Chapter 431: Hello Darkness

The sword maiden with black hair.An adventurer whose deeds outpaced even the opportunism of bards.

Leaving only rumours and disbelief in her wake, those she aided were often left to wonder if she’d merely been a passing daydream, while those she chastened hoped that it was. 

However, even if a spring breeze took her far from the lyres, the melody still remained for those left behind to admire. 

They were piecemeal and scattered. Lines of a poem as beautiful as the sword maiden’s appearance and the righteousness burning in her heart. 

Yet when the bards sang enough to form a chorus, ears from beyond the horizon began to listen. 

Up and down the continent, figures whose minds were on a dance as perilous as a fae sky tilted their heads, sparing a glance towards a corner of the map both unseen and forgotten. 

In a white citadel adorned with doves, an empress without an empire shifted a slender leg, smiling as she mused in her chambers. A king upon a gilded throne lifted his cheek from his palm as he listened to his adjutant. In a library older than those inhabited by dragons, a magister whose quill was rewriting the codices of magic paused as a butterfly flew through her window. 

Even so, few knew the extent of her tale. And fewer knew her identity.

Those who recognised her were inclined to keep her secret … or were lost amidst the darkness of some ominous island said to be the playground of goblin machinery and witchly magic. 

Outside her allies and the enigmas lying in the shadows, none knew that the valorous girl who dispelled the darkness was in fact a princess of the same kingdom she was striving to save.   

… Except for one.

Because more than any bard, barkeeper or spy, there was a single, lonely individual who knew just how outrageous the mysterious sword maiden was.

His name … was Ham.

Nobody knew who Ham was.

He was not a lotus in the shadows.

He was no mastermind of plots unending or a great mage whose years surpassed his appearance.

He was, in fact, just a simple goon.

And he was the unluckiest one in the world.

His name was Ham, after all. That really was a sign of things to come. Which was good. Because Ham needed all the bullying he could get in order to prepare himself for the repeated traumas to come.

Ham was an ordinary dwarf with ordinary ambitions. 

He could drink twice his body weight before he vomited. He could headbutt a hill giant’s shin and pretend like he won. He could sing so badly that drunkards searched for a mandrake just to soothe their ears.

And just like every other dwarf, he also wanted more. 

Born into a clan whose name he often forgot, Ham knew early he wanted his own rogue’s guild. 

It didn’t have to be anything fancy. Just a corner of the dwarven kingdom’s vast criminal underworld to call his own. But these things took crowns, experience and scars. 

He’d find them all in the back alleys of The Last Hold. But he’d find even more on the surface.

It was a leap not without risks. And not just because of how differently things functioned up there.

As a whole, dwarves were unimpressed with those on the surface, who despite their vast space had no idea how to use it other than planting cows everywhere. 

Even so, despite the mockery for those who couldn’t even chisel their own houses, foreign experience would put him ahead of the others. 

He’d find it with a band of brigands who could brawl as well as any drunken dwarf. 

Its leader even had a reputation for winning them.

“Looking to join up, eh?” said Rextros the Black Scar, counting the crowns beneath his open tent. “It’s a hard life up here. Warmth’s rarer than an honest bard. But if you learn to hit the right notes, all the world’s your stage.”

Ham wore his finest smile as he nodded.

Rextros was a promising leader, as evidenced by his band daring to work so close to the home of the kingdom’s royalty. 

Merchants from the south often used the road through the forest. Their pockets were never as full as those who came from the royal capital, but their complaints were never as loud either. 

It was a good compromise between audaciousness and prudence. And so for a while, Ham found himself enjoying the simple life of robbing, ransoming and fleeing while he built up his employment record. 

All was well. 

And then she came along.

Ham had no idea who she was. Only that a single glance was all he needed before he went back to inventorying the moonshine behind the little campside bar he called his own. 

She was another nobleman’s daughter. A promise of another payout and another ban from a tavern.

“... Ohhohohoho ...”

Except most nobleman’s daughters didn’t laugh like a tyrant behind a guillotine. 

They also didn’t cause Rextros the Black Scar to drop to his knees in fear … nor for everyone else to follow as an explosion soon swept through the forest, sending his tiny bar into the nether and his leader’s ambitions back into farming for potatoes. 

Little did he know, however, this was just the beginning.

Shaken but undeterred, Ham picked himself up from the wreckage of a forest and made his way to Reitzlake to seek his fortunes. 

In truth, it was a move long overdue. 

To embed himself in the heart of the kingdom’s underworld was always the next stage of his career. But complacency had kept him in one place.

He knew instantly that this wasn’t a trait expected by his new employer.

“... Ham, yes?”

The dwarf nodded, his throat dry.

