Tag: campaign

A Sunrise of Stained Glass and Swooning

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Chronicles of Klept: Chapter VI

There are few things more satisfying than a warm morning pastry and the knowledge that you have survived the night without being stabbed, cursed, or spiritually unravelled.

At least, that was the plan.

I had just returned from Baking My Way, bakers of the finest pastries in Dawnsheart, when I caught sight of the returning group riding back into town like a parade no one asked for. There was seaweed on one of them. Possibly blood on another. They looked tired but oddly cheerful.

But I had other things on my mind. Overnight, as they braved the Whispering Crypts, something else had surfaced—a revelation older, darker, and far more troubling than fish people and their manifested gods.

The Dan’del’ion Court had returned.

Not a metaphor. Not a whisper of myth. The actual court. Or what remained of it. Confirmed by multiple captured attackers, verified by the prophecy itself.

The prophecy, which—may I remind you—was never actually read aloud.
Because someone set the festival on fire.

One of the attackers was now held publicly in the stocks, which hadn’t been used in decades. Positioned in the center of the town square, a space normally reserved for open-air market stalls and ill-considered lute solos, the figure sat slumped but somehow still… watching.

The dark cloak marked them immediately as one of the attackers. The missing tongue—well, that was standard procedure, apparently.

The guards informed the group with unnerving nonchalance: “None of the captured ones can speak. All of them had their tongues removed.” 

Wikis looked at the guard accusingly.

“Not by us.” He raised his hands like a man caught holding a suspiciously warm pie, technically innocent, but fully aware that Wikis was about to start flinging accusations like they were throwing knives at a circus act. It was the classic ‘I didn’t do it, but please don’t make this my problem’ pose—palms up, eyebrows high, the body language of a man who feared judgment more than guilt. “it was done before we got hold of ‘em”

“Someone doesn’t want them to talk.” Trunch was looking at the captured attacker with a determined intensity. “That’s annoying.”

While they waited for Roddrick to stumble his way into responsibility, the group attempted to interrogate the prisoner. Naturally, they got no answers—just that same vacant smile, the kind that says “I’m not stuck here with you, you’re stuck here with me.”

There was a commotion near the far side of the square—a ripple of gasps and swoons from the few early-bird market vendors and an actual squeal from one guard who was probably demoted shortly after. There she was in the flesh: bestselling author, literary sensation, and the very apex of Umberto’s deeply alarming affections. Barbara Dongswallower. Umberto, of course, missed the entire entrance.

Moments earlier, he had sidled up to the guard stationed outside Roddrick’s office with the barely restrained intensity of someone preparing to collect a debt and possibly a spleen.

“Look,” he had said, already halfway through the door, “you want him to know we’re serious, right? What better way to make that point than to be waiting in his chair when he walks in? Think of the symbolism.”

The guard, who clearly did not get paid enough to argue with gnomes in loincloths and carrying large axes, had let him in with a shrug and a silent vow to mind his own business until retirement.

So while Barbara Donswallower was illuminating the square with her radiant absurdity, Umberto was inside Roddrick’s modest office, rearranging chairs for maximum impact and muttering about invoice etiquette.

“He walks in, I say something dramatic like ‘We were beginning to worry’—BOOM, right in the guilt glands.”

He adjusted his loincloth, repositioned a quill on the mayor’s desk with the triumphant spite of someone who’s been waiting all day to prove that yes, even your desk is wrong, and settled in to wait, completely unaware that his literary idol had just arrived and was maybe eighty feet away.

The fact that she was accompanied by Lord Roddrick did not go unnoticed by everyone else, and nor did his posture, which had all the proud stiffness of a man who had finally received an invitation to the table he always imagined he belonged at.

He beamed as they strolled the plaza, one hand delicately poised behind his back, the other gesturing with unnecessary flourish as he explained a market stall to Barbara that she had absolutely no intention of visiting. To Roddrick, this was validation in silk and sequins.
High society. Real nobility. Fame.
And he was walking beside it. He had arrived.

That glow, however, flickered the moment he spotted the group of returning adventurers, or depending on your accounting practices, a cluster of increasingly expensive problems.

His smile twitched, faltered, and collapsed like a poorly pitched tent.

With a stiff nod to Barbara (who didn’t appear to notice, being in the middle of recounting a steamy metaphor involving dragons and midwifery), Roddrick reluctantly excused himself, performing a half-bow that was far too elaborate for someone backing away from their financial obligations.

Then, with all the grace of a man walking toward a very polite execution, he crossed the square toward his office – presumably to figure out how to talk his way out of bankruptcy, a divine reckoning, or both.

He was halfway across the square when he noticed his office door was already ajar.

This did not sit well with him.

His steps slowed. His smile once again twitched. He adjusted the cuffs of his coat (far too bold for the man wearing it), and cleared his throat three times before stepping inside.

The rest of the group followed—slowly, like predators giving their prey one last moment to feel safe. I trailed behind, still very much a civilian in this unfolding tale, chewing the last bite of my pastry and wondering just how awkward this next conversation would be.

It did not disappoint.

What Roddrick found inside was not paperwork, nor planning, but Umberto, comfortably seated behind his desk, legs crossed, back straight, radiating the smug authority of someone who believed strongly in the moral clarity of cash up front.

“You’re late. We were beginning to worry” the gnome announced.
Roddrick physically recoiled.

The negotiation began immediately, and badly.
By the time I passed within earshot, Roddrick was already suggesting an installment plan, something he described as “very fashionable these days—helps control personal spending, you understand.”

“You promised five hundred gold each,” someone growled.
“Which is a number with considerable weight and poetic rhythm,” Roddrick offered, as if that excused anything.

The shouting began soon after.

Fortunately for Roddrick, salvation arrived in the form of High Reader Tufulla, who burst through the narrow side door that connected his former office (now Roddrick’s gilded panic room) to the cathedral.

The door swung open with enough force to knock over a decorative sconce, and Tufulla himself looked pale, frantic, and deeply nauseated.
He stumbled forward, robes disheveled, clutched the frame, and promptly vomited his breakfast into the nearest decorative urn.

Which, for the record, was antique.

It was at that exact moment—precisely that moment—that I entered the cathedral through the main doors, rolls of sacred parchment from the archives tucked under one arm and one last satisfying bite of honeyed pastry still lingering on my tongue.

The scene inside nearly made me join Tufulla in his new morning ritual.

Two of the readers lay slain across the chapel floor, their bodies broken and surrounded by razor-thin shards of multicolored glass. There were no broken windows. Every pane remained intact, shining peacefully above the carnage like stained glass witnesses to their own crime.

The smell of something acrid hung in the air. My eyes burned. My hands trembled. I took one long look, then quietly, instinctively, backed out through the doors, as the group hurried in from the door opposite

They did not pause. They pushed past Tufulla. Din first, followed by Day, sword half-drawn. Umberto rushed through, axe at the ready. Trunch was already casting something. Wikis snapped at Roddrick, finger pointed like a loaded wand. “You stay right there!” She said it with the exact tone one uses for a dog who’s just been caught chewing on the furniture: sharp, certain, and with a look that dared him to twitch.

She clearly expected him to bolt.

While the group charged into the cathedral, blades drawn and spells humming, and I stayed precisely outside of it, trying very hard not to make eye contact with the divine carnage within—I noticed Yak.

Still in the square.

Still next to the stock-bound prisoner.

But this time, studying them.

He wasn’t interrogating, threatening, or monologuing.
He was… observing.

Shifting.

At first, just minor adjustments—a slight change to his jawline, the shade of his skin, the curve of his eyes. Practicing, I assumed. A rehearsal for infiltration. A mimicry of possibility.

