by R. A. Mejia
“Who’s inside the hill there and how do we get inside?”
“You can’t get past the spell without setting off an alarm.”
“That doesn’t make sense, or every little thing would be setting it off. How were you going to get inside? Were they just going to let you set off the alarm?”
“No, they gave me this.” He pulled a small pendant from inside his shirt. It was shaped like a grinning skull, and I used Inspect on it.
Enchanted Pendant of Friendship
Pendant created as local security exception to specialized alarm spell. Anyone that wears it is accepted as a friendly member of the spell caster’s group and does not activate the alarm cast.
I turned to the other goblins and said, “Well, we aren’t getting past the illusions or alarm without each of us having one of these.”
“Can you make us some?” Frak asked.
Frik shoved his twin’s shoulder and told him, “You can’t just make magic stuff like that in the middle of the dungeon.” He turned to me and asked, “Can you?”
The group had seen me repair their equipment and make stuff from materials I had in my internal storage. It was only natural for them to wonder if I could make them copies of the pendant. The truth was that I wasn’t sure. I hadn’t made anything with a permanent magical enchantment yet, only my infused ammunition. I checked the description of the ability.
Fabrication IV - Ability to create any small magical item in the schematic database.
I could only make small magical items, so no vorpal swords, but I figured it would be enough to copy and fabricate the pendants. I quickly scanned the grinning skull on the chain.
Enchanted Pendant of Friendship. Components: 0.15 lbs iron. Schematic recorded and added to database.
For a moment I wondered at the simple material costs, but recalled that not all of my own infusions had a magical component. I had enough iron in my internal inventory and fabricated four more of them before handing them out to each of the goblins.
The young goblin realized we’d be taking his and asked, “Hey, what about me?”
Greebo reached into his expanding pack and pulled out a rope and said, “Nope. Sorry, you’ll be staying here where you can’t cry out for help.”
The goblin’s eyes widened and he said, “Not out in the cold, I’ll freeze to death!”
Manny and the twins grabbed the goblin’s arms and held him for Greebo. “Don’t worry. We’ll put you in the warm hole in the ground. Safe and sound. We’ll collect you when we come back.”
The goblin struggled but was no match for all of us as we gagged and bound him and readied ourselves for a trek into the unknown cave.
Chapter 39 - Loss
We stashed Kenny in the woods and then equipped the fabricated versions of the Enchanted Pendant of Friendship. I admired the idea of using a simple wearable item as a means to bypass the alarm spell. It would stop false alarms when someone had to leave the area to pee or get firewood.
As we double-checked our equipment, Greebo made sure everyone had at least one of the small red health potions he’d made mandatory equipment for the goblins. I wouldn’t always be around to use Minor Regeneration while he was leveling up the goblins, and he’d used a combination of food and potions to make sure the group could heal up when I wasn’t there.
I had to admit that Frik, Frak, and Manny looked pretty badass in their recent equipment upgrades.
“All set, boss,” Manny said after checking on the twins.
We walked up to the side of the hill that we’d seen the Scavengers and the hooded men pass through. We paused for a moment, and I briefly wondered if the pendants would work or if the alarm would sound when we passed through. Even worse, there was a chance that we’d gotten the wrong spot and were just going to walk into the side of the hill.
Manny, however, apparently had full faith. He walked forward and disappeared into the stone. One moment he was there, and the next he wasn’t. The twins and Greebo quickly followed his lead and disappeared as well. I wanted to take a calming breath, but I didn’t have any lungs, so I just forced myself to take the step instead.
Forcing myself to walk through what my mind said was a solid hillside of rock, dirt, and snow was hard. But I passed through the illusion without any apparent problem and ended up on the other side. The walls were rough-hewn grey stone with thick beams supporting the ten-foot-high ceiling. There were crates and small barrels stacked along the walls. Magical lights illuminated the cave and the tunnel that led deeper into the hill. When I looked behind me, I saw that the opening of the cave appeared normal, and we could see out into the distance of the snow and ice-covered dungeon floor. We were lucky that a guard hadn’t been left behind, or it was certain they would have spotted us coming.
I started to ask if everyone was ok, but Greebo held his hand up and then put a finger to his lips, signaling for quiet. I listened and could just make out what he’d heard, the sounds of muttering and footsteps. We all dashed behind the nearest crate, trying to hide from whoever was approaching.
“Darn it, Kenny. How long does it take to collect firewood?” another of the Scavenger goblins asked as he stepped into the room. He hardly looked around before stomping past our hiding places and out toward the dungeon.
He never made it out of the cave, however, as Greebo suddenly appeared behind him with one hand covering the goblin’s mouth and the other holding a short sword to the Scavenger’s throat. “One word, and you’re dead, Kyle.”
