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Glenn hustled to keep up with Kirby. He understood his friend’s urgency. Being seen together by the wrong person wasn’t top on their list. Nor was wandering around Riven Rock in the dark, even though they were prepared for trouble. Glenn carried Stephi in the creel basket. Petie moved from rooftop to rooftop ahead of them.
Her fairy abilities, coupled with her magic user spells, and even some of the abilities she could channel from Kim, offered a potential nasty surprise. If she’d’ve been around for the fight against Guard Captain Nickson, it would’ve ended with a lot less of Kirby’s blood being spilled.
That thought made the gnome healer wonder if the blood left in the street in front of Nibber’s shack could end up being a clue to implicate his half-goblin friend. It’d be mixed with hard-packed dry dirt and rock. That had to lessen the chances.
Derek and Ron remained at the inn, interviewing a potential driver Blizz suggested. A woman named Lilac. The old animal handler said he’d worked alongside her before. She was good with animals, steady when fighting breaks out and, like him, wasn’t the sort to talk about previous employers.
Plus, as party leader, Ron realized the current peril of pairing Kirby with Derek for the interview. He’d gotten pissed about Derek calling Stephi stupid. More than Glenn. A little time apart and working on the mission would soothe hard feelings. Glenn could hardly wait for Derek to do something that he could rub the big warrior’s nose in.
“We’re not going to make it back to the inn before dark,” Glenn said as they approached the intersection that led to the bakery from the east.
“Nope, dude.” Kirby stopped to allow a rustic carriage with a driver atop and four figures inside, partially hidden by breeze-rippled curtains, to pass. The team of four horses trotted sharply. Sitting on the back of the carriage, buckled into a narrow seat with pegs for footrests, was a guard with helmet, breastplate, cocked crossbow, and short sword.
“C’mon, dude.” Kirby signaled for his friend to move quickly across the road. “Guess they’re like you and don’t wanna be out after dark neither.”
As always, Glenn’s short legs required him to hustle to keep up.
“Don’t look too long,” Kirby said after they crossed the street ahead of a gaggle of porters with large wooden crates on their shoulders. “Dude in leather armor with the short sword, leaning against the front of the glass blowing shop. He’s the local guard for sure.”
The half-goblin and gnome backtracked a few steps and moved along the street, north, past the side of the cobbler’s shop and turned left to walk past it and past the pottery shop. The pottery shop’s exterior was lined with deep blue tiles, hardened and shiny.
Good advertisement, Glenn thought. People would remember the building.
“Marigold,” Kirby said in a whisper, knowing her keen fairy ears would hear. “Have Petie find a spot to watch the guard, but mostly the glass shop. See who leaves and how they lock up.”
Glenn recalled that they were supposed to work three eight-hour shifts, so closing down didn’t seem likely. But locking when they didn’t want customers made sense.
He also recalled that Ron had detected another magical creature with his heirloom necklace. By entering the bakery, cobbler’s shop and the pottery shop, counting on the necklace’s detection range, the magical creature was located in the northeast corner of the glass shop, bottom floor, right where the furnace was.
With no apparent use of coal, wood or any sort of liquid fuel to fire the glassblower’s furnace, initial thoughts were that the owner of Sterjin’s utilized some sort of permanent magical fire to create their expensive glass wares. The magical creature brought the notion of an elemental fire spirit. Ron witnessed intense flames from within, so he, Kirby and Derek were convinced.
Glenn had no clue exactly what an elemental flame spirit was. That said, any fiery creature that melted glass was one he didn’t want to cross.
The pipes extending from the glass blower’s shop, which were described as about fifteen inches in diameter to the baker’s shop and twenty-four inches to the pottery shop, almost certainly provided heat for both operations. The bakery didn’t show any use of coal, whereas the pottery shop did. But Ron estimated that the kiln’s coal or wood capacity was insufficient to reach adequate temperatures. Plus, a hired man to pump a bellows through a pipe from the back wall to the kiln made him suspect where supplemental heat came from. Sterjin’s Glass Receptacle Fabrications.
The pipe from the glassblowers to the baker, while being smaller, aligned with the elevated base of the main oven, much like a pizza oven. The larger pipe to the pottery shop ran along the ground, and was framed along the sides with brick and a rusting iron grill across the top.
Kirby had been more interested in the pipes than Ron when they discussed the building arrangements. Ron was more concerned with the magical warding on the shop’s entrance. He discussed creating a small battering ram, like what law enforcement used to break doors down when raiding a drug house. But fretted if magic might protect, or even react, against such a physical assault.
“Marigold,” Kirby whispered. “I’m gonna write a note for Petie to take back to Krogman’s shop.” He shot Glenn a wicked grin. “Us three are gonna do some breaking and entering, and see if we can sneak in the back way.”