Ptolus: Midwood - "The Dark Waters of Moss Pond"

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The other Delvers careen into the room, and almost trip over their fallen friend. Katadid goggles in horror at Ragglus dying on the floor.

Tock fires an arrow and strikes the elf in the shoulder. A moment later, Renraw leaps on the elf, screaming, stabbing through his protective magical shield with the dagger.

"Tock!" Katadid yells. "Wand!"

Kat looks into the distance and sees the shadowy figure. Desperately hoping it works, he grabs a bit of cotton and mutters a quick incantation. The silhouetted goblin shivers, momentarily stunned and confused by Katadid's hastily cast cantrip.

In the moment they have to spare, the Gentlemen Delvers look around the room: The cave is dry and slightly warm. It's about 20 feet wide and 35 feet long, with natural sunlight peeking in from a corridor at the eastern end. Along the north wall is a crude bed and wooden writing table, its surface covered with parchment. Wooden crates and bales of straw are situated along the south wall, along with a straw pallet.

Watching the goblin momentarily drop his guard, Kat rushes over to Ragglus and tears open the seal on the potion found in Blackspine's cavern. He find himself in the unusual position of wishing he ever prayed.

The potion gushes down Ragglus' throat and across his face, and for a moment, Katadid is worried he might have drowned his friend. And then Ragglus coughs and opens his eyes.

Katadid's reward for helping Ragglus comes a moment later comes in the form of a black-fletched arrow shrieking across the room, slamming him in the chest, lifting him up into a crouch. A second arrow twists him sideways and all but knocks him to the floor.

Meanwhile, Renraw, marveling over how easy it is to stab a person, takes a step back and casts a cantrip at the eyes of the elven spellcaster, but the elf blinks the effect away harmlessly.

Having been stabbed by Renraw, the harrow elf returns the favor now, slashing at the Bridger with his antique dagger, opening up a red gash across his chest.

Tock Chandler sights down his arrow and releases it, firing it at the harrow elf, still singing, his cadence slower, allowing for a steady shot, but the arrow is unable to penetrate the elf's protective field of force.

"BIRD, GET TO COVER!
RAGS, WE KILL THEM ALL!
MAKE THE ELF YOUR SWORD'S LOVER,
THE GOBLIN'S HEAD WILL FALL!
ACCURSED INHUMAN FREAKS!
UNWORTHY OF OUR BLOOD!
THEIRS WILL FLOW IN STREAKS,
AND THIS CAVERN IT WILL FLOOD!"

Lowering his bow, Tock begins humming a song of summoning. A giant beetle with glands that glow like starlight suddenly attacks the stunned goblin. The creature smites the goblin, which squeaks in pain.

Katadid races across the cavern and burrows himself in the hay bales for cover, almost slipping and stumbling on his own blood.

Dropping his sword to the floor and grabbing his spear, Ragglus attacks the elf with fire in his eyes. With the help of Katadid's spell scroll and Tock's song, he just manages to penetrate the elf's protective field, stabbing the spear home.

Roaring in frustration, the elf shrugs off the pain of his gut wound, and lashes out toward Ragglus with a hand coated in a dark energy field. But the fighter slaps the hand away with his spear point, wasting the spell.

"Press the attack, we've got them now!
We'll get them back with our fierce know-how!"

Katadid spits out a few strands of hay and cries out as he holds his sides. One of the arrows had broken off during his run, which makes it hurt even worse than the one still sticking out of him. He peeks above the bales in time to watch the goblin shiver helplessly under the influence of the spell. He also sees Renraw running quickly across the line of fire to go for the table. Feeling has wounds burn, Kat quickly puts together just how much a threat the sniper could be.

"Tock!" he shouts over the hay. "Keep him still!"

Perhaps dizzy from the loss of blood, Renraw hesitates with his table barricade a moment, moving it first toward the goblin and then scraping it along the cave floor toward the elf, leaving the papers formerly atop it in a sprawl on the ground.

At the other end of the cave, the celestial fire beetle gives a snap of its pincers, but the goblin has shaken off the minor enchantment spell and the beetle does not draw blood in the moment before it fades back to Heaven or wherever it came from.

Even as it fades away, Tock's arrow comes streaking across the cave at the goblin archer, but it streaks past him, into the sunlight.

In the back of his mind, Katadid notices that these hay bales aren't nearly tall enough to give him full cover such as Renraw's table affords the other wizard, but that fact is filed away in the overflowing section of his mind devoted to bolt holes Renraw has filled over the years. Instead, Katadid concentrates on creating a magical burst of light in front of the goblin's eyes. The snarl of frustration in Goblin tells him that he's succeeded.

Blinking angrily, the goblin's choice of targets is made for him by Katadid's spell. Although not seeing as well he normally might, he can see well enough: The first arrow the goblin fires strikes Katadid in the shoulder, and he's knocked back across the hay bale behind him, his blood soaking the straw.

Once again, the elf lashes out with a hand covered in a black aura, but once again, Ragglus knocks it away with his spear tip, grinning wolfishly. But his spear cannot penetrate the energy field around the elf, leaving them in a standoff.

With a chuckle, the goblin fires across the cave at the archer opposing him. Although not as good of a shot as the one that felled Katadid, it hits its mark, jutting through Tock's right calf.