But it had an effect.

Because after days of silence and stillness, the prisoner moved.

They flinched—barely—but it was the kind of flinch that comes from deep instinct, from recognition, from fear. Their lips curled into that same dark smile, but now there was something behind it.

A sound escaped them—dry, breathless, a laugh that hissed through the ruined absence of a tongue.
Air wheezing through hollow space.

Yak stopped shifting.

The prisoner’s body began to seize, just once, and then…

The mark appeared.

Just below the collarbone—a sickly, glowing sigil now pulsing red, its lines writhing like ink in boiling water.

One of the guards took a step back.

The prisoner arched forward, their mouth opened wide, and with a final airy exhale of laughter, their entire body melted into black sludge, smoking against the cobblestones.

The guards swore. One vomited. The other dropped his spear.

Yak did not flinch. But he also did not stay.

He stared at the puddle for just a moment longer, longer than anyone else dared to, then turned sharply and began walking toward Roddrick’s office with urgent, deliberate steps.

I don’t know what was going through his mind.

But for Yak to look unsettled?

That unsettled me.

Inside the cathedral, the group fanned out, searching for clues, bodies, and possibly vengeance. The air was heavy with incense and iron, the floor slick with blood. Broken shards of colored glass surrounded the fallen acolytes—but all windows were still intact.

Wikis, as ever drawn to nature’s beauty even when it’s trying to murder her, had wandered to the far end of the sanctuary, gazing up at the enormous stained-glass window that formed the entire rear wall. It depicted the Prophet Rock in perfect detail—sunlight striking its surface, casting divine rays across the etched glyphs.

She stared.

And the window stared back.

No-one saw it shift.
Not in time.

It stepped out as if emerging from light itself— tall, slender, graceful, and absolutely not welcome.

The golem’s body shimmered with the colors of the cathedral’s windows, her limbs segmented like mosaic panels that moved too fluidly for glass. Her face was near-elven in its symmetry. Possibly beautiful. Absolutely deadly. She didn’t shatter the window as she exited. She stepped from it.

And the window remained intact.

Wikis barely had time to swear.

The fight was fast and terrible.

The golem moved like sunlight through crystal, flashing between windows, emerging unpredictably from the glass, each reappearance heralded by a gleam of colored light and a flurry of slashing limbs.

Day was the first to react, parrying one strike with his blade and countering with a precise incantation that set the air humming. Din’s shield sang with the impact of a blow, even as he barked orders and warding prayers. Trunch unleashed arcane energy, his hands crackling with eldritch light. Umberto noticed Barbara Donswallower.

Through the front doors of the cathedral, which I had left ajar in all the divine panic, he saw her. A blazing beacon of rhinestones and storytelling, laughing at some market stall like the world wasn’t on fire, and without hesitation, without announcement, Umberto left.

He didn’t say a word.
He didn’t look back.
He simply turned, and ran full tilt across the square toward the woman of his dreams, leaving the fight behind as if love were a tactical maneuver.

At that precise moment, Yak, having heard the scuffles and shifting his destination from the office to the cathedral, entered the fray through a window.

Now, to be clear:
The doors were open. Umberto had just left through them.
I had left them open. Wide open.
Welcoming, even.

The sensible route. The logical route.
The route any normal person, or at least any normal infiltrator attempting to not get stabbed by divine security glass, would have taken.

But no.
Yak chose the window.
The one immediately next to the open door.

And he exploded through it, stained glass shattering in a cacophony of color, and artistic regret.
He somersaulted through the air, landed in a crouch with theatrical precision, and rose slowly as if he hadn’t just committed the single most unnecessarily destructive entrance I’d ever witnessed inside a religious building.

The golem, you see, had melded with the glass.
She had stepped through, been one with the glass.
Yak stepped through as well, but only after ensuring the window no longer existed.

I decided to do something something uncharacteristically bold:
I quietly closed the front doors.

Not to trap anyone. Not even out of fear.

But because the cathedral is a holy place, and I had begun to suspect that the number of civilians gathering outside might not appreciate the sight of their gods’ sacred chamber being used as a magical slaughterhouse with impromptu acrobatics and surprise property damage.

I pulled the doors shut with great care.

Because if you’re going to bear witness to utter sacrilege, the least you can do is give it some privacy.

Wikis went down shortly after.
Struck hard by one of the golem’s vicious spinning attacks, she crumpled with a cry, arrows scattering, her hand still clutching the necklace she talks to when she thinks no one’s watching.

The group fought harder after that.

Yak moved like a ghost.
Day pressed the golem with blade and spell.
Din, still shielding Trunch, roared a prayer to the forge.
Trunch let loose a volley of blasts that cracked the air with the sound of shattering promises.

And finally— 

finally—
The golem cracked. Splintered. Shuddered. And exploded into a rain of colored shards, each one landing without a sound, as if ashamed of the damage they had done.

Wikis was breathing. Barely.

The others clustered around her, pouring potions, whispering prayers, binding wounds with strips of cloth and raw desperation.

And Din, quietly, urgently, ran out through Yak’s broken window in the direction of Umberto, who was by now likely halfway through proposing a collaborative novel or challenging someone to a duel for Barbara’s honor.

“I knew he was going to do something ridiculous,” Din began, rubbing his temple with the same hand he uses to hammer steel. “He ran off the moment he saw her.”

“She glowed like moonlight dancing on silk sheets,” Umberto said from across the table, already several ales deep and staring at nothing in particular.

Din exhaled. “I ran after him. Thought he might… gods, I don’t know. Try to propose with a spell scroll. Threaten a fanboy duel. Explode. Any of the usual.”

By the time Din caught up, Umberto had already burst into the shop—The Basket of Blooms, an aggressively quaint little building with hanging baskets and a sign shaped like a watering can—and had apparently just finished professing his eternal devotion to Barbara Dongswallower, the literary hurricane herself.

The guards, her minders, had very nearly drawn weapons, having mistaken a loinclothed, sandal-wearing gnome with a massive axe and wild eyes for some kind of literary assassin.

“To be fair,” Umberto added, “it was a very passionate sprint.”

But he managed to convince them that he meant no harm.
Just… admiration. Devotion. An unhealthy level of both.

Barbara, consummate professional and mistress of theatrical charm, handled it with all the grace of a queen and the cunning of a showman. She introduced herself with a flourish, then—without missing a beat—handed him a signed parchment from a stack of them she apparently kept on her person at all times.

“They were pre-signed,” Din said flatly.
“Pre-blessed,” Umberto corrected.
Din sighed.

She started to turn away, but something – something in Umberto’s enormous eyes, perhaps, or in the desperate crack of his voice – made her pause.

She turned back. Politely wrestled the parchment back from Umberto’s grip and scribbled something on it.This time personally.

“To my new friend Umberto,” she wrote, in looping, flamboyant script,
“Sometimes the smallest Gnomes have the biggest swords.”
Then she kissed the parchment, leaving behind a perfect, bright lipstick imprint, and winked at Umberto. 

Din’s voice softened just a little.
“She handed it to him. He looked at it. He clutched it to his chest like it was a holy relic and then he just… fainted.”

“I ascended,” Umberto whispered reverently. “I saw heaven, and she was wearing a feather boa.”

Din didn’t roll his eyes. He was too tired.
“I carried him back across the square like a sack of potatoes. We arrived just in time to find Roddrick was in an even bigger mess than we’d realized”

Whispers, Warhammers, and Whatever That Is

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Chronicles of Klept: Chapter V

If there’s one thing the Humbledown Valley has always taken seriously, it’s the burial of important people in deeply inconvenient places.

