Chronicles of Klept: Chapter XIII
The arena exploded into movement..
One of Thornstar’s hired brutes was already writhing on the ground, clutching his chest where Trunch’s eldritch blast had landed – steam rising from his tunic, his expression suggesting that he had suddenly remembered somewhere else he urgently needed to be.
Oliver Wolfhouse, Day’s initial opponent, hustled over to the official’s table, asked for his name to be crossed off the contestant list and promptly headed to the nearest morning ale merchant in the crowd.
Day moved toward Az like water – calm, fast, and quietly deadly. A low sweep, a rising elbow, a strike aimed clean at the orc’s center of balance.
It almost worked.
Az didn’t dodge. He didn’t block. He swatted. A massive forearm caught Day mid-motion and flung him sideways.
Day rolled, sprang up, and was immediately met by two of Thornstar’s mercs who rushed him at once. He dodged the first with ease, slipped behind the second with a twist of his shoulder. But numbers are numbers, and even water wears away stone. A knee caught him in the ribs. A club glanced off his temple. He staggered, blood at his lip, breath ragged.
Across the chaos, Wikis did something profoundly unwise and undeniably on-brand.
She climbed Az.
Not attacked him. Not flanked him.
Climbed.
Like a squirrel assaulting a tree that refused to give over its nuts, she leapt onto the orc’s back and began throttling him, first with her arms, then, when that failed, with her legs. He staggered, arms flailing, trying to grab her, dislodge her, reason with physics.
“Stop wriggling!” she hissed “I’m trying to put you to sleep.”
Az growled. Loudly. Then more loudly. He began to reach back
… and was cut off by a scream.
Umberto.
He descended upon Az like a small boulder wrapped in rage. Axe raised, chest out, grin feral. The first strike bit deep into Az’s side. The second nearly took his footing. Az roared, stumbled, then turned, and with a single massive swing of his arm, sent Umberto flying across the arena like a very angry sack of meat and testosterone.
Wikis, still latched around Az’s shoulders, blinked. “I think he likes me.”
From the moment he charged forward, Din had eyes only for Thornstar.
While fists flew and spells lit the air, Din cut through the battlefield with one purpose, chasing the embroidered menace who kept ducking behind hired meat like a nobleman dodging taxes.
Thornstar pointed. Shouted. Hid.
One of his goons stepped up. Din obliged.
He didn’t just fight, he punished. Every blow from his hammer sounded like a verdict. The poor sod blocking his path took the kind of beating that gets written into tavern songs under the heading “Regret.” When the man finally collapsed with a groan and a vow to become a florist, Din turned again, toward Thornstar, who had just stumbled behind another unfortunate soul.
A shadow flew across the arena.
Correction: Umberto flew across the arena having been batted aside by the huge orc.
Din blinked. Growled. And sprinted to him. He arrived just as Umberto sat up, dazed but still somehow posing. Din reached down—not gently—and yanked him to his feet. There was a beat. A breath. A smile. Then they slammed their weapons together, hammer against axe, in the most dude-bro high-five I’ve ever witnessed.
“For the beer!” they howled in unison, charging into the melee like two boars set loose in a festival tent.
Meanwhile, Trunch had other priorities.
After melting a man’s chest hair with an eldritch blast, he strode to Avelyn Goldwillow who was still clutching her scroll like a cursed artifact, and calmly placed a hand on her shoulder.
“This way,” he said, not unkindly pointing to the official’s table.
He walked her to the edge of the arena and deposited her near Tufulla.
“Please look after this one, Mr. Mayor Your Worshipness,” Trunch said flatly, before turning and blasting two more streaks of violet magic back into the fray without so much as looking.
Yak was art.
He appeared beneath Az like smoke under a door. Rolled, flipped, and carved a perfect slash across the back of a merc’s ankle. The man howled, spun, fell.
Yak, because of course, somersaulted dramatically, launched a dagger mid-air, and shouted: “Wikis!”
She caught it. Upside-down. Mid-strangle.
“Thank you!” she shrieked, and without hesitation jammed the blade toward Az’s face.
