SC Book One: Life's Bazaar; Chapter Twelve: Secrets in the Hold
“I think I found something!” Zip announced. This success served to distract the beguiler’s churning thoughts of the last several minutes.
After the strange proposal in the repugnant room of pukestastic odors, the two emerged with Dip wearing the widest grin Zip had seen on his brother in a long time. His twin had always seemed happy, enjoying life. It was one of so many reasons Zip was honored to have shared a womb with him. This, however, seemed to take joyousness to a new level. Dip fairly glowed. Zip couldn’t help but be swept away with his twin’s newfound joy.
Shiore, too, beamed happily, although there was an undertone of bewilderment. Happy, but not sure how it all happened. Zip understood that.
Wrast’s expression as he gazed on his sister, on the other hand, came across as more of a glare. Zip was a bit taken aback at seeing the elf’s extreme reaction of their siblings together. Dip the man not approve of Dip with his sister? Heat filled his head even as his stomach churned. He wasn’t sure whether to bite off the man’s heat at the seeming slight of his brother or feel sick and hurt at the revelation that the elf might have a bias against kender that would include him. Had be been wrong to be attracted to the gorgeous blond?
Surprisingly, Shiore glared back at him, as if to say, ‘This is my life, I’ll date who I want to.’ Thankfully, she was willing to stick up for Dip against her brother. It gave Zip hope for the two of them.
The silent glare was continued on even after they returned to the main hall. At first, Dip didn’t seem to notice, lost as he was in his own blissful little world. Then he smiled faded as he caught the look the two elves shared. He turned to his brother, questions in his eyes, but Zip could only shrug.
Then Wrast growled in that strange language the kender mage had heard him use only twice before, his voice sounding booming in comparison to the unspoken glaring conversation.
“They have a right to know,” came her response in Elven, obviously wanting to bring the rest of the group in on whatever conversation they were having. Zip’s heart pounded painfully against his ribs. What secrets did the elf warrior have that needed to be told?
Wrast responded to her comment in the same fluid language, although by the tone, Zip felt the gist of the response was something like, ‘Do what you want.’ He stalked away, unwilling to speak for himself.
Zip’s gaze continued to follow the elf as he stood a few paces away, cleaning the blades on his arm. If only he could see passed the man’s exterior, if only his eyes could peer into his soul. What would he see there? Where did this hurt lie? Could he even heal it? Why, why did he fall for the broken ones? Zip rubbed his chest, feeling his heart throb and squeeze.
He’d been so involved in watching Wrast that he hadn’t realized Shiore had started talking. Tearing his eyes away from the blond, Zip listened to the girl’s words. “He’s embarrassed by what happened, he’s ashamed that he lost himself like that.” She shook her head sadly. “He always gets like that whenever I get hurt.”
“Well, he’s just worried about his sister,” Dip said with a shrug, “just like I get worried about my brother.”
Zip saw Shiore hesitate, her breath caught as she tried to form an answer. “It’s more than that.” She bit her lip, pondering. “It’s a trained response,” she said at last. “And they found it never worked as well as when I was hurt.”
Zip wrinkled his brow. “They?” Shiore’s eyes widened ever so slightly, apparently saying a little more than she intended. “Who-”
“Not yet. Not here,” Shiore interrupted. She eyed Wrast briefly. “Soon. Later. I just thought you should know this much. For now we should make our way forward.”
It was then decided to start searching the hall for any secret passages out of here. Surely the Malachite Fortress couldn’t consist solely of the elevator shaft, this hall, and one repulsive room. “There has to be more,” Shiore had said, idly fingering the blond lock now tied in her hair. “Whoever built this place didn’t want trespassers and hid the entrance. I suggest trying out in the hall first. I think if we don’t ever have to go back into that room again it’ll be too soon.”
No one could argue that point, although Zip wondered if his brother would have a strange fondness for that room forever after, especially depending on how things went with Shiore. Watching his brother ask her out had been disgusting, but kind of cute, if ill timed.
