Chapter 11: Isekai Life & Two Rings

“It would have been easy- he wouldn’t even have needed to become invisible, because it was so damn dark out.”

We were preparing for a another ascent into the ruin. Voss was sharpening his spear, while Katriana mended a popped rivet in her splint mail with a bit of twine. Having been awake the longest, I was already set to go.

Voss shrugged at me. “Well, at least we know he probably is still in there, and if not, he’s close.”

“Either way, it’s going to be a tough fight,” Katriana stated, “Invisibility at will? We’re going to be relying on you, Theo.”

I sighed. “Yeah, I know. I’m hoping that when it sees us coming, it just runs away, leaving its stash.” It would probably only have half a hit die, after all.

“What if it follows us?”

“That’s why we’re going in the morning, so we can be in town by sunset. Even if it can go invisible, I think it’s avoiding town for a reason. If there are no other obstacles and we’re quick, we can get the honey before the bee even realizes what’s going on.”

Katriana acquiesced at that point, and soon we were ascending the ramp to the ruins, then carefully stepping over our rope trap to get inside.

“Should we take it down?”

“There might be more skeletons upstairs...”

We had our packs on our back, this time, of course.

Voss lead the way, with Katriana coming up from behind and me in the middle. We all kept quiet, trying not a raise a stir, but of course Voss’ chain mail rattled as he moved. We couldn’t be completely silent.

When we approached the stairwell, it was full of the smell of smoke. Voss moved in cautiously, looking up, but the webs had all been burnt down and the floor was littered with the scorched husks of dead spiders.

He looked back at me, impressed. “100% effective, good job.”

I nodded. “The real challenge is going to be when we have to fight something smart, like orcs or robbers.”

“You have such pleasant thoughts.”

The bronze door wouldn’t close anymore, as it was too warped by the heat, so we left it hanging open, and then proceeded to ascend the stairs.

Thankfully, the whole structure appeared to be made of mortar and stone, with no wood buried in the walls at all, so the stairs were still sound. At the top was another bronze door, even more badly warped then the open one below. Voss handed me his spear when he got there.

“So much for being quiet ... let me handle this.”

Bracing himself carefully on the landing, he shoved with all his might and slowly the door squeaked open.

The second level was a large space, littered with humanoid skeletons, although these ones were fragmented and didn’t move. Near the back was a stone altar which had been smashed until it cracked in half at some point. So, this had been a temple at some point ... but what had happened here?

“Oi, yew big jobbers! Yew stay awai frumme treasure!”

An arrow the size of a ballpoint pen shot out of nowhere and caromed off the stone doorway. Great, the pictsy can both go invisible and has a ranged attack.

Voss let out a big battlecry and ran into the room. The attack briefly made the pictsy visible- it was vaguely male, about a foot and a half tall, and crouched on the ruined altar on long, folded legs like a grasshopper’s. It also had a pair of insect wings mounted somewhere on its hip/butt area.

Voss aimed a swing at it, and it leapt back, dodging out of the way before vanishing again. I cautiously moved up beside Voss, while Katriana took up a defensive position between me and where the creature had vanished.

The pictsy appeared again, leaped wide of Voss, and unleashed another of its arrows which penetrated all the way through Voss’s forearm. He swore loudly, fumbling his spear a moment before he could retaliate, but it was all the pictsy needed to duck away.

I calmly stepped forward, canted a spell at the pictsy and made the Sigil of the Burning Hands. Fire arced towards the creature, which ignited immediately with a screech and fell limp to the ground, still burning.

“Well, that’s that,” I said, dusting my hands.

“Nrrrgh! Easy for you to say!”

Voss was clutching his arm, which had the pictsy’s arrow lodged in it, protruding about an inch on each side.

My first aid from high school almost failed me completely. “Well, it’s better to keep the arrow in until it can be looked after...”

I got a glare for my efforts. Katriana came in then to smooth things over.

“Why don’t you have a sit, Voss? We’ll look for the stash, and when we go back down the mountain I’ll carry your gear, okay?”

We proceeded to search the room carefully while Voss grumbled about his arm. While my searching was fruitless, eventually I noticed Katriana silently waving me over.

She was holding a small velvet bag that looked heavy with the objects inside, but more importantly, she gestured at me with a heavy-looking ring in her hand.

“I think you’re right,” she said, “This is too precious to give back! You need to wear it at all times, and we should get as far away from this city as we can.”

I held up the ring so that I could look at it, and my eyes widened. Made out of heavy gold, the front of the ring had a flat, squarish plate into which were set eight stones, made to look like they were shooting stars falling from heaven. Seven of the stones were a dazzling array of colours ... the last was dark and cracked.

Could it be ... this was a Ring of Wishes!?

And they rolled the maximum amount of wishes, too! Somehow, the old fool had only used one wish! I could understand not having eight wishes all in a row, but to have this ring and only wish for one thing seemed...

With a shock, I realized what was going on, and popped the ring into one of my pouches.

Then I faced Katriana. “We’re taking it back for the reward.”

“A-are you sure... ?”

“Yes, absolutely. It’s also very important that Voss never lays his eyes on the ring directly, okay?”

“Well ... alright...”

Still giving me a doubtful look, she handed me to bag with the rest of the treasure. A few coins- including a surprising amount of what appeared to be platinum coins- and a pair of small vials, only containing a dark brown, viscous liquid, the other something watery and a pale lavender. And, of course, my signet ring.

I stowed the bit of treasure in my bag for later. “We’ll sort this stuff out in town. Come on, we ought to get Voss to a healer.”

The trip down the mountain was easier than the trip up, by far, with the only added aggravation being Voss’ complaining. Despite how long it took us getting up here, we were down and back to the city shortly after noon.

We dropped Voss off at a physician, paying the three gold for his fee out of the treasure bag.

As Katriana and I, tired from a day’s worth of walking, slouched into the Lazy Ox, the innkeeper was there to greet us. “Back again, eh? Unfortunately, we’ve already sold your room to another couple, you’re not going to be able to get it back.”

I waved it off. It’s not like we could have afforded to rent it for a night we weren’t going to use it, anyhow. “Do you have something available a little more upscale, then?” I asked, “If so, we’d like to rent it for a week.”

Katriana stared at me wide-eyed at that, and the innkeeper looked at me appraisingly. “You smell like smoke,” he said flatly.

“Oh, right, we’ll need baths, too, and a private dining room for tonight with a feast for three.”

My sister and the innkeeper stared at me for awhile. Then he grunted and replied with, “Sixteen gold for all of that, meals included.”

As I counted out the coins from the treasure we found, Katriana gave me a look. I sighed, and said, “Don’t worry, I’ll pay it back out of my earnings from the quest.”

We had a seat for a bit while the room was being made up, and one of the serving girls brought out some wine with rolls and butter for us to enjoy while we waited. We were both pretty tired, so we snacked quietly and just waited.