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A Grin Worth Bleeding For – II

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Chronicles of Klept: Chapter XIII

The arena exploded into movement..

One of Thornstar’s hired brutes was already writhing on the ground, clutching his chest where Trunch’s eldritch blast had landed – steam rising from his tunic, his expression suggesting that he had suddenly remembered somewhere else he urgently needed to be.

Oliver Wolfhouse, Day’s initial opponent, hustled over to the official’s table, asked for his name to  be crossed off the contestant list and promptly headed to the nearest morning ale merchant in the crowd.

Day moved toward Az like water – calm, fast, and quietly deadly. A low sweep, a rising elbow, a strike aimed clean at the orc’s center of balance.

It almost worked.

Az didn’t dodge. He didn’t block. He swatted. A massive forearm caught Day mid-motion and flung him sideways.

Day rolled, sprang up, and was immediately met by two of Thornstar’s mercs who rushed him at once. He dodged the first with ease, slipped behind the second with a twist of his shoulder. But numbers are numbers, and even water wears away stone. A knee caught him in the ribs. A club glanced off his temple. He staggered, blood at his lip, breath ragged.

Across the chaos, Wikis did something profoundly unwise and undeniably on-brand.

She climbed Az.

Not attacked him. Not flanked him.

Climbed.

Like a squirrel assaulting a tree that refused to give over its nuts, she leapt onto the orc’s back and began throttling him, first with her arms, then, when that failed, with her legs. He staggered, arms flailing, trying to grab her, dislodge her, reason with physics.

“Stop wriggling!” she hissed “I’m trying to put you to sleep.”

Az growled. Loudly. Then more loudly. He began to reach back

… and was cut off by a scream.

Umberto.

He descended upon Az like a small boulder wrapped in rage. Axe raised, chest out, grin feral. The first strike bit deep into Az’s side. The second nearly took his footing. Az roared, stumbled, then turned, and with a single massive swing of his arm, sent Umberto flying across the arena like a very angry sack of meat and testosterone.

Wikis, still latched around Az’s shoulders, blinked. “I think he likes me.”

From the moment he charged forward, Din had eyes only for Thornstar.

While fists flew and spells lit the air, Din cut through the battlefield with one purpose, chasing the embroidered menace who kept ducking behind hired meat like a nobleman dodging taxes.

Thornstar pointed. Shouted. Hid.
One of his goons stepped up. Din obliged.

He didn’t just fight, he punished. Every blow from his hammer sounded like a verdict. The poor sod blocking his path took the kind of beating that gets written into tavern songs under the heading “Regret.” When the man finally collapsed with a groan and a vow to become a florist, Din turned again, toward Thornstar, who had just stumbled behind another unfortunate soul.

A shadow flew across the arena.

Correction: Umberto flew across the arena having been batted aside by the huge orc.

Din blinked. Growled. And sprinted to him. He arrived just as Umberto sat up, dazed but still somehow posing. Din reached down—not gently—and yanked him to his feet. There was a beat. A breath. A smile. Then they slammed their weapons together, hammer against axe, in the most dude-bro high-five I’ve ever witnessed.

“For the beer!” they howled in unison, charging into the melee like two boars set loose in a festival tent.

Meanwhile, Trunch had other priorities.

After melting a man’s chest hair with an eldritch blast, he strode to Avelyn Goldwillow who was still clutching her scroll like a cursed artifact, and calmly placed a hand on her shoulder.

“This way,” he said, not unkindly pointing to the official’s table.

He walked her to the edge of the arena and deposited her near Tufulla.

“Please look after this one, Mr. Mayor Your Worshipness,” Trunch said flatly, before turning and blasting two more streaks of violet magic back into the fray without so much as looking.

Yak was art.

He appeared beneath Az like smoke under a door. Rolled, flipped, and carved a perfect slash across the back of a merc’s ankle. The man howled, spun, fell.

Yak, because of course, somersaulted dramatically, launched a dagger mid-air, and shouted: “Wikis!”

She caught it. Upside-down. Mid-strangle.

“Thank you!” she shrieked, and without hesitation jammed the blade toward Az’s face.

She missed the eye. Got the shoulder.

Az bellowed.

Carrie, watching from the sidelines with her arms crossed like a director watching a stubborn cast finally get it right, gave a nod. Then she stepped forward, snapped her fingers, and sent a burst of glitter so bright and violent it could’ve blinded the sun.

Az staggered back, roaring and rubbing his eyes. 

The crowd?
Cheered. Coughed.
And would be finding sparkles in their boots and bedsheets for the next three weeks.

With a wild screech and an unnecessary cartwheel, Wikis launched herself off Az’s shoulders, twisting mid-air like a drunken bat on fire.

Her coat flared behind her—dramatically.  Like a cape. A moment of pure, unfiltered heroism.

And it became very clear to the front three rows, the official’s table, and at least one passing hawk, that Wikis doesn’t bother with wearing anything else underneath. 

The crowd saw.

All of it.

There was a collective gasp – less awe, more trauma. Children suddenly found their parent’s hands clapping over their faces. Someone in the crowd shouted “MY EYES!”

Wikis simply landed and immediately lunged for Az’s ankles.

Blades whirled. Steel clanged. Magic flared. Din and Umberto were locked in some kind of gleeful tag-team fury. Wikis was scuttling between Az’s ankles like a glitter-dusted rodent. Yak disappeared and reappeared with alarming frequency and suspicious souvenirs. Carrie barked orders like a general on opening night.

And then Az got serious.

He looked around, really looked.

Thornstar’s men were scattered and sprawled, groaning in the dirt or limping toward clerics. The crowd was jeering, drinks flying, and somewhere in the chaos, someone had tied ribbons to a fallen merc’s boots.

And Thornstar himself?

He was screaming. Red-faced. Spittle flying. Pointing at Az like an insult made flesh.

“Do something, you oversized disappointment! I paid for a champion, not a lumbering embarrassment! Handle it!”

Az didn’t move.

He just stood there, fists clenched, chest rising slow and deep. He looked at Thornstar. Then down at the unconscious merc near his feet. Then to the crowd—booing, chanting, ready to erupt.

But then,
Thornstar’s voice dropped. His posture shifted. And he gave Az a look.

Not one of rage or desperation.

Something colder. Sharper.

The kind of look that says: you know what I have. You know what I’ll do.

I understood at that moment. There was more than coin binding that orc.

There was a chain, invisible but ironclad. And Thornstar knew exactly how to pull it.

Az turned back to the fight, and the real damage began.

He roared, deep, guttural, the kind of sound that made bones remember their mortality. He kicked Wikis loose like a child flinging off a sandal. She hit the ground hard and didn’t bounce. Carrie rushed to her, and caught a backhand that knocked the wind out of her chest.

Az swept a hammering fist across the field. Din caught it with his ribs and staggered. Umberto landed a wild hit—Az grunted, then slammed him into the ground so hard the crowd winced in collective sympathy.