In an attempt to find a secret passage quicker, they split up, taking different sections of wall. Nardakk took the area closest to the elevator while Wrast concentrated his efforts on the far wall. Shiore checked the section of wall down from where the smelly room sat. Zip took the wall opposite while Ayame searched Zip’s wall, but closer to the elevator room. Although he would have preferred to help Wrast - his section of wall was much smaller and sadly didn’t require additional aid. Somehow, Zip felt the elf would have preferred to search alone even had it been a larger task. It saddened him.
Dip, bored, leapt up to catch the metal bottom of one of the cages, his feet dangling off the floor. Nona, thinking this was a game, jumped and grabbed hold of the second cage, spinning slowly from the momentum of her leap. Despite his brooding thoughts, Zip chuckled. Somehow his brother’s antics always ended up making him laugh.
After a few moments, Nona seemed to tire of her own cage and joined Dip at his own. Obviously Nona had been a rather social cat before she’d been an elf as she seemed to prefer the company of others rather than spending time on her own. Zip couldn’t remember if that was a trait of Elven cats or just specific to Nona.
Ayame chuckled and darted over to the cage from where she’d been checking her wall. With a mischievous grin, the grabbed one of the bars and twisted, spinning the cage like a top.
“Whee!” Dip cried. “Whee - whoa, getting dizzy.”
“Don’t puke,” Zip suggested with a chuckle.
That was when he discovered the door.
“There’s definitely something here,” he called to his friends. A almost imperceptible crack ran the length of the wall. Now if only he could figure out how to get it open. He hadn’t found the switch for it, so he tried yanking and kicking the wall, hoping his efforts would at least bring the door into greater focus. And if he could open it a crack, all the better.
Shiore appeared next to him, examining the crack where Zip had dug in his fingers. “Um, Zip, I hate to break this to you, but there’s nothing there.”
Zip blinked. “Sure there is. It’s just stuck.”
Shiore gave him a patronizing smile. He half expected her to pat him on the head and tell him he was a good boy. “No, there’s really nothing there. See this ‘crack’? It only goes from here to here.” She traced the crack Zip had been prying at from a point just above his knees to a point where her reach nearly didn’t extend to on her tip toes. “There’s also no crack going lengthwise. It’s not a door. It’s just a crack.”
Zip frowned. He’d been so pleased with himself. “Well, it could have been a door,” he sighed. Wrast had turned their way during their exchange, but as usual his face was neutral and Zip couldn’t read the thoughts churning behind his eyes. Great, he probably thinks I’m an idiot. But he turned back to his work, hoping to make up for his mistake.
At least Dip was doing a stellar job of giving him a laugh. Without even waiting for the cage to stop spinning, the blond twin removed the set of keys he got from the ogre from his pocket and reached to put one of them into the cage’s lock. On his first try, it clicked and the door swung open
“Whoo-hoo!”
It was a simple thing for Dip to climb into the cage. Zip had seen his brother do all sorts of climbing, both at home as kids in their town of Cottonblossom and out on their adventures over the last six years. The warrior liked to keep his strength keen and often climbed trees just using his arms with little assistance from his legs. Or he would do tasks one handed - usually his dominant right. It was amusing watching the strange ways he would train himself - and it was just as entertaining when he got them right as when he fell on his face. Zip figured someone had to see him fail so as to keep him motivated to get stronger. Dip was the type to never let a failure keep him from succeeding, not when he set his mind to it. With intellectual pursuits, his brother often gave up at the slightest difficulty, but when it came to his strength and skill as a fighter, Dip wouldn’t let a slip up keep him from his goal.
Zip envied his brother his strength. That trait had never been something the magic user had much of. Thankfully he made up with it for being quick - Dip was quick, too, quicker than most of his much larger opponents, but when it came to a head to head with the two brothers, Zip always out paced his younger twin. He certainly wouldn’t have traded his magic for anything, the power having been his for as long as he could remember, but there were times he’d wished for his brother’s endurance.
Crawling into the seat of the cage, Dip pulled the door shut and locked himself in. The bars were spaced far enough apart that the kender could put his whole arm through, as well as dangle his legs as he sat on the bottom. Replacing the key with a set of lock picks, Dip stuck the pick into the lock and set about releasing himself from the cage.
Shiore had been watching Dip’s escapades as well and gave him a curious but confused smile. The blond shrugged a little sheepishly. “I need to practice more if I’m going to be as good as my brother.”
