magical power to any who could sense such things!
'Perhaps you might be worth keeping after all,' Jack said. He slid the ring back into his pocket.
The next Game event was three days off. Before then, Jack decided he had three things he needed to do. First, he needed to find his shadow double and take whatever steps were necessary to stop the fiend and discover its origins. Second, he needed to plan a safe and equitable exchange (or a shameless confidence game) to obtain the thousands of gold crowns that were rightfully his. And last, but certainly not least, he needed to stay out of the sight of the various parties who meant him ill, including but not limited to Iphegor the Black, Marcus and Ashwillow, Morgath and Saerk, Tiger and Mantis, and possibly the Warlord Myrkyssa Jelan.
'It is probably a bad sign when one's enemies significantly outnumber one's friends,'' Jack said sadly.
He drained the last of his wine and stood up to leave. Jack was so distracted by the plots at hand that he almost walked right out of the Tankard's front entrance with no regard for who or what might be watching. He paused in the rickety swinging door by the taproom's mossy walls and ducked back inside at once, cursing his carelessness.
'Having just discovered considerable wealth on my own person, it would be unwise to stumble into my enemies' hands again,' he told himself.
Instead, he made himself invisible and used the spell of shadow-jumping to whisk himself to an empty rooftop he knew of three blocks away. The tactic seemed to work; he was not followed or accosted on his way to the Ladyrock. By the time he reached the hovel by the paper mill, midnight was hours past.
Jack passed the rest of the evening in a restless, vermin-pestered slumber. He eventually dozed off until well after noon on the following day, when he was awakened by a gang of neighborhood children engaged in a game of throwing stones through the rotting shakes of his cottage roof.
Jack groggily chased off the ragamuffins, ate a cold breakfast of old bread and hard cheese, and considered his schemes and designs. 'My appointment with Zandria is not until tomorrow evening, leaving me a day, a night, and a day to occupy myself,' he observed to an attentive cockroach who shared his quarters. 'I should keep an eye on Zandria to make sure that she doesn't forget the terms of our bargain again. I should take steps to ascertain the current whereabouts of my accursed shadow. And I should also seek to unravel whatever plot Toseiyn Dulkrauth, the esteemed Lord Tiger, is up to. What to do first?'
None of the vermin infesting the premises offered any suggestions. In fact, they were so unhelpful that Jack resolved to spend the rest of the afternoon improving his conditions by effecting what minor repairs he could to the cottage and using various noxious magics to render his domicile unappetizing to rats, mice, insects, and their ilk. This involved the theft of quite a large amount of timber, straw, tools, and plaster from various businesses nearby, which Jack accomplished without any real challenge. With that attended to, he pilfered several days of foodstuffs and other supplies to see him through the week.
Finally, when he had rendered the cottage as tolerable as he could make it, Jack decided that it was worth a few hours of his time to learn more about the ring and the blade he'd stolen from the Guilder's Vault. He took both objects out and set them on the battered wooden table before the hearth. Then he slowly and methodically worked out a spell of identification, an enchantment that could analyze and decipher the spells folded into the very being of the ring and the dagger.
The dagger, he learned, was a highly enchanted weapon wrought with spells of secrecy and silence, the perfect blade for dark deeds and backstabbings in shadowed alleyways. It seemed well suited for his hand, a blade made for a rogue such as he. It also possessed the very curious property of retaining its enchantment in places where other magics failed.
'Potentially useful,' Jack admitted, 'but I cannot guess why I would willingly go into such an environment.' He shrugged and returned the dark blade to his boot.
The ring, on the other hand, was a device whose maker cared little for subtlety. It was a manifestation of the power of stone and earth, fused with potent magics allowing one to command elementals or even the earth itself to do one's bidding. Passages might be opened where none existed before, walls raised or torn down at will. The user might even call upon the ring's power to imbue himself with the strength and toughness of stone itself.
'Very useful,' Jack grinned. 'Defense, offense, transport, and general utility all incorporated in one superbly wrought dwarven ring. I can see why Zandria lusts after you, my little prize.'
