Chapter Thirteen

Rix and Gimmel stood watching the builders laying the foundation for their keep overlooking the giant cavern, they had discovered days before. The sparkling lights and glowing stone had disappeared, in its place a new blazing light took its place. That was not all, it would seem that cavern spread around where Rix had broken through, it expanded past and expanded for what seemed like forever in all directs. The opening was on top of a huge stalactite, and it was part of range of them. The dark shapes that had seen turned out to be plants made of a material no one had ever seen before, and they had creatures that could flap their arms to fly through the air. None of the scholars could explain it, but Rix and Gimmel knew this just made their discovery even more amazing. More than one cavern keeper and rich merchants had offered to buy their stake in it the cavern, but they knew better. This mysterious cavern had much to offer, more than anything the ones below could offer them. The builders had just finished sculpting the frame work for what would be their keep, when a scout group came back form checking out the area. The lead scout, a dwarf with a braided red beard, knelt before them with a bowed head, “ Keeper Rix, Keeper Gimmel. I have something to report.”.

Rix shrugged at Gimmel, who return the gesture, Rix placing a hand on the dwarf’s shoulder, “ Please stand, no need to kneel. Please tell us what you found.”.

The dwarf nods and stands look Rix in the eyes says , “ While scouting the area we found many things, but the most surprising we found a village.”.

Gimmel’s and Rix’s eyes grow wide, someone had beaten them to the cavern, but didn’t tell anyone , all their dreams and futures were done for. Gimmel clears his throat, and asks, “ Who was it?”.

The scout shook his head, “ You don’t understand the people were neither, dwarven nor gnomish.”.

This was even more shocking to the pair of keeps, what else could they be, dwarves and gnomes are all there is. The scout knits his brows together and continues, “ There were two different types of beings there. One was tall, taller than any dwarf, with dark brown skin and green hair. They were thin and had pointed ears, they lived in area surround by the tall plants and their homes were made of them as well. They other beings were slightly shorter than a dwarf, they had sickly green skin, with large hand, feet, and ears. They had claws and fangs. The two seemed to live together and there was a lot of them. We also were able to see some of the older ones teaching a group of, what we assumed to be children, magic. We watched them for a time, but we had to leave when a group of them were moving to the edge of their clearing holding long things made of the tall plants with sharped stones on the end.”.

Rix and Gimmel stand in silence, contemplating the information they had just received. The law of their peoples stated that ‘ any dwarf or gnome that discovered a cavern could claim it as theirs”, it said nothing about non-dwarves or non-gnomes, they maybe able to keep their claim to the cavern, but they would have to meet these people. The two dismiss the scout and thank him, telling him to keep this information to himself for now. Rix and Gimmel retreat into the small room that had been carved out of the stalactite, near the entrance that for now served as their quarters and once their keep was finished would be the check point in and out of their cavern. Sitting down at a stone table the two sigh, Gimmel is the first to speak, his musical voice tired,

“ I think we need to get our keep and a village of our own built, and fast. The information of these new beings will spread fast.”.

Rix knits his brow, “ The scout said he’d keep it quiet.”.

Gimmel shakes his head, “ He did, but the rest of his scouting party didn’t, and I bet they are already on their way to the closes tavern, where they’ll tell anyone that’ll listen.”.

Rix hangs his head, “ Well it was nice while it lasted.”.

“ We’ll figure this out buddy.”, Gimmel says giving his down trotted friend. The two sat in silence when Gimmel jumps up and his tiny voice feeling the small room, “ We just need to establish our village, today!”.

Rix looks at his gnome friend with doubt, “ And how do you plan to do that? We don’t even have our keep built, let alone places for villagers to live.”.

Gimmel grins, “ It’s simply, we just offer land to whoever is willing to settle now!”.

Rix laughs out loud, “ I think you have lost your mind. You want to just give away land! What are you thinking?”.

Gimmel walks over to the door and throws it open, lighting feeling the room. Grinning Gimmel gestures outward, “ I’m thinking that we have more than enough land to share.”.

Rix stands and walks to stand next to Gimmel, “ You may have a point. I guess we could spare a few squares.”.

A square, five feet by five feet, is the average unit of land. Typically, a single square would go for a hundred ores of iron, which is a lot, with space being limited inside the caverns buying a square meant that you could not only build a on the ground but up to the cavern ceiling. Gimmel looks at his friend and shakes his head, “ No, I want to give four squares to every person that is willing to come.”.

“Are you crazy!”, Rix yells at his friend. Gimmel replays with a grin, “ No, you and I have more land than anyone ever, we can afford a few hundred squares before we even notice.”.

Rix rubs his bearded chin, “ Maybe.”.

Gimmel pats the taller dwarf on the back, “ Trust me, I know what I’m talking about.”.