Tock screams and curses at his wound, but then hears Kat do likewise. He can feel the eyes of the goblin archer on him as he leaps for his cousin, but doesn't care. He drops his bow and arrow between the hay bales even as he pulls out the wand and casts it on Katadid. A light seems to pass into the wizard's flesh and he coughs up a bit of blood before opening his eyes, as though a near-death experience was the most ordinary thing in the world.

The harrow elf, a frantic look in his eyes, tries one more time to strike Ragglus with a hand encased in dark magical energy. And once more, Ragglus uses the tip of his spear to knock the hand aside harmlessly.

Renraw finally drags the table between the goblin and elf and, with a grunt, tosses the dagger at the elf's black cloak. But he's a novice at throwing knives -- his family always threatened to blast those who annoyed them with lightning and hellfire instead of something so mundane as a thrown knife -- so it wobbles to the floor between the elf's feet.

The elf looks down at Ragglus with an expression of contempt, which slowly fades to horror as he realizes that the warrior is lifting him off the ground with his spear, which has been shoved beneath the edge of the elf's breastplate. The elf slides down the shaft with two great shakes before the tip of the spear exits his back.

The elf starts to say something, but finds only blood on his lips. A moment later, his eyes grow dark, and he goes silent. A moment after that, the illusion fades and Ragglus finds himself having impaled Manfred Richter, the constable of Blackberry Ridge.
Seeing this, the goblin spits a curse in Goblin that Tock memorizes for later use. The archer turns and runs full out, yelling something as he goes. He's answered by the sound of a barking wolf and a moment later, there's the sound of a goblin and his wolf mount scrambling away from Blackberry Ridge and back to the Black Reavers.

"We finally got to kill a constable, guys," Tock chuckles.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

"Not so tough now, are you?" Ragglus sneers as he wipes the blood from his spear, turning to spit on the recently deceased Manfred Richter.

"Of course!" Katadid shouts. "An illusion to help cover the tracks of the deal made with the Reavers!"

Then Kat sees Ragglus wipe another sentient being's blood off his spear. He turns very pale. He runs toward one corner of the cave, trying to outrace the return of his last meal.

Renraw, who slumps against the upturned table, nods sagely, proud of himself. He rubs his hand on his wound.

"Don't heal it, Chandler. We'll leave the scar."

After ascertaining the goblin is well and truly gone -- and that the cave is about half a mile from town and concealed deep within a maze of blackberry bushes -- the Delvers search the two rooms.

The bag in the altar turns out to have 25 platinum dragons inside, along with a ceremonial adamantine dagger set with small rubies and two flasks marked with labeled "healing."

Under the goblin's straw bed in the final cave, the Delvers drag out a metal strongbox. Not having the ability to pick the lock, Ragglus delicately stomps on the lid until the box breaks open. As he stoops to pick it up, Katadid slaps his hand away, pointing at the needle jabbing out of the lock following Ragglus' rough use. The Delvers carefully open the box and discover most of Manfred's funds to pay the Black Reavers: 222 gold thrones, 13 assorted gems, a silver pin set with citrines, a coral statuette of a siren and a platinum disc studded with tiny emeralds.

Renraw has almost squirreled the papers off Manfred's desk into his bag with none of the other Delvers seeing him do so before he realizes that they're blank.

"OK, guys," Tock says, picking up the strongbox. "You want to keep all this stuff. I want to keep all this stuff. But more than that, we want the Gentlemen Delvers to have been here, and not fugitives from Applopolis. Obviously, we keep the weapons and armor we found here. I've no problem keeping any potions or pseudodragon loot, either. But the rest, I say we present to the bailiff, along with the evidence of Richter's betrayal, and we let the locals decide where it goes. We may or may not be rewarded with some of it. But the more we can do to throw off Midwood's men, the better."

"It is theirs anyway," Kat says, and gets a withering glare from Renraw in response. "We couldn't carry it all into Kem anyway."

"I'm going to keep this short and to the point," Renraw drawls. "I'm an accountant. Or, rather, I used to be. So I know a thing or two about accounting. And I'm willing to wager that Richter and our Reaver friends haven't kept a very careful tally of what they've stolen, nor of their expenses. Save that invoice from earlier, I haven't seen a single shred of pecuniary documentation.

"Do you remember how low our travelling funds have dipped? We simply can't rely on the kindness of the people of Blackberry Ridge. We can take half that money and they won't even be the wiser. We're far enough from town that we could simply bury it somewhere remote and then retrieve it AFTER we've spoken to the bailiff woman. They'll never have the faintest inkling of even a notion. I'm not chancing eating old sausages the rest of the way to Freeport, and I daresay our friend Chaplin here may agree with me. How can we get caught? How, I ask you?"

"We can't carry this much coin or it will slow us down!" Kat bursts out. "We're walking into Kem. Money won't help us there. We've already spent too long here."

"I may be lots of things, but I ain't no thief," Ragglus says pointedly to Renraw over his shoulder, heaving the dead body onto the overturned table. "Lady up in Berry Town said we was going to be paid, and we keep what weren't claimed. Fair deal."

"I know what you're saying, buddy," Tock tells Renraw, "But we can't do it. We can't risk it. We embarrassed the constable and all his Lothianite cronies. They'll spare no expense to find us and execute our arcane asses. We take what they give us. No more, no less."

"Fine, fine!" Renraw throws his hands up in defeat. "Mark my words, though, our reward will be paltry in comparison to what we could take."

Loading up, the Gentlemen Delvers step outside into the sunlight, blinking in the now-unfamiliar light of the sun. Although the Reaver and his wolf mount are long-gone, Manfred Richter's beautiful black horse is tethered to a blackberry bush.

