Chronicles of Klept: Chapter XIV
The alley was more of a suggestion than a street. No lanterns, no signage, no guiding light but the dull grey of late afternoon sneaking through the overcast sky. The Goblin’s Grin revealed itself with all the subtlety of a secret too ashamed to be remembered.
“Here it is. The Goblin’s Grin.” Avelyn Goldwillow gestured nervously at the collection of wood and stone in front of them.
It slouched between two buildings like a guilty sibling. The kind of place you’d walk past three times before realizing it wasn’t just a boarded-up ruin. Cracked paint peeled from splintered boards. Weather-blackened beams sagged like old men too proud to sit. The windows were the real marvel, filthy things that seemed less like portals and more like the kind of place mold went to retire. There was a hint of color that whispered of a bright and stained past
Above the doorway hung the sign. Or what was left of it.
A single rusted chain held it like a prisoner in stocks. The other had long since snapped, leaving the old board to hang at a mocking angle. On it, barely visible beneath decades of grime, was the faintest trace of a goblin with a broad grin, two mugs of ale raised mid-toast. Age had stolen the joy from it. The colors were bled out, the smile more grimace than glee.
The whole building gave off the distinct impression that it had been condemned more than once, but nobody could be bothered to enforce it.
As we stood clustered around the entrance, a blind twitched in a building opposite. An old woman stared out. She was stoic, thin-lipped, and apparently the embodiment of neighborhood disapproval. She looked us up and down, frowned like we were a stain on the street, and with a slow, disappointed shake of her head, let the blind fall shut again.
“I knew it would have character!” Carrie declared, slapping the doorframe proudly. The beam creaked in protest.
“I think it might have tetanus,” I muttered.
Din fell to one knee. Not out of exhaustion. Not out of injury. But reverence. His hammer clanged gently against the cobblestone as he whispered something that sounded suspiciously like a prayer. Umberto stood beside him, fists trembling, chest heaving. He raised his eyes to the sign like a knight beholding a holy relic and muttered, “It’s perfect,” before promptly bursting into tears.
They gathered at the door like a band of misfits summoned to a council meeting. The crooked sign above groaned in the breeze, the rusted chain wailing softly like the building was sighing in its sleep.
Avelyn Goldwillow stepped forward first, perhaps out of duty, perhaps just to end the moment.
She reached for the door handle, only to pause.
She turned back. “Ah. Right. The key is in your possession, if I remember correctly.”
There was a pause.
Then, from somewhere within her coat, Wikis produced it.
She held it aloft between thumb and forefinger, the heavy brass loop catching a rare glint of light. Her eyes scanned the group for confirmation.
Din and Trunch nodded in unison.
Umberto saluted.
Day blinked once.
Yak bowed.
Carrie curtsied.
With a shrug, Wikis stepped up to the door, slid the key into the lock, and gave it a slow turn.
Click.
The sound echoed like prophecy.
Then, with one outstretched arm, she pushed.
The door creaked open, not like a welcome, but like a warning. The smell hit us first.
Piss. Blood. Beer. Rot. Something sweet. Something sinister. Something… unidentifiable. It clawed up our nostrils like a living thing and settled there, defiant.
Umberto stepped forward like a pilgrim entering a sacred shrine. “It’s…” he began, but the words caught in his throat.
Din reached a hand out and touched his shoulder. “Beautiful,” he whispered, voice cracking.
Inside, the tavern was cloaked in gloom. What little light tried to sneak through the windows was smothered by decades of grime, soot, and dried spills. Lanterns hung in disrepair, cracked glass, crooked frames, one still dripping something viscous and suspicious. Din, ever practical, whispered a Light spell into existence. The orb floated above his palm, revealing the Grin in all its unapologetic squalor.
Trunch stepped cautiously across the threshold, boots squelching in something he’d rather not name. The stench curled around him like an old friend. He took it in – the splinters, the stains, the sorrow, and for reasons he couldn’t quite name, he smiled. The rest of us followed him in.
The floor groaning beneath our feet was uneven and warped like it had survived a shipwreck. Sections were nearly worn through. Stains of every possible origin blotched the wood – blood, booze, vomit, time. Scratches and scuffs told stories in languages no one bothered to translate.