She missed the eye. Got the shoulder.
Az bellowed.
Carrie, watching from the sidelines with her arms crossed like a director watching a stubborn cast finally get it right, gave a nod. Then she stepped forward, snapped her fingers, and sent a burst of glitter so bright and violent it could’ve blinded the sun.
Az staggered back, roaring and rubbing his eyes.
The crowd?
Cheered. Coughed.
And would be finding sparkles in their boots and bedsheets for the next three weeks.
With a wild screech and an unnecessary cartwheel, Wikis launched herself off Az’s shoulders, twisting mid-air like a drunken bat on fire.
Her coat flared behind her—dramatically. Like a cape. A moment of pure, unfiltered heroism.
And it became very clear to the front three rows, the official’s table, and at least one passing hawk, that Wikis doesn’t bother with wearing anything else underneath.
The crowd saw.
All of it.
There was a collective gasp – less awe, more trauma. Children suddenly found their parent’s hands clapping over their faces. Someone in the crowd shouted “MY EYES!”
Wikis simply landed and immediately lunged for Az’s ankles.
Blades whirled. Steel clanged. Magic flared. Din and Umberto were locked in some kind of gleeful tag-team fury. Wikis was scuttling between Az’s ankles like a glitter-dusted rodent. Yak disappeared and reappeared with alarming frequency and suspicious souvenirs. Carrie barked orders like a general on opening night.
And then Az got serious.
He looked around, really looked.
Thornstar’s men were scattered and sprawled, groaning in the dirt or limping toward clerics. The crowd was jeering, drinks flying, and somewhere in the chaos, someone had tied ribbons to a fallen merc’s boots.
And Thornstar himself?
He was screaming. Red-faced. Spittle flying. Pointing at Az like an insult made flesh.
“Do something, you oversized disappointment! I paid for a champion, not a lumbering embarrassment! Handle it!”
Az didn’t move.
He just stood there, fists clenched, chest rising slow and deep. He looked at Thornstar. Then down at the unconscious merc near his feet. Then to the crowd—booing, chanting, ready to erupt.
But then,
Thornstar’s voice dropped. His posture shifted. And he gave Az a look.
Not one of rage or desperation.
Something colder. Sharper.
The kind of look that says: you know what I have. You know what I’ll do.
I understood at that moment. There was more than coin binding that orc.
There was a chain, invisible but ironclad. And Thornstar knew exactly how to pull it.
Az turned back to the fight, and the real damage began.
He roared, deep, guttural, the kind of sound that made bones remember their mortality. He kicked Wikis loose like a child flinging off a sandal. She hit the ground hard and didn’t bounce. Carrie rushed to her, and caught a backhand that knocked the wind out of her chest.
Az swept a hammering fist across the field. Din caught it with his ribs and staggered. Umberto landed a wild hit—Az grunted, then slammed him into the ground so hard the crowd winced in collective sympathy.
Yak went for the ankles again.
Az went for Yak.
Caught him by the hood and flung him like a skipped stone. He landed in a pile of hay and didn’t move for a moment.
Even Trunch’s blasts—steady, precise—were starting to slow, his breathing labored, his movements less theatrical and more strained.
Az stood at the center of it all, chest heaving, blood trickling down one arm—but still towering. Still ready. And for the first time since this farce began, I felt something cold inch up my spine.
They were losing.
And Thornstar was trying to sneak away.
He tiptoed toward the edge of the arena, ducked past a toppled crate, made it to the ropes.
“Hey!” someone yelled from the crowd. “You forgot your honor!”
Another voice: “You can’t slither out now, fancyboy!”
Then a mug hit him square in the back.
He yelped, yelped, and spun, only to be face-to-face with a burly woman holding another drink and a grin that promised violence.
“You want that tavern so bad, you gotta fight for it” She sneered and shoved him back into the arena.
He tried again on the far side. This time, two kids tripped him. A man dumped soup on his head. Someone, gods bless them, threw a cabbage.
Again and again, he tried.
Again and again, Dawnsheart shoved him back in.
The crowd wasn’t just watching anymore.
