Chronicles of Klept

Surprise!

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Chronicles of Klept: Chapter XXI

There’s a peculiar phenomenon that occurs when a group recounts a shared event—particularly when they’re a few mugs deep before the telling even begins. Certain voices rise. Others drift.
Arguments flare over the inconsequential: what color someone’s socks were, whether it was raining, or who tripped over the barstool. But there’s always a shared certainty when it comes to the crucial parts: who threw the first mug, which chair was sacrificed, and the role the skeletal cat played.

So it was with this lot, as they described what happened after Jonath revealed himself to be very much… not Jonath.

As a scribe, I have spent years recording a large number of recounted events.
Some were miraculous. Others, less so.
I once documented a farmer’s sworn testimony that his barnyard animals had begun speaking fluent Dwarvish at dawn. Another time, I transcribed no fewer than seven witness accounts of a berry crop that bore the unmistakable smiling likeness of Jovian, the god of merriment and mischief.

But none of those stories involved quite so much flying furniture, secondhand bravado, or fire.

This is what happens when the man unconscious on your bar turns out not to be the man you thought he was.

“He was fast,” Umberto cut in, standing and nearly toppling his chair. “Like really fast. One second he’s clapping like a smug prick, next, bam!, Tufulla’s about to get his throat rearranged.”

He mimed the lunge, tipping over a stool in the process.

“Furniture went flying,” Carrie added, hand to her chest like she was giving testimony at a murder trial. “I leapt over the table and threw a candleholder at him. Saved Tufulla’s life.”

“You tripped on the stool,” Day corrected. “The candleholder missed.”

“But it drew his attention away from Tufulla” Carrie retorted.

Wikis winced. “He moved like he knew where every piece of cover was. Slid behind the bar, rolled across the table, flipped a stool in Umberto’s path.”

“I’m not sure he was ever really unconscious” Trunch countered, “He seemed to have a pretty good understanding of each of us, and of the place. I think he’d been awake and listening.”

Yak stood suddenly. “I was here,” he said, dramatically stepping onto a nearby bench. “He was there.” He pointed at nothing. “The air was thick with tension. The molotovs hadn’t even…”

“No molotovs yet,” Din interrupted.

“Right. No fireball cocktails. But the energy was electric.” Yak leapt down, spun, mimed drawing twin daggers. “I vaulted the bar, caught the edge, swung around, landed silently behind him…”

“Molotov cocktails?” I asked raising an eyebrow.

“Not yet” Din replied flatly

“Anyway, I vaulted the bar, caught the edge, swung around, landed behind him and…”

“You fell on him,” Day said. 

“It was a strategic and well considered attack. I keep forgetting that bar isn’t regulation height.” He looked at it with a mixture of pride and betrayal.

I raised a hand in interjection, quill poised above the page. “Did someone try and burn down the bar? Where did the molotovs…?” 

“Not. Yet.” Din and Trunch chorused in unison. 

“He kicked a mug into my face,” Wikis said, rubbing her nose. “My mug. I was still drinking from it.”

“I got him with a barstool,” Umberto said proudly, miming the swing. “Full overhead. BAM.”

“You shouted, ‘SURPRISE, BASTARD!’” Trunch grinned. “To be fair, the bastard was surprised.”

Umberto raised his glass in triumph. 

I shook my head and rubbed my temples, “And Tufulla? What was he doing in all of this?”

There was a beat of silence.

Day leaned forward. “Dodged the first blow. Barely. Got clipped in the ribs and stumbled into a table. Trunch pulled him out of the way while the rest of us tried to keep ‘Jonath’ occupied.”

Carrie bolted upright and gasped “Not Jonath, that’s what we’ll call him.”

Yak nodded. “Not Jonath, or whatever his real name was, had caught us off guard.” He said. “He used the furniture to his advantage, making sure we couldn’t all try and attack at once.”

“But we didn’t want him breaking any of the furniture,” Umberto added, chest puffed up.  

I looked toward the pile of broken barstools, tables and chairs recently stacked on the stage area then looked back at Umberto. 

“You said you hit him with a barstool?”

Umberto placed one hand on the table and leaned in, pointing to his own chest with his thumb. “I said we didn’t want him breaking the furniture. We can break as much as we want, it’s our tavern.”

The group nodded in collective agreement.

“Anyway,” Umberto continued, “we worked together to keep him away from Tufulla and draw him away from furniture.”

Trunch pointed around the room as he explained. “We started moving like a pack, slowly herding him toward the far corner. Limiting his options. He was very well trained, able to take us all on.”

“I saw Redmond and Osman hiding under a table with the grace and usefulness of two decorative ferns” Day added, “So I quietly shepherded them out the door.”

Yak looked at Din, who nodded approvingly, and then looked at me with a wide smile. “Moments later, the molotovs came.”

“Thrown from outside, through the windows.” Umberto scowled. “They were accompanied by a voice saying ‘Thornstar sends his regards!’. I knew we should’ve properly taken down that scumbag in the fight earlier.” he spat on the floor in disgust.

“Not Jonath took the chaos as an opportunity.” Wikis added. “He grabbed a full bottle of spirits and lobbed it low toward a growing flame on the floor, right near where Tufulla had ducked.”

“At first I thought Tufulla had started dancing” Carrie giggled, “but then I realized it had ignited and caught his robe.”

I paused to picture the scene: the group, still wounded from the forest battle the day before. Redmond and Osman, once again, cowering behind something inanimate. The bar rapidly filling with flames. Tufulla flailing, trying to smother his burning robes. And in the middle of it all, a smiling master assassin, toying with them.

Wikis placed a hand on my arm “Tufulla managed to put out his robes” she said reassuringly, “And then Din put himself between the two of them.”

“He wasn’t getting past me,” Din thumped the table with a fist. “Not while I still had a beard on my face and spells left in my fingers.”

Wikis raised a finger. “There was a moment, though. Just before the fire started. When they were face to face.” She frowned. “He said something. Whispered, cool, calm, like a cat toying with a trapped mouse.”

Din didn’t look up. “It wasn’t how he said it.”

He shifted in his seat, eyes dark and distant.

“It was what he said.”

A beat passed.

“He looked right at me,” Din said. “Smiling. And he said he’d never expected to see one of my kind again.”

Silence.

“He said he thought they’d wiped us all out.”

“He meant Sparkwhiskers,” Yak whispered to me.

Din nodded once, his jaw tight. “After that, I stopped trying to kill him. I needed him conscious. I needed answers.”

“But while all the fighting was going on I heard something upstairs.” Wikis hissed, “Someone else.”

Carrie fluttered dramatically onto the table. “Wikis and I bolted upstairs,” she said, miming the dash mid-air. “There was someone else. She was poking about in the rooms upstairs, like she was looking for someone. She was wearing these unflattering long, dark robes.  The slouch didn’t help. Terrible posture for someone of her figure.”

“I threw a dagger at her, but somehow it missed” Wikis scowled, “And then she started running toward the stairs.”

Day rose from his chair and headed behind the bar. He poured a round of ales and returned to the table, hands filled with handles, and slid one over to me. I’d barely touched the first, listening and writing as they laid it all out for me.

“Bones chose that exact moment to dash out from behind the bar and head for the stairs.” He said calmly, as if a skeletal cat dashing across the room was a normal occurrence in a tavern.

“Not Jonath saw Bones and hesitated.”

“The look on his face! He was all … what the? You people are messed up” Yak laughed.

Trunch raised his head. At first it was hard to tell if he’d been sleeping, or just intently listening. “In that moment, when everything else could have gone even more wrong.” He said “Tufulla acted.”

“He stood up straight, brushed his robes with his hands and shook his wrists like a motherfucker.” Din’s face was full of reverence. “He raised a hand.
Spoke a single word in a voice that cracked through the room like old timber splitting.”

“And Not Jonath vanished.” Day finished. “Gone. No smoke. No flash. Just gone.”

“We all fucking panicked” Umberto said.

“I didn’t” Carrie replied smugly. “I didn’t see it happen.”

Umberto glared at her “We ALL panicked. Thought he’d made a run for it”

“He hadn’t,” Din added calmly. “Apparently Tufulla just cast a banishment spell. Told us he’d be back. About a minute from then. Right there.”

Trunch silently pointed to the corner of the room, we all turned to look. There was an eerie little scuff mark on the floor, as if something had been suddenly pulled away but not without resisting first. 

We sat in reflective silence for a moment before I dared to ask what happened with the intruder upstairs. The woman. 

Trunch caught my eye, a look of candid seriousness in his.

“You have to understand, Klept. This all happened so quickly. Choices were made, in the spur of the moment. There wasn’t time to think things through.”

I nodded, signaling to the group I was ready for whatever gruesome chaos was about to be delivered.

I was told that the woman, busy trying to avoid Carrie and Wikis, noticed the cat coming up the stairs at the last minute. She recoiled, raising a foot and putting herself off balance.

“I saw an opening and shoved,” Carrie said, sending her hand forward with flair. “She tumbled down the stairs in an undignified tangle of limbs.”
She bowed and dusted her hands.

A beat of silence followed. The group nodded in unison. 

“She landed hard. Didn’t move,” Day rocked his mug in small circles.

Yak raised his mug. “Fires still going.”

“Plus an unconscious intruder,” Carrie added cheerily, as if checking items off a list.

“We had to make sure she really was unconscious first,” Umberto pointed out. Punctuating the point by jabbing his finger into the tabletop. “So I whacked her on the back of the head. Wikis tied her up and threw her into the kitchen.”

Wikis gave a confident thumbs up, paired with a paranoid grin, like she was proud of her handiwork, but also half-expecting the woman to burst out of the pantry at any second.

“Which left the fires,” Day said with dry inevitability, “and the potential return of Not Jonath.”

“Umberto and I ran outside,” Trunch added quickly.

“Trying to catch the bastard who set our tavern on fire,” Umberto growled.

“But Umberto ran out stark naked,” Carrie giggled, nearly spilling her drink. “He used his loincloth to put out one of the fires on the table near the door – on the way out!”

She was practically weeping with laughter by the end of the sentence. I refrained from asking Umberto how often he used his loincloth as fire safety equipment.

“All this happened so quickly,” Wikis said, rubbing her forehead. “We almost forgot about Not Jonath.”

“We had the fires under control, and the mystery woman tied up,” Din said, more to himself than to the group. “For a moment, we let our guard down. We forgot.”

“He popped back,” Day sighed. “Right where Tufulla said he would. Then he promptly vanished again.”

“We thought Tufulla had bought us more time,” Carrie said. “That, maybe he’d cast something else to give us a window.”

“But when we looked at him…” Yak stood, adjusted his posture, and shifted his face into a passable imitation of Tufulla. He shrugged with just the right amount of weary dignity and said, in an unnervingly accurate voice:
“I didn’t do that one.”

Carrie nodded solemnly, gesturing toward Umberto.
“We all panicked,” she said, as if it were an official statement. “Din and Day went to see if he was outside, Yak checked upstairs. Wikis and I stayed here.”

“And Tufulla poured himself a drink.” Wikis added matter of factly.

Day leaned forward, hand steady on the handle of his mug. “Din I had barely made it through the door before we heard shouting from in the alley.”

Trunch began punctuating his points with wide hand gestures, spilling ale across the table and floor. 

“Umberto and I had gone out to see if we could catch whoever threw the molotovs. We ran straight into young Iestyn—the boy who’s been hanging around.”

I gave a small nod. “Ah yes, Iestyn. Sort of acts as Tufulla’s eyes on the street, him and his little band.”

“He remarked on Umberto’s lack of attire. Quite astutely, I might add, before telling us the culprits ran off toward the square.”

“He said, ‘Um, Mr Umberto, Sir. Do you realise you are not wearing any pants?’” Umberto grinned. “I told him I didn’t have time for pants, I needed to catch the bastards who tried to burn down my bar. Then I turned to the window across the way and told that nosy old broad to get an eyeful and mind her own business.”

Wikis buried her face in her hands at that part. Carrie went scarlett.

“We were about to run after them when we heard the shouts from inside,” Trunch said.

“Then, right there in the alley, bampf!” Umberto shouted, slamming his mug on the table. “Jonath reappeared. Right in front of me.”

Trunch chuckled. “You surprised him. Again.”

“It’s my impressive stature,” Umberto said, raising his eyebrows with a cheeky grin. “Like Thistlewick, in Barbara’s All Choked Up.” 

Din groaned. 

Wikis giggled.

Carrie snorted.

Trunch smiled and shook his head. “I think it was more to do with the fact that he didn’t expect us to be there than your physical appearance.” 

“That was about when we ran outside.” Din motioned across the table to Day. “He tried to make a run for it. But we were ready.”

“Eldritch blasts from the left,” Day said, ticking it off on his fingers as Trunch sat back and crossed his arms. “A witchbolt to the ribs.”

“And this,” Umberto said with relish, miming a full axe swing, “to the spine!”

He swung an invisible axe over his head and flung it with a grunt. His drink narrowly avoided disaster.

Din, however, did not look pleased.

“I wanted answers,” he grumbled. “Real ones. About who he was, where he came from. About what happened to my people.”

There was a pause as Din’s voice lowered. “So I used a little spell to keep him alive.”

“And that’s when I –” Umberto began.

“Beheaded him,” Din finished flatly. “While I was kneeling. Mid-spell. With your entire naked body blocking my vision.”

“ – dangled my nuts in his face and then took off his head,” Umberto declared proudly. “I regret nothing.”

“That could change later,” Din muttered.

Then, more quietly:
“I picked up what I could salvage. Figured the head was all I really needed.”

Trunch folded his arms, frowning. “I was more concerned about the corpse in the alley. Public street. Early morning foot traffic. Potential legal issues.”

“We were all concerned,” Day added, “until Iestyn shrugged and said ‘Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it’.”

“He winked,” Trunch whispered. “I saw him wink. Normal kids don’t wink like that!”

A brief silence followed. Even Umberto nodded slowly at that.

“And then?” I asked.
“Then we walked back into the Grin,” Din said. “Carrying the head. I set it on the bar while I thought about what to do next.” His beard filtered bread crumbs from his ale as he drank deeply.

I glanced over at the bar. A dark stain lingered in the corner, spatters trailing down the side and onto the floor. Or perhaps it was just the lantern light, playing tricks on my mind.

Trunch cleared his throat. “Just as we crossed the alley, there was a faint gasp.”

“Oh yeah,” Umberto grinned. “The old busybody.”

“Blind swung shut like a mousetrap,” Yak added, pleased. “Followed by a thud that I assume was her fainting.”

I resisted the urge to peek through the alley window. Some things, I decided, are better left undocumented. I made a final note in the margin, though I wasn’t entirely sure what to label it: ‘Victory?’ ‘Tavern Incident?’ ‘Wednesday?’

Some stories don’t end with answers. Just with slightly less fire.

Unsure, Unconscious, Unprepared

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Chronicles of Klept: Chapter XX

The road back to Dawnsheart was slow.

The mules walked at their own pace, unhurried and unconcerned, as if they knew more than we did. I didn’t bother to urge them on. No one wanted me to. The cart creaked softly over ruts and roots, wheels catching on stones with tired little jolts. The night air hung cool and still, and the moon lit the path like a watchful eye.

We didn’t talk. Not much, anyway.

The fight had emptied them. Blood crusted over cuts. Muscles burned. Armor pinched in all the wrong places. Redmond, Osman, and I had barely contributed to the battle. Redmond and Osman had stood over Jonath the whole time. I might’ve swung the sword once or twice, aimless, at what turned out to be nothing but air.

But still… we were exhausted.

We’d watched the others take every blow meant for us.

And maybe, just maybe, the toll of watching is just as bad. It sure felt that way

Beneath it all, a shared silence held us steady. Too tired for chatter, too wary for sleep.

Jonath lay nestled between packs in the cart’s bed, still and pale, breath shallow but regular. Redmond and Osman sat close beside him, wordless guardians. They hadn’t said a thing since helping to carry him from the clearing, but their eyes didn’t leave him once.

“Maybe next time, you’ll think twice before throwing someone into the dark.” Day said quietly, breaking the silence.

Redmond said nothing.
But his hand moved just enough to rest gently against Jonath’s shoulder.

Trunch rustled in his robes and passed Din a pair of battered potion bottles. Din uncorked one, sniffed it, made a face, and took a swig before handing it to Umberto, who handed it to Wikis, and on it went. The other followed. The stuff wasn’t strong but it numbed some of the pain and sealed a few of the more gruesome tears. No one complained.

Later, Yak reached into his pack and pulled out a familiar looking bottle with the unmistakable, scorched-edge labels of Smelt. He held it up, gave it a tiny shake, and popped the cork.

A ripple of silent relief moved through the group, shoulders eased, eyes closed. Umberto gave a single, solemn nod. No one said a thing.

Osman took the bottle first, eyeing it warily. “If ever there was a time for a swig of Smelt,” he said, grim and brave, “it’s probably now.”

He drank.

He paused.

Eyes widened.

He swallowed, blinking like someone seeing colors for the first time. “That’s… actually good?”

Redmond raised an eyebrow. “Impossible, It’s Smelt. You’re hallucinating. That’s trauma talking. Give it here.”

He took a swig.

Another pause. Then: “Bloody hell. Where did you get this?”

Carrie leaned forward and plucked the bottle from his hand with a grin. “This, gentlemen, is only found at the Goblin’s Grin,” she said. “One of our many in-house specialties.”

Yak folded his arms, leaned back against the side rail, and grinned like he’d just personally saved the kingdom.

The bottle made its way around and for a few quiet minutes under the watchful moon, we passed warmth from hand to hand.

The city gates loomed through the mist, pale in the moonlight. We rolled in through the northwest gate, the mules slow, heads low, hooves muffled on the packed dirt. Dawnsheart slept beneath the moon, its lanterns few and far between, its windows shuttered tight. 

Din broke the silence this time.

“We take him to the Grin,” he said softly, nodding toward Jonath. “Let him rest. That’s the safest place right now.”

“No argument,” Umberto said, voice like gravel. “If anything tries to take him tonight, it’ll have to get through us first.”

“I’ll stay with him,” Day added. “Keep an eye on things. Let the rest of you breathe.”

Wikis stretched her neck, cracking something that sounded like it had been waiting hours. “I need a pillow. Or a stiff drink. Or both.”

Yak raised a hand half-heartedly. “I can supply one of those.”

At the Goblin’s Grin, we stopped.

Day, Umberto, Wikis, and Yak climbed down carefully. Jonath was lifted from the cart and carried inside, still unconscious, breath steady but thin. They didn’t say much. No goodbyes. Just nods. A quiet agreement that this was safest for him, for now.

“We’ll stay with him,” Day said. 

“Get him to a bed,” Din said, touching the doorframe as if that alone might ward off another fight. “And no one answers the door unless they knock three times, then once.”

“That’s not a thing,” Carrie muttered.

“It is now,” Din replied.

I glanced up instinctively, across the way.

The old woman’s blind was drawn, thank the gods. No tut. No disapproving shake of the head. Just silence.

The door to the Grin shut with a dull thud.

We turned the cart around and returned it to the C.A.R.T. stand, the nightshift attendant blinking at us over his mug of Waker’s Brew, the scent of vinegar cutting through the crisp night air.

Then we walked.

Back through the quiet streets of Dawnsheart, toward the square. The church. The mayor’s office. The only sound was our footsteps… and the soft, uneven clink of Dan’del’ion medallions swinging from Trunch’s belt.

The streets were mostly empty. A few sweepers worked by lanternlight. A watchman nodded as we passed, his eyes lingering, confused, on our strange little group: three bloodied, battle-worn adventurers, a church scribe, and two exhausted scholars.

Tufulla stood on the steps of the church, exactly as if he’d been expecting us at that precise moment.
Above him, his familiar, Solstice, fluttered down onto a dimming lamppost, head tilted like it was already judging our story.

“Solstice informed me of your impending arrival,” Tufulla said. His voice was calm, but tired.
“Come. There’s tea. And I’d like to hear what you’ve discovered, starting with where the rest of your crew is.”

We climbed the steps.

Carrie spoke first, brushing her fringe back with the back of her hand. “They’re at the Goblin’s Grin. Watching over Jonath. He’s unconscious. Still breathing. But out cold.”

Tufulla’s brow creased. “Shall I summon a healer?”

Redmond shook his head. “Not necessary. He’s not wounded. Just… collapsed. Exhaustion, most likely.”

Tufulla looked at him for a long second, something unreadable in his eyes, then gave a slow nod.

Trunch stepped forward, unhooked the small pouch from his belt, and handed it over. The medallions clinked softly inside.

“Thirteen medallions,” he said. “One that raises more questions.” He paused. “It’s been quite a day.”

Tufulla took the bag with slow, tentative fingers. The weight of it pulled slightly at his arm. He opened the mouth of the pouch, peered inside, and raised a single eyebrow.

“So it would seem,” he said quietly.

Solstice shifted on the lamppost, feathers ruffling in the cool air.

We were ushered into the church’s side chamber, the Mayor’s office. There was tea. No one touched it.

Redmond and Osman gave the full account. Not a word spared. No dramatics, just clean, clipped retelling. What they saw, what they didn’t, what they thought they understood. Redmond’s voice was steady until he reached the part about Jonath. Then it caught.

Din, seated with one arm across his bruised ribs, spoke up. “Tell it straight.”

“I am,” Redmond said. “I am now.”

There was a beat of quiet.

Then Tufulla spoke, calm, but not soft.

“The pursuit of knowledge is a noble thing. But it must be tempered with care, with respect, with kindness. Without those, it’s not discovery. It’s vanity.”

He looked at Redmond, not condemning, just measured. Disappointed, but not unkind.

“Wisdom is not measured by what we learn,” he said, “but by how we choose to learn it.”

Redmond lowered his gaze. Gave a small nod. 

And that was that.

Then Osman leaned forward, hands clasped. “We believe the stump is a portal. A kind of fixed-point teleportation gate. The runes, the activation, the disappearance—everything fits. Advanced magic, but elegant. If it’s stable… it’s fast. Instantaneous, even.”