The tables were a mismatched congregation of survivors: one with a leg missing and replaced by a bucket, one stacked with old parchment, one so warped with water damage it resembled a half-sunken canoe. The stools didn’t match, and some didn’t even qualify as stools.
To the left: a raised alcove, meant perhaps for music, or theatre, or sermons. Now? A dumping ground for broken chairs, forgotten flyers, a lopsided crate of moldy apples, and a brass candlestick stabbed halfway through an abandoned shoe.
The fireplace opposite the door probably hadn’t held flame in years. It was blackened with soot, the stones inside charred to memory, as if someone had tried to burn away the sins of the building, and failed.
In front of the fireplace stood two armchairs. They looked like they’d been there since the tavern’s original construction, possibly even before the fireplace itself. Twin thrones of neglect and nostalgia.
One was a high-backed behemoth, upholstered in something that might have once been burgundy velvet but now resembled a patchy tapestry of stains and time. Springs audibly complained when anyone leaned too hard, and one of the wooden legs had been replaced with a bundle of tightly wound cutlery and string. The armrests were worn smooth, grooved by decades of elbows and perhaps the occasional forehead. A faint scent of pipe smoke still clung to it like a loyal ghost.
The second was a sagging, lopsided thing with stuffing peeking through a rip in the seat cushion. Someone had once tried to sew it shut—badly. The result resembled a stitched wound on a drunk bear. A faint bloodstain marked the left armrest, and a mug ring on the headrest suggested it had once doubled as a coaster. It sat slightly askew, tilted toward the fire like it had long since resigned itself to comfort over dignity.
They were hideous. Filthy.
And the moment Trunch sat in one and sighed like a man returning from war, they became home.
But it was the bar that got their attention.
It stood proud. Dark, polished wood. Solid. Unmoving. Relatively untouched by time’s cruelty save for a layer of thick dust. It had obviously been the pride of previous owners, looked after more than anything else. Behind it, barrels, dusty mugs, and rows of bottles that might’ve once held something drinkable. A cellar door lay in the floor just behind. A narrow stone arch led into what might generously be called a kitchen.
A precarious set of stairs clung to the wall just beside the soot-blackened fireplace, winding upward toward a shadowed landing above.
“There’s a second level?” Day asked, his tone flat but eyes narrowed with suspicion, as if Avelyn had just withheld a critical detail from a state-sanctioned briefing.
Before she could respond, Wikis was already halfway up the stairs.
“Yes,” Avelyn called after her, she unfolded a piece of parchment and glanced at it. “The, um… official property records list a privy and some living quarters. Four rooms, I believe. Although…”
She glanced around the ground floor at the grime-stained windows, the cracked beams, the mildew-shadowed corners, and grimaced.
“…the records haven’t been updated in years. No telling what the state of things are up there now.”
Carrie, from her perch on the edge of a tattered barstool, raised a brow. “Quarters? Like… sleeping spaces? You mean we could live here?”
There was a beat.
Then Din, Umberto, and Yak all turned to one another with the kind of slow, dawning realization usually reserved for prophets or pranksters.
They erupted into a three-way high five that immediately collapsed into a group hug. There were sniffles. There were back pats. Yak attempted a celebratory spin and elbowed a chair.
Avelyn gave a small, exasperated smile. “It was originally constructed as a tavern with residential quarters for the owner and staff. Then used briefly as a small inn. So… yes. Technically, you could live here.”
“Then we need drinks,” Din declared, fist raised like a general calling for artillery.
Yak and Umberto froze mid-hug. Looked at each other. Nodded.
And ran for the bar.
In perfect sync, they leapt, each aiming to vault the counter with the grace of a triumphant pirate.
It did not go well.
Both of them collided chest-first into the edge, let out matching oofs, and crumpled to the floor in theatrical agony.
There was a long silence.
Din helped Umberto up. Carrie tried, and failed, not to laugh. Yak rolled onto his back and groaned.
And Wikis, bounding down the stairs, shouted, “There’s a dead rat and a sock up there. Just one!”
Day quietly moved behind the bar, expression unreadable, hands already at work. He plucked a few dusty glasses from the shelves, inspected them against the flickering magical light, and began polishing them with the least-sticky part of a nearby rag. It didn’t help much.
