheeze played a painfully dissonant chord and then sang.
“You walk like your father didn’t stick around and your tailor actively hates you.”
The taunt slid from her tongue like a dagger, and something invisible hit him a heartbeat later. His eyes blinked hard, as though the insult had struck behind them instead of in front. He let out a wounded squawk.
As he was dragged out, red-faced, and visibly lower on the self-worth scale, the fairy slowly floated down onto the desk, re-folded her bagpipes, and looked around.
Tufulla turned to the group clustered in Roddrick’s office..
“I believe you are owed payment,” he said simply. “And while the city apparently cannot provide it, the Church can. You’ve earned that at least. How much were you promised?”
“Three hundred,” The fairy answered brightly, beaming with the self-assured charm of someone who knew they were the favorite.
“Five hundred,” replied Umberto, Din, and Wikis in near-perfect unison.
The fairy’s smile grew…
“Five hundred each,” Day added, without looking up.
…until it didn’t. The smile wilted. She turned to them, blinking.
“Wait—you’re getting how much?”
There was a pause. Then Yak, from somewhere behind the group,
“Hold up. We’re getting paid for this?”
Tufulla did not respond.
A small, slow sigh escaped him—less breath, more financial grief made audible.
Then, “I believe the church will be able to compensate you. You’ve already done more than anyone could have asked. You’re under no obligation to continue. But…”
“Well, I’ve got nothing else going on this week,” the fairy said to the room at large, and with a dramatic twirl, a small curtsy mid-air, and a name delivered like it should already be famous introduced herself “My name’s Carrie, by the way. Carrie the Fairy.”
Only Trunch responded.
He bowed his head, smiled, and said something polite, possibly poetic.
The rest of the group offered varying degrees of noncommittal acknowledgement: a grunt from Din, a vague nod from Day, Umberto, simply pulled out his piece of parchment and sighed. Yak blinked, which might have been a greeting. Wikis started checking her own pockets.
Carrie didn’t seem to mind. If anything, she appeared delighted to have an audience too stunned to respond properly.
Tufulla glanced back through the doorway to the cathedral, his voice softer now. “As I was saying, if you’re willing… we could still use your help.” He gestured for them to follow him as he made his way back into the recently defiled sacred space. “This way. I’ll get the money you are owed.”
There’s a certain weight to being asked for help. A quiet gravity, like you’ve just been handed a sacred relic, or a baby, or a bomb with a very slow fuse. In this case, it was all three, disguised as an offer from a kindly priest with the faint smell of bile still clinging to his robes.
Tufulla walked to the middle of the cathedral, face lit by the sunlight filtered through the surviving panes of stained glass. Nearby, the altar stood cracked (a misguided eldritch blast from Trunch) and a large window next to the main door stood shattered. He had already moved the bodies of my fellow Readers off to one side, covered them with cloth and presumably, said a prayer.
“Should I come back when you’ve finished redecorating?” Carrie asked
“There was an attack,” Tufulla said
Yak leaned casually against a broken column and flicked a chip of stone with a dagger.
“We took care of it.”
Carrie gave an impressed little gasp and clapped her hands together in a way that managed to be both sincere and faintly alarming.
Tufulla’s voice was steady, measured—his words the kind that usually made people listen whether they wanted to or not.
“On top of that, there’s been a concerning report,” he began. “From Nelb.”
My eyebrows raised. The cabbage capital of the valley wasn’t exactly known for its political intrigue or magical warfare. Vegetables, yes. Trouble? Less so.
Tufulla continued, “I believe it may be connected to this” he gestured around the room, “and to the festival attack. I believe the Dan’del’ion Court is behind it. Their sudden reemergence, the recent events, it can’t be coincidence. I believe the Dan’del’ion Court seeks to regain power again”
A pause followed. The kind of pause that usually leads into a hush of realization. A shared gasp. Perhaps even a dropped mug in the distance.
Instead, the group exchanged glances.
Not alarm. Not dread.
Just a series of furrowed brows, sideways looks, and subtle head-tilts.
It hit me then.
They had no idea what Tufulla was talking about.
No context. No history. Not even the courtesy of a vague sense of unease. Just six battle-worn strangers and a fairy suddenly faced with a name that meant as much to them as a particularly obscure salad dressing.
“Or at least are trying to” he continued almost dismissively. “You’re under no obligation,” he added. “Truly. You’ve already done more than could have been asked of you. But your… unconventional methods may be precisely what is needed.”
There was another pause.
Then,
“Define ‘connected’,” Wikis said flatly. She was sharpening something that was already unnecessarily sharp.
