by Jeff Sabean
Feeling the surface of the rock with his eyes closed, Hankish slid his hands to the left until he found the nearly imperceptible crack he was searching for, then pressed down on it: the stone in the floor silently slid down several inches, then slid away from where the companions were standing and into the floor, revealing a stairway hidden beneath the cover. The stairs were made of a jet-black stone, with veins of deep blue running through the stone. At first glance, the steps were difficult to discern, as the veins of blue made one step blend into the next.
“Watch yourselves, now,” Abugraic commanded as the group edged toward the stairway in anticipation. “Just because the steps were hidden don’t mean there aren’t more traps on ‘em.”
“Wise advice, master dwarf,” Aki replied with a smile. “We shall wait and follow you down.”
With a huff, Abugraic moved slower than normal around the side of the now-open stairwell, purposely building the suspense as he approached the top of the stairs. He knelt on his good knee, leaning forward to inspect every inch of the top step, grinning as he noticed the rest were holding their breaths in anticipation.
“Aye, the top step is clear,” he stated, shifting down a single step and starting the process all over again.
“There must be twenty steps down,” muttered Bendiac. “How ‘bout we toss the rogue down the steps and see if it sets off any traps...”
Realizing his over-dramatization was exacerbating the situation, Abugraic stood up slowly and grinned.
“No need to get like that, we kin move faster if yer willing to risk yer neck a bit,” he grumbled, unable to hide the smile on his face.
He maintained a slow but steady pace as he led the group down the staircase, admiring the craftsmanship of the stone. The utter lack of any cracks between the stones made searching for traps a simple process, and in no time at all the group was at the base of the stairs, staring down a dark hallway with unlit torches staggered on either side.
“Light a torch, or continue using the light from the crystals?” Aki asked, staring into the darkness.
“Remember the sewers? Let’s not light fires unless we must,” Hankish replied, a pensive look on his face. Then he stopped and smiled widely, “And if we must, then let us ensure something explodes. That was magnificent.”
Nodding, Abugraic led the way down the hall, marveling at the stone. “Not a crack. Almost like it were carved from a single block o’ stone, with no tool marks!”
“Have you e’er seen rock like that?” Bendiac asked his brother, whistling softly.
“Not in all me years,” Thrazzoun replied, running his hand slowly down the smooth rock. “We could make back e’rything we lost in the lake mining this.”
“Let us decide who can sell what after we are sure it is safe,” Hankish whispered, cutting the conversation short. “Or would you like to be surprised by another of those shadow monsters?”
Before he could stop himself, a look of pure terror crossed Thrazzoun’s face, and when he regained his composure, he shook his head solemnly.
“No, I don’t suppose I do,” he half whispered, unable to trust his voice not to crack.
Waiving for silence, Abugraic reached the end of the hallway and peered around the corner. He turned back to the companions, safely located several paces behind the rogue, and grinned.
“Gonna need some light up here, make sure we got no shadows in ‘ere,” the words flowed out of his rapidly, his excitement impossible to contain.
The sisters rushed to his side, simultaneously causing the crystals on their staves to glow brighter and brighter until the inside of the tunnel was brighter than the noon sun. They stepped around the corner with Abugraic, the rest of the party close on their heels, and stopped short, a gasp collectively escaping the lips of all eight members of the group.
A room stood before the companions, perfectly square, approximately forty feet long, wide, and tall; hewn from the same stone as the stairs and hall. The magnificence of the craftsmanship was dwarfed by the mountain of treasure stacked in the room. Gold was stacked from the floor to the ceiling: bars of gold, jewelry of gold with precious gems inset, armor with pure gold melted into the designs, chests with gold coins...if there was a way to use gold in a design, it was represented in this treasure trove.
Dead silence hung over the group as they continued to stare wide-eyed at the pile of gold.
“What are we waiting for, let’s load up and get out of here!” Hankish finally exclaimed, snapping everyone out of their trances.