Yak went for the ankles again.

Az went for Yak.

Caught him by the hood and flung him like a skipped stone. He landed in a pile of hay and didn’t move for a moment.

Even Trunch’s blasts—steady, precise—were starting to slow, his breathing labored, his movements less theatrical and more strained.

Az stood at the center of it all, chest heaving, blood trickling down one arm—but still towering. Still ready. And for the first time since this farce began, I felt something cold inch up my spine.

They were losing.

And Thornstar was trying to sneak away.

He tiptoed toward the edge of the arena, ducked past a toppled crate, made it to the ropes.

“Hey!” someone yelled from the crowd. “You forgot your honor!”

Another voice: “You can’t slither out now, fancyboy!”

Then a mug hit him square in the back.

He yelped, yelped, and spun, only to be face-to-face with a burly woman holding another drink and a grin that promised violence.

“You want that tavern so bad, you gotta fight for it” She sneered and shoved him back into the arena.

He tried again on the far side. This time, two kids tripped him. A man dumped soup on his head. Someone, gods bless them, threw a cabbage.

Again and again, he tried.

Again and again, Dawnsheart shoved him back in.

The crowd wasn’t just watching anymore.

They were participating.

Az charged again.

A blur of muscle and fury, he drove straight through Trunch’s warding gesture, past Carrie’s flash of glitter, and into Din and Umberto with the force of an avalanche. Din’s hammer struck, but barely staggered him. Umberto swung wide, got caught mid-step, and tumbled back into the dirt.

Day moved in to intercept and was shoved aside like a curtain in a breeze.

Wikis scrambled to her feet, clutching something shiny and possibly stolen, and promptly got clotheslined back down with a grunt that sounded suspiciously like “oww.” 

Az was a storm.
A brutal, relentless storm.
And they were the fence posts in its path.

Then, a slight shimmer in the air. A soft breeze.

The group stood straighter. Cuts closed. Limbs steadied. A second wind filled lungs still gasping.

From the sidelines Tufulla, High Reader and newly reluctant mayor, casually dusted off his sleeves, picked up an entire tart tray, and winked.

At Carrie.

She blinked, looked down at her newly unscraped knees, flexed her toes, and gave him a double thumbs up so suspiciously enthusiastic I half expected her to check her pockets for new organs.

“Berry tart?” Tufulla angled the tray towards me nonchalantly, “I’m told the berries are from Brightbriar.”

I raised an eyebrow at him, but it wasn’t the tart that had my attention. It was the spell itself.

Subtle. Elegant. A whisper wrapped in silk and scripture. No arcane fanfare. No holy thunder. Just… grace, hidden in plain sight.

And the crowd? Not a gasp. Not a protest. Not even a raised eyebrow.

They were too busy watching the glitter-covered halfling and the flying hammer and the orc-shaped wrecking ball to notice.

I glanced nervously at the judges. At the stands.
Surely someone saw it.
Perhaps they missed it.
Perhaps they didn’t care.

Tufulla just shrugged.

That was the moment.

Din roared. Umberto howled. Trunch summoned a crackling lance of shadow, and Carrie drew her blade with flair.

And a fist arrived.

Din’s spiritual weapon—a spectral gauntlet the size of a horse head—arched through the air like divine justice on deadline.

WHAM!

A holy uppercut. Full arc. Straight into Az’s chin.

The orc lifted off the ground.
Fully airborne.
Time slowed.

Az twisted in the air.
People gasped.

crash.

He slammed into the dirt face-first with a grunt that knocked dust into the third row.

Silence.

Then Yak cartwheeled in and began playing bongo drums on Az’s prodigious, glistening buttocks.

Carrie stood over the fallen orc and blasted a bagpipe note directly into his unconscious face.

Umberto stepped up, one foot firmly planted atop Az’s head like he’d just slain a dragon, arms raised to the sky like a statue of masculine ego.

Wikis didn’t celebrate.

She immediately dropped to her knees and began rifling through Az’s pouches with all the focus of a raccoon in a cutlery drawer.

Trunch stood ready, hands raised, knuckles crackling with energy, just in case.

Din, grinning wider than I’d ever seen, turned to his spectral fist and fist-bumped it.

And then, as the dust settled, and, out of the corner of my eye, I caught it.

Day.

Adjusting his ponytail.

Light pierced the clouds.
Somewhere, a choir hummed.
Time itself gave him a moment.

I wrote it down.

Az lay still, a mountain finally toppled, his breath stirring only the dust.

The group stood victorious, scraped, bruised, glitter-dusted, and grinning.

Wikis had found three pouches, a boot dagger, and something that might’ve been a love letter. Din was inspecting the spiritual fist like a proud parent. Umberto posed like he was expecting a statue to be commissioned on the spot. Carrie had launched into an off-key bagpipe rendition of what sounded like a funeral dirge, but may also have been a drinking song.

For a moment, everyone forgot.

And then …

“What a waste,” came a voice, sharp and venomous. “You great lumbering oaf! Weak. Pathetic. An embarrassment.”

We turned.

Thornstar stood in the center of the makeshift arena, shouting at the unconscious orc. “I paid for strength! For results! And you … you’re just another failure!”

He sneered. Loud enough for everyone to hear.

That was his mistake.

Umberto growled. Carrie snapped her fingers. Trunch began charging a spell. Thornstar turned and started to walk away.

Wikis calmly drew an arrow, aimed, and thwip.

The arrow landed squarely in Thornstar’s backside.

He yelped. Clutched his rear like it had betrayed him. Stumbled. Tried to run.

Umberto roared and sprinted after him, caught him within five strides, tackled him with enough force to make the ground wince, and pinned him like a display rug.

Thornstar flailed, squealed, squirmed. But it was over.

The group encircled him.

He looked around.

One merc was groaning on the sidelines. Two more were being half-carried by clerics. One had disappeared entirely. And Az… was still unconscious, face-down, with a bagpipe mouthpiece wedged gently into one ear.

Thornstar sagged. His arms dropped. His head hung.

“I yield,” he muttered, voice barely above a cough. “I yield.”

The crowd didn’t cheer.

They exploded.

Hats flew. Drinks spilled. Someone threw a pastry. A chant began, disorganized but jubilant.

As Thornstar sulked in the dirt clutching his backside, caked in dust, and stripped of every last shred of dignity, the officials, after a very brief deliberation (and an overwhelmingly raucous cheer from the crowd), stood and announced:

“The winners of the Brawl for Legal Ownership of the Property Currently Known as the Goblin’s Grin… are hereby declared!”

The crowd erupted. Again.

Umberto and Din, exhausted but positively buzzing at the idea of tavern ownership, immediately chorused, “Hand over the keys then!”

“Well, there is the matter of signing the property deed,” one of the officials replied. “It must be witnessed by an official from the Office of Records and a high-ranking member of the governing council.”

“What about her?” Day asked, pointing at Avelyn. “Doesn’t she work for the Office of Records? The shithead with the arrow in his butt seemed to think she did.”