The Whispering Crypts, for example.

Built into the sea cliffs northwest of Dawnsheart, the crypts were never just a cemetery—they were a statement. A place of solemn reverence, spiritual weight, and—most importantly—geographical hostility.

They are, by design, a network of interconnected sea caves, carved into the cliffside, expanded and sanctified over the centuries into a sprawling underground tomb. Above them rise the burial mounds—earthy monuments to the dearly departed and the aggressively prestigious.

But it’s not the dead that gave the crypts their name.

It’s the wind.

The ocean winds, forced through the cliffside tunnels and out of the stone vents in the mounds above, resonate through the chambers like the world’s most cursed church organ. A chorus of howls and wails and groaning tones that rise and fall depending on the tides and, presumably, how much the dead object to your presence.

To the spiritually inclined, the crypts are a place where the veil between worlds grows thin.
To the historically inclined, they are a remarkable example of posthumous architectural excess.
To everyone else, they’re a very good reason to find alternate burial arrangements.

Over the centuries, the valley’s most important figures have been laid to rest there: High Readers, old kings, legendary warlords, eccentric inventors, at least one man who claimed to have married a cloud, and several lesser-known members of nobility who were mostly important because their estates had really big gates.

Until recently, that tradition had continued—unbroken, uninterrupted.

But then… things changed.

The crypts grew loud. Louder than usual. The whispers became screams.

And now?

Now there are things in the dark that do not belong to any register of the dead.

And the latest would be resident, whose body has remained unburied for far too long, awaits his place among the honored ancestors… assuming the place can be made habitable again.

Which brings us—regrettably—back to our group.

Let the record show that while my own boots have never and shall never touch the damp stone of the Whispering Crypts, I have, through diligent questioning (and one begrudging round of drinks), assembled a reasonably coherent account of the group’s activities within.

It begins, rather ignobly, with a prank.

According to Umberto—who recounted this part with the smug satisfaction of a gnome who has never once regretted a decision in his life—the group played a practical joke on the guards escorting them to the crypts. While it had something to do with Day’s familiar taking the shape of a large spider, the finer details remain vague, as Umberto simply waved his hand and said, “You had to be there. Real classic. Din laughed so hard he snorted ale out his nose, and he wasn’t even drinking.”

Trunch, when pressed, offered only: “It was idiotic.”
Day added: “It was, technically, harmless.”
Wikis muttered something about one of the guards wetting himself. I chose not to pursue that thread.

The air was thick with brine and decay, the narrow tunnels sweating with moisture that hadn’t seen daylight in centuries. Trunch described them as being covered with“Old mosaics. Decorative funerary work. The kind you commission for people whose names get written down. It’s mostly gone now—weathered or scavenged—but the craftsmanship was fine. It meant something, once.”

Umberto chimed in saying they were “a disappointment that smelled like wet regret and dried barnacle” 

Apparently, the acoustics were terrible. Everything echoed in that uncanny way that made it impossible to tell if someone was behind you or just thinking very loudly.

It was in one of these stone-walled passages—beneath a cracked relief of a long-dead High Reader mid-sermon—that they encountered the Kua-Toa.

For those unfamiliar, Kua-Toa are fish-like humanoids with bulbous eyes, slimy skin, and an unfortunate smell that I’m told lingers on the soul. More importantly, they are known for their unique theological quirk: if enough of them believe in a god hard enough, that god tends to pop into existence.

Naturally, this makes negotiations with them… complicated.

There were five at first, standing in a loose circle around a bed of slimy seaweed and barnacle-covered offerings. They didn’t attack right away. In fact, they seemed more confused than hostile, as if the group had crashed a particularly pungent religious ceremony.

And that’s when Yak disappeared.

“We’re not even sure he came in with us,” Din told me later.
“He did,” said Trunch.
“Did he?” asked Wikis, eyes darting about in paranoia. “Are you sure? Maybe he was already inside. Maybe, he’s here right now!”

There was a beat of silence before Din shrugged and added, “I’m not ruling out that he was one of the fish.”

“They were guarding something,” Umberto explained, gesturing with his pint tankard for emphasis.
“All flappy and twitchy and muttering in their weird fish language. We told them to move along. They told us to fuck off. It was a whole thing.”

“You don’t know for sure that was what they said” Trunch chimed in.

“I don’t need to know a language to understand when I’ve been told to fuck off” Umberto replied “It’s been said to me in more languages than anything else, it’s my love language.”

“You killed a lot of them,” I pointed out.
“Only the rude ones,” Umberto replied, as if this were a recognized diplomatic standard.

“They said we were trespassing. We told them they were squatting. Then Din blessed his hammer, Wikis shot a couple of them, and things went downhill from there.”

“Downhill?” I asked.

“Sideways. Into the seaweed. Lot of flailing.”

Din took down one of them with a blow that rang like a church bell through the tunnels. The second fell to a particularly creative barrage of eldritch blasts from Trunch, who tried to reason with them first but ultimately decided explaining theology to fish wasn’t worth the energy.

Yak reappeared mid-fight, silent and coated in salt, like a thought someone had tried to forget but couldn’t quite shake.

“Pretty sure he whispered something to one of them before stabbing it,” Day mused. “Or maybe he whispered after. Hard to tell with Yak.”

When the fight ended, only a handful of Kua-Toa remained—eyes wide, faith shaken. Somehow, Umberto convinced the remaining ones to leave.

No one remembers exactly what he said.

“It was something about Gods and damaged buttholes,” he offered.

Whether it was divine fear or just a collective survival instinct, the fish-folk fled, leaving behind their seaweed temple. Taking a moment to explore, and for Din to retrieve several pieces of Kua-Toa flesh afterward—presumably for research or culinary purposes (when I inquired, he simply called it ‘fish-man meat’ and offered me a strip which I politely declined), the group discovered the object of their reverence—a large, glowing, slightly pulsating egg-like structure, nestled in a bed of damp seaweed.

The group gathered around the egg, which now hummed with a warmth that no one trusted but no one refused. It pulsed faintly—alive, but not in a way any of them liked.

“We should leave it,” said Trunch.
“We should smash it,” said Wikis.
“We should cook it,” said Din, already taking notes.
“We’re taking it,” said Umberto.

Yak, who had been quietly carving something into the table during most of the retelling, said only, “We’ll know when it hatches. Or when it opens. Or when it screams. One of those.”

Din, ever the craftsman, constructed a simple metallic box lined with cloth and rune-scribed bolts to hold the egg during transit. He worked through the night as they returned to Dawnsheart, the box resting in the center of the cart like a sleeping secret they all tried not to look at too directly.

I saw them arrive back the next morning, just as the sun began to rise, casting a long golden beam across the quiet town.

Now Hiring the Questionably Reliable

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Chronicles of Klept: Chapter IV

Dawnsheart came into view as the sun slowly retreated behind the hills. The stone walls caught the last of the fading light, and the rooftops cast long, gentle shadows across the road.

It had been a long day. The kind that bends time and memory until it feels like you’ve lived three lifetimes between meals.

The group I rode with had, by all accounts, saved a festival. Albeit in the most disorderly, confusing, bean-based way imaginable. And while our arrival was marked by the presence of an armed escort, the mood wasn’t hostile. The guards were not here to arrest them—they were here as a precaution, like putting a net under a very uncoordinated group of acrobats.

I rode not as one of them, but as one curious enough to sit among them with a quill and a well-practiced look of scholarly detachment.