They were participating.
Az charged again.
A blur of muscle and fury, he drove straight through Trunch’s warding gesture, past Carrie’s flash of glitter, and into Din and Umberto with the force of an avalanche. Din’s hammer struck, but barely staggered him. Umberto swung wide, got caught mid-step, and tumbled back into the dirt.
Day moved in to intercept and was shoved aside like a curtain in a breeze.
Wikis scrambled to her feet, clutching something shiny and possibly stolen, and promptly got clotheslined back down with a grunt that sounded suspiciously like “oww.”
Az was a storm.
A brutal, relentless storm.
And they were the fence posts in its path.
Then, a slight shimmer in the air. A soft breeze.
The group stood straighter. Cuts closed. Limbs steadied. A second wind filled lungs still gasping.
From the sidelines Tufulla, High Reader and newly reluctant mayor, casually dusted off his sleeves, picked up an entire tart tray, and winked.
At Carrie.
She blinked, looked down at her newly unscraped knees, flexed her toes, and gave him a double thumbs up so suspiciously enthusiastic I half expected her to check her pockets for new organs.
“Berry tart?” Tufulla angled the tray towards me nonchalantly, “I’m told the berries are from Brightbriar.”
I raised an eyebrow at him, but it wasn’t the tart that had my attention. It was the spell itself.
Subtle. Elegant. A whisper wrapped in silk and scripture. No arcane fanfare. No holy thunder. Just… grace, hidden in plain sight.
And the crowd? Not a gasp. Not a protest. Not even a raised eyebrow.
They were too busy watching the glitter-covered halfling and the flying hammer and the orc-shaped wrecking ball to notice.
I glanced nervously at the judges. At the stands.
Surely someone saw it.
Perhaps they missed it.
Perhaps they didn’t care.
Tufulla just shrugged.
That was the moment.
Din roared. Umberto howled. Trunch summoned a crackling lance of shadow, and Carrie drew her blade with flair.
And a fist arrived.
Din’s spiritual weapon—a spectral gauntlet the size of a horse head—arched through the air like divine justice on deadline.
WHAM!
A holy uppercut. Full arc. Straight into Az’s chin.
The orc lifted off the ground.
Fully airborne.
Time slowed.
Az twisted in the air.
People gasped.
crash.
He slammed into the dirt face-first with a grunt that knocked dust into the third row.
Silence.
Then Yak cartwheeled in and began playing bongo drums on Az’s prodigious, glistening buttocks.
Carrie stood over the fallen orc and blasted a bagpipe note directly into his unconscious face.
Umberto stepped up, one foot firmly planted atop Az’s head like he’d just slain a dragon, arms raised to the sky like a statue of masculine ego.
Wikis didn’t celebrate.
She immediately dropped to her knees and began rifling through Az’s pouches with all the focus of a raccoon in a cutlery drawer.
Trunch stood ready, hands raised, knuckles crackling with energy, just in case.
Din, grinning wider than I’d ever seen, turned to his spectral fist and fist-bumped it.
And then, as the dust settled, and, out of the corner of my eye, I caught it.
Day.
Adjusting his ponytail.
Light pierced the clouds.
Somewhere, a choir hummed.
Time itself gave him a moment.
I wrote it down.
Az lay still, a mountain finally toppled, his breath stirring only the dust.
The group stood victorious, scraped, bruised, glitter-dusted, and grinning.
Wikis had found three pouches, a boot dagger, and something that might’ve been a love letter. Din was inspecting the spiritual fist like a proud parent. Umberto posed like he was expecting a statue to be commissioned on the spot. Carrie had launched into an off-key bagpipe rendition of what sounded like a funeral dirge, but may also have been a drinking song.
For a moment, everyone forgot.
And then …
“What a waste,” came a voice, sharp and venomous. “You great lumbering oaf! Weak. Pathetic. An embarrassment.”
We turned.
Thornstar stood in the center of the makeshift arena, shouting at the unconscious orc. “I paid for strength! For results! And you … you’re just another failure!”
He sneered. Loud enough for everyone to hear.
