Farah and the Dragon's Orb Chapter 1
Farah and the Dragon’s Orb, Chapter 1Farah studied the opalescent sphere on the pedestal before her. The golden cloth nest it sat on was curious, reflecting the light onto the sphere itself, although there was no source of the light she could see. She touched the cloth lightly and pulled her paw back.“Come on, ferret! What are you waiting for?” The sorcerer who had hired her, a boar in a dark purple cape with a jeweled pattern of the stars on it, stood behind her by the chamber’s entrance. He had insisted on coming with her into the underground temple to retrieve this very artifact (for which she had charged him double). She rolled her eyes, then grinned.“How did you ever have the patience to learn magic, Potshar?” she giggled, tail twitching. “If you want to lift it off the pedestal yourself, be my guest. Just let me get a head start out of this deathtrap, ok? I’d rather figure out the trigger this little bauble you favor is resting on before retrieving it. But if you already know how to bypass it…”“No, no, no. I’ll wait, mistress thief.” Potshar clutched at the torn sleeve of his garment, a ready reminder of the third time Farah had narrowly rescued him on the way in. “I should’ve charged him triple,” she thought.“Alright then. The pedestal has a balancing weight system. Too much or too little, and all sorts of nastiness might just decide to happen. Stay right where you are and I’ll get it what it needs so I can get you what you want.” She retraced her circuitous steps to the edge of the chamber and pulled out a small bag from her equipment belt. Gathering stones from the edges of the cave, she proceeded to fill the bag.“Ah, counterweights? You need more?” Potshar took a step forward to pick up a fist-sized rock in the center of the tunnel they had come in through.“No!” Farah turned to him with a start, pointing with her finger to stop him where he was. “Leave it there. That one’s sitting on a pressure plate, waiting for someone to kick it aside. Just stay by the door, right where I left you. This is why you had to pay half upfront. I don’t know why you insisted on coming with me. I told you I work better alone.”Potshar took a careful step back to where he had been. Once there, he put his hands into his vestments and shrugged.“This would be easier if I knew what that sphere of yours was made of,” the experienced thief said as she continued to fill the bag.“It contains power. A power that only a great mage can release in precisely controlled ways. Anyone without the skill could find themselves consumed by its power.”“Not helpful, Potshar. I’m just trying to guess its weight here, not penetrate the cosmos. Is it heavier than gold? Lighter than a lizard?” She looked back at the orb glowing in the golden light.“The scrolls didn’t say what it weighed. But they indicate it to be held in one hand.”“Wizards aren’t known for their physical strength, so that’s a little helpful. Thank you.” She added a few more stones to the bag and returned to her place before the pedestal, treading lightly around the various pressure plates, weak stones, and tripwires she had avoided in her original, slower approach.Standing in front of the sphere, she reached up with one hand on one side of it and the bag of stones on the other. Then stopped. She gave the cloth a cautious tug on one side. The edge came out with her fingers. There was a loop.“Huh.” She studied it a bit more, tail twitching, ears cocked forward.“What? What?” Potshar stood as tall as he could, trying to see around her without moving from his spot.“It’s sitting on a bag.”“Forget the bag! Get the sphere!”“The bag has some sort of writing on it.”“Get the bag! Get both!”“Thought you might say that.” She grinned and worked the cloth up from its nested pile around the sphere with her one hand. The golden cloth was cool and smooth to the touch; the fine fabric was tightly woven and appeared to be quite strong. In a deft move, the sphere in its bag was replaced with her bag of stones. She stood there for a moment, the golden bag now swinging slightly in her paw.The pedestal remained stationary. She turned to face her employer, prize in hand, and began to retrace her steps to the entrance. The bag was heavy for the size of the sphere. It would be hard for her to hold it in one paw for long. A slight grating sound could be heard.She turned to see the pedestal unmoved from where it was. But the light that had come from the nested bag and sphere was no longer there.“That can’t be good…”Farah dropped to the floor as a series of darts shot out from the walls, narrowly missing her as she narrowly missed touching a pressure plate with the heavy bag. There was a crack and the floor around the pedestal started to collapse, dropping down into a rapidly growing abyss. Immediately she was on her feet and running the pattern back to the tunnel. The last stone gave way as she leaped out of the chamber.