The Prophet’s glyphs had been read, but we had been rudely interrupted before we could declare them to the public. In some ways, I was relieved because they spoke of a dire year ahead. And yet the people needed to know – if for no other reason than to continue the tradition. I knew that Tufulla and the other Readers would be waiting for me, looking to plan how we would inform the citizens of the Humbledoewn valley of this year’s read. Tufulla would also want my observations of this group of unknown individuals who had stepped up and put themselves in harms way

So, as we passed through Dawnsheart’s gates, I noted everything.

Their posture. Their glances. Their silences.

The cart rumbled through the streets, drawing looks from townsfolk who knew better than to be obvious about staring. I caught the way backs straightened, how conversations quieted. People instinctively gave us space. Perhaps they smelled the chaos. Or perhaps they simply sensed that these were not people you bumped into without first updating your will.

We reached the town square, where the great stone face of the Church of the Prophet loomed—resolute and familiar.

The cart came to a stop.

One by one, they dismounted. The guards fell into formation and began to escort them toward the Mayor’s office.

I stayed at the back, observing.

I watched the way Yak moved just slightly out of step with the others, like a man refusing to walk in sync with anything other than his own shadow.

The way Trunch carried himself—calm, too calm. The kind of calm that comes after surviving something loud.

They were walking into a town that didn’t know what to make of them yet.

I wasn’t sure I did, either.

Mayor Roddrick’s chosen domain was the small, stone building adjacent to the cathedral, once the residence of Dawnsheart’s high priest, now repurposed into his official seat of governance on the noble principle that “a mayor should be seen.” Tufulla hadn’t minded. He preferred to rent a small room in the poorer area of town, to be closer to those in need. I suspect it also allowed him to keep a closer watch on the mayor.

Roddrick had abandoned the actual town hall, which was located in the northern quarter and conveniently nestled among the city’s other administrative buildings, on the grounds that it was “too far from the general population.”

Which is to say: too far from the bakery, too close to accountability.

He preferred the old priest’s house. It was central. Symbolic. And, most importantly, small. With space for no more than ten people inside, it drastically reduced the odds of being cornered by an angry mob.

Of course, if the townsfolk ever organized themselves properly, they could still gather in the square outside. But this was Dawnsheart. Organized outrage was a once-a-decade event, and even then, it usually fizzled out around tea time.

At this point, our paths diverged.

The group was led toward the Town Hall, where no doubt Roddrick would greet them with all the charm of a man who has just learned a great fire has taken out the building two doors down from his own but has decided to host brunch anyway.

I returned to the cathedral.

Tufulla received everything I had: notes, sketches, fragmented thoughts, some useful, some wildly speculative, and most importantly, the first threads of a strange and troubling pattern that was only now beginning to take shape.

The reading from the Rock had been dire.

At the time, the other Readers and I had conferred beneath the fading light of the glyphs, trying to make sense of symbols that refused to sit still. Too many meanings. Too much uncertainty.

But in hindsight, one thing had become clear: the attack on the festival, as chaotic and violent as it was, fit the broader shape of the prophecy far too well to be coincidence.

It had spoken of unrest. Of shadows cast over places once thought safe. Of the arrival of outsiders.

That part had been vague. Their role was undefined. Protectors or harbingers. A guiding light, or the spark that sets the kindling alight. Perhaps it was speaking of this group, I wasn’t sure.

Tufulla listened intently as I described them—this odd group of strangers with no business being where they were, and yet somehow always exactly where they needed to be.

He didn’t speak right away.

Instead, he studied my notes, then looked off into the middle distance. There was a flicker of something in his eyes—recognition, perhaps. Understanding. A quiet breath passed, and he gave the faintest nod, like a man filing away a conclusion he wasn’t ready to share.

Tufulla has many more years of interpreting glyphs tucked beneath his immaculately woven silk belt. He’s seen things the rest of us haven’t. Maybe he saw something in them—something I missed.

As for me?

I’ve seen the way they fight. The way they improvise. The way they don’t think before doing something wildly reckless and occasionally effective.

I just hope they’re not going to make things worse.

It’s worth noting that Roddrick did not prepare for their arrival.

He knew they were coming, of course. The guards had warned him, the town was buzzing, and one does not ignore the arrival of a group who had (allegedly) helped fend off a festival attack while also contributing to one of the more bewildering public disturbances in recent history.

But preparing? No. That would imply foresight. Planning. A sense of duty to governance.

Instead, when the group was shown in, they found Dawnsheart’s self-titled Lord-Mayor hunched over a desk buried beneath a tide of correspondence, scrolls, and neglected ledgers—the kind of paperwork that collects when a man spends more time curating his wardrobe than managing a town.

Roddrick didn’t bother to stand as the group entered. He gestured vaguely toward the chairs in front of his desk, though he didn’t seem overly concerned if anyone actually sat in them.

“Yes, yes, right—thank you for coming, do sit, or don’t, doesn’t matter—let’s get this over with, shall we?” he said, rifling distractedly through a stack of papers, most of which appeared untouched or upside down.

He pulled a page from the middle of the pile, skimmed a sentence, frowned, and tossed it over his shoulder.

“The Whispering Crypts,” he began again, leaning back in his chair and eyeing the group as if hoping they might disappear of their own volition. “Out on the cliffs, northwest of town. Burial mounds. Bit of local heritage. Very sacred. Very…echoey. Important people buried there for centuries. Or were. Before the… situation.”

He waved a hand vaguely, as though that gesture alone could encompass ghosts, bandits, shrieking winds, and bureaucratic backlog all at once.

“No one’s quite sure what the situation is, exactly. Possibly squatters. Possibly goblins. Or smugglers. Or ghosts. Or Pirates … possibly pirate ghosts. Honestly, the specifics aren’t worth my time.”

He glanced down at a second paper, blinked, then crumpled it and stuffed it into a drawer without looking.

“The Church has a body. Very old. Very dead. Died months ago. One of the Readers, you see. Meant to be buried there. Ceremony, candles, all very serious. But they can’t, because the crypts are currently… inhospitable.”

Roddrick finally looked up, his expression flat and fatigued. “So. You go in. Clear it out. Whatever’s in there—reason with it, insult it, hit it, throw salt at it—I leave that to your professional discretion. Just make sure it leaves. Once it’s quiet and no longer actively horrifying, the Church can do their rites, and I can stop hearing about it.” 

He drummed his fingers once on the table, then added casually, “And if you do that, I’ll give you five hundred gold each, and I will consider that proof enough that you are, if not entirely trustworthy, then at least the kind of dangerous that’s pointed in the right direction.”

A pause. He blinked.

“Oh. Earplugs. Right. Wind’s strange down there. Does things to the mind. You’ll want to wear them.”

And with that, he turned back to the mess of parchment in front of him.

“Good talk. Off you go.”

He did not try to justify the amount of gold. He did not explain why this task had not already been completed by the city guard.

He simply wanted them out.

Out of his office.
Out of his town.
Out of his way.

And preferably into a hole full of monsters so he wouldn’t have to think about them again.

Roddrick is not a man with plans. He is a man with reactions.

He knew these people were dangerous, or potentially tied to something larger and more troubling—and he didn’t want to poke that particular nest.

So he did what all cornered men with too much power and not enough sense do.

He paid them to go away.

If they died, the town was safe.
If they succeeded, the town was safer.
And if they disappeared entirely? Well, fewer mouths to pay and fewer witnesses to file reports.

“We looked at each other,” Trunch told me later, “and I think we all realized that this man had no idea who we were or what he was asking.”

They accepted. Not out of trust. Not out of duty.

But because five hundred gold each is five hundred gold each.

