Miss Kobold & Her Bodyguard 

Chapter One by Mitch Miller - Illustrated by DarkChibiShadow

The short sword sparks against the stone floor.

Folded steel catches the torchlights mounted along the ancient walls of the dungeon, arcing over his head to swing down at an angle that grants momentum. This blow lands, sending one of the three monstrous rats scurrying back into the hole they crawled out of.

The biggest of the furry nightmares lunges at Heden's right leg, its large yellow teeth strong enough to latch onto one of his greaves and dent the metal.

"Hey! That cost me a fortune," Heden says, trying to dislodge the rat with a shake of his leg. When that doesn't work, he kicks at it with his left one. The hits do little damage, but what matters is that they're doing any damage at all.

That's not great. From her perch high above the spacious chamber, Nua tries not to gnaw through the strap of her bag. If a rat can chew through his armor, we're doomed.

"Why won't you just die already? Damn, you're annoying."

"Why not try talking to them?" Nua says, dripping with sarcasm as she peeks out through a crack in the pillar she's hidden behind. "Maybe if you're nice they will just leave us alone."

"You're not helping!" Heden kicks the rat again, and this time it flies off of him to hit the opposite wall. It slinks down it, a patch of rusty fur left behind in a sluggish trail.

"Ew."

"Take that, you rat bastard!"

Nua does not want to be impressed by the fact that a tall folk can defeat a beast without any actual weapons, but she is. She's read countless scrolls on the adventures and misadventures of intrepid adventurers equipped with both wit and the most flexible of dwarven steel, and encounters oftentimes go wrong in the most inexplicable ways.

Just like those stories, Heden tripped over his feet, got his sword lodged in a wooden chest, and missed a rat roughly the size of a boar multiple times. And just like in those stories, he's managed to emerge triumphant.

Chest puffed out, sweat on his brow, hand firm on his blade, and a frankly infuriating smirk on his face, Heden is getting his job done.

He better, she thinks to herself. His services cost me an arm and a leg.

The third of the rats is the easiest to take care of.

From within the leather pouch attached to Heden's belt, he pulls out a glass bottle whose smoky contents emit a pale blue light. Intrigued, Nua peeks around the pillar for a better look.

"This'll show you." Heden uncorks the bottle with his teeth and rolls it across the uneven floor, over to the last beast that whips its tail to ready an attack.

The rat doesn't get the opportunity, its scarred body colliding with the oncoming potion mid sprint.

Blue smoke spills out and envelops the beast, shaping itself into a perfect sphere that becomes smaller and smaller, until it is minute enough to slip back into the glass bottle.

Heden rushes over and corks it back up, holding it at eye level with a light shake. "There you go. No more causing trouble until my ass is outta here." He throws it in the air, catches it, then slips it back into his pouch in one smooth motion. "The coast should be clear. You're good to come down now."

Nua doesn't move from her spot, glancing around the chamber below her. "No more beasts?"

"None that I can perceive."

"That inspires no confidence in me."

Heden glances up at her, eyebrow raised. "Alright, Miss Kobold. Can you perceive anything?"

"That is your job."

He rests a fist on his hip and gestures to the room they're in. "Exactly, and I'm telling you that there's no other creepy crawlies out to get either of us yet." Heden moves into a stretch, cracking his neck with a satisfied sigh. "The quicker you get down, the sooner we can take a short rest and eat. After I'm done picking this place clean."

Nua harrumphs, ducking under the arch low enough to not soil her horns with whatever purple organisms grow clustered on the damp stone. If her senses were a bit calmer she would not have hesitated to grab a sample for later study, but as it