Rix breathes out deeply, “ Alright, I’ll trust you. How do you want to get the word out?”.

Gimmel laughs and walks towards the tunnel leading to the caverns below, “ By heading to the tavern of course.”.

Rix laughs and follows behind him, shaking his head, “ Of course.”,

Igneous and his friends stood in a small clearing, the starry sky above them, Nora standing in front of them all, “ Okay, we are only an hour walk away from the village, we will be entering from the area where they cut down trees, everyone should be gone for the night, but we will still have to watch out for guards patrolling and especially when we get inside of the village. Marigold do you think you can keep any guards ,that get too close, distracted?”.

The yellow clad priestess, looks up a piece of jerking hanging from her mouth, “ Huh? Oh uhuh.”, Taking a big bite and swallowing the jerky whole, Marigold continues, “ Yeah, I should be able to.”.

Nora rolls her eyes, trying to suppress a smile, “ Good. Mitch. You and Korren will go to walk ahead of the rest of us and makes sure the coast is clear if not, call signal Marigold to come over and help run interference. I will escort Igneous, Yasevl, and Nelly to the temple, after we get inside the rest of you should join us as fast as possible. Everyone understand?”. The group looks and each other the back at Nora and give a nod. Nora smiles, “ Good, now let’s hurry up.”.

As the group gathers their things, Nora walks over to Igneous and holds out a wolf pelt out to him. Igneous looks at it then back in confusion. Nora sighs, “ Your robe is ruin, but we still need you to cover up. Put this on.”.

Knowing better to argue, Igneous takes the pelt and wraps it around his body, the head of the wolf resting on his like a hood. Nora nods and walks away and stands at the edge of the clearing, “ Alright let’s move out.”.

After walking through the forest, the group comes out to a spot with stumps and trees laying on the ground with bronze axes sticking out of the fallen trees’ trunks. Yasevl and Nelly walk over to the trees and lay their hands on them. Looking up at Nora with sad eyes, Yasevl asks, “ Why would anyone do this?”.

Nora looks back at the wood spirit, with sympathy, “ Not everyone can shape trees like you and Corma. Humans have to cut the trees down in order to use them. It is just a fact of life.”.

Yasevl looks between Nora and the tree before sighing and nodding his head. Placing a hand on Nelly’s back, Yasevl says, “ Come on we need to keep moving.”.

Nelly looks up at Yasevl with uncertainty but nods and follows behind him. As the group exits the graveyard of stumps, they finally see the village in the distance. Even in the dark Igneous, Nelly, and Yasevl stand in awe. The village spreads across the horizon, the buildings looks to be made of cut wood, many of them having two stories, with a large stone building towering in the middle of the village. Flickering lights can be seen in many of the widows of the buildings, including the stone one. Smiling Marigold gestures towards the village, “ Welcome to Forestedge.”, pointing toward the large stone building adds, “ That’s the temple of Dorean, my home.”.

Igneous studies the scene and looks up at Yasevl, who only returns a look of bewilderment. Nora pushes the them from behind, then Nelly, “ Yeah, yeah, you can go sight seeing some other time, we need to hurry.”.

The three stumble forward and turn around to give the hunter an annoyed look but think better of it when she gives them one of her own. Nora nods at Korren and Mitch who rush ahead, Marigold not far behind them, acting as a kind of in between point for the group. As they get closer to the village, Mitch whistles and Marigold runs ahead while chanting, looking closely, Igneous can make out the silhouette of two people standing in front of the Mitch and Korren. A golden light sparks for a moment highlighting Marigold. Korren lets out a loud cough, the all clear signal they had agreed to on the way. Moving ahead slowly, Igneous and the others pass by two humans in bronze helmets with spears talking to Marigold, their attention focused on her. Nelly looks at the men, then at Nora and whispers, “ What did she do to them?”.

Nora whispers back not taking her eyes off the road in front of them, Mitch and Korren walking ahead of them, “ She casted a spell that keeps their focus on her for a moment, she learned it as a priestess to keep people listening when she talks.”.

Nelly nods, “ Oh.”.

Not long after they are past the guards, Marigold comes running up behind them smiling, “ They were nice.”.

Pass rows of buildings, one with a lot of noise coming form it that Nora informed them was the local tavern, which she told them she would explain later, the group stands a few yards from the stone temple, now seeing the long and wide wooden building attached to it. As the group moves closer, a whistle pierces the night, sending Marigold running in the direction it came from. Waiting for the all clear, another whistle sounds. Nora looks around in alarm and bites her lip, before pushing the three hooded figures forward, “ We’ll just have to make a run for it.”.

