The Guards of Galdenwyck [1-4]
As Chairman Taga and Alaric discussed plans to rescue the Electrum Cheves from the sensuous clutches of Clavdia, far to the south, in the Orcish Ghetto of the great city of Avax, where orcs, half-orcs and unfortunate humans lived together in fetid squalor, Gauth Phuiksan and Kadik Andan dined on fish heads and seaweed in Kadik’s chambers.
“I’m telling you it’s true, master,” whined the little drow elf. “Varnic told me a Ring of Lawful Good Speech was stolen from Lord Carrollan’s citadel only 5 Morimutos ago and he knows where it now is.”
“Bah, foolish elf,” shouted Kadik with his mouthful of seaweed, “You cannot believe everything you hear, especially from one of those fiendish dwarves.”
Phuiksan sighed and nibbled around the eye of the fish head in his hand. “Varnic has a very close friend who is a member of Carrollan’s personal guard. That’s where he heard it.”
“Ah, yes, I forgot that lawful do-gooder keeps a personal army of dwarves from Theogard. Perhaps you are correct, but what are you going to do about it?”
“Why don’t we go get it?”
Kadik shook his head. “You’re training is far from complete, Gauth. I would not even let you pick the pockets of a Criton-year-old gnome on the street right now.”
Gauth rose from his seat and stalked off into his tiny room. Kadik decided to leave the dinner mess for the next day and retired to his room to study the writings of Sahaja Chapalataya, the Founder of the Thieves’ Guild. Halfway through the Treatise on the Secrets of Hiding in Shadows he nodded off and awoke only when the brazier’s fire had burned down and left him shivering on his bed. As he went to restart the fire he looked into Gauth’s room, but the little elf was gone.
“That incorrigible elf will learn soon enough that he is not yet ready for any quest, especially a quest involving such a powerful and storied ring. Yet . . . I was bold and brash once, too. If I had that ring when I quested to Aerion, I would’ve been able to steal Lord Carrollan’s Silvern Scepter of Basilisk Slaying, and Xizh would’ve cleansed the Grypton Hills . . . .”
Kadik recalled the tales of the wild basilisks, roaming the hills of Grypton, turning all to stone those who gazed upon their charcoal visages. The saddest tale was that of Lymon the sprite, who had recently wedded his soul-mate, Griselda. Their parents warned them not to trek across the plains of Felch to honeymoon in the Grypton hills, but young love tossed caution into the four winds of Galdenwyck. Everyone knew the basilisks were in high molting season, the most dangerous time to visit. However, Lymon and Griselda were steadfast in their yens to consummate their union in the place where all fourteen moons of Galdenwyck could be seen in one field of vision without turning your head from side to side. No tilting, or panning of your head was required to see all fourteen moons, either.
Just as Lymon had strewn out the holy water and holy symbol of his deity, Sharles, marking the ground of their consummation-to-be, Griselda, while undressing on the far side of the hill, traipsed upon a molting basilisk in the knee-deep grass. Without thinking, she gazed in a linear fashion at the beast’s eyes.
Spritely custom is to await patiently for your bride until she yells, “I have readied myself for the golden fruition that will be your shiny dart of love.” After he watched Clavdia set, Lymon grew nervous, fearing she did not love him anymore. Once this fear is established, it is customary for the groom to hunt for his bride chanting, “My sweet, my sweet, hast thou lost thine lust?”
When he discovered her stolid stony figure, he screamed at the heavens to Sharles. “Why must these events continue to happen to us mere mortals, O! Sharles! I renounce my devotion to you!”
Sharles heard the cry of Lymon, and bade the nearby basilisks to surround Lymon and gaze upon him sternly. He outwitted the god by covering his eyes and booking down the hillside to the hut of Lamuncha the Stone Giant, who devoured him alive.
Of course, those stories were all exaggerations and Kadik often still asked himself why he cared what befell the unfortunate people who populated the Hills of Grypton. Most of them were weasely little halflings, a race he hated above all others. They of the +1 dexterity who chose not to take advantage of their gift while he, a clumsy half-orc with a mace foot, was able to reach the absolute heights of thievery. What he wouldn’t give for the dexterity of one of those hairy little creatures.
And why had he agreed to go after the Scepter of Basilisk Control? Xizh was more than just a simple fighter for he had a 17 charisma and had talked the halflings of Grypton into paying him 5000 gold and Boots of Invisibility if he exterminated the basilisks. Xizh had never believed in using brawn when a little stolen magic would do the trick and thusly, he offered the Boots of Invisibility to Kadik in exchange for the Silvern Scepter. Kadik knew there were only three such pairs of boots in the known world. Crafted by a mysterious sorceress/seamstress many ages before, two pairs were worn by the dark twin Princes of Glax, the city of Chaotic Evil, and the third had been missing since the Wars of Alignment. He knew if he could get those boots, he would be the most powerful cutpurse in all Thiefdom. But that never came to be, and he learned to make his way with his skills and never counted on magick to help him.
The Ring of Lawful Good Speech was a mighty prize, though. With it, one could enter Aerion, and because all its residents were lawful good, nothing was guarded. He had heard stories of how a person who had 500 copper pieces and wanted to change it for 5 gold pieces could just go into a great room in the center of the city full of coins and help himself. Merchants supposedly left their wares out in the open and shoppers would take what they needed and leave their payment in a box.
Perhaps the little elf was on to something. Kadik pulled on his leathern armour and boots and set out to search for Phuiksan.
Kadik ventured out of the Orcish ghetto to find Varnic’s hovel. He was sure to find Gauth there, pouring over some detailed map, plotting with Varnic how to best snatch the Ring. Although Varnic and Kadik were not enemies, two thieves living in such propinquity are rarely allied. It was a small disgrace for Kadik to request any services from Varnic, for the two had long battled for supremacy as the Ffjords’ most renowned thief.
Along the way through the slime-filled alleys and cobbled paths covered in rotten food and rats, he noticed something strange. It was much darker than it should be at this hour. Glancing above, he knew what the problem was immediately: Clavdia was missing.
The orbits of the 14 celestial Guardians are such that no two moons ever eclipse each other. Galdenwyck itself had been known to eclipse other moons, but never for very long, and certainly never in toto. The moons simply moved too quickly in their orbits for a total eclipse to occur. The loss of Clavdia made finding Gauth’s secret back door more difficult.
Once he found the secret door to Varnic’s hovel, he quickly produced his lock picks from his secret pouch at the left shoulder of his leathern armour. Varnic changed his locks, numbering twelve, nightly in a random order to prevent strangers and other thieves from pilfering his loot. By now, it was merely custom for Varnic and Kadik to pick each other’s locks as a formal greeting.
The trick to each lock was always to pick softly. The locks were designed to beguile the brash and bold picker. Kadik had sprung the lock to his hovel so many times that he often knew which lock of the twelve it was by secret etchings he’d placed in the rim of the keyhole.
Any amateur thief would spring the trap quickly by shoving the pick in too deep, and trigger the net above. Many times in his young career did Kadik have to be loosed from Varnic’s net after it fell from the ruddy awning overhead. The memory inspired him to look up at the awning, but to his surprise the net was gone. Surely, Gauth sprung the trap in his eagerness to go questing for the Ring of Lawful Good Speech. There was no telling what embarrassing situation Varnic had him in now.