Zip grinned, remembering how he had also pushed his brother to pick their way out of their locked room back on The Silver Trident, hoping it would help him learn better by doing. Dip had been a little frustrated back on the ship, so Zip was so pleased his little brother was taking the initiative to continue learning on his own. “You can do it!” he cheered.
After a few minutes, however, he heard his brother sigh heavily and he returned the lock pick to his pack, unlocking the door with the key instead. The cage continued to spin. “Ooo, getting nauseous…” When he landed back on the ground, he did so with a little sway, obviously dizzy.
Zip tried not to let his disappointment show. At least he tried.
“Found something!” Wrast announced not much later. He repeated this in Sylvan for Nardakk’s benefit. The orc responded in kind, then added in Common for those who didn’t know the language, “As have I.” Zip realized this was basically him and his brother. And Nona, although anything outside Elven was beyond her comprehension.
“Two secret ways out,” Shiore said, halting the search of her wall. “I doubt there’d be much more than that in this room. One or both of these will probably get us to where the prisoners are.” She eyed each of the companions in turn. “The question is, which one should we check out first?
Zip pondered a moment. “Considering the hallway is long and ends at Wrast’s wall, my guess is that the main complex is behind Wrast’s secret door.”
Shiore nodded. “That was my guess as well. It is likely that Nardakk’s is just a small room, being as it is on the same wall as the ogre’s room.”
“So we should go through Wrast’s door?” Ayame asked, starting to head toward the elf warrior.
Shiore winkled her brow in thought. “Actually, if it’s just a small room, we should check Nardakk’s out first. It’s closer to our way out and if there’s some other creature behind the door like there was in this other room, he could sabotage the elevator to keep us from escaping once we have the prisoners.”
“Or there could be treasure,” Dip spoke up excitedly.
Shiore smile. “Or there could be treasure. In any case, it’s probably the safer of the two doors. I’d rather be cautious than sorry.”
Zip nodded. “Makes sense.”
Once again, they tried to listen to the door, the malachite cold against Zip’s ear. Like before, they heard nothing on the other side. Zip wondered how thick the wall was, it might have been too thick for sound to penetrate. He readied his weapon just in case. They found the secret notch and pressed it. The crack that appeared as the door swung open had been so cleverly hidden in the wall that it was almost impossible to tell that the wall was anything other than what it appeared. A random person that somehow managed to stumble in here might think it was some kind of strange storage area or basement for Jzadirune. If they didn’t know this was a fortress, that must continue on somewhere beyond these walls, Zip might think this was all there was.
Beyond the door stretched a long empty corridor, lit by nothing but what they had at their disposal. Although it was hard to tell as the light only illuminated so far, it seemed the corridor took a turn to the right and continued on. It was a little disappointing. Dip voiced this disappointment with an added frustrated huff. “And I was so hoping for treasure.”
The door held open for a moment or two, but as they gazed down the hall, the door to the passage began to close on its own.
“Whoa!” Dip held out a foot to keep it from closing, but the door must have been heavier than he thought as he added the whole weight of his body behind in order to prop it open.
Zip studied the door, noting the hidden hinges in the wall and a thick metal wire that connected to it and probably the hidden notch. He watched the wire as he pressed the notch again and the bar shifted the hinges on the door to prop it back open again. Seconds later the door started to close again, but Dip was prepared for it. “It’s spring loaded. It closes up on its own if no one touches it, but at least it can be held open if need be.”
Shiore sighed. “Well, leave it alone for now. It’ll be good to know for the future, but you can let it close.” She frowned. “Maybe my guess was wrong. Maybe this is the path that leads into the fortress.” She glanced down at Wrast’s wall. “Maybe that one leads only to a little room. Perhaps the builders took advantage of logical perceptions and decided to play against that.”
“I can see that,” Zip agreed. “Someone could come in here, see the wall at the end of the hall, seemingly a dead and, and search for a secret way only to find that it opens into a secret broom closet. Meanwhile, no one thinks to check the wall by the elevators and the secret entrance into the hold is secure.”
