Underkeeper

Bernt’s work schedule was standard for all Halfbridge maintenance workers—one day off per week, plus an additional three days’ break each month to manage personal affairs. Normally, Bernt used his free time to practice spellcasting, teach at the old orphanage, and, on occasion, actually relax a little.

He wasn’t opposed to leisure, really. It was just that most leisure activities cost money. Going out for a proper meal, or worse, a date, would easily wipe out whatever money he’d saved that week.

Now, though, it was time to spend some of his savings. He had two days left to work before his monthly break, which was when they would enter the dungeon. Before he did that, he needed to go shopping.

So, instead of relaxing that evening, he lifted a loose floorboard under his bed and extracted a moderately heavy pouch of coins. Tying it to a cord, he hung it around his neck, tucking it into his robes in hopes of hiding it in the folds. People wouldn’t normally try to rob a mage, but there was no sense in tempting fate. His recent encounter with that kobold in the sewers had shown him just how little he really knew about fighting.

Checking his robes one last time, he left his room and headed toward the Gateside Market. It was located next to the Adventurers’ Guild office near the city’s north gate, in an area casually referred to as the Adventurers’ District. Jori ranged ahead in the darkness, keeping an eye out for him, just to be safe.

Going into a dungeon would be a big risk—one that would kill him if he didn’t invest in some adventuring equipment. He’d have an experienced adventuring party at his back, but they were also outclassed. He didn’t have the funds to get everything he needed, but he reasoned that some equipment would be better than none. The potential payoff was worth it.

Kobolds were born miners and loved gold and jewels almost as much as their dragon ancestors. If nothing else, he should be able to loot enough to significantly shorten his remaining tenure with the Underkeepers. If he was lucky, he might be able to start his adventuring career immediately.

But that alone wasn’t worth risking his life. He was willing to put in the time if it meant reaching his goal without getting killed on the way. But this dungeon had something he couldn’t get with just time and effort. Magical knowledge was expensive and hard to come by. Each guild jealously guarded its knowledge, and the Mages’ Guild was, if anything, more paranoid about it than the rest. Even their library likely only had orthodox texts designed to help mages develop along the well-trodden paths of their predecessors.

Not to diminish orthodox magecraft, of course. There was a lot to learn there. Bernt wouldn’t have minded getting his hands on an exhaustive pyromancy tome just to broaden his knowledge and to give him a better idea of what was possible. This subterranean dragon, though, might as well be from another world. For all he knew, this dungeon could contain the magical secrets of the dark elves or even more exotic peoples. If it was truly just a young wyrm, the texts likely wouldn’t be anything truly ancient—but even a young dragon might be over a century old, plenty of time for such a powerful creature to amass a hoard.

For someone like Bernt it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. He needed it. And he just… wanted to see what was in there. Any mage would, right? This was their entire calling, in a way. No wonder Therion was so eager.

Though night had fallen by the time he arrived, the Gateside Market was still bustling with activity. Unlike the relatively homogenous population of the city, humans, elves, dwarves, goblins and a few more exotic peoples mingled here, buying and selling whatever an adventuring party might need. Bernt knew how provincial Halfbridge was, so the diversity here today surprised him.

The nearest nonhuman settlement that he knew of was a smaller dwarf town two days’ travel down the river. A few goblins lairs might be closer. They dotted the countryside almost everywhere. There used to be conflict with goblins all throughout the realm, but about thirty years earlier the previous king launched an extensive diplomatic and economic campaign to integrate them into the realm. Today, interactions were mostly peaceful, and many goblins lived and worked in larger cities. Everyone else would have had to travel some distance to get here, though. Maybe word of the dungeon had spread.

There were small stands selling just about everything, but the good stuff was to be found in permanent shops that framed the market square.

Bernt’s first stop was an enchantress. He’d been thinking about his initial adventuring purchases for years by now, so he knew what he wanted to get. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the funds he’d planned for, so he had some hard choices ahead of him.

Opening the door to the sound of tinkling bells, Bernt stepped inside. The walls were lined with shelves holding wands, bracelets, amulets and all kinds of other enchanted items, from staves to hairbrushes.

“Can I help you?” a nasally voice asked.

