Otto wore Aelyph’s cape to cover his armor as they passed through the first part of the underground market unbothered. The huts and stalls were arranged almost like a fair day, only there were no laughing children to be found here, only scowling men, chittering goblins, and lumbering trolls. After the seneschal had awoken, he hadn’t said anything. Otto imagined losing a finger would be something traumatizing enough to silence anyone. Aelyph’s monk friend followed silently just behind, completely covered up and fitting in among the shady population of the Underbelly.
Now, the only thing that stood out among them was the seneschal’s fine red robes. After Otto suggested he take them off, the seneschal merely shied away. He covered the stump of his missing finger with his handkerchief, though there was a surprising lack of blood. Maybe it was due to the same strange illness that had been causing his coughing.
“So, how did you find us?” Otto asked their Riftling companion, voice hushed.
The last time they had talked, Aelyph said that he hadn’t been to Crystalia for many years and that he previously hadn’t been given the warmest welcome. Otto translated this to, “I was run out by an angry mob.” The fact that someone who had lived as long as Aelyph, someone who hadn’t returned for decades, could navigate the area showed that this place was much older than he would’ve hoped.
Wherever there are people, there’s the Dark Consul trying to seed his evil in their hearts.
“We saw you going in,” Aelyph finally answered once they were out of earshot of anyone. “I once roamed these tunnels along with many other unsavory individuals.” He scrunched up his nose. “Not much has changed, but the fish market seems to have grown somewhat.”
Otto thought Aelyph must’ve been confusing the rank smell coming off the seneschal for a smell in their surrounding area. After so long without being able to apply whatever perfume he used to keep his stench at bay, his aroma had become even more distinct.
They continued through the tunnels, passing a large tent that looked to have several cages with growling monsters inside. It made sense that the Dark Consul’s allies would congregate here.
“This place must bring you back,” Otto said.
“It does,” said Aelyph. “For years, my fellow Riftlings and I planned to cause an uprising for those not so well-off, to take control of the kingdom for the Dark Consul. Then the Paladins found out and drove us out of town.”
“Seems they didn’t do a very good job,” Otto muttered.
“In any case, it was lucky that I spotted you in Rellius Square when Raiken and I arrived. I followed you first with the intention of saying hello, but then, when I saw the alleyways you were heading into, I decided to keep my distance so I didn’t draw any attention to you.”
Otto nodded, glad that Aelyph’s careful intervention probably prevented him from losing a finger like the seneschal. “Well, you definitely left your entrance to the last second.”
“What? You didn’t like my rescue?”
Otto shook his head. “Better late than never, though I doubt the seneschal is thinking that right now.”
They continued through the crowd, following Aelyph’s lead. Otto was shocked by how far into the depths of the Underbelly they had been taken.
“It seems we’ve been walking for a while now. When do we start going up?” Otto asked.
“There’s a passage that hopefully will allow us to reach the surface without catching many eyes.” Looking around, he beckoned them behind a large tent that had been set up against a wall. “If I remember correctly, there should be a crack in the stone leading to a staircase. It should come out directly at the base of the Castle.”
Otto’s eyes widened. “Within the walls?”
“That’s right.” Aelyph rounded a corner in the cavern. “Let’s just hope that not many people know about it . . .”
He stopped as they saw a large monster at the end of the alley, a troll of some kind, standing in front of the large crack in the rock. The thing had its arms crossed, a large club hanging from one hand. Although this troll was much larger than others in the gang of ruffians, he was wearing the exact same ragged brown clothing as the others in that group, including a top hat and goggles. Otto assumed Moffet had placed him here as sentential just in case they escaped.
As soon as the seneschal rounded the corner behind them, he inhaled sharply and halted, raising his handkerchief to his mouth. “We should find another way out.”
Aelyph shook his head. “That crack is the quickest way to get back to the surface.”
Otto leaned in his direction and pointed at the tent that was closest to him. “If we can get ourselves in that tent and rip through the back, we could sneak attack him.”
“Oh, no,” the seneschal cried. “He’s much too big.”
Aelyph ignored him and crouched down to murmur to Raiken, “You think you could use another of your bombs?”
The silent monk nodded.
Aelyph returned to Otto. “He’ll distract him, I’ll cut the sheet and you’ll have the first attack.” He turned back to the seneschal. “When we’re fighting him, you must sneak through and go get help, okay?”
The seneschal was shaking his head, but then he eyed the crack, as though the idea of escape without being seen was appealing to him.
Otto decided to take the risk. “Okay, I’ll go check out the tent to see if I can empty it.”
Before he could leave, the short-robed monk stopped him and handed him a wooden tube with a cord attached to it.
“What’s this?” Otto asked.
The monk mimed pulling the string and made hissing sounds. He then pointed to the canvas material the hut was made out of.