Kyle froze when Greebo grabbed him and slowly raised his hands up into the air and surrendered. The twins, Manny, and I came out of our hiding places and tied up Kyle like we had Kenny. When he got a look at Greebo, he seemed confused. “What are you doing, Greebo? The Guild Master is going to be furious with you when he hears that you’re interfering with this job. Are you jealous of the pay? Cause I’m sure that I can get you a spot smuggling the barrels out of the dungeon. Just let me go.”
“I’m not here to join your group. What you’re doing goes against everything my father wanted for the guild when he founded it. How many are ahead in the cave, and how do we find them?”
Kyle shook his head, showing some signs of defiance, until I pushed past the goblins and whispered into the goblin’s ears, “You heard what I did to Neal Nailspitter? Broke every bone in his feet and legs until he was a crying mess? You better start talking, or I’ll do things to you that will make what I did to him seem like a friendly hug.” The color drained from the goblin’s face, and he quickly started to talk, “There’s a group of Scavengers, and three of them from the other group. They rotate them out, but there’s always three of them to help us load our backpacks and seal the barrels with magic.”
Having confirmed the number of opponents, Greebo gagged the goblin and stuffed him into one of the crates. He motioned for us to gather around. “We need to see for ourselves what these guys are smuggling and who they are under their cloaks. We don’t have to fight ‘em here, but we’ll need a little of whatever they’re smuggling as evidence for the guards.” He pointed to the twins and said. “You’re with me. We’ll scout ahead and try to identify the cloaked ones.” Then he pointed to Manny and me. “You two search through these crates to see if there’s a sample of what these guys are trying to smuggle out of the dungeon.”
We split into the two groups, and Greebo and the twins went ahead down the passageway to look for the leaders of this whole smuggling operation.
Manny and I started on opposite sides of the room. I searched through the stacks of crates only to find them either empty or full of packing straw or vegetables or other food staples. The barrels were filled with either water or wine or were empty. Strangely, the inside of the empty barrels were charred black, and there was an intricate, curvy script carved into the wood. It shimmered faintly as I examined it, and I wondered exactly what enchantment was worked into the barrels. I used Magical Spell Scanning, and my vision turned red until I designated the barrel as the target of t
he scan. The barrel then turned green, and after a minute, a notification appeared.
Spell scan complete. Spell: Containment. Components: Broken link of chain, description written or carved into containment material. Containment schema recorded and added to the database.
I was ecstatic that the scan had worked, though I was confused as to what exactly the spell did. Then it clicked that I didn’t have to wonder. I had access to a database of information from the Metalman race and asked, “Inquiry: What does the spell Containment do?”
Containment - A spell that contains or restricts the energy of a specified creature, item, or artifact. Commonly used to hold demonic entities before they are bound to a mage or to reduce the area of effect of a spell or artifact.
The description of the spell didn’t enlighten me much either. The fact that it was inscribed into so many barrels indicated a massive amount of its use. Were the Scavengers going to smuggle out demons or artifacts? It didn’t make sense to me.
“Over here, Repair,” Manny said.
I left the empty crate I’d been searching through and walked up to Manny, who was kneeling over what looked like a thumb-sized pile of black sand.
“What do you think this is?” he asked, poking the pile with his gauntleted finger. The moment the metal touched the pile, smoke rose, and the metal seemed to heat up. Manny yelped and quickly pulled his hand back. The metal was already cooling, but there was a blackened and sharp-looking burr from just that brief interaction with the pile of black sand.
“What in the name of the Dark Gods is that stuff?” he asked.
It was a good question, and I used Inspect on it.
Infernal Powder
A powerful and dangerous reagent created from an Infernal Crystal.
Reading the notification told me exactly what it was but not what it was used for. “It’s a reagent made from Infernal Crystals,” I told him. He squinted, confused, and I continued, “It’s for spells or something, and it’s really dangerous.”
Manny looked down at the pile of dark sand-like powder and took a step back. “Yeah, I figured that out. You think this is the stuff the Scavengers are smuggling?”
“I do,” I agreed. Then I looked back at the twenty-odd small barrels with the Containment enchantment carved into them, and it clicked why they’d need a spell like Containment. If it wasn’t there, the powder might very likely destroy both the container and the person transporting it. But for that many barrels to be filled would mean that there was an equal or greater amount of material planned to be put in them. “But worse is the idea of where these guys are getting Infernal Crystals.”
Like a set of dominos, the thought spoken aloud tipped a set of thoughts that I had to work through. “They’re supposed to be a rare drop, even deep in the dungeon. Yet, somehow, these guys have gotten a hold of a massive amount of the crystals.” And the last thought domino fell, “Or they’re making and harvesting them somehow! These guys are the source of the mutated monsters. I don’t know how they’re doing it, but they’re using the dungeon monsters to make these crystals and then turning them into this Infernal Powder. The questions are why and how are they doing it?”