“Is it safe to assume we do not need to worry about how to split it since there is more than we can carry?” Aki asked, still staring with unblinking eyes.
“Speak for yerself, human,” Abugraic laughed as he rushed into the room, grabbing handfuls of treasure and stuffing it into a very small pouch on his side. “I kin take the whole room if ye let me!”
Whooping, the rest of the party rushed the room, picking up pieces to study, then each stuffing a bit here and a bit there into bags that should never hold so much.
“Enough!” Ja’ade stated softly, but the single word stopped everyone in their tracks. “I agree, there is more than enough treasure here,” she continued when she had the attention of all present. “However, if anything appears to have any, ahh, special properties, I would recommend presenting it to the group.”
“Aye, fair enough lass,” Bendiac chortled, stuffing a pair of golden candelabra studded with diamonds into his bag.
“Am I the only one without one of those bags?” Aki asked Zatus, watching the gold in the room disappear while no one’s bags seemed to be gaining any weight.
Zatus tossed Aki a simple looking black leather bag, about the size of a brown paper lunch bag, and winked at him. “Now you too have a bag that has a larger interior than exterior.”
A shout lifted from the side of the room where the Xyrstiina sisters were working on the treasure.
“Hey, that’s cheating!” a disgruntled Hankish was screaming, stomping his feet like a child.
“You would not complain if you, too, carried a portable hole,” Mialin grinned, as she pushed mounds of gold into a three-foot wide and six-foot deep hole she had created on the floor of the cave beside her.
“Who says I don’t,” muttered the unhappy bard. “But we can’t all toss fireballs at our enemies, some of us need all the tricks we can get.”
Chapter 10 – Which Way Is Up?
The group made short work of the gold piled in the room, and when they were done stacking their extra-dimensional-pocket bags, all that remained was a small pile of jewelry and a few weapons.
“These are ‘enchanted,’ for lack of a better word,” Zatus explained quietly to Aki. “As I explained, magic isn’t real, but a skilled artisan can sometimes weave certain ‘special properties,’ as Ja’ade so eloquently put it, into an object. Your tonfa, Heishi’s sword, Tiane’s kamas, these are all examples of these ‘enchanted’ items.
“Typically, you can discern what the properties of an item are when you pick it up for the first time. It is almost as if the item will speak to you, explaining what it is capable of. You did not experience this when I gave you the tonfa in your plane of existence, as the world there works a bit differently. That is why I had to explain them to you and let you practice to see how they work. The added benefit of being crafted on your plane was that I was able to attune them to you: if anyone were to pick up your tonfa, they would simply be a set of wooden tonfa, carved by the loving hands of a master craftsman.”
“I see,” stated Aki. “So, what do these items here do?” he asked, loud enough for the group to hear.
“We have a ring here that will be useful to you, human,” Hankish stated, tossing him a platinum colored ring with a diamond set in the top. “It will give you resistance to lightning, and from what I hear of your friend Heishi that will come in handy if you get too close to that sword of his.”
Aki placed the ring on the pinkie finger of his left hand, the band automa
tically resizing to fit snugly as he slid it on. As Zatus had explained, the ring “explained” to him its properties as it settled on his finger, showing him that he could survive a direct lightning strike if the ring was in contact with his flesh.
“Amazing,” was all Aki could say, staring at the simple-looking ring on his finger.
“Here, one more for you,” Hankish stated, handing Aki a short sword with a black blade, with royal blue veins running through it, matching the stone around them perfectly. The sword was double-bladed, with a cutting edge on both sides of the blade, and the edges were a lighter shade of blue. When the light hit the cutting edges, they seemed to absorb the light. Its handle was wrapped with strips of leather dyed a deep red, and the cross guard had sapphires embedded which glinted as Hankish slid the blade into a matching scabbard and handed it to Aki.
He strapped it to his waist, not wanting to reject such a beautiful blade even though he was not much of a swordsman, then smoothly slid it from the scabbard. His vision clouded momentarily as he “listened” to the blade, then a grin split his face from ear to ear.