Carrie, slouched half sideways on a bench, blew out a breath. “Honestly? If that’s true, I don’t get why these evil types always think so small. Like, that could change everything. No more weeks in carts. No more bandits. Just, ‘pop!’ Capital in seconds.”

Tufulla exhaled slowly. “Assuming it’s not just a glorified trap.” He adjusted his sleeves, gaze flicking toward the darkened windows. “Castle Ieyoch is the most likely destination. And if that’s true, it’s not for trade. It’s for troops. What you faced tonight… that may have been a test run.”

The thought settled like a stone in the middle of the room.

Trunch leaned back in his chair, lifted the ornate medallion from where it rested on the table, and let it turn slowly in the light. “This one’s different,” he said. “We took it from the big rider.”

Tufulla leaned forward. He didn’t touch it. Just looked.

“I’ve seen one like it before,” he said. “Years ago. Back in my early White Raven days. Higher rank, I think, maybe command-level. I haven’t seen another since. Nor have I seen a gemstone like that anywhere else.” He squinted. 

He looked up. “There’s someone who might know. Holadamus. Dragonborn. Owns the Dragon’s Hoard. Bit of a hoarder, bit of a sage. Knows his stones.”

Trunch gave a thoughtful nod. “We’ve met. Nice fellow, very knowledgeable. I’ll ask him”

Tufulla folded his hands. “Either way, we wait for Jonath. If he made it through, and back, he’s the only one who’s seen what’s on the other side.”

“We should start searching the valley,” Redmond said. “If one stump’s a portal, there might be more. Linked, hidden. If they’re staging something…”

“We need to know where they can come from,” Din finished.

Tufulla’s eyes shifted toward me. “Klept,” he said gently. “You’ve been quiet.”

I shrugged. “I don’t have much to add.”

He waited.

I sighed. “Truth is… I don’t think there’s much I can add. Out there, I’m just one more thing for them to worry about. I can’t fight.”
I looked at the others. At their cuts, bruises, the way they carried themselves like every movement hurt.
“I nearly died holding a sword the wrong way around. I think… I think I’m done.”

Carrie opened her mouth, brow furrowed. Trunch shifted in his seat. Din looked like he was about to object.

But I held up a hand. “It’s not about loyalty. Or fear. I just… I’m not helping. Not really. If anything, I’m slowing them down. They deserve better. I’m a scribe, an archivist, not an adventurer. If things go south and I need to defend myself, what am I going to do? Pour ink on an attacker? I mean, we nearly died, and all I could do was throw onions.”

Din placed a hand on my shoulder. “Yeah, but in the end… the onions did help. A little.”

Tufulla leaned forward. “You’re questioning your role in this. You’re not sure where you fit. But believe me when I tell you, Klept, there is a part for you in this.”

“How can you be so sure?” The words came out sharper than I meant. “From where I’m standing, my part seems to be dying a painful and probably embarrassing death.”

Tufulla started to rise, but I waved him off and stood.

Carrie straightened. “Maybe you need time to think about it?”

“Maybe,” I said, reaching for the handle. “Maybe I’m just in the way.”

“Klept, don’t … ” Trunch called as the door shut behind me.

The last voice I heard from the room was Tufulla’s.

“Let him leave. He just needs time. He’ll understand his place. Now… about these stumps.”

The walk to the dorms was longer than I remembered.

Every step echoed louder in the empty alleys and streets. My legs felt like stone, each joint reminding me that I wasn’t built for battle, not physically, not mentally, not in spirit. I didn’t limp, exactly. But my gait had a dragging weight and the cobbles seemed to clutch my boots with every step.

I opened the door to my room and stared at the same sad, lumpy mattress I’d complained about a dozen times. Tonight, it looked like home.

I didn’t undress. I didn’t light a candle. I just sat on the edge, elbows on knees, surrounded by shelves of half-sorted parchment and musty old scrolls that smelled like mildew and knowledge.

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.

Ink and dust. Paper and silence. No blades. No blood. Just… stillness.

I didn’t cry. I didn’t sleep, either. I just sat there, staring at the floor.

As Din tells it, the meeting with the investigators and Tufulla only lasted a short while longer. Plans were drafted to organize search parties, small groups to sweep the valley for other stumps or signs of Dan’del’ion infiltration. A detailed description of the stump was agreed upon, and Osman provided an illustration. According to Trunch, it was “a remarkably accurate sketch.” According to Carrie, “it was suspiciously good for someone who claimed they weren’t an artist.” According to Din, “it was fine, but lacked Yak’s artistic flair.”

Once that was done, Trunch, Din, and Carrie left the church and returned to the Goblin’s Grin. Redmond, Osman, and Tufulla remained behind to discuss the Dan’del’ion revival and other grim White Raven business.

Carrie insists that, upon arriving at the Grin, the others were already partying.

“They were several drinks in,” she said flatly. “Jonath was sprawled across the bar, still unconscious. Wikis was dancing on a table.”

“I was keeping watch.” Wikis scowled from across the table.

“We’d placed him gently,” Yak said. “We thought it would be safer to have him in the open, where we could see him, rather than in one of the rooms upstairs.”

“You were doing body shots out of Jonath’s navel!” Carrie shrieked.

“We’d run out of clean glasses,” Day replied, sheepish. “In hindsight, it probably wasn’t the most respectful thing to do.”

“We took care of him,” Umberto added, leaning back in his chair. “He was never in danger. We laid him down. Made sure he was comfortable.”

“We put rags under his head,” Wikis offered helpfully.

“I’m sorry,” I interrupted. “Did you say you were doing body shots off an unconscious individual?”

“We had a couple of celebratory drinks,” Umberto corrected, “to mark the fact that we didn’t fucking die thanks to the boneheaded decisions of a couple of stuck-up academic arsewipes.”

“Yes, I understand that, but did you actually drink from…”

“What matters,” Din said firmly, cutting across the conversation with the tone of a man insisting this was never spoken of again, “is that when we got back to the Grin, Jonath was still unconscious, and the others were watching over him. We all managed to get a decent amount of rest before the chaos of the morning.”

The group recalled how Tufulla, Redmond, and Osman arrived at the Grin the next morning, looking like none of them had slept. Their clothes were still in order, but their faces told a different story, drawn, pale, eyes rimmed in red and shadow. Apparently, they’d been up the entire night combing through records, old reports, forgotten maps. Making plans. Drawing up contingencies. Looking for anything that might help, some hidden clue, some precedent, some dusty detail buried in the archives that might shine a light on what the Dan’del’ion Court was planning. There were no smiles. Just quiet nods. The kind that passes between people who all know that what’s ahead is going to be worse than what came before. 

Jonath was still unconscious. 

But not for long. And that, by all accounts, was when someone kicked the chamberpot square at the wall.

“Jonath started to stir not long after they arrived,” Trunch said, licking sauce off his fingers and reaching for another snack. “Panicked at first. Didn’t know where he was. Didn’t recognize anyone.”

“He seemed to come around after seeing Tufulla,” Carrie added, swirling her drink. “Settled a bit. Focused up once Tufulla asked how he was feeling.”

They all nodded. Slowly. But no one elaborated.

I waited.

“And then?” I asked.

A pause.

“Then,” Day said, “we asked him what happened. What he saw on the other side.”

“He looked confused,” Yak said. “Like… not dazed confused. Like he was playing catch-up. Trying to piece something together.”

“So we reminded him,” Wikis said. “The stump. The circle. The glowing medallion. The part where he vanished.”

“Didn’t say much at first,” Umberto muttered. “Then he started giving details. More than we expected.”

“He said it was dark,” Trunch continued. “Somewhere open, but walled in. Castle grounds, maybe. A structure in the distance. Big. Barely lit. There were guards, he said. Armed. A lot of them.”

“A garden,” Wikis offered. “Maybe a courtyard. Stone statues. Lanterns without light.”

“He said twelve,” Carrie nodded. “Lanterns. Scattered. White stone where there should be light”

Jonath’s answers had been steady, they said. But his eyes kept drifting. Back to Tufulla.

“Every time Tufulla spoke,” Yak said, “Jonath would just… look at him. Hard. Like he wasn’t sure he was real.”

“Or like he was real, but shouldn’t be,” Carrie added, slowly.

I felt a prickle behind my ribs. “Did anyone ask why?”

“He dodged it,” Day said. “Every time we tried to pin down what he saw or who, he changed tack. He said he was trying not to get caught. That some of the people, soldiers, whatever, weren’t alive. Or at least, not entirely.”

“Undead,” Umberto said, tone flat. “That was the word he finally landed on.”

I scribbled notes. “What about time? Did he mention a difference? Felt longer? Shorter?”

“He asked us how long he’d been gone,” Trunch said. “We told him five minutes. Maybe a few more. He said that felt about right.“

Carrie sipped her drink. “We asked what he heard while he was there. Said he caught mention of something happening three nights from then. Didn’t know what. But everyone there was getting ready.”

“And coming back?” I asked. “How did he return?”

“He said he got spotted,” Wikis said. “Someone saw him sneaking. So he ran. Hit the circle again as moonlight came through. Same way he went in.”

“And then he came back through the stump?” I asked.

“Yelling, and running” said Umberto. “Caught up with us moments later. You were there for what happened next.”

“I Remember. And then?” I asked again. The room had gone quieter than before. More still.

Day leaned forward. “Then… we started asking follow-ups. Normal stuff at first. Then somehow the questions started to shift, from what he saw, to who he was.”

“Not aggressively.” Trunch added,  “Just… out of curiosity. Clarifying details. Redmond had said all White Ravens were orphans, with no family, no ties.“

“I asked if that was true for him too” Carrie added, “He nodded. No hesitation.”

“I think I was the one who asked if he remembered who trained him.” Din said through an ale soaked beard. “He gave a name. Osman seemed to recognize it.”

Everything checked out.

It all checked out. Too smoothly, maybe.

“So Trunch asked where he was from,” Wikis told me, rubbing her temple like the memory still stung.

I blinked. “What’d he say?”

“Hearthsholme,” Din said flatly.

I frowned. “I’ve never heard of Hearthsholme.”

“Neither had Tufulla,” Day replied.

They said Tufulla’s brow furrowed, not with doubt, but certainty.

“Tufulla said Hearthsholme doesn’t exist,” Carrie said.

And then, and this is where every person at the table told it the same way, Jonath smiled.

Not nervously.

Not sheepishly.

Just… slow. Deliberate. A little too wide.

That’s when his face changed. 

“It was a bit like when Yak does his thing” Carrie added “but with more …”

“Menace?” Trunch asked.

“ Yeah” Umberto growled. “ More menace. Like a lie untied at the corners and peeled away. He wasn’t Jonath.”

And then he clapped.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

A slow, mocking applause that echoed off the tavern walls like a spark waiting for oil.

And he lunged. Straight for Tufulla.

Onions and Other Weapons

Reader KleptLeave a comment

Chronicles of Klept: Chapter XIX

Branches whipped our faces. Roots reached for ankles. The underbrush roared with panic, snapped twigs, crashing footfalls, panting lungs.

Behind us?

Nothing. No footfalls. No breath. Just silence. And yet, something followed.

Shapes in the trees. Movement without noise. Shadows that didn’t obey the moonlight.

Osman went down hard, crashing through a patch of thornbrush with a strangled yelp. Trunch was on him in a heartbeat, hauling him up by the collar.

“Move!” he hissed, barely audible over the chaos. “Don’t stop. Don’t stop now.”

Carrie tried to gain altitude, wings beating in time with her curses, then slammed full-force into a low-hanging branch. Her body spun mid-air like a dropped pennant.

“Carrie!” Wikis shouted.

But Umberto caught her mid-fall, an arm looping under hers, dragging her bodily through the brush as she blinked the stars from her eyes.

“Keep going,” he grunted. “Breathe later.”

The forest felt endless. Everything scratched. Everything tore. It was dark, only scattered moonlight shining between the canopy and the clouds. 

Just that quiet. That intentional quiet.

Like we were being hunted, not chased.

Inevitably, Jonath staggered. The exhaustion caught up to him and he collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut, falling hard against a moss-covered rock, gasping. I slid to a halt beside him. “Jonath, by the light of the Prophet, you returned, how are you even…”.

Jonath looked up. Smiled, face strained with effort. And then slumped forward onto the rock, unconscious.

“Carry him!” Din’s voice, raw and distant, rose through the trees. “Carry him if you have to, just keep going!”

We turned and saw him.

Fifty paces behind. Alone. Falling behind fast.

Plate armor gleaming in moonlight. Breath coming in wheezes. A wall of steel losing ground with every step.

“No,” Umberto growled. “I’m not running all night.” Still holding Carrie half-slung across one shoulder, he dropped her gently onto her feet and turned to face the shadows.

He glanced at Day. They didn’t speak. They didn’t need to.

Day nodded once. He stepped toward the investigators, voice low but firm. “Stay here. Lay low. Use the rock.”

Redmond was doubled over, hands on knees, eyes wide. Osman was pale, clinging to his belt like it might anchor him to the world. Jonath lay against the rock, chest rising shallowly. Day didn’t wait for a response. Neither Redmond nor Osman gave one, just wide-eyed nods and the clumsy shuffle of terrified men trying to make themselves smaller than they were.

“Everyone, drop your packs,” Day said, already unshouldering his own. “Use them to cover the investigators.”

The others followed without question. Tossing their packs toward the cowering investigators before bracing themselves for what was to come. Trunch’s pack landed with a thump, and a handful of onions tumbled out, rolling across the moss like they were also trying to flee. He muttered something inaudible as he kicked them back toward the pile.

Day didn’t pause. He stepped forward, sword in one hand, the other already tracing faint sigils in the air. His gaze swept the treeline, not nervous, not uncertain. Just calculating.

Steel in one hand. Spell in the other.

The moment something moved, he’d be faster.

“Wikis!” Umberto barked. “Your sword!”

She dashed up a nearby tree, tossing it as she moved, stringing her bow before he caught it.

Carrie took to the air again, wings pulsing dimly in the moonlight as she vanished into the canopy with a sharp intake of breath and a muttered, “Well, this is not how I typically plan moonlit evenings in the forest…”

Trunch and Yak flattened themselves behind the trunks of thick old trees, their silhouettes melting into the underbrush.

A hand slammed into my chest. Umberto pressed the sword into my grip.

It was heavier than I expected. Colder too.

I stared. “Wait, what? You don’t expect me to… I don’t…”

“No time,” Umberto snapped. “Writing won’t help us now, chronicler.”

I opened my mouth to argue again, but the look in Umberto’s eyes was the kind that doesn’t tolerate footnotes.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” he growled, jabbing a finger toward the huddled investigators, “but, keep them safe, and you’ll earn yourself a drink. On me.”

Din crashed through the last of the brush, armor clanking like a slow-moving forge. He bent over, panting hard, sweat shining on his brow.

“So…” he rasped, “we’re fighting?”

Umberto cracked his neck and glared toward the dark beyond the trees.

“I hate running,” he said.

There was silence.

Not peace. Not quiet. Just, silence
The kind of silence that waits.

The forest, once filled with the crashing panic of flight, now stood still. No birds. No wind. Not even the whisper of leaves. Just shadow, and moonlight.

The group held position. Blades drawn, bows nocked, spells just behind the teeth and crackling at fingertips. 

And the only sound now… was breathing.

Deep, controlled, steady.

The kind of breathing you do when you’re trying not to panic. Trying to regain control of your lungs.
Trying to stay sharp.
Trying to live.

I gripped the sword awkwardly. Too tight, too loose, unsure where my hands were meant to go. The hilt was already slick with sweat, and the weight of it pulled at my wrist like it knew I had no business holding it. Behind me, Redmond was whispering. Soft, rapid words. A prayer maybe, or a long, muttered catalogue of regrets. Osman had curled around Jonath, shielding the unconscious scribe with his own shaking body. He had arranged the packs to form a meager protective wall. 

In the trees, Wikis was stone. She didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe. Her eyes flicked from shadow to shadow. Scanning, calculating, waiting. 

With a smooth, deliberate motion, she notched and drew. String taut, arrow resting lightly between her fingers. Her fingers brushed the fletching, and something shimmered across the arrowhead.

A sharp glint. Then another.

Tiny needles of silver light bloomed from the arrowhead, spreading down the shaft, then hanging there, suspended, ready.

She tilted her head slightly, exhaled once, and aimed.

The forest hadn’t moved yet.

But Wikis had already chosen her target.

In the branches, Carrie was anything but still. She crawled and adjusted, wings twitching, shifting from one perch to the next like she was auditioning for a better view. She muttered to herself under her breath, more concerned with angles and potential applause than threats. I could hear her, just barely: “No, too exposed… no, too low. Ugh, these branches are the worst.”

Yak had been behind a tree.

I saw him, plain as anything, flattened against the bark, half-hidden, head low. His hand rested lightly on a dagger as he took a swig out of a bottle from behind the bar, one he’d refused to leave behind. He was still. Focused.

Then I looked away.

Just for a second. A breath. A blink.

And when I looked back, he was gone.

Not moved. Not shifted. Gone.

No rustle, no shuffle, no sign of passage. The forest hadn’t even noticed.

My eyes darted around, scanning trunks, branches, the brush at my feet. Nothing. Not even a scuff in the dirt.

“Yak?” I hissed.

No reply. Just trees. And shadow. And the vague, creeping sense that somehow, this was exactly what Yak had meant to happen.

Din adjusted his stance with the heavy breath of a man trying not to fall over. His armor creaked with the effort. Then, slowly, deliberately, he took one hand off the hilt of his hammer and curled it into a fist.

With a dull clang, he thumped it hard against the faded Sparkwhiskers sigil on his breastplate. The old metal groaned beneath the blow, echoing faintly in the stillness.

His hand returned to his hammer.

And then his beard began to spark.

Tiny arcs of lightning danced between the bristles, lifting the strands in a slow, unnatural rise, as if they were searching the air for something to smite. The hairs twisted upward like wary tentacles sniffing a storm.

He muttered something low and guttural, lost beneath the crackle of rising sparks.

And just behind him, with a sudden flash of white-blue light, a spectral anvil silently slammed into existence, hovering at his shoulder.

Trunch watched the darkness from behind a tree. Still. Calculating.

He didn’t move. Just stood, one hand low at his side, the other loosely clenched, as if holding a thought more than a weapon.

Energy crackled faintly across his knuckles. Thin threads of light curling between his fingers and flickering up his wrists. It was quiet, contained. Controlled.

The undergrowth around his boots seemed to shift. The shadows at his feet seemed to stretch, just a little too far. Just a little too wrong. Like the moonlight had missed something. Or like something had bent the light to make room. I shook my head. It could’ve been the angle. A trick of nerves and moonlight. Trunch didn’t look concerned. If anything, he looked composed, like a gentleman at the theatre, waiting for the second act. But still, the way the dark edged closer to him… it seemed to draw in.

Like it knew him.

Umberto stood like a nobleman at the top of a staircase, welcoming guests to the event – except this one had no wine. No music. Just blood waiting to be spilled.

His axe, competing with him for height, gleamed in the moonlight, every edge catching silver. He rolled his shoulders, loose and ready, then shifted his stance. His chest rose and fell in deep, steady pulses, like a drum counting down.

He spat into the dirt. Looked back at the rest of us. There was a fire in his eyes. A slow, controlled burn. I thought I’d seen fury in him before. I was wrong. This was something else.

Rage. Pure. Unfiltered. Fighting desperately to be freed.

And then he let it loose.

He roared, deep and guttural.
A sound that tore through the forest like it didn’t care what answered back.

He took a step forward, axe rising, the moonlight dancing madly across the blade.

Umberto was done running.

For a moment, the silence was deafening.

Then it shattered.

Snapping branches. Rustling underbrush. The shadows peeled from the treeline. Eleven hooded figures, dark-robed and fast, sweeping in from all sides. Their blades glinted wickedly, too thin, too long, like fangs drawn from cloaks.

Thunk.

One of them collapsed instantly as an arrow from Wikis buried itself just below the throat, splintering mid-impact into a hail of silvery thorns that shredded through cloth and flesh. Dozens of glowing shards embedded in his face and chest. He crumpled with a wet rattle.

A dagger whirled through the air –clang– glancing off Din’s armor in a spray of sparks. He didn’t flinch.

Umberto was already in motion, axe swinging in a brutal arc. The first unfortunate soul to reach him never had a chance, cut clean in half before he even realized he’d been targeted.

Day was a storm made flesh, blade and spell moving in perfect tandem. He ducked, twisted, slashed, the tip of his sword catching one figure in the thigh before a blast of force sent another tumbling into the brush like a rag doll. He moved like fire through a dry forest, relentless, consuming, inevitable.

But the attackers weren’t made of smoke and fear alone.

They struck back. Fast. Silent. Coordinated.

One slipped Umberto’s guard, driving a curved blade deep into his shoulder. He snarled, spun, and cleaved the assailant in half on pure rage, blood pouring down his arm like a sleeve.

Another caught Trunch across the ribs, steel cutting through the folds of his armor. He staggered, breath hissing through his teeth, shadows curling tighter around him even as blood soaked into the dirt.

The moon vanished behind thick cloud. The world shrank to movement and breath. The forest became a blur of black and motion.

Din roared, “Can’t see a damned thing!” as his hammer swung blindly through a shape that vanished at the last second.

“Wait!” Carrie called from above, sharp and clear. “I’ve got something!”

She raised one hand and flicked her fingers. Small, comet-like sparks darted from her outstretched palm like playful stars on the hunt. They struck the nearest attackers with flickering pops of silver starlight. One by one, the robed figures began to glow, dim halos of silvery shimmer clinging to their forms like they’d been dipped in starlight. Each lit figure cast pale light in all directions, breaking the dark into uneven fragments.

One glowed and froze, disoriented. Another flinched mid-strike, caught off guard by the sudden glare outlining their form.

“Who dresses like that on purpose?” Carrie called sweetly from her perch, launching another spark with a toss of her wrist. “You look like a haunted curtain.”

The man she insulted actually paused, blade faltering, just long enough for Wikis to bury an arrow in his thigh.

The field lit up in pulses, spotlights thrown from Carrie’s hands, one by one. Not perfect, but enough.