A Shared History of Approximately Five Minutes 

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Chronicles of Klept: Chapter III

The aftermath of a festival-wide attack is, at best, a logistical nightmare and, at worst, a perfect excuse to reevaluate one’s career choices. In the grand chaos of fire suppression, triage, and general screaming, the newcomers did not flee, which was either an act of bravery or an indication of very poor decision-making skills. Possibly both.

As smoke curled through the air and the wounded were tended to, the group did what any sensible, suspiciously competent individuals would do: they stuck around, helped where they could, and occasionally got in the way. The surviving attackers—those who were both lucky and unfortunate enough to have avoided being skewered, incinerated, or otherwise forcefully discouraged—were rounded up by the local guards. Interrogations began immediately, as did the standard bureaucratic nightmare of filing reports on why exactly the festival had suddenly become a battlefield.

It was about an hour later when Guard Captain Rynn approached the group with an offer that was, depending on one’s perspective, either a polite invitation or a veiled threat.

“You can come with us to Dawnsheart and give your statements. Or we can take you into custody, and you can explain yourselves from behind bars.”

The group took a moment to process this, and the air between them grew tense. There was a moment—just a flicker—where it seemed as though certain members were considering an alternative response, something involving violence or a sudden commitment to sprinting in the opposite direction. But, after a weighted pause, a decision was made. They would go. Of their own volition. Mostly.

Captain Rynn, never one to turn down an opportunity for efficiency, offered them transport—a ride in the back of a cart, under watch and protection. “After all,” he said, “there may still be more attackers.” Which, while technically true, was also a convenient way of ensuring they wouldn’t attempt to simply wander off.

While Tufulla and the other Readers rode ahead with their own escort, I made what some might call a reckless decision and what I call a perfectly justifiable act of journalistic integrity—I chose to travel with the newcomers. For posterity, of course. And because, quite frankly, they were already the most interesting thing to happen to Dawnsheart in years.

Two gnomes. One elf. A halfling. A dwarf. And one… individual whose race, origin, and general vibe defied easy classification. Add four Dawnsheart guards, and myself—a church chronicler with more questions than answers—perched at the front of a cart that smelled vaguely of parsnips and burnt incense. All sitting together on a slow, rattling, lurching cart pulled by a pair of mules that looked older than prophecy itself, trundling over stones and potholes on the road. We were heading for Dawnsheart and vacating the Kashten Dell like the closing act of a poorly-rehearsed tragedy—leaving behind the Prophet’s Rock, a broken stage, several unanswered questions, and the smoldering remains of what had begun as a lovely and very quaint rural festival.

The cart was not built for comfort. Or dignity. Or anything, really, beyond the transportation of onions and regrets. Between us all, bags of vegetables rolled gently with the motion. A banner from the festival still fluttered limply off the side. A broken string of lanterns rattled against the boards. The smell was equal parts turnip, sweat, and uncertainty.

The planks creaked with every bump, and the mules pulling it gave the distinct impression as though forward motion was more of a suggestion than a commitment.The group’s weapons had been taken—or more accurately, surrendered—stacked in a careful heap behind the front-most guard. Just close enough to tempt the reckless. Just far enough to make trying a very bad idea.

Silent and armed, the guards watched the group with the kind of expression that said please try something, so we can have something to write in our report. I sat near the front of the cart, my church robes affording me a moderate level of respect—or at least deference—from the guards. For the most part, I was left alone, which suited me fine.

It gave me time to study the odd collection of individuals seated around me.

At first, no one spoke. Just the rhythmic creak of the cart, the occasional sigh from a mule, and the distant rattle of someone’s pilfered cutlery.

But the silence wasn’t tense—it was unfamiliar. And that’s when it hit me. A realization so fundamentally baffling I had to double-check my memory, just to be sure I hadn’t missed something obvious.

They didn’t even know each other.

Not truly. Not before all this.

And yet, somehow, they’d fought like a unit. Or at least a very determined accident.

The only two members who seemed to have an established history were a dwarf, stoic and silent, and the perpetually enraged gnome with an axe large enough to be classified as a siege weapon. The others? Mere acquaintances. Or, in some cases, complete strangers who had simply found themselves inexplicably thrown together.

It was an unsettling revelation. Not because they were unfamiliar with one another, but because of how well they had worked together protecting us at the festival. Their movements in battle, their coordination—it had given the impression of seasoned allies, comrades bound by years of shared struggle. And yet, here they sat, some idly inspecting their fingernails, others muttering to themselves, giving off the distinct energy of people who were still deciding whether or not they liked each other.

For the first time since the attack, I felt something beyond fear and exhaustion. I felt curious. A terrible sign. That’s usually how trouble introduces itself: not with a bang, but with an interesting question and no good reason to leave it alone.

Because if these were strangers, if these were outsiders with no prior allegiance to one another, then what in all the heavens had compelled them to fight side by side? What had drawn them here? 

You see, fate has a curious way of nudging together the sorts of people you might not trust with a spoon, let alone the fate of the continent. And yet, here in front of me on a bumpy cart ride are a group of possible heroes, or at least, people with a worrying tendency to survive things they absolutely shouldn’t.

Now, I feel it is my solemn duty at this point to introduce you to the merry assemblage of chaos with whom I suddenly found myself entangled. For your benefit—and indeed for your personal safety—I’ve taken it upon myself to describe each member of our little troupe in turn. I do this because should you encounter any of these individuals in the wild, it’s best you know to turn around, walk briskly away, and perhaps consider relocating your entire village.

The first thing one notices about the Dwarf, Din—aside from the sheer density of his existence—is his beard, which appears to have suffered more fire damage than most battlefields. It is white as old parchment, wiry as an overused broom, and woven through with enough flint and stones that I half expect him to burst into flames should he trip too hard.

The second thing one notices—or at least what I noticed, because clearly, no one else in this group has a proper appreciation for history—is the symbol of the Sparkwhiskers clan.

This is significant because the Sparkwhiskers are supposed to be dead.

Oh, not in the casual, ‘faded into history, lost to time’ sort of way. No, the Sparkwhiskers were wiped out, their halls ransacked and abandoned after a brutal raid generations ago. Scholars (such as myself) have long debated whether any survived, but if they did, they certainly wouldn’t be out in the open. The few rumors of their existence speak of exiles, wanderers, smiths in hiding—never proudly displaying their crest in broad daylight like an anvil begging for a hammer.

Which leaves only two possibilities:

  • This Dwarf is a fraud. Some fool playing at lost heritage, slapping a forgotten symbol onto his armor for the sake of mystery and misplaced reverence.
  • He is exactly what he appears to be. A Sparkwhisker who has somehow survived and, for reasons beyond my understanding, has chosen to live in plain sight.

If it is the latter, then he is either the bravest dwarf I have ever met, or the most reckless. Possibly both. There is also the distinct chance he simply does not care.

Everything about him suggests a man who has walked through fire and decided he might as well keep going. His armor, a masterwork of dark steel and brass inlay, is marked with the symbol of his lost clan—not hidden, not subtle, but boldly engraved as if daring fate to strike him down for it. His warhammer, a thing of terrible beauty, is shaped like an anvil, the words Fear No Anvil etched in Dwarvish script across its side. A personal motto? A battle cry? A challenge?

Most curious of all, he does not seem lost. Many wanderers carry a weight of aimlessness about them, but Din sits like a mountain that has decided to travel. There is purpose in his presence, though whether it is divine guidance or pure stubborn will, I do not yet know.

He watches the others in the cart with quiet patience, as if assessing them the way one might examine raw ore—judging what can be reforged and what is best left discarded.

I will have to watch him closely.

If he is a Sparkwhisker, then he carries more than just the burden of survival—he carries a history that was supposed to have ended.

And history, as I am painfully aware, has a way of catching up to those who think they have outrun it.

