CHAPTER 2

I’m currently standing in a lavishly decorated room with extravagant flooring and artistry works being illuminated by various candles. Around me are the other members all dressed in fancy clothing uniform with the mark of a servant.

Calira is sitting in a fancy adorned chair while I stand behind her patiently awaiting today’s catch.

After waiting for a full candle mark, a knock was resounded through the door.

“Lady Yuna of House Risar’i has arrived” announced Ryul from behind the door. It seems like my one and only friend in the crew has an easy job of simply escorting our guests to this room.

“Enter” Calira replied with pride and dignity. Calira is playing the Matriarch noble, yet it’s ironic how she doesn’t even need fake her attitude as she naturally looks down on everybody.

Two dark elves walked through the door. The leading elf, presumably Lady Yuna wore fancy clothing and moved as if she owned the entire world. She looks incredibly young, most likely just finished her maturing stage. Young enough to make naive decisions yet mature enough to try to gain power and move up in her family.

More interesting, however, was the second figure who accompanied the young lady. My instincts were instantly screaming at me to run when we made eye contact. The guard was definitely a honed warrior, one who would no doubt kill me if she catches me in my act.

“Thank you for meeting me on such short notice Lady Yuna, please take a seat” Calira, acting as the host gestured to the couch opposite the small table in front of her.

On cue, I moved the pre-prepared refreshments and placed it in front of this Lady Yuna of House Risar’i. House Risar’i is known as one of the few merchant oriented houses within the underworld Drow empire. As most merchants, they are incredibly greedy when it comes to valuable goods or an opportunity to make money.

In fact, that is exactly why House Risar’i was chosen for this particular play. Yet this comes with great risks as House Risar’i has relations with royalty. If things go bad and if the royal house gets involved, we could all say goodbye to our lives as we know it. However, with great risks come great rewards.

Lady Yuna proceeds to sit down opposite of Lady Yuna whilst inspecting Calira’s attire whilst her guard is positioned behind her seat. Of course, even without Lady Yuna’s inspection, nobody would be able to think Calira’s personality is fake. Simply because this is her natural self.

“Perhaps introductions are in order, my name is Ashe the current Matriarch of House Faye. We are a small noble household on the outskirts of the Drow Empire based near the borders.

As you know, the Drow Empire has a long history with the infamous Thralls since we were first established in the underworld. It just so happens we stumbled upon an old battlefield and happen to find this unknown object in which we believe is an ancient artifact”.

Calira proceeds to place a wooden box on the table and slowly open it to reveal a small curved dagger adorned in matte black metal with red stripes along its edges.

Upon eyeing the ‘ancient artifact’, Lady Yuna’s eyes began to shine. She reaches out with her hand, slowly moving toward the dagger. Slowly, however, she seemingly begins to control herself as she reels her hand back and takes a breath to steady herself before meeting Calira’s gaze.

“How do I know this is real? For all I know, this could be a fake” Lady Yuna asked.

As expected of the next heir to such a prominent merchant house. Despite being young she still has some common sense to her. In fact, this literally is a scam. The dagger was made by a genius aspiring enchanter out in the outskirts. The genius was young and somehow stumbled upon a brand new enchantment which could shake the entire kingdom.

It’s a shame that the creator was such a naive person and just happened to get robbed on the way to the capital city. In fact, the person who stole the item was one of our crew members. But of course, she doesn’t know that. Instead, it’s up to me to prove otherwise.

If it weren’t for the conversation in the room, I’m sure my heart rate could be heard with how fast it’s beating.

I began to gesture with my hands just like I rehearsed multiple times before *Excuse me my Lady, but I can assure you that it is real. In fact, it was me who was the one to discover this dagger. I was simply exploring when I somehow stumbled upon a narrow cavern near the area. As I followed the corridor it leads to a large expansive cavern where I discovered broken swords, pierced shields, and decaying skeletons. It was at this time that I noticed a small glint within the ground, which is where I found this dagger. Despite the ages of time and despite it existing within a rotting battlefield, this dagger’s metal is still looking brand new.