"Let's tie our little sled to the horse," Tock says, nodding at the makeshift sled created from the table and bearing Manfred Richter and much of his ill-gotten gains. "Now how do we decide who rides it? Who almost died most often?"

"I have a giant gash in my chest!" Renraw shrieks, proudly.

"Ragglus," Katadid says with authority. "Once from the spider, once from the pit, once from the werebadger and once from the goblin's arrows."

"Riding horseback makes you an easy target, and we ain't back in Berry Town yet," Ragglus snorts. "I'm walking."

Renraw enthusiastically clambers onto the rather dubious horse.

Getting out of the maze of blackberry bushes takes a while, but eventually, the Gentlemen Delvers -- dirty, bloody and eager for a bed that's not a cave floor -- begin their trek back toward town.

"See if they'll let you keep the breastplate, Chaplin," Renraw calls down. "It appears to be magical. Also, Chandler's bracers. Nothing else."

Renraw fails to mention, however, that he has placed the spider's silver dagger in his sack and carries Richter's on his belt.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The guards at the wall are surprised when the Gentlemen Delvers ride in, and there's a brief argument as to who will tell the bailiff, before a heavy middle-aged guard rushes off to Schultheis House.

After ascertaining that the adventurers do not need immediate medical aid, a lower-ranking guard escorts the Gentlemen Delvers to the bailiff's house, tying the horse up outside the gate. He clearly recognizes Manfred Richter's horse, but pointedly says nothing, and helps carry in the dead body of the town's constable.

Arabelle Schultheis stands up in surprise when the dead body is brought into her study and laid on a divan. Her face pale, lips almost invisible, she gestures for the senior guard to leave her, although the younger guard remains inside the door after it closes.

"Please," she says, avoiding wringing the scroll in her hands with a visible conscious effort. Her hair is pulled back into a severe bun and she looks exhausted. She appears even paler than normal due to the plain dress she wears. "Sit, gentlemen, and explain to me why Blackberry Ridge's constable has returned to us in this state."

"Answers," Katadid says simply, handing Richter's journal to the bailiff.

"Young sir, this book is gibberish. A cipher, I believe?"

Katadid, startled that he's forgotten that the bailiff couldn't read it, nods.

"If this book is as important as you say, I would request that you transcribe the relevant passages. There is a desk with paper, ink and quills in the corner." She stretches out a finger toward the desk. "In the interim, perhaps one of your companions could explain."

"My beautiful lady and inspiration, I am sorry to bring foul news with good," Tock begins, striking a pose. "We have brought back much treasure, some of it surely the stolen items you mentioned. But your constable was engaged in a conspiracy against you. He was furious at your appointment and used his dark magics to steal and to recruit a dwarven werebadger to help him with his misdeeds. His goal was to kill you, and though I am loath to take human life, I am more loath to let beauty be harmed. We faced many travails in the cavern, and without the help of my combat advisor Rod Cmelak, my fellow soldier, and my intelligence maven, we'd be lost."

Bailiff Schultheis looks sadly on the body of her constable and nods.

"I am not surprised, although I did hope my suspicions were wrong." She looks up, taking in Katadid scribbling away furiously and the battered form of Ragglus. "And what of your other companions? They look as though they faced dangers as well.

"Badgers. Fish. Ants. Pseudodragons. Goblins. An octopus saved my life," Katadid mutters as he transcribes. "You may want to address the well. There's quite the complex down there. Also, there's altar to Kran."

Arabelle stands, walking over to Katadid, leaning a hand on his shoulder as she reads what he's writing.

"The goblins have always been our enemy, even when other communities viewed them as mere merchants. Still, my father will rest easier, knowing the one truly responsible for his death has been brought to justice, albeit a rough sort with a sword instead of a headsman's axe."

"A spear, actually," Ragglus corrects her.

"A spear, then."

She turns to Tock, touching him lightly on the forearm.

"And did you recover all that Richter had stolen from us?"

"I can only hope so, my lady." He presents the accumulated loot. "This, along with the stuff we had lifted out early on, is everything we found."

She smiles, moving away from Tock.

"Well, I'm afraid there won't be any reward," Bailiff Arabelle Schultheis says, "At least, not the sort you were expecting."

Her eyes meet Tock's, and he realizes that she's not quite so unworldly as Manfred Richter had thought.

"Our constable was away today when the Sheriff of Southerly's courier arrived with these."

She passes the scroll in her hand to Tock, who unrolls it to discover it's actually three scrolls, each of them a wanted poster.

The first is for Tock Chandler, wanted dead or alive, "for arson, assault on an imperial official, major destruction of property and disturbing the peace." The price on Tock's head is 2,900 gold pieces.

The second is for Renraw Kem, wanted dead or alive, for "crimes against the empire and assault on an imperial official." The price on his head is 2,500 gold pieces.

The last is for Katadid Leach, wanted alive for questioning, "in connection with assault on an imperial official." His bounty is a comparatively mild 100 gold pieces.

The sketches of each of the fugitives, while not perfect, are still clearly identifiable as the Gentlemen Delvers. Their attempts to change their appearances would likely fool some who read the signs, but Tock and Renraw know in an instant that they will be recognized sooner, rather than later, should they spend much time in a place where bulletins like these are posted.