Again, nothing could be heard through the door, but Zip didn’t expect to. He had a feeling there would be little chance of that within the stronghold. Wrast did the honors of opening the door.
After the strange proposal in the repugnant room of pukestastic odors, the two emerged with Dip wearing the widest grin Zip had seen on his brother in a long time. His twin had always seemed happy, enjoying life. It was one of so many reasons Zip was honored to have shared a womb with him. This, however, seemed to take joyousness to a new level. Dip fairly glowed. Zip couldn’t help but be swept away with his twin’s newfound joy.
Shiore, too, beamed happily, although there was an undertone of bewilderment. Happy, but not sure how it all happened. Zip understood that.
Wrast’s expression as he gazed on his sister, on the other hand, came across as more of a glare. Zip was a bit taken aback at seeing the elf’s extreme reaction of their siblings together. Dip the man not approve of Dip with his sister? Heat filled his head even as his stomach churned. He wasn’t sure whether to bite off the man’s heat at the seeming slight of his brother or feel sick and hurt at the revelation that the elf might have a bias against kender that would include him. Had be been wrong to be attracted to the gorgeous blond?
Surprisingly, Shiore glared back at him, as if to say, ‘This is my life, I’ll date who I want to.’ Thankfully, she was willing to stick up for Dip against her brother. It gave Zip hope for the two of them.
The silent glare was continued on even after they returned to the main hall. At first, Dip didn’t seem to notice, lost as he was in his own blissful little world. Then he smiled faded as he caught the look the two elves shared. He turned to his brother, questions in his eyes, but Zip could only shrug.
Then Wrast growled in that strange language the kender mage had heard him use only twice before, his voice sounding booming in comparison to the unspoken glaring conversation.
“They have a right to know,” came her response in Elven, obviously wanting to bring the rest of the group in on whatever conversation they were having. Zip’s heart pounded painfully against his ribs. What secrets did the elf warrior have that needed to be told?
Wrast responded to her comment in the same fluid language, although by the tone, Zip felt the gist of the response was something like, ‘Do what you want.’ He stalked away, unwilling to speak for himself.
Zip’s gaze continued to follow the elf as he stood a few paces away, cleaning the blades on his arm. If only he could see passed the man’s exterior, if only his eyes could peer into his soul. What would he see there? Where did this hurt lie? Could he even heal it? Why, why did he fall for the broken ones? Zip rubbed his chest, feeling his heart throb and squeeze.
He’d been so involved in watching Wrast that he hadn’t realized Shiore had started talking. Tearing his eyes away from the blond, Zip listened to the girl’s words. “He’s embarrassed by what happened, he’s ashamed that he lost himself like that.” She shook her head sadly. “He always gets like that whenever I get hurt.”
“Well, he’s just worried about his sister,” Dip said with a shrug, “just like I get worried about my brother.”
Zip saw Shiore hesitate, her breath caught as she tried to form an answer. “It’s more than that.” She bit her lip, pondering. “It’s a trained response,” she said at last. “And they found it never worked as well as when I was hurt.”
Zip wrinkled his brow. “They?” Shiore’s eyes widened ever so slightly, apparently saying a little more than she intended. “Who-”
“Not yet. Not here,” Shiore interrupted. She eyed Wrast briefly. “Soon. Later. I just thought you should know this much. For now we should make our way forward.”
It was then decided to start searching the hall for any secret passages out of here. Surely the Malachite Fortress couldn’t consist solely of the elevator shaft, this hall, and one repulsive room. “There has to be more,” Shiore had said, idly fingering the blond lock now tied in her hair. “Whoever built this place didn’t want trespassers and hid the entrance. I suggest trying out in the hall first. I think if we don’t ever have to go back into that room again it’ll be too soon.”
No one could argue that point, although Zip wondered if his brother would have a strange fondness for that room forever after, especially depending on how things went with Shiore. Watching his brother ask her out had been disgusting, but kind of cute, if ill timed.
In an attempt to find a secret passage quicker, they split up, taking different sections of wall. Nardakk took the area closest to the elevator while Wrast concentrated his efforts on the far wall. Shiore checked the section of wall down from where the smelly room sat. Zip took the wall opposite while Ayame searched Zip’s wall, but closer to the elevator room. Although he would have preferred to help Wrast - his section of wall was much smaller and sadly didn’t require additional aid. Somehow, Zip felt the elf would have preferred to search alone even had it been a larger task. It saddened him.
