Beers and Beards: A Cozy Dwarf Tale

“Let’s start with why’re you all here, Harmsson?” I pointed at the two sticky guards. They’d finally stopped wiggling, but were still breathing.

Harmsson chuckled. “The same thing you are, obviously. Escaping the mess you made.”

“I made!” I snapped. “That was entirely your fault.”

“I didn’t set a trap in a public venue!”

“That was insurance, that you forced me to activate. Don’t try to weasel your way out of this one. I can’t believe you tried to jump-start a revolution during my beerfest. What’s wrong with you??”

Harmsson’s eyes flashed dangerously. “I was thinking about how to best get what we both want for this country!”

I scoffed. “Goatshite! What, fer you to rule it? Fat chance of that now!”

“No! For a more egalitarian society! For more rights for guild members and rights for gnomes!” Harmssons voice was pleading.

“Oh, puhleez, you donnae care about any of that!”

Harmsson sagged. “I did. I do, I really do. But politics is all about compromise and baby steps. And I – I don’t have time for baby steps. The king wasn’t moving, and the Council were outright stonewalling me. I heard two of the Council would be at your beerfest, and with the Duke there too… I saw my chance, and took it!”

I hesitated at that. The tone of his voice was genuine, and he was an old dwarf…

No, no, that was just the high Charisma talking! This was a hard-bitten honey-tongued dyed-in-the-wool politico lying before me, and I wouldn’t give him another inch.

And, it didn’t really matter what his goals were. I was quite certain that he’d set Ambermine on me. I’d given him his one chance. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, won’t be fooled again and whatnot.

I waved his excuses away like they were the bad smell down here. “Forget about all that, I don’t care about yer motivations, Harmsson. Why’re you here.”

He sighed. “I really was just escaping. This was the only key my contacts could get me, since it’s a city access point. Lady Viola and Lord Newcastle stayed behind to keep the army occupied. They have large clans, so they’ll be safe.”

“And you don’t?”

“No… I’m the last of the Harmsson line.” He said, meekly. “And if I die, the hope of change goes with it.”

There was a heavy silence. I broke it by pointing to the two trussed up guards.

“What about those two?”

Harmsson frowned. “They were waiting here for me. I suspect whoever gave me the key also tipped them off. They really are part of the secret police. You should kill them.”

“I’m not killing anybody.”

“You should consider it. They were willing to use a mind controlling Ability on you. They’d only go that far if they planned to kill you. Or silence you some other way.”

I choked. “What??”

Harmsson nodded as best he could. “They work directly for the Council of Greybeards, and have a lot of extra-judicial powers. But Abilities like that are still illegal, so they wouldn’t use it unless they were sure you’d never complain.”

“I’m not sure I believe that.” I poked Harmsson. “You're pretty comfortable with this whole killing thing, aren't you? Speaking of which, why try and kill me, huh? Why send Ambermine?”

Harmsson fell silent, and looked away, not even trying to deny it anymore.

I stared at the miserable little [Politician] while I considered what to do. If the army knew Harmsson would escape this way, they’d be knocking at the door up above sooner rather than later. That meant I had to leave right now.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“You know what? I don’t care about your reasons, or justifications, or you. You aren’t worth my time, Harmsson. I’ll leave you here for the army. Good luck with whatever.” I gave him an ironic salute and headed into the darkness of the cavern.

After I’d gone about ten steps, Harmsson called out, “That’s the wrong way!”

I came to a shuffling stop and heaved a massive sigh. Since this hadn’t been in our escape plans, I didn’t actually know the way out of the sewers. I stomped back to the group and paused in front of Harmsson.

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“You don’t know the way.” He said, not a single trace of smugness in his voice.

“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t….” I grumbled.

“This was my planned escape route. I memorized the whole layout. It’s a maze down here, and sometimes there’re monsters. There’s safety in numbers. Let me come with you, and I’ll get us both out. You don’t need to trust me, but right now you need me”

The snake was right. I didn’t know my way out of here, and time was of the essence. I wanted to be locked up snugly in the Thirsty Goat with my lawyer when the Guard came calling. Not wandering the tunnels with vengeful maybe-secret-police out for blood.

“By Tiara’s Teats!!!” I growled, and bent to help Harmsson pull loose. “You’d better promise that you won’t screw me over!”

“I promise.” He said with sincerity.

“Uh - huh.” There wasn’t anything so handy as a solvent for the stuff, it would crumble apart in about half an hour, but some judicious force applied to clothes in the right place and careful maneuvering of a knife let Harmsson strip down to his un-glued skivvies.

He stood and brushed himself off, then stretched. The left side of his tunic was stained with blood. He noticed me staring and shrugged. “One of them nicked me. It’s nothing serious; I have an Ability handling it and I’ve got a potion if necessary.”

As he spoke, he casually walked over to where his sword had fallen near my feet.

“Nuh, uh!” I said, grabbing the weapon and pointing it at him. “I’ll take that. You just concentrate on getting us out of here.”