The officials all turned to look at Thornstar in unison, and shook their heads.

“And, I believe the Mayor is right there,” Carrie chimed sweetly, pointing at Tufulla, who promptly wiped pastry crumbs off his chest and pretended to look the other way “Does he rank high enough?“

“Perfect,” beamed Din.

Umberto’s fingers twitched toward an official. “Deed,” he demanded.

One by one, signatures were scrawled across the parchment—some messy, some practiced, one drawn with an unnecessary flourish. Avelyn and Tufulla signed last, exchanging a look of shared disbelief. Hands were shaken. A heavy brass key was ceremoniously handed over.

Din and Umberto held the deed aloft like a pair of revolutionaries who’d just liberated a liquor license. The key passed reverently between the group like a holy relic. The officials pointed them toward the building itself, and with cheers still echoing in the square, they marched off in the direction of their new, ramshackle future.

Meanwhile, Thornstar, freshly healed, though not nearly enough to remove the limp or the glitter, limped toward the unconscious form of Az.

He stood over him for a long moment.

Then spat.
On him.

It was the ultimate insult. The kind that didn’t just reek of disrespect, it marinated in it.

“This isn’t over,” he muttered.

A short, elderly woman nearby, dressed in ten layers of shawls and chewing something aggressively, bent down and plucked a tooth from the dirt. Possibly human. Definitely recent.

“Ooh,” she grinned, popping it into a gap in her front row. “Perfect fit. I knew it was gonna be a lucky day!”

Then, turning to Thornstar with the casual confidence of someone who’d survived six wars and a mule cart accident, she said:

“Oi, Fancy boy. Piss off and get over yourself. You lost. Even after you tried changin’ the rules”

Thornstar stared at her. She stared right back, daring him to say something.

He didn’t.

He just scowled, turned, and hobbled off,still limping, still glittery, still muttering threats into the air.

And me?

I looked at the group, laughing, cheering, covered in bruises and glitter and at least one smear of celebratory pie.

I don’t know why I followed them.

Habit, maybe. Curiosity. Fate, if you believe in that sort of thing.

But as the new owners of the Goblin’s Grin made their way toward the crumbling tavern I picked up my journal, flipped to a fresh page, and went with them.

Crowds, Confusion, and a Crack to the Jaw

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Chronicles of Klept: Chapter XII

The first few rounds went by without much fanfare. 

It was very clear which people had signed up just for the hell of it and which ones thought they had some chance at coming away with a property deed for an extremely dilapidated and possibly possessed tavern. 

One match ended before most people even found a decent spot to sit. A halfling with a flail the size of a goat launched herself at a robed necromancer-looking fellow. He tried to cast something, maybe a curse, maybe a complaint, but she cracked him across the jaw mid-syllable. A front tooth sailed into the crowd. I think someone kept it.

Din’s name was called with the kind of reverence usually reserved for ancient oaths and final warnings.

The bout was billed like some clash of titans. Dwarf versus Dwarf, steel against stone, beard against beard. But the moment Jestern Ebonforge stepped into the ring, shoulders slouched and hammer held more like a broom than a weapon, it was clear this was going to be less war and more reluctant workplace disagreement.

Din, on the other hand, looked… composed. Not bloodthirsty. Not smug. Just ready. Like he’d already measured the weight of this fight and found it lighter than expected.

To Jestern’s credit, he didn’t fold outright. He landed two clean hits, one that made the crowd cheer and the other that made Din blink. But you could tell his heart wasn’t in it. Probably hadn’t been since breakfast.

Din gave him room, literally. No flurries. No showmanship. Just steady footwork and precise counters, until Jestern, panting and blinking through sweat, raised his hands and bowed out before things got bruising.

The crowd clapped. Not roared, not gasped, clapped. It was the sound of satisfied relief. No bloodbath. No humiliation. Just a clean, decent win.

And I’ll admit, I watched Din walk away from the ring with a little more interest than usual. Not because he won, but because of how he chose to win. No ego. No grandstanding. Just quiet strength, like a mountain that doesn’t feel the need to announce itself.

Not long after, a retired city guard went up against a local baker. I assumed it would be a mercy killing. It was not. Turns out kneading dough for thirty years gives you arms. The guard left with a limp and a profound respect for sourdough.

Now this was a pairing I don’t think anybody saw coming.

On one side: Trunch. Grand topknot, brooding silence, and the ever-present sense that something ancient and slightly disapproving lives behind his eyes.

On the other: Holadamos. Dawnsheart’s beloved red Dragonborn, shopkeeper of oddities, occasional fire-breather for delighted children, and the only contestant here who looked like he might’ve brought cookies instead of weapons.

They met in the center before the bout, Holadamos with a wink and a chuckle, Trunch with the slight nod of a man tolerating whimsy. I couldn’t hear their exchange, but from the way Holadamos patted Trunch’s arm and mimed a puff of fire, I gathered there was some sort of prearranged choreography at play.

Sure enough, the fight was… playful. Holadamos unleashed a minor gout of flame that sent a squeal of joy through the younger crowd. Trunch took the hit with a grunt, then responded with a couple of soft blows crackling with a dark energy, although they seemed more sparkle than smite.

They traded a few solid blows, each more theatrical than lethal. The crowd adored it.

At one point, Trunch knocked Holadamos off his feet, gently, but enough for the older Dragonborn to wince and chuckle through it. Trunch didn’t gloat. Instead, he stepped forward, extended a hand, and helped the older Dragonborn to his feet.

What followed was possibly more shocking than the fight itself: the two walked off side by side, not as foes, but as peers. The judges couldn’t decide on a winner. The two fighters didn’t seem to care either. Minutes later, I spotted them on a bench near the concession tent—Trunch sipping tea and Holadamos animatedly recounting something with hand gestures and tail swishes. The fight was declared incomplete and scratched from the ledger completely. 

In one of the more interesting morning fights a wiry farmhand faced off against a druid who, instead of fighting, summoned a goat. The goat did not wait for instruction. The goat attacked. The farmhand fled. The goat was declared the winner. It wandered off and began eating some nearby flowers. The crowd asked if it could fight again.

I’ll say this much: Yak didn’t look like he belonged in a fighting ring. Slouched posture, sleeves too long, a stance that said please don’t hit me, I bruise poetically. The crowd laughed. 

By the end, they weren’t sure if they should applaud or perform an exorcism.

He threw a punch. It landed with all the impact of a polite cough. His opponent, a broad-shouldered bruiser with fists like hammers, took one look at Yak’s form and seemed almost offended. A second later, Yak was on the ground, dazed, hood slipping back slightly.

The big man raised a fist for the finisher.

And that’s when everything got strange.

As the blow descended, Yak looked up, and suddenly wore the exact same face as his opponent. Not a clever mask. Not a passing resemblance.

His face.

Same nose. Same eyes. Same slightly crooked tooth.

