Author’s Note: I am well past the 75 page mark of my short story collection. Yes, I promised to alert any reader here as to the progress, but I became so absorbed in the process. I asked myself: Why 75? Why 100? Why not 150? Since the pagination of the project no longer matters (because it is going very well for me), I thought I would allow myself a little fun. I logged onto Dungeons and Dragons (the MMO), dusted off an old character or two, and even invented new ones. Following are the tepid results of my fun time. But be aware, if the MMO sucks away at my time too deeply, I’ll have to uninstall (again). However, I am hoping I can finally balance two worlds: gaming fiction and personal fiction. Let’s see if I can.
I.
Because the harbor is home to undiscovered wealth in the sewers, and because the harbor is honeycombed by sewers infested with kobold who collect such lost wealth, I found the glimmering necklace and its ruby pendant in a decaying trunk tucked away in a kobold hold. It was the only item in the trunk. Blood red, the pendant glimmered at me, defying the filth of the sewer. It was a necklace only the wealthy could afford. It was a necklace only a bold person would wear in public, a person unafraid of thieves, rogues, churls of the first rank. It whispered to me from the bottom of the trunk, a whisper loud enough to hear above the incessant gurgle of the sewer streams, above the hum-hum-drum of mechanized pistons forever pumping in lairs long forgotten underneath my feet.
I put the necklace over my head, letting the pendant tumble to a rest between my breast. The whispers grew louder, the whispers promised, promised power, regality, eternity. I confess a difference in my thinking, my diffident thinking that only an hour before questioned my place in the universe. In my life I have tried to be a cleric, but that life just didn’t work for me. Up early, chop wood, make gruel, bow to the idol in the chapel. How could I spend my life in such a fashion when a life of riches lay waiting in the harbor? Could I not learn to steal? Learn powerful arcane spells from lost scrolls? Could I not continue my divine path alone? Already I knew how to heal my body, how to siphon the powers of the ether throw my body to produce a visible aura. But that was all. I could close wounds, little small pricks, little tiny cuts, but that was all. I wanted more. I deserved more. But the nuns of the chapel were not sharing with a novice suffering through a second year of apprenticeship.
“More? Yes, I can give you more,” the voice in the pendant promised. Her words–the pendant’s–were dazzling, made goosebumps trail up and down my arms, intoxicating me with those purring promises. “I was once like you, my dear,” she said more, “lost, alone, in need. But I found a way. I found the way, and if you follow me, you can be as powerful as I was.”
“Who are you?”
“You want a name? Names are for kings and churls. I offer you power beyond your reach and you question me?”
“Forgive me,” I said, coveting the warmth of the pendant against my skin.
“I shall, this time. You have promise. Listen to me and I shall give you such power as to mock those who pretend to it.”
“I promise then,” I said so quickly. I was hungry. Soul and body collapsing already into her breach.
“We need to go elsewhere immediately. Take me to the marketplace and I shall give to you items of wonder.”
I nodded, knowing she could hear my wordless agreement. I found my way in the dark, back through the labyrinth of filth, back past the kobold nests, back topside where the light of day made me feel oddly nauseous.
“It will pass,” she said, “but you will need to buy a cowl before we travel further on the path. Something to shade your eyes from the sun.”
“I shall do so my lady,” I swore, shrugging off the sickness, accepting it as my ticket to more, so much more.