Since he was loath to part with either device, Jack decided that he would have to strike a different bargain with Zandria. He'd keep the ring and the dagger as his two-elevenths of the hoard proper, leaving him with the ten thousand gold crowns associated with the reward for the return of the Orb. The gold was certainly sufficient to his means for the moment, and with the magic of the Guilder's artifacts, he could easily steal more anytime he liked.
'The only trouble lies in persuading Zandria to accept a renegotiated deal,' he said aloud. 'She probably cares little for the gold itself, and is far more interested in acquiring the magic in my possession; Red Wizards are like that. It might be useful to make sure that Anders and Tharzon are nearby, in case she is unusually resistant to the notion.'
Without further delay, Jack departed the Ladyrock and set off in search of Anders and Tharzon. Both Northman and dwarf hadn't seen much reward for their labors in Sarbreen, so an opportunity to enjoy a cut should be welcomed by both. He decided to call on Anders first, taking the ferry over to Bitterstone and then heading north into the Temple District. The streets were crowded with workers heading home after a long day's labor, women scurrying out to purchase something for the stew pot, and gaily dressed rakes and ladies beginning the night's revelry a little early. Jack liked crowds; they provided him with a comfortable anonymity and plenty of opportunities.
He followed Blacktree Boulevard all the way through Holyhouses and Gowntown to the Market District. Anders rented a small room in the shadow of Purtil's Tower, a ramshackle structure of stone and rusted iron that comprised the city's oldest water tower. Jack turned east on Broken Bit Lane and then north again into the narrow alleyway winding almost beneath the dilapidated columns of the water tower. He crossed a small, sodden courtyard strewn with garbage and climbed up the wooden staircase that zigzagged across the back of Anders's building. The Northman lived in a very modest room on the uppermost floor.
He had just set his foot on the topmost stair when the deluge struck. From the water tower's flank fifty feet above, a great torrent abruptly broke loose. Metal groaned and stone creaked ominously as tons and tons of water poured out of the torn side of the tower and fell atop the boarding house where Anders lived. Jack was washed back down the stairway, striking step after step until he caught himself halfway down and found his feet again.
'Catastrophe! Calamity!' he cried in astonishment. 'What now?'
As if in response to his question, the roof of Anders's building gave way beneath the weight of water falling from the tower overhead. Jack recalled that it was not much of a roof in any event, a frail structure of wooden shakes that admitted freezing drafts in wintertime and clouds of noxious insects in warm weather. The cascade of water continued from the breached tower, filling the upper floor faster than it drained away to the floors below.
The entire building groaned horribly. Inside, beams cracked beneath the watery assault, and the boarding house started to lean noticeably to Jack's right. The rogue hurried down the stairs and dashed out into the open courtyard to get clear of the failing structure. Rivulets of water ran past his feet.
'Anders!' cried Jack. 'If you can hear me, run for your life!'
At that moment the Northman's door on the uppermost floor burst open, revealing the tall warrior. Anders Aricssen was soaked to the skin, and a torrent of water followed him out of the doorway. He was burdened with a double armful of whatever possessions he'd managed to gather up. Without ceremony Anders hurled his valuables from the porch. Then he caught sight of Jack in the courtyard below.
'You fiend!' he shouted. 'You backstabbing, underhanded wretch! You whelp of a she-goat and a goblin! If I-'
The Northman was interrupted by watery disaster. The boarding house sagged over entirely on its side in a rumble of falling timber and a gush of water from every window. The wooden stairs collapsed like matchsticks, leaving Anders comically suspended in midair for one brief instant before joining the general ruin of his home. A wave of water half a hand high washed over Jack's feet where he stood, rooted to the spot in amazement. The torrent pouring out of Purtil's Tower slowed to a stream, then a drizzle, and finally a drip.
Jack looked up, craning his head to study the side of the water tower. Dozens of neighbors and passersby stood gawking at the scene, just as he was, but atop the tower he caught sight of a familiar black-clad figure-his