The man screamed. Stumbled back like he’d just tried to punch a haunted mirror. The crowd gasped, then laughed, then gasped again as Yak pounced, not with technique, but with the desperate, flailing resolve of someone who had no business winning and absolutely no intention of losing.

It became a brawl. A tangle of limbs, grunts, and awkward leverage. Twice the man nearly broke free. Once Yak bit his own sleeve out of panic. But in the end, he locked in a grip, a messy, undignified thing that looked like it had been learned from a very off-brand instruction manual.

His opponent tapped the ground just before fading out.

The ref called it.

And Yak… just lay there for a moment. Breathing hard. Face still morphing back to neutral. Then he sat up, smiled wide and weird, and gave a little wave to the crowd.

They didn’t know what to do.

Neither did I.

But I found myself clapping.

Because whatever that was, it worked.

And I was starting to suspect that’s Yak’s entire philosophy.

It started with a muttered conversation near the tournament board. A large man—shoulders like barrels, nose like it had met too many fists—leaned in close to Syland Thornstar. No shouting. No threats. Just a quiet word, a heavy pouch exchanged, and a name scratched off the bout list with a stub of charcoal.

The man didn’t fight. Just packed up and left, whistling like someone who’d just sold a goat and gotten away with it.

Then it happened again. And again.

Three more names dropped off before the hour was out. Each one formerly set to face Thornstar or someone Thornstar might face. All of them dangerous-looking. All of them suddenly unavailable.

The officials grumbled, the crowd whispered, but nothing stuck. No proof. Just a pattern. A stink.

I glanced at Thornstar. He was lounging near the combat tent now, sipping something sparkling and expensive, wearing a smile like he’d already won.

I wasn’t the only one watching Thornstar grease the gears of fate.

Din’s jaw had set like a mason’s vice. He didn’t say anything, but the way his arms folded told me he was counting coins, names, and consequences all at once.

Carrie, ever the spotlight seeker, didn’t glare, she smirked. The kind of smirk that said: Oh, darling, if you want to play dirty, at least be interesting about it. She leaned in close to Umberto and whispered something that made him puff up like a rooster in a rainstorm.

Umberto, for his part, cracked his knuckles like they’d insulted his mother. “Chronicle this,” he growled to me without making eye-contact. “If he makes it to the final round, I’ll knock the smug out of his jawline.” He struck a pose. It was unclear whether it was meant for Thornstar or the three nearby sketch artists.

And then, of course, there was Yak.

He said nothing. Didn’t react. Didn’t frown or scoff or plot aloud.

He just disappeared for a moment.

And when he returned, casually munching on a boiled sweet, one of the paid-off fighters was patting his empty coin pouch with growing confusion.

Yak dropped a pile of coins into Day’s hand, offered no explanation, winked and vanished into the crowd again.

Day nodded approvingly, pocketed the coins and then shrugged and wandered off into the crowd. He came back a while later with snacks and drinks for everyone, and then promptly went away again.

Upon being called, Carrie entered the ring like it was a stage, and her opponent looked like he was still waiting for a script. He looked like the sort of man who’d loudly explain sword techniques he read about in a book once. He stepped into the ring with a puffed chest and a patronizing smile, clearly planning to win, or lose, gallantly.

Then Carrie hit him.

Hard.

The crack echoed across the tournament grounds like a dropped stage plank. He staggered. The crowd gasped. And suddenly the gallantry melted off his face like butter in the sun.

He came at her then, not with rage, but with the bruised pride of a man who’d just been outclassed in public. Landed a few quick jabs, sharp little reminders that even fools can sting. Carrie winced, but grinned through it, cheeks flushed, eyes glittering.

And then she spun. Literally spun, and knocked him clean onto his arse with a flourish so dramatic it could’ve ended with a bow.

The crowd erupted. Laughter, applause, a few crude suggestions from the back row. Carrie gave a mock curtsey and blew a kiss to no one in particular. A few grumbles were heard, synonymous with the sound of someone who had bet on the wrong fighter having to hand over some coin. 

As he crawled off, red-faced and grumbling, I caught her and Wikis high-fiving on the sideline, as if to say they weren’t here to mess around. 

Just as the tournament began to find its rhythm; grit, fire, a bit of blood, Thornstar vanished.

Not fled. Not sulked.

Vanished. One minute he was there handing out coins near the noticeboard and the next he was nowhere to be seen.

Moments later, he returned wearing the kind of smirk that usually accompanies bad news and an undeserved inheritance. He strode to the officiating table with the confidence of a man who’s never been told “no” without sending a letter about it.

A few hushed words.

A few more from the official in charge.

Then a gathering of judges. Leaning in. Nodding. Frowning in that bureaucratic way that only ever ends in disappointment.

And then the announcement.

“Due to the current vacancy in the mayoral office of Dawnsheart, following the arrest and pending trial of the former Mayor, Lord Roddrick” the officiant called out, “and in accordance with Civic Charter 12b, Section Four—no contest involving property transfer may be legally ratified without mayoral oversight—all proceedings are hereby postponed until such time as a new mayor is lawfully elected.”

The crowd groaned like a kicked beehive.

Thornstar looked positively radiant.

Umberto clenched both fists and began vibrating like a teakettle mid-boil.

Din, arms crossed, muttered, “The tavern that never was,” with the resigned tone of a man watching his dreams dissolve into fine mist.

Then …

A woman stepped forward. Avelyn Goldwillow a clerk from the Office of Records. She whispered something into the officiant’s ear.

Another pause. Then another announcement.

“There is, however,” the officiant said, adjusting his collar, “a clause—Civic Charter 6g, Section Two—which states that in times of civic disarray, the temporary appointment of an acting mayor may be recognized via unanimous public vote, provided it is witnessed and recorded by at least three officials and one member of the city archives. and be participated in by at least a third of the population.”

I sat up a little straighter at that. So did everyone else. Thornstar frowned.

And from somewhere in the crowd—high-pitched, unmistakably theatrical:

“High Reader Tufulla should be acting mayor!”

I didn’t have to look. That was Carrie’s voice, clear as a trumpet solo in a whispering crypt.

Thornstar, to no one’s surprise, immediately nominated himself.

But a ripple passed through the crowd.

Then a voice. Then another. Then a chant.

“Tufulla! Tufulla! TU-FUL-LA!”

Thornstar objected, of course. But one of the remaining contestants stepped forward and addressed the crowd: “If you want this to finish, if you want to see who wins, this is the way. Let’s end this properly.”

A vote was taken. Quickly. Loudly. Passionately. Unanimously. Someone far better, and faster with numbers than I confirmed the crowd size.

Tufulla was halfway through a rather animated conversation with a child about the theological implications of turnip-shaped gargoyles when the chanting started again.

“Tufulla! Tufulla! TU-FUL-LA!”

He paused mid-sentence. Turned. Blinked.

Bewilderment.

He looked at the crowd, then at the officials, then at me—like I might be holding the answer in my notebook.