Otto nodded. “Right, a distraction, thanks . . . uh.”
“Raiken,” Aelyph said.
“Thanks, Raiken.”
Raiken nodded and pulled out two small black orbs of his own.
Aelyph glanced at the monk’s mask. “Wait two minutes after we’ve left to throw them.”
Raiken nodded.
Otto grabbed hold of the seneschal’s robes. “As soon as we engage the guard, run for the exit, got it?”
The seneschal nodded, eyes wide. Once the fop got to surface, Otto doubted he would call for help. More than likely, they would have to deal with the troll themselves.
He sighed and moved around the rock toward the tent they had spotted. Aelyph followed on his tail. It seemed a Riftling Warrior and a man in a black cloak wasn’t an uncommon sight in these caverns as no one blocked their path.
Arriving at the canvas tent, Otto gestured for Aelyph to hide behind the other wall. Aelyph read his unvoiced instruction and slipped between it and the neighboring tent. Once he was out of sight, Otto pulled the string on the tube Raiken had given him.
One end of the tube flared to life with a bright hissing sound. Otto placed it down to one wall of the canvas tent, and right away the material caught and began to smoke.
Hearing the cries coming from inside the hut, Otto shouted, “Get out here! Your hut’s on fire!”
At his call, three large men rushed out from the tent, shoving Otto out of the way and proceeding to stamp down on the flame. Otto took a step back just in time to see Aelyph sneak around the corner of the tent, beckon him with a flick of his head, and then dashed inside.
As soon as Otto was sure the three men had all their focus on stomping out the fire, he followed Aelyph inside. The tent was mostly empty, save for a wooden table and a few sacks and bottles full of a substance that Otto couldn’t identify—or at least didn’t have time to identify. From the cards on the table, Otto could see the men had been gambling. Aelyph was just standing there, his mouth moving but not saying anything.
“What are you waiting for?” Otto hissed.
Aelyph raised a finger, and only then did Otto realize that he was counting. Then the Riftling stopped, drew his longsword, and slashed down at the rear tent flap. At that exact moment, there was a small explosion behind the tent and smoke filled the pathway leading to the crack. Through the slit in the canvas, Otto saw the troll whirl in response to the explosions, giving them the perfect distraction.
“Now!” Aelyph shouted.
Otto rushed out the back of the tent, drawing his own longsword and slashing low. Although the troll’s skin was too tough to be cut by his blade, Otto managed to hit a weak spot at the back of its knee, causing it to tilt backward.
He ducked to avoid a desperate swing of the troll’s club, but after his own attack, the blow went wide anyway. On cue, Aelyph, who had far more weight than him, jumped up onto the troll’s back, exacerbating the imbalance his first strike had caused. He wrapped his sword around its neck, crossing it with its scabbard and pulling both backward.
“Otto!” he shouted.
Otto was already spinning about from his first charge and sprinting back toward the troll, lunging and throwing all the weight of his armor at its torso. It toppled backward.
Knowing it would take a while for it to get back to its feet with him standing on top of it, Otto shouted, “Now! Get out of here!”
The seneschal sprinted down the path and toward the crack. Suddenly the troll stopped struggling, as though surprised to see him. It grunted what sounded like a slow, “You . . . how’d you get out of your cage?”
The seneschal’s eyes widened and he shook his head at the troll, then vanished into the crack.
The troll grabbed hold of Otto’s leg and threw him like a ragdoll. Otto crashed into another tent, which collapsed under his weight. He untangled himself from the canvas and watched in horror as Aelyph struggled against the monster. However, with a creature of the troll’s size, the Riftling had no chance. This was made apparent when the troll caught him and began to squeeze.
Before the troll could crush him, the little monk, Raiken, shot the smoke from his bomb. Using the troll’s body like steps, he climbed up it from knee to elbow to shoulder and plunged his short sword into the troll’s left eye.
“Blahhh!”
Right away, the troll let go of Aelyph and grabbed at its face. Aelyph dropped to the stone, and Raiken landed and helped him to his feet. The mask then flashed Otto’s way and waved him on.
“Hurry!”
Otto scrambled to his feet among the tent ruins and fled down the pathway as Raiken helped Aelyph into the crack. He followed them through the dark hollow, but, just as Aelyph had said, there was a set of steep stairs leading up in a spiral toward the surface.
Aelyph grinned and looked up at the long staircase. “Told you so,” he said to Otto.
Otto nodded. “So you did. Let’s go.”
Raiken dashed up the steps ahead of them to see if the passage was clear. When he didn’t return with a warning, they began to climb.
“When Princess Sapphire invited you to visit Crystalia Castle again, even I didn’t expect I would see you so soon,” Otto said during the long climb.
Aelyph laughed. “Well, I didn’t suspect you would manage to get the Midnight Queen to flee to the Midnight Tower so quickly. But I’m glad you were able to without my help. So long as she was in control of the Tower, I couldn’t trust myself to return there and not be overtaken by her power.”