“What’s it do, Doc?” Zatus asked, his excitement and small stature reminding Aki of a small child on Christmas morning.
“Do you remember how much you hated SCUBA school, Chief?” Aki asked, a wry grin on his face.
Zatus scrunched up his face at the memory.
“If you’d had one of these, you would have been able to breathe underwater without all that extra gear!” Aki exclaimed with a smile.
“Interesting,” the gnome said, staring at the blade. “Is that all?”
“Isn’t that enough?” laughed his friend.
“The reason I ask is that most times a simple earring or bracelet could accomplish the same feat. Why imbue a weapon with such properties? How does that increase your fighting abilities?” Zatus pondered.
“I’m sure it would greatly increase my ability to defend myself if I fell in that lake full of sharks without Mialin present to lend me her water-walking abilities!” Aki laughed.
“Fair enough, my friend,” nodded the gnome. “But pay attention to that one: it has hidden properties or I’m a filthy dwarf...”
The three dwarves standing around waiting to split the items bristled at this, but Hankish broke the tension when he began to laugh.
“You can’t be upset with the little guy,” he sputtered through the laughter as he slapped his brother on the shoulder. “That dip in the lake is the first bath I’ve seen you take all year!”
As Abugraic’s face turned red with either embarrassment or anger, Aki could not be sure which, the rest of the group laughed along with the bard. Eventually, the jovial spirit of the group won the rogue over, and he laughed along as well.
“Lemme know when ye can grow a beard, ye dolt,” he muttered, causing everyone present to roar with laughter.
◆◆◆
The rest of the loot was divvyed up between the group: a couple rings to this one, a bracelet to that one, and a wicked looking dagger with a green tint to the blade that Abugraic slid out of sight without explaining anything to the group. With the room picked completely clean, the group prepared to continue their search for the world above.
“Does no one else remember our meal was cut short by those smelly orcs?” Hankish complained, glaring at his companions. “Or that none of us has slept?”
“We should pause to eat a meal, but I am not comfortable sleeping down here,” Aki said, still watching the shadows on the walls, expecting a mouth of razor-sharp teeth to open at any moment.
“Nonsense. We at least should each take turns resting a bit. I thought Zatus calls you ‘Doc.’ What kind of doctor does not understand the need for food and sleep? Do you think you will see more or less of the shadow monsters around every corner as exhaustion sets in?” Hankish stated, his annoyance clear although he attempted to maintain a matter-of-fact tone.
“He’s right, Doc,” Zatus said, emphasizing the nickname for his team medic. “You should know better. Unless you’re scaaarrrred to go to sleep in the big bad cave.”
“Ok, ok, you win. Let’s take some time for food and rest, but we need to ensure we always have sentries. We have made a LOT of noise down here, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t relish the idea of getting caught sleeping by one of those nightmares...”
After a fast meal of bread and some type of jerky that Aki did not ask about since he hadn’t seen any cows since his arrival, the group agreed upon one sentry at a time to minimize the time needed to get moving again. As they drifted off to sleep, Aki thought of his world and what Zatus had said about never returning.
“Does it really matter?” he thought to himself, as sleep eluded him. "The people I care most about are here with me already. Besides, here I have no mortgage, no car payment, no Colonel breathing down my neck for a report about our team’s actions. Here, I can just live...”
◆◆◆
The rest time was over far too soon, but at least it was uneventful. Before moving, Aki removed the bandage from Abugraic’s hip, checking to see how it was healing.
“It’s coming along well, Abu,” he said, gently pressing on the inflamed tissue. “If you had a day to just sit and rest, along with another of these bandages, I think it would be stronger than before you were injured.”
“Bah, meself’s already stronger than before,” Abugraic muttered, “just put on a new bandage and don’t be callin’ me ‘Abu’ again. We ain’t that good friends.”
Aki wrapped his hip with a clean bandage, smiling as he saw the relieved look on the surly dwarf’s face as the medication in the bandage worked its way into the injury.