There is something distinctly unsettling about the Halfling, Wikis.

Not in the conventional sense of menace—she does not loom, nor glower, nor carry an aura of immediate doom. Rather, she exudes the sort of deep, twitchy paranoia one expects from someone who has just stolen something and believes, perhaps correctly, that the entire world is now after them.

She sits in the cart coiled like a spring, her fingers flicking toward a particularly ornate ring on her hand every few minutes, as if reassuring herself that it still exists. Her wide, gleaming eyes flick from person to person, her posture halfway between flight and attack, though which she is more prepared to execute remains unclear.

Her hair, a tangled, leaf-laden masterpiece of wild neglect, appears to have once known the concept of grooming but long ago rejected it as an outdated societal construct. Somewhere within the knots and vines, a pony-tail relic of a forgotten civilization clings to existence, a brittle vine attempting to hold back what is clearly the untamed wilderness incarnate.

Her cloak, a suspiciously well-worn garment of uncertain origin, is wrapped around her with the sort of deliberate care one might expect from a dragon coiled around its hoard. This, combined with her lack of any apparent clothing beneath it, suggests either a deeply committed tactical decision or a complete disregard for social convention. Given that she does not appear particularly embarrassed, I suspect it is the latter.

She trusts no one. I can tell because she has not blinked in the last three minutes, which is either an incredibly effective intimidation tactic or a sign of an undisclosed medical condition. Her eyes flit between us, sharp and calculating, as though she expects someone, at any moment, to attempt to rob her of whatever mysterious valuables she has tucked away beneath that cloak. (For the record, I have no interest in finding out.)

Her possessions are weathered but well-kept—a longbow slung across her shoulder, a shortsword at her hip, each item looking as though they’ve seen more use than most noble-born knights will in their lifetimes. The way her fingers hover near the hilt of her sword suggests that she has absolutely thought about using it on everyone here at least once.

Her feet, wide and tough, are clearly strangers to shoes, and from what I can see, strangers to the concept of washing as well. This is less surprising than it should be. Given her overall aura of ‘woodland cryptid attempting to integrate into society’, I would be more shocked if she suddenly produced a well-polished pair of boots.

Whatever her story is, it is clear she is not accustomed to company, nor does she desire it. She watches us all with the barely restrained suspicion of a raccoon guarding a cache of stolen silverware, and I am quite certain that if anyone in this cart so much as looks at her oddly, they will find themselves either shot, stabbed, or violently distracted by an unexpectedly deployed cloak.

I have no idea what has led her here, nor why she has agreed to travel alongside these strangers, but I suspect she is either running from something—or toward something.

It has been said that rage burns brightest in the smallest of vessels. The angry Gnome himself never so much introduced his name as barked it—Umberto—like it was both a warning and a challenge.

He is a smoldering ember of barely-contained fury with an overwhelming compulsion to punch anyone who so much as glances at him incorrectly.

His axe is enormous. His sideburns are enormous. His anger is, somehow, even more enormous. His clothing, however, is decidedly minimal. He wears a loincloth, a permanent scowl, and a leather shoulder harness strapped tight across his chest. No ornamentation. No nonsense. If I had to describe him to someone who had never had the privilege of meeting him (or being threatened by him), I would say that he looks like an enraged gladiator who misplaced his armor but decided to fight anyway.

His mohawk defies gravity with the same force he defies social conventions. His mustache is meticulously groomed, in direct contrast to his entirely unrestrained attitude toward everything else in life.

He sits on the cart tense, coiled like a bomb with no discernible timer—and he holds a book.
Reverently. Almost respectfully.
But with the unmistakable posture of a man who might still use it to bludgeon someone if the mood shifts.

There is no relaxation in him—only a simmering, ever-present aggression. I get the feeling he’d punch an old woman without hesitation if he didn’t like what she said.

At first glance I would never have guessed it, but Umberto Halfordian is literate. Worse, he is well-read. And, as I have just discovered, passionately opinionated about it.

At this very moment, the book he is clutching a well-worn copy of ‘Sheri Honkers and the Gelatinous Boob’, the infamously rare, first novel by the self proclaimed Scribe of Scandal, Barbara DongSwallower, and he’s threatening to use it as a weapon in what has rapidly escalated into a full-blown literary brawl with one of the guards.

The guard in question, a poor, unfortunate soul with absolutely no idea what he has just stepped into, made the dire mistake of offhandedly referring to DongSwallower’s prose as ‘drivel.’

This was, evidently, a crime of the highest order.

Within seconds, Umberto had launched into a verbal assault that I am quite certain has caused the guard to question every decision he has ever made.

Within minutes, the debate had evolved into a shouting match that required two additional guards to separate them.

Din, for his part, is laughing so hard he is struggling to hold Umberto back. This suggests that this is not the first time this has happened.

At this point, I am half-expecting Umberto to formally challenge the guard to a duel for slander.

If he does, I hope he waits until after we arrive in Dawnsheart.

The road is bumpy, and it is already difficult enough to write without having to dodge a flying gnome mid-swing.

There are few things more disconcerting than sharing a cart with someone who, immediately after a bloody battle, cheerfully pulls a pie from a fold in their robes and begins eating it—unless that someone may or may not have a face.

I say may not because I have, as of yet, not actually seen the one called Yak’s face.

The hood stays up. The shadows cling unnaturally. When he moves, it is soundless, deliberate, controlled. It is the movement of someone who has either spent a lifetime ensuring he is unnoticed or is, in fact, a specter of my imagination.

It is difficult to get a read on someone who deliberately has no readable features.

His robes are long, nondescript, the kind of perfectly unmemorable clothing that blends into a crowd for minutes before one realizes something is… off. The effect is subtle but chilling. It is the kind of disguise that only becomes apparent once the wearer is already gone.

And then, there is the way he moves in shadow.

I witnessed it during the attack on the Harvest Festival.

In the chaos, where most sought steel or sorcery, Yak became something else entirely. While others fought with brute strength or desperate defense, he simply… vanished. No arcane gesture, no incantation. Just the quiet, effortless slipping from presence to absence.

It was Yak who I mistook as one of the attackers turning on their own. He became the enemy. Took their faces, their forms, walked among them as if he had always belonged. And when they turned to him for orders, for leadership—he cut their throats.

He moves like a shadow with purpose, like silence given form. He waits—poised, unseen—and when the moment is right, he is simply there.
No struggle. No sound. No warning.
Just the sudden, bone-deep realization that something is behind you.

And yet.

This same figure currently sits swinging his legs off the back of the cart, joyfully eating a pie of dubious origin like a mischievous child, and giggling every time the cart creaks in a way that sounds vaguely like flatulence.

It’s deeply unsettling.

Not because of the contrast, but because he seems perfectly at home in both extremes.

There is something untethered about him—a man who has borrowed so many identities that he has perhaps misplaced his own. If he had a past, it is hidden, buried beneath layers of deception and careful non-existence. But I suspect it was not a kind one.

There is a particular kind of person who radiates competence so profoundly that it forces others into an immediate and deeply personal reflection on their own inadequacies. 

Day is that person. He is also the very same Elf I saw earlier this morning discard a comically large bean into a sacred pond.

At this very moment, as the cart jostles and rattles its way toward Dawnsheart, he is studying his spellbook.

Not idly flipping through pages. Not absentmindedly reading. Studying.
With the kind of focus that suggests he already knows what he’ll need three moves from now, and is simply double-checking the math to be polite.

His posture is immaculate. His movements precise. He turns each page like it contains the answer to a question you haven’t asked yet, but that he has.