The group surged.

Wikis shot, an arrow slicing through a throat before exploding into a spray of silver thorns that ripped through the two nearest. One collapsed instantly. The other clawed at his eyes, staggered, and toppled, twitching.

Day launched forward, blade flashing with controlled fury. He drove his sword through one glowing figure’s ribs and hurled a burst of force at another, sending the attacker crashing into a tree.

Din’s hammer crushed a jaw, then a knee. He moved through the field like a forge with legs, his armor gleaming with scattered sparks from Carrie’s magic, his beard whipping in static-charged arcs.

Trunch stood calmly behind the line, flicking bolts of energy like he was teaching a lesson on consequences. One enemy dropped mid-lunge. Another staggered toward the investigators, blade raised …

…and crumpled as a blast from Trunch hit him square in the chest. His weapon clattered against the stone by Jonath’s feet.

Up in the trees, Carrie kept up her relentless barrage.

“Oh please, you call that a swing? My grandmother flails harder when she drops her knitting!”

A glowing figure sprinted for Yak’s last known location, then abruptly stopped, eyes wide. Yak reappeared behind him, slitting his throat in one fluid motion. Another followed, and another. The only sounds were wet gasps and the quiet clink of a belt pouch being lifted mid-drop.

Umberto, wounded but furious, tore into another enemy with a roaring overhead swing, splitting skull and spine in one blow. Blood streaked down his arm. He didn’t seem to care.

The last attacker turned to run.

Wikis put an arrow in the back of his knee. Day closed the distance. The end was swift.

Eleven down.

The group pressed together. Panting, bloodied, running on willpower and the last fumes of adrenaline.

No one had fallen. But everyone had felt it.

And still…

Beyond the battlefield, three figures stood at the treeline.

Taller. Broader. Unmoving.

Watching.

Waiting.

Like the real fight hadn’t even started yet.

The glowing battlefield had fallen silent.

Only our ragged breathing remained. Blades lowered. Bows held. Spells simmering just behind teeth.

The two shapes on the edges began to move.

Slowly. Deliberately.

The third, taller, broader, still, remained where it was. Watching.

The approaching figures were mounted. Cloaked, hunched over snarling shapes that slinked forward on padded paws. Not horses. Not men. Wolves. Dire wolves. Each beast easily the size of a cart horse, eyes gleaming like twin coals under hoods of matted fur.

The riders were draped in black, faces hidden, blades long and cruel. The wolves didn’t charge. They circled. Low. Slow. Taunting.

Umberto took a step forward, blood still dripping from his axe. “You want something? COME GET IT!”

Trunch tilted his head. “Who are you? What do you want?”

The only reply was a hiss.

And the sound of silent laughter.

Then the riders struck.

The first wolf lunged, but a bolt of energy from Trunch caught it mid-bound, tearing it from its mount and sending it crashing into the dirt. It yelped once before Din’s anvil dropped from above like a hammer, smashing its skull into the forest floor with a sickening crunch.

The dismounted rider rolled through the impact and came up fast, charging toward Day with twin blades drawn. Day parried the first strike, boots skidding against moss. He twisted, reversed, and drove his sword clean through the rider’s gut. Two arrows thudded into his spine a breath later. Wikis above, calm and lethal. The figure collapsed without a sound.

The second wolf didn’t hesitate.

It hit Din like a boulder, knocking him flat, snarling and snapping at his face. He roared, struggling beneath its bulk, armor scraping earth, arms locked against jaws lined with fangs.

Umberto charged, grabbing at the wolf’s thick neck, but was flung aside like a sack of flour, crashing into a tree with a grunt.

Then Yak moved.

He ran three steps up a low trunk, flipped into the air, and came down hard, daggers first, onto the rider’s back.

Steel sank deep. The rider screamed, twisted, and backhanded Yak off his perch. He crashed into the leaves and rolled, only to be pinned beneath the wolf’s other paw, its teeth inches from his throat.

Din and Yak were both pinned now, crushed beneath the beast’s limbs, struggling to breathe.

Trunch raised a hand and fired again, then again, blasts of energy slamming into the rider, staggering him sideways.

Day ducked low, blade flashing as he turned from the corpse at his feet and drove his sword straight into the wolf’s neck. Blood fountained.

Wikis loosed arrow after arrow, her breath steady. Three shafts buried into the beast’s flank. One pierced the eye.

The wolf howled.

It collapsed sideways, with a groan, on top of Din and Yak both.

The rider tried to rise.

Carrie, from above, offered help in the form of a sharp insult that questioned his mother’s lineage and fashion sense.

Trunch’s final blast hit him.

The forest went still again.

But Din and Yak lay trapped beneath the twitching corpse of the dire wolf.

The wind shifted.

It started low. Rustling leaves, stirring cloaks.

Then the smell hit.

Rot.

Decay.

Something ancient, long dead and recently disturbed.

It swept across the battlefield like a curtain being drawn, and even the bravest among us staggered.

Wikis gagged and turned away. Day covered his mouth. Umberto took a half-step back, scowling.

From the treeline, the final shadow moved.

A towering figure emerged, easily seven feet tall, shoulders like stone walls beneath a tattered cloak. His mount was worse: a massive, undead dire wolf, far larger than the others, its eyes glowing a dull, fetid green, its body held together by what looked like wire, rot, and pure hate.

It lumbered forward with slow, deliberate steps. Every footfall sinking into the forest floor with a wet crunch.

The group didn’t charge.

They stepped back.

The stench was unbearable. Osman retched behind the rock wall. Even Din grunted something that sounded like a prayer.

Then. Sound.

Chains.

Slow. Relentless.

The clink, clink of unwinding metall, followed by a heavier metallic clatter as the figure dropped his arms. Twin chained blades spilled from his sleeves like dead snakes, their weight dragging arcs in the dirt.

He began to spin them. Slowly at first. Wide, sweeping circles over his head, effortless, hypnotic. Then…

With a crack, one chain snapped forward, knocking Day’s sword clean from his hand. It spun away into the dark, landing with a sharp clang against a rock.

The second chain followed a heartbeat later, thudding into the earth just inches in front of Umberto’s boot. A warning. Or a challenge.

Umberto didn’t flinch.
Din, still trapped beneath the dire wolf’s bulk, groaned.

“I think I’d like those when this is all said and done,” he wheezed, eyeing the chained blades. “Focus on that thing. We’ll get ourselves out from under this thing.”

Carrie raised a hand, eyes narrowing, voice sharp. “Leave.”

The figure didn’t even twitch.

The spell fizzled uselessly against whatever dark force kept him upright. Carrie frowned. “Well. Rude.”

I swallowed hard.

Then stepped forward.

Not far. Just enough.

My sword still felt too heavy. Too cold. I looked at Day, barehanded but still steady.

“Here,” I said, holding the hilt toward him. “You’ll probably be a little better with it than I would.”

Day took it silently.

I stepped back toward the rock and the wall of packs.

“I believe in you,” I said.

The words felt stupid the moment they left my mouth. But true.

“You’ve got this.”

And I hoped to every gods-damned power in Elandaru… that I wasn’t lying.

The battle didn’t start with a roar this time. It started with a plan.

A bad one, maybe, but it was all we had.

Wikis and Carrie focused on the undead wolf, hoping to distract it enough to shake the rider’s focus. Arrows flew, spells sparked. The wolf snarled, snapping at the air, unfazed. 

Up in the trees, Wikis fired in tight, calculated bursts, three arrows in quick succession, one striking just above the beast’s sunken eye. It didn’t blink.

Carrie hurled more silver wisps, each one sparking light across its rotted frame. “Come on, you ugly corpse rug!” she shouted. “Over here! Bite someone with better fashion sense!”

It barely looked her way.

Meanwhile, Umberto and Day charged the rider.

The chained blades spun again, deadly arcs of iron and rot. Day ducked one, barely catching it with the sword. The impact rattled his wrist.

Umberto roared and caught another with the flat of his axe, but the force still drove him back a step. He growled through his teeth.

Trunch stood behind them, teeth gritted, hands glowing with unstable power. One eldritch blast after another flared from his palms, striking the rider in the chest, shoulder, neck. The hits staggered him, but he never stopped attacking.

“This would be easier,” Trunch muttered, “if he’d just go down already.”

Behind them, Din and Yak were still very much under the dire wolf.

“On three,” Din grunted, shifting his armor and kicking at the dirt. “One, two, three!”

They rolled.

The wolf didn’t budge.

“Maybe four next time,” Yak wheezed. “Four might be the number.”

They tried again, feet scrambling, muffled swearing erupting under the mound of fur.

The rider pressed forward.

Carrie’s next bolt went wide. Wikis hit the same leg twice, but the beast kept moving.

Day was tiring, his blocks slower. Umberto had a cut above his brow now, blood in his eye. Trunch’s blasts were getting erratic.

And me?

I did the only thing I could.

I reached into the pile of packs behind me, and my hand closed around something round and firm.

An onion. I stared at it, then stood up, and hurled it.

It hit the undead wolf squarely in the snout with a wet thud.

No reaction.

So I threw another.

Then another.

“Why,” I muttered to myself, “do we have so many onions?”

“I got them in Nelb,” Trunch called out “Couldn’t resist. The price was too good for produce of that quality.”

The fourth onion bounced off the rider’s shoulder.

He paused. Just for a moment. A small moment. But a moment.

It was enough for Trunch to land a shot square in the jaw, snapping his head to the side.

Umberto seized the opening with a bellow, charging low, axe flashing.

And in the dirt, Yak shrugged, “Onions.”

Then, finally, a breakthrough.

Carrie’s voice cut sharp through the din, more serious than before. No witty jab. No airy sarcasm. Just quiet, focused spellcasting.

A flick of her wrist. A spark of silver light.

The undead dire wolf began to shrink.

It didn’t roar. It didn’t flail. It simply collapsed inward, bones creaking and limbs contorting as its hulking mass shriveled. In mere seconds, the towering monstrosity had shrunk to something more akin to a sickly greyhound. Still hideous, still snarling, but far less threatening.

The rider wobbled, awkward on suddenly too-small footing.

He had no choice but to dismount, hitting the ground in a roll that broke some of the eerie poise he’d carried till now.

There was a beat of stunned silence.

Then Carrie, from her perch in the trees, put her hands on her hips and said, “You’re welcome.”

The rider hit the ground with surprising grace.

For a man of his size, he moved with unnatural speed, a blur of shadow and muscle, twin blades hissing as they retracted and reformed into a pair of wicked, scimitar-like swords.

He didn’t roar. He didn’t speak.

He simply advanced.

Din and Yak had finally rolled free of the collapsed wolf carcass. Din staggered upright, wincing as his armor creaked, one side caved in slightly, movement limited.

Yak gave him a look. “You alright?”

“Functional,” Din growled. “Mostly. I really want those blades.”

They took down the shrunken wolf first. Carrie blasting it with a final wisp of light while Umberto cleaved its head from its shoulders. It twitched once and stilled.

But they were spent.

Umberto bled from multiple wounds, his breathing ragged.
Day’s tunic was slashed, his ribs heaving, but his braid, somehow, remained perfect. Trunch leaned against a tree, face pale, arms shaking. He fired one last eldritch blast that fizzled out halfway. 

“That’s me,” he said. “I’m done.”

Wikis reached for another arrow, and found none. She threw the empty quiver down in disgust. Carrie, standing unsteadily on a branch, lifted her arms and sighed. “I’m out. Nothing left. I’m just a cheerleader now.”

They formed up anyway.

A final, desperate line.

Blades drawn. Breath shallow. Bones screaming.

The rider came in hard.

His swords were a blur, striking in cruel, perfect arcs. Day blocked one, barely, and was thrown backward. Umberto caught another across his side and roared, swinging his axe in reply. Din’s hammer crashed into the rider’s hip, knocking him off balance. Yak darted low, slashing across the hamstring. Wikis picked up a fallen dagger and hurled it. It sank deep into the rider’s back.

The assault continued.

He fought like a dying storm, brutal, relentless, refusing to end.

Until finally he collapsed. The twin blades fell. His body hit the forest floor, coughing blood. Laughing. Wet, broken laughter that sent shivers through the trees. They stood above him. He looked up at them, still grinning.

Umberto staggered forward. His chest rose and fell like a bellows. He turned to me, hand outstretched.

“Chronicler,” he said. “Give me a fucking onion.”

I reached back, found one in Trunch’s pack, and gently pressed it onto his palm..

Umberto took it. Looked the rider in the eye. Then shoved the entire thing into the man’s mouth. The rider gagged, his eyes wide. Umberto stomped once, hard, forcing the onion deeper. The laughter stopped. And then Day stepped forward, sword in hand. He didn’t speak. Just raised the blade, calm and precise, and dropped it clean across the rider’s neck. The head rolled. So did the onion, sliding free from the severed throat, perfectly intact.

No one spoke.

We just stood there. Breathing. Bleeding. Somehow still alive.

Eventually, we moved.

No orders. No plan. Just the quiet, aching shuffle of survivors who knew the work wasn’t done yet.

Wikis descended from the trees and began reclaiming her arrows. She worked in silence, one by one, pulling shafts from bark, limbs, and moss. She tested the fletching, checked the tips, slid the whole ones back into her quiver. A few were too warped to keep. She left them behind without comment.

Carrie drifted above the clearing, casting faint silver flickers to light the field. Din set about prying the blades free from the attacker’s wrists. He managed to undo the bolt holding one and settled with cutting off the hand to retrieve the other. Trunch moved through the dead, quiet now, his hands shaking as he worked, prying medallions from necks, gathering what little the fallen had. Each attacker wore the same thing: a Dan’del’ion medallion, unmistakable even in the dark.

Thirteen in total.

The final rider’s was different. A little larger. More ornate. Edged in silver filigree, the metal veined around the rim with faint crimson. And in its centre, a gemstone, milky white. We exchanged glances, no one quite ready to touch it for too long.

We took them all.

Then we turned to Jonath. Still breathing. Still unconscious.

Din and Umberto moved first, lifting him between them, a mismatched pair of limbs beneath too much weight. They bore it for only a few paces before Redmond stepped in, silent. Osman followed, nodding once, his face pale and tight with something close to shame. Wordlessly, they took over, cradling Jonath with surprising gentleness. Gratitude passed unspoken between them.

The cart waited where we’d left it.

We climbed in slowly, as if our bodies were still catching up to the fact that the fight was over. Trunch collapsed against the sideboards. Carrie folded herself beneath spare cloaks. Wikis sat with her back to the driver’s bench, scanning the woods. Din groaned as he pulled his dented armor into something resembling comfort. Yak climbed up beside me and said nothing.

Redmond and Osman laid Jonath carefully across the packs, arranging him as best they could.

No one spoke.

I took the reins.

A gentle flick. A whisper to the mules. And they began to walk.

Slow.

Blessedly slow, along the long, moonlit road back to Dawnsheart.

Return

Reader KleptLeave a comment

Chronicles of Klept: Chapter XVIII

We made our way toward the North-East city gate with the sky threatening rain in the distance. Umberto stomped beside us, muttering about “the ignominy of looking after academics” and “being destined for greater things,” gripping his axe like he planned to strike down the next cabbage cart that looked at him funny.

Wikis glanced down her coat for the seventh time and turned to Carrie.
“Do you think it’ll grow back?”
“I’m fairly sure it will, darling.”
“But it’s been ripped out completely.”
“Still,” Carrie said, “hair has a very forgiving nature.”

A few paces ahead, Trunch tried to strike up a conversation with Osman, gesturing animatedly as he spoke.
“Klept tells us the Court were ruthless. Farmed the people as much as the people farmed the land.”

Osman adjusted the strap on his satchel and cleared his throat, pleased to be drawn into conversation.
“They didn’t start as tyrants,” he said, eyes distant. “The Dan’del’ion Court rose centuries ago, during a time of famine, plague, constant raiding. At first, they were protectors. Guardians. But eventually, Lord Ieyoch rose to power, and things changed.”

“I’d love to know more. I mean, Klept gave us the background, but was light on specifics.” Trunch’s voice had an eager lilt.

“I gave you the necessary information, in the time we had,” I called forward. “You haven’t asked for more.”

“I appreciate it,” Trunch called back, and then turned to Osman. “But seeing as we’ve got a few hours of walking ahead of us…”

“Sorry,” Redmond cut in, abruptly stopping. “Are you really expecting us to walk all the way?”

“Well, we could hire a cart — but it’ll only take us part of the way. Once we enter the forest, we’ll have to leave it by the roadside,” Yak replied.

“As long as the chronicler writes it down so it isn’t forgotten on the way back,” Umberto grunted, eying me with more intensity than was strictly necessary.

“But… I think we’ll kind of need to go all the way to Nelb anyway, and then backtrack from there,” Yak said, looking sheepishly at the ground.

“Yak,” Carrie placed a hand gently on his shoulder. “Have you forgotten how to get to the stump?”

“Not exactly. It’s just, it was dark when I left the forest. I kind of got lost on the way back to Nelb.”

“That’s why you came back so late,” Trunch offered.

“So I need to retrace my steps from Nelb. Then I think I can get us there.”

I tried to lighten the mood. “At least we could get a sizzlecake or two.”

“It’s a good thing we’re setting off early, then,” Day said, already heading for the gate.
“I’ll go hire us a cart.”

“There’s a C.A.R.T. stable just outside the gate,” I called after him. “See if they’ve got one with bedding.”

“C.A.R.T.?” Osman asked.

“The C.A.R.T. system,” I replied. “A Humbledoewn Valley institution. Carriage And Reliable Transport. Came about a few generations ago—started by a group of farming friends sick of paying through the nose for carts and beasts. Between rental costs, maintenance, hoof-rot ointments, wheel grease, and the occasional mule funeral, it was getting unsustainable.”

Osman raised an eyebrow. “A mule funeral?”

“You’d be surprised,” I said.

“So they pooled their coin, ideas, and stubbornness, and set up a shared network—carts and animals available for hire at a fair price. These days, it covers the whole valley. You just head to a C.A.R.T. stable, pick your beast and cart size—grain, lumber, or relocating your exceptionally lazy uncle—hand over some coin, and off you go.”

“So it’s a cart rental service,” Osman said. Redmond scoffed.

“Well, yes, but better. Each cart comes with a token that matches the beast’s strapping. Return it to an affiliated stable, you get some coin back. Discourages folk from abandoning it in a ditch.”

“And if there’s no C.A.R.T. stand nearby?”

“There’s a little emergency cage with a messenger pigeon and a scrap of parchment,” I said. “If something goes wrong—wheel breaks, ox dies dramatically—you scribble your location, release the bird, and someone from C.A.R.T. comes to find you. Usually within a day or two. Faster if you pay the pigeon an express fee.”

Osman blinked.

“There’s even a fold-out flagpole under the chassis,” I added. “Orange and green. Highly visible. Unless you’re stuck in a pumpkin field. It’s a simple system. Flawed. But effective. Like most things in the valley—it works here, and almost nowhere else.”

Day returned, braid swaying with practiced precision.
“They’re just hooking up the oxen now,” he said. “I paid for two. Got us a medium transport cart as well.”

It wasn’t anything fancy, but the cart was solid, and Day had put down enough coin to get one with padded bedding. That meant fewer splinters, less bouncing, and slightly more dignity than usual. The kind of luxury that said ‘you’re still poor, but someone might think otherwise at a distance’.

Five minutes into the ride, Wikis shifted against the padding, stretched her legs out, and turned to me.
“Why didn’t we have a cart as comfortable as this on our first trip to Nelb, Klept?”

Umberto, never one to let a moment of passive aggression pass unchallenged, glared at me like I’d wronged his ancestors.
“That,” I said, “was a church cart. Tufulla lent it to us.”

“I assume he charged for it,” Umberto muttered.
“No, but it did come with a hymnbook and three spiders.”

The road to Nelb curved through low grass and trees that leaned in like they wanted to eavesdrop. Redmond sat primly, notebook open, quill already dancing across the page before the wheels had properly begun to turn. Jonath jostled beside him, scribbling in shorthand so dense it looked like a curse. Orsen clutched the side of the cart with both hands and the expression of a man bracing for impact.

“So,” Redmond said without looking up, “tell us everything.”

And they did.

They started with the festival. The masked attackers. The chaos. The creeping sense that it had been more than random violence—that someone, somewhere, had made a decision to let blood spill that night.

Osman, sharper than expected, murmured, “That second attack, in the church? From your description, it sounds like a golem. Not summoned. Placed. An assassination attempt?”

“Could’ve been for Klept,” Umberto added, unhelpfully. “But probably Tufulla.”

Then Nelb. The graveyard. The medallions.

Redmond’s quill froze in midair.
“You found the medallions buried?” he asked. “In coffins?”

“Sort of,” Din said with a frown.

“The risen skeletons were wearing them,” I clarified.

“That’s… unsettling,” Redmond muttered. Jonath scribbled faster.

Next: the discovery of the box.

“We found it in the Lenn house,” Yak said. “Under a loose board. Inside were the parchment and the brooch.”

Redmond’s expression shifted. He nodded, slow and deliberate.
“The Lenn family were once members of the Dan’del’ion Court.”

“I fucking knew it,” Umberto roared. “When I see her again, I’ll—”

“But they turned,” Redmond interrupted. “Years ago. Brenne’s parents were working with the White Ravens before their deaths.”

“She doesn’t know, does she?” Day asked quietly.

Redmond shook his head. “It was never made public. Safer that way. Her grandparents were the last true believers. Her parents left the Court when they were young—worked to bring it down. They didn’t want her to grow up with that shadow.”

A hush settled over the cart. Even Umberto fell quiet for a breath or two, his rage folding in on itself. Just for a moment.

Over the next few minutes, Redmond’s posture changed. His demeanor toward the group seemed to soften—not in the usual “I’m unimpressed and saving my breath for a monologue” kind of way, but in the quiet, cog-turning sort of way that meant he was re-evaluating.

He sat with the medallions in one hand, frowning down at them as the cart jostled along.

“I admit,” he said finally, not looking at anyone in particular, “your methods are… unconventional. Chaotic. Unrefined. Bordering on undisciplined.”

