We wended our way through several back alleys, though my mental map couldn't follow exactly where we were. It was likely a side effect of the sheer amount of exhaustion I was feeling, the late hour, and the frankly mind-boggling amount of confusion I was feeling.
Why was Cori, the short sandy sandy-haired human I called my roommate and dungeoneering ally, leading me through the back parts of the city near the guard house? Why was she there tonight? Why did I just blindly follow her?
I wasn't making good decisions right now, but my curiosity wouldn't let it go. I had to know what was going on with Cori.
We turned a few more blind corners and eventually came upon an unremarkable wooden door, which she knocked at and whispered something I couldn't make out.
After a few brief moments, I heard a series of locks clicking and clanking before the door opened, its hinges blessedly silent in the still night air.
She led me inside, and I found myself in something resembling a makeshift lounge, with a small group of rather unsavory-looking characters.
I felt myself developing a sinking feeling in my guts.
"Cori, please tell me you're not part of the thieves guild?" I groaned. It was too stereotypical. It was one of the tired tropes of the trashy novels I used to pass time with back home, and I always hated it.
"What? No! Why would you even think that?" She looked genuinely offended by the suggestion.
"Dark alleys, secret knocks, passwords, seeing you being questioned in the guard station, your weird hours of coming and going, plus all your general secretiveness about...well everything," I explained, using my fingers to count off all my reasons for suspecting her.
"No, no, no, this is definitely not the thieves guild. I don't think thieves in Revenstahd even have a guild. Not mid-town anyway, maybe by the docks? No, no, this is a gadgeteering club!" She explained with more excitement than I had ever seen from her.
"Ok, and why did you want to drag me in here?" I asked with growing suspicion.
"I and my fellow gadgeteers had some questions. You fought a knight with your bare hands, and we wanted to know your trick to it. Gadgeteers often need skills to fight without showing our weapons, and I had never seen anything like it, and we want to learn more, especially when the inevitable fight against the Obsidian Gauntlet happens." She rambled at me. I blinked. I blinked a few more times.
"Wait, wait, wait. Seriously? That's it? I thought you were going to disappear me or something!" I snapped, exasperated with everything.
"Uh, yeah. I guess you're more tired than I thought. Would you like a nap?" She pointed at a sofa so dilapidated I assumed brown wasn't its original color.
"No! I mean, yes! I want to sleep Cori, please! In my own bed, not wearing this ridiculous frilly outfit that just barely covers my arse and is close to my tits precariously attempting to grace the world with an appearance!" I couldn't help but snap at her. I was so overwhelmed with everything right then, and I just wanted to go to sleep.
"Alta, please just calm-" She tried to reassure me.
"No, I will not be calm! I'm just going to. I'm going to take a nap. Right here. Right here. No one wake me or I will gods damn bite you." I stomped over to the least objectionable chair and flopped down on it.
Safety be damned. I wanted to sleep, and I was going to get it.
I dreamed. Dark dreams again. Strange formless things swam in the inky darkness of my slumber. I hated them, and feared them, but I could not, nay would not, wake from the nightmares.
I woke, still sitting in the chair, a blanket covering me. It was warm, if a bit strange smelling. I groggily looked around, and found Cori sitting nearby, scribbling away in a notebook, while poking at a contraption on a nearby table. I was still groggy and a bit grumpy from yesterday.
I think it was yesterday. I was pretty sure I saw sunlight through a hole in the ramshackle wall. Definitely daytime now. I was groggy, had a headache, and was terribly hungry. I wanted to tear into Cori, but the call of breakfast was stronger.
Cori looked up and saw I was awake, quickly got up, and as I rubbed the last remains of sleep out of my eyes, I smelled coffee and food. Opening my eyes, I saw a simple breakfast of gruel and coffee, which I descended on eagerly. It wasn't the best breakfast, but hunger demanded, and I obeyed.
Between mouthfuls of the mush I am spooning into my face, I made eye contact with Cori. She looked away as soon as I did so.
"Explain, human, or so help me, I will discover a spell that makes your clothing eternally itchy and one size too small."
"Well, you see, um," She let out a sigh, took a deep breath, exhaled, took another breath, exhaled again. She did this a few times.