Dip, bored, leapt up to catch the metal bottom of one of the cages, his feet dangling off the floor. Nona, thinking this was a game, jumped and grabbed hold of the second cage, spinning slowly from the momentum of her leap. Despite his brooding thoughts, Zip chuckled. Somehow his brother’s antics always ended up making him laugh.
After a few moments, Nona seemed to tire of her own cage and joined Dip at his own. Obviously Nona had been a rather social cat before she’d been an elf as she seemed to prefer the company of others rather than spending time on her own. Zip couldn’t remember if that was a trait of Elven cats or just specific to Nona.
Ayame chuckled and darted over to the cage from where she’d been checking her wall. With a mischievous grin, the grabbed one of the bars and twisted, spinning the cage like a top.
“Whee!” Dip cried. “Whee - whoa, getting dizzy.”
“Don’t puke,” Zip suggested with a chuckle.
That was when he discovered the door.
“There’s definitely something here,” he called to his friends. A almost imperceptible crack ran the length of the wall. Now if only he could figure out how to get it open. He hadn’t found the switch for it, so he tried yanking and kicking the wall, hoping his efforts would at least bring the door into greater focus. And if he could open it a crack, all the better.
Shiore appeared next to him, examining the crack where Zip had dug in his fingers. “Um, Zip, I hate to break this to you, but there’s nothing there.”
Zip blinked. “Sure there is. It’s just stuck.”
Shiore gave him a patronizing smile. He half expected her to pat him on the head and tell him he was a good boy. “No, there’s really nothing there. See this ‘crack’? It only goes from here to here.” She traced the crack Zip had been prying at from a point just above his knees to a point where her reach nearly didn’t extend to on her tip toes. “There’s also no crack going lengthwise. It’s not a door. It’s just a crack.”
Zip frowned. He’d been so pleased with himself. “Well, it could have been a door,” he sighed. Wrast had turned their way during their exchange, but as usual his face was neutral and Zip couldn’t read the thoughts churning behind his eyes. Great, he probably thinks I’m an idiot. But he turned back to his work, hoping to make up for his mistake.
At least Dip was doing a stellar job of giving him a laugh. Without even waiting for the cage to stop spinning, the blond twin removed the set of keys he got from the ogre from his pocket and reached to put one of them into the cage’s lock. On his first try, it clicked and the door swung open
“Whoo-hoo!”
It was a simple thing for Dip to climb into the cage. Zip had seen his brother do all sorts of climbing, both at home as kids in their town of Cottonblossom and out on their adventures over the last six years. The warrior liked to keep his strength keen and often climbed trees just using his arms with little assistance from his legs. Or he would do tasks one handed - usually his dominant right. It was amusing watching the strange ways he would train himself - and it was just as entertaining when he got them right as when he fell on his face. Zip figured someone had to see him fail so as to keep him motivated to get stronger. Dip was the type to never let a failure keep him from succeeding, not when he set his mind to it. With intellectual pursuits, his brother often gave up at the slightest difficulty, but when it came to his strength and skill as a fighter, Dip wouldn’t let a slip up keep him from his goal.
Zip envied his brother his strength. That trait had never been something the magic user had much of. Thankfully he made up with it for being quick - Dip was quick, too, quicker than most of his much larger opponents, but when it came to a head to head with the two brothers, Zip always out paced his younger twin. He certainly wouldn’t have traded his magic for anything, the power having been his for as long as he could remember, but there were times he’d wished for his brother’s endurance.
Crawling into the seat of the cage, Dip pulled the door shut and locked himself in. The bars were spaced far enough apart that the kender could put his whole arm through, as well as dangle his legs as he sat on the bottom. Replacing the key with a set of lock picks, Dip stuck the pick into the lock and set about releasing himself from the cage.
Shiore had been watching Dip’s escapades as well and gave him a curious but confused smile. The blond shrugged a little sheepishly. “I need to practice more if I’m going to be as good as my brother.”