“Come on!”She grabbed Potshar’s hand and pulled him from the edge of the growing pit. Coming to his senses he ran with her, the dust and noise following them for a short distance before they left it behind. A little further on, and he pulled on her hand to stop and rest.She dropped his hand as they came to a halt. “I guess we’re far enough. Not that there aren’t more traps we need to avoid to get out of here, but who knows what else might have been triggered or changed by that mess? We need to keep going - rest when we get outside.” Farah began to walk.Potshar nodded, panting heavily, and followed her through the tunnel.She stopped when they came to where a large crossbow bolt was stuck in the stone, a reminder of an earlier near-miss for Potshar.“Let me have the sphere,” he said.“Uh-uh. Not until we’re out and you pay the rest of my fee.” She wagged a finger at him. “You know, I really ought to charge you extra for saving you from yourself.” But she was smiling. This had at least been a bit of a challenge, something she had felt missing of late. If the sphere held any power, it hadn’t displayed it so far. Not that she wanted it; such items were usually cursed.“Well, we are almost all the way out and this trap has already been set off, so no need to worry any longer. Here’s your coin.” He pulled out a bag that was far heavier than the one she carried.“I’d wait if I were you. But the customer is always right,” she chirped sweetly and held out the golden bag in exchange for his. She checked the contents then hung the bag of coins on her belt.“Yes!” Potshar peered in the bag at the orb and took three steps towards the exit of the cave.There was a click and Farah lunged back while Potshar jumped forward. A widening chasm grew between them, the floor falling away. Potshar ran on, not looking back.Farah was scrambling to stay out of the growing hole. Pulling out her hook and rope she swung it as the floor gave out from under her. It clinked against a stalagmite and caught hold as she dropped. Swinging on the rope she crossed the pit and slammed into the opposite wall.“Oof," she grunted, her shoulder smarting from the impact. "That’s going to hurt in the morning.” Reaching the tunnel, she retrieved her hook and returned it to her belt as a large wall fell into place by the edge of the pit she had just climbed out of. She jumped from the near miss and ran down the tunnel. This place had more traps than any she had encountered before. It didn’t take her long to catch up to Potshar.Or rather, what was left of him. His head was on the floor, the sphere in its bag a short distance away. His body was not to be seen. She picked up the golden bag. If it had been worth two bags of gold to him, it had to be worth something to someone else as well.“Here’s the thing with having an obsession,” she told Potshar’s head. “It’s best to have objective heads handle it for you.”She turned the corner to look down the tunnel for the exit and found it blocked. “There has to be another way out,” she said as she examined the walls of the passageway. Her sharp ears caught the sound of water flowing. “I don’t remember hearing that before when we came in here.”Her feet felt wet. The cave was flooding! A glance revealed no pathways nearby, air rushing through a thin crack in the ceiling as the water rapidly filled the chamber.Farah always figured that someday her luck would run out. At least it was during an adventure and not some mundane theft. Not that she wanted to drown trapped in a cave.“What was it about you that someone wanted to protect so badly to create all of these traps?” she asked the ball, pulling it out of the bag. The writing on the inside of the bag caught her attention.“Pull the ring when you go, or remain from whence it came.The ring from the torus squashed from the sphere,will take you there from here.”“Well, that’s helpful,” she said to no one. “What’s a torus? And squashed from the sphere… This thing seems pretty solid. How do I squash it?” She set it on the floor, the water already a few inches deep, and pushed on the top of it.To her surprise, it did compress down and the outer edge expanded into the shape of a doughnut. Pushing harder on it, she used both hands to spread it further out and it expanded quickly. The low light didn’t let her see inside it, however as the water became higher than the ring was tall, it began to pour into it.But it didn’t fill up. The water level continued to increase and more poured into the created hole. Farah reached into it, felt pulled in and she tightened her grip on the ring as she went through headfirst. She pulled the ring in after herself and the water stopped flowing from the chamber, but she continued to hear it rushing around her. Her sense of up and down reversed and the darkness of the cave exchanged for the starlight of a clear, moonless, summer night sky. She realized she was standing in a large, running fountain.The ring quickly shrank back into a sphere that she picked up. Looking around the fancy fountain she was standing in, Farah walked to the edge and stepped out, her cloak and fur creating a puddle of water around her. Placing the sphere on the smooth blocks of the empty street, she pushed in on the center of the sphere