"No one but myself and my brother," the bailiff indicates the young guard still in the room, who is making no overt hostile advances, but who is conspicuously armed and vigilant, "Has seen these as of yet, but I cannot keep them from being posted for long. The sheriff has friends among the guards here, and word will get back to him if I keep these to myself.

"But we can pretend that I did not break the seal immediately, as I was so distraught over the revelations regarding our constable. If the fugitives were to trade their reward for four swift horses and be gone before the sheriff's man were to finish his bath at the Dented Coin, no one could blame me or be the wiser. And as you did not tell me where you were headed, I will be unable to help the sheriff and any bounty hunter seeking to put more than 5,000 Imperials into his purse."

She moves behind a broad table, well away from the armed and dangerous fugitives.

"As I said, I know this is not the reward you were expecting. But four swift horses, a head start and a bailiff ignoring her duty to her duke and emperor is a substantial reward indeed, from where I stand. I trust you will agree."

"Arabelle," Tock says, speaking quickly, "Forgive my boldness at use of your given name. It is reward enough that you do not immediately leap to conclusions based on our tragic circumstances. To go further only places you deeper in my heart. Tock Chandler will not soon forget your kindness and generosity, and your fair nature will inspire many a song that will reach this town some day. I wish time would permit more, I wish circumstances would permit more, but the memory of your beauty will keep me warm on my dangerous journey. You will be with me always.

"Gentlemen, it's time to go."

"We would turn back and face the music, as it were, as lawful citizens should, would that we could," Renraw announces, puffing out his narrow chest. "There is a far more pressing matter awaiting us in, er, our final destination, another grave injustice, such as your town's, that will not be righted if not for us. And, of course, our freedom allows us to help others in need, as well. I will proudly wear this scar I received in my duel with foul Richter. Farewell to you all!"

"I killed that feller for you," Ragglus says, tapping his stained spear. "Me and Midwood is square; I ain't done nothing. Seeing as that, I'd appreciate taking the dead feller's armor. Might be it'd serve me well, since I'm supposing you're lumping me in with this lot. The following days and nights are bound to be trying, I expect."

"You certainly may take the spoils off our former constable, except that which spells out his involvement in my father's murder and the thefts. I hope never to see them again." The bailiff considers Ragglus, pity showing in her expression. "The Vast Codex is clear on the matter of aiding and abetting criminals, however. You and I are both criminals in the eyes of the law, and no mistake. It would be better for both of us if you were to get out of the duchy as quickly as possible so that mortal agencies never find out. We will have enough to answer for when we meet Lothian some day, I suspect."

"Your name won't escape my lips if Lothian comes calling, looking for answers," Ragglus grins as he begins to strip the armor from the deceased constable. "You have my word, one villain to another."

Sighing as he hefts the armor, Ragglus bobs his head slightly in farewell, moving to exit and catch up the others.

As the group runs out of Schultheis House, they find the bailiff has the four horses already picked out. They're waiting, along with tack and bridle and saddlebags with bedrolls and a week's worth of food and water.

Kat hastily loads his gear onto a grey spotted mare and waits for the other Delvers to make ready to depart. After a moment, Kat beckons to the stable boy. He whispers something and hands a folded piece of paper to him.

The sun has just begun to set behind the Hotash Mountains as the Gentlemen Delvers mount their new horses. Conscious that, in the Dented Coin, the Sheriff of Southerly's man will be finishing his bath at any moment and wondering why the wanted posters are not up, they spur the horses and race out of town in a cloud of dust, little richer and very conscious that they will be breaking their streak of sleeping on cavern floors with a bed of hard ground this evening.

They ride south toward Kem. As the world turns dark around them, they can see that the land before them grows less and less green as they ride toward a wasteland so devastated by magic, it has not recovered thousands of years later.

The Gentlemen Delvers can almost feel the eyes of the Imperial army and bounty hunters on their backs as they gallop into the deepening night.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Chapter 7
The Shadows of Kem House​

It is the 5th day of Rain, in the 721st year of the Imperial Age.

Heath Leach watches the adventurers' prayer circle and chuckles. As the group disperses and makes their way toward Maidensbridge Abbey, his smile fades.

"Good luck, kids," he says. Closing the window of his shop, he finishes mixing the smelly compound before him and scrapes the paste into a clay pot before putting a thin, greasy paper over the opening and sealing the pot with a hiss. That took care of Olaf Carter's annual post-winter cold.

The list before him was of fungicides for the orchard, but instead Heath looks out toward the closed window again. After a moment, he walks over to a cupboard and opens the bottom drawer with an angry squeak. He takes out one item, then thinking for a moment, takes two, before stuffing them into his belt and arranging his apron to cover them.

"Good morning, Giselle," Heath nods at the woman walking past him, who smiles in return. They talk about daily pleasantries, with the subject inevitably traveling toward the mission at the abbey. Giselle Trinder's focus was the shameful behavior of the Sawyer lass, which Heath chided her for, citing his own youthful indiscretions. Heath had three more conversations like that on his way, not hurrying.

His destination is a house that most of the town gave as wide a berth to as possible. If anyone admitted its existence, it was only be to spit on the ground or scowl at it as they passed by. Heath does none of these things. He simply stares at the door for a long time. It has been almost 15 years since he walked across its threshold.

Heath reaches under his apron, confirmed the sharpness of his axes, and walks into Kem House.

The heavy oak door opens easily. With both Kem sons dead or incarcerated and Rogren confined to a sickbed, there was no one to bar the door behind the creature once it left on its fool's errand. Heath shuts the door quietly behind him.

