by Eric Ugland
“Them? There are more?”
“Quite a few,” I said.
“Interesting. Should I ask how you got this?”
“No, but I didn’t kill anyone for it.”
“Were you the one who originally took it from Tollendahl?”
“I’d say no comment, but that’s an answer in and of itself, isn’t it?”
“Very much.”
“I took it from a man who no longer had need nor want of it.”
“And you are comfortable giving it to me now?”
“Comfortable? Sure. It’s more that I need what you’re going to give me for getting it for you.”
“Ah, yes, ever the bargainer.”
“Don’t worry,” I said, “I’m sure your birthday is coming up soon. I”ll be happy to get you a gift then.”
“Why?”
“Don’t you, I mean, don’t you get gifts on your birthday?”
He looked at me like I was insane.
“Okay, clearly not a tradition here. Uh, in the capital.”
He frowned, but seemed willing to let it go for the minute. But then he scribbled something down on a piece of paper.
“What is it you wanted to know?” he asked.
“We talked about this. The immortals,” I said. “The guys who respawn, uh, come back after being killed.”
Valamir nodded.
“Right,” he said. “I admit to being quite curious after you told me what you were interested in, if only because it wasn’t a topic I’d really explored before--“
“Tollendahl asked you about an immortal in the dungeon.”
“Yes, there is a man in the dungeons who has been there for quite some time. There is a theory he is immortal, but that is something shrouded in legend at this point.”
“Have you interacted with that man?”
“No, I have not. But back to what you were asking: there have been occasions in the history of the Empire where we have come up against enemies who seem to have powers like you suggest. This is, mind you, something I have only learned today. Again, I was not expecting you to have returned so quickly, so I have not done quite as much research on the topic as perhaps you have earned.”
“I’m on a bit of a time crunch,” I replied. “The longer I wait, the more of my friends will be hurt here. I need to take these guys down, and I’m afraid you’re the only one with the power to do that.”
“It is not a power I have,” Valamir said. “In looking into things, it was made clear to me that the only reason I was let in on this information was because the Emperor does not live at the moment, so some in the government have taken to treating me as the de facto ruler. Which I really wish they would cease, but what can I do to halt them?”
“I’m sorry, but--“
“Yes, I do apologize. I am rather tired. You tend to come at inopportune times for those of us who prefer to be awake during the day. Do you ever sleep?”
“Not really.”
“Useful skill,” he said. “Doing what research I had time to do, I found an entry in the Imperial armory. There are daggers there with the note that they were designed and enchanted roughly three hundred years ago for the purposes of stopping those who are not able to be killed by normal means.”
“How do they kill them?” I interrupted to ask.
“Ah, right to the heart of the matter. I do not rightly know — there is a limit to what is written in the archives. For more information, you would need to visit the armory itself. What is written is that these daggers are enchanted to provide additional damage against those who are visitors to this world, as I think you can agree the immortals must be. And, perhaps most useful, they are also able to reset the point to which these immortals return after death.”
I nodded, immediately brought back to when I’d been killed, stabbed in the back with a dagger by the leader of the Iron Silents. Somehow, they’d gotten one of those daggers. But maybe I had too.
“Are you well?” Valamir asked.
“Remembering something,” I said.
“Is the information useful?”
“Yes, very. Although, how might I go about getting access to the imperial armory?”
“Clearly you are the resourceful sort who can figure it out on your own,” he said. “But I fear leaving you to do that might have dire consequences to the Empire should you choose to liberate our stock of magic weapons and armor.”
“Maybe you could write me a note for safe conduct?
He gave me a wry smile. “It is certainly something I have considered. Do you plan on visiting soon?”
“Morning is soon,” I said. “Right?”
He stood, and peered out the window. “Sadly, yes.”
“In that case, quite directly.”
Valamir sat back down at his desk, and shuffled through his drawers until he found what he wanted: a small map of the city. He set it down, and drew a small circle around a building near the old center of town, the Forum, where the Via Principalis and Via Praetorious met.
“The armory is a few blocks north of the main Legion recruitment and training center. I cannot quite tell you why it was placed there, but there it is.”
He pushed the map towards me. I rolled it up and put it in my pouch. Score.
Boris poked me.
“I want look,” Boris said.
I gave him the map.
“Is there anything else you can tell me?” I asked.
“About the immortals? Not at the moment,” Valamir said. He signed a small card and stamped it with his signet ring. “These immortals you are after, are they something the Empire should be worried about?”
“I don’t think so. At least, not at the moment. That might change, because they certainly seem to be gaining in power, but hopefully I can head them off at the pass.”
“What pass?”
“The proverbial one.”
“Odd saying, but I suppose I can see how it might make sense.”
“Your highness, always a pleasure.”
“Good luck thief. And nice to meet you, uh, Boris, right? Boris the Kobold who is not a goblin.”
“Yes,” Boris said. “Thank you for remembering name, prince.”