He looks like someone constantly running calculations.
Not idle thoughts. Contingencies. The fastest route to every weakness in the room. The cleanest, most efficient way to do maximum damage in the shortest time possible.

And that is, frankly, terrifying. Because I watched him wield a blade with a ballerina’s grace and a lumberjack’s accuracy.
Elegance and carnage in equal measure.

And yet, despite this, he is keenly aware of everything around him.

I know this because at one point, Umberto shifted too suddenly, nearly tipping over a crate of supplies, and Day’s hand shot out—not to stop him, but to catch the crate before it could even begin to tumble. His eyes did not even open. He simply… knew.

I am not convinced he isn’t seeing everything before it even happens.

Alos, I need to talk about his braid.

It is perfect. Not just tidy—not just well-maintained—but actively defying the natural laws of travel, battle, and common physics.

We just survived an attack, a fire, and a battlefield-turned-festival. We have ridden in a cart for miles on uneven roads, through wind and dust. And yet, his braid remains immaculate.

I am fairly certain he has not touched it once.

It has, in a very real sense, become a symbol of my own disorganization.

The other gnome in this group, Trunch appears, in many ways, to be the most reasonable and level-headed member of this group. Which means in all likelihood, there is something deeply, catastrophically wrong with him.

There is an undeniable dignity to him, which is remarkable, considering that the first time I saw him, he was frantically attempting to pilot a four-foot-long bean across a sacred lake.

This is what is most unnerving about him—not the eldritch energy at his fingertips, not the uncanny wisdom behind his eyes, not even the fact that he is a warlock and we have all just decided to be okay with that.

No. What unsettles me is his complete, unwavering reasonableness. For him, piloting a floating bean across a lake to reach a rock and satisfy his own personal curiosity was perfectly reasonable. 

Trunch is resolute. Thoughtful. He seeks diplomacy first, violence second. And yet, when diplomacy fails, he will, without hesitation, hurl a crackling beam of eldritch destruction at his enemies. All with an unnerving amount of calm. 

I saw it myself, from atop the Prophet Rock.

One moment, he was stranded on the sacred stone, looking very small and very wet. The next, his hands were ablaze with dark power, sending bolts of otherworldly force across the battlefield with the efficiency of a man who had long accepted that sometimes, words fail.

Anyone familiar with warlocks knows the signs.

  • The eldritch blasts.
  • The occasional crackling fingers, as if they can’t quite turn the magic off.
  • That distinct look in their eye that suggests, at any given moment, they might be listening to something you can’t hear.

Trunch has all of these and more but it would be irresponsible not to mention the topknot.

While most bald men make peace with their fate, Trunch has rejected the notion entirely. Instead, he has cultivated a single, defiant sprout of hair, bound into a sturdy topknot atop his head, like a banner proclaiming both wisdom and quiet rebellion.

His mustache, eerily similar to Umberto’s, is where their similarities end.

Because where Umberto’s expression is one of permanent fury, Trunch’s is… different.

He has the look of a man who wants to know everything—who looks at the world as a puzzle to be solved, a book to be read, a mystery to be unraveled. But there is also something else—something darker.

A warlock’s magic is not given freely. It is not earned through training or study or divine favor. It is not a natural gift bestowed at birth. It is bargained for. Paid for.

I do not know what Trunch paid.

I do not know who—or what—is watching him.

And, for the sake of my own sanity, I will not ask.

And so we rattled on—six strangers, four guards, and one very tired chronicler, all bouncing along in a cart that smelled like onions and old decisions.

We were nearing Dawnsheart.

But something told me the real journey was about to begin.

Unfortunately.

The Time-Honored Tradition of Setting Things on Fire

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Chronicles of Klept: Chapter II

The screams came first—cutting through the air like a sharp gust of wind, out of place amid the laughter and music of the festival. Fires broke out on the treeline, their crackling smoke staining the air, and chaos descended upon the festival in an instant. Swords clashed. People ran. Guards tried to form a perimeter, but it was too late.

As the attack unfolded, I found myself, for the first time in my life, paralyzed by indecision.

I hid—yes, I am ashamed to admit it. I found refuge behind a stack of kegs near the stage, hoping to remain unnoticed, to not draw attention to myself. I felt like a coward.

The attackers weren’t showy—not at first. Dark cloaks. Hoods up. Faces hidden. The kind of anonymity you don’t question during a crowded celebration. They moved with quiet purpose, carrying simple but brutal weapons—nothing flashy, just the sort of things that make quick, efficient work of unarmed men trying to balance a slice of pie and a mug of pumpkin-spice brandy.

They struck fast.

Some of the guards didn’t even get their weapons drawn. One, I’m fairly certain, was still chewing when he went down. The rest tried—gods know they did—but you can’t blame them for being unprepared. The only conflict they’d been expecting that day was between pie vendors.

Whoever these cloaked figures were, they had a plan. And that plan, I now realise, centered on the High Reader. Possibly on me as well. And the other Readers present.

I suspect they hadn’t accounted for one very specific variable: the kind of chaotic heroism that only absolute strangers can achieve when they have no idea what else to do.

I watched as a group of outsiders, who had seemed little more than curious bystanders earlier, suddenly converged on the stage. Among them, the gnome, still stranded on the Prophet Rock, and the tall, long-haired elf who had earlier discarded his oversized bean into the water.

The gnome was at a disadvantage—marooned on the rock, with no means of crossing the water. But instead of waiting for aid, he turned to magic, sending flashes of arcane energy hurtling toward the attackers across the lake.

Then, in the span of a breath, he was gone.

Not by foot. Not by boat.

He simply vanished.

And then, impossibly, reappeared on the shore, near the stage, and continued to hurl beams of energy at these mysterious attackers. 

From the moment the blades were drawn, the group that would come to redefine the phrase “helpful disaster” leapt into action.

At times, they moved like a unit—fluid, decisive, unstoppable. Other times, it was like watching several different theatre troupes perform several different plays on the same stage at once.

A particularly furious gnome charged headlong into the chaos with an axe nearly as tall as he was. He missed his target, but nearly took off the leg off the festival stage in the process. He punched himself in the chest and took a second swing, this time his true target crumpled in front of him.

The long-haired elf, all calm precision and razor-sharp swordplay, danced through the fray like he was trying to choreograph the world’s deadliest waltz.

A wild-looking halfling, wielding what appeared to be a homemade bow, dropped several attackers with terrifying accuracy. No flourish. Just results.

And somewhere in the chaos, I could have sworn I saw one of the cloaked attackers turn on his own. A flash of movement, a blade redirected. Intentional or not—I couldn’t say. 

What I can say is this: no one knew who they were when they stepped in. But everyone knew something had shifted by the time the dust settled.

When the last of the attackers fell, the festival quieted—not with victory, but with a heavy silence.

Those who had survived the battle began to tend to the wounded. Guards rushed to put out the flames, and the priests—including Tufulla—began to offer prayers for the fallen.

I remained behind the barrels. I stayed hidden for some time, too ashamed to step forward, too uncertain of my place among those who had taken action.

I had watched. I had done nothing.

But in the silence of the aftermath, as the chaos subsided, I realized who had taken charge. It was not the guards, not the priests, but a group of strangers—a gnome, an elven traveler, and a handful of others I had never seen before.

They had stepped into the breach.

And I did not know why.

An Omen and a Bean

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Chronicles of Klept: Chapter I

The valley was alive with celebration.

Even from our little tent, I could hear the boisterous laughter of merchants closing deals, the cheers of festival-goers as contestants boasted oversized vegetables and absurd feats of strength, and the musical chaos of bards attempting to outplay one another in every corner of the market. Somewhere, someone was playing the bagpipes with a level of enthusiasm that suggested either profound joy or profound distress. It was hard to tell.