Yak yawned loudly. Umberto growled. Carrie tutted.

“But,” Redmond continued, lifting the brooch into a shaft of morning light, “you’ve gathered more actionable intelligence in two weeks than most field agents manage in a year. Even if it wasn’t entirely intentional. Possibly because you’re in it. Messy. Immediate. There’s something to be said for proximity.” He gave Umberto a sharp look. “Though some basic training wouldn’t go amiss.”

Umberto offered a one-finger salute.

Redmond ignored it and turned the medallion slowly in his fingers. “You said the tree stump bore the same insignia?”

Yak nodded. “Sure did, but only when the moonlight hit it.”

“And the figure you followed. They just disappeared?”

“Like the last slice of pie when no one’s looking,” Yak replied, too quickly.

Given his history with pastry, I didn’t doubt it.

“Fascinating.”

We’d been traveling for just over an hour when Yak suddenly shouted, “Stop the cart!”

He leapt out, adding a somersault, because of course he did.

“I think I recognize that rock,” he cried, pointing to a medium-sized boulder just past the tree line.

“Are you sure? It looks like every other rock,” Carrie said, visibly unimpressed.

“Something about the shape. The light was different, it was dark. But I definitely stopped here. For a quick nibble.” Yak darted over, ducked behind the rock, then popped up grinning. “Yep. Crumbs,” he said, holding up his palm. “I was definitely here.”

“Excellent.” Redmond actually beamed. “Well done. Lead us the rest of the way. I want to see your stump.”

“You know,” Day murmured as we climbed out of the cart, “in any other circumstance that would be a really weird thing to say to someone.”

Trunch tied the oxen to a nearby tree.

“Right,” Yak said proudly. “This way.“

We’d been walking for nearly an hour when Wikis suddenly stopped and sat down.

“Are you alright?” Carrie asked.

Wikis tossed some leaves and sniffed the air. “I’ll catch up. Just need to check something.”

We continued without her for about ten minutes before Yak started to slow down.

His confident stride gave way to small hesitations. Pauses. Glances over his shoulder.

And then: Wikis. Sitting cross-legged on the forest floor, right in front of us.

At first, no one said anything. Then Carrie shaded her eyes, squinting through the trees.

“I can see the oxen.”

Everyone stopped. Yak froze mid-step.

Carrie pointed. Sure enough, just beyond the thinning canopy, the cart sat in clear view. The oxen blinked at us placidly. One of them sneezed.

“I took a turn… somewhere,” Yak said, voice small.

Umberto let out a long growl that sounded like it started in his spine. He spun and hacked down a nearby tree with two frustrated swings of his axe.

Trunch sighed. Din rubbed his temples.

Yak slumped onto a nearby log, defeated. “It looked different at night. I had pastry crumbs and moonlight to guide me. It all made sense in the dark.”

“You did your best,” Din offered gently, crouching beside him.

Trunch gave Yak’s shoulder a supportive squeeze.

“I’m more of a city person,” Yak said softly.

Wikis hadn’t said a word. She just stared at Yak, head tilted, like she was trying to figure out if he was a puzzle, or a rare fungus.

Then, without a word, she walked over, yanked off his boot, sniffed the sole, picked off a piece of dirt, licked it, and vanished into the trees.

“What just happened?” Redmond asked flatly.

“Wikis,” Day replied calmly.

“She’s a little odd,” Osman said, carefully choosing his words.

“Possibly unhinged,” Redmond added.

Jonath, apparently unfazed, pulled a slightly bruised apple from his pocket and was about to take a bite when—thwap! An arrow exploded the fruit, pinning the remains to a tree beside him.

Din, Day, and Umberto drew weapons in a blink.

“Wait!” Carrie called holding up a hand.

A rustle.

Wikis popped her head out from a bush, eyes bright. “This way,” she giggled, and waved us over.

She led us through the trees like a fox that had learned cartography. Yak’s trail—faint, meandering, completely invisible to the rest of us—snaked and doubled back through the underbrush.

“He could’ve cut this time in half if he just walked in a straight line,” Wikis muttered, brushing aside a fern. “He went around that stump. Twice. Once backwards.” She pointed to a squat stump off to the left.

It took nearly an hour, but eventually the trees parted, and we saw it.

The clearing. And in the center—the stump.

Weathered. Wide. Old.

Its bark was grey and cracked like parched earth.

It was midday. The sun hung directly above us, casting a halo of dappled light across the clearing.

Redmond adjusted his glasses.

“Now let’s see what secrets you’re hiding.”

We examined the stump and its surroundings for over an hour. Carrie fluttered through the nearby trees; the rest of us scoured the underbrush. Umberto confidently strode onto the stump, arms raised as if asking to be taken by the gods.

Wikis found multiple tracks—other than ours—all humanoid, leading into and out of the clearing. Redmond, Osman, and Jonath wrote pages and pages of notes, meticulously documenting every moss patch, tree root, and awkward silence.

All of it led to nothing.

Eventually, Day and Yak wandered off. They returned some time later, just as the rest of us slumped into exhausted disappointment. Day had a couple of rabbits slung over his shoulder. Yak cradled a pouch full of berries, tubers, and herbs.

“Some of these we can eat now,” Yak said. “The rest… I’ve got drink ideas.”

Umberto immediately rose and marched over to the largest tree. He started swinging at it with a rage and fury that made everyone take notice.

The pile of Dan’del’ion artifacts sat on the grass. Redmond had tried placing them on the stump earlier—nothing had happened.

Carrie stared at them, then leaned over and whispered something to Wikis. Wikis narrowed her eyes, then whispered something to her pouch.

She turned back to Carrie and nodded.

Together, they stepped forward, each plucking a medallion from the pile.

“Wait. What are you doing?” Redmond stood, alarmed.

“Call it investigating,” Carrie replied coolly, lifting the chain above her head.

“Carrie, Wikis—don’t be rash,” Trunch called, voice tight with concern.

“We don’t know what that will do,” Din warned.

The tension in their voices caught Umberto’s attention. He stopped hacking and stomped back toward us.

“Maybe it’s time we found out,” Carrie said.

And then they slipped the medallions over their heads.

Jonath scribbled frantically in his notebook. Yak stared, open-mouthed, berries falling from his hand. Din sighed. Trunch and Day instinctively prepared spells, hands crackling with energy.

Three pounding heartbeats passed.

Carrie screamed. She dropped to her knees, clutching her head. Blood trickled from one ear.

Wikis, without a word, turned and began walking into the forest.

“Get it off her!” Din shouted.

Umberto rushed forward, grabbing Carrie’s shoulders as she writhed. Day and Trunch dove in—hands fumbling, twisting at the chain. It wouldn’t budge. Carrie screamed again.

And then—with a final wrench—the medallion came loose.

She collapsed, gasping.

Redmond stood frozen, pale. Jonath scribbled faster.

“Hey, guys.” I pointed toward the trees.

Wikis was still walking. She didn’t brush aside branches. She tripped over roots. Rocks hit her knees. She didn’t seem to notice.

“Fuck! Stop her!” Din yelled.

“Wikis!” Day and Umberto bolted after her.

Carrie groaned. “Ow… my head.”

There was a thud, a scuffle. Shouting.

Then: “Get off me!” Wikis shrieked.

Day emerged holding the medallion, panting, his other hand raised in surrender. Wikis stood bow taut, arrow tip flicking between Day and Umberto.

“What. The. Fuck. Just. Happened?” she snapped.

Moments later we were gathered near the stump again. Wikis still had her bow taut, but aimed straight down. Her knuckles were moon white with tension.

“You don’t remember anything? Either of you?” Redmond pushed his spectacles up. “Anything at all could be vital.”

“Nothing,” Carrie said, holding her head. “Just blackness and a splitting pain.”

“I was standing here,” Wikis said uneasily, “and then I was over there. And Umberto had me pinned to the ground.” She raised her bow and pointed it at him. 

“Easy, Wikis” Day, calmly pushed the bow back down.

“You weren’t listening,” Umberto growled. “I had to tackle you. You wouldn’t stop walking.”

“Well,” Redmond sighed, “Neither of you remember anything. That’s not very helpful.”

“That’s not fair,” Trunch spoke up. “You saw what happened. Clearly Wikis had no control. Carrie was bleeding from her ear.”

“Maybe we just need someone more strong-willed,” Umberto grunted and dropped a medallion over his neck.

“Oh shit!” Din sprang to his feet as Umberto began marching toward the tree line, same as Wikis.

Carrie darted in front of him, waving her hands. “He’s not even blinking!”

“We need to stop him!” Redmond shouted.

“Oh sure,” Din snapped, “you want to try?” and dashed after him.

It took Din, Day, and Trunch to slow Umberto down. Yak removed the medallion. Carrie slapped him across the face.

Umberto blinked. “Well?”

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Din snapped.

“But at least I remember.” Umberto turned to Redmond. “There was a voice. Deep. Dark. Old.”

“Now that is helpful. And Interesting. What did it say?”

“Return.”

“Return?” Redmond echoed.

“Just… ‘return’.” Umberto stood with his hands on his hips, smug as anything.

“Return where?” Osman asked.

“Where indeed?” Redmond muttered, eyes narrowing. He turned slowly. “If that’s north, then they both walked…”

He pointed into the trees. “That’s fascinating.”

“What is?” Carrie asked.

Redmond looked at Umberto. “Where were you going, exactly?”

Umberto paused. “I—uh…”

“Toward Castle Ieyoch,” Redmond said, matter-of-fact. “You were both heading toward the castle.”

Silence spread like spilled ink. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.

We sat around the clearing in a loose ring of disappointment. The sky had begun to shift into that bruised-blue that comes just before nightfall. The earlier clouds had long floated away. Day leaned against a tree, arms crossed. Wikis sat sharpening a dagger without urgency. Umberto, much to Redmond’s surprise, sat under a tree reading. Yak was lying flat on his back, staring at the canopy.

“I’m done,” he muttered. “This is too much. We’ve faced graveyards, attacks, undead cats, … and now we’re putting on jewellery that makes you bleed out your ears and wander off like you’ve been cursed.”

“You’re not wrong,” I said. “But also, we’re already out here.”

Redmond, pacing near the stump, turned sharply. “We stay until moonrise.”

There were groans. Trunch opened his mouth to argue, but Osman spoke first.

“He’s right,” he said quietly. “If the glyph only appeared under moonlight before… we should test it again. Under similar conditions.”

So we waited.

The sun dipped low. Shadows stretched like yawns. And then, just as the moon crested the tree line, a pale light spilled across the clearing—dappled and uncertain—and the stump glowed.

Not brightly. Not dramatically.

But the symbol appeared. Faint and flickering. Like a memory trying to be remembered.

Everyone leaned in.

Nothing happened.

Jonath cautiously approached the stump and began meticulously sketching the glowing insignia.

Redmond whispered something to Osman, who shrugged. Redmond strode forward. “Jonath?”

“Hmm? the young scribe turned and looked up just as Redmond shoved him fair in the chest. He lost his balance and stepped back onto the stump.

There was a collective gasp. Jonath looked as if he’s soiled himself. Redmond turned to Osman, frustrated. Osman just smiled. Jonath let out a sigh.

“Bloody hell, Redmond. You gave me a heart attack.”

Redmond gave a wry smile then suddenly turned and tossed a medallion to Jonath. “Catch”

Instinctively, Jonath caught it, dropped his notebook in the process.

There was a pulse. A blink.

And he was gone.

Just… gone. Before his notebook hit the ground. 

The clearing erupted.

“WHAT THE HELL?!” Wikis shouted, springing to her feet.

“JONATH!” Din screamed, stumbling forward to where the scribe had been. “Redmond, you son of a …”

Wikis was fast. Her bow came up, taut and steady, aimed squarely at Redmond’s chest. Her eyes were wild. Focused. Daring him to give her a reason.

“He’s fine,” Redmond said too quickly, too smoothly. “He’s gone through. We needed to know if it worked.”

“You could’ve warned him,” Din snapped.

“You could’ve gone yourself,” Trunch growled.

“We had to know if—”

“You didn’t have to do anything,” Umberto interrupted, voice like thunder. “You chose to send someone else.”

“We’re trying to avert a catastrophe,” Redmond said, chin high. “These things are expected. Every White Raven is trained for this. All of us, orphans, no family, no ties. So we can do what others can’t. So when we vanish, there’s no one left behind to mourn.”

Umberto smoldered with fury “You speak of sacrifice like it’s noble. But true sacrifice is chosen, not assigned. You played roulette with a life that wasn’t yours to wager.”

“You sent him without consent.” Trunch bellowed.

“A soldier doesn’t send his comrade through an untested gate. A leader doesn’t either.” Din spat “You’re a coward.”

“We aren’t soldiers” Redmond sneered. “We’re investigators. We don’t technically exist. We act in the shadows. No one knows who we are, or what we do.”

“That doesn’t make it right,” Day said coldly.

“Perhaps, in your view. But I did what was necessary” Redmond replied.

“No,” Carrie stepped forward. “You did what was easy.”

There was a long silence.

Then Umberto strode forward and shoved a medallion into Redmond’s chest. “You’ve got a choice. Go after him. Or wait here. See if he comes back. Either way, we’re going back to Dawnsheart. You’re on your own.”

Osman looked to Redmond, stunned and rattled. Redmond held the medallion like it weighed far more than gold.

“We’re leaving,” Din announced.

And we did.

We walked. Not fast. Not slow. Just… enough.

Fifteen minutes passed.

A scream.

Then crashing. Splintering branches. Footsteps pounding the forest floor behind us.

And then: Redmond, Osman, and Jonath—barreling through the trees.

“RUN!” Osman bellowed as they dashed past.

Behind them, shadows. Shapes. Sleek. Dark. Moving quickly.

We turned.

No more debates. No more planning.

Just running.

Portents, Paperwork, and Pruning

Reader KleptLeave a comment

Chronicles of Klept: Chapter XVII

Three medallions sat in the center of the table. No one touched them. No one even leaned too close. They just… sat there. Heavy. Silent. Sharp edges catching the lantern light in ways that felt deliberate.

“Possession of a single Dan’del’ion artifact is an act of treason against the Crown,” I said quietly.

“And we’ve got three.” Din was stern. You could see the concern setting in his brow, slow and stubborn, like a badger digging in for winter.

Wikis exhaled loudly. “We have four.” She pulled another from her coat and tossed it onto the pile. Carrie gave her a look. “It’s the one Klept showed us on the way to Nelb. I … accidentally put it in my pocket. Sorry.” She stepped back and whispered something to her pouch, just quiet enough that the shiny things could hear it… and no one else.

“Four potentially cursed and definitely illegal relics” mused Trunch “If we wanted to get the Grin shut down before we officially open, this will do it.”

“Don’t forget the loot from Brenne’s.” Yak tossed a small black box onto the table. Inside: the brooch, and that folded scrap of parchment none of us could decode.

Day stood and crossed the room to the shelf behind the bar. “Since we’re bringing out all the cursed heirlooms…”

“I don’t think the egg’s connected to this” Din called after him.

“Not the egg.”
Day reached high, grabbed the brick from the top shelf, and tossed it gently across the room.
“This.”

Carrie caught it and placed it down next to the others.

Yak was hunched in his chair, arms crossed and feet tucked up, casting suspicious glances toward the skeletal cat curled on the armchair nearby.

“I still don’t trust it,” he muttered. “Bones. What kind of name is Bones?”

“The descriptive kind,” Umberto replied, not looking up. He’d been unusually quiet.

Din exhaled through his nose, slow and deliberate. 

“So, in total we have… four medallions, a resurrection brick and, and a box containing a brooch and a piece of parchment with some very bad vibes?”

Day returned to the table. “We can’t talk to anyone outside of this group about this. Except Tufulla. He has to know. We can’t risk someone else finding out about this.”

“I hate having to sneak around. It’s so ineffective,” Umberto was clearly grappling with his natural in-your-face state and the understanding that this needed to be kept quiet, at least for now.

There was silence for a beat.

Then: shff — Trunch slid a small square of parchment across the table toward Yak.

“Draw it.”

Yak blinked. “The stump?”

Trunch nodded.

With a sigh, Yak pulled a charcoal nub from his pocket, hunched over the page, and began sketching. His tongue stuck out slightly in concentration.

A minute passed.

He held it up with a grin. It was… generously, a stump. The proportions were off, the perspective nonexistent, and the glowing sigil resembled the web of a spider on narcotics..

Trunch took it without blinking. “And we know about this,”  he said, holding it up.

A knock at the door.

The entire table froze. No one ever knocked. Not here. People just… walked in.

Day threw some cloth over the table.

Carrie tried to act naturally.

Umberto was up in a flash.

He flung the door open like it had insulted him. Standing outside, smiling and perfectly unbothered, was a familiar young lad, the one Tufulla has talked to the other night. The one with the tray of morning ales.

Umberto leaned down until they were eye-to-eye, which didn’t require much leaning.
“What do you want?” he barked.

Din stood, raising a calming hand.
“He’s just a kid, Umberto.”

The boy smiled brightly, unfazed.
“Note from the High Reader,” he said, holding out a folded parchment. “I mean, from the Mayor. From Tufulla. Says he has information and needs to talk to you right away.”

I sighed. “Of course he does. That man has impeccably eerie timing.”

Umberto snatched the letter, dropped a couple of copper into the boy’s hand, and gave him a gentle nudge back toward the street.

Then, he stepped into the alley, glanced across it, scowled, and shouted,
“What the fuck are you looking at? Go back to your knitting!”

The blind across the way dropped instantly.

He came back in, slammed the door with enough force to rattle a beam, crossed the room to the bar, poured himself a mug of ale, and downed it in one long pull.

No one else said a word.

Day scooped up the cloth and artifacts, securing it together in a little bundle.

“Just in case” he assured the group, placing them in his pack.

We filed out of the Grin into the soft grey morning. As we reached the corner of the alley, Din suddenly stopped.

“Wait.”

He turned on his heel and jogged back.

The group watched in silence as he reached through the doorway, unhooked the key from just inside, and locked it with a quiet click. He gave the handle a firm tug to be sure.

Din returned, handing the key to Trunch. 

Umberto gave a small grunt. “You locked the door?”

“We’ve only just started getting it into shape,” Din replied. “And we’re new in town. Better to be safe than suddenly out of ale.”

Carrie blinked. “Wait… there’s a key?”

“I leave it hanging just inside the door. Just in case there’s ever a moment no one’s here. I trust you all more than anyone else.”

“We’ve really only known each other for a few days” Trunch put the key into his pocket.

“Exactly,  and that’s still a few days more than I’ve known anyone else in this town.”

That got a small chuckle from Day.

And with that, we turned and headed for the church, medallions safely stowed, questions forming in our minds, and behind us, the sound of a blind being closed.

There was a small commotion outside the old rectory, now commandeered by municipal bureaucracy under the disgraced former Mayor, Lord Roddrick, and rebranded as the Mayoral Office. Two guards were attempting to placate a small group of local vendors.

“Acting Mayor Tufulla is currently in an important financial meeting. He’ll hear your grievances as soon as it concludes.”

The other added calmly, “In the meantime, we ask that you patiently wait.”

Reader Fenna stood at the church doors a little further down, her expression brightening when she saw us. She was dressed in slightly more formal robes than usual, clean lines, richer fabric, the faint shimmer of silver threading along the sleeves. A sermon-day ensemble.

“Good morning Reader Klept, and friends.” She stepped forward, voice warm but low. “I’m just about to give the mid-morning sermon. You’re welcome to stay, of course — though I thought Tufulla would have had you doing it.” Her gaze settled on me, equal parts teasing and hopeful.

I smiled, thinly and replied dryly.“Apparently, he has other plans for me.”

She nodded, apologetically. Then leaned in, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.

“He’s not in a meeting, he’s just avoiding people. He’s expecting you, though. Head on through the side door… but be warned, he’s in a mood the likes of which I’ve never seen.”

We made our way inside, cutting through the heavy hush of the church, the scent of incense and old stone hung in the air. Din did his best not to clank across the flagstones in full plate, but the effort was admirable more than effective. There were a few muffled gasps from scattered pews as Umberto strode in front, chest out, loincloth fluttering with every purposeful step, axe gripped like he was expecting heresy behind every pillar.

Then came Day, hair in a long braid down his back, moving with the kind of effortless grace only elves seemed to master. The gasps softened. A sigh or two followed. One young woman at the end of a pew visibly swayed, caught herself on the bench, and then slowly slid to the floor with all the conviction of someone overcome by divine vision.

Carrie, suddenly aware of a room full of eyes, lit up like a festival. She twirled on her heel, struck a pose, and blew kisses as she walked, basking in the attention like it was sunlight she’d been waiting for all morning.

The side door behind the pulpit creaked open into the office. Tufulla was pacing inside. The desk bore witness to chaos: scrolls, letters, ink smudges, half-drunk tea, and a half-eaten pear that looked like it had been forgotten mid-bite.
We filed in like schoolchildren returning from recess, untidy, slightly guilty of something, fully expecting a lecture. Din quietly closed the door behind us.

“Do you know,” Tufulla began, not looking up, “how many forms I’ve signed this week that I technically shouldn’t have? The mayoral guidelines haven’t been updated since the Pumpkin Blight of 1543.”

He picked up a parchment and waved it like a flag of defeat. “According to this, if you wish to house four chickens on your property, you may do so freely.”

Day raised a brow and nodded solemnly.

“But,” Tufulla continued, “should you add a fifth chicken, you must apply for a permit, which costs seventeen silver and one button, paid in person to the mayor.” He slapped the parchment down and placed a small, dull button on top with quiet menace.

“Do you know what happens if a street vendor submits their permit application on the wrong day of the week?”

Yak shrugged. I shook my head.

“Nothing. It just gets filed in the wrong drawer until someone dies or retires.” He sighed. “In the church, there’s continuity. A scripture survives for centuries. Change one verse, and there’s outrage. Cloister riots, candlelit protests. People care. But taxes? Regulations?” He threw his arms wide. “They get rewritten every time someone sneezes in council chambers, and then someone misplaces half the paperwork.” He paused, then added, almost as an afterthought,“Incidentally, you do not need a permit to house a bear.”