Bernt turned to find an elderly woman manning the counter. She was staring down her nose at him, nose wrinkling.

“Ah, yes. I’m looking for a protective item, preferably with a skin-hardening enchantment.”

The shopkeeper, presumably the enchantress, smirked at him.

“Are the rats biting too hard?” she sneered. “You can find what you need out there. No need to stink up my shop.”

Bernt furrowed his brow. “No… I’m looking—”

“Out!” she barked, and Bernt flinched. Well, then, it was going to be like that.

He stepped back out into the street, berating himself. He shouldn’t have worn the Underkeeper’s robes. He hadn’t even thought about it. Should he go home and change?

He wasn’t sure he had anything else that fit anymore. It wasn’t as though he could wander around in his old academy robes. And he wasn’t planning to buy new robes today—a good set of robes that could hold up to an adventurer’s lifestyle would cost more than he had, and he wasn’t about to spend his hard-earned money on a mere disguise just to appease the sensibilities of a few self-important merchants.

“Hey! In the gray there!” The voice was male, but high-pitched. Bernt looked around. “Yeah, you! Come here!”

He looked lower down, through a group of pedestrians. Seconds later, he found the speaker waving at him. It was a nut-brown goblin with receding gray hair leaning over a rickety wooden table. Still wrong-footed by the enchantress’s rudeness, he walked over. The table was bare except for a small wooden sign that read “Custom ‘chants and items!!!” with no less than three exclamation marks.

“You were out of there awfully quick,” the goblin said conversationally. “Are you not a human? She only serves human clientele.” He squinted at Bernt. “You don’t look like a half-orc or elf or anything, though. What’s the deal?”

Bernt sighed. He didn’t want to discuss this with a random stranger. “No. It wasn’t about that.” He looked around the goblin’s stall. “Where are your wares?”

Goblins weren’t known for their architecture, their music or their crafting skills. Bernt was surprised to see a goblin enchanter and more than a little curious about what one might manage to cobble together.

The little creature cocked his head, squinting at him. “This is an open market full of adventurers. Do you have any idea how many thieves there are here right now? Just tell me what you need!”

Bernt deliberately did not grab for the bag of gold hanging around his neck. He had not considered just how many professional thieves and tomb burglars were walking around here.

After a quick explanation of what he was looking for, the goblin reached into a bag at his belt and pulled something out, then slapped it down on the table with more force than was necessary.

“Boom! I don’t know what you people use here, but this here is a top-of-the-line thorn skin amulet!”

It was garbage.

Specifically, it was a thin blackberry vine woven into a braid and tied into a loop with a leather clasp. Touching it dubiously with a finger, though, Bernt felt that it actually did have some sort of enchantment worked into it.

“It’ll make you a lot more durable for a minute or three, and you get a bunch of thorns growing out of your skin on top! It’s great against unarmed fighters! Come on, give it a try!”

Shrugging, Bernt put it around his neck.

“Of course, it only lasts for a few minutes, and you have to recharge it. You can do that with some of your blood. The thorns kind of hurt, too.”

Bernt wasn’t sure if he meant the ones on the bramble or the ones that were supposed to come out of his skin. But… it seemed a bit late to back out now. With a quick mental command, he activated the “amulet.”

The tiny thorns around his neck dug into his skin before pinpricks of pain erupted all over his body. For a panicked moment, he thought maybe the goblin had tricked him, but just as fast as it came, the pain was gone.

“Pretty neat, right?!”

Bernt held up a hand, examining his skin. It seemed a bit stiffer, but not uncomfortably so. The thousands of bramble-like thorns poking out of his skin, on the other hand, were incredibly annoying. They stuck in his clothes, making every movement awkward. Still, it worked. It wouldn’t stop a proper sword swing, but if another kobold tried to stick him with a knife, it wouldn’t get very far. Plus, the amulet was reusable, which was better than he’d expected from a goblin.

“How much?”

***

In the end, Bernt walked away with the thorn skin amulet, a bag of holding and a single pebble inscribed with a tiny circle of runes that would open an uncontrolled portal to the elemental plane of fire very briefly. The bag of holding had only a small carrying capacity, closer to that of a large backpack than a proper extradimensional vault. On the plus side, it looked like a worn leather bag—the sort one might find discarded at the side of the road. Nobody would be trying to steal it.