I raised an eyebrow.

“They’ve elected you acting mayor,” I said flatly. “By unanimous public vote. It’s legal. Binding. Charter 6g.”

He blinked again. Confusion.

“But… I haven’t prepared a speech,” he whispered, horror dawning.

“You’ll be fine,” I said. “You’ve delivered sermons, same thing really, this is just more paperwork and shouting.”

He looked back at the chanting crowd. His mouth moved silently, perhaps reciting a calming psalm. Or possibly a curse.

When the gathered officials confirmed it with all due ceremony, Tufulla nodded once. Stiffly. Like a man accepting a crown woven from bees.

Thus, without ambition, campaign, or comprehension, the High Reader of Dawnsheart became its accidental mayor.

And so, the tournament continued.

Wikis was eventually called up and the fight began like a normal fight. Which, given this tournament, meant it was weird from the start. She entered the ring bouncing on the balls of her feet, blades flashing and eyes wide like a cat at an aquarium. Her opponent, a cloaked figure with bark-textured skin and a squirrel’s focus, barely looked at her. Instead, they kept glancing at the rooftops, scanning the skyline like they expected it to attack them.

She tried to engage. A flourish here, a cartwheel there, a dramatic “Hyah!” thrown in for flair. The druid parried, absently.

Wikis’ response was something to behold. 

The air bent around her as she twisted, slid, and flipped over her opponent, landing in a crouch behind them with her bow already drawn. The arrow glowed faintly—imbued with something wilder than magic. Wind coiled around her arm like a ribbon.

She didn’t aim.

She felt.

The shot whistled through the air like a whispered secret

Then, feathers.

The druid exploded into the form of a giant eagle and shot skyward with all the grace of a divine missile, beelining toward a large black bird—possibly a raven—perched near a chimney. The two vanished into the clouds mid-chase.

The arrow, undeterred, continued.

It sailed through the fading burst of feathers and, thunk!, pinned a spectator’s sandwich to the side of a nearby wall.

The crowd applauded.

Wikis waited. Sort of.

She dropped into a crouch in the middle of the ring, hunching low like a vampiric street urchin hiding from a sunbeam. With exaggerated subtlety, she pulled her pouch into her lap and started rifling through it.

One by one, she produced small shiny trinkets; a dented brooch, a brass ring, something that might once have been a gold tooth. She whispered to each one, held them up to her ear, and nodded solemnly like they’d whispered back.

She kept glancing at the crowd, then at the rooftops, then behind her, then back to the shiny things. Paranoid. Twitchy. Definitely talking to at least three of the objects.

The crowd, mostly watching the sky, missed the full performance. But a few onlookers near the front row stared in growing fascination.

Five minutes passed.

No eagle. No raven.

The officials huddled, clearly unsure what to do with… any of this.

At last, one of them raised his hand and called out:

“Wikis is declared winner by … confusion!”

She looked up, startled,  quickly stuffed the trinkets back into her pouch and walked off the field as if nothing at all had happened.

We hadn’t seen much of Day. He sort of came and went as the proceedings went on.

Not unusual, really. He tends to slip in and out of places like an afterthought, silent, unreadable, occasionally terrifying in that still lake over deep water sort of way.

But when his name was called, he stepped into the arena with all the fuss of a man attending a dental appointment. No showboating. No grin. Just a slow roll of the shoulders and a glance at his opponent, a man named Oliver Wolfhouse. A jolly publican with arms like ham hocks and a laugh you could hear through a cellar door. He wasn’t here for fame or property. He was here for Erik Thornstar. The original owner of the Goblin’s Grin. A man he called friend.

I think, somewhere deep down, Oliver knew he wasn’t going to win. But he showed up anyway. Because sometimes, remembrance looks like raising a glass. And sometimes, it looks like stepping into a ring.

Day raised his fists. His opponent did the same.

And Thornstar returned, loudly and with all the theatrics of a used cart salesman. 

We should’ve guessed he had more tricks up his heavily embroidered sleeve.

With most of the original contestants out—bought off, bribed, or bodily removed—he sauntered back into the spotlight flanked by his assembled goon gallery. Az led the charge, towering and silent, flanked by faces that looked like they’d been pulled from the “wanted” section of a city watch ledger.

Thornstar motioned to Az, and the orc gave a small nod.

He moved without ceremony, but not without weight. You could see it in his shoulders, the way they dipped slightly, as if carrying more than just muscle. He stepped into the arena, approached Day’s opponent, and, with the efficiency of someone used to being told what to do, picked the man up like a sack of flour and hurled him over the ropes.

The silence that followed wasn’t just shock, it was unease.

Day didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just turned his head slowly toward Az.

Az met his gaze.

Not with aggression.

With… something else. Something quieter. Tired.

He held it for a beat too long.

Then turned back toward Thornstar, who was already stepping forward like a stage actor eager for his cue.

“Well,” Thornstar said, brushing imaginary dust from his sleeve, “it appears we now have an odd number of contestants. Such a shame.”

“You made it odd!” someone shouted from the stands.

“Yeah – and you keep paying off contestants” someone else added.

Thornstar ignored them, of course and continued nonchalantly.

“I therefore invoke 4b, section 19 of the city by-laws regarding officially sanctioned competitions.”

The crowd began to murmur – the officials looked at each other quizzically. 

Thornstar whispered something to one of his men who gestured toward an alleyway.

And then came Avelyn Goldwillow, poor clerk of the Office of Records, dragged into the arena like a witness to her own trial. She clutched a rolled scroll with the same look a priest gives to a cursed object.

Thornstar gave her a theatrical little nod. She hesitated.

Then, under very obvious duress, read:

“Per Addendum 4b, Section 19… In the event that the final stage of a contested public tournament cannot be resolved through standard format, and a consensus among remaining parties is not achievable, the proceedings may be postponed indefinitely, pending review from an official civic council or tribunal of merchant peers.”

I rubbed my eyes and muttered to no one, “How many bloody amendments are there?”

The officials stammered. The crowd started to murmur.

Thornstar raised his hand as if this was all perfectly normal.

“I propose,” he said loudly, smugly, “that the remainder of this tournament be settled not by scattered duels, but as a team engagement.

The crowd collectively sighed. 

Thornstar folded his arms and smiled like a man watching a tavern door close behind a debtor. I watched most of the remaining fighters eye Thornstar and his ‘team’ before shaking their heads and walking off, mumbling about it not being worth it in the end.

The officiants started murmuring about postponement.

Thornstar smiled “Well, if no-one else has a team ready, I guess I win.”

And that’s when Umberto nearly exploded.

It started as a tremble. Then a growl. Yak and Din flanked him like wardens at a boiling cauldron, whispering, gripping shoulders, trying to reason.

It did not work.

Umberto broke free, stomped forward like a charging statue, walked straight past Thornstar—and stopped in front of Day.

Smiled. Nodded.

Then spun and punched Thornstar square in the jaw.

