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With Stephi camouflaged atop the building across from Sterjin’s Glass, Kirby led Glenn west, toward one of the hills.
“We need some supplies,” Kirby explained.
“You been in those hills?” Glenn asked. “In the tunnels?”
While Glenn had felt trepidation going into the unknown underground, especially as darkness fell, his gnomish heritage sort of looked forward to it. Gnomes didn’t dig in mines and live underground in the same way dwarves did, but they often lived in the hollows of massive trees, or small communities dug into hillsides.
“Me and Lysine explored a little. The big crack in the ground ain’t bottomless, but it’s pretty deep. They lower mining dudes down in a bucket, with big ropes and pulleys. The horses tied to the ropes make the Budweiser Clydesdales look like ninety-eight pound pushovers.”
That Glenn hadn’t gotten to see it sort of disappointed him. He got to spend time with Derek instead.
Kirby slapped Glenn on the back. “They got an easy system for directions, dude, but ya can still get lost. Me and Lysine got mixed up twice, and it screwed up his sketches in his map book.”
As the pair of adventurers got closer to one of the main entrances, the road leading up to a hole big enough for a school bus, more and more people seemed to be streaming in. Not legions, but twenty or so men, mostly laboring types in groups of three to five, tromped in. The scene reminded Glenn of Friday nights on campus. Upperclassmen streaming uptown, toward the bars.
“We ain’t gotta go in far, Jax, but if we get separated, remember squares on the ceiling means you’re going deeper inside and round—like the sun—means you’re going toward an exit.”
Glenn eyed his friend with an arched left eyebrow. “Signs?”
“You’ll see, dude.” He patted the gnome on the shoulder, then handed him a thick piece of chalk. It looked like powder blue sidewalk chalk his kindergarten niece drew with.
“I’ll explain,” Kirby said. “Trust me.”
Right, Glenn thought. A gnome following a half-goblin into an underground complex filled with revelers and who knows what all else. And the half-goblin is really a junior-high-aged kid. What could go wrong?
Then he remembered. Kirby might be only twelve or thirteen in the real world, but in the Monsters, Maces and Magic world, the kid had far more experience. And he was a skilled thief. Glenn rested his hand on his cudgel and felt the weight of his round shield strapped across his back. He was a healer, with a lot of hit points, and a gnome. Most people liked gnomes.
Turned out, gnome or not, most people ignored Glenn, and Kirby. A time or two, a band of drably dressed laborers wearing sandals or heavy boots brushed past them, intent on some destination, one that likely involved drinking and entertainment.
Glenn wondered if there were places like the Blue Bugle beneath the small mountains. He doubted it. The corridors carved through the big hill—big as those he recalled driving through in Kentucky and Tennessee—were low and wide. Eight feet wide and no more than seven feet tall. Stephi, the old, non-fairy Stephi, would’ve had to be careful.
The stone corridors were pretty straight, lit by magic. The Light Spells were on the weaker side, being either fifteen or twenty-five watts in strength. Plenty strong enough for his gnome eyes. And for Kirby’s half-goblin, despite the globes tending to fade out for several feet instead of their coverage overlapping. That provided an odd feeling as they walked ever deeper into the hillside.
Glenn discovered what Kirby meant by the round and square signs. Every fifty or so feet, a circle and square were painted on the ceiling, stacked parallel with the hallway. As best Glenn could tell, the white square was placed, showing the direction deeper. The white circle indicted the direction to go to find a way out. The corridors were fairly straight, but the intersections, both T and four-way, were rarely ninety-degree affairs. Occasionally ladders or stone stairways, carved into the walls, went up or down. They were wide as well, about four feet, so two people could squeeze by each other.
They took one down, after taking a left, down a thirty-degree forked corridor. The level below’s circles remained white but the squares were tan.
And there were plenty of shops, at least from what Glenn could tell. None had hinged, swinging doors, but he saw many had some sort of door hidden in a set-in slot a foot or so in the arched doorways. Others had gates that could be dropped, much like stores in malls did, when they closed.
Unlike in Three Hills City, there were no official city guardsmen to be seen. But in the tunnels some hulking, muscled men in armor with maces or axes stood by some of the shopfronts. Always in pairs. They weren’t Riven Rock city guards. Glenn pegged them more along the lines of Rent-a-Thugs. Their disdainful visages mingled with eyes eager to detect some reason to attack one of the riffraff streaming past. That encouraged Glenn, the short gnome, to avoid eye contact. To give them wide berth.
