Geraldine picked her head up from where it’d been resting on the smooth oak countertop of her shop. She blinked her blurry eyes as they swept across the shops floor, littered with shelves of herbs, carvings, mysterious baubles, and yellowed texts, trying to identify the source of the bell that had roused her from her mid-day nap.

  A quick squinting of her eyes allowed her to locate her spectacles, having tumbled off of her face as was tradition for the first nap of the day, and she placed them on her wrinkled face before confirming the shop was, in fact, empty.

  With confusion plainly visible on her aged face, she slowly turned her head toward the supply closet as it let out another ding. That bell hadn’t rung since she was a child, many decades ago, causing her to doubt her eyes and ears.

  But unless she was coming down with a mental illness, she couldn’t think of another way to explain away the thrilling silver bell. When the inlayed runes began shining through the door frame though, she was forced to accept the reality of the situation.

  The sound of glass shattering drew her eyes momentarily away from the glowing doorframe as she shot a look of nervousness to her granddaughter, who had just dropped a plate containing the two of their lunches for the day. She waved the young girl over and shushed her as they both watched dust motes swirl in the increasingly bright rays of light emanating from the runes embedded in the door frame.

  Whispered answers to the girl’s unasked questions would come later, lest they inadvertently anger their patron with the girl’s ignorance. It wasn’t Geraldine’s fault that the dungeon had fallen silent for so long that her family believed them dead. Even her own daughter was a nonbeliever who only left Geraldine’s granddaughter in her custody to take advantage of the free child care from the ‘harmless, doddering old lady’.

  Finally, the light reached a crescendo, the bell ringing so quickly it almost sounded like one long continuous note. Then, abruptly, it halted. For several seconds, the shop was filled with silence.

  With a thud, the rusty door hinges gave way and one of the strangest people she’d ever laid eyes on fell out of Geraldine’s supply closet. Which was saying a lot, considering she’d been raised in an underground resistance guild dedicated to the liberation of the Mulberry Grove.

  “Why does he have a chair, grandma?”

  Geraldine smacked the young one over the head for questioning the dungeon’s envoy. It was a good question though.

  If the lower half of his face, plainly visible under his cloaked hood, was anything to judge by the man was far younger than she would have expected. It was a little difficult to tell, though, considering how mud stained it was. The gentleman who was far younger than any active resistance members she knew of was carrying the most eclectic arrangement of gear she’d ever seen.

  He stood around six feet tall, with two carved wooden blades on his back, with a third on his waist if the shape of his artificially weathered cloak was anything to judge by. The bulging also betrayed the existence of an overly-filled messenger bag, which was odd when one took into account the large, ripped backpack that adorned his back, looped over the swords.

  A particularly close stumble, caused by the man attempting to take a step through the doorway and having his staff, stuffed between the two back mounted swords, catch on the door also revealed incredible ostentatious boots upon his feet which were a sharp juxtaposition to the torn breeches right above them.

  It was only the man’s incredibly purple chair that saved him from face planting, combined with the fact that his staff had caught on the doorframe. Briefly, she wondered which noble or churchman he’d stolen the chair from before mentally chastising herself. She’d long since learned to mind her own business in her ripe old age.

  She mentally corrected the stranger’s mental profile to five foot ten after observing the heel of his boots.

  When he bent over to attempt the door way once more, Geraldine realized that the staff was certainly a dungeon-granted relic which went a long way to alleviate the rising anxiety she’d been feeling. The man hadn’t yet uttered the passphrase that begin the exchange of rites, after all. The mysteriously colored dungeon mulberry that adorned the cage atop the staff could belong to only a member of their underground resistance.

  Unless… unless the church had stolen a relic from one of the resistance leaders and was using its powers to hunt them down through the grove-ways. She didn’t recognize the staff, after all, and she hadn’t heard from another member of the resistance in several years.

  Geraldine felt her heart pumping faster and faster as she realized that was a distinct possibility and pushed her granddaughter behind her for safety with withered, shaky hands.

  It was then that the small creature that could only be an offshoot of the dungeon’s weakest spawn popped its head out from his sandy brown, shoulder length hair and stared her dead in the eyes. It seemed displeased that the man’s hood had gotten displaced in his almost-stumble.

  A dungeon-borne familiar was way outside of her paygrade, and she realized the man must be at least a captain in the resistance. It was then that she realized that she was, perhaps, observing something she wasn’t supposed to. After making the sign of the branch and berry with her hand, she ushered her granddaughter into the room behind the counter and followed swiftly, never speaking a word. Just like she’d been taught by her own grandmother, all those years ago.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  -

  Merrick’s attempt to disguise his appearance to the dungeon-guards was immediately disrupted by the fact that the dungeon had deposited him in a bloom closet. His first thought was that the coin he’d tossed had been a well-deserved tip, for sure. His second thought was that he hoped the door was unlocked and nobody reported him to the patrol-guards.

  Thankfully, the door wasn’t locked. Just a little tight, which was nothing he wasn’t able to solve by pushing his body weight into the door.

  He decided it was probably best to keep his hood up, considering his passenger and the fact that he was technically breaking and entering.

  The door opened and Merrick saw a very old woman staring at him with wide eyes next to a young girl, around the age of twelve or thirteen if he had to guess. Neither of them was screaming, which was a good start.

  “Why does he have a chair, grandma?”