He dropped into the chair behind the desk like a man who’d fallen into a well and wasn’t sure if it was worth climbing out.

I stepped forward “You know there are those who believe the church should change a little too. Modernize. At least adjust to the changing ….”

Tufulla waved a hand, dismissing the thought with priestly efficiency. “Yes, yes. That’s a concern for the next High Reader.”

He glanced at me as he said it, just briefly, but I suddenly felt uneasy. 

Then, abruptly, he stood.

“But that’s not why you’re here.” His voice lost all of its earlier tone. “You’re here because something has begun.”

He moved to the window, arms behind his back, watching the steeple shadows stretch across the cobblestones outside.

“I’ve made some inquiries, with my contacts in the White Ravens. There are reports of Castle Ieyoch being repaired, rebuilt. There have been other incidents, like what you saw in Nelb, of people, how should I put this? Not staying dead.”

“I imagine that might be hard to accept, as a man of faith” Trunch reasoned.

Tufulla’s expression didn’t flinch. “The White Ravens’ reports align with dozens from the general populace.” He gestured vaguely toward the mountain of parchment. “Undead in the forests. Skeletal things. Corpses walking. Some with Dan’del’ion markings.”

Yak raised his arms, moaning theatrically with his best zombie impression. Carrie snorted, barely containing a giggle.

He turned back to us, voice steady now, “All heading the same way. Toward the castle.”

Trunch stepped forward, posture straight, voice steady. “We’ve done some investigating of our own,” he said. “After Nelb, we went back. Brandt wouldn’t speak to us again, but we found… signs. Yak followed a hooded figure into the forest. Watched him vanish at a stump.”

Tufulla’s eyes narrowed slightly.

Trunch nodded toward Yak, who gave a little shrug and a nod of confirmation.

Trunch continued, “the stump glowed in the moonlight. With the same sigil as these.” He motioned to the table.

Day was already moving. He unwrapped the cloth bundle and began laying out the artifacts with the reverence of someone disarming a curse. First the medallions. Then the brooch. The parchment. The brick.

Tufulla’s earlier irritation vanished like mist. He stepped closer, brows drawn tight.

He picked up the brick, turned it over in his hands. “I think you’ve accidentally wrapped up part of your renovations.”

“Nope,” Day replied flatly. “That’s meant to be there. It resurrects things.”

“There’s a skeletal cat running around our tavern right now,” Wikis added, cheerful as ever. “His name is Bones.”

“I see” Tufulla said quietly, placing the brick back on the table like it might bite. “You might need a permit for the cat, I’m not sure.” He picked up a medallion, turning it so the light caught the twisted dandelion in the center.

“This is deeply concerning,” he said. “These are incredibly rare. The White Ravens might come across one, maybe two a year. The fact that you’ve collected all this in a matter of days…” He trailed off, gaze moving from face to face. “I’m thankful you brought them to me.”

He gestured toward the folded paper. “What’s written on that?”

“We’re not sure,” Carrie said, stepping forward. “Could be names. Could be a recipe.” She smiled at Din, who did not return it but instead folded his arms. 

“We want to go back to the stump. With your blessing.” he said carefully.

Tufulla didn’t respond immediately. Instead, he turned to his desk, cleared a space with one practiced sweep, and began writing. The scratch of the quill filled the room.

“That’s not a yes,” Umberto muttered.

Tufulla finished the note and sealed it with wax. Then, without ceremony, he turned and walked to the far window where a large, pale-feathered raven waited silently on the sill, so still it might have been carved from bone.

“Solstice,” Tufulla said. “My familiar. She doesn’t eat bread crumbs or deliver romantic poetry I’m afraid, but she’s very good at getting messages to the right people.” He tied the note to her leg.

Day leaned closer, curious. “I have one of those too.” He extended a hand. A large spider crawled from his sleeve and settled on his palm.

Wikis squeaked and took two steps behind Trunch.

“Solstice is going to send request too the White Ravens. For an investigation team.” Tufulla explained, watching the bird take flight. “Experts in Dan’del’ion history. Possibly more knowledgeable than even our friend Klept here.”

Tufulla turned back to the group. “I need you to wait. They should arrive by morning. Return to the stump with them. Do not try to be heroes, not yet.”

Umberto rolled his eyes. “So we’re babysitting more chroniclers now?”

“Specialists,” Tufulla corrected. “Not chroniclers. And if even half the rumors about what’s happening at that castle are true, you’ll want their help.”

He let his gaze fall on the table of artifacts again. “You can take those with you. But leave the parchment – I quite like puzzles. Maybe I can figure it out.”

We turned to leave when Tufulla stopped us “Go out the front door please – you wouldn’t want to disturb Reader Fenna’s sermon. And take this.” He handed me a piece of parchment covered with faded ink and numbers.

“What’s this?”

“I have no idea actually. I think it’s an inventory, or a ledger. From about 60 years ago.”

Day raised an eyebrow.

Tufulla leaned in and lowered his voice, “Apparently, I’m in some kind of important financial meeting,” a mischievous glint sparked in his eye. “When you leave, wave it around, put on a bit of a show. Make it look convincing.”

Carrie snatched the paper from my hand before I could respond.

“That,” she declared, twirling toward the door with a beaming grin, “is something I can definitely do.”

By the time we’d ambled through the market and got back to the Grin, the light had begun to shift to that early afternoon glow that makes the dust look charming.

“We could open after this stump business,” Din said, dropping his gauntlets onto the bar with a tired clatter. “Assuming we don’t die or get arrested first.”

Carrie nodded, hands on hips, surveying the space. “We’d need to finish the upstairs eventually, but that’s a big job. Big jobs mean coin.”

“Speaking of coin,” Day added, running a hand along the bar’s polished-enough top, “we’re beginning to run low. Or at least I am. I can’t speak for everyone else.”

There was a general murmur of agreement, the kind that’s polite but undeniably grim.

“I mean, we got paid for clearing out those crypts,” Day continued. “But nothing since then.”

Several eyes turned toward me.

I raised my hands slowly. “Tufulla will pay you. I promise. He’s honest. He understands the weight of what he’s asking us to do.”

“From the church coffers or the city’s?” Trunch asked.

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “Maybe both. Depends who’s feeling more generous—or guilty.”

“And when?” Umberto growled, arms crossed, brow furrowed so deeply it looked like he was trying to fold his entire face in half.

“I’ll speak to him,” I offered quickly. “Today, if it helps. I’m sure something can be arranged.”

There was a pause.

“Make it soon,” Umberto said. “Otherwise I start charging by the day. Or the body.”

“I’m not sure that’s legal,” I said.

“I’m not sure I care,” he replied, adjusting his loincloth and reaching for a mug.

There was a brief lull as everyone sat with that thought. The quiet weight of unpaid effort. Of coin thinning in pouches.

“Well,” Trunch said, sitting back with a shrug, “opening the doors would at least bring in something. Doesn’t have to be grand yet. Just open.”

I looked around the room – it was far from being a town hotspot, but I’d sat and drank in worse. “You’ve got rustic charm. Limited seating.” Bones leapt onto the bar, much to Umberto’s annoyance, “Haunted ambiance. There’s potential.”

“We’ll definitely need more chairs and tables if we are to open,” Trunch added. “There’s a salvage yard just outside the walls. I saw a few pieces that might do. At least for now until we can afford something better.”

“We have ale,” Umberto said, tapping one of the new kegs with something approaching restrained pride. “That’s all we need.”

“And,” Yak added, ducking behind the bar and reappearing with a squat, dusty glass bottle. He held it aloft like a relic unearthed from a forgotten tomb. ““We also have this. Gentlefolk, prepare your tastebuds.”

Everyone leaned back.

Umberto’s eyes narrowed. “Oh no. You take that and fuck right off.”

Din scowled. “We are not serving smelt in our bar, Yak”

“What’s Smelt?” Trunch asked, peering at the bottle like it might suddenly blink at him.

“Sulker’s Fire,” I offered. “More commonly known as Smelt. Technically a spirit, functionally a solvent. Smells like regret and burns like memory.”

“It’s originally an orcish grain spirit.” Umberto eyed the bottle like it was the one thing from his childhood he hadn’t forgiven. “They also use it to strip rust from weapons, and start fires in wet weather.”

“Some people tried to distill it further” Din added, “tried to make it more drinkable and failed“

“It tastes somewhere between scorched grain, brass, and shame.” Wikis spoke with her head down, as if she’d just tasted a bad memory.

Yak grinned, unfazed. “Yes, yes. But this isn’t just Smelt. I’ve been tinkering. A bit of toasted nut mash. Caramelized roots. Spiced bark. Floaty bits.”

“Floaters?” Carrie winced, nose wrinkling.

He held the bottle up to a lantern. Bits drifted lazily inside, suspended like pickled secrets: golden flecks, slivered nuts, something suspiciously leaf-like. “It’s aged.” He said, practically beaming.

“In a cask?” Din asked, hopeful.

“In my pack for weeks” Yak replied, “then behind the flour sacks. For three days.”

“We’re going to die,” Umberto muttered.

“Trust me,” Yak said, already pouring. The smell hit first—smoky, nutty, buttery, with an odd sweetness that hovered like mischief. We each took a glass. Mismatched. Cracked. Carrie’s still had wax on the rim.

We hesitated. Then, cautiously, sipped.

A beat.

“Oh,” Wikis said softly.

“Wow,” Carrie blinked.

“This is… weirdly good,” Din admitted.

“Nutty,” Trunch mused. “Like roasted hazel or… almond?”

“I’m getting caramel,” I said. “And something warm. Clove?”

“It’s smooth,” Day added, looking at bottle and the Sulker’s Fire label. “I hate how smooth it is.”

Umberto downed his in one shot, stared at his glass, then at Yak, then back to his glass. He held it out.

“Again.”

Yak beamed, already refilling.

“I’m telling you,” he said, “no one else in Dawnsheart has anything like this. Give me time, give me coin, or failing that, some moral flexibility, and we can make the Grin the talk of the town.”

“What do you call it?” Wikis asked.

“I haven’t settled on a name yet – I’m thinking about calling it a ‘Goblin’s Nut’ on account of the nutty flavour.”

Umberto’s drink came out his nose. 

Carrie giggled “Imagine trying to keep a straight face when people order it”.

Day smiled and gently shook his head. “A few more tables and chairs,” he said scanning the room and counting on his fingers. “Ale. Yak’s mystery spirits. We could do  a soft open.”

“A soft open?” Wikis looked intrigued. “Like a trial run?”

“Exactly,” Din nodded. “We’ve got ale, a roof, and at least one drink that might be legal. That’s a tavern in a lot of other towns.”

“And if we do it right,” Yak added, swirling the last drops of his concoction in a glass, “people talk. Word spreads. We get locals. Adventurers. The odd bard with a coin pouch and no sense of danger. Enough to keep the shelves stocked and the lights on.”

“Enough to pay for more than stale bread and borrowed furniture,” Carrie said.

“We open the doors,” Din said, “and maybe it keeps us from having to take every bone-rattling, ghost-haunted job that comes through town.”

“That’s a terrible sales pitch,” Umberto muttered.

“It’s honest,” I replied.

He grunted. Which, in Umberto’s language, was close to agreement.

After some more discussion around money, and some gentle urging from Umberto (the kind that involved axe-pointed gestures and the words “backpay or blood”), I left to speak with Tufulla about providing payment to the group for “services rendered,” as Trunch put it.

The others headed out to see what furniture they could wrangle from the scrapyard, muttering about carts, splinters, and whether “structurally compromised” counted as rustic charm.

The next morning dawned with the promise of clouds and the inevitability of poor decisions. I returned to the Grin just after sun-up, three figures trailing behind me like mismatched shadows.

They were all dressed in variations of scholarly disrepair, tweeds and robes, ink-stained cuffs, boots that had seen more libraries than dirt. I ushered them quickly inside and closed the door behind us.

“Everyone,” I said, stepping forward, “this is Redmond, Jonath, and Orsen. Investigators. Archivists. Technically… specialists.” I lowered my voice and tilted my head toward the window. “White Ravens.”

“They don’t look like specialists,” Umberto muttered, eyeing the trio like he was deciding which one he’d lose patience with first. “They look like they’d lose a fight to a side of beef.”

“This is Umberto” I said to the investigators, “And over here we have Day, Carrie, Trunch, Din and Yak. And that’s Wikis on the stairs.”

She was sitting halfway up, coat loosely draped, legs apart in her usual stance of unbothered confidence, dangling a piece of string for Bones. The skeletal cat leapt and twisted, bones clacking merrily as he darted between her boots.

“Who’s a ferocious little death machine,” she cooed, wiggling the string and completely ignoring the small group clustered at the door. 

Bones launched again, this time vanishing under her coat.

The tallest of the three, Redmond, cleared his throat and straightened his spectacles with a sniff of academic disdain. He looked back at Umberto. “Physical prowess is not the benchmark of expertise, Mr Umberto. Our contributions are of a more… intellectual variety. We bring insight, research, and understanding. Tools you may be less familiar with.”

Yak coughed into his cup. Day raised a brow. 

Redmond gave a patient, almost pitying smile. “We’ll stay out of your way—so long as you don’t get in ours. This is a matter of ancient magic and long-lost rites. You wouldn’t understand the layers of complexity involved without a dozen years of foundational—”

A yelp.

Wikis stood abruptly, flailing one hand inside her coat while hopping backward down the stairs.

“Get it out! Get it out! He’s caught. He’s caught.”

“What do you mean, caught?” Trunch asked

“He’s entwined!” She screamed pointing at her crotch. 

Carrie screamed with laughter. Yak choked on his pastry, Din rose instinctively, then thought better of it. Day just turned, walked to the bar, and poured himself something strong. Osman’s face lost all colour.

A final tug, a pained yelp (from Wikis, not the cat), and Bones dropped to the floor, now dusted in the kind of fluff that didn’t grow on skeletons. He landed upright, proud, tail twitching like nothing had happened. 

Redmond sucked air between pursed lips and huffed. He looked at his partners with an air of disapproval. Jonath, the shortest of the three and already scribbling in a small, leather-bound journal, nodded to himself and murmured, “Fascinating behavioral characteristics…”

“Welcome to the Goblin’s Grin,” Carrie said holding back further laughter. “We’re thrilled to have you join us on our little adventure. Truly. Try not to die.”

Wikis lifted her coat and bent over, then straightened with eyes wide and voice hollow: “It’s all gone.” she said as Bones strutted across the floor, tail high, now fuzzed with mystery fluff. 

Osman swallowed back an urge to throw up.

Redmond cleared his throat with the kind of pomp usually reserved for lectures and death sentences.
“If we can all refrain from further… performances,” he said, eyeing Wikis, “I suggest we focus on our task. You do your job, and let me do mine.”
He adjusted his collar and turned to Carrie. “By my understanding, High Reader Tufulla is paying you handsomely, from the White Ravens’ coffers, no less, to guide us to a tree stump in the middle of a forest.”

Umberto snorted. “We haven’t seen a single coin.”

I stepped forward, producing a modest leather pouch and offering it to Trunch. “A thousand gold. For, quote: services rendered, and an advance for ensuring Redmond and his crew don’t get attacked by undead, swallowed by vines, or,” I glanced at Umberto, “offended to death.” He snarled at me. 

Trunch weighed the pouch, nodded once, and passed it to Day.
Day opened it briefly, eyebrows lifting, then handed it to Din.
Din counted out a portion with methodical care, just enough for each of them to feel briefly optimistic, then crossed the room to the bar, crouched, and opened the cupboard behind the counter.

He slid the bulk of the gold beside the egg box with quiet finality.

Carrie frowned. “Why there?”

“It’s safer here than on our person,” Din said, closing the cupboard. “Especially in the woods. You never know what we’ll run into.”

“Plenty of bandits roaming the woods in the valley” Yak added. “I should know – I was one, briefly. Once.”

Redmond shook his head. 

“Better to lose a handful than the whole pouch, if that happens” Day added.

Umberto looked unconvinced, but didn’t argue.

“Alright then,” Din said, rising. “Let’s go.”

The group shuffled out—boots, belts, bags, and bookish robes rustling in unison. Din was the last to leave, pausing in the doorway to give one last glance around the room.

Then he locked the door to the Goblin’s Grin behind us.

Some Things Should Stay Buried

Reader KleptLeave a comment

Chronicles of Klept: Chapter XVI

The rain had started sometime in the night — not the gentle sort that whispered against shutters, but the kind that hammered down with purpose, turning cobblestone alleys into rivulets and soaking cloaks through in seconds. I hunched beneath my hood as I made my way through Dawnsheart, boots squelching, fingers numb, wondering if I was the only one mad enough to be up at this hour.

As I reached the tavern I glanced across the alley and waved. The old woman in the window scowled, shook her head and let the blind fall. I turned, pushed against the door and stepped inside.

The Goblin’s Grin looked… different. Cleaner. Warmer. Through the rain-spattered glass, lantern light danced golden and steady. Day’s work with the lanterns was already paying off. Inside, the air was dry and already humming with quiet motion. Day stood near the hearth, mug of morning ale in hand, inspecting his handiwork like a craftsman reviewing a finished sculpture.

“Lose the wet boots” Day’s voice was calm but carried a hint of warning, “Carrie will go ballistic if you leave wet footprints everywhere.”

Trunch was packing methodically, apples, dried meat, a waterskin – the kind of preparation that said he wanted to be prepared for anything. Yak, meanwhile, was cycling through faces like someone trying on hats, each more unsettling than the last.

“No,” Din said flatly, arms crossed, eyes still puffy with sleep. “Too many teeth.”

Yak blinked, adjusted, tried again.

“Better,” Din allowed, reluctantly. “Still hate it.”

“Morning,” I said softly, placing my boots near the door. I glanced around, “Umberto, Carrie, Wikis?”

Din yawned and pointed upstairs.

“Sleeping,” Day replied “They drank a lot last night.” 

There was a pause and I heard faint snoring coming from the floor above.

Near the door hung a few old rain cloaks, tattered, forgotten and heavy with dust. Trunch grabbed one, gave it a half-hearted shake and threw it over his shoulders. He tossed the other across the room.

Yak caught it without looking, slung it over his shoulders and picked up his satchel and joined Trunch near the door.

“You’re heading out? In this?” I asked, nodding to the windows.

“Roadtrip” Yak replied, excited.

“It’s really coming down out there. Are you sure you don’t want to wait?”

Trunch adjusted his cloak “We’re heading back to Nelb. If we leave now we should be able to make it back by nightfall” 

“You’re heading back to Nelb? Why? There’s nothing else there. We got all we could. We also didn’t exactly leave on good terms.” I struggled to see the point in going back.

Trunch looked up from fastening a buckle. “Medallions in the graveyard, another in Brenne’s house, it’s just… a lot of Dan’del’ion for one little hamlet. Maybe it’s nothing. But it doesn’t feel like nothing.”

“Trunch thinks we might have missed something” Day was inspecting the fireplace.

“Without Umberto, and with Yak’s…” Din looked at Yak’s smiling face and shuddered “…unique skillset. They might be able to find out more, at least try talking to Brandt again, or Brenne.” He moved behind the bar and started carefully placing a metal box in one of the cupboards.

“I guess it’s worth a shot” I ventured “Goodluck.” 

As they were about to step out in the rain a thought hit me, “If you wouldn’t mind. Could you bring back a sizzle cake?”

Yak clicked his fingers “Got it. One sizzle cake for the chronicler.”

“You know, you can just call me Klept” I replied.

A shrug and a smile “Maybe.”

I turned back to Din and Day, brushing a damp strand of hair from my forehead. “So, do you guys have anything planned for the day?”

Day didn’t even look up “Not really. I think I can get this fireplace functional. It looks like the chimney is blocked – shouldn’t take too much to clean it out.”

Din yawned again and nodded. “I managed to get a few kegs ordered yesterday. Should be delivered soon. I just need to find a way to keep Umberto from drinking them.”

At that moment, the door opened, and Avelyn Goldwillow hurried in.

“Good morning.” She flicked the rain from her cloak and looked up. “Oh, Reader, I didn’t expect to see you here. How are you?”

“Wet. And confused,” I replied, with more honesty than I’d intended. I was still attempting to process Trunch and Yak’s daytrip.

“Well, it’s good to see you.” She reached into her satchel and moved past me toward the bar.

“I brought these,” she said to Din. “I know I said I’d bring them yesterday, but, ” she looked down, embarrassed “it turns out there’s actually quite a lot of paperwork involved in appointing a temporary mayor, and that kind of took priority.”

Din looked at her with a mix of tiredness and confusion.

“It’s the official paperwork for this place,” she said, looking up and around. A look of surprised admiration spread across her face. “You’ve certainly not wasted any time. It already looks much better.”

Din picked up the pile of papers. “Thanks. What exactly do we need to do with this?”

“Oh, it’s just for the official records. Standard property contracts. Look it over, sign it, all of you, and I’ll come collect it from you at the end of the week.” She adjusted her cloak again and turned toward the door. “I’ll leave you to it, then. Oh my, it’s coming down in buckets out there.”

“Wait,” Din said, just as she reached the handle.

She paused, glanced back. “Yes?”

“Ms Goldwillow, Is there anything in the city records about Dwarven settlers? Or something called… D.A.V.O.S?”

Avelyn tilted her head, thoughtful. “Dwarven settlers, maybe. There’s a whole section of the archives on early mining permits and old engineering guilds. As for D.A.V.O.S…” She frowned. “I’m not sure. But the records are public, and I’d be happy to help you look through them.”

Din hesitated only a moment. “Now a good time?”

She smiled “Actually, yes. Come with me.”

Din nodded and reached for a cloak.

“You’re really going out in full plate?” I asked. “In this weather?”

Din said nothing, just fastened his cloak, adjusted his gauntlets, and headed to the door like a man heading into battle before turning to Day.

“The egg thing we found in the crypts, it’s still pulsing.”

“That’s weird.”