“I agree,” said Trunch. “We need to understand the scale of the risk. What exactly do you suspect, High Reader?”
Tufulla nodded. “I believe the Dan’del’ion Court has once again grown in numbers. Perhaps someone with a distant claim to leadership has come out from the shadows. It seems like they are testing boundaries, and about to make a much larger play. I think the festival was just the beginning, and unfortunately, I think the entire Humbledoewn Valley and in time, all of Elandaru, is about to be drawn into something unpleasant.”
“Great,” Din muttered. “So more danger. More questions. Probably some running.”
He glanced sideways at Umberto, who was adjusting his loincloth with the serene confidence of someone who would absolutely flirt with a banshee just to see if it worked.
“Almost certainly,” Umberto grinned.
“Say we help” Wikis had put the sharp thing away, for now, “How will you help us help you?”
“Some encouragement wouldn’t hurt,” Yak added helpfully. “Money?, Up front as a gesture of good faith.”
“Potions,” Day said simply.
“Something specific,” Trunch said, “to counter the threat we’re being asked to face.
Tufulla didn’t hesitate.
“Follow me”, He moved behind the pulpit. Pressed a panel.
And with all the drama of a divine stage production, a trap door creaked open.
“Oh, great,” Wikis muttered. “A hidden stairwell. That’s definitely how I wanted today to end.”
Tufulla just smiled and started down.
Stone gave way to older stone as we descended the old stairs. The air grew cooler, and the smell shifted from incense and old parchment to something metallic and oiled.
And then the chamber opened before us.
Tufulla gestured for everyone to enter “Hopefully you’ll find something here that will suffice?’
It was a vault—not gaudy, not opulent—but meticulously maintained. Walls lined with racks of weapons, armor, potions in neatly labeled crates, scrolls bound with wax seals, and one long shelf full of very serious-looking things in velvet-lined boxes. A private armory. Hidden beneath a church. I’d been down here before, of course. Let’s just say Tufulla and I have shared enough midnight conversations and grim hypotheticals to justify me knowing where the sharp things are kept. Tufulla headed across the room to a large wooden chest against the far wall while the others stood, staring.
“Oh,” Din breathed. Then, louder: “Oh, yes. This is very good.”
He moved immediately to the wall of weapons, reverently running a hand along the haft of a massive hammer like it was a holy relic and he’d just found a new religion.
“So. Many. Shiny. Things.” Wikis blinked, eyes wide.
I saw her gaze snag on a small, gleaming pendant half-tucked beneath a folded cloth. She didn’t move toward it, but her fingers flexed slightly at her sides.
“Everything’s so shiny.” Her voice was hushed with awe, but her hand had already gone to the dagger on her belt, as if expecting this to be some kind of deeply convincing trap.
Umberto stood motionless, eyes wide, lip trembling. “It’s fucking beautiful,” he said, voice cracking slightly.
Trunch didn’t step forward. He just looked at Tufulla, brow furrowed.
“This is a considerable collection, for a priest,” he said carefully.
Tufulla didn’t respond immediately.
“For protection,” he said at last, crossing back across the room with a pile of small leather pouches in hand.
Carrie floated a lazy circle around the room, gave a low, impressed whistle, and clapped twice. “Finally,” she said, “I was worried this would be boring..”
Yak was already testing daggers. One in each hand, flipping them lightly, checking their weight, balance, and the satisfying ‘shk’ they made going into and out of their sheaths.
“Ooooh, this one sings,” he said, grinning. “And this one” he spun it in his fingers “this one purrs.”
Then, Day.
He stood at the threshold, looking around slowly. At the weapons, at the structure, the lighting, then asked quietly.
“Protection from what? You want to tell us what this is all really for?”
Tufulla met his gaze.
“I suppose you’ve earned that—along with this.”
He handed each of them a small leather pouch, the quiet clink of coin inside punctuating the moment.
“You’ve already risked your lives helping… and now I’m asking you to potentially do more. There’s something I need to confess.”
“You’re not really a priest,” Yak blurted out from a rack of daggers
“You’re in love with me,” said Carrie at the exact same time, beaming.
“I am a member of a group called the White Ravens. We were originally founded centuries ago as part of the rebellion against the Dan’del’ion Court. After their demise, we sought out scattered, remaining members, doing what we could to ensure they didn’t return. We still exist, not many of us, but still hoping to ensure they never return.” Tufulla responded.
“Lame. My idea was better” Carrie sighed as she went back to casually observing a collection of oddly shaped blades.
“You keep talking about these dandelion folk” Umberto grunted as he swung a large double headed axe, “what’s so scary about a bunch of people who named themselves after a puffy flower?”