That was his mistake.
Umberto growled. Carrie snapped her fingers. Trunch began charging a spell. Thornstar turned and started to walk away.
Wikis calmly drew an arrow, aimed, and thwip.
The arrow landed squarely in Thornstar’s backside.
He yelped. Clutched his rear like it had betrayed him. Stumbled. Tried to run.
Umberto roared and sprinted after him, caught him within five strides, tackled him with enough force to make the ground wince, and pinned him like a display rug.
Thornstar flailed, squealed, squirmed. But it was over.
The group encircled him.
He looked around.
One merc was groaning on the sidelines. Two more were being half-carried by clerics. One had disappeared entirely. And Az… was still unconscious, face-down, with a bagpipe mouthpiece wedged gently into one ear.
Thornstar sagged. His arms dropped. His head hung.
“I yield,” he muttered, voice barely above a cough. “I yield.”
The crowd didn’t cheer.
They exploded.
Hats flew. Drinks spilled. Someone threw a pastry. A chant began, disorganized but jubilant.
As Thornstar sulked in the dirt clutching his backside, caked in dust, and stripped of every last shred of dignity, the officials, after a very brief deliberation (and an overwhelmingly raucous cheer from the crowd), stood and announced:
“The winners of the Brawl for Legal Ownership of the Property Currently Known as the Goblin’s Grin… are hereby declared!”
The crowd erupted. Again.
Umberto and Din, exhausted but positively buzzing at the idea of tavern ownership, immediately chorused, “Hand over the keys then!”
“Well, there is the matter of signing the property deed,” one of the officials replied. “It must be witnessed by an official from the Office of Records and a high-ranking member of the governing council.”
“What about her?” Day asked, pointing at Avelyn. “Doesn’t she work for the Office of Records? The shithead with the arrow in his butt seemed to think she did.”
The officials all turned to look at Thornstar in unison, and shook their heads.
“And, I believe the Mayor is right there,” Carrie chimed sweetly, pointing at Tufulla, who promptly wiped pastry crumbs off his chest and pretended to look the other way “Does he rank high enough?“
“Perfect,” beamed Din.
Umberto’s fingers twitched toward an official. “Deed,” he demanded.
One by one, signatures were scrawled across the parchment—some messy, some practiced, one drawn with an unnecessary flourish. Avelyn and Tufulla signed last, exchanging a look of shared disbelief. Hands were shaken. A heavy brass key was ceremoniously handed over.
Din and Umberto held the deed aloft like a pair of revolutionaries who’d just liberated a liquor license. The key passed reverently between the group like a holy relic. The officials pointed them toward the building itself, and with cheers still echoing in the square, they marched off in the direction of their new, ramshackle future.
Meanwhile, Thornstar, freshly healed, though not nearly enough to remove the limp or the glitter, limped toward the unconscious form of Az.
He stood over him for a long moment.
Then spat.
On him.
It was the ultimate insult. The kind that didn’t just reek of disrespect, it marinated in it.
“This isn’t over,” he muttered.
A short, elderly woman nearby, dressed in ten layers of shawls and chewing something aggressively, bent down and plucked a tooth from the dirt. Possibly human. Definitely recent.
“Ooh,” she grinned, popping it into a gap in her front row. “Perfect fit. I knew it was gonna be a lucky day!”
Then, turning to Thornstar with the casual confidence of someone who’d survived six wars and a mule cart accident, she said:
“Oi, Fancy boy. Piss off and get over yourself. You lost. Even after you tried changin’ the rules”
Thornstar stared at her. She stared right back, daring him to say something.
He didn’t.
He just scowled, turned, and hobbled off,still limping, still glittery, still muttering threats into the air.
And me?
I looked at the group, laughing, cheering, covered in bruises and glitter and at least one smear of celebratory pie.
I don’t know why I followed them.
Habit, maybe. Curiosity. Fate, if you believe in that sort of thing.
But as the new owners of the Goblin’s Grin made their way toward the crumbling tavern I picked up my journal, flipped to a fresh page, and went with them.
The Chronicles of Klept 