With a quiet sigh, he reached instinctively for a cleaner scrap of fabric tucked beside the taps, something soft, white, and blessedly absorbent. It worked wonders. Until Tufulla cleared his throat behind him.
Day froze. Looked down at the rag. Looked back up at Tufulla.
“Good thread count,” he muttered letting go of Tufulla’s ceremonial sleeve.
Tufulla sighed the sigh of a man who regretted showing up. Again.
Day turned , pulled open a few cabinets, examined a few half-full bottles with labels so faded they may as well have been in ancient draconic, and grimaced at the chunky, amber sludge swirling inside one.
Then he spotted the cellar door.
It was bolted.
He looked at it. Then looked over the bar. One eyebrow arched.
“Yak.”
The changeling perked up immediately, still lying on the floor, now halfway through a celebratory tumbleweed roll. “Yes, sir?”
Day nudged a thumb back at the cellar and with a conspiratorial wink said, “Locked door.”
Yak somersaulted upright, dusted himself off with an unnecessary flourish, and skipped behind the bar. He examined the lock with the reverence of a jeweler, then produced a pair of delicate tools from somewhere beneath his cloak.
“Light, please,” he murmured.
Din obliged by moving the orb behind the bar.
With a satisfying click and an unnecessary bow, the door creaked open. A cool draft curled upward.
Yak peered down and whistled “Jackpot.”
A single keg sat nestled in the gloom, untouched, untapped, and, miraculously, still sealed. It was heaved upstairs and months, perhaps years, of dust ceremoniously wiped off revealing with flaking paint: Blacktooth Stout.
A moment later, the first mugs were poured.
Frothy. Dark. Questionably consumable.
“To victory!” shouted Umberto, raising his mug like a sword as an array of mismatched mugs were passed around.
Tufulla politely shook his head. Avelyn declined too.
Umberto, still holding his mug aloft, turned to me.
“To commemorate this holy event,” he said, eyes wild with sincerity, “the Chronicler drinks.”
I blinked. “I…”
“No excuses,” he bellowed, thrusting the mug into my hands.
Avelyn abruptly stood, brushing dust from her coat. “I’ll return tomorrow with the last of the paperwork,” she said, smiling. “Try not to burn the place down before then.”
The door shut behind her with a clunk.
“We make no promises!” Carrie called after her.
Dust danced in the flickering light, glasses clinked, boots thudded against old wood—and for the first time in who knows how long, the tavern echoed with raucous, unfiltered joy.
They drank heartily, with reckless abandon. Tales of the brawl grew taller as time passed. Every punch was now a miracle, every dodge a masterstroke, every stumble an intentional flourish. Syland Thornstar’s name became a punctuation mark—invoked with curses, toasts, and increasingly creative insults.
Someone mentioned Az and the laughter momentarily dipped.
“A hell of a fighter” Din raised a mug in honor of the giant orc. The rest of the group joined in silent toast. The awe lingered. No one said it aloud, but they all knew it: they were lucky the orc hadn’t taken things further.
At one point Trunch wandered over to the bar. He pulled a measuring rod from his sleeve and squinted as he crouched.
“Fascinating,” he murmured. “The bar is one-point-five inches taller than standard tavern regulation.“
Yak and Umberto slapped the bar in unison.
“That’s why we didn’t make the jump!” Yak declared, “We expected it to be standard“
“You have to wonder if it intentional.” Trunch mused, mostly to himself.
“Architectural sabotage,” Umberto growled “A crime against us athletic specimens.”
Tufulla stretched with a series of alarming joint pops. “You’ve earned some rest,” he said. “Fighting for this place. Nelb. The church. You’ve absolutely earned it”
Trunch, mid-sip, froze. “Ah. Nelb. We should talk…”
Tufulla waved it off. “Don’t worry. I got some information from Klept. I need to do some research. Contact some people. We’ll talk properly in a few days. Until then, you should get to know the town, perhaps…” he glanced around “begin working on doing up this space.”
He turned to leave.
“Klept, with me,” he said over his shoulder.
I stood. Took a step. And then
“…Actually, no.”
I blinked. “No?”
“No. Stay,” Tufulla said, gentler this time. “Celebrate with your new friends.”