“Yeah, I’ve put the box in the cupboard behind the bar, keep Wikis away from it.” He turned to me “Can you deal with the ale when it arrives? Sign for it. Keep it away from Umberto. Thanks.” 

And with that he followed Avelyn out the door.

Day withdrew his head from inside the fireplace, brushing soot from his sleeves.

“Can you find a broom? Or… something long and vaguely broom-like? I need to clear the chimney. It looks like something’s stuck up there.”

I disappeared into the kitchen and began rummaging through the shadows and hanging pans. After a few minutes, I emerged victorious with what had probably once been a broom.

“This was in the corner” I said, handing it over. “The old woman across the alley probably has more bristles on her chin.”

“Charming,” Day muttered, taking the sad excuse for a broom and inspecting it with the air of a man wondering if this was how he’d die.

He crouched down, angled the stick up into the chimney, and began prodding cautiously. There was a brief moment of resistance, a dull thunk, and then—

Something large came loose.

It hit the hearth with a heavy, ashy thud, followed immediately by a choking cloud of soot that billowed into the room.

I staggered back, coughing and dusting soot from my robes. Then lightly scowled as I saw Day standing in front of the hearth, soot and ash free and not a hair out of place. 

Day prodded it with the broom, “Why would someone shove something like that up a chimney?”

“Disposing evidence?”

“Surely you’d just burn it?”

“Some kind of fraud then? Block the chimney, the tavern fills with smoke.”

“Possibly” Day said mildly, giving the bundles one last poke.

A floorboard creaked overhead.

Umberto appeared on the landing — shirtless, barefoot, and grizzly in a way that suggested something, or someone, had offended him before breakfast.

He blinked down at us. Then at the soot. Then at the pile of cloth in the hearth.

“What the fuck is that, Day? I leave you alone for one night and wake up to a crime scene?”

“Technically,” Day said, “if it’s a crime, this is the cleanup.”

Umberto narrowed his eyes. “Is that a body? I thought the rules were clear. No killing. No touching the sign.”

“I don’t think it’s a body,” I said, grimacing at the pile. “I hope.”

Muttering something sharp, guttural, and almost definitely a curse, Umberto stomped down the stairs, marched across the room, grabbed his pack, and dropped into a chair.

“Remind me again why the chronicler is still here?” he grumbled.

“Just doing my churchly duty,” I said, “as assigned.”

“Civic duty,” Day corrected. “Technically your boss is the mayor.”

Umberto snorted.

“How did it go with Barbara yesterday?” I ventured timidly.

He seemed to soften a little, reached into his pack and pulled out the paperback.

“She signed it. My Sherry Honkers. First edition.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Impressive. I thought she hated that one. She’s been known to disown it — refuses to sign most copies. Says it was rushed.”

Umberto froze for a second, looked at me for the first time without glaring, then nodded, just once. “Exactly. She rolled her eyes when she saw it — said, ‘Oh no, not this one’. But she still signed it.” He clutched it to his chest “I can be very persuasive at times.”

“That’d make it rare,” I said. “Valuable.”

“Damn right it is.”

He stood, pulled on his boots, swung his little cape around his shoulders, and hoisted his axe.

“I’m going out. Looking for someone, or something to fight.”

I watched the rain fall in sheets through the window, looked at the loincloth-wearing gnome and raised an eyebrow at Day, who just shrugged.

Umberto reached the hearth, grabbed the soot-caked broom from Day’s grasp, and shoved it into my hands without breaking stride.

“If we’re stuck with you, chronicler, make yourself useful.”

The door slammed behind him.

“You know, this continent has many far more accomplished authors,” I said, sweeping at the soot.

“Yes. It does,” Day replied, poking the bundle with his foot.

By the time I’d finished sweeping up the soot and ash, and Day had thrown out the bundle, which turned out to be just a shoe wrapped in old rags, the ale had been delivered, the rain had begun to ease, and Carrie and Wikis had emerged from their slumber.

Carrie set about scrubbing and polishing the floors and beams, while Wikis headed out back into the garden. Moments later a squeal, fear or joy, I wasn’t sure which, sent Day, Carrie, and me racing outside to join her.

Wikis was crouched on the wall of the well, staring at a cat. Or more accurately, something that had long ago been a cat, now crawling from the ground beside a familiar-looking brick.

“I was just going through my collection and kind of forgot about the brick and put it down over there,” Wikis stammered, catching Day’s accusatory glance. “And then when I went to pick it up, this little guy was climbing out of the ground.”

“Looks like he was buried a fair while ago,” Day muttered, leaning in for a closer look.

It was mostly bone now, missing a few ribs and a hind leg. A few patches of mummified flesh clung to the larger bones, the pelvis, the skull. A single eyeball, long shriveled and the color of a dried chickpea, rolled lazily in one socket.

“Smells like it too,” Day gagged, pulling back and pinching his nose.

“He’s so cute!” Carrie knelt beside it and held out a hand. The creature staggered forward, bones clacking, and nudged her gently.

“I’m going to call it Bones,” Wikis declared, bounding down, scooping it up, and trotting back inside.

“Let’s clean it up,” Carrie fluttered along behind her. “I wonder if it eats anything.”

“That’s not… Maybe we should… I…” Day turned to me, clearly searching for some kind of moral support.

Only then did I realize I hadn’t blinked or breathed the entire time.

Day gingerly picked up the brick, and we cautiously stepped back inside.

“I’m not sure Din will approve of this,” Day remarked, placing the brick high on top of the shelves behind the bar.

“Probably not,” I said. “But Trunch will be fascinated by it.”

A couple of hours later, the door creaked open and Din stepped inside, followed by Umberto — who, despite a split lip, one eye swelling shut, and what looked suspiciously like a bite mark on his forearm, was grinning.

Din looked tired. “No luck in the archives. Avelyn said she’d keep digging, but…” He trailed off, rubbing the back of his neck.

“We ran into each other at the blacksmith’s,” Umberto said cheerfully, dropping his axe on the bar with a thud. “Din was asking about some fittings for the bar. I had a chip in the axe again.”

“We stopped by the Orc’s Knuckle,” Din added. “Just to see how bad the competition is.”

“And for the ale,” Umberto said, winking. “Mostly for the ale.”

Then both of them stopped, noses wrinkling almost in sync.

“What is that smell?” Din asked, already moving behind the bar.

Umberto pointed toward the hearth. “The bundle – it was a dead thing?”

“No,” Day said calmly, not looking up from where he was slicing an apple with surgical precision. “That was just a shoe.”

Din crouched, opened the cupboard, and peered at the egg box. “It’s not the egg, that’s still pulsing.”

“There’s something you should both know,” Day said, setting down the apple.

And that was when Bones crawled out from under the armchair — spine clicking, eyeball rolling lazily in its socket, tail raised like a flag of mild doom.

Din backed up a step and hefted his hammer “What. The fuck. Is that?”

“I’m so over things that should have stayed dead,” Umberto growled, unclipping his axe from his back.

Wikis poked her head in from the kitchen, beaming. “His name is Bones!”

It took a bit of explaining, and an agreement on getting rid of the smell, but it didn’t take too much convincing before they were Ok with it. Bones seemed to actively dislike Umberto, but had a fondness for Din.

“Trunch is going to like you,” Din said, scratching Bones’ skull.

Umberto grunted. “Can we at least agree it’s not allowed on the bar?”

He reached for Bones. The cat froze, lowered its skull, and arched what was left of its back, bones rattling faintly, tail twitching in slow, deliberate menace.

The message was clear: don’t.

Wikis picked him up and placed him on the floor, where he wove unsteadily between her ankles before climbing onto one of the armchairs.

I arrived with croissants and morning ales the next morning to find Trunch and Yak curled up asleep in the armchairs — one snoring, the other drooling into their own boots. According to them, they got back late, exhausted. Everyone else had already gone to bed, so they slipped inside, collapsed somewhere soft, and promptly fell asleep.

Not long after, we were gathered around the largest table in the tavern, a circular disaster with a lean, several extremely stubborn stains, and at least one questionable sticky patch no one had dared to investigate.

Chairs, stools, crates, and upturned buckets served as seating. 

Trunch folded his arms. “We didn’t have much luck in Nelb. Brandt refused to speak to us again.”

Yak sighed. “We combed through the graveyard again, just in case. Nothing new. No one in town was really willing to talk.”

Umberto growled. “We knew that already. Told you it’d be a waste of time.”

Din held up a hand. “Let them finish.”

Trunch gave a small nod. “However… we decided to try speaking to Brenne again.”

He and Yak exchanged a glance.

Yak leaned forward. “So. We started up the hill, but a gentleman in dark, hooded robes got there first.”

Trunch continued. “He looked a little suspicious. So we hung back.”

“But then,” Yak said with a grin, “we figured we should try to listen in. So we crept closer.”

Carrie gasped. “Ooh, secrets! I love where this is going.”

Trunch’s expression darkened. “It didn’t take long before the shouting started.”

Yak nodded. “And things started getting smashed, like they were thrown. Loud. Violent.”

Trunch added, “He left abruptly. Once we got a closer look… his robes looked a lot like the ones worn by the attackers at the festival.”

Din’s expression sharpened. “So she is connected to the Dan’del’ion Court.”

Umberto punched the table. “I knew it. I hate it when people aren’t honest with me when I ask them nicely.”

Everyone stared at him.

“…What?” he muttered.

Trunch exhaled slowly. “I’m still not sure she is. Not consciously, at least. Either way,” he continued, “we decided Yak should follow him. I stayed back at the graveyard.”

Din nodded. “Good plan.” He turned to Yak. “What did you find out?”

Yak scratched the back of his head. “Not much.” He glanced at Trunch, who gave him a small, silent nod. “…And maybe a lot.”

I frowned. “I don’t think you realize what you just said. You didn’t find anything — but found something?”

“I’m also confused,” Wikis said, her eyes darting nervously around the room.

Yak held up a hand. “I mean, I followed him. Quietly. For a while.” He paused. “And then he disappeared.”

“You mean,” Umberto said slowly, “you lost him.”

“No,” Yak replied. “I mean he disappeared.”

Trunch leaned forward. “It’s more complicated than that.”

He turned to Yak. “Tell them everything you told me.”

Then to me: “You really should write this down.”

He looked back at the group, concern settling across his face. “He was gone for hours. I started to get worried.”

Yak leaned forward in his chair, arms folded on the table in front of him, hood down and obscuring his face.

“So, I started following him,” he said. “Kept my distance, stuck to the edges, along the walls, behind carts, changed my face a few times.”

“Good thinking,” Wikis said, nodding approvingly.

“Thanks.” He looked up and grinned. “He sort of strolled through the hamlet like he owned the place. Stopped at a vegetable stand for a while, didn’t buy anything, just looked around.”

Then his eyes lit up. “Oh! Right.” He reached into the folds of his robe and pulled out a slightly squashed sizzlecake, which he handed across the table.

“For you,” he said.

I blinked and took it. “Thanks.” 

“Anyway,” Yak continued, “once he left the main square, he headed down the road. No cover, so following him without being seen got a little trickier.”

Umberto crossed his arms. “And he noticed you. So he ran?”

Yak shook his head. “Nope. I ducked behind rocks. Trees. A goat at one point.” Umberto scowled. “Anyway, after a while, he just… stepped off the road. Didn’t look around. Just turned and walked straight into the forest.”

He paused.

“That’s when it got weird.”

We collectively looked around at each other.

“Now, when you say weird?” Day spoke for the first time, “I mean,” he gestured at Yak, “no offense“

“I followed him for a couple of hours,” Yak said, arms still folded on the table. “Through the trees, across a couple of streams. Nothing fancy. Then he reached a small clearing.”

Trunch nodded. “Here’s where it gets interesting.”

“He stepped onto a stump,” Yak continued. “And disappeared. One moment he was there, next — poof. Gone.”

Carrie tilted her head. “That is interesting.”

“He did something first,” Yak added. “Took something from his robe. There was this flash of pale light, and then he vanished.”

“Did you look at the stump?” Day asked, already leaning forward.

“No,” Yak deadpanned. “I turned around and ran away screaming.”

There was a pause.

“Of course I looked at the stump. I searched the clearing for hours. Waited to see if he’d come back. Nothing.”

Din frowned. “And it was just a regular stump?”

“That’s what I thought,” Yak said. “Nothing obvious. No markings. No traps. Just a mossy old tree base. I stayed until it got dark.”

Trunch crossed his arms. “Which is why I got concerned when he didn’t come back after a reasonable amount of time.”

Yak’s expression shifted. “So I finally gave up. Turned back. And just as I started to leave — the clouds parted. It had been overcast all day.”

Carrie leaned in. “And then he came back?”

“No.” Yak shook his head. “The stump glowed. Sort of. There was a symbol. It caught the moonlight, became visible”

Day’s voice was sharp now. “What kind of symbol? Arcane? A rune? Glyph?”

“No,” Yak said grimly. “Worse.”

Trunch reached into his cloak and pulled out one of the medallions they’d taken from the graveyard. The dark metal gleamed faintly in the lantern light, a wilted dandelion in a bed of thorns.

Yak pointed at it with his thumb. “It was that.”

“Oh shit,” Din groaned, placing a hand on his forehead.

Day reached across the table and gently pushed Trunch’s hand down. “Don’t flash that around in public.”

I moved to the window and peered across the street, breathing a sigh of relief when I saw the blind was still down.

A sudden scream from Yak, and he was suddenly standing on his chair.
“Something touched my leg!”

“Oh, that’s just Bones,” Wikis said cheerfully, ducking under the table and emerging with the skeletal cat cradled in her arms.

“What the fuck is that?” Yak barked, retreating to the farthest edge of the chair like it might save him.

“Oh wow,” Trunch breathed, his whole face lighting up. “Look at you.”
He reached across and took Bones gently from Wikis. “Aren’t you amazing? Yes you are.”

Yak slowly returned to sitting, still leaned back and angled away from Trunch and his new companion.
“What is it?” he asked.

“I think it was a cat,” Day replied dryly.

“I think we need to talk to Tufulla,” Carrie said, tone soft but serious.

“About the undead cat?” Yak asked, with the hopeful certainty of someone who believed a churchman could banish undead creatures.

“No,” Din said quietly, eyes fixed on the medallion in the center of the table. “Not about the cat.”

Croissants, Candles, and Commitments

Reader KleptLeave a comment

Chronicles of Klept: Chapter XV

I woke just past dawn, the clatter of early carts and a confused messenger pigeon at the wrong window dragging me out of a dream I couldn’t quite remember.

The cobbles were still damp with the night’s chill as I wandered down to Baking My Way, the only place in Dawnsheart that knew how to treat a croissant with the reverence it deserved. The bell over the door jingled, and the scent of cardamom and browned butter wrapped itself around me like an old friend.

“Mornin’, Reader. The usual?” she asked, already reaching for the tray.

I nodded. “Yes. Thank you.”

She handed it over, still warm to the touch. I thanked her and turned for the door.

But something tugged at me. I stopped, halfway out the door, and turned.

“You know, actually…” I said, surprised at myself.

A short while later, I pushed open the door to The Goblin’s Grin with a brown paper bundle tucked under one arm. 

I tried to tread softly across the floorboards, but my boots found every creak they had to offer. I was just placing the first pastry on the bar when a voice cut through the stillness.

“Morning chronicler.”

I yelped. And I’m not proud of it.

I forgot that Elves don’t really sleep. Day sat calmly at one of the tables near the stage area, inspecting a small stack of lanterns. His expression was unreadable, and his hair, gods damn him, was impossibly perfect. I don’t know how he does it. 

My startled yelp was apparently enough to wake Yak, who untangled himself from behind an empty crate and snatched a pastry with the reflexes of a starving raccoon.

He paused. Chewed. Grabbed another and walked across the room to where Wikis lay curled up in the corner like a sleeping cat.

He nudged her shoulder.

She opened her eyes, looked up at him, hissed, sprang up, and – midair – drew an arrow and let it fly in one frightfully fluid motion. It missed his head by inches, thudding deep into a panel behind the bar.

Yak dropped his croissant in shock.

Without looking up, Day said dryly,
“A face, Yak. You need to have a face.”

“Oh, right, sorry,” Yak muttered, bending down to pick up the pastry before returning upright wearing something that could loosely be described as a generic tavern-goer face, if such a thing existed. Slightly bland. Forgettable. Marginally better than blank.

Wikis hissed again, but this time it sounded more like an apology. She snatched the pastry from Yak’s grasp, scrambled onto a nearby chair, crouched and began nibbling slowly, eyes wide, scanning the surroundings.

I was halfway to the door, brushing flakes of pastry from my coat and trying not to dwell on the arrow still quivering in the wall, when Day spoke.

“Know where I can get lantern oil?”

“I’m a church Reader and archivist, I live by lantern light. Of course I do. I can take you there. Market’s on the way to the church anyway. That is, if you don’t mind coming along”

As we moved toward the door, Wikis’s voice floated after us, clear and strangely casual.

“Can you bring back some salt?”

I turned. “Salt?”

“Yes. Salt,” she nodded “For sprinkling on food.” Then, in a lower tone, eyes narrowing as they scanned the ceiling corners: “And drawing circles on the ground.”

Day didn’t miss a beat. “Salt, got it.”

I glanced at Yak.

He just shrugged and kept chewing his croissant.

The door hadn’t even had a chance to shut behind us when a boy approached, barefoot on the cobbles, carrying a tray of steaming mugs with the kind of balance born not from training, but necessity. He looked about twelve. Thin, quick, and sharper than he let on. The same boy, I realized, Tufulla had been speaking to in the alley the night before.

“From the High Reader,” he announced, chin tilted with quiet pride. “Or should I say, the Mayor. He said you’d probably need these after last night.”

Seven squat mugs. He held the tray out with practiced ease.

“There’s one for you, too,” he added, locking eyes with me. His gaze was steady—too steady for someone his age. There was something behind it. Wisdom, maybe. Or just survival dressed up as insight.

Yak appeared as if summoned by scent alone. “Mystery mugs!”

He took the tray with reverence, dropped a few coppers in the boy’s hand, and vanished back inside.

The boy turned and disappeared around the corner, light-footed as fog.

Day raised an eyebrow as we turned down the alley. “Friend of yours?”

“Friend of Tufulla’s it seems,” I said. 

Day looked down at the mug. “So… what exactly is this?”

“Morning ale. Dawnsheart staple. Scribes drink it. Guards grimace through it. Most folks pretend they like it until they don’t.”

I took a sip and nearly regretted it. I swallowed with visible effort.

Day took a cautious sip. Then another. And stopped walking. “That’s…”

I braced for it.

“…actually not bad.”

I turned. “You’re joking.”

He shook his head, savoring another mouthful. “The bite’s clean. There’s clarity in it.”

“Clarity,” I echoed, watching him as if he’d just tried to befriend a wasp.

He nodded. “Tastes like something that tells the truth.”

We walked through the morning haze, the city coming alive around us — soft shouts from the market square, the squeal of stubborn wagon wheels, the scent of warm bread fighting the ever-present damp.

Day, quiet for a while, finally said, “So. The Dan’del’ion Court. Remind me.”

“They ruled the Humbledoewn Valley. Central Elandaru. Tyrants. Vampires. Ieyoch was their lord. Vampire. Centuries old. No one knows how he came to power — most records were destroyed when they fell. Probably for good reason. Under the Court, people weren’t citizens. They were an unpaid workforce and food source. The valley bled for them while they lived like gods.”

“And then they fell.”

“As tyrants do,” I said. “Infighting, betrayal, and a peasant uprising with more anger than fear. Castle Ieyoch was abandoned. The name became a curse. Now even owning a Dan’del’ion artifact can land you in a prison cell.”

Day raised a brow. “So… the medallions we found”

“Are extremely illegal. And extremely dangerous. And probably cursed. And we should not be casually talking about them in public. Tufulla keeps the one I showed you in that vault under the church.”

He gave a small nod, thoughtful. 

“Some think the Court made a pact,” I added. “Something dark. Not death exactly. Something worse.”

Day was quiet for a beat. Then: “You think they’re back?”

“I don’t know. But Tufulla seems to at least be considering the possibility”

We turned the corner into the square. The marketplace unfolded before us, cloth canopies, hawkers, the scent of spiced meat and wet hay. I pointed off to one side.

“Lantern oil’s there, haggle lightly, he likes the game. Salt is by the barrel under the green tarp.”

Day nodded, already scanning the stalls.

“And you?”

I pointed across the square toward the church, its broken window half-boarded and sun catching on the mismatched glass that remained “Church. Tufulla’s waiting.”

The church door creaked open, the familiar scent of old stone and older incense settling around me like memory. Morning light filtered through the half-repaired stained glass, casting fractured light across the pews.

I stepped inside, half-expecting Tufulla in his usual place by the lectern, hands folded like a man waiting for the world to catch up.

Instead, I got Reader Fenna, mid-sweep.

She didn’t even glance up. “He’s not here.”

I blinked. “High ReaderTufulla?”

“Mayor Tufulla” she smirked, “is in the mayor’s office,” nodding toward the office next door. “Trying to find the bottom of Roddrick’s incompetence.”

I sighed. Of course.

The former mayor’s office still smelled like stale tea and failed promises. I found Tufulla hunched over a desk buried in parchment.

“You look happy,” I said.

He didn’t look up. “Roddrick siphoned thousands from the city’s reserve fund — over years. Falsified contracts, fake repairs, ghost employees. All of it routed into personal accounts buried under layers of false names.”

I said nothing for a moment.

Then: “Want help?”

“Yes. Go and help your new friends.”

“I helped Day find the market,” I offered. “I’m sure they’ll be fine for a few hours without me. Besides, I wouldn’t call them friends. Umberto just growls in my direction.”

“Which one is he?”

“The angry gnome. Loincloth. Big axe.”

Tufulla glanced up, finally. His expression was unreadable, but his eyes were sharp.

“I’m sure he’ll grow to like you in time.” He returned to the parchments in front of him.

“The point is, we aren’t really friends. I mean, technically, they barely know each other. You assigned me to accompany them to investigate Nelb. I did that. I’d be better served at the church,” I said quietly. “Doing what I was trained to do.”