The sound was magnificent. The kind of crack that ends duels and careers. The crowd erupted.

Thornstar crumpled like overpriced parchment. His men—Az included—blinked in stunned silence.

Trunch stepped forward—not toward the fight, but toward the man still gripping Avelyn Goldwillow’s arm.

His voice was calm. Deadly calm.

“Unhand her.”

The man blinked.

“I said,” Trunch repeated, louder now, “unhand her. Is that how you treat a lady in front of a crowd? Like some snatched scroll, dragged into daylight and forced to perform?”

The man looked around for support. Found none. The crowd’s jeering had shifted now—eyes turning, murmurs stirring.

Trunch took one more step. “She is a clerk. A citizen. And if you’re going to play at law and tradition, then start by showing the proper respect. Or I swear, by all that’s sacred and mildly inconvenient, you’ll be the next one on your knees.”

The man let go.

Avelyn staggered back. Trunch caught her arm, not to restrain, but to steady. She didn’t speak. Just gave him a look. One that said thank you without needing words.

Trunch nodded once, smiled, and unleashed a burst of arcane engery that hit the man square in the chest.

“Don’t just stand there, you idiots!” Thornstar wheezed from the floor. “Do what I’ve paid you to do!”

Az didn’t move.

He looked at Thornstar, then at Day and Umberto, both standing firm, unflinching. Then out at the crowd, who were no longer just an audience, they were watching him. And not with fear.

With expectation.

It hit me all at once.

Az didn’t want to be here.

Not like this.

He’d been hired to be muscle, sure. But this? This wasn’t muscle, it was manipulation. Thornstar didn’t command loyalty. He rented obedience.

“Now, you gigantic oaf!” Thornstar screeched, flailing from the dirt and kicking Az squarely in the ankle.

Az flinched, but not from pain. From shame.

He growled. Not at Umberto.

At everything.

Then finally, reluctantly, stepped forward.

But Day moved at the same time. Smooth. Silent. Eyes narrowed.

Their clash began with a blur of fists and elbows. More test than fury, as the rest of the group surged forward.

Din called out to the official’s table – loud, clear, resolute:

“I guess you can put us down as a team.”

And that was it.

The crowd didn’t cheer, they roared. The officials scrambled. Thornstar groaned. Tufulla, halfway through a bite of celebratory tart, looked like he’d just swallowed it the wrong way.

And me?

I finally flipped to a fresh page in my journal.

Because whatever this was becoming…

…it was worth chronicling.

Of Saints, Secrets, and Suspicious Accounting

Reader KleptLeave a comment

Chronicles of Klept: Chapter VII

For reasons that I’m still not sure of, I followed the group as they sought the previously promised payment from the mayor.

When they returned to Roddrick’s office, they found him hunched in a corner, visibly sweating, while a glittering, furious fairy paced across his desk like a litigious stormcloud.

Evidently, sometime during the cathedral attack, this winged individual had stormed their way into his office seeking compensation for past services rendered.

Unfortunately for Roddrick, today was a spectacularly poor time to forget where he put the city’s coin.

Roddrick’s office is not designed to accommodate high drama. It is a space meant for hushed civic whispers, quiet corruption, and the delicate art of losing money in increasingly creative ways. It is not, and I cannot stress this enough, meant to host a shouting match between a magical debt collector, several injured mercenaries, and a gnome in the throes of romantic euphoria.

Which is precisely what was happening.

By the time Din arrived, the volume in the room had reached ‘tavern on fire’ levels.

“—you promised five hundred gold each!”
“This is exactly why I stopped doing guild work!”
“You don’t understand fairy contract law, sweetheart, and you do not want to!”
“My bow is broken and my wallet is empty!”
“I will hex your ancestors so hard your childhood gets repossessed!”

Roddrick sat hunched behind his desk, a man rapidly attempting to dissolve into paperwork. His mouth flapped ineffectually as insults flew like enchanted daggers. I’m fairly certain someone threw an actual dagger at one point. It missed. Barely.

The fairy, who I feel compelled to note had not stopped hovering on his desk this entire time, was brandishing what appeared to be a glittering invoice.

Din entered with Umberto slung over his shoulder. The gnome was clutching a piece of parchment to his chest with the sacred reverence usually reserved for holy relics. There was sincerity in the gesture, along with the unmistakable expression of someone who was absolutely going to show it to everyone at the earliest inconvenient moment. 

Din, to his credit, simply looked up and muttered, “What did I miss, apart from the Fairy?”

“Everything,” Wikis snapped.

Trunch gestured vaguely. “Roddrick doesn’t have the money.”

Din blinked. “You mean on him?” He gently placed Umberto on the floor. The gnome stirred, as if the sheer volume of irritation in the room had finally reached a frequency only a barbarian could hear. His eyelids fluttered, lips parting in a soft groan that somehow managed to sound both confused and indignant. I watched, half-curious, half-concerned, as the aura of rising tension acted like smelling salts to his subconscious. Anger, it seemed, was his natural habitat—and it was calling to him.

“No,” said Day. “We mean at all. He doesn’t have any money”

Umberto moved with the startled grace of a sleeping cat beside a dropped pot—jolting upright, eyes wide, muscles tensed for a fight that hadn’t started yet but surely would. The parchment, previously cradled in his grip, was shoved without ceremony or clear spatial logic into the folds of his loincloth. And just like that, he was part of the argument, shouting as if he’d never fainted.

I was about to lose track of who had threatened Roddrick with what bodily curse or overly large weapon, when the side door creaked open.

And in stepped Tufulla.

His robes were slightly damp from where he’d cleaned himself up after his earlier, urn-bound breakfast expulsion. His expression was unreadable. His walk was slow, careful, deliberate—like a priest returning to find his congregation had redecorated with explosives.

He didn’t say anything at first. He just surveyed the room.

The bloodied adventurers.
The shrieking fairy.
The cowering Roddrick, who had just blurted, “Look, I may have moved a few emergency funds into discretionary non-vital initiatives, but that’s just local governance!”

And that was it.

Tufulla raised one hand and the room went quiet. Not magically, not with a spell, but with the kind of heavy silence that only falls when someone enters with absolute moral authority.

He stepped fully into the room. Then, with the same calm resolve he used when walking across the water during the festival, he pointed to me.

“Klept,” he said. “Record this.”

I nodded, slid to the corner, sat cross-legged, and did as instructed.

Tufulla turned to Roddrick.

“Lord … Mayor Roddrick… I hereby place you under citizen’s arrest, on charges of embezzlement, misappropriation of city funds, and gross dereliction of civic responsibility.”

Roddrick’s jaw wobbled. “You can’t…”

“I can,” Tufulla said, and turned to the guards. “Remove him.”

The guards, to their credit, didn’t wait for further clarification. One of them actually smiled.

Roddrick barely got out a “This is highly irregular!” before the fairy, still hovering at chest height, raised a hand and said:

“Oh, sweetheart.”