Following Nora’s instructions, Igneous, Yasevl, and Nelly make a rush for the large wooden doors of the temple. It looks like they will make it without an incident when Nelly trips on her robe and goes skidding across the dirt road, her hood falling off her head. As this happens a man with a lute on his back and a large brimmed hat walks around the temple, suddenly stops and stares at the fallen wood elf. Not wasting time, Nora throws Nelly over her shoulder and rushes past Igneous and Yasevl into the church, as Igneous and Yasevl rush in, Nora shuts the door behind them and lets Nelly down. Nelly looks at the stone floors of the temple and remorsefully says, “ I messed everything up. We were so close, and I had to go and trip.”.

Nora shakes her head and lifts Nelly’s head up to look at her, “ It’s alright, he only saw you for a moment and it was dark. Everything is okay.”.

As the two talk, Igneous and Yasevl look around the room, its stone walls with thin open windows, its row of polished wooden pews, and the large silver statue at the front of the pews over looking a stone alter. The statue was in the shape two hands facing outward toward them. The two begin to approach the statue when foot steps can be heard rushing toward them. They all turn to see a young bearded man wearing a yellow robe enter the room holding a bronze lantern up. The young man looks at the four of them with a frown, “ The temple is closed for the night, you have to leave.”.

Nora steps away from the Nelly and toward the young man and says, “ We are friends of Marigold, and we need to see the high-priest over this temple.”.

The man curls his lip, and scoffs, “ Marigold? I thought she had gotten eaten in the forest, and that’s beside the point. You can’t just come in here and demand to see the high-priest. Now leave already.”

Nora begins to reply when the wooden door burst open, nearly knocking Nelly down, humming Marigold steps through followed by Korren and Mitch, who closes the door behind them. The young man groans, “ Marigold, I see you made it back from your mission. Tell your friends they can’t just demand to see the high-priest and that they’ll have to come back when the temple is open.”.

Marigold looks at her friends then at the man with a smile, “ Oh, Hey Con! Listen we need to see the high-priest, can you get him for us?”.

The young man’s right eye began to twitch, gritting his teeth, the man angrily whispers, “ I will not wake the high-priest! Who do you think you are ordering me around! The high-priest is -,”.

The young man’s rant is cut off by a kind, but stern wizened voice calling from the hall way the young man had just came from, “ Is right here.”.

Turning around the young man’s lantern aluminates the face of a kind looking wrinkled man with yellow and white robes. Con, the younger man, begins to stammer, his tone vastly different than moments before, “ High-priest, I am sorry if we woke you.”, giving Marigold a sideways look adds, “ I was just telling Marigold’s friends that they would have to come ba-,”.

The high-priest holds up his hand, cutting Con off, “ That is alright, I have been expecting them. Con you may go.”.

Con looks at the high-priest, baffled, “ But, but, hig-,”.

The priest gives the young man a stern look, “ That is all.”.

“Yes, high-priest.”, Con says as he walks away mumbling under his breath.

With Con taking the lantern with him, the group is left in darkness, before the high-priest chants a short spell and a ball of light grows in his hand, filling the room in a dim light. Marigold grins at the high-priest and rushes to him, throwing her arms around the old man in a hug, “ Oh, Tommy! It’s good to see you!”.

The high-priest laughs and returns the hug, “ I keep telling you if you are not going call me by my title, then at least call me by my name, Thomas. And its good to see you too.”.

Nora steps forward and clears her throat, the high-priest , Thomas, to look in her direction. The priest breaks off the hug and steps closer to the hunter, “ Oh yes, sorry. I am Thomas, the high-priest of this temple. It is nice to meet you.”, then looking at everyone else adds, “ Its nice to meet all of you. I have been excepting you.”.

Igneous speaks up, “ You said that but, how could you?”.

Smiling , Thomas looks to Igneous, still covered by the wolf pelt, “ That is a good question, but why don’t we continue this conversation somewhere a little more private.”.

At these words, Thomas turns and begins walking down the hallway, calling over his shoulder, “ Please follow me.”.

Marigold happily follows behind him, leaving the rest of the group in dwindling light. Looking at one another they shrug and begin to follow behind the man.

Con slams the door to his tiny bedroom behind him. Placing the lantern on his small nightstand. Pacing the thin patch of floor not covered by the bed, he mumbles to himself, “ Stupid, Marigold. Stupid, high-priest, always playing favorites. The bimbo gets to go on special missions and gets do whatever she wants, and I can’t even cast a single spell yet. I get sent here for training and that old geezer hasn’t taught me anything.”.

Caught up in his griping, Con doesn’t notice the light coming from outside his window has grown dim, until his lantern goes out leaving him in complete darkness. Grumbling, Con opens his door to go find a light for his lantern but comes face to face with a dark figure. Still angry, Con barks out, “ And who are you?”.

A sinister, far too large grin spreads across the figures face and with a hollow voice says, “ A friend.”.