20. Chapter 20 The Return #2
Nott reached for the fourth item. A dagger. Single blade, a touch longer than Sif’s standard pair, with an edge that had a faint green sheen in the lamplight. Nott held it by the blade and examined the edge without touching the cutting surface.
“Poison enchantment. The edge applies a toxin on contact. It’s not lethal on its own, but it slows and weakens. One dagger, not a pair.” She looked at Sif. “This replaces one of your current daggers.”
Sif took the dagger and tested the balance, rolling the handle between her fingers, flipping it once, catching it. She held it up to the light and studied the green sheen along the edge.
“A poison dagger is going to be very helpful,” Nott said. “Nothing you cut is getting away clean.”
“Fitting,” Sif said. She was still examining the blade, professional and focused. “I killed her from behind with two daggers. She drops one with poison on it. The dungeon has a sense of humor.”
“The dungeon doesn’t have a sense of humor,” Nott said.
Sif laughed while still focused on the blade. “It gave us a succubus who said she wanted to ride Daniel’s face. That’s comedy.”
Nott shook her head. “That was a predatory hunting strategy.”
“Nott, she said her pussy was wet. That’s funny.”
“It’s really not.”
“It’s a little funny.” I looked at Bjorna. “Come on. A little.”
“Don’t encourage her, Daniel.”
“He always encourages me,” Sif said. She slid the new dagger into the sheath on her left hip and pulled one of her old daggers out, setting it on the table. “There. New and improved. New boots, poison dagger, agility ring. If Verath came back right now, I’d kill her twice as fast.”
“She called you a wet dog,” Liv said. “I’m still mad about that.”
“She called all of us things, and then Sif put two daggers between her shoulder blades.” I grinned. “I think we won that argument.”
“You got cum on your face.” Sif crossed her arms. “Let’s not pretend you came out of that clean.”
“I absolutely did not come out of that clean. That was the worst thing that has ever happened to me in a dungeon.”
“The worst thing?” Liv said. “She was gorgeous. Even I could see that.”
I shook my head. “She was a twelve-foot demon with claws who was actively trying to murder four of the five people I care about most in the world. The gorgeous part was not the main issue.”
“But you did notice the gorgeous part.”
“I’m not blind, Liv.”
“Sif, he admitted it.” Liv leaned forward on the bench. “He thought the succubus was a hottie.”
“I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to kill her or fuck her… at first. Then I changed my tune quickly once the giant fireballs flew out of her hands.”
Sif grinned. “And that’s why she was so obsessed with you. The demon boss fell in love with our healer because he was the first man in centuries who was genuinely conflicted about whether he should stick his cock or a sword in her.”
“I don’t have a sword,” I replied nonchalantly.
“Well, there you have it. He only had his dick to work with.”
“I’ve been getting a lot of practice lately.”
Liv burst into laughter. “Yeah, you have!”
“Shut up, for the love of the gods. Nott, can we see the last item?” Bjorna said. “Before this conversation goes somewhere I can’t take it back from.”
Nott picked up the fifth piece, a pair of boots. They were dungeon-grade, dark leather, with a subtle enchantment glow along the stitching, sturdy and sized for a man.
“Defensive enhancement. Durability, stability, minor resistance to environmental effects. Dungeon-grade footwear.” Nott set them in front of me. “These are yours, Daniel.”
I picked them up. They were heavier than my Mildred boots, built for terrain that wanted to kill you. The leather was dense and the soles were reinforced with something that looked like the same dark stone from The Splits’ deeper corridors.
“I just fought a succubus in town shoes,” I said. “Two days in a dungeon in Mildred’s walking boots. And The Splits boss drops me actual dungeon boots.”
“The System has a sense of timing,” Sif said.
“The System has been watching me slip on lava rock in flat-soled town boots and decided I’d suffered enough.”
“Put them on,” Liv said. “I want to see.”
I pulled off the Mildred boots and put on the new ones. The fit was solid, snug without squeezing. The enchantment hummed faintly against my feet, steady and constant, a low pulse like the healer’s belt.
“Look at you,” Sif said. “Proper dungeon boots. Healer’s belt. Torn robe.” She tilted her head. “You look like a man who’s been through something. Verath was kind when she dropped that for you. Do they smell like her loins?”
“I look like a man whose tailor needs to see him. Look at this rip in my nice new threads.”
“You look good,” Liv said. “Even with the robe all torn up. Maybe especially with the robe all torn up. It’s rugged.”
“Rugged,” Sif repeated. “I like it. Daniel, leave the robe torn.”
“I’m not leaving the robe torn. I have a reputation that needs to be upheld.”