The foyer is as he remembered it: open and expansive, yet sunless and uninviting, even in the day. Something about the dark wood paneling seemed askew, enough to make him mildly dizzy. He had given up on determining the exact cause of the feeling during his first visits, but in the interim he'd forgotten about it.

To his left is a sitting room, seemingly untouched for many years, the antique furniture within caked with dust. Straight ahead lay the main hall, which Heath knew led to the family library, a study, and the kitchen beyond.

He steels himself and makes for the immediate right, toward a wide staircase, which is much the worse for wear. The fine wine-colored rug that once covered the steps is in faded tatters and the finely carved, lion-themed balustrade in serious disrepair. Heath decides stealth is his best option and creeps gently up the first two wider steps. He avoids the railing for fear it might crumble, keeping careful watch on his own bloody footfalls.

Blood?

He spins to face the front door again and lets his eyes adjust to the low light. A fresh trail led from the entryway and down the hall. The immense, gilded mirror now rests on the tabletop that it normally hung above. The glass is shattered, large fragments sitting in a pool of blood on the floor. Heath follows the spoor with his eyes, surprised to see it arc all the way into the study.

And then, from the same direction, comes a strange wet thudding sound.

Heath stands, listening to the noise echo, then pushes back his apron and takes out both of the small axes. He rotates one shoulder and grimaced at the familiar painful grinding of old bones and the chips of the barbed Reaver arrowhead embedded underneath. He suddenly remembers he hasn't used these axes since the last kobold attack 10 years ago.

The blood is a smear, as though something small had been dragged. Heath continues on quietly toward the study, ready to provide medical assistance if necessary, but keeping his axes ready, and is careful to avoid broken glass when passing the shattered mirror. His fractured reflection watches Heath creep past.

The thick, wet sounds settle into a rhythm. Holding his breath, Heath rounds the corner.

Morning sun fills the smallish study from the entry opposite Heath. A child no older than 10 kneels in the middle of the room over a dissected pig, face and arms painted with complex patterns of blood. His hands are fists, pounding the dead animal's insides one after the other, even though the boy is clearly exhausted. Tears pour from his eyes, mixing with the hog's blood on his face and smearing the triangular markings on his cheeks, but no sounds escape his open mouth.

The boy notices Heath and seems to snap out of his trance. Shocked, he immediately leaps to his feet and edges his way closer to an open trap door in the floor. Two broken timbers lay beside a bunched-up rug. Rogren's desk is shoved into a corner, exposing the black mouth of the trap door.

The boy's eyes widen when he spots Heath's axes. So much like the other Kems.

"It's you!" he shouts, terrified, gaze now darting back and forth between Heath and the hog. "Just the way it was!"

"Wait," Heath says, panicked, flipping the axes downward in his open palms to show he'd means no harm. "It's OK. Whatever you think ..."

The boy vanishes through the trap door.

"I don't want to be a Kem!" he shouts as he fell from view.

Heath leans an arm against the doorjamb and exhales, feeling at a loss. He had just decided to follow when he hears two female voices emanating up from the hatch.

"Hello?" a woman asks. "Is somebody up there?"

"Quiet!" the other voice, an older woman, bellows, "None of our concern!"

The women bicker with one another unintelligibly for a short moment as Heath makes his way closer to the trap door, stepping around the fetid hog and the broken timbers. The next thing the pharmacist hears is a blood-curdling scream from the younger woman.

"HELP!"

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

In any other place, a cry for help would bring Heath running. Here, though, things were different. He stands over the trap door, listening to the silence that followed the scream.

He looks at the swine innards strewn across the floor, his boots covered in offal. But one thing was missing: Even the flies avoided Kem House.

"I hate this place," Heath sighs. He takes both axes in his hands again and tromps loudly down the stairs into the darkness. "Right, every one of you is crazier than a kobold with a gnome inside his sister and if you try ANYTHING, I'll-"

Heath stops short at the bottom of the stairs by the scene before him, his mouth going dry.

"Oh, now this just ain't right."

The stone chamber is surprisingly well lit for a dungeon. The torches mounted in the passageway between six large cells look relatively new in comparison. And those aren't the only new additions: Amidst the implements of torture are doily-covered home furnishings.

Each once-identical cell is now dedicated to its own unique purpose. The first four cells hold a parlor, some kind of anteroom or office, and two bedrooms, each with heavy wooden doors removed from their hinges, and each empty.

Then Heath hears the women murmuring again, the sound causing gooseflesh to rise on his arms.

From one of the bedrooms, he creeps back out into the passage and past a small table with memorabilia and other keepsakes on it. Beyond it is the next room, the kitchen, and again, no one inside, just cooking implements hanging from iron shackles and a torture rack converted to a food preparation surface. Heath turns his head away from the kitchen and stifles a gasp.

Standing in the passage is a ghoulish old woman, emaciated and dressed in tatters, gray hair an oily, tangled rat's nest. Her teeth are yellowed and rotten, and Heath can hear a whistling noise as she spoke.

"Do join us in the tea room, won't you? It's been so dreadfully long since we've had a proper guest."

"You ... you just have to be dead," he says.

"Don't be rude," she hisses. "I just invited you in for brunch after you've barged right into our home."

As she turns and hobbles back into the "tea room," Heath can't help but notice her crooked spine. He feels no sympathy for her, but as a doctor it made him uncomfortable.