She plucked a tiny set of bagpipes from seemingly nowhere, inflated them with a single breath, and with a shrill, glorious wheeze played a painfully dissonant chord and then sang. 

“You walk like your father didn’t stick around and your tailor actively hates you.” 

The taunt slid from her tongue like a dagger, and something invisible hit him a heartbeat later. His eyes blinked hard, as though the insult had struck behind them instead of in front. He let out a wounded squawk.

As he was dragged out, red-faced, and visibly lower on the self-worth scale, the fairy slowly floated down onto the desk, re-folded her bagpipes, and looked around.

Tufulla turned to the group clustered in Roddrick’s office..

“I believe you are owed payment,” he said simply. “And while the city apparently cannot provide it, the Church can. You’ve earned that at least. How much were you promised?”

“Three hundred,” The fairy answered brightly, beaming with the self-assured charm of someone who knew they were the favorite.
“Five hundred,” replied Umberto, Din, and Wikis in near-perfect unison.

The fairy’s smile grew…

“Five hundred each,” Day added, without looking up.

…until it didn’t. The smile wilted. She turned to them, blinking.

“Wait—you’re getting how much?”

There was a pause. Then Yak, from somewhere behind the group,

“Hold up. We’re getting paid for this?”

Tufulla did not respond.
A small, slow sigh escaped him—less breath, more financial grief made audible.

Then, “I believe the church will be able to compensate you. You’ve already done more than anyone could have asked. You’re under no obligation to continue. But…” 

“Well, I’ve got nothing else going on this week,” the fairy said to the room at large, and with a dramatic twirl, a small curtsy mid-air, and a name delivered like it should already be famous introduced herself “My name’s Carrie, by the way. Carrie the Fairy.”

Only Trunch responded.

He bowed his head, smiled, and said something polite, possibly poetic. 

The rest of the group offered varying degrees of noncommittal acknowledgement: a grunt from Din, a vague nod from Day, Umberto, simply pulled out his piece of parchment and sighed. Yak blinked, which might have been a greeting. Wikis started checking her own pockets.

Carrie didn’t seem to mind. If anything, she appeared delighted to have an audience too stunned to respond properly.

Tufulla glanced back through the doorway to the cathedral, his voice softer now. “As I was saying, if you’re willing… we could still use your help.” He gestured for them to follow him as he made his way back into the recently defiled sacred space. “This way. I’ll get the money you are owed.” 

There’s a certain weight to being asked for help. A quiet gravity, like you’ve just been handed a sacred relic, or a baby, or a bomb with a very slow fuse. In this case, it was all three, disguised as an offer from a kindly priest with the faint smell of bile still clinging to his robes.

Tufulla walked to the middle of the cathedral, face lit by the sunlight filtered through the surviving panes of stained glass. Nearby, the altar stood cracked (a misguided eldritch blast from Trunch) and a large window next to the main door stood shattered. He had already moved the bodies of my fellow Readers off to one side, covered them with cloth and presumably, said a prayer.  

“Should I come back when you’ve finished redecorating?” Carrie asked 

“There was an attack,” Tufulla said

Yak leaned casually against a broken column and flicked a chip of stone with a dagger.

“We took care of it.”

Carrie gave an impressed little gasp and clapped her hands together in a way that managed to be both sincere and faintly alarming.

Tufulla’s voice was steady, measured—his words the kind that usually made people listen whether they wanted to or not.

“On top of that, there’s been a concerning report,” he began. “From Nelb.”

My eyebrows raised. The cabbage capital of the valley wasn’t exactly known for its political intrigue or magical warfare. Vegetables, yes. Trouble? Less so.

Tufulla continued, “I believe it may be connected to this” he gestured around the room, “and to the festival attack. I believe the Dan’del’ion Court is behind it. Their sudden reemergence, the recent events, it can’t be coincidence. I believe the Dan’del’ion Court seeks to regain power again”

A pause followed. The kind of pause that usually leads into a hush of realization. A shared gasp. Perhaps even a dropped mug in the distance.

Instead, the group exchanged glances.

Not alarm. Not dread.

Just a series of furrowed brows, sideways looks, and subtle head-tilts. 

It hit me then.
They had no idea what Tufulla was talking about.

No context. No history. Not even the courtesy of a vague sense of unease. Just six battle-worn strangers and a fairy suddenly faced with a name that meant as much to them as a particularly obscure salad dressing.

“Or at least are trying to” he continued almost dismissively. “You’re under no obligation,” he added. “Truly. You’ve already done more than could have been asked of you. But your… unconventional methods may be precisely what is needed.”

There was another pause.

Then, 

“Define ‘connected’,” Wikis said flatly. She was sharpening something that was already unnecessarily sharp.

“I agree,” said Trunch. “We need to understand the scale of the risk. What exactly do you suspect, High Reader?”

Tufulla nodded. “I believe the Dan’del’ion Court has once again grown in  numbers. Perhaps someone with a distant claim to leadership has come out from the shadows. It seems like they are testing boundaries, and about to make a much larger play. I think the festival was just the beginning, and unfortunately, I think the entire Humbledoewn Valley and in time, all of Elandaru, is about to be drawn into something unpleasant.”

“Great,” Din muttered. “So more danger. More questions. Probably some running.”

He glanced sideways at Umberto, who was adjusting his loincloth with the serene confidence of someone who would absolutely flirt with a banshee just to see if it worked.

“Almost certainly,” Umberto grinned. 

“Say we help” Wikis had put the sharp thing away, for now, “How will you help us help you?”

“Some encouragement wouldn’t hurt,” Yak added helpfully. “Money?, Up front as a gesture of good faith.”

“Potions,” Day said simply.

“Something specific,” Trunch said, “to counter the threat we’re being asked to face.

Tufulla didn’t hesitate.

“Follow me”, He moved behind the pulpit. Pressed a panel.

And with all the drama of a divine stage production, a trap door creaked open.

“Oh, great,” Wikis muttered. “A hidden stairwell. That’s definitely how I wanted today to end.”

Tufulla just smiled and started down. 

Stone gave way to older stone as we descended the old stairs. The air grew cooler, and the smell shifted from incense and old parchment to something metallic and oiled. 

And then the chamber opened before us.

Tufulla gestured for everyone to enter “Hopefully you’ll find something here that will suffice?’

It was a vault—not gaudy, not opulent—but meticulously maintained. Walls lined with racks of weapons, armor, potions in neatly labeled crates, scrolls bound with wax seals, and one long shelf full of very serious-looking things in velvet-lined boxes. A private armory. Hidden beneath a church. I’d been down here before, of course. Let’s just say Tufulla and I have shared enough midnight conversations and grim hypotheticals to justify me knowing where the sharp things are kept. Tufulla headed across the room to a large wooden chest against the far wall while the others stood, staring. 

“Oh,” Din breathed. Then, louder: “Oh, yes. This is very good.”
He moved immediately to the wall of weapons, reverently running a hand along the haft of a massive hammer like it was a holy relic and he’d just found a new religion.

