Realms of the Dragons I by Edited by Philip Athans

Author:Edited by Philip Athans [Athans, Philip]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-7869-3394-5
Publisher: Fanversion Publishing
Published: 2018-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Standard Delving Procedure

Lisa Smedman

7 Eleint, the Year of Wild Magic (1372 DR)

Frivaldi strode up to the door. It was massive, made of solid iron, its hinges bolted into the rough stone wall of the tunnel. Its handle was a simple lever. The keyhole under it was shield-shaped. Under the rust that mottled the door’s surface, he could see a raised symbol: a curved hunting horn with a six-pointed star above and below it.

“You were right,” he called back over his shoulder. “It’s the Sign of the Realm, just where you said it would be.”

Durin, several paces behind in the darkened tunnel, grunted.

“Oh come on, Durin,” Frivaldi exclaimed. “You’ve got to be just a little bit excited. Nobody’s been through this door in more than seven thousand years. We’ll be the first dwarves to set foot in Torunn’s Forge since it fell to the goblins. Smile a little!”

“We’re not inside yet.”

Frivaldi waggled his fingers and said, “Easy as splitting slate. I’ve yet to meet a lock that was my match.”

“You, who became a Delver just eight months ago. This is only your second delve.”

“My third,” Frivaldi corrected.

“If it was your one hundred and third delve, it might impress me.”

Frivaldi shrugged off the snide comment. Durin never lost an opportunity to remind him how young he was—probably because Durin was so old. The veteran Delver was a hundred and ninety-seven, well past his prime. His weathered face had a diagonal scar that carved a valley through his eyebrow, nose, and cheek, and the joints of his fingers were knobby with age. His hair—what remained of it—was steel-gray. His beard, which hung in a single braid tossed over one shoulder with its tip dragging on the ground behind him, was as white as quartz.

Frivaldi’s beard, as dark and curly as lichen, had sprouted only the year before. He’d been a late bloomer, celebrating his coming of age at twenty-seven—two years later than most dwarves. He didn’t appreciate being reminded of that fact.

He flipped his long, unruly hair out of his eyes and turned back to the door. He squatted and blew dust out of the lock—and blinked furiously as it stung his eyes. Ignoring Durin’s chuckle, Frivaldi twisted the magical ring on the forefinger of his right hand, causing a prong to spring from the plain iron band. He inserted it in the lock.

Durin interrupted with a cough.

“What?” Frivaldi asked, irritated.

Closing his eyes, he probed the lock’s interior with the prong and located its first pin.

“Standard delving procedure for doors,” Durin said, “is ‘LLOST: Listen, LOok, Search for Traps.’ You looked, but did not listen.”

“For what?” Frivaldi twisted the prong but the pin didn’t shift. Seven thousand years of rust had frozen the lock’s workings. “This door’s a palm’s width thick, at least. There could be a dragon on the other side and I wouldn’t hear it.”

“Nor did you search for traps,” Durin continued.

“It’s been thousands of years,” Frivaldi muttered. “Any traps are going to be frozen with rust.”

He could hear Durin moving away, retreating around the bend of the tunnel.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.