She was nervous. I couldn't imagine why, except that I just realized we never had conversations like this. Every time we had talked it had been about school stuff or something technical that was related to dungeoneering. We never really talked like two people. Even when it was all of us together, she never talked much. Shy? Something else? Mysterious.
"Take your time. It's my day off, apparently." I said with another mouthful of gruel. I was a bit disgusted at my lack of decorum but frankly, today, I didn't give half a damn.
I probably looked frightful too. I didn't even want to think about the nightmare that was my hair right now.
"Ok, so, here's the deal. First off, no, this is not a thief's guild. Nothing, technically, criminal is going on here. We are a Gadgeteering club, and we all make all kinds of gadgets and items to help people out. People like me who can't use magic. People who want to be on equal footing with adventurers, knights, mercenaries, and the like. There are so many people who just get pushed around by them, and I want more people to be able to fight back." She explained, at first slowly, but quickening as she got more excited.
"So, you all hang out in a dirty back alley and make these gadgets? It doesn't look like much of a workshop. I see a few tools, but nothing too impressive." I pointed it out with my spoon after I finished the last bits of the mush from the bottom of the bowl. I then turned my eyes to the coffee. No cream, or sugar for that matter. Ah well. I needed that delicious wake-up potion!
"Well, here's the thing. As we're not a recognized group, and some might interpret some of our inventions as weaponry, and there's licensing stuff, permissions involving explosives, and that sort of thing, we have a lot of little workshops all around town. We keep them hidden to keep a low profile. This is mine. I run it with some friends. They don't come here as often as I do." She sounded a bit ashamed with those last words.
"Ok, that explains what. Now make with the why of it." I sipped the dark beverage and grimaced. It wasn't great. Beggars shouldn't be choosers, but that was disgusting. I took another sip anyway.
She slumped a bit in her chair, and an expression of sadness flittered across her face.
"I know you're from Burgotova. Smitty and Myth are also from the nations that surround Revenstahd. These lands have a lot of magic. Not just magic, but knowledge about it, people who know the ins and outs of it. They also know how to fight with it, how to counter it," She leaned forward, her face serious now.
"I'm from a little area just past the edges of the Mortal Kingdoms. We don't even have a name for it, as it's not a nation, just a collection of villages that work together. My village is just called North, because it's the furthest north. We farm, we fish, we live our lives. We're not ignorant of the rest of the world, we know about things like knights, monsters, and magic, but it never interested us as most of us couldn't even summon a light spell. I can't. No idea why, but I just can't do it. I'm just thankful my body doesn't reject potions!"
It occurred to me just then that she was right. I had never seen her interact with mana, spells or anything like that. Just her neat belt of tools and tricks, along with her devastating crossbow.
"So then, why are you here? I vaguely know about the area you're talking about, but why would you travel so far to get here?" I put my now-empty cup down, the bitter taste finally clearing my head.
"I was getting to that. See, since we're so out of the way, and we lack magical abilities, we don't have any protection of any nobles or countries. So, we tend to be the punching bag of whatever group decides to. We thought we had been hounded by bandits for years, but eventually we found out they were Knights. We couldn't stand up to them, so the villagers decided to send volunteers to Revenstahd to see if we could find some kind of way to defend ourselves." She explained her expression taking on a cast of defeat.
"Of course it's Knights. I swear its always Knights! Why the kingdoms and noble houses allow them so much freedom is beyond me!" I scowled. They pushed around their authority so brazenly; it was a wonder that some lord somewhere hadn't strung any up for it.
"It's not just them. Adventuring parties, even members of the mages, take from us. Until recently, we've been able to survive, but it's just been ramping up worse and worse. I volunteered because I had put up with enough. I and many others from the town have been sent, like I said, to find something to help. Either by learning things or infiltrating the organizations that have been raiding us. I couldn't sneak into a knightly order, and I don't have the magic for a mage's academy. I don't have connections to work for a noble. What I do have is a knack for learning and building," She tapped the side of her head.
"So why Dungeon School then?" I got up, found the pot of the offensively bitter brew, and poured myself another cup. I needed more coffee for this level of intrigue. I had to confess, I was beginning to become interested. Very interested. Any suspicions I had about Cori were proving far off the mark. I wanted to see exactly how far into the weeds this got.