“So. Many. Shiny. Things.” Wikis blinked, eyes wide. 

I saw her gaze snag on a small, gleaming pendant half-tucked beneath a folded cloth. She didn’t move toward it, but her fingers flexed slightly at her sides.
“Everything’s so shiny.” Her voice was hushed with awe, but her hand had already gone to the dagger on her belt, as if expecting this to be some kind of deeply convincing trap.

Umberto stood motionless, eyes wide, lip trembling. “It’s fucking beautiful,” he said, voice cracking slightly. 

Trunch didn’t step forward. He just looked at Tufulla, brow furrowed.
“This is a considerable collection, for a priest,” he said carefully.

Tufulla didn’t respond immediately.

“For protection,” he said at last, crossing back across the room with a pile of small leather pouches in hand.

Carrie floated a lazy circle around the room, gave a low, impressed whistle, and clapped twice. “Finally,” she said,  “I was worried this would be boring..”

Yak was already testing daggers. One in each hand, flipping them lightly, checking their weight, balance, and the satisfying ‘shk’ they made going into and out of their sheaths.
“Ooooh, this one sings,” he said, grinning. “And this one” he spun it in his fingers “this one purrs.”

Then, Day.

He stood at the threshold, looking around slowly. At the weapons, at the structure, the lighting, then asked quietly.

“Protection from what? You want to tell us what this is all really for?”

Tufulla met his gaze.

“I suppose you’ve earned that—along with this.”

He handed each of them a small leather pouch, the quiet clink of coin inside punctuating the moment. 

“You’ve already risked your lives helping… and now I’m asking you to potentially do more. There’s something I need to confess.”

“You’re not really a priest,” Yak blurted out from a rack of daggers

“You’re in love with me,” said Carrie at the exact same time, beaming.

“I am a member of a group called the White Ravens. We were originally founded centuries ago as part of the rebellion against the Dan’del’ion Court. After their demise, we sought out scattered, remaining members, doing what we could to ensure they didn’t return. We still exist, not many of us, but still hoping to ensure they never return.” Tufulla responded. 

“Lame. My idea was better” Carrie sighed as she went back to casually observing a collection of oddly shaped blades. 

“You keep talking about these dandelion folk” Umberto grunted as he swung a large double headed axe, “what’s so scary about a bunch of people who named themselves after a puffy flower?”

“Dan’del’ion. Dan – Del – Leon” Tufulla pronounced the word, gently, as if uttering it would immediately summon them “A past nobel house who ruled the valley and neighbouring regions for hundreds of years through tyranny and fear. The darkest period of their rule coincided with the rise of the vampiric Lord Ieyoch”

“And you’re worried they have returned” Trunch ws trying on a piece of leather armor, soft wisps of smoke curled up from the pauldrons as he clipped the final buckle into place.

“Yes – the festival attackers all had Dan’del’ion medallions on their person. Klept will fill in in more on the history of the Dan’del’ion Court and their rule on the way to Nelb.”

I blinked.

“Pardon?”

“You’ll accompany them of course. You’ll record what they find. What they face. Your knowledge of history, the Court, and of the Valley, may prove invaluable. You’ll serve as the Church’s official Chronicler of Events for this investigation.”

I opened my mouth to protest.

Umberto groaned audibly.

“You’re assigning us a chronicler?” he said, as if Tufulla had just handed him a newborn. “Do you know how much danger I personally attract? Do you want this poor man exploded before he even finishes a foreword?”

“I don’t explode easily,” I offered, though this was an untested theory.

“Great,” Umberto muttered. “Now I have to worry about the narrative getting cut short.”

Then, under his breath:

“Come along then, Chronicler. Try not to die while taking notes.” Each of them had taken something from the shelves and racks adorning the walls of the room. 

“So. An investigation. You want us to check out Nelb and see what’s going on?” Trunch looked at Tufulla. 

Tufulla surveyed the collection of people in front of him “Poke around, see if my suspicions are correct. Gather whatever evidence you can. Try not to hurt anyone who doesn’t deserve it,” he glanced nervously at Umberto. 

Wikis’ eyes narrowed. “What if they do deserve it?” She was testing the tension of a bow.

“Get what information you can from them and deal with them the way you think necessary.”

“My favorite kind of investigation” came a voice from the shadows. I flinched, almost forgetting Yak was there.

Tufulla turned to me “When you arrive, take them up to Brandt’s house – he’ll fill you in with more details.” I looked at him pleadingly, quietly begging him to reconsider leaving my life in the hands of this lot.

“I’m sure they’ll keep you safe,” Tufulla said, casting his eyes around the room. “Probably.”

I’ve heard more convincing reassurances from cheese merchants.

“So, can I assume you’ll accept?” Tufulla asked them with a raised eyebrow.

There was another moment of silence. I looked around. This was it, I thought. This was where they said no. Thanked the priest, put their new toys back on the shelves, and went somewhere less fatal.

But no.

They agreed. One by one, without drama. No fanfare. No oaths.

Just that quiet, strange energy they all carry—the kind that makes you think maybe destiny is less about fate, and more about who’s too stubborn to walk away.

We climbed the stairs from the cathedral basement in silence, boots echoing off stone.

No one said it aloud, but we all felt it: the shift. Whatever this had started as, it was something else now.

Outside, morning had settled into itself. Dawnsheart bustled in the distance with the ignorant cheer of a town not yet caught up to the chaos inside its most sacred walls.

We exited the cathedral, one by one.

I followed last, with the kind of reluctance that wasn’t about fear of injury, but of inevitability. I’d seen enough in the past day to know what followed this group wasn’t just danger.

It was chaos. Messy, relentless, inconvenient chaos.

And I wasn’t ready for it.

Tufulla remained behind, already crossing the nave with quiet determination, moving through fractured light and fractured things. Broken glass scattered across the floor. Cracked pews leaning like wounded men. The deep, red marks that no scrubbing would fully erase. And the bodies of two fallen Readers, still shrouded in silence and duty.

There would be rituals. There would be questions.

But not yet.

We turned toward the stables. The plan was simple: hire a cart. Head to Nelb.

It didn’t feel like much of a plan.

But it was something.

Halfway across the town square, Umberto, nudged Yak with the subtlety of a falling brick.

“Who’s the fairy?” he muttered, eyes narrowing.

Yak shrugged without looking up, hands tucked casually into his sleeves.

“Not really sure,” he said, as if it weren’t worth investigating further.

Then, without ceremony, he produced a pastry from one of those same sleeves and took a thoughtful bite.

And honestly?

That felt about right.

She had appeared in the middle of a crisis, brandishing bagpipes and biting insults, and somehow never left. Like a song that had started playing during a fight and inexplicably became the theme tune.

She was, by all appearances, chaos given wings.
And for this particular group?

She fit perfectly.

Whispers, Warhammers, and Whatever That Is

Reader KleptLeave a comment

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.