“Yes!” Din and Yak shouted in unison, raising their mugs. Umberto scowled but nodded. Carrie grinned and shoved another drink into my hand like it was a binding contract.
I hesitated. Then watched as Tufulla disappeared into the alleyway.
Just before the shadows swallowed him, he paused. He knelt beside a barefoot boy, dirty, grinning, no older than twelve. They exchanged a few quiet words. Tufulla pressed something into the boy’s hand. A few coins, maybe. Then ruffled his hair.
They parted like it meant nothing.
“What do you think that was about?”
I jumped. Yak had silently materialized at my side.
“No idea,” I muttered. “But I’m starting to think that man’s been running Dawnsheart from behind pulpit for years.”
Yak nodded slowly. “You want the rest of his tart?” Yak pointed to where Tufulla had been sitting, to a half uneaten tart.
“…Yes. I believe I do”
Eventually, the revelry gave way to restlessness, and the group began poking around for things to fix, break, or catalogue.
Carrie, Day, and Trunch commandeered a table and began a list: lanterns, glassware, stools with more than two legs.
“We’ll need beds,” Day muttered.
“And chairs that don’t moan when you sit down,” Carrie added.
Trunch nodded, or would have, if he hadn’t already fallen asleep in an armchair, mouth agape, snoring like a bear full of brandy.
“Alcohol,” Umberto declared, now balancing atop a cracked stool. “ Everything else is secondary. We must replenish our stock. I will not run a dry tavern. This I swear.”
Wikis, meanwhile, had vanished into every shadow she could squeeze through. She prowled the building like a magpie on a mission, cataloguing corners, muttering judgments, collecting shinies. Upstairs she found the old living quarters decrepit but serviceable. Out back, past the crumbling kitchen, she discovered a garden. Wild, overgrown, but undeniably real. A stone well stood in the center. It still worked. She screamed joyfully and tried to climb inside it.
Yak had begun methodically emptying every cupboard.
“Half vinegar. Half poison,” he mumbled. “This one’s wine. This one’s probably wine. This one’s… glowing?”
He held up a bottle filled with a swirling silver liquid that shimmered like moonlight on mercury.
“I’m keeping this one,” he whispered, tucking it into his coat like a sacred relic.
Din found a space on the floor and began to work.
Alone, and silent.
He gathered what he could—twisted forks, bent spoons, dented tankards, warped platters, shattered hinges, mismatched coins, and scraps of discarded metal. A junk pile to most. But not to Din.
He sat cross-legged on the uneven floor, hands hovering over the heap. His brow furrowed. His fingers moved with reverence. And then, slowly, he began to craft. Scraps reshaped. Edges smoothed. Dents vanished. The useless became purposeful. The discarded found meaning. As if each piece remembered what it once was and then became something more.
He finally stood an hour later, and with a little help from Carrie and Day, a metallic mural was hung above the bar.
It depicted the moment of victory in the property rights brawl.
Yak was mid-bongo on the orc’s prodigious rear, a grin wide on his featureless face. Umberto stood triumphant atop Az’s head, axe raised in the air like a banner. Carrie was blasting her bagpipes directly into the orc’s unconscious face, cheeks puffed with pride. Wikis stood with one foot on Az’s back, her bow raised like a victor’s torch. Din, stood beside the fallen foe fist-bumping a spectral gauntlet of divine light. Trunch stood, arms raised, fingers spread, bolts of crackling shadow magic arcing between his hands. And Day stood at the edge of it all, stoic and composed, brushing his ponytail with casual grace as a shaft of light shone down behind him.
It was absurd. It was heroic. It was beautiful.
A monument to triumph, to friendship.
The Grin had its crown.
I took my leave then, with Trunch snoring in the armchair, Umberto passed out at the bar, Carrie fluttering from lantern to lantern with a rag in hand, Wikis talking to her pouch of shiny things, and Day meditating silently in the corner. I said goodnight, got a grunt or two in reply, and stepped out into the Dawnsheart evening. Back to my dormitory bed, back to quiet shelves and dusty tomes. As I walked, one thought lingered like smoke in my mind: the prophecy. The part about the outsiders.
I didn’t know if this lot were the ones it spoke of.
But I did know one thing:
This valley was about to get a lot more interesting.
The Chronicles of Klept 