Zip grinned, remembering how he had also pushed his brother to pick their way out of their locked room back on The Silver Trident, hoping it would help him learn better by doing. Dip had been a little frustrated back on the ship, so Zip was so pleased his little brother was taking the initiative to continue learning on his own. “You can do it!” he cheered.
After a few minutes, however, he heard his brother sigh heavily and he returned the lock pick to his pack, unlocking the door with the key instead. The cage continued to spin. “Ooo, getting nauseous…” When he landed back on the ground, he did so with a little sway, obviously dizzy.
Zip tried not to let his disappointment show. At least he tried.
“Found something!” Wrast announced not much later. He repeated this in Sylvan for Nardakk’s benefit. The orc responded in kind, then added in Common for those who didn’t know the language, “As have I.” Zip realized this was basically him and his brother. And Nona, although anything outside Elven was beyond her comprehension.
“Two secret ways out,” Shiore said, halting the search of her wall. “I doubt there’d be much more than that in this room. One or both of these will probably get us to where the prisoners are.” She eyed each of the companions in turn. “The question is, which one should we check out first?
Zip pondered a moment. “Considering the hallway is long and ends at Wrast’s wall, my guess is that the main complex is behind Wrast’s secret door.”
Shiore nodded. “That was my guess as well. It is likely that Nardakk’s is just a small room, being as it is on the same wall as the ogre’s room.”
“So we should go through Wrast’s door?” Ayame asked, starting to head toward the elf warrior.
Shiore winkled her brow in thought. “Actually, if it’s just a small room, we should check Nardakk’s out first. It’s closer to our way out and if there’s some other creature behind the door like there was in this other room, he could sabotage the elevator to keep us from escaping once we have the prisoners.”
“Or there could be treasure,” Dip spoke up excitedly.
Shiore smile. “Or there could be treasure. In any case, it’s probably the safer of the two doors. I’d rather be cautious than sorry.”
Zip nodded. “Makes sense.”
Once again, they tried to listen to the door, the malachite cold against Zip’s ear. Like before, they heard nothing on the other side. Zip wondered how thick the wall was, it might have been too thick for sound to penetrate. He readied his weapon just in case. They found the secret notch and pressed it. The crack that appeared as the door swung open had been so cleverly hidden in the wall that it was almost impossible to tell that the wall was anything other than what it appeared. A random person that somehow managed to stumble in here might think it was some kind of strange storage area or basement for Jzadirune. If they didn’t know this was a fortress, that must continue on somewhere beyond these walls, Zip might think this was all there was.
Beyond the door stretched a long empty corridor, lit by nothing but what they had at their disposal. Although it was hard to tell as the light only illuminated so far, it seemed the corridor took a turn to the right and continued on. It was a little disappointing. Dip voiced this disappointment with an added frustrated huff. “And I was so hoping for treasure.”
The door held open for a moment or two, but as they gazed down the hall, the door to the passage began to close on its own.
“Whoa!” Dip held out a foot to keep it from closing, but the door must have been heavier than he thought as he added the whole weight of his body behind in order to prop it open.
Zip studied the door, noting the hidden hinges in the wall and a thick metal wire that connected to it and probably the hidden notch. He watched the wire as he pressed the notch again and the bar shifted the hinges on the door to prop it back open again. Seconds later the door started to close again, but Dip was prepared for it. “It’s spring loaded. It closes up on its own if no one touches it, but at least it can be held open if need be.”
Shiore sighed. “Well, leave it alone for now. It’ll be good to know for the future, but you can let it close.” She frowned. “Maybe my guess was wrong. Maybe this is the path that leads into the fortress.” She glanced down at Wrast’s wall. “Maybe that one leads only to a little room. Perhaps the builders took advantage of logical perceptions and decided to play against that.”
“I can see that,” Zip agreed. “Someone could come in here, see the wall at the end of the hall, seemingly a dead and, and search for a secret way only to find that it opens into a secret broom closet. Meanwhile, no one thinks to check the wall by the elevators and the secret entrance into the hold is secure.”
Again, nothing could be heard through the door, but Zip didn’t expect to. He had a feeling there would be little chance of that within the stronghold. Wrast did the honors of opening the door.