Glenn’s nostrils took in odors of sweat and bad breath. His bulbous nose also detected scents of flowery perfumes and exotic herbs, alcoholic beverages, smoke and some oily cooked meats. Smells lingered because the progress of unwashed bodies seemed to be the only thing moving the air.
One double-wide doorway emitted purple light. Inside lounged scantily-clad women. One of the three had a chest even more epic than Stephi’s. But her Appearance Score was nowhere near Stephi’s, and the woman’s alluring smile didn’t reach her eyes.
Kirby grabbed Glenn by the arm, dragging him forward. “Dude, don’t get distracted. We’re almost there.”
“Where?” Glenn asked, spotting some sort of roulette wheel spinning in a deep alcove. A cluster of men crowded in front of it, grumbling or laughing rancorously. One even cheered.
“Here,” Kirby said and pulled him into a smoke-filled room. It was a bar, of sorts. No tables filled the space, only a U-shaped granite bar running along the three walls, with iron stools bolted to the floor. Dwarves mainly filled the seats, with a few humans. Three barmaids tended to the customers, bringing steins of ale or beer from a room—or series of rooms—beyond. One of the women had to be a female dwarf. Glenn instinctively recognized this, by the wispiness of her brown beard. She stepped up on some sort of platform to serve the laborers, trading friendly jibes and insults. The muscles framing her stout upper body and chest, hidden beneath a sweat-stained linen blouse, were impressive.
Glenn noted all the stocky dwarves, like the waitress, had brown beards. They all smelled of coal smoke, sweat and burnt iron. Unlike the men in the bar, who carried the scents of wood, animal waste and sulfur.
“Stay right here,” Kirby said and elbowed his way between two men, flashing two silver coins. “Two bottles of liquor, to go.”
Eyeing the silver, a human waitress with braided black hair and a scar over her left eye asked, “What kind, shorty?”
“Jack Daniels.”
The barmaid squinted across the bar at the half-goblin. “Jack who?”
“Uhhh, what ya got?” Kirby asked, suddenly at a loss for words.
The two workmen sitting at the bar the young thief had squeezed between glared down at Kirby.
Glenn stepped up behind his friend. “He means whisky, if you have any, ma’am.”
The black-haired woman looked past Kirby. When her eyes fell on Glenn, she smirked, then rolled her eyes and smiled. “Two more copper, or what you’ll get, my little gnome, will leave you puking before morning.”
Glenn didn’t care for the “little” remark, but it came without the harshness of an intended insult. “Two coppers, plus a third, if you can get it to us quick.” He smiled and winked, coming up with the only thing the barmaid and patrons in such a questionable bar might accept. “We got dates waiting on us.”
“Thanks, dude.” Kirby led his friend out into the night air, leaving the tunnel behind. Most of the foot traffic going in had abated. “We needed something in a bottle, and they don’t have beer or ale in bottles. And asking for wine in that place didn’t seem like a smart move.” He shrugged. “All I could think of was what my dad kept in the cabinet above the stove.”
“No problem,” Glenn said, looking around, making sure nobody was paying attention as they made their way back toward the pottery maker’s shop. He pulled the thick piece of chalk out of his pocket. “What’d you give this to me for?”
“Really?” Kirby slowed almost to a stop. “Sorry, I thought you knew. Mark the walls in case you get lost. I knew where I was going, but if we got separated, it’d help you from going the same way, again and again.” The half-goblin thief shrugged. “Works better in a cave than with people around.” He took the chalk and demonstrated against a wooden building as they walked. “A quick flick can show the way you came from without drawing much attention.”
Kirby handed the chalk back. “I got more, dude. That’s what makes us a good team. We cover for each other.”
That complement felt good. So often Glenn felt like he was more a burden than an asset—other than healing.
“So, what’s the plan with the whiskey?”
“I’ll explain as soon as we get Marigold to fly down so she can hear it, too.”
Glenn stood between buildings a half-block away. He watched the guard clad in leather armor smack at his neck, then curse and wave his hands back and forth, before slapping at his face.
Stephi had noted a guard watching the road from atop Sterjin’s Glass. That caused a change in Kirby’s plan. Stephi used her Slumber Spell on the roof guard, then hauled the whisky bottle up to the roof. Once there she poured some down the sleeping man’s throat—without waking him—and spilled some on his clothes. Getting drunk and falling asleep on duty wouldn’t go well for the guard. In any case, he wouldn’t be likely to mention the event for fear of what might happen. That was Kirby’s theory.
