rone | e&tg 45 (Reply)

I stood there paralyzed for what seemed like an hour. I heard a grunt and the crossbow was lowered; a black, bushy beard emerged first, followed by the rest of its owner's head, tilted to the side. "You're a bit tall for a halfling."

"And you're rather trigger-happy for a dwarf," i retorted somewhat squeakily.

He snorted, pulled his head back and opened the upper half of the door. "Well, it doesn't look like you're with the munchkins. The name's Ĥavar. How can i help you?" He waved me in.

I stepped through and said, "I'm Mwaele. I have the soil samples from Yeniri." The room had tables all around covered with dirt, rocks, tools, and books. There were strange lamps all around the room that glowed but had no evident flame. "That's a lot of magical illumination you have in here."

"Heh. Not magic." He laid the crossbow on a table and put on some work gloves. "What you see is a few years' worth of trying to capture lightning in a bottle. But no magic's involved."

"Huh." I took my pack off and started fishing around for the samples. "Look, these haven't been preserv—"

"Is that," he tensely interrupted, "a Zekzu Clan elite guard battle axe?"

I turned to look at him; his expression was a mixture of awe, disbelief, and hostility. "In fact, that's exactly what it is. You've got a good eye there."

"Where the hell did you get that? Did you take it off one of their corpses? Did you loot it from the King's Tomb? I swear," he grabbed his crossbow, "i will shoot you right now if—"

"Whoa! Whoa!" I held my hands up. "Will you relax? I got this as a boon from the Zekzu Prince himself, all right?"

His arms dropped, although he still clung to the crossbow. "Prince Feĥog? He lives?"

"He was alive three years ago. I saved his life, so i'm pretty sure about that."

"And that's why he gave you the axe?"

"Well, i did ask him for it." I pulled it from its holding strap. "Do you want to look at it?"