The Land: Catacombs (Chaos Seeds Book 4) (2 page)

CHAPTER 2
 

“My lord.”

“Grema, gwah, no goat soup,” Richter said sleepily before turning over.

“My lord,” Futen said louder, brightening his light.

Richter kept his eyes shut for a few more seconds, but his remnant had no snooze button.  Besides, as the man said, “No rest for the wicked.” 

“I’m up.  I’m up, Futen.  I trust that we haven’t come under attack while I slept?”

“No, my lord.  There have been no changes.”

“Well, then it’s a perfect time to get some work done.  Go back to helping around the village.  Be at the Quickening at sunset, though.”

“Yes, my lord.”

The grey orb floated away at the speed of a quick walk, and Richter got out of bed.  Despite some initial grogginess, he felt great.  Just before falling asleep, he had tried out his Sustenance Belt for the first time.  It was supposed to reduce his need to eat and sleep by 50%.  After his short rest, he could absolutely believe it.  He should not have felt this energized after just a few hours of sleep, but he was ready to rock and roll.

Richter decided to keep his new belt on for the time being.  He walked out of his room and over to the Great Seal.  He was turning to walk down the hall when he saw that Randolphus was in his office.

“Randy, do you have the money from Basil’s trade trip?  I’m going to put things in the treasury.”

The chamberlain stood and walked over to a small lockbox in the back of his office.  He took a key from his pocket and unlocked it.  Then he took two pouches out and brought them over to Richter. 

“The larger one contains the profits from the sale of the Potions of Clarity.  The smaller one is the leftover gold that you provided to Basil for expenses.  I have a detailed expenditure report for you if you would like to peruse it.”

Richter raised a hand and shook his head. “I’m assuming you checked and made sure that Basil got a good price for what he bought?  And that he’s not robbing me blind?”

Randolphus gave a faint smile. “He did very well, my lord.”

Richter laughed and accepted the pouches.  “Good enough then.  Come with me so you can get an accurate assessment of our assets.”

The two men walked over to the treasury.  When they reached the Great Seal, they immediately turned down a side tunnel and went to the treasury.  The door opened for him to the sound of bolts being drawn back, and he was greeted by the sight of the large eight-walled room.  The room was almost completely empty, but Richter smiled anyway.  It wasn’t going to be empty for long.

“He walked to the back wall and began removing crystals from his Bag of Holding.  He reached into the Bag, again and again, handing the stolen crystals to the chamberlain.  Randolphus carefully stacked each of the crystals, and Richter marveled at the massive amount of the resource that he had been able to steal from the kobolds.”  When he had been on the back of the wagon that had held the crystals, he hadn’t really understood how much he had been shoving into his Bag.  The crystals took up an entire wall of shelves and spilled over to a second wall.  He kept smiling the entire time.

Next, he unloaded the Sword of Gnome Slaying he had found in the Depths.  He didn’t want anyone knowing about the sword, especially his gnomish population.  Part of him thought he should just have Krom melt it down, but another side of him just couldn’t destroy something that he might need in the future, so it went onto a shelf. 

Next, Richter took out all of the pouches he had gathered from various fallen enemies.  He upended each one into his Bag to allow for the autosort to tell him exactly how much money he had.  It seemed like a waste of time, but he couldn’t think of a better method.  Looking at the numbers that were stacking up, though, he really couldn’t complain.

Between the Night Blades’ chest, searching the pouches of all the enemies he had slain— humans, bugbears, and goblins—the money from the skeeling’s lair, and the thousands of gold he had taken from the Tefonim vault, the final count was 12,572 copper, 3,614 silver, 5,234 kobold silver, and 3,719 gold.  According to the inventory sheet Hafiz had prepared, what seemed like a long time ago now, the remaining jewels he had in his chest were worth roughly 3,500 more gold!  He also had a large amount of jewelry he had taken from the Tefonim vault.  He was rich!

He started handing handfuls of copper to Randolphus, who filled the empty pouches with the coins.  Richter removed the coins in bunches of fifty, which made it easy to fill each pouch with five hundred each.  The chamberlain filled the pouches with no comment, but once Richter handed over the kobold silver, he paused.

“My lord!  Where did you find these?”

“Some hidden cubby in the kobold warren.  Why?”

“These coins are ancient, several thousand years old.  The story is that once the kobolds were not just the scavenging predators that they are today.  They had a massive underground empire, which had formal trade ties with other kingdoms.  Their currency was said to be the standard used throughout the River Peninsula.  It was made from silver of the greatest purity.”

Richter nodded, definitely interested in the local history lesson, but what he really wanted to know was: “So how much is each coin worth?”

“If you merely resmelted each coin, you would get six common silvers from each.  What I would recommend, however, is waiting until you can sell them in Yves or another civilized kingdom.  Any of these coins will sell for at least a gold coin, but some might be worth far more.  The Golden Age of Kobolds was said to last approximately one thousand years.  In that millennium, there were twenty-five ‘Dark Khans’ who presided over the Trinar Empire.  If you look at the various coins, each is minted with the face of the first ruler of the empire on one side and emblem of the empire on the other.  A small percentage of the coins, however, have the likeness of one of the Dark Khans in place of the emblem.  Any coin collector would pay at least one hundred gold for any coin with the likeness of a Dark Khan.  For the rarer of Dark Khan coins, the price starts at 1,000 gold.  I actually have a small collection myself.  How many of these do you have, my lord?”