again. Nothing happened. She placed it back in its bag and hung it from her belt, opposite her bag of gold.It was evening in a darkened square. This was a much nicer neighborhood than she normally stayed in, one that probably had plenty of opportunities for a thief like her when she wasn’t soaking wet and aching, but it looked different from her city. Over the rooftops she could see a very tall wall with lights on it at various places which continued as far as she could see past the buildings. Not recognizing the fountain, the square, or any of the buildings around her, she headed for the shadows.She wasn’t worried. Sure, it was night when it was supposed to be day, she was wet and sore and tired, and in a strange walled city, but she had made it out of that temple of traps with the orb and two bags of gold coins and it had at least been a challenge. To be honest, Potshar had made it more of a challenge by being with her, and she had warned him to let her go alone. It just wasn’t good business to lose your client during a job, even if he had been a pain in the tail.She walked for several blocks in this very quiet part of the city before the neighborhood lost its affluent feel. All of the streets were wide, smooth blocks, even in the middle-class area she was in now. She was ready to find an inn and dry off properly.A quiet whimpering sound from an open stable door caught her sharp ears. She peered inside to see several street urchins surrounding a smaller youth, a solitary lamp lighting the place, its flame low. Entering silently, she climbed to the loft for a better view while staying out of sight.“I don’t think he’s ready, guys,” came one voice.“Too bad. He survives the initiation or he doesn’t.” The speaker, a young cat with a torn ear and scarred muzzle raised a blade into the air.“I changed my mind. I don’t want to join,” whined the whimpering voice, a tiny young ferret dressed in ragged clothes.“Clamp his jaw shut! You came. You’re in, or you’re dead,” answered the cat.Farah threw her hook to a far rafter where it took hold. The noise caused all of the youths to look its way and she swung on its rope over their heads, kicking the cat’s blade from his paw as she grabbed the young ferret from their midst.“Stay here,” she told the kit as she returned to the edge of the loft to face the motley crew below.“The initiate has a mommy after all?” the cat sneered. Several of the youths were now holding blades of their own.“Please. I advise all of you to leave this place at once. You do not want to mess with me.” Farah stared down at them and pulled out her short sword.“Cavalier?” one of them asked.“No,” said another. “She’s a thief.”“But she’s not of the guild,” spat the cat. “Which means she’s a rogue. And dead rogues bring rewards! Get her!”A few of them started climbing the ladder towards her. She pushed it away and they fell into the hay below. But a rat, fox, and the cat had climbed up another way, rushing her with their blades.She parried them easily, and hit the rat on the back of his head with her pommel, knocking him to the floor of the loft in an unconscious heap as the fox grabbed a pitchfork. The cat ran to the kit as the young fox jabbed his pitchfork at Farah.“You’re too young and cute to be doing this kind of thing,” she said as she hit his hand to break his hold from the improvised weapon. “Night-night, sweetie.” She clocked him on the head, sending him to the hay like the rat.The cat grabbed the young ferret and held his dirty knife to the kit’s throat.“The guild will have your head, lady,” he said as he pulled the kit back with him. More of the youths had returned the ladder and were climbing up into the loft.“I have to steal something of worth from inside their region to earn their wrath. I haven’t done that here yet.” She swung her blade in an arc around her, causing the rest of them to back off.“You stole my recruit.” The cat continued moving back in the loft. Farah could see the window he was heading for, and the kit was not as tightly held as before. The cat only had one small blade - Farah clearly worried him more than his hostage.“Someone who doesn’t want to be recruited isn’t a recruit. He’s a prisoner,” she said.The kit bit the cat on his wrist, causing him to throw the little ferret down. Farah closed the space between them, knocking the cat on the head and taking his knife before grabbing the kit. As the rest of the gang rushed towards her she jumped from the window.She grinned as they landed in a hay wagon below. The young cat had given her so many clues he could’ve written her a letter and it wouldn’t have been more clear.“Come on,” she said to the kit as she pulled the block from the wagon’s wheel. “Let’s get out of here.” The wagon moved away from beneath the window and hit a post a few yards beyond the building. No one else would be exiting that way, but they could be coming from the door on the other side. She ran away into the night with the kit in her arms as the local watch descended on the stable with whistles blaring.She didn’t know how or why the watch had arrived on the scene but as long as they were focused on the young gang inside she wasn’t going to worry about it.A few blocks later she stopped in a narrow street of stairs and set him down. “Let’s get you home. Where do you live, kit?”