"Dungeon School doesn't care if you're a commoner or a noble, merchant, or whatever. You don't need credentials, just money to pay tuition. My parents left me some valuables, which I sold to cover the fee. I pay my expenses with money I earn from odd jobs. Cleaning, helping out at shops, bounty hunting, mild petty thievery, timepiece repair, that sort of thing." Her words made me stop in my tracks.
"Ok, some of those didn't sound quite right, could you repeat that?" I could feel my eyes widening with mild alarm. Oh dear, she was a criminal. Oh, gods I was roommates with a criminal.
"Ok, I admit bounty hunting and theft sound really bad-"
"You're damn right it sounds bad! Some parts of that are worse than others!" I sputtered.
"Oh, like you're one to judge me, miss frilly dress, tits out, short skirt in the red-light district!" She snapped at me, her face flush with sudden anger.
"I am a waitress at a themed restaurant! That is not even remotely the same thing! Stealing and bounty hunting are a whole other thing entirely, Cori!" I rebutted, feeling my own face flush, and her insinuations. How dare she!
There was a small knock at the door, in the particular pattern from last night. Cori pushed a button on a wall near here, and the door locks undid themselves.
"Hello hello friend Cori, Smitty came to see if you had fixed shield y-" The familiar snout of a kobold peeked through the opening door. "I sense that I have come at an awkward time, yes yes."
"It's ok Smitty. Come on in." Cori waved her in and went over to the workstation.
"Smitty? You knew about Cori?" I put my hands on my hips and glared at the Kobold, her ears drooping slightly.
"Yes friend Alta. Smitty knows. Gives Cori trinkets I find in dungeon to help her with her mission. Kobolds know about the hardships she goes through, yes yes. Least I could do. She also helps me find good books for hoard, and such kindness must be repaid, yes yes!" Her tail wagged as she explained.
"I suppose I was the only one left out of the loop. Next, you'll tell me Myth stops by here too on the regular." I was getting increasingly annoyed.
"She only stops every couple of weeks. The herbs she uses to calm down are grown in my region, and I set her up with some, in exchange for her helping me write down everything she knows about magic. She's much better at explaining it than the texts are." Cori said as she brought Smitty a shield. It was her original shield, but it had been modified somehow.
"So why was I the only one left out of the loop?" I finally asked.
"Simply? You're noble born. I assumed you wouldn't understand, or for all I knew, you had connections to the mages or the knights. The Marchesi family is well known, for good and ill. Even exiled, I had no idea what your connections were or even your ideals. You don't talk to us outside school-related things. I wasn't sure if I could consider you a friend or an enemy in waiting." She shrugged as she helped Smitty secure the shield to her arm.
"And now?"
"Now? After how you stood up to the Obsidian Gauntlet, I think I can trust you now. At least mostly. I don't trust anyone with noble blood fully. But you don't seem to either." She turned back to Smitty and began explaining different functions of the new shield, while I sat back down and stewed in my thoughts for a moment.
Had I been so standoffish? If I were to be honest with myself, I was. Even I had to admit, I kept them at arm's length, thinking of them as assets, tools, colleagues at best. Friends though? Maybe?
Was I so afraid of getting close to people after my exile? I had some soul searching to do. Not exactly what I had wanted to be doing on my day off.
I finally asked the question I'd been meaning to ask.
"So, what did you need me for, exactly, Cori? I have no love for nobility, especially not the Knights and mages, and the petty, bitter part of my heart would love to know how to help."
"It's quite simple, really. I want to know how you disarmed him so smoothly. You didn't use any magic, no weapons, just a smooth maneuver. I've done similar stuff when bounty hunting, but criminals and knights are leagues apart in skill. Even a drunken knight would have laughed off my attempts. If you could beat one like that, I need to know so I can teach others." She looked me in the eyes.
"I can do that. But in exchange, I want to learn something from you." I smiled gently.
"What do you want to learn from me?" She looked at me with surprise.
"I want to learn how you clear rooms so smoothly. I want to get better at trap dismantling so I can make more money off parts. And most importantly," I looked around at the shop, and finally at Smitty's new and improved shield. "I also want to have cool stuff like that!"