He stood slowly. “I need you to walk with them. Learn them. You need to find out what’s coming and figure out what part they’re going to play.”

I shifted my weight. “Surely I should be doing church duties instead? Particularly with you occupied with all this.” I gestured at the mountain of parchment in front of him.

“What you are doing is far more important than looking after the church. Reader Fenna has that part under control and gave a stirring sermon this morning,” he said, stepping around the desk. “She spoke about what it means to endure hard times. About how we each have to play our part if we want to come through it together.”

He raised an eyebrow and placed a hand on my shoulder.

“The church is fine for the moment.” Then, gently, “Klept, walking with them may be the greatest service to the church you’ll ever give.”

The weight of Tufulla’s hand still lingered on my shoulder as I left the mayor’s office, not heavy, not warm, just… certain.

Outside, Dawnsheart had fully shaken off the morning mist. I threaded my way back toward the stalls, boots scuffing old cobble. I paused at a stall selling beeswax candles, letting the warm, waxy scent settle around me. Lavender. Mint. Plain tallow. The seller had lined them up like tools of war, each with a handwritten tag and a small dish of sample wicks flickering in the breeze.

I was reaching for a set of long-burning church tapers when someone to my right said, lightly,

“No no – these won’t do. They’re too thin, burn too fast. There’s no mood. I need a wide-base, preferably honey blend with a slow melt, thick scent.”

I turned.

The woman beside me was dressed in layered green silk, a velvet cloak half-thrown over one shoulder. She wore perfume that clung like memory and held a small bundle of what looked like rose-scented votives. A notebook peeked out from her satchel, spine well-worn, a quill tucked neatly into the strap.

I recognized her — vaguely.

Barbara Dongswallower.

I said nothing for a moment, just raised an eyebrow and reached for a beeswax taper.

“These are for reading,” I said. “Not… ambience.”

“Everything’s ambience if you do it right,” she replied, inspecting a lavender candle with theatrical scrutiny. “But to each their flicker.”

She smiled, the kind of smile you practice when hundreds of strangers want to be charmed by you for five seconds at a time.

I glanced at the notebook again. “If you’re staying in town long, Write of Passage carries the best ink. Stronger pigment. Holds its line better.”

That made her pause.

Then she smiled again, warmer this time, slightly more real. “That’s very good to know, thank you.”

She slipped a coin to the vendor, gathered her candles in a linen wrap, and gave me a slight nod.

“Have a good morning, Reader.”

I blinked. “How did you—”

She was already walking away, cloak trailing behind her like a whispered rumor.

I turned back to the tapers, picked three, and said nothing.

A moment later, Day slid in beside me, bottles of oil, a bag of salt, and a small stack of folded parchment tucked under one arm.

“The church robes probably give it away. Was that—?”

“Barbara Dongswallower, I believe.”

He blinked. “Huh.” 

A pause.

“He’ll be upset if he finds out.”

“Then we don’t say anything,” I said, placing the tapers into a cloth wrap. “He doesn’t seem to like me much as it is.”

Day nodded. “Fair enough.”

By the time we pushed open the door to the Goblin’s Grin, the rest of the group had woken, and the croissants and morning ale were gone, though I wasn’t entirely convinced Yak hadn’t consumed them single-handedly.
Someone had attempted to scrub the floor and given up halfway through.

They were gathered around a table near the bar. Yak was gesturing wildly with a bent spoon. Wikis crouched on a stool with a coil of rope in her lap. Trunch stood with arms folded, foot propped on an upturned bucket like it was a ship’s helm.

“We could put a couple of small tables out in the alley if we can convince that old woman across the way,” he was saying.

“Or kill her,” Yak offered brightly.

“No killing the neighbors,” Din said, without missing a beat.

“I could make it look like an accident?”

“Zero. Killing. Particularly the neighbors.”

I stepped closer, setting my ink and candles down on the bar. “What’s all this about?”

“Renovations,” Carrie said. “Din’s vetoing everything.”

“I am not vetoing everything,” Din snapped. “I’m exercising discretion.”

“I’ll repaint the sign,” Wikis offered.

Din spun to face her like a schoolteacher catching a cheat sheet mid-test.

“Do what you like, paint the walls, clear out the back, replace the stools, knock a hole in the ceiling if you must but…” He turned, gaze sweeping the group. “Nobody touches the sign.”

Umberto grunted and gave a slow, solemn nod in agreement.

We all glanced toward the window.

The Goblin’s Grin sign hung from two rusting hooks, one corner drooping low. The wood was warped, the paint long lost to wind and time. It looked like it had been dragged from a river, left in the sun, and then partially set on fire for good measure.

“The sign stays as is.” Din repeated.

Silence.

Then Carrie raised a cautious hand. “Can we… clean it?”

“No.”

“What if it falls off?”

“Then we nail it back on.”

A beat passed. And then, slowly, Umberto turned toward me. His expression narrowed. He took a step. Then another. Then marched with quiet, growing suspicion until he was standing far, far too close — face tilted upward, eyes squinted. And sniffed. Once. Twice. A sharp inhale, followed by a narrowed stare.

“You smell like cardamom…” he said, voice low, accusatory. “And… roses.”

“I bought candles,” I offered, not helpfully.

He inhaled again. Eyes narrowed in slow accusation . “You spoke to her.”

“I was at the market. I spoke to several people,” I glanced at Day. 

Umberto glared up at me and jabbed a stubby finger into my chest “You spoke to Barbara.”

“I…” 

Day, unwinding his bundles beside the bar, didn’t even look up. “Yeah. She’s in the marketplace. Shopping”

Umberto vanished in a flurry of motion, flipping his pack open, rummaging with wild-eyed precision until he emerged triumphantly holding a small, creased paperback.

And then, without a word, he bolted for the door.

Din let out a long, exasperated sigh. “I’m going to find a supplier. We need beer. Don’t touch the sign.” He followed Umberto out — not chasing, just escaping the madness.

One by one, the others drifted into motion.

Yak disappeared behind the bar, sifting through shelves and drawers muttering to himself. “Gonna need citrus… maybe dried hibiscus…berries should be easy to get here”

Trunch finished measuring a table and headed for the door. “I’m going to find a carpenter, we need better tables. And chairs that don’t threaten to shatter when you sit down.”

Carrie stood near the door tapping her lip with one finger. “Klept? Reader? Chronicler? Whoever you are, where would a girl find a florist in this city? And maybe someone who sells bunting?”

“Basket of Blooms, in the square. You can’t miss it”

She curtsied and fluttered out the door.

Day settled by the hearth with his bundle of lanterns, quietly cleaning each glass, refitting the oil pans, trimming wicks with the focus of a man performing minor surgery.

Wikis disappeared into the kitchen. I heard a muffled hiss, a thud, the clattering of pans, and something that sounded suspiciously like laughter.

The Goblin’s Grin wasn’t ready yet. Far from it. But the page was dry, and the ink was waiting. Maybe this place, cracked floorboards, cursed sign and all, was what would bring them together.

Not the adventure, or the fame, or the reward.

This.

I made my way to the corner table, opened my notebook to a fresh page of parchment, and let the ink find its way.

A bang echoed from the kitchen.

Wikis emerged, holding a dented pan in one hand and a very large rat by the tail in the other.She looked pleased. “I think I found dinner.”

Home is Where The Hops Are

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Chronicles of Klept: Chapter XIV

The alley was more of a suggestion than a street. No lanterns, no signage, no guiding light but the dull grey of late afternoon sneaking through the overcast sky. The Goblin’s Grin revealed itself with all the subtlety of a secret too ashamed to be remembered.

“Here it is. The Goblin’s Grin.” Avelyn Goldwillow gestured nervously at the collection of wood and stone in front of them.

It slouched between two buildings like a guilty sibling. The kind of place you’d walk past three times before realizing it wasn’t just a boarded-up ruin. Cracked paint peeled from splintered boards. Weather-blackened beams sagged like old men too proud to sit. The windows were the real marvel, filthy things that seemed less like portals and more like the kind of place mold went to retire. There was a hint of color that whispered of a bright and stained past

Above the doorway hung the sign. Or what was left of it.

A single rusted chain held it like a prisoner in stocks. The other had long since snapped, leaving the old board to hang at a mocking angle. On it, barely visible beneath decades of grime, was the faintest trace of a goblin with a broad grin, two mugs of ale raised mid-toast. Age had stolen the joy from it. The colors were bled out, the smile more grimace than glee.

The whole building gave off the distinct impression that it had been condemned more than once, but nobody could be bothered to enforce it.

As we stood clustered around the entrance, a blind twitched in a building opposite. An old woman stared out. She was stoic, thin-lipped, and apparently the embodiment of neighborhood disapproval. She looked us up and down, frowned like we were a stain on the street, and with a slow, disappointed shake of her head, let the blind fall shut again. 

“I knew it would have character!” Carrie declared, slapping the doorframe proudly. The beam creaked in protest.

“I think it might have tetanus,” I muttered.

Din fell to one knee. Not out of exhaustion. Not out of injury. But reverence. His hammer clanged gently against the cobblestone as he whispered something that sounded suspiciously like a prayer. Umberto stood beside him, fists trembling, chest heaving. He raised his eyes to the sign like a knight beholding a holy relic and muttered, “It’s perfect,” before promptly bursting into tears.

They gathered at the door like a band of misfits summoned to a council meeting. The crooked sign above groaned in the breeze, the rusted chain wailing softly like the building was sighing in its sleep.

Avelyn Goldwillow stepped forward first, perhaps out of duty, perhaps just to end the moment. 

She reached for the door handle, only to pause.

She turned back. “Ah. Right. The key is in your possession, if I remember correctly.”

There was a pause.

Then, from somewhere within her coat, Wikis produced it.

She held it aloft between thumb and forefinger, the heavy brass loop catching a rare glint of light. Her eyes scanned the group for confirmation.

Din and Trunch nodded in unison.

Umberto saluted.

Day blinked once.

Yak bowed.

Carrie curtsied.

With a shrug, Wikis stepped up to the door, slid the key into the lock, and gave it a slow turn.

Click.

The sound echoed like prophecy.

Then, with one outstretched arm, she pushed.

The door creaked open, not like a welcome, but like a warning. The smell hit us first.

Piss. Blood. Beer. Rot. Something sweet. Something sinister. Something… unidentifiable. It clawed up our nostrils like a living thing and settled there, defiant.

Umberto stepped forward like a pilgrim entering a sacred shrine. “It’s…” he began, but the words caught in his throat.

Din reached a hand out and touched his shoulder. “Beautiful,” he whispered, voice cracking.

Inside, the tavern was cloaked in gloom. What little light tried to sneak through the windows was smothered by decades of grime, soot, and dried spills. Lanterns hung in disrepair, cracked glass, crooked frames, one still dripping something viscous and suspicious. Din, ever practical, whispered a Light spell into existence. The orb floated above his palm, revealing the Grin in all its unapologetic squalor.

Trunch stepped cautiously across the threshold, boots squelching in something he’d rather not name. The stench curled around him like an old friend. He took it in – the splinters, the stains, the sorrow, and for reasons he couldn’t quite name, he smiled. The rest of us followed him in.

The floor groaning beneath our feet was uneven and warped like it had survived a shipwreck. Sections were nearly worn through. Stains of every possible origin blotched the wood – blood, booze, vomit, time. Scratches and scuffs told stories in languages no one bothered to translate.

The tables were a mismatched congregation of survivors: one with a leg missing and replaced by a bucket, one stacked with old parchment, one so warped with water damage it resembled a half-sunken canoe. The stools didn’t match, and some didn’t even qualify as stools. 

To the left: a raised alcove, meant perhaps for music, or theatre, or sermons. Now? A dumping ground for broken chairs, forgotten flyers, a lopsided crate of moldy apples, and a brass candlestick stabbed halfway through an abandoned shoe.

The fireplace opposite the door probably hadn’t held flame in years. It was blackened with soot, the stones inside charred to memory, as if someone had tried to burn away the sins of the building, and failed.

In front of the fireplace stood two armchairs. They looked like they’d been there since the tavern’s original construction, possibly even before the fireplace itself. Twin thrones of neglect and nostalgia.

One was a high-backed behemoth, upholstered in something that might have once been burgundy velvet but now resembled a patchy tapestry of stains and time. Springs audibly complained when anyone leaned too hard, and one of the wooden legs had been replaced with a bundle of tightly wound cutlery and string. The armrests were worn smooth, grooved by decades of elbows and perhaps the occasional forehead. A faint scent of pipe smoke still clung to it like a loyal ghost.

The second was a sagging, lopsided thing with stuffing peeking through a rip in the seat cushion. Someone had once tried to sew it shut—badly. The result resembled a stitched wound on a drunk bear. A faint bloodstain marked the left armrest, and a mug ring on the headrest suggested it had once doubled as a coaster. It sat slightly askew, tilted toward the fire like it had long since resigned itself to comfort over dignity.

They were hideous. Filthy.

And the moment Trunch sat in one and sighed like a man returning from war, they became home.

But it was the bar that got their attention.

It stood proud. Dark, polished wood. Solid. Unmoving. Relatively untouched by time’s cruelty save for a layer of thick dust. It had obviously been the pride of previous owners, looked after more than anything else. Behind it, barrels, dusty mugs, and rows of bottles that might’ve once held something drinkable. A cellar door lay in the floor just behind. A narrow stone arch led into what might generously be called a kitchen.

A precarious set of stairs clung to the wall just beside the soot-blackened fireplace, winding upward toward a shadowed landing above.

“There’s a second level?” Day asked, his tone flat but eyes narrowed with suspicion, as if Avelyn had just withheld a critical detail from a state-sanctioned briefing.

Before she could respond, Wikis was already halfway up the stairs.

“Yes,” Avelyn called after her, she unfolded a piece of parchment and glanced at it.  “The, um… official property records list a privy and some living quarters. Four rooms, I believe. Although…”

She glanced around the ground floor at the grime-stained windows, the cracked beams, the mildew-shadowed corners, and grimaced.

“…the records haven’t been updated in years. No telling what the state of things are up there now.”

Carrie, from her perch on the edge of a tattered barstool, raised a brow. “Quarters? Like… sleeping spaces? You mean we could live here?”

There was a beat.

Then Din, Umberto, and Yak all turned to one another with the kind of slow, dawning realization usually reserved for prophets or pranksters.

They erupted into a three-way high five that immediately collapsed into a group hug. There were sniffles. There were back pats. Yak attempted a celebratory spin and elbowed a chair.

Avelyn gave a small, exasperated smile. “It was originally constructed as a tavern with residential quarters for the owner and staff. Then used briefly as a small inn. So… yes. Technically, you could live here.”

“Then we need drinks,” Din declared, fist raised like a general calling for artillery.

Yak and Umberto froze mid-hug. Looked at each other. Nodded.

And ran for the bar.

In perfect sync, they leapt, each aiming to vault the counter with the grace of a triumphant pirate.

It did not go well.

Both of them collided chest-first into the edge, let out matching oofs, and crumpled to the floor in theatrical agony.

There was a long silence.

Din helped Umberto up. Carrie tried, and failed, not to laugh. Yak rolled onto his back and groaned.

And Wikis, bounding down the stairs, shouted, “There’s a dead rat and a sock up there. Just one!”

Day quietly moved behind the bar, expression unreadable, hands already at work. He plucked a few dusty glasses from the shelves, inspected them against the flickering magical light, and began polishing them with the least-sticky part of a nearby rag. It didn’t help much.

With a quiet sigh, he reached instinctively for a cleaner scrap of fabric tucked beside the taps, something soft, white, and blessedly absorbent. It worked wonders. Until Tufulla cleared his throat behind him.

Day froze. Looked down at the rag. Looked back up at Tufulla.

“Good thread count,” he muttered letting go of Tufulla’s ceremonial sleeve.

Tufulla sighed the sigh of a man who regretted showing up. Again.

Day turned , pulled open a few cabinets, examined a few half-full bottles with labels so faded they may as well have been in ancient draconic, and grimaced at the chunky, amber sludge swirling inside one.

Then he spotted the cellar door.

It was bolted.

He looked at it. Then looked over the bar. One eyebrow arched.

“Yak.”

The changeling perked up immediately, still lying on the floor, now halfway through a celebratory tumbleweed roll. “Yes, sir?”

Day nudged a thumb back at the cellar and with a conspiratorial wink said, “Locked door.”

Yak somersaulted upright, dusted himself off with an unnecessary flourish, and skipped behind the bar. He examined the lock with the reverence of a jeweler, then produced a pair of delicate tools from somewhere beneath his cloak.

“Light, please,” he murmured.

Din obliged by moving the orb behind the bar.

With a satisfying click and an unnecessary bow, the door creaked open. A cool draft curled upward.

Yak peered down and whistled “Jackpot.”

A single keg  sat nestled in the gloom, untouched, untapped, and, miraculously, still sealed. It was heaved upstairs and months, perhaps years, of dust ceremoniously wiped off revealing with flaking paint: Blacktooth Stout. 

A moment later, the first mugs were poured.

Frothy. Dark. Questionably consumable.

“To victory!” shouted Umberto, raising his mug like a sword as an array of mismatched mugs were passed around.

Tufulla politely shook his head. Avelyn declined too.

Umberto, still holding his mug aloft, turned to me.

“To commemorate this holy event,” he said, eyes wild with sincerity, “the Chronicler drinks.”

I blinked. “I…”

“No excuses,” he bellowed, thrusting the mug into my hands.

Avelyn abruptly stood, brushing dust from her coat. “I’ll return tomorrow with the last of the paperwork,” she said, smiling. “Try not to burn the place down before then.”

The door shut behind her with a clunk.

“We make no promises!” Carrie called after her.

Dust danced in the flickering light, glasses clinked, boots thudded against old wood—and for the first time in who knows how long, the tavern echoed with raucous, unfiltered joy.

They drank heartily, with reckless abandon. Tales of the brawl grew taller as time passed. Every punch was now a miracle, every dodge a masterstroke, every stumble an intentional flourish. Syland Thornstar’s name became a punctuation mark—invoked with curses, toasts, and increasingly creative insults.

Someone mentioned Az and the laughter momentarily dipped. 

“A hell of a fighter” Din raised a mug in honor of the giant orc. The rest of the group joined in silent toast. The awe lingered. No one said it aloud, but they all knew it: they were lucky the orc hadn’t taken things further.

At one point Trunch wandered over to the bar. He pulled a measuring rod from his sleeve and squinted as he crouched.

“Fascinating,” he murmured. “The bar is one-point-five inches taller than standard tavern regulation.“

Yak and Umberto slapped the bar in unison.

“That’s why we didn’t make the jump!” Yak declared, “We expected it to be standard“

“You have to wonder if it intentional.” Trunch mused, mostly to himself.

“Architectural sabotage,” Umberto growled “A crime against us athletic specimens.”

Tufulla stretched with a series of alarming joint pops. “You’ve earned some rest,” he said. “Fighting for this place. Nelb. The church. You’ve absolutely earned it”

Trunch, mid-sip, froze. “Ah. Nelb. We should talk…”

Tufulla waved it off. “Don’t worry. I got some information from Klept. I need to do some research. Contact some people. We’ll talk properly in a few days. Until then, you should get to know the town, perhaps…” he glanced around “begin working on doing up this space.”

He turned to leave.

“Klept, with me,” he said over his shoulder.

I stood. Took a step. And then

“…Actually, no.”

I blinked. “No?”

“No. Stay,” Tufulla said, gentler this time. “Celebrate with your new friends.”

“Yes!” Din and Yak shouted in unison, raising their mugs. Umberto scowled but nodded. Carrie grinned and shoved another drink into my hand like it was a binding contract.

I hesitated. Then watched as Tufulla disappeared into the alleyway.

Just before the shadows swallowed him, he paused. He knelt beside a barefoot boy, dirty, grinning, no older than twelve. They exchanged a few quiet words. Tufulla pressed something into the boy’s hand. A few coins, maybe. Then ruffled his hair.

They parted like it meant nothing.

“What do you think that was about?”

I jumped. Yak had silently materialized at my side.

“No idea,” I muttered. “But I’m starting to think that man’s been running Dawnsheart from behind pulpit for years.”

Yak nodded slowly. “You want the rest of his tart?” Yak pointed to where Tufulla had been sitting, to a half uneaten tart.

“…Yes. I believe I do”

Eventually, the revelry gave way to restlessness, and the group began poking around for things to fix, break, or catalogue.

Carrie, Day, and Trunch commandeered a table and began a list: lanterns, glassware, stools with more than two legs.

“We’ll need beds,” Day muttered.

“And chairs that don’t moan when you sit down,” Carrie added.

Trunch nodded, or would have, if he hadn’t already fallen asleep in an armchair, mouth agape, snoring like a bear full of brandy.

“Alcohol,” Umberto declared, now balancing atop a cracked stool. “ Everything else is secondary. We must replenish our stock. I will not run a dry tavern. This I swear.”

Wikis, meanwhile, had vanished into every shadow she could squeeze through. She prowled the building like a magpie on a mission, cataloguing corners, muttering judgments, collecting shinies. Upstairs she found the old living quarters decrepit but serviceable. Out back, past the crumbling kitchen, she discovered a garden. Wild, overgrown, but undeniably real. A stone well stood in the center. It still worked. She screamed joyfully and tried to climb inside it.

Yak had begun methodically emptying every cupboard.

“Half vinegar. Half poison,” he mumbled. “This one’s wine. This one’s probably wine. This one’s… glowing?”

He held up a bottle filled with a swirling silver liquid that shimmered like moonlight on mercury.

“I’m keeping this one,” he whispered, tucking it into his coat like a sacred relic.

Din found a space on the floor and began to work.

Alone, and silent.

He gathered what he could—twisted forks, bent spoons, dented tankards, warped platters, shattered hinges, mismatched coins, and scraps of discarded metal. A junk pile to most. But not to Din.

He sat cross-legged on the uneven floor, hands hovering over the heap. His brow furrowed. His fingers moved with reverence. And then, slowly, he began to craft. Scraps reshaped. Edges smoothed. Dents vanished. The useless became purposeful. The discarded found meaning. As if each piece remembered what it once was and then became something more.