"Now, come sit down or show yourself out. Makes no never mind to me."

"Oh, no. You think I'm doing this again? You people twist everything until a man don't remember what he came in with or left without. I had enough of that 10 years ago. I ain't sitting with your kin, not now or ever.

"And I'll tell you something else I ain't gonna do: I ain't leaving until I see that boy Rando. Then I can get back to the business I rightfully came here for."

Heath storms into the tea room.

"You hear me on that?"

The decrepit old woman whirls and slaps a bony hand to his chest. She is strong for her age and condition, but she barely slows him. But Heath stops on his own, realizing there isn't much room for charging, nor much call for it, despite his rage. Behind the old woman is a younger one, around Heath's age, sitting quietly sipping her drink. She sets her porcelain teacup down with a jangle into a mismatched saucer. In fact, the entire set is mismatched. Moreover, everything about this place was hodge-podge.

Rando Kem is nowhere to be seen.

Instead, the cloudy-eyed younger woman shakes her head.

"Please," she whispers, "Don't."

He'd seen eyes like that before, 15 years ago. It was a different woman, but the look was the same. This one, like the other, had once been beautiful, before time and circumstance got hold of her, before decades of hopeless panic had ruined her.

"Afraid I'm going to have to insist you bugger off, now, young man," the haggard old crone whistles.

Heath stares for a moment at the young woman before turning his attention back toward the hag in front of him.

"You damned Kems and your rules. You people steep in this."

Heath backs away from the crone and her obscene grin. He storms back toward the stairs, but turns back around, his foot on the first step.

"Rando meets me at the front door before I leave, 10, 15 minutes. I ain't taking him!" Heath yells as the old woman opened her mouth to retort. "Learned that lesson too well the last time. Just want to say something to him. That's all."

The two say nothing in response; the younger woman too terrified and the older too defiant to do so.

"I ain't ever seen a house in more need of Estanna's tending than this one. I know y'all don't care but I'm going to pray for her to find this place." Heath sighs as he climbs the stairs and opens the trap door to the room above. "But I doubt she will."

Moments after Heath releases the heavy trap door with a slam, the young woman's horrible cry echoes in the study and out into the hall.

"HOW COULD YOU LEAVE M--"

Heath closes his eyes, either not hearing the scream that follows, or ignoring it.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Heath walks back to the stairs, and looks up. The wood is streaked with dust and rotting carpet clings to each step. He climbs the stairs resolutely, determined to ignore any distracting noises. That's the plan, anyway.

It starts halfway up: a low hum, just barely audible. Heath ignores it.

It isn't until he reaches the top of the stairs that he realizes hum is increasing in volume. He looks down the hall at the large wooden doors. Walking past the torn pictures lining the hallway, the hum grows in intensity.

By the time he reaches the door to the master bedroom, it's obvious the hum comes from inside. There is also a faint distasteful odor. Beneath and along the door's edges are the remnants of heavy curtains attached with twine through drilled holes, effectively sealing the door tightly. Heath stares at the door for a long moment before placing his hand on the door. Taking out one axe out, he opens the door.

Heath feels the moist heat first, and then stumbles back as flies assault his face. The hum has become an angry buzz. And with the flies comes the smell.

Heath bunches up his apron and holds it over his nose, trying not to retch. For a moment, he wonders if someone has gotten here before him, but then realizes it isn't a smell of rot. Heath had been on the frozen battlefields of Tulgey Wood when the last baron died, and this isn't it. It's close, but not quite. It's earthier, more like an outhouse.

Heath looks again and discovers he's right: Whatever decorations once covered, layers of caked-on fecal matter now obscure the walls. The bed has collapsed, perhaps from the weight of human waste deposited on it. The corners had piles reaching halfway up the wall. Yellow stains spread out on what's left of the carpet, and Heath catches the acidic tang of dried urine. The floor is also caked with dead flies. Dresser drawers are pulled out haphazardly, the clothes within fouled and rotting. Each of the windows is partially open, keeping the smell away from the rest of the house.

Heath closes the door again.

The bedroom hadn’t actually surprised him, he realizes with sadness. The smell was abhorrent, but somehow not out of place. Not here.

He drops his apron and rounds the corner in the hallway, revealing yet another long hallway. At the end of this hall is the west side of the house and what he presumes are the other bedrooms. His resolve ebbing, Heath wonders if the walk will even be worth it; maybe he had been had. This "Flower" is quite peculiar, but ultimately he is still a kobold, and a little lie like that was nothing for one of them. But the only motive Heath could figure would be some kind of complicated ambush, maybe to preemptively remove one of the town's defenders.

The possible threat to the town concerned Heath greatly, but he'd heard more disturbing rumors of the last few weeks: He'd heard Rogren Kem was back in town, and with a kobold seeing after him, no less. Older Bridgers knew of the Kems' fondness for mating outside their species, so it was at least possible. Heath was either about to be assaulted or he'd find Rogren. Neither prospect polished his apple, so to speak, but it was well past time to take care of things.

Axe in hand and arm extended, Heath makes his way down the hall, eyeing the portraits of the family patriarchs. Most of the other bedrooms in Kem House were unremarkable. One in particular was decorated with a somewhat more rustic sensibility than the others but was covered in the same dust as the others. Heath has started to give up on finding another sign of life when he comes to a bedroom with the door shut: all the other doors, save the master bedroom door, had been open.