It was the final day of the Harvest Festival, the grandest celebration in the region, and for most, it was the culmination of joy before the long winter ahead. For the merchants, it was the last chance to sell their wares. For the tavern owners, it was the final opportunity to convince patrons that a pint of ‘experimental pumpkin brandy’ was a good idea. For the church, however, today held a far greater purpose.

At midday, as the sun reached its peak, its rays would strike the crystals embedded deep within the Prophet Rock, sending beams of light across the etched glyphs surrounding its base. These symbols, illuminated by celestial design, would tell us what the coming year would bring—a prophecy dictated by the divine forces that shaped this world. One would think, after centuries of this tradition, that the divine forces might consider writing in a more legible script, but no—cryptic glowing runes it was.

The day had already begun with an air of nervous anticipation, and nothing soothes public anxiety quite like an unexpected spectacle. Enter: The Bean Incident.

Somewhere amid the stalls and competitions, an elven man—who I would later come to know as a very particular sort of disaster—was lamenting the fact that he had missed the Largest Bean Competition due to what was, by all accounts, an excessive amount of cider the previous evening. In what I assume was a solemn act of mourning, or possibly just a dramatic gesture to make himself feel better, he hurled his absurdly large bean into the small lake surrounding the Prophet Rock, where it bobbed on the surface like a misplaced agricultural relic.

The bean, as it turns out, had not seen its final act.

Because that was the moment the gnome arrived.

Now, I do not claim to be an expert in the minds of gnomes, but I can only assume that, upon seeing the cordoned-off Prophet Rock, this particular gnome came upon an idea in a way that only gnomes (or possibly very determined ducks) can. He made a break for it.

To the cheers of an increasingly enthusiastic crowd, he leapt the barrier, dove into the water, and realization seemed to strike, for it was obvious the individual lacked the ability to swim. However, the luck of Jovian appeared on his side, for at that moment what should float by him, but an overly large bean. The Gnome lunged for the floating bean with the urgency of a drowning man reaching for a lifeline—except instead of a lifeline, it was an uncooperative, bobbing vegetable. His arms flailed, his legs kicked, and for a moment, he seemed to be doing an impression of a particularly startled moose attempting to ice-skate. The bean, for its part, had no interest in being mounted, rolling indignantly beneath him like a tavern stool under an exceptionally drunk patron. It was not a graceful rescue. It was, however, an effective one. He quickly began padding his way toward Prophet island in the lakes center. 

Few things in life prepare you for the moment when a Gnome attempts to cross a sacred lake on a giant bean. It is a sight that demands immediate classification, and yet no known system of logic or theology has accounted for it. I have made a note to submit a request for divine clarification.

“We should begin moving.”

The voice of High Reader Tufulla pulled me from my thoughts.

Draped in ceremonial robes of gold and white, Tufulla stood at the head of our procession, his expression unreadable as always. He carried his authority with quiet patience, though I had spent enough years under his guidance to recognize the subtle edge of concern in his voice.

I did not ask about it.

I adjusted my quill and parchment as we made our way toward the rope barrier that cordoned off the Prophet and its surrounding water. We did not take boats. We never did. That would be sensible. Instead, High Reader Tufulla, ever the showman, performed his sacred duty of ensuring that we crossed the lake in the most dramatic way possible—by walking on it. For the children, of course. And absolutely not because he enjoys looking important.

With a deliberate flourish, Tufulla tapped his staff to the surface of the water, his voice carrying over the hushed festival crowd. The water beneath us shimmered, stilled, and then held—solid beneath our feet.

One by one, we stepped forward. We did not sink.

To the assembled festival-goers, we walked across the lake as if it were a marble promenade, our robes barely stirring the surface. It was not a necessary gesture—there were perfectly serviceable boats, but tradition demanded spectacle, and Tufulla understood the value of spectacle.

For the children in attendance, it was magic in its purest form.

Some gasped in delight, others whispered in awe, and one particularly eager boy mimicked Tufulla’s movements, waving a stick in the air as if he, too, could command the waters. Tufulla, catching sight of this, winked in the child’s direction, adding a harmless burst of light from his staff as if to say, You never know, young one.

It was a grand sight. And it was completely overshadowed by an overly zealous Gnome and his bean.

At this point, the festival had effectively divided into two camps: those who believed this was some sort of planned entertainment, and those who were too delighted to care. The guards, unfortunately, fell into neither camp and were instead attempting to figure out whose job it was to stop the intrusive Gnome.

None of them got there in time. The gnome had paddled furiously, arms windmilling against the water, the crowd, willing him to reach the rock before we did. Tufulla paid him no attention. We reached the rock moments before he did and with one last act of determination, he began to climb, reaching the top of the Prophet Rock just as the sun reached its zenith.

For a moment, all was still.

Then, as if in divine response to this utterly ridiculous sequence of events, the crystals embedded in the Prophet Rock caught the light, casting beams down upon the dozens of glyphs etched into the surrounding ground below.

The Read had begun.

The glyphs burned brightly, their meaning clear to us, but dire.

My peers and I, the Readers of the Church of the Prophet, had performed our duty well, recording the illuminated symbols as the sunlight bathed the stone and reflected upon the glyphs etched into the ground around the Prophet Rock. The light shimmered, casting long shadows as the illuminated runes told their story.

As High Reader Tufulla and the rest of the Readers exchanged glances, each of us felt the weight of the prophecy settle upon our shoulders. We conferred with each other, checking our notes, making sure we had noted the correct glyphs. Consensus was reached and we turned back toward the Dell. Tufulla gave the order to move, leading us back toward the shore, where the gathered crowd awaited the news. As we began our walk back across the water, Tufulla turned to look at the Gnome standing proudly atop the rock, his eyes had that signature Tufulla twinkle as he smiled at the gnome and then, using his staff gently nudged the bean which began to float away from the shore, and sink. Leaving the poor fellow stranded. 

Reaching the main shore, Tufulla headed for the stage. As had always been done – once the glyphs had been ‘read’ and the Readers had conferred, The High Reader would present the new prophecy to the waiting crowd. A hush crept across the Dell as people gathered -moving from their stalls and the ale tents to get closer. To hear what was to come. 

Unfortunately, no one heard it, because at that precise moment, the festival was set on fire, an increasingly popular form of political discourse in recent times.

Chronicles of Klept: Prologue

Reader KleptLeave a comment

Let the record show that on the third and final day of the Harvest Festival, as the sun climbed toward its zenith over Kashten Dell, I prepared to fulfill my duty as a Reader of the Church of the Prophet. This, in practical terms, meant standing in ceremonial robes that were at least one layer too warm, gripping my quill with the grim determination of a man who knew he would soon be transcribing cosmic wisdom in real time, and doing my best not to look like someone who absolutely did not want to be part of whatever disaster fate had planned for the afternoon.

From the waters of the sacred glade, the Prophet Rock looms large—scarred, ancient, and waiting. It has spoken of many things. Amazing things. Terrible things. Unfathomable things. Things that probably involved far fewer radishes than this festival currently contained.

I had seen this sight many times before, and yet, there was an undeniable heaviness in the air this time. The people felt it. I felt it. Even the goats in the agricultural display seemed to be chewing their cud with a vague sense of unease. People hoped for another year of a good read, but I’d learned that hope and prophecy were rarely the same thing. 

Perhaps I misread the prophecy that day. Nowhere in the sacred glyphs did I recall a mention of being personally dragged into a chaotic, clusterfuck of an adventure. But, then again, the divine has always had a talent for omitting the most relevant details.