In fact, everything he bought from the goblin enchanter, whose name was Grixit, looked more like garbage than enchanted gear. But Bernt could feel the enchantments, and he understood the art well enough to know they functioned more or less as advertised. He also got a great price on it. So great, in fact, that he let Grixit talk him into buying something he hadn’t been looking for.

“Wands and staves are great—durable, lots of room for runes and exotic materials,” he’d said. “But those are all things you have to hold on to. Do you want to be stuck casting spells with your bare hands right after some villain rings your bell and knocks your wand away?” Grixit made a smacking motion with gusto. “No! You need a secondary focus. Something for fast, simple spells that you use to get back on your feet!”

So, now he wore a broad iron ring on his left hand. It was inscribed to function as a generic magical focus, though not a particularly efficient one. But it would do the job if he needed to cast a spell quickly without either of his wands.

Lastly, he needed potions. A few good healing potions, a mana regeneration elixir and a water-breathing elixir were requirements for any dungeon. He was not about to let a goblin make him these, though. Drinking potions made by just anyone could have truly disastrous consequences.

Instead, he went to the market’s alchemy shop. As he entered, he noticed a sign hung on the door with text written in large block letters.

No beggars, goblins, or thief-type adventurers!

Absolutely no warlocks! We do NOT sell reagents for ritual magic!

Underneath in a nearly illegible scrawl stood an addendum: “Wakefulness and Stone Skin Elixirs out of stock.”

That was fine. Bernt didn’t need any of those. He went about his business, ordering what he needed, and the man behind the counter there was much friendlier than the enchantress. That is, until it came time to pay.

“That’ll be twenty-four gold pieces,” the alchemist said with a professional, customer-service smile.

Bernt stared uncomprehendingly.

“Uh… What?” he said. “Your prices are listed right there. It’s eight gold, twenty-one silver.”

The alchemist’s professional smile turned… less professional.

“Ah, certainly that was true. Unfortunately, we’ve recently experienced a spike in our operating costs due to a change in… tax enforcement.” He looked pointedly at Bernt’s gray Underkeeper’s robes. “I believe you’re familiar with it.”

Bernt sighed. Wonderful.

***

Unwilling to be cheated to his face, Bernt left the shop and browsed the open market’s offerings after all. Unfortunately, the off-color potions and strange smells he found out there only validated the concerns he had about trusting his survival to random, non-guild alchemists. Unlike with Grixit’s items, he couldn’t simply test these potions to make sure they worked without risking himself in the process.

In the end, he found himself returning to the goblin enchanter, who offered him a roll of self-adhesive enchanted bandages that looked like he’d made them himself from torn-up old rags. They weren’t as universally useful as a healing potion, but he decided they might be an adequate substitute. Unlike a minor or standard healing potion, they would stop even heavy bleeding almost instantly.

It was an innovation he’d never heard of before, which surprised him. Most healing potions didn’t work quickly enough to save someone bleeding out from a main artery. Typically, adventurers invested in an emergency superior-quality healing potion to cover this weakness, which was incredibly expensive. The bandages, on the other hand, cost him just a few silver. That made sense, considering they held only a modified adhesive enchantment and some kind of blood containment enchantment. Blood magic wasn’t common here in the realm, and Bernt was largely unfamiliar with it, but even he could tell this enchantment wasn’t terribly complex. There weren’t even any runes.

He was happy to have discovered the friendly and rather unconventional enchanter. While he didn’t offer anything elaborate—or really anything that looked like a marketable product—the actual magic seemed solid enough to Bernt. More importantly, the little creature had a practical and affordable solution for everything.

Bernt supposed it fit. Goblins were, as a people, survivalists. They’d never built anything a human would recognize as a real civilization, they didn’t produce any powerful archmages and, as far as Bernt knew, didn’t even have their own writing system. For all that, though, they existed all over the world, on the fringes of greater societies. That made them more successful than many of the peoples who disparaged them, depending on how you looked at it. They were neither weak nor stupid.