Harmssons gave me a casual nod, then pointed down the tunnel. “It’s down that way, then left. Let’s go. Are you sure you don’t want to just… toss those two into the muck down there? Let the sewer handle the shit?”

I frowned. “No. I handled your little [Assassin], I can handle a pair of government employees. Let’s go.”

So saying, I nicked each of the guards in an easy to reach place and collected some of their blood. The Ambermine trick had worked quite well, so I’d need to make some more vampire tea when I had the chance.

Harmsson watched me curiously then shrugged. “Fine. Let’s hurry.”

We headed off into the murky purple darkness, leaving the two behind. The system of sewerage tunnels was fairly uniform, with holes in the center of the roof every 100 meters or so for street cleaning and rain runoff. Rain could be an actual serious problem in Western Crack, as the canyon overhead allowed in impressive amounts of rainfall during the rainy season.

When we reached the first fork in the path, I headed to the left, but Harmsson stopped me and pointed down the right path, holding a finger up to his lips.

I stared at him in confusion for a moment, before realizing what he’d done. I nodded and made sure to make some clear footprints down the left tunnel in some moss, then stealthily headed down the right tunnel.

We walked through the tunnels in silence, Harmsson in front and me with a sword at his back. I had little interest in anything Harmsson had to say, and he was preoccupied with ensuring we were headed in the right direction. He’d been correct, I absolutely would’ve gotten lost down here, it was a total labyrinth. And Gods, the smell. It was so bad you never got used to it.

It was after nearly an hour of wandering that I had to ask the burning question. Harmsson had paused at another T-junction and was squinting down both tunnels looking perplexed. “Harmsson… are we lost?”

“Ah… possibly.”

“YOU-!!”

“I’m doing my best! I’m running off pure memory here!” Harmsson snapped. “I think we need to go back to that last U-bend and go up the path to the left instead.”

“Fine…” I sighed, turning around.

It was about a ten minute trek back, but as we approached, I stopped Harmsson with a finger to my lips. My [Map] filters were still on, and they’d caught four dots back the way we’d come. Listening carefully, we could make out the sound of people talking.

“Shit.” I muttered, and pointed back. “Go, go, go, go.”

“How did they get out so quickly??” Harmsson muttered as we ran as quietly as we could.

“I assume someone came and helped. Or it could be some of yours, or just city workers, but I’m not taking any chances.”

“I think there’s another exit up that way.” Harmsson pointed down another bend. “It’ll drop us out in Darkwater ravine, so there’ll be some climbing, but it’ll get us out.”

“Good enough. Go, go, go!” I hissed.

So we ran. Unfortunately, we seemed to be well and truly lost now, as we ran into dead-end after dead-end. It was at one such dead-end where I stopped Harmsson with a hand against his chest.

“No, we cannae go back. They’re already at those last crossroads, we’ll run right inta them.”

“Are you sure?” He asked, heaving for breath.

I closed my eyes and nodded, staring internally at my [Map]. Four dots stood a ways back. The path was winding, so they were in view, but they’d still catch up in about a minute or two.

“We need ta hide.” I said, pointing around the cavern. “And prepare an ambush.”

“I don’t have any hiding [Abilities].” Harmsson shook his head. “You should’ve killed them.”

“Whatever, we donnae know if it’s even them. Just hide, and attack if I shout ‘Fer Crack and Annie’.”

He choked back a nervous laugh. “What??”

“Just do it.” I gave him his sword, and he took it in a steady grasp. I kept a wary eye on him as I craned my neck looking for a place to hide.

The sewer in this section was a pile of logs and refuse. Some effort had been made to organize things, with the logs and various bits of dwarven city garbage arranged in a haphazard pile of sticks and large stones. Possibly a collection tunnel, and someone with a cleaning Ability would be by later to dump it into an extra dimensional garbage.

It was while I was wedging myself between two slimy logs that one of the dots on the map vanished. Followed closely by another. Then a third.

“Peter…” Harmsson’s voice came from just to my left, a hint of terror in it.

I looked over his way. He was pointing to a trio of boulders in the middle of the general pile. I looked more closely at the large mottled spheres.

At the… very, big, eggs.

The last dot had vanished now, and a muffled bellow reached us down the tunnel. I checked my filters again with mounting horror. Monsters were still on!! I should be able to see any!!!

Then I ticked on the ‘animals’ filter, which was immediately populated with thousands of rats. As well as one very large dot approaching rapidly down the tunnel.

“PETER!!!” Harmsson shouted now, as thundering footfalls echoed down the dank tunnel.

“Wait for it!” I hissed, holding my mace at the ready and doing my best to hide.

And then we saw it. An enormous yellow body covered in grime heaved into view, roughly the size of a draft horse. An orange beak with a wicked hook at the end snapped open and shut and a pair of beady black eyes shimmered in the dark. It flapped a pair of wings that nearly filled the entire cavern and let out a cry.

“QUACK!!!”

“Crikey.” Harmsson muttered, as the beast waddled fully into view. “That’s a big duck.”