Richter’s smile broadened significantly.  He handed over more handfuls of the octagonal silvers.  Randolphus’s normal professional reserve cracked, and he excitedly took a large sack and collected all of the kobold coins.  Once Richter had no more left to give, the chamberlain immediately left the vault and returned to his office, eager to pore over the relics. 

Richter shook his head and shouted after him, “Oh, don’t worry.  I can do the rest on my own!”

“Yes, my lord,” came a distant reply.

Richter shook his head again and then picked up an empty pouch.  He filled it with five hundred gold and then moved on to the next.  He filled several more bags, stacking each on the shelves.  He left himself with about two hundred gold in his own Bag of Holding.  He didn’t know what he’d be spending it on, but he figured to use condom wisdom.  Better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it. 

Then he started stacking all of the jewelry on a different shelf.  He decided to keep several pieces from the Tefonim vault in his Bag in the end, though.  None was enchanted, but he hoped that he could use the pieces to trade with Hafiz’s sons.  After that, he carefully removed the large alchemical jugs that he had filled with the Waters of Clarity.  Each jug held hundreds of doses, and he had eighteen in total.  Every jug was placed carefully on the shelves.  If any spilled, it would literally be pouring hundreds of gold down the drain. 

When he was finally done, he walked to the middle of the room and looked at the growing wealth of his people.  Richter chuckled slightly in greedy pleasure and then walked out of the room.  A faint boom echoed as the treasury door closed itself, and he heard the sound of the door’s many bolts sliding into place.  He walked over to Randolphus’s office and saw the chamberlain poring over the silver coins.  

The chamberlain was bent over his desk, examining each silver with a furious concentration.  A growing pile of silver coins was over to one side, apparently having already been ruled out, but seven coins were laid out singly in front of him.  He kept reaching into the sack, pulling out another silver, examining it quickly, then placing it to the side.  As Richter watched, though, the chamberlain examined one and exclaimed delightedly and placed it next to the other seven that had been set aside.

“Found something interesting?” Richter asked.

“My lord!  This is miraculous.  This coin is the 22
nd
Khan, Khan’Padir, and this one!  This coin shows the 17
th
Khan, Khan’Nol!  It is rumored that the King of Yves has these two coins, but you’ll not find them anywhere else in the kingdom.  The fact that you have these, not to mention the other Dark Khans that I have already found, is amazing.”

Randolphus went back to feverishly searching through the sack.  Richter smiled to see the usually stately and mature man acting with such childish enthusiasm.  He walked over and picked up one of the coins his chamberlain had set aside.  A prompt immediately filled his vision.

You have been offered a Quest:
Reunite the Dark Khans
. 
Twenty-Five Rulers of darkness and might. 
One Thousand years of rule out of sight. 
What once was here, shall rise again. 
Reunite the Dark Khans, when you wish to begin. 
Will you find and reunite the visages of all 25 Dark Khans?  Yes or No?  Reward: The power of a Khan.  You have found 1 of 25 coins.

Richter blinked away the notification.  He looked at Randolphus in surprise.  “I just got a quest when I touched the coin.”

“Yes,” Randolphus said distractedly without looking up.  “The quest to reunite the Dark Khans.”  He spoke as if he were discussing common knowledge.

“So you mean everyone who touches one of these coins gets this quest?”

Randolphus looked up. “Yes, my lord.  Did I not mention that while we were in the treasury?”

“Uhhhh, no.  Ya didn’t, Randy.  Well, what is ‘the power of a Khan’?”

“No one knows, my lord.  Some have thought it will unlock a mighty treasure.  Others believe it will allow you to control a kobold army.  One theory states it will teach one of their lost secrets—how to construct an onyx golem, a black highway, or possibly even planar magic.”

Questions were swirling around Richter’s head, and they multiplied with every word that his chamberlain said.  “I thought they were just coins.  So no one has ever completed this quest?”

“If they have, it has not become publicly known, my lord.”

“Why would getting some coins together do anything?” Richter asked.  He looked at the coin in his hand a bit more closely, but it just seemed like a simple silver disc.

“I do not have a complete answer for you, my lord, but I do know that coins with the likeness of a Dark Khan emit a tiny amount of magic.  This has been clearly proven by magical scholars.  It is said that the coins were given as marks of favor during the reign of each Khan.  The leading theory is that the Khans were keepers of a secret that they encoded into the coins.  They form a key of sorts.  Each Khan added to the magic.”

“So for the first Khan, you only needed one coin?” Richter asked.  “That makes no sense.”

“That is the biggest hole in that theory, my lord.  It is thought that the enchantment was started during the reign of the eleventh Dark Khan, which was the very height of the Trinar Empire, and the first ten coins were enchanted retroactively.  No one knows for sure, however. That’s why it’s only a theory, my lord.”

Richter nodded.  He really would need to get his hands on some history books if he wanted to be an effective leader.  The Land was violent and contentious.  He would be a fool to ignore centuries and millennia of tradition.  He said as much to Randolphus, stating that history books would have to be added to the list of items to trade for.  It was the first time that Richter saw his chamberlain hesitate to add to his endless list of notes.  The man did break away from the coins long enough to jot down his liege’s order, albeit reluctantly. 

“Okay, Randy.  I’ll leave you to the coins, but is everything on track for tonight?”

“Yes, my lord.  The feast is being prepared.  The hunters have been able to bring in some good animals.  A cow and a pig have also been slaughtered and are being prepared to your, ahem, specifications.”