XVIII. AGENT ULBLYN

Ulblyn was gruff and could even come across as callous. The captives rescued from beneath the tavern, grateful as they were, eventually concluded that he was.

“You can stay or you can go,” he had told them. “You’re free now, and freedom can be a curse. I have given you food, shelter, and clothing, but I can’t do that indefinitely. So don’t count on my hospitality. You can stay if you want, but you have to find a way to make a living, and you have to give me some silver before the tenday’s up or I’ll send you on your way. If you need work, I recommend the docks or one of the warehouses. Don’t expect a job from me–I’m not hiring. And it’s unlikely I’d hire any of you, anyway, no offense. Those fits of yours are spooky and not very productive. I know you’ve been through the Hells, and I wish you the best of luck, I do. But I won’t provide charity indefinitely, and the good folks who got you out of the caves have done all they can, too.”

“We understand, we understand,” said Kizami. It was not the first time the slaves’ de facto spokesperson and the halfling had had this conversation. “But–perhaps you should have made a better plan for what would happen when your friends freed us.”

Ulblyn was taken aback. “I didn’t even know if you were alive or dead! I needed to work fast to rescue you. Of course, if I’d had all the time and resources in the world, I would have hired magicians to divine your lands of origin and had them spirit you away. But I am a shopkeeper who must work secretly and swiftly to do any good whatsoever.”

“Perhaps you simply wanted to do a good deed for the deed’s sake, and not for ours,” said Kizami.

There was some truth to this, and Ulblyn acknowledged it to himself, if not to her. That said, the halfling’s appearance of harshness was only half genuine. In a city where kindness was exceptional, it was good for a Harper not to appear too kind; and a Harper Ulblyn was, a fact known only by fellow Harpers. Besides, the presence of so many of these people in his house and shop might make him  conspicuous. 

Now Kizami was the only one of the captives left, and despite what Ulblyn had said, he’d given her work. She was good with figures and knew how to use a ledger. She became his bookkeeper, a job he had always done himself but lately struggled with. His eyesight was not what it once was.

When the adventurers returned with no new information, the Harper was ready. He had hoped but not expected something would turn up in the hideout. In the meantime, he’d had his ear to the ground, and rumblings about an eccentric dwarven arms enchanter named Theoderus reached him. A merchant who bought inventory from the dwarf had received the wrong order. The weapons were all the wrong type, and all bore a strange mark. When the merchant returned the arms, Theoderus was pale and shaking. “Very upset about his mistake, I suppose,” the merchant had told Ulblyn. “What a strange mark! A weaving pattern inside a diamond. Looked a little like writing.”