“That’s a question the boss can answer,” a deep voice behind us said. Manny and I spun around at the sound and found ourselves staring into someone’s chainmail clad chest. As my eyes rose, I found that the voice belonged to a muscular, blue-skinned troll that was almost eight feet tall. He held a long two-handed sword in his hands, and it took me a moment to recognize him as the troll that had robbed us on the sixth floor of the dungeon.
I felt Manny tense next to me, and while I was prepared to fight the troll, I recalled that he was many levels higher than us that last time I had used Inspect on the fighter.
“Please, put up a fight,” he said with a smile.
“Hold on! The boss said to capture them. He wants to put them with the others we nabbed and ask them some questions,” a voice behind him said.
The troll took a step to the side and revealed Kenny smiling at us smugly. "Don't look at me so surprised. Did you really think I'd give you the key to the place?" The goblin laughed and looked up at the troll. "These idiots really believed that Pendant of Friendship would let them get into the cave without setting off the boss’s silent alarm spell."
The troll laughed at the goblin’s statement, and I felt stupid at having fallen for the obviously fake magical key. I mean, who really names their secret bases key the Pendant of Friendship?
"So, what's it going to be? You two going to surrender, or is my troll friend here gonna cut you up?"
Terrance Treesmasher
Berserker - Level 11
HP 112/112
MP 7/7
I weighed our chances of being able to fight our way out of this. There were two of us and two of them. But the troll was levels higher than we were, and he already had his weapon out. No, we didn't really have much of a chance here at all.
I raised my arms up and said, "We surrender. Take us to your leader."
Manny's weapon and shield were taken from him, and we had our hands bound behind our backs with coarse rope. Our feet were tied so that there was just enough slack so that we could walk but not run.
As we were escorted through the tunnels beneath the hill, I had to give our captors credit. It was a virtual maze of twists and turns once we were past the storage area. I wondered if it was intentionally built this way or if the group had taken over some monster's lair. Either way, I didn’t think I could have found my way through the tunnels without an escort or a great deal of time to map them out.
Wherever we were heading wasn't a good place. I almost dreaded finding out what these guys were doing with Infernal Powder. I had been told that crystals had been used during the last war to fuel dark spells, so I could only imagine what the powdered version was being used for. Are they going to start another war? Fuel terrorist attacks? My mind spun at the possibilities. But there was one thing that I did know, I needed to get help.
I slowed my pace just enough to fall behind the escorting troll. It was only a step or two, but I couldn't let him see what I was going to do. I whispered the command to pull an object from my internal inventory. There was a flash of light as the item appeared in my hand, and I hoped that the magical lights illuminating the tunnel were bright enough that the troll wouldn't notice. I waited a heartbeat and watched our captors. No, they had not noticed. I felt the square metal object in my hand and fumbled to find the crystal in the center of it as I walked. Finally, my thumb found it and there was thankfully no sound and no lights as I pressed down on the crystal.
I stumbled on a rock protruding from the tunnel floor and lost my tentative grasp on the beacon, letting it tumble to the ground. The object tinkled as it hit the stone floor, but I could hardly hear it over the sound of my own metal-clad feet clanging on the stone. I could not stop to pick it up or I risked alerting our captors to its presence, so I walked away from it, hoping it was still working and hadn’t broken as it fell.
Manny and I were taken through the cave passageways to an open room that was about twenty feet wide and ten feet long. There were two doors along the long wall and I saw Greebo and the twins being guarded by the group of Scavengers we’d been following at the back of the room. Manny and I were taken through the room and deposited on the ground alongside our friends.
As my metal behind hit the stone floor, I caught a look at my friends and saw that the twins had broken noses and bruises, but Greebo’s face looked like it had been used for a punching bag. His cheeks were bruised, he had a black eye, and his mouth was bleeding and swollen. Terrance the troll spoke to the Scavengers, and while our captors were distracted, I whispered to Greebo. “Are you guys ok?”
Greebo quickly glanced around before nodding and whispering back, “Yeah, Bolts. We got lost in the tunnels, and when we turned back from a dead-end, we found that troll and some of those Scavengers had cut off the way back. I don’t know how they knew we were
there, but we didn’t have much of a chance to fight back before they took our weapons. They roughed us up a bit, but we’re fine otherwise.” He gestured with his head toward the opposite side of the room where I saw Greebo and the twins’ swords, their bows, and quivers, and Manny’s mace and shield leaning against the wall. Next to them were several of the barrels that I’d seen in the storage room.
I sighed, glad they weren’t badly hurt and explained, “It was the pendants. They weren’t really keyed to get us in here unnoticed. I’m sorry I let us get tricked.”
Greebo shrugged. “No, I’m sorry that I dragged you guys with me trying to stop this smuggling. I still don’t know what they were taking out of here.”
I was about to tell Greebo what I thought was happening when Terrance growled, “Quiet! You will not speak to each other, or I’ll cut out your tongues.”