Otto remembered the Midnight Queen’s words when she’d realized Aelyph had given him the Dragon Lance: “Aelyph gave you the Lance, huh? Funny how he didn’t come with you to fight my beautiful Nightsong with his all-powerful weapon. Maybe he was smart enough to know you can’t beat me in my own Tower!”
“I see. So you couldn’t trust yourself until she was gone. I had no idea that she had such powerful compulsion spells on the soldiers of the Dark Consul.”
Aelyph murmured, “Never underestimate the magic of the Dark Consul.”
“I’ll remember that. I guess I’m just lucky you decided to return when you did. Planning on taking up Princess Sapphire’s offer to show you around the Castle?”
Aelyph nodded. “Among other things.” He then stopped and sniffed. “Strange . . .”
Otto went ahead, but then looked down at him. “What’s wrong?”
“They must have brought fish up here first.”
Otto nearly laughed but decided not to tell him that it was the uncovered stench of the noble they had let go before them.
“It’s odd . . . the smell reminds me of something,” Aelyph continued. “Can’t quite pin it down though.”
Otto frowned. “What?”
Aelyph shook his head and continued on up the stairs. “I don’t know. It was too long ago, but . . .” He sniffed again and shook his head. “No. It’s probably nothing.”
They continued to climb and eventually saw a soft light up above. It appeared the seneschal had left the opening to the hidden door open. It was night outside, but even the glow of the moon assisted Otto’s sight more than anything in the darkness below. When they arrived at the top and passed through the hatch, the seneschal was nowhere to be seen. Otto was horrified to see how close it opened to the Castle.
“I’ll have to get the Crown Guard to watch this passage,” Otto said, as he looked down on the stairs visible through the open hatch.
“Better yet, have it filled in,” Aelyph added. “Nothing good can come out of a secret passage leading down into such a place.”
“Good idea.” Otto smiled and grasped Aelyph’s shoulder. “You’ve saved my bacon once again, my friend.”
“Again?” Aelyph asked. “When did I save you the first time?”
“The Dragon Lance, obviously.” Otto began to walk, pulling Aelyph along with him to the Castle entrance. The monk followed silently behind. “If not for you, the princesses and I would be nothing but ash right now in the Midnight Tower. I had no idea that relic could split dragon flame.”
Aelyph smiled. “It was the only reason I managed to escape.”
“I made sure to keep it safe for you. It’s locked up in the Paladins’ armory, so if you want it back, you can have it.”
Aelyph shook his head. “I don’t imagine I will run into any dragons any time soon, but thanks for the offer.”
Otto shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
They circumvented the Castle and eventually came to the stairs leading to the main entrance. However, before they reached the steps, Otto was confused to find the Crown Guard blocking the entrance. Standing in the middle of them, staring down at them from under his handkerchief, was the king’s seneschal.
“What is this?” Otto asked.
“The Riftling cannot enter,” said the seneschal.
Otto almost laughed, but then realized he was being serious. “He’s the reason we escaped. You know that.”
“It doesn’t matter. The Riftling was seen in the Underbelly and cannot be trusted inside the Castle.”
Otto’s jaw clenched. “I want to speak to the king. Let’s hear what he says after he learns that it was this Riftling who helped me rescue his daughters at the Midnight Tower!”
“The king is unwell and will not be seeing anyone.” The seneschal gestured to the Crown Guard. “And in the meanwhile, I speak with the king’s voice.”
Otto shook his head and muttered, “This is ridiculous. Where is Princess Sapphire? I’ll ask her about all this.”
The seneschal shrugged. “By all means.”
“It’s okay, Otto.” Aelyph turned away and started heading toward the drawbridge. “A Riftling not being trusted in Crystalia Castle is nothing new to me.”
“I’ll tell Princess Sapphire you’re in the city,” Otto called. “Just stay in town a little while and she’ll find you and bring you in herself.”
Aelyph merely raised a hand in a wave and passed through the battlement gate. The little monk who had seemed to disappear until now followed him through.
As soon as they were gone, the Crown Guard appeared to relax, and oddly enough, so did the seneschal. It didn’t make sense. The man had just been saved by the Riftling; why was he so mistrustful of him?
Otto growled under his breath and climbed the stairs to pass the seneschal. “That was unnecessary. You know he was an ally.”
“If I may be so bold, Sir Paladin, I would say you have more important matters at hand than the Riftling. Remember what that Riftling said about Jerald’s suspicious dealings.”
Otto froze. In all his excitement, he had almost forgotten this fact. He swallowed and caught the seneschal’s gaze. “I’ll deal with that.”
He passed between the seneschal and his guard and entered the Castle. What he intended to do next would need a lot of subtlety.