He finally stood an hour later, and with a little help from Carrie and Day, a metallic mural was hung above the bar. 

It depicted the moment of victory in the property rights brawl.

Yak was mid-bongo on the orc’s prodigious rear, a grin wide on his featureless face. Umberto stood triumphant atop Az’s head, axe raised in the air like a banner. Carrie was blasting her bagpipes directly into the orc’s unconscious face, cheeks puffed with pride. Wikis stood with one foot on Az’s back, her bow raised like a victor’s torch. Din, stood beside the fallen foe fist-bumping a spectral gauntlet of divine light. Trunch stood, arms raised, fingers spread, bolts of crackling shadow magic arcing between his hands. And Day stood at the edge of it all, stoic and composed, brushing his ponytail with casual grace as a shaft of light shone down behind him.

It was absurd. It was heroic. It was beautiful.

A monument to triumph, to friendship. 

The Grin had its crown.

I took my leave then, with Trunch snoring in the armchair, Umberto passed out at the bar, Carrie fluttering from lantern to lantern with a rag in hand, Wikis talking to her pouch of shiny things, and Day meditating silently in the corner. I said goodnight, got a grunt or two in reply, and stepped out into the Dawnsheart evening. Back to my dormitory bed, back to quiet shelves and dusty tomes. As I walked, one thought lingered like smoke in my mind: the prophecy. The part about the outsiders.
I didn’t know if this lot were the ones it spoke of.

But I did know one thing:

This valley was about to get a lot more interesting.

A Grin Worth Bleeding For – II

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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.

Crowds, Confusion, and a Crack to the Jaw

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Chronicles of Klept: Chapter XII

The first few rounds went by without much fanfare. 

It was very clear which people had signed up just for the hell of it and which ones thought they had some chance at coming away with a property deed for an extremely dilapidated and possibly possessed tavern. 

One match ended before most people even found a decent spot to sit. A halfling with a flail the size of a goat launched herself at a robed necromancer-looking fellow. He tried to cast something, maybe a curse, maybe a complaint, but she cracked him across the jaw mid-syllable. A front tooth sailed into the crowd. I think someone kept it.

Din’s name was called with the kind of reverence usually reserved for ancient oaths and final warnings.

The bout was billed like some clash of titans. Dwarf versus Dwarf, steel against stone, beard against beard. But the moment Jestern Ebonforge stepped into the ring, shoulders slouched and hammer held more like a broom than a weapon, it was clear this was going to be less war and more reluctant workplace disagreement.

Din, on the other hand, looked… composed. Not bloodthirsty. Not smug. Just ready. Like he’d already measured the weight of this fight and found it lighter than expected.

To Jestern’s credit, he didn’t fold outright. He landed two clean hits, one that made the crowd cheer and the other that made Din blink. But you could tell his heart wasn’t in it. Probably hadn’t been since breakfast.

Din gave him room, literally. No flurries. No showmanship. Just steady footwork and precise counters, until Jestern, panting and blinking through sweat, raised his hands and bowed out before things got bruising.

The crowd clapped. Not roared, not gasped, clapped. It was the sound of satisfied relief. No bloodbath. No humiliation. Just a clean, decent win.

And I’ll admit, I watched Din walk away from the ring with a little more interest than usual. Not because he won, but because of how he chose to win. No ego. No grandstanding. Just quiet strength, like a mountain that doesn’t feel the need to announce itself.

Not long after, a retired city guard went up against a local baker. I assumed it would be a mercy killing. It was not. Turns out kneading dough for thirty years gives you arms. The guard left with a limp and a profound respect for sourdough.

Now this was a pairing I don’t think anybody saw coming.

On one side: Trunch. Grand topknot, brooding silence, and the ever-present sense that something ancient and slightly disapproving lives behind his eyes.

On the other: Holadamos. Dawnsheart’s beloved red Dragonborn, shopkeeper of oddities, occasional fire-breather for delighted children, and the only contestant here who looked like he might’ve brought cookies instead of weapons.

They met in the center before the bout, Holadamos with a wink and a chuckle, Trunch with the slight nod of a man tolerating whimsy. I couldn’t hear their exchange, but from the way Holadamos patted Trunch’s arm and mimed a puff of fire, I gathered there was some sort of prearranged choreography at play.

Sure enough, the fight was… playful. Holadamos unleashed a minor gout of flame that sent a squeal of joy through the younger crowd. Trunch took the hit with a grunt, then responded with a couple of soft blows crackling with a dark energy, although they seemed more sparkle than smite.

They traded a few solid blows, each more theatrical than lethal. The crowd adored it.

At one point, Trunch knocked Holadamos off his feet, gently, but enough for the older Dragonborn to wince and chuckle through it. Trunch didn’t gloat. Instead, he stepped forward, extended a hand, and helped the older Dragonborn to his feet.

What followed was possibly more shocking than the fight itself: the two walked off side by side, not as foes, but as peers. The judges couldn’t decide on a winner. The two fighters didn’t seem to care either. Minutes later, I spotted them on a bench near the concession tent—Trunch sipping tea and Holadamos animatedly recounting something with hand gestures and tail swishes. The fight was declared incomplete and scratched from the ledger completely. 

In one of the more interesting morning fights a wiry farmhand faced off against a druid who, instead of fighting, summoned a goat. The goat did not wait for instruction. The goat attacked. The farmhand fled. The goat was declared the winner. It wandered off and began eating some nearby flowers. The crowd asked if it could fight again.

I’ll say this much: Yak didn’t look like he belonged in a fighting ring. Slouched posture, sleeves too long, a stance that said please don’t hit me, I bruise poetically. The crowd laughed. 

By the end, they weren’t sure if they should applaud or perform an exorcism.

He threw a punch. It landed with all the impact of a polite cough. His opponent, a broad-shouldered bruiser with fists like hammers, took one look at Yak’s form and seemed almost offended. A second later, Yak was on the ground, dazed, hood slipping back slightly.

The big man raised a fist for the finisher.

And that’s when everything got strange.

As the blow descended, Yak looked up, and suddenly wore the exact same face as his opponent. Not a clever mask. Not a passing resemblance.

His face.

Same nose. Same eyes. Same slightly crooked tooth.

The man screamed. Stumbled back like he’d just tried to punch a haunted mirror. The crowd gasped, then laughed, then gasped again as Yak pounced, not with technique, but with the desperate, flailing resolve of someone who had no business winning and absolutely no intention of losing.

It became a brawl. A tangle of limbs, grunts, and awkward leverage. Twice the man nearly broke free. Once Yak bit his own sleeve out of panic. But in the end, he locked in a grip, a messy, undignified thing that looked like it had been learned from a very off-brand instruction manual.

His opponent tapped the ground just before fading out.

The ref called it.

And Yak… just lay there for a moment. Breathing hard. Face still morphing back to neutral. Then he sat up, smiled wide and weird, and gave a little wave to the crowd.

They didn’t know what to do.

Neither did I.

But I found myself clapping.

Because whatever that was, it worked.

And I was starting to suspect that’s Yak’s entire philosophy.

It started with a muttered conversation near the tournament board. A large man—shoulders like barrels, nose like it had met too many fists—leaned in close to Syland Thornstar. No shouting. No threats. Just a quiet word, a heavy pouch exchanged, and a name scratched off the bout list with a stub of charcoal.

The man didn’t fight. Just packed up and left, whistling like someone who’d just sold a goat and gotten away with it.

Then it happened again. And again.

Three more names dropped off before the hour was out. Each one formerly set to face Thornstar or someone Thornstar might face. All of them dangerous-looking. All of them suddenly unavailable.

The officials grumbled, the crowd whispered, but nothing stuck. No proof. Just a pattern. A stink.

I glanced at Thornstar. He was lounging near the combat tent now, sipping something sparkling and expensive, wearing a smile like he’d already won.

I wasn’t the only one watching Thornstar grease the gears of fate.

Din’s jaw had set like a mason’s vice. He didn’t say anything, but the way his arms folded told me he was counting coins, names, and consequences all at once.

Carrie, ever the spotlight seeker, didn’t glare, she smirked. The kind of smirk that said: Oh, darling, if you want to play dirty, at least be interesting about it. She leaned in close to Umberto and whispered something that made him puff up like a rooster in a rainstorm.

Umberto, for his part, cracked his knuckles like they’d insulted his mother. “Chronicle this,” he growled to me without making eye-contact. “If he makes it to the final round, I’ll knock the smug out of his jawline.” He struck a pose. It was unclear whether it was meant for Thornstar or the three nearby sketch artists.

And then, of course, there was Yak.

He said nothing. Didn’t react. Didn’t frown or scoff or plot aloud.

He just disappeared for a moment.

And when he returned, casually munching on a boiled sweet, one of the paid-off fighters was patting his empty coin pouch with growing confusion.

Yak dropped a pile of coins into Day’s hand, offered no explanation, winked and vanished into the crowd again.

Day nodded approvingly, pocketed the coins and then shrugged and wandered off into the crowd. He came back a while later with snacks and drinks for everyone, and then promptly went away again.

Upon being called, Carrie entered the ring like it was a stage, and her opponent looked like he was still waiting for a script. He looked like the sort of man who’d loudly explain sword techniques he read about in a book once. He stepped into the ring with a puffed chest and a patronizing smile, clearly planning to win, or lose, gallantly.

Then Carrie hit him.

Hard.

The crack echoed across the tournament grounds like a dropped stage plank. He staggered. The crowd gasped. And suddenly the gallantry melted off his face like butter in the sun.

He came at her then, not with rage, but with the bruised pride of a man who’d just been outclassed in public. Landed a few quick jabs, sharp little reminders that even fools can sting. Carrie winced, but grinned through it, cheeks flushed, eyes glittering.

And then she spun. Literally spun, and knocked him clean onto his arse with a flourish so dramatic it could’ve ended with a bow.

The crowd erupted. Laughter, applause, a few crude suggestions from the back row. Carrie gave a mock curtsey and blew a kiss to no one in particular. A few grumbles were heard, synonymous with the sound of someone who had bet on the wrong fighter having to hand over some coin. 

As he crawled off, red-faced and grumbling, I caught her and Wikis high-fiving on the sideline, as if to say they weren’t here to mess around. 

Just as the tournament began to find its rhythm; grit, fire, a bit of blood, Thornstar vanished.

Not fled. Not sulked.

Vanished. One minute he was there handing out coins near the noticeboard and the next he was nowhere to be seen.

Moments later, he returned wearing the kind of smirk that usually accompanies bad news and an undeserved inheritance. He strode to the officiating table with the confidence of a man who’s never been told “no” without sending a letter about it.

A few hushed words.

A few more from the official in charge.

Then a gathering of judges. Leaning in. Nodding. Frowning in that bureaucratic way that only ever ends in disappointment.

And then the announcement.

“Due to the current vacancy in the mayoral office of Dawnsheart, following the arrest and pending trial of the former Mayor, Lord Roddrick” the officiant called out, “and in accordance with Civic Charter 12b, Section Four—no contest involving property transfer may be legally ratified without mayoral oversight—all proceedings are hereby postponed until such time as a new mayor is lawfully elected.”

The crowd groaned like a kicked beehive.

Thornstar looked positively radiant.

Umberto clenched both fists and began vibrating like a teakettle mid-boil.

Din, arms crossed, muttered, “The tavern that never was,” with the resigned tone of a man watching his dreams dissolve into fine mist.

Then …

A woman stepped forward. Avelyn Goldwillow a clerk from the Office of Records. She whispered something into the officiant’s ear.

Another pause. Then another announcement.

“There is, however,” the officiant said, adjusting his collar, “a clause—Civic Charter 6g, Section Two—which states that in times of civic disarray, the temporary appointment of an acting mayor may be recognized via unanimous public vote, provided it is witnessed and recorded by at least three officials and one member of the city archives. and be participated in by at least a third of the population.”

I sat up a little straighter at that. So did everyone else. Thornstar frowned.

And from somewhere in the crowd—high-pitched, unmistakably theatrical:

“High Reader Tufulla should be acting mayor!”

I didn’t have to look. That was Carrie’s voice, clear as a trumpet solo in a whispering crypt.

Thornstar, to no one’s surprise, immediately nominated himself.

But a ripple passed through the crowd.

Then a voice. Then another. Then a chant.

“Tufulla! Tufulla! TU-FUL-LA!”

Thornstar objected, of course. But one of the remaining contestants stepped forward and addressed the crowd: “If you want this to finish, if you want to see who wins, this is the way. Let’s end this properly.”

A vote was taken. Quickly. Loudly. Passionately. Unanimously. Someone far better, and faster with numbers than I confirmed the crowd size.

Tufulla was halfway through a rather animated conversation with a child about the theological implications of turnip-shaped gargoyles when the chanting started again.

“Tufulla! Tufulla! TU-FUL-LA!”

He paused mid-sentence. Turned. Blinked.

Bewilderment.

He looked at the crowd, then at the officials, then at me—like I might be holding the answer in my notebook.

I raised an eyebrow.

“They’ve elected you acting mayor,” I said flatly. “By unanimous public vote. It’s legal. Binding. Charter 6g.”

He blinked again. Confusion.

“But… I haven’t prepared a speech,” he whispered, horror dawning.

“You’ll be fine,” I said. “You’ve delivered sermons, same thing really, this is just more paperwork and shouting.”

He looked back at the chanting crowd. His mouth moved silently, perhaps reciting a calming psalm. Or possibly a curse.

When the gathered officials confirmed it with all due ceremony, Tufulla nodded once. Stiffly. Like a man accepting a crown woven from bees.

Thus, without ambition, campaign, or comprehension, the High Reader of Dawnsheart became its accidental mayor.

And so, the tournament continued.

Wikis was eventually called up and the fight began like a normal fight. Which, given this tournament, meant it was weird from the start. She entered the ring bouncing on the balls of her feet, blades flashing and eyes wide like a cat at an aquarium. Her opponent, a cloaked figure with bark-textured skin and a squirrel’s focus, barely looked at her. Instead, they kept glancing at the rooftops, scanning the skyline like they expected it to attack them.

She tried to engage. A flourish here, a cartwheel there, a dramatic “Hyah!” thrown in for flair. The druid parried, absently.

Wikis’ response was something to behold. 

The air bent around her as she twisted, slid, and flipped over her opponent, landing in a crouch behind them with her bow already drawn. The arrow glowed faintly—imbued with something wilder than magic. Wind coiled around her arm like a ribbon.

She didn’t aim.

She felt.

The shot whistled through the air like a whispered secret

Then, feathers.

The druid exploded into the form of a giant eagle and shot skyward with all the grace of a divine missile, beelining toward a large black bird—possibly a raven—perched near a chimney. The two vanished into the clouds mid-chase.

The arrow, undeterred, continued.

It sailed through the fading burst of feathers and, thunk!, pinned a spectator’s sandwich to the side of a nearby wall.

The crowd applauded.

Wikis waited. Sort of.

She dropped into a crouch in the middle of the ring, hunching low like a vampiric street urchin hiding from a sunbeam. With exaggerated subtlety, she pulled her pouch into her lap and started rifling through it.

One by one, she produced small shiny trinkets; a dented brooch, a brass ring, something that might once have been a gold tooth. She whispered to each one, held them up to her ear, and nodded solemnly like they’d whispered back.

She kept glancing at the crowd, then at the rooftops, then behind her, then back to the shiny things. Paranoid. Twitchy. Definitely talking to at least three of the objects.

The crowd, mostly watching the sky, missed the full performance. But a few onlookers near the front row stared in growing fascination.

Five minutes passed.

No eagle. No raven.

The officials huddled, clearly unsure what to do with… any of this.

At last, one of them raised his hand and called out:

“Wikis is declared winner by … confusion!”

She looked up, startled,  quickly stuffed the trinkets back into her pouch and walked off the field as if nothing at all had happened.

We hadn’t seen much of Day. He sort of came and went as the proceedings went on.

Not unusual, really. He tends to slip in and out of places like an afterthought, silent, unreadable, occasionally terrifying in that still lake over deep water sort of way.

But when his name was called, he stepped into the arena with all the fuss of a man attending a dental appointment. No showboating. No grin. Just a slow roll of the shoulders and a glance at his opponent, a man named Oliver Wolfhouse. A jolly publican with arms like ham hocks and a laugh you could hear through a cellar door. He wasn’t here for fame or property. He was here for Erik Thornstar. The original owner of the Goblin’s Grin. A man he called friend.

I think, somewhere deep down, Oliver knew he wasn’t going to win. But he showed up anyway. Because sometimes, remembrance looks like raising a glass. And sometimes, it looks like stepping into a ring.

Day raised his fists. His opponent did the same.

And Thornstar returned, loudly and with all the theatrics of a used cart salesman. 

We should’ve guessed he had more tricks up his heavily embroidered sleeve.

With most of the original contestants out—bought off, bribed, or bodily removed—he sauntered back into the spotlight flanked by his assembled goon gallery. Az led the charge, towering and silent, flanked by faces that looked like they’d been pulled from the “wanted” section of a city watch ledger.

Thornstar motioned to Az, and the orc gave a small nod.

He moved without ceremony, but not without weight. You could see it in his shoulders, the way they dipped slightly, as if carrying more than just muscle. He stepped into the arena, approached Day’s opponent, and, with the efficiency of someone used to being told what to do, picked the man up like a sack of flour and hurled him over the ropes.

The silence that followed wasn’t just shock, it was unease.

Day didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just turned his head slowly toward Az.

Az met his gaze.

Not with aggression.

With… something else. Something quieter. Tired.

He held it for a beat too long.

Then turned back toward Thornstar, who was already stepping forward like a stage actor eager for his cue.

“Well,” Thornstar said, brushing imaginary dust from his sleeve, “it appears we now have an odd number of contestants. Such a shame.”

“You made it odd!” someone shouted from the stands.

“Yeah – and you keep paying off contestants” someone else added.

Thornstar ignored them, of course and continued nonchalantly.

“I therefore invoke 4b, section 19 of the city by-laws regarding officially sanctioned competitions.”

The crowd began to murmur – the officials looked at each other quizzically. 

Thornstar whispered something to one of his men who gestured toward an alleyway.

And then came Avelyn Goldwillow, poor clerk of the Office of Records, dragged into the arena like a witness to her own trial. She clutched a rolled scroll with the same look a priest gives to a cursed object.

Thornstar gave her a theatrical little nod. She hesitated.

Then, under very obvious duress, read:

“Per Addendum 4b, Section 19… In the event that the final stage of a contested public tournament cannot be resolved through standard format, and a consensus among remaining parties is not achievable, the proceedings may be postponed indefinitely, pending review from an official civic council or tribunal of merchant peers.”

I rubbed my eyes and muttered to no one, “How many bloody amendments are there?”

The officials stammered. The crowd started to murmur.

Thornstar raised his hand as if this was all perfectly normal.

“I propose,” he said loudly, smugly, “that the remainder of this tournament be settled not by scattered duels, but as a team engagement.

The crowd collectively sighed. 

Thornstar folded his arms and smiled like a man watching a tavern door close behind a debtor. I watched most of the remaining fighters eye Thornstar and his ‘team’ before shaking their heads and walking off, mumbling about it not being worth it in the end.

The officiants started murmuring about postponement.

Thornstar smiled “Well, if no-one else has a team ready, I guess I win.”

And that’s when Umberto nearly exploded.

It started as a tremble. Then a growl. Yak and Din flanked him like wardens at a boiling cauldron, whispering, gripping shoulders, trying to reason.

It did not work.

Umberto broke free, stomped forward like a charging statue, walked straight past Thornstar—and stopped in front of Day.

Smiled. Nodded.

Then spun and punched Thornstar square in the jaw.

The sound was magnificent. The kind of crack that ends duels and careers. The crowd erupted.

Thornstar crumpled like overpriced parchment. His men—Az included—blinked in stunned silence.

Trunch stepped forward—not toward the fight, but toward the man still gripping Avelyn Goldwillow’s arm.

His voice was calm. Deadly calm.

“Unhand her.”

The man blinked.

“I said,” Trunch repeated, louder now, “unhand her. Is that how you treat a lady in front of a crowd? Like some snatched scroll, dragged into daylight and forced to perform?”

The man looked around for support. Found none. The crowd’s jeering had shifted now—eyes turning, murmurs stirring.

Trunch took one more step. “She is a clerk. A citizen. And if you’re going to play at law and tradition, then start by showing the proper respect. Or I swear, by all that’s sacred and mildly inconvenient, you’ll be the next one on your knees.”

The man let go.

Avelyn staggered back. Trunch caught her arm, not to restrain, but to steady. She didn’t speak. Just gave him a look. One that said thank you without needing words.

Trunch nodded once, smiled, and unleashed a burst of arcane engery that hit the man square in the chest.

“Don’t just stand there, you idiots!” Thornstar wheezed from the floor. “Do what I’ve paid you to do!”

Az didn’t move.

He looked at Thornstar, then at Day and Umberto, both standing firm, unflinching. Then out at the crowd, who were no longer just an audience, they were watching him. And not with fear.

With expectation.

It hit me all at once.

Az didn’t want to be here.

Not like this.

He’d been hired to be muscle, sure. But this? This wasn’t muscle, it was manipulation. Thornstar didn’t command loyalty. He rented obedience.

“Now, you gigantic oaf!” Thornstar screeched, flailing from the dirt and kicking Az squarely in the ankle.

Az flinched, but not from pain. From shame.

He growled. Not at Umberto.

At everything.

Then finally, reluctantly, stepped forward.

But Day moved at the same time. Smooth. Silent. Eyes narrowed.

Their clash began with a blur of fists and elbows. More test than fury, as the rest of the group surged forward.

Din called out to the official’s table – loud, clear, resolute:

“I guess you can put us down as a team.”

And that was it.

The crowd didn’t cheer, they roared. The officials scrambled. Thornstar groaned. Tufulla, halfway through a bite of celebratory tart, looked like he’d just swallowed it the wrong way.

And me?

I finally flipped to a fresh page in my journal.

Because whatever this was becoming…

…it was worth chronicling.