Since Stephi had only one Slumber Spell memorized, and they only had one bottle of whiskey, Kirby told Stephi to use her fairy ability to summon as many pigeons as possible. Then have them unleash as much bird poop as possible all over the dude standing guard.
How Stephi could “communicate” with the pigeons and suggest a course of action, Glenn wasn’t sure. But it was magic. And it was working. At least thirty of the birds arrived, flying tight circles overhead and landing on nearby roofs.
The guard stopped his foot patrol and looked up at the commotion. From the way the guard rubbed at an eye, while spitting, said at least two pigeon poo bombs struck home. Gobs of white continued raining down. Many missed, but enough landed in the man’s hair and all over his leather armor to make it look like he was on the losing end of a paintball fight.
While Stephi’s pigeon distraction was going on, it was up to Kirby to pick the lock to gain entry. One of the scattered light poles, with a weak Light Spell, barely reached to the pottery shop’s front door. That left Kirby visible and exposed. Nevertheless, the risk didn’t seem to bother the half-goblin thief.
Being a second-rank thief, having an eighteen Coordination Score, and his half-goblin Racial Bonus for that particular thieving skill, Kirby estimated he had a fifty-fifty chance of picking the padlock.
After a minute, Petie bobbed his head twice, indicating success.
Glenn slipped his cudgel back into its belt loop. Relieved he didn’t have to confront the guard, the gnome made his way from shadow to shadow toward the pottery shop.
He didn’t see Stephi standing in the small gap between the cobbler and pottery shop, Camouflaged against the wall. Risky, Glenn thought, with the iron spikes pointing upward.
“Be fast,” she whispered. “My pigeons are empty.”
Glenn half jumped, and looked down her general direction, then gazed up and down the quiet street. He knew she was supposed to be there.
Stephi added, “Gurk thinks this is some sort of a game.”
“Technically, it is,” Glenn said and kept moving at a steady pace, knowing her little fairy face would be scrunched up and a light shade of pink.
The gnome made it to the door, pushed it open and slipped inside.
“Pretty quiet, dude,” Kirby whispered into his ear. Even with his low-light vision, everything was dark and shadowy. Then he added. “The pottery dude’s baking some of his stuff, so it’s too hot. Let’s try the baker’s.”
“Maybe we should call it a night and try again tomorrow,” Glenn whispered.
“No way. We try this tomorrow night and them guards’ll know something’s up.” He rested a hand on the gnome’s shoulder. “Same deal as before, but Stephi’ll have to distract the guard.”
Less than ten minutes later, Kirby and Glenn were inside the baker’s shop, with Stephi returning to her watch position, this time between the bakery and the glass shop.
“How do you think she managed to get him around the corner?” Glenn whispered as they made their way behind the counter, heading toward the oven.
“Maybe she flashed her boobs,” Kirby replied with a mischievous grin. He picked up a large pair of oven mitts. “Give me your everlast candle.”
After checking behind the big set of ovens, Kirby said, “See this lever?”
Glenn nodded. The steel bar was attached to the pipe, set to pivot and elevate something blocking the air flow when pressed down. “I bet that lets the heat in.”
Kirby nodded. He pulled the oven’s big iron door open. “When I get inside, pull the lever so I can see where the pipe goes.”
“It goes into the glass shop’s furnace.”
“I know, dude. But I want to see if the thing’s lined with clay or if it’s steel. If so, Marigold won’t be able to make it through them. Iron, or anything with iron in it, burns her now that she’s a fairy. Remember?”
“Steel lining or no, I’m not sure she’ll fit through this pipe.”
“I know.” The half-goblin rolled his yellow eyes. They probably built this pipe the same way as the bigger one that leads into the pottery oven.”
Kirby looked into the oven before donning the oven mitts and crawling in. Then he fumbled to open Glenn’s everlast candle.
“Lever it, dude.”
Glenn did as asked, pressing down on the lever.
“Oh, that’s hot,” Kirby said. “Heat’s prickling my face.”
Then he added, “Oh, well, that sucks.”
A sizzling pop accompanied a split-second of light, like a camera’s flash, emerged from the oven’s open door. The same instant a muffled cry echoed from within the oven, followed by a dull, thump on metal. Next came the smell of smoldering fabric, and burnt flesh.