“Your chest hair is showing. Keep it,” Sif offered.
Bjorna cleared her throat. “Nott. Total.”
Nott had been scratching figures on a scrap of parchment while the banter ran. She looked up.
“With the crystals, the materials, the coin, and the estimated market value of the bulk goods, I’m putting us at seventy-five to eighty gold per head. Before the equipment, which we’re keeping.”
The room went quiet.
“80 gold?” Liv said with wide eyes.
“Per head,” Nott said. “The fire-aligned crystals alone are worth more than the entire Cold Hollow full moon haul. The demon hides and fire snake scales push it over. The slime residue is harder to price, but the specialist market will pay well for rare alchemical compounds.”
“Eighty gold each.” Sif leaned back in her chair. “Let’s go shopping.”
Bjorna looked at the spread on the table. The claymore lay across one end, the lamplight catching the dark blade. She’d fought for eight depths and a boss with a weapon that was too small for her, and now she had one that fit.
“We did this together,” she said. “All five of us. Nobody died. Nobody quit. I am proud of every person at this table.”
“Bjorna,” Sif said, “if you make me cry I swear to every god in this world I will stab you with my new poison dagger.”
“I’d like to see you try.”
“With these boots? You wouldn’t see me at all.”
The loot got sorted into keep piles and sell piles. Bjorna stored the sell goods back in her ring. The new gear stayed equipped. Nott’s amulet pulsed at her throat. Liv kept touching her bracers. Sif had the new dagger on her left hip.
Everyone was fading.
“Sleep,” Bjorna said. “Market day tomorrow. We sell the materials, we resupply, we rest.”
Nott went to her bedroom without a word. Liv stretched on the bench and made a sound that was half-yawn and half-groan.
“Daniel, come to bed.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice.”
Sif caught my eye across the room. She was standing near the door with her boots still on and the new dagger at her hip. The campfire look was still there, the one from when the [Bolster] had settled into her body and her eyes had changed.
She held my gaze for a count of three. Then she looked away and pulled off her boots.
“Goodnight,” she said. Her voice was quiet and the teasing was gone from it.
“Goodnight, Sif.”
***
Morning came through the east window and Liv was dead asleep against my chest. Her ears were flat, her breathing deep, and when I tried to move, she made a noise of pure protest and pressed closer.
“Five minutes,” she said.
“You said that yesterday.”
“Five minutes works. It worked yesterday.”
“It didn’t work yesterday. Bjorna dragged us both up.”
“Bjorna isn’t here. Five minutes.” She buried her face against my shirt and her ears went flatter.
I extracted myself with care. Liv made another protest sound and pulled the blanket over her head.
I needed to get the robe to Dalla. Three claw rips through stonethread weren’t something I could ignore, and Dalla was the only person in the Reach who might be able to help.
The torn robe hung over the chair where I’d left it last night, the three parallel rips visible even in the low morning light.
Sif sat at the trestle table with a mug, already dressed, boots laced, her silver hair loose around her shoulders because the leather cord had been lost in Cold Hollow and she’d never replaced it. When I came out of the bedroom, she looked at me and everything else in the room went quiet.
“I’ll go with you,” she said. She’d been waiting.
“I didn’t say where I was going.”
“You’re taking the robe to Dalla. I’ll go with you.”
I picked up the torn robe. “Then let’s go.”
The streets of Halver’s Reach were cool and unhurried in the early morning. A few vendors were setting up carts on the main avenue. The smithy below the apartment was quiet, Larg’s chimney just starting to smoke.
Sif walked beside me and took my hand.
This wasn’t the Sif who made dick jokes at the dinner table or turned every compliment into a bit. She laced her fingers through mine and held on, and her grip was firm and sure.
I looked down at our hands. Her fingers were smaller than mine, the light fur on the backs of her hands a soft ash-gray, her knuckles precise and compact like the rest of her. She didn’t say anything.
We walked.
Dalla’s shop was three blocks south of the smithy, a narrow building with a cloth-draped display window. The door was open. Dalla was inside, already working, her hands moving over a length of fabric on her cutting table.
“Daniel.” She looked up and her eyes went to the robe in my hands. “What have you done to that robe? Bring that here.”
“Not guilty. It was done by someone else.”
I laid the robe on her table. She examined the damage, running her fingers along the three parallel rips, pulling the edges apart to see how deep the cuts had gone.
“Stonethread doesn’t tear like this,” she said. “What did this?”
“Scary monsters in The Splits.”
Her eyebrows went up. “You ran The Splits?”
“We cleared it. Eight depths and the boss.”