CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Some Things Should Stay Buried
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 in what might’ve been Orcish — sharp, guttural, and almost definitely a curse, he 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 like she’d just found a lost kitten.
“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.
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.”
The Chronicles of Klept 