Lady Lucina Tolent cut a striking, and also very busy figure in her scarlet dress. But dwarves were an uncommon sight. And a dwarf who was supposedly connected with the infamous Shadowvault Syndicate was worthy of her personal attention.

He wasn’t, of course. 

His cousin Dorin was. But nobody was likely to check.

“Well, then I look forward to your expertise, Mr. Ham. The days ahead will be quite busy. But if you have any questions, please feel free to direct them to any of my subordinates.”

Ham straightened his posture and beamed, happy to see himself climbing up the ladder.

In his mind, he imagined himself as the link between the surface and the kingdom below. If he played his cards right, he’d become indispensable to both. A decade or two later, his dreams of founding his own guild would already be his.

And then she came along.

“I'm gonna … I'm gonna … blurrrrrrghhhhhh ...”

Ham had no idea what happened.

One moment, he was enjoying the wine in the passable estate of a human family who’d been successfully betrayed. The next, he and everyone else were crying for their mothers as they were sucked into a swirling vortex of doom. 

It was the most alarming thing he’d ever experienced. 

More than once, Ham saw the light at the end of the tunnel, before it was cruelly taken away from him as he spun round and round. And yet as he came to a stop, he realised that out of all his colleagues, he alone had been spared the taste of his own vomit. 

Neatly bundled in a carpet, he slowly rolled away from the groaning heap, stopping only when hundreds of footsteps invaded the freshly remodelled hall. 

And then–peeking out from the heavy fabric, he realised that the human girl he’d mistakenly believed to be a nobleman’s daughter was actually a princess. 

Her resemblance was uncannily similar to the Crown Prince, after all.

Knowing it was far too dangerous to stay in the capital where royalty could apparently sweep up miscreants with a flick of their sword, Ham rolled away into the night air, continuing nigh on all the way to the coastal town of Trierport.

It was his greatest leap yet. Especially since he couldn’t swim. 

Yet where rogues were mentioned, rarely did it not involve the name of the Golden Prince.

As a lord of pirates, he was already a paragon of wealth. But he was also as bold as he was charismatic. Enough that were he ever to set his sights on the glimmering lakes which flowed beneath the surface, he’d conquer them as easily as he did the Emerald Sea.

He had the dramatic flair for it.

“Here, Ham, hold this wine for me, would you?” said the Golden Prince, his white teeth glimmering like moonstone ore. “It’s the good stuff. Now listen–I’m about to make my grand entrance. When I do, I’m going to bow while raising my right hand. When I do, I want you positioned so I can pick up a glass without looking. The effect will look exceedingly suave.”

Ham blinked as he held the tray of wine.

Frankly, he was less a henchman and more a waiter when it came to the Golden Prince. But for all his theatrics, the man’s prowess with charming an audience couldn’t be denied, nor his ability to extract funds from them. That was a trait more valuable than any amount of skill with a blade.

And then she came along.

Poooomph!

Ham watched as his latest employer was punted through a wall. 

Even so, it was nothing compared to what happened afterwards as she summoned a literal kraken from the hellish ocean depths to eat a ship full of ogres.

That’s when Ham came to a wise decision.

He opted to temper his aspirations.

He still intended to create his own guild. But not if it meant coming into contact with a world destroying force more than twice. He realised he could achieve his goals without consorting with those likely to earn the attention of a monster disguised as a human girl.

It was a sound idea. Except that like all sound ideas, they were unravelled by a severe weakness.

Ham’s came in the form of an angelic smile.

“There is a place here for everyone, no matter where they might hail or where they seek to go. Until your heart has settled on a destination, why not enjoy the hospitality of the Rosehearth Tavern?”

Baroness Arisa Sandholdt was a sight never seen either below or above the surface.

With hair as golden as the sun and a personality to match, Ham forgot his terror. Enough that without even realising it, he’d become so enamoured that even his nightmares began to fade. 

And then she came along.

Ham didn’t know what happened in the depths of the baroness’s secret vault. Only that when the noblewoman’s cry of despair sounded, it was enough to send every hardened criminal running as though broken from a siren’s spell. 

However, for a dwarf whose heart had been soothed by her words, it was enough to send him in search of the only ones who truly mattered to him. 

That first band of knaves. 

Those who accepted him with nothing more than an insult to his height. For although Rextros the Black Scar was gone, those who crunched on skewered fire beetles with him had not. They would always remain true to their own wants. 

At least until a blood sucking abomination decided otherwise.

“I need everything replaced,” said the vampire with a powdered wig, pointing at a pile of charred furniture. “I don’t care how you find it, but it needs to be done. And I suppose it should be an improvement while we’re at it. Acquire something tasteful and modern. You may begin at once.” 

It was, all in all, a truly terrible experience.