“Dan’del’ion. Dan – Del – Leon” Tufulla pronounced the word, gently, as if uttering it would immediately summon them “A past nobel house who ruled the valley and neighbouring regions for hundreds of years through tyranny and fear. The darkest period of their rule coincided with the rise of the vampiric Lord Ieyoch”
“And you’re worried they have returned” Trunch ws trying on a piece of leather armor, soft wisps of smoke curled up from the pauldrons as he clipped the final buckle into place.
“Yes – the festival attackers all had Dan’del’ion medallions on their person. Klept will fill in in more on the history of the Dan’del’ion Court and their rule on the way to Nelb.”
I blinked.
“Pardon?”
“You’ll accompany them of course. You’ll record what they find. What they face. Your knowledge of history, the Court, and of the Valley, may prove invaluable. You’ll serve as the Church’s official Chronicler of Events for this investigation.”
I opened my mouth to protest.
Umberto groaned audibly.
“You’re assigning us a chronicler?” he said, as if Tufulla had just handed him a newborn. “Do you know how much danger I personally attract? Do you want this poor man exploded before he even finishes a foreword?”
“I don’t explode easily,” I offered, though this was an untested theory.
“Great,” Umberto muttered. “Now I have to worry about the narrative getting cut short.”
Then, under his breath:
“Come along then, Chronicler. Try not to die while taking notes.” Each of them had taken something from the shelves and racks adorning the walls of the room.
“So. An investigation. You want us to check out Nelb and see what’s going on?” Trunch looked at Tufulla.
Tufulla surveyed the collection of people in front of him “Poke around, see if my suspicions are correct. Gather whatever evidence you can. Try not to hurt anyone who doesn’t deserve it,” he glanced nervously at Umberto.
Wikis’ eyes narrowed. “What if they do deserve it?” She was testing the tension of a bow.
“Get what information you can from them and deal with them the way you think necessary.”
“My favorite kind of investigation” came a voice from the shadows. I flinched, almost forgetting Yak was there.
Tufulla turned to me “When you arrive, take them up to Brandt’s house – he’ll fill you in with more details.” I looked at him pleadingly, quietly begging him to reconsider leaving my life in the hands of this lot.
“I’m sure they’ll keep you safe,” Tufulla said, casting his eyes around the room. “Probably.”
I’ve heard more convincing reassurances from cheese merchants.
“So, can I assume you’ll accept?” Tufulla asked them with a raised eyebrow.
There was another moment of silence. I looked around. This was it, I thought. This was where they said no. Thanked the priest, put their new toys back on the shelves, and went somewhere less fatal.
But no.
They agreed. One by one, without drama. No fanfare. No oaths.
Just that quiet, strange energy they all carry—the kind that makes you think maybe destiny is less about fate, and more about who’s too stubborn to walk away.
We climbed the stairs from the cathedral basement in silence, boots echoing off stone.
No one said it aloud, but we all felt it: the shift. Whatever this had started as, it was something else now.
Outside, morning had settled into itself. Dawnsheart bustled in the distance with the ignorant cheer of a town not yet caught up to the chaos inside its most sacred walls.
We exited the cathedral, one by one.
I followed last, with the kind of reluctance that wasn’t about fear of injury, but of inevitability. I’d seen enough in the past day to know what followed this group wasn’t just danger.
It was chaos. Messy, relentless, inconvenient chaos.
And I wasn’t ready for it.
Tufulla remained behind, already crossing the nave with quiet determination, moving through fractured light and fractured things. Broken glass scattered across the floor. Cracked pews leaning like wounded men. The deep, red marks that no scrubbing would fully erase. And the bodies of two fallen Readers, still shrouded in silence and duty.
There would be rituals. There would be questions.
But not yet.
We turned toward the stables. The plan was simple: hire a cart. Head to Nelb.
It didn’t feel like much of a plan.
But it was something.
Halfway across the town square, Umberto, nudged Yak with the subtlety of a falling brick.
“Who’s the fairy?” he muttered, eyes narrowing.
Yak shrugged without looking up, hands tucked casually into his sleeves.
“Not really sure,” he said, as if it weren’t worth investigating further.
Then, without ceremony, he produced a pastry from one of those same sleeves and took a thoughtful bite.
And honestly?
That felt about right.
She had appeared in the middle of a crisis, brandishing bagpipes and biting insults, and somehow never left. Like a song that had started playing during a fight and inexplicably became the theme tune.
She was, by all appearances, chaos given wings.
And for this particular group?
She fit perfectly.
The Chronicles of Klept 