Boris hopped off the chair, marched up to the door, and out of the room.
“He is a funny one,” Valamir said, a smile on his face.
“Good company,” I replied with a nod.
Chapter Sixty-Four
I felt like I’d been seeing too much of the sewers lately. And yet, it was the best way to get back home, so into the stench once more.
While we were walking along next to the gently flowing river of filth, my brain started to wander a little. Boris was leading, and I knew that if something came along, he’d alert me, so it was reasonably safe for me to let my mind attack the other problems we faced.
The Iron Silents used those daggers for spawn-camping. Which was smart, because it allowed them to speed-level. But that wasn’t going to be something I wanted to do. For obvious reasons. There were twelve Iron Silents, and spawn-camping twelve people at once didn’t seem feasible, despite the potential gain in XP. And it’s not like I could imprison them in some capacity while I waited to kill them all. Unless...
“Boris,” I said quietly, “when we get back home, I need to talk to whomever is in charge of construction and digging for you guys.”
He nodded. “We here,” he informed me before climbing up a ladder and out into the street.
The Imperial Armory was a remarkably nondescript building. Just a large square of white marble that eschewed any and all ornamentation. Which made sense — it was not a place where you wanted people to want to visit. Make it boring, people will ignore it.
I went in through the front door, making sure I had a smile on my face.
Inside was a small waiting room with a single desk sitting in front of a heavy door. A gruff-looking woman with huge arms sat at the desk. Intricate tattoos wove around her bulging muscles. She wore Legion armor, and had a
sword at her hip.
“Help you?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said, and I set the little card on the desk.
She picked up the card with a sigh, and read over it. Then she flipped the card over, and then back, reading over the front one more time.
“This for real?” she asked, holding it up.
“It is,” I replied.
“That a kobold?” she asked.
“Boris the kobold,” Boris clarified.
“His name is Boris,” I said.
“How’d you get this?” she asked, holding the card up.
“Bit of a secret.”
She read over the card a third time, and then tapped it on her desk a few times.
“Wait here,” she said.
“There,” I said, pointing at the chairs lining the wall.
She grunted, and got to her feet, then went through the metal door.
I sat down, and Boris hopped up next to me.
We waited in silence for a few minutes. I imagined the civil servants were having quite the discussion on the other side of the door.
“I wish we had some breakfast,” I said.
“Hungry,” Boris agreed.
Then, after that riveting conversation, we waited a little longer. Finally, the woman returned with a very old man who had a thin ring of gray curly hair around a bald pate. He wore glasses halfway down his nose, and only had the last vestiges of muscle on his old frame.
He held up the card. “That him?”
The woman nodded. “The elf, not the kobold,” she clarified.
“You can come with me,” the old man said. “Kobold stays here.”
“Boris the kobold,” Boris clarified.
“Don’t care what your name is, bub,” the old man said. “Only one of you comes back. Suppose, all the same to me if Boris the kobold here wants to come back and the nameless elf stays.”
Boris shrugged, and hopped off his chair.
I stood and put a hand on his shoulder. “I should probably go,” I said.
“Make sense,” Boris said, hopping back on his chair.
I followed the old man through the heavy door. He led me down a long hallway, then down some stairs, down another hallway, through a door, down another set of stairs, and to another door.
“Wait a moment,” he said. “Then go through that door.”
I nodded.
He nodded.
Lots of nodding going on.
The old man walked away down the hall, making the next corner.
Dutifully following instructions because I didn’t want to make things rough in here for myself, I waited a moment, then gave a polite little knock before opening the door.
It was a small room cut in half by a waist-high counter, topped with thick iron bars. The same old man stood on the other side of the bars.
“Are you,” I started, “did I just meet your twin?”
“Just had to get back here,” he said. “’That’s why I made you wait. Now, what is it I can do for this unnamed representative of Lord Valamir?”
“I was told about some daggers you might have back there.”
“It’s the Imperial Armory, son. There’s more weapons back here’n you can imagine.”
“I’m looking for some very particular daggers.”
“I’d hope so.”
“You don’t make it very easy, do you?”
“Oddly, not part of the job. Now you want to tell me these daggers you want or—“
“Magic daggers designed for killing or stopping immortals.”
“Ah huh,” he said. He lifted a very large book from beneath the counter, and started flipping through it. It looked a bit like an old-school yellow pages. Tiny lines of text filled each page, and there were a lot of pages. He ran his finger down each page, over and over again until he stopped, and stubbed his finger on an entry. “Give me a minute here, son.”
He disappeared through the door on the other side of the bars. Once again, I was waiting at the mercy of the Glatonese bureaucracy.
It took a long time. Long enough that I was seriously thinking this was all a bad joke. I was about to leave when the man reappeared, pulling a wooden cart with a wooden box on top.
“Magic daggers,” the man said, hoisting the wooden box onto the countertop with a grunt.