Heath slowly turns the knob and pushes the door open. As he does, he hears a loud cough from the next room over. He knows it's Rogren, but it is too late; his actions are not under his control. He steps into the room and forgets the world outside it.

Mid-morning light streams through the windows. On the bed, Heath recognizes Priscilla Kem yawning, kicking her feet under the covers in a deep stretch. He starts to apologize for intruding on her, but no words come out. Similarly, his shocked expletive when he remembered that Priscilla Kem was dead also goes unspoken.

"Good morning," she purrs.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

“And good morning to you, kind lady,” Heath replies, bowing his head formally. “Although it’s almost too late to call it that.”

She sits up and stretches again, this time with her arms. Heath watches this sturdy woman, whom he'd always known as the one of the only Kems with any decency, and deep within him, something screams. But it feels so natural.

She smiles a loving smile to Heath.

“I think the day’s cyphering can wait for me to rouse myself. I’ll bet Old Man Crippen’s seed is still right where we left it yesterday.”

Heath laughs softly, dropping onto the bed. Somewhere inside him, a voice screams this isn't him, that this morning isn't this morning, that it happened long ago.

“I can’t imagine the beating I’d take from Rutar if he knew,” Heath chuckles and idly scratches his nose; a habit that wasn't his.

“That you’ve got a woman tendin’ the books?” she asks, already knowing the answer.

“You knew my uncle,” Ronco says through Heath’s lips. “You know my family.”

Heath bucks at that last comment, his mind suddenly reasserting itself with the statement. He'd never had any quarrel with Ronco Kem, aside from who his brother was, but that was the trouble. He didn’t want any part in any dream as any Kem. Heath jumps back from the bed, and feels something tear away from him. He clamps his eyes tight and feels a cold tremor inside his chest.

When he opens his eyes again, the room was empty, dusty and lifeless like the others ... except for a tall, black-haired man in black bedclothes leaning weakly against the doorframe. Rogren Kem examines Heath with hungry falcon’s eyes.

“Leach, what the devil are you doing in my home? And what are you gibbering about?”

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Heath steals a glance back at the empty bed, his heart still racing.

"Heard you been sick. Figured I'd give you a check up just for old times," Heath says, working to keep his voice even. He follows Rogren's eyes downward, to the axe in Heath's hand. "And this here is to impress upon you the necessity of said check up."

The frown lines on Rogren Kem's face are so deep that Heath can't tell if the man was making a face or if it was just Kem's natural expression. Before he can decide, Rogren turns and slumps back against the wall. He is ordinarily a tall man with impressive posture, so the slouch is noticeable.

"I have a caretaker," he says, his back turned. "See yourself to the exit, druggist."

"That'd be the kobold then?" Heath asks. "Right, well, I sent your pet on a little trip to the abbey just now. He'll be back ... unless the sisters get him."

Rogren Kem whirls around, his hand remaining conspicuously buried in the bedclothes at his side. The commotion registers as a vibration in the small curio cabinet nearby. Rogren's eyes threaten to explode as fire on his own cheeks.

"Be careful now, Leach. And think before you answer: Tell me again where Flower is, and why it is you've sent him there."

"Well, you just answered one of mine, Rogren," Heath says after a moment. "It raises a whole mess of others but ...

"He asked me for a job, oddly enough. The ivy at the abbey seems to help stem night terrors if distilled just right, and some of the town's been having a few more of them of late what with the recent kobold issues looming. Seemed fitting.

"Just saw a half dozen kids wander over there, sent by the bishop himself to clear out the place. If 'Flower' ain't no threat, then he's got nothing to worry about."

"'Nothing to worry about?'" Rogren asks, leaning on the curio cabinet. "Nothing to worry about, save soul-rending manic frenzy induced by the centuries-old phantasms of brutally murdered holy women, you mean?"

Rogren begins to cough and shudder uncontrollably and falls to the floor in a heap. In his other hand, the one he had kept concealed, he clutches a dragon pistol.

"If anything has happened to him," he say, prone and hacking, "You'll be responsible. Again. And this time I won't let it go."

Heath watches Rogren convulse on the floor. After a moment, he sighs and leans down, sheathing his axe under his apron. Heath kicks the pistol from Rogren's hand, then picks it up and tosses it into the hallway. Rogren looks up, alarmed, as Heath lifts the man off the floor and places him onto the bed, not too roughly, but none too gently, either.

"Truth be told, Rogren," Heath says, as he adjusts Rogren's bedclothes. "I've yet to see reason why I or anyone should care if a dragonkin joins the sisters. But supposing I did send an innocent creature to his death, I'll just have to add it to the list of things I live with."

Heath rips open Rogren's shirt and shoved the other man back onto the bed as he struggles.

"And if you want me to bring out the axe again, I can. But that'll make this examination difficult."

"You're a mess," Rogren says disdainfully, crusted phlegm at the corners of his mouth. "You don't know whether you're coming or going. Helping people you hate, neglecting those in your care. So many contradictions."

"Don't flatter yourself, Kem," Heath lays his head against Rogren's chest and listens to the rattling inside. "I'm making sure you're really sick. I wouldn't put it past you."

Rogren starts to groan, but it turns into another cough.

"If I'd the strength, I would've thrown you out by now. And I'd be at the abbey, helping those children."

"I'm sure they'd appreciate you cutting and running once you got your little friend back." Heath sighs. "Besides, they ain't children anymore."