“That was amazing, lady! Are you one of the secret heroes of Burg Leo?” The youth’s eyes sparkled with excitement in the starlight as he walked with her. His clothing was too big for him, its seams frayed and with holes at his elbows and knees.“The…? I’m just passing through, kit. How’d you get pulled in to that crowd?” Farah had never heard of Burg Leo.“I… I was looking for something and went into the Cat’s Playground. It’s a garden here in the city with trees and fields. They call it that but anyone can go there. A badger boy told me he could bring me to a place to live and we ended up in that hay barn. I don’t know where he went. How come you smell like a fountain?”Farah’s clothing was still wet. “A little adventure from before.” She grinned, brushing off some remaining hay from her damp cloak. “Where’s home?”“It’s around.” The kit looked at the ground, then away, down the stairs from where they were.“Around? Don’t you think your family will be worried about you?”“I guess.”Farah was relieved that he at least had a place to go to. “Well, let’s go ‘around’ to where your home is and get your there before they call the watch to look for you.”“The watch? Oh, you mean the night guard.” The little ferret looked up and down the crooked alleyway of stairs. “Home’s this way.” He pointed down the stairs.“Lead on, sir kit,” Farah giggled as she bowed before the little guy, sweeping her arms wide. He stared at her.“My name’s Fetz, not kit. And I’m not a sir. I’m not anything. Not Freeborn, not Fields, not a Tradesman. Nothing.” Head down, he started to walk down the stairs and Farah followed.“You’re certainly not ‘nothing’ Fetz.” She walked alongside him.“Might as well be. I’ll never get into that gang now and if you don’t get in a gang, you can’t get into the Thieves Guild. They only take on gang members who don’t get arrested.” He plodded down the stairs, turning when they opened up onto another street.“Do you know what do they do here to youngsters like those we left behind?”“If nothing is known about them and no one claims them, usually someone takes them to be a field worker or to work in the mines far away. Oh look, the market’s setting up for the day.”Despite the darkness of the night, a few carts were pulling into a large square that had tents, tarps, and stalls. People were unloading fruit, vegetables, cheeses, and other wares from the carts.She glanced down at her little companion. “I could do with a bit of cheese and an apple. How about you, Fetz?”“Really?” Fetz looked far happier than a moment ago. “Yes, please!”Approaching a fat rabbit lady dressed in blue who had cheeses piled on a table as she sorted boxes behind it, Fetz ran up to one large wheel of cheese and inhaled deeply. Farah asked, “What’s the rate for a couple of wedges of this cheese right here?”“Market’s not open yet,” came the reply. “Come back at daybreak. It’ll be a few hours.”“We’ll be in a different part of the city,” Farah responded. “I’ll have to buy it somewhere else then.”“Ok, hold up.” The rabbit lady turned to look at the two ferrets and sniffed. “You’re not from around here, are you? The kit might be, but you’re not.”“Does it matter, if I have coin?” Farah asked.“If it’s a coin of the realm, honestly earned, I suppose not.” The rabbit pulled out a small talisman. “Let’s see your coin.”“You haven’t set the price yet,” said Fetz. Farah looked down at him, puzzled. The rabbit put her hands on her hips.“So I haven’t. Alright then, half a copper for a wedge this size. That’ll cover the fine I’ll have to pay for business before the market opens.” She pulled out a cutter that fit the wheel and with a grunt, pushed it down on the cheese, neatly dividing it into sixteen perfect wedges, each a good meal on its own.Farah reached into her bag. “All I have are these gold coins.” She displayed one of the coins Potshar had given her.“This isn’t a coin of the realm.” The rabbit held the talisman near the gold piece in Farah’s paw. It glowed a faint green. “But it was honestly earned and real gold. Go to the exchangers and bring back some coppers of Burg Leo and we can make the deal.”Farah blinked. She had never seen a talisman like that, nor heard a refusal for gold no matter what the source or time.“The exchangers' office won’t open until well past the first quarter of the day,” Fetz said. His stomach growled loudly, and he hunched down to cross his arms over it.“I don’t deal in foreign money, kit,” said the rabbit, shaking her head, ears twisting slightly with the motion. “And even if I did, I don’t have the coin to exchange for the balance of a gold one.”“Tell you what,” said Farah. “I give you this in exchange for your cheese, a few apples, and a balance of local coins plus your service in getting this exchanged at a later time. You’ve already verified it was good.”“I don’t know what they’ll exchange for it. And I don’t make the value of a gold coin in a full month of selling cheese and fruit.”