Unlike the others around him, the dwarf didn’t have every thought wiped from his head. And while he didn’t know why, he suspected it was because the vampire took the tiniest drop of amusement from knowing that at least some of his thralls were fully conscious of their terror.

And then she came along.

Ham was admittedly grateful for this. But that didn’t make her any less frightening.

After all, when facing a vampire, she also decided to bring the sun with her, dousing the unkillable evil in a ray of heavenly light while somehow floating in the air like an angel of death. 

Ham, realising at last that nowhere was safe, did what he should have done a long time ago.

He went back home. 

Or at least he tried to. He was still several days away from the Underhalls when he was captured by the Shadowvault Syndicate. 

That really was a thing worse than vampires. 

Unlike them, few dwarves had the ability to read minds. And for those belonging to one of the most notorious criminal enterprises, that generally meant a lot of torture while they worked out which rival organisation Ham worked for.

Except it didn’t turn out that way at all.

Instead, Velstric the Black Thane had taken a single look at him, before ordering his bindings cut and a tankard of freshly drawn ale served.

“Impressive,” he said, shocking everyone around him with an approving nod. “I see it in your eyes. You’ve the look of a dwarf who has stared down the abyss. I don’t know who you are or what you did. But you can put that all aside. Someone with your experience is better served with us. Do not disappoint me, and you won’t be disappointed in turn.”

And that was that.

Despite his sole achievement being surviving, Ham had found himself directly upon the ladder of the Shadowvault Syndicate. 

His dreams of his own guild were coming true, and unlike his time on the surface, there was little chance they’d be shattered by a girl who commanded both the heavens and the oceans.

Ham was safe.

Ham was happy.

And then she came along.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh … !!”

Presently, Ham was running for his life, sweat pouring down past his brow and despair trailing in his wake as a large boulder rumbled at his heels.

Why this was happening, he had no idea. 

All he knew was that even tonnes of soil and grit wasn’t enough to keep the nightmare away. 

But why should it?

She was the avatar of the abyss. And the deeper below he went, the closer to her home he approached.

“Haah … haah … haah … aahh … !!”

All around him, he heard the breathless panting of his compatriots as they sprinted from the boulder as it followed the smooth path of the corridor. 

It hummed to the pinging of arrows, falling guillotines and the odd fireball as it triggered every trap, causing the dwarves to shield their heads even as they threatened to stumble.

Eventually, the dwarves did fall–but only to leap out of the way.

One after another, they hurled themselves past the end of the corridor and into the main excavation. The boulder swept past, flinging into a waiting gorge to land upon the head of some sleeping horror.

Whatever it was, it would have to wait for its revenge.

The dwarves had their own to see to first.

“What … What the hells was that?!” spat the first dwarf to rise to his feet. “When did we install a rolling boulder?!”

“We didn’t … uff … it was … it was the intruders …”

“Intruders? Here?”

Suddenly, half the dwarves sprang to their feet. 

Despite their endless sprint, dwarves possessed exceptional stamina. As fatigued as they were, they wouldn’t allow their pay to be docked just because intruders had managed to catch them off guard.

Moreover, most hadn’t seen what happened in the cavern.

“Wait,” said Ham, just about rising onto a knee. He swallowed a deep breath. “You … You don’t know what’s coming. It’s a human girl. With a sword. She just defeated Belinda.” 

“She what?”

Faces fell as a handful of nods confirmed his words.

Only the most trusted of blackguards were stationed to guard the main excavation. But even the finest warrior among them wouldn’t even be able to stub a golem’s toe. 

“A sword means nothing,” came a voice brimming with false bravado. “We ready the cannons, take up the ballistas. Whatever comes through becomes a mushed onion.”

A murmur of agreement sounded.

Ham raised his palm.

“Wait. I also know her. From the surface.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. I have a plan.”

At once, all thought of seniority vanished as Ham gave a nod.

As the fire of determination brewed in his eyes, the dwarves around him rose a little higher, seeing now that the rumours surrounding the dark past of their newest member might actually hold true.

“Not bad, Ham,” said the oldest one present, acknowledging his name for the first time. “If we can take out someone powerful enough to defeat Belinda, we’ll all be swimming in crowns by the end of the day. What do you have in mind?” 

Ham took another deep breath.

He was the unluckiest dwarf alive. But he was alive.

He’d seen into the abyss. And the abyss had officially overlooked him.

That meant he alone had an advantage nobody else did.

He was no famed warrior. No sage draped in wisdom. But unlike those who’d been punted to the horizon, Ham had watched. 

And he had learned.

Thus, with his brows creased in seriousness, he dropped back down to the ground, before splaying his limbs messily and letting out a pathetic groan of exaggerated agony.

“Pretend like you’re dying and she’ll ignore you.”