"You've missed the point again," Rogren snorts. "The mission the young ones have taken is an important, long-overdue one, one in which every able-bodied, Lothian-fearing man in this village should be helping with. The abbey is a travesty; the sisters there a blight. Frankly, I'm astonished it's taken the bishop so long to do something about it, and astonished he sent our town's children to do it. Did no call go out to the men? Why only six children?"

"Don't make no sense to have the entire town getting in the way and getting killed. You'd need a team of exorcists I wager, and that's what they have now: Damn near four of 'em by my count. They're good kids, and I've known Bufer nearing on 20 years now, so they're in as good hands as Estanna can provide."

Heath stands back up from his crouch. Rogren angrily buttons his shirt back up.

"Well, you've got more fluid in your lungs than is healthy, that's for sure. That answers question number two, so let's move on to the big one.: Just what in the Hell do you think you're doing back here?"

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

"I've as much a right to be here as anyone," Rogren answers, hoarse and wheezy from the activity. "This is my ancestral home. Can you think of a reason I shouldn't be here?"

"Besides the fact that everyone in town was happier thinking that you had died?" Heath shakes his head. "You know what people call your place now? Kobold House. After everything that's happened with this family, bringing one of them with you was the worst thing you could have done."

"Pardon me, but just what has happened with this family that the town hasn't had over a decade to recover from?" Rogren asks, confused. "For that matter, can you explain to me where my family actually is? I haven't seen hide nor hair of anyone but my companion."

"You really did just up and cut yourself off from everyone didn't you?" Heath says, a look of awareness spreading across his face. "Your brother Ronco and Priscilla took over after you abandoned your sons. They were good people. We liked them, despite everything.

"They died. Murdered, actually, almost a year ago now, and they died in a bad way."

Rogren is still and silent for a long while. When he tries to speak, he can't, and violently struggles to suppress a coughing fit.

"Who?" he spits out finally.

"Damned if I know," Heath says. "Bridger tore this town top to bottom, and half of the town helped, but we still found nothing. No one knows to this day."

"Were my sons considered?" Rogren asks quietly.

"Why? Do you know something?"

"No, but I know those boys, and I know this town. I wouldn't put it past certain parties to put them up for the crime. This family never misses a chance to take blame, whether guilty involved or not."

"We'd be less likely to place blame if y'all weren't so inclined to earn it," Heath said. "No, Renraw was in Tarsis for school. Roebello's possible, but I don't think the boy has it in him and no one could find him to question him. You'd be proud, Rogren. They're sons of bitches, and they picked up right where you left off."

"Renraw's in school," Rogren repeats quietly, astonished. "What's being done now?"

"Trails go cold after a year. Of course, now that Roebello is serving time at the farm, he'll be easy to interrogate. But he's just a thief, and not a good one at that. Let's talk about Renraw some."

"If he's in Tarsis, he's not a suspect," Rogren snarls. "You said it yourself."

"He ain't in Tarsis. Your brother used apple money to send Renraw to school, so the baron forced him back here to pay it off in your old job. Truth be told, I don't blame Ronco for it and thought the baron gave the kid a harsh deal.

"Renraw festered here, in this House. He was a right son of a bitch, and then he went all the way past that and sold out the town to Green Mountain in secret meetings with the kobolds. It turns out the dragonkin plan on invading Maidensbridge and your son was right in the thick of it. We found out. He ran.

"And he took my son with him."

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

"You wonder why this town hates you, why we find it a little suspicious that days after this happened, you get dragged into town with a kobold caregiver, why a few of the townsfolk whisper about burning this house. Get rid of 'Kobold House' and let the pus drain out. After the Grant boy died, they ain't willing to take chances.

"I hate you, but I'm giving you a chance to explain yourself before the mob comes. Because they will kill you and torture the hell out of your 'companion,' whether he knows anything or not."

Heath leans back and the chair lets out a squeak of relief.

"I'll let that sink in for a few."

"So that's why you're here," Rogren smiles knowingly. "My imbecile son has absconded with your own imbecile son and now you're upset and taking it out on me. Isn't that just precious?"

He leans forward towards Heath, gesturing with an extended knuckle.

"As for your supposed mob, Flower has already begun seeking full citizenship. Any crimes committed against his person will be punishable under imperial law. Beyond that, anyone who approaches either of us with that sort of ill intent will be shot dead, and I'll be within my rights to do so."

Rogren clears his throat in order to stave off any more coughing fits, throws his legs over the side of the bed and begins to climb out.

"I owe you and this town precisely zero explanation," Rogren says, his back cracking loudly as he stretches to his full height and then sits back down to lean on the edge of the bed. "But there's this: I took ill and came home to recuperate and that's the end of it. If you or anyone thinks Flower may be a spy, you clearly haven't spent enough time with him. Now then ..."

He calmly pulls an identical pistol from beneath his pillow, quickly putting distance between himself and Heath, aiming from his hip from the corner of the room

"You are trespassing. Go now," he coughs, choking on phlegm, "And don't come back."

"We could test which one of us is quicker, but it ain't worth the time. Way I figure it, a man should hang for the sins he has committed, rather than the ones he didn't. And you got more than enough to make you swing eventually, even if you ain't in with the kobolds."

Heath pauses for a moment, his hand on the doorframe.

"If Kat gets hurt -- if, Estanna forbid, he dies -- I will track down your son, I will find him, and I will gladly burn for the all the pain I will cause him before I kill him.

"And that's when I'll think long and hard about finally killing you," Heath says as he walks toward the front door.