“Check the weight,” Fetz spoke up. “You know what a golden Leo weighs? We can figure the value from that, deduct the cost of your goods and services, add a portion for your profit and taxes, and unless the exchanger is cheating, you’ll come out ahead.”Farah stared at the kit. How could one so little know so much about money and trade?“It’s more than a fair deal, and the kit here could use some new clothes,” Farah added, looking back up at the lady.The rabbit lady looked at the two of them, her arms crossed. A few others had become interested in the transaction.“I have some clothes that will fit him,” said a wolf.“Would you be interested in some vegetables?” asked a dog.“Perhaps the lady would like a new cloak for herself?” asked a fox. “We can keep tally and still pay the fines for early opening with a coin like that. Come on, Bella. It’s a good start for the day.”“What do you say, Mistress Bella?” asked Farah, still holding out the gold coin.“Let me get my tally sheet,” the rabbit responded with a sigh. “But no backing out, now.” She wagged a finger at Farah.“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Farah answered, smiling as her tail twitched.A short time later, with new clothes on Fetz, a fresh green cloak on Farah, plus a sack of food each and some coins of Burg Leo in her pouch, the two of them walked away from the market well fed and feeling good. It was still quite dark and the streets away from the market area were quiet once again.“I think you have a good mind for trade, young man,” she said to the little ferret once they were several blocks from the market. “Where did you pick up all that about exchangers and values?”“Numbers come easy to me,” Fetz said. “But not magic. No one will hire a ferret accountant, and the engineering maths requires time in the university, even without the magical training that’s normally required for that. I could never go there. And now that I didn’t join Scruff’s gang, the Thieves Guild is out, too.”“Aren’t you a little young to be planning out your life? You’re a smart kit, but you have some living and growing up to do before making those decisions. And if… accounting… is what you want to do, if you’re good enough someone will want to hire you for your abilities.”“Maybe. But everyone thinks ferrets can only be thieves. How did you get past that?” he asked, looking up at her.“Well, I am a thief.”“But… but you earned the coin honestly. The talismans are never wrong.” he shook his head.“I did earn it for a job I did. No thievery involved.” It wouldn’t help to explain her thieving skills had been put to use in the job. The temple had been abandoned; the orb had been up for grabs.“So you are one of the heroes!” Fetz looked up at her again, his eyes big.“Please. No heroism exists in me. I’m a thief and I get hired to do jobs others can’t do. My loyalty ends when the job is paid for.”“It must have been a very difficult job to have been paid a gold coin for it,” Fetz looked away at the houses down the street.“It took a bit of effort, yes. But I think gold is worth more here than where I’m from.”“That must be a very rich land,” said Fetz. “Burg Leo is one of the richest realms in the known world, and it takes most people weeks and weeks to earn a single gold coin, even if you exclude expenses. This is it.” He pointed to a lower-middle-class house with a pawn shop at the street level.They had walked quite some distance, although there was still no sign of the coming dawn.Farah knelt to look Fetz in the eye. “Promise me you’ll stay away from gangs like that. They’re not going to help you; they only want to use you. I want you to share this food with your family and you can keep this bag of copper coins as well. You have everything?”“Thank you, Miss. You’ll always be a hero to me.” Fetz dropped everything on the front porch and hugged her.She kissed him on his head and hugged him back. “Goodbye, Fetz. I’m sure you can be a hero for someone else someday, in your own way.”As she stood up, Fetz gathered the sacks and went around the corner of the house to the back yard, pausing to give her another look as he turned the corner.Farah shook herself as if she had a chill and started walking down the street. Her leather armor was dry, but she wanted a bath and a place to stay. If gold was worth that much here, she should be able to afford a very nice place for a while, but she’d rather get back to her room at the Rusty Dagger.A few blocks later, the neighborhood not half as nice as where she had left Fetz, a silent shadow ran in front of her, ducking into an alley. Farah drew her blade.A cloaked fox dropped from nowhere silently in front of her. Crouching in the dark street, her one arm stretched out from her landing and hood hiding her eyes and ears from Farah, the smiling face turned up slightly to look at her.“A rogue thief who does good deeds for children? One who does honest work for pay? I believe I may have a job for you, Miss Ferret, if you are up to it.”
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