In this way the ordinary noise of an evening inn returned, when before all had been silent, except for the words of the storyteller and the scratch of the Recorder’s quill on parchment. A myriad of small conversations began, chairs were scraped across the floor, mugs were clinked as they were returned to the bar.
The Landlord, whose customers now knew to be the infamous ogre Og-Grim-Dog, poured drinks and took money.
The Recorder also remained busy. He sprinkled sand onto his parchment to dry out the ink, then sprinkled pounce onto a fresh piece to prepare it for the resumption. Some of the regulars anxiously peered over his shoulder at the writing, wondering how he did. For no-one had forgotten the ogre’s threat to kill everyone inside the Testicles should the Recorder fail in his task. Those who took a peep were neither relieved nor worried by what they saw, since it hadn’t been made at all clear what would constitute failure and what success. The regulars knew that words had been spoken and words had been written down. Beyond that, they were none the wiser.
Eventually, the inn settled. Uninstigated, a hush descended on the Flayed Testicles, that let the Landlord know it was time to resume.
Three pairs of ogre eyes scanned the room, as if looking for something.
‘Now, where were we?’ asked the third head.
The Recorder scanned his notes. ‘You had just arrived at the village of Urlay and discovered that it had been attacked by an orc raiding party. I presume this has some significance to the story.’
The ogre frowned at him. ‘Of course it does. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have mentioned it, would we?’
‘Oh, that’s good. I was just a little concerned that the story might be drifting off into irrelevance. After all, let’s see.’ The Recorder flicked through his notes. ‘Yes, here. You said that your party had signed up to visit six dungeons, and so far you have only told us about two. And it already feels like it’s starting to drag a little bit? I don’t know,’ he said, looking about the inn for support. ‘Maybe that’s just me?’
The ogre scowled at the man. ‘Well, if you had given us a chance to get a word in,’ said the second head, ‘you would have known that we never intended to go into detail on the other four dungeons. Suffice it to say, that our experiences there met the same pattern as we had found in the first two. Starting with the Crimson Palace, none of the others provided such a stiff test as the Deepwood. None were quite so pitiful as Wight’s Hollow, though they resembled the latter more than the former. In each one, the opposition we found was limited, and the numbers of orcs few. The loot we found was, on the whole, disappointing. We rooted out gold coins, some precious gems, the odd stash of weapons and other items that could be sold on. But our fantasies of finding magical swords, lost crowns, ancient wisdom, imprisoned ogre princesses, or whatever other dreams our party had, did not come to pass. So it was that we returned to where we started, the town of Mer Khazer. Alive and well. Better off than when we had left. But a little disappointed, nonetheless.’
THE MYSTERY DEEPENS
They returned to Mer Khazer. The population of the town welcomed them back as heroes. There was music and singing and the stallholders fought to press the finest food into their hands. Og-Grim-Dog loved it. Until Sandon reminded them that they had to pay another visit to the Bureau of Dungeoneering.
All kinds of paperwork now had to be filled in. Since Og-Grim-Dog was carrying most of the loot they had won, the ogre was given the task of dealing with objects, which sounded less complicated than some of the other jobs his friends had. Raya went with him and led him to the appropriate desks.
At Financials, the clerk recorded how much money they had made on their adventure; they also had to decide which items they wanted to keep, and which they would sell on to the Bureau. The clerk at the desk had a long list of objects such as weapons and armour, precious jewels, historic coins and artefacts. In the next column was the prices the Bureau would pay for each. No doubt these would then be sold on to buyers at a profit. Og-Grim-Dog had little sense of money or the cost of things and so let Raya make the decisions. At the end of it, the clerk handed them over several bags of coins—the profits of their dungeon crawl.
‘I also have a note,’ he said, ‘to remind you that Mr Agassi is owed five per cent of your winnings.’
‘We remember,’ said Grim. ‘We’ll take the money to him.’ He didn’t begrudge Mr Agassi the money. They had only gone on their adventure because of his help, and they had never really been in it for the money anyway.
‘Why does the Bureau need to know so much about the money we took?’ Grim asked the elf as they crossed the office to the next desk.
‘Many reasons,’ Raya said. ‘One of them is that it helps them get a picture of the health of each dungeon. If parties report back that they found little or nothing in a dungeon, they might decide to close it down to adventurers for a while. Let it fill up with monsters and treasure again.’
‘But most of them were pretty weak sauce,’ said Dog. ‘Shouldn’t we tell somebody?’
‘Gurin is over at Applications for Dungeons Crawls,’ she said, pointing over to where the dwarf stood in conversation at the desk. ‘They record that kind of anecdotal information. Then cross reference it with Financials and any other evidence they have. They’re pretty thorough. Right, here we are. Magical Items. We should have a separate bag for this, Og-Grim-Dog. Yes, that one.’
At the Magical Items desk, they needed to hand in anything that might contain a magical charge of some kind.
‘It’s for safety reasons as much as anything else,’ said the witch at the desk, when she learned that Og-Grim-Dog was a new member of the Bureau. ‘In the old days we let the adventurers walk off with any old item. Well, we had devils escaping from magical captivity; spectres encased in jewellery or weapons would seize the bodies of their owners. Committed all sorts of vicious atrocities, they did. So now we check everything first. Even if you think there’s no magic in it at all, it’s always better to be safe than sorry.’
Og-Grim-Dog placed the bag into the box provided. It had strange, colourful markings all over it.
‘Covered in anti-magic wards,’ the witch explained when she saw the ogre studying the box. ‘Come and pick your items up tomorrow,’ she said cheerfully.
Once all the administration was done, the team reassembled.
‘Tired faces,’ Sandon commented as he looked at everyone. ‘It hits you when you finally stop.’
‘Yes,’ Assata agreed. ‘I think I’m ready for a sleep in a bed at The Bollocks.’
‘But we’re going to have a drink in the bar, first?’ Raya asked. ‘We have to celebrate.’
With different levels of enthusiasm, everyone agreed to the elf’s request. But the Bureau had one last surprise for them. As they were leaving, a voice called over from Registration.
‘I thought you ought to know.’ It was the same woman who had refused to register Og-Grim-Dog in the first place. She had a triumphant looking expression on her face. ‘The Bureau has amended the membership rules. Here,’ she said, pointing to a passage in a fresh-looking copy of the constitution.
With a sense of foreboding, Grim walked across to the desk, his friends coming with him. The amended passage was easy enough to read. Section four, sub-section two now said: ‘Goblins, orcs, trolls, ogres and other such monsters shall, under no condition, be admitted as members of the Bureau of Dungeoneering.’