  The question made Merrick wince beneath his cloak’s hood, as he was sure it wasn’t going to be the first time he heard that asked. Hopefully he’d be able to negotiate space on somebody’s carriage or cart when he got to the caravan’s gathering grounds.

  For the time being, though, Merrick decided he’d just let the little girl sit in his wonderful chair rather than answer verbally. Once somebody’s buttocks felt the bliss that was his new favorite chair in the world, they wouldn’t wonder why he was carrying it around.

  Naturally, he wouldn’t have the same approach if asked by a large man in case they decided to try and steal his wonderful purple throne. He was pretty sure he could fight off an eighty-year-old woman and a twelve-year-old girl, though. Even as tired as he was.

  Of course, that is when he tried to step forward and almost face-planted. His wonderful chair saved his dignity and he gently set it down and scooched it before backing up and exiting the doorway backwards, slightly slouched over to avoid hitting the staff’s top against the door frame once more.

  By the time he turned around once more, the old woman looked even more terrified than before. Merrick felt a slight rustling in his hair and realized that his hood had fallen down.

  Surprisingly, the old woman didn’t scream bloody murder when she saw the dungeon spawn adorning his neck, and instead vacated the room without asking any questions.

  “There's something odd going down in here, but if they’re not going to ask any questions, I’m not going to be the one to start.”

  Merrick picked his chair up and began weaving his way through precarious shelving units and uneven flooring toward the exit to the store. Thankfully, the door way was tall enough that he was able to exit without too much struggle, likely built tall in the style that was popular in the architecture about two hundred years ago.

  “Oh don’t give me that look, I read about it in a supplementary textbook when I was selecting what vocations I wanted to select for my church-sponsored exploratory apprenticeships. Masonry close enough to crafting and they merge materials together all the time, so I thought it would be a good place to start,” Merrick defended himself from the accusation of weirdness that was plainly visible in his feline follower’s posture after mumbling about the lucky break.

  Unfortunately, the masons who worked with the church had all been hired out for a large project in a different stronghold and he’d lacked the coin to pay his way into a real apprenticeship with any of the reputable masons left. The church had lent him several books on the subject though, and he’d read them all during downtime during the years.

  The alleyway that the shop dumped him into looked vaguely familiar. Merrick looked around and decided it was definitely close to where Rod’s father would buy some of his leatherworking goods between expeditions, as well as herbs and spices for his cooking. It had been several years and Merrick had only been come along to the district once by Rod, deciding quickly not to tag along after receiving a large number of weird looks from the residents.

  The buildings in the area were stacked fairly tall for a non-noble district, most at least three-stories tall, so Merrick had trouble identifying the sun’s location at first. That was, potentially, a good thing since the caravan was scheduled to leave at noon which would leave the sun directly overhead.

  “Fifty-fifty shot then, it’s either not noon yet or the sun has already passed overhead and I need to find a new ride out of town. Thankful, its apogee day which means there should be a series of opening and closing portals to various strongholds and outposts. I just need to slip through one.”

  It was a good thing, then, that Merrick had a large number of herbs he could use as a bribe on the way out.

  Merrick finally found where the sun was and, operating under the assumption that it wasn’t yet noon, used its location to navigate himself toward the teleportation archways. Conveniently located close to the largest marketplace in Steelhearth and, more importantly, Mary’s home.

  By the time Merrick stumbled out of the strange, dusty, older district the dungeon had deposited him in, the sun had visible began inching its way across the sky.

  “Upwards, good.”

  Merrick still had time to make it to the teleportation archways before they went live, if only barely. He didn’t, however, have time to return to his workshop slash home to collect his meager belongings.

  “It’s a good thing that I took all my journals into the dungeon with me. Score one more point for the paranoia, since I didn’t want to risk the landlord breaking in and tossing them out. Hopefully he can get some coin after selling my belongings when he finally decides to evict me, gods above know I’m behind enough on rent. I should also send your daddy a thank you note for giving me so much alchemy gear to replace what I had to leave behind- Ow!”

  His feline friend didn’t take too kindly to Merrick calling the dungeon it’s father, apparently. Or maybe it was the word daddy, which would be fair. It felt uncomfortable to say, even jokingly.

  He was still nursing the little prickly pains in his neck when he stumbled into Mary’s neighborhood and subsequently her father’s estate.

  Not for the first time, Merrick wondered what it was like to have a home that didn’t share a wall with any surrounding buildings. Or a yard, with greenery and gardens.

  *Knock Knock*

  Merrick spent a minute or two knocking and nobody came to the door, which meant Mary must be out and about still.

  “Maybe she’s arranging my funeral?”

  Even the thought was depressing.

  With nobody home, though Merrick wasn’t sure what to do with the staff. He didn’t want to leave it leaning against the building, in case anybody stole it, and he knew Mary’s father was out of town. The two of them also didn’t employee any help.

  With nothing else left, Merrick walked around the perimeter of her home and found her bedroom window, up on the second floor. The trellis was still overgrown with vines, but Merrick knew for a fact that it was trapped to entangle and restrain any would-be voyeurs. Mary had had several incidents with stalkers in the past.

  Thankfully, with his handy-dandy chair to stand on, Merrick was able to leverage the staff’s substantial length to push it over her balcony. Berry first, of course. Merrick would rather passersby see an unassuming stick than a shining mulberry dangling over the edge.

  Subconsciously, Merrick had to admit that the lift provided by the overly gaudy boots was probably the MVP for that maneuver.

  Good luck ever getting him to admit it out loud, though.