He put a piece of paper next to the box, and jammed his stubby finger on it.
“Sign here,” he said.
“Are you giving these to me?” I asked.
“No, these are the property of the Empire of Glaton. You are merely transferring them from here to Lord Valamir, where he may do with them what he likes until such time as his high and mighty gets bored and deposits them back here. Or sends you to deposit them.”
“Oh, makes sense,” I said.
I signed the paper ‘Alfred E. Neuman.’
“Have a nice day, Master Neuman,” the old man said with a half-wave.
“Thanks,” I said, “you too.”
Chapter Sixty-Five
I took the box of daggers with me and climbed back into the sewers with Boris. Once down below in the murk, I made Boris wait so I could check things over.
I opened the wooden box, and saw a bunch of oilskin-wrapped daggers. I unfolded the oilskin, and found myself looking at a very familiar dagger. It looked exactly like the dagger I’d taken off Insidious when I’d killed him in the hideout.
A quick study of the dagger when I grabbed the hilt was incredibly helpful.
The Dagger of Perpetual Return
Item Type: Rare
Item Class: One-handed Melee,
Material: Steel
Damage: 10-20 (Piercing)
Durability: 20/20
Weight: 1.8 lbs
Requirements: Str 8
Description: A straight-bladed dagger having a cruciform hilt and a jewel in the pommel. The dagger deals substantially more damage to ‘travelers,’ those who have been brought to this world by the gods and who cannot die. Additionally, the Dagger of Perpetual Return can ‘reset’ the rebirth location of the traveler. Remove the pin in the pommel, scratch that upon the chosen rebirth location, and replace in the pommel. Use of this dagger to kill a ‘traveler’ will then set the rebirth location to the area that has been scratched.
“Well,” I said. “This might turn out to be very handy indeed.”
“Is good?” Boris asked.
“Very good.”
“Back home?”
“First kobolds, then home.”
“Which kobolds?”
“The ones who live at home.”
“Just go home then?”
“Sure. Yes. Home.”
“This way,” he said, marching off down the sewer tunnel.
It turned out that kobolds slept about as much as I did. Upon returning to the miniature kobold city growing underneath the compound, we walked through a bustling sort of town square. Kobolds were everywhere, and, at least by my count, there were certainly more than I’d originally saved. I didn’t say anything about it, but I was curious.
Boris led me through the throng of kobolds, who all stopped to stare at me when they noticed I was among them, until we got to a small door built into the wall. So small I had to duck down to get through. The joys of kobold-size portals.
Inside was a large open room that had clearly been hollowed out recently. A map had been carved into the wall. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure, but it seemed like a map of the sewers and everything beneath the city. Two kobolds were inside, one was very old, and sitting on a small stool. The other looked a bit younger, and was measuring something on the map.
They both looked around sharply when Boris and I barged in.
“Good morning,” I said. “Sorry to bother.”
“No bother,” the oldest one said in kobold. “How can help you?”
“A few things,” I said. “First, and I don’t want to be rude about this, but you have to start talking to us before you just start digging out more and more.
Because, you know, you’re part of the group, which means you need to abide by the rules of the city and the Empire. And you’re going to be citizens soon, so, yeah. Don’t dig out anything more until we’ve got a chance to figure things out.”
The older kobold looked at the younger one. They both nodded.
“Great,” I said. “And don’t get me wrong, I think what’s going on here is fantastic. It’s really cool to see, just, you know, I think we’re under the street right now, yes?”
The older kobold, again, looked to the younger one.
“Little under street,” the younger kobold said.
“Which isn’t technically allowed—“
“No one else using it,” the young one replied.
“Yes, but that’s not exactly how things work here. If someone isn’t using it, it’s probably because it’s owned by the government and they want it that way.”
“Oh,” the younger one said.
“Second thing involves a secret project which will require you to ignore basically everything I just said.”
Boris smiled, and the old one laughed.
“We like secret projects,” the old one said with a toothy grin. “What you have us do?”
I explained my plan. The kobolds all looked at the map.
“We can—“ the old one started, but I shook my head.
“Don’t tell me where,” I said. “Keeping them secret is part of it. And we’ll have to get a dagger in before they’re sealed up, just for a scratch or something. Is that possible?”
The old kobold grunted as he got up from his little stool and walked over to the wall-map. He conferred with the younger kobold, having a quiet conversation I couldn’t follow. They touched the map in several places. Then there was a lot of nodding. The old one turned back to me.
“Very possible.”
“Okay,” I said, and opened up the box of daggers. “Let me tell you how this is going to work...”
Chapter Sixty-Six
I climbed back up the secret ladder until I got to my apartment, peeked inside, and saw that it was empty. No Shae, no new girl who’s name I couldn’t remember. L-something. I wondered where she’d gone, since I hadn’t seen her since we saved her. Which, you know, sort of made sense, being that she was an explorer and adventurer. Very possible she’d already moved on.