“And don’t be smilin’ at me, lessen ye’re gonna grow a beard like a good dwarf woman,” Abugraic grumped, snatching his crutch and heading back out the tunnel the way they had come.
The group backtracked to the last intersection they had encountered. The going was still slow, but Abugraic moved a bit faster than on the trip down as they had already searched for traps in this area. When he reached the intersection, it was obvious his bravado was running thin, and he waived Thrazzoun forward.
“Go on with ye,” he growled at the blacksmith. “Let yer ‘nose’ lead us out of this hole.”
“I never thought I would hear a dwarf complain about being underground,” Zatus whispered so only Aki could hear him. “What would his mother say?”
Stifling a laugh, Aki focused on letting his eyes adjust as the sisters lowered the intensity of the light emanating from their crystals.
Thrazzoun, seemingly oblivious to the grumpiness of the rogue, smiled, dipped his head in a slight bow, and lead the party around the corner and down the path he had previously discerned to be the way out. As the makeshift path between the boulders dipped down, leading the group deeper underground, the grumbling Abugraic began adding a commentary.
“Thought he knew best how to get out. This is down, not up.” he muttered, loud enough for all to hear.
“Feel free to lead the way if you like,” Aki shot back, “assuming you can take your mind off your leg long enough to focus on finding the exit.”
Incomprehensible grumbling followed, continuing for the next half hour or so, until Thrazzoun stopped suddenly. He held his hand out, palm facing the group, and waited a moment, then turned with a satisfied expression on his face as a breeze filled with the smells of the ocean blew down the tunnel from ahead.
“I do believe that smells like a beach,” Aki deadpanned, staring at Abugraic. “Does someone owe someone else an apology?”
“I know where you sleep, human,” the dwarf spat back, clearly not amused with his antics.
“How much further, Thrazzoun?” Aki asked, never taking his gaze from the disagreeable Abugraic.
“If we ain’t seein’ the sky in an hour, I’m a handsome gnome,” he replied, winking at Zatus as he turned back to continue up the tunnel.
“If only you could be this handsome,” Zatus replied to the dwarf’s bac
k. “Some faces were made perfect, and others were forced to be covered by hair...”
Chapter 11 – North to Eskanda
Emerging from a cave on the beach forty-five minutes later, Thrazzoun cast a smug look toward the glowering rogue. Realizing he may have pushed too far, he immediately retreated behind Bendiac, who glared back at Abugraic, daring him to start a fight.
“It is a good thing we rested,” Aki said, attempting to break the tension between the two. “It would appear we spent the whole night wandering through the caves and looting the treasure. What do you say we eat a fast meal here in the sun and then continue to this Eskanda place? I could use a hot bath and a bed before jumping on a ship to chase Heishi around this world.”
“Aye, food would do everyone’s mood a bit of good,” agreed Bendiac, still staring Abugraic in the eye. “Unless ye wanna go a round before we eat?”
“That is enough,” Hankish declared, stomping one of his hairy feet to emphasize his point. “You two go sit away from each other and eat, and then we can get this trip over with. We are all a lot richer for our trouble, so there is no reason to kill each other now.”
“Well said, my friend,” Aki agreed. “Besides, that is no way to act in front of ladies,” he added, nodding his head toward the sisters.
“Oh, never stop two belligerent males from killing each other on our behalf,” Ja’ade giggled.
“We love a good show as we break the fast,” Mialin agreed, sitting next to her sister and placing her chin in her hand, staring intently at the two dwarves.
“Bah, gimme some ale, Hank,” Abugraic muttered, stomping a few paces away and sitting with his back to the group as he began to eat.
Hankish ate a light meal, then pulled his lute from his back and began strumming lightly as the others ate. The tune soothed the whole group, and Zatus turned a knowing eye on the halfling.
“What do you call that tune?” he asked Hankish, attempting to keep the grin from his face but failing.