However, I was careless and didn’t realise how far I had traveled. As I picked the dagger up, a Thrall had ambushed me. The abomination had tried to take my life… and it nearly did*

At this point, tears had begun to pool in my eyes as I heroically retold the tale of my most detrimental scar. I lifted my chin up to reveal a white line running horizontally along my throat. I could feel the tears now running down my face as I showed off my disability, my weakness, my reason for never speaking.

The tears itself were genuine, although not because of how I presumably got hurt by a Thrall, no it is because of the memories that accompanied the scar and how it came to be. Thankfully, Lady Yuna and her guard do not need to know that.

Lady Yuna was now sporting a look of pity and grief as she was staring at the line running across my throat.

Yes, we are planning to use grief and pity in order to make this look more real.

“You have my apologies, young mistress. For such a calamity to befall upon you and while you are still so young… I apologise, I was merely trying to verify the origins of this dagger”. Lady Yuna then proceeded to nod her head in my direction.

I had to carefully control the expression on my face, yet inwardly I was cursing this Lady Yuna. I do not look that young! I’m already a hundred years old thank you very much! I’ve almost finished my maturing stage!

After a few moments of silence, Calira decided it was time to continue her act. “The metal used to create this dagger is unique and never before seen within the Drow Empire. After an initial appraisal, it was discovered that the dagger has properties similar to the legendary Mithril”. Surprisingly, this part was actually truthful. The crew did find someone to appraise the dagger and it was shockingly an unknown material.

“... that’s not the most interesting fact” Calira continued. “No, the reason why we believe it is to be an ancient artifact is because of it’s enchantment”. At this point, Calira paused her speech. I used this short period to carefully watch Lady Yuna’s expression.

Her face was hesitant, yet her eyes betrayed her excitement. “Well, what is it?” She hurriedly asked.

“This enchantment is capable of stealing a person’s life force and transferring it to the wielder” Calira answered with a serious expression. “However it is only capable of a one more usage afterward the enchantment would simply shatter. You would own just a simple dagger afterward, albeit one with Mithril like properties”.

How the young genius enchanter managed to create such an enchantment is unknown. Frankly, I don’t really get why a drow would worry about something insignificant as life force. A drow is capable of living for a very long time. It is theorised that we have an unlimited life span. Add on to the fact that our skin doesn’t appear to age after the maturing stage and we can be considered immortal.

The only way to identify a drow who has aged is from the black hair which grows in contrast to the naturally occurring silver colour. It’s a shame that drow society is a web of lies and deceit. Unless you are the Queen who apparently has lived since the beginning of the Drow empire, you are more likely to get a knife in the back or get your stomach cut open by a Thrall.

By this point, Lady Yuna didn’t even try to hide an expression of greed on her face. Even the dangerous looking guard behind her was staring at the dagger with greed in her eyes.

Noticing this, Calira decided it was time for the final push. “Yes, we drow have an unlimited life span, however on the verge of dying, you only need to draw a tiny bit of blood and the person next to you will transfer the rest of their life so you could live”. A hungry smile now adorned Calira’s face, however, Lady Yuna was too distracted to notice it.

“I’ll take it” Lady Yuna concluded after her appraisal “I assume the original agreed upon amount will suffice?” she asked in an impatient tone.

Not one to miss an opportunity, Calira replied in a sad manner “Lady Yuna, you must understand how precious such an enchantment from an ancient artifact is to the populace of this city. I am selling this to you out of respect to your family. If I were to auction this dagger, many powerful people would line up to buy it. In fact, my family is now under pressure from some of the more powerful families as they somehow caught the rumour of the appearance of a new type of metal”.

“Just name a price damn it!” Yelled Lady Yuna in a very un-lady like manner. It was clear impatience was getting to her.

At this, Calira just simply gave Lady Yuna a smile.

With this the scam is successful. Admittedly, we could have sold the item as the dagger with a special enchantment. However, the appeal of an ancient artifact raised the price tremendously. Despite this, I couldn’t help but feel uneasy.

Looking around, I noticed Lady Yuna’s guard staring right at me. Her eyes were narrowed in a mischievous manner.

All I knew was that my gut instinct is something I always give my undivided attention no matter how illogical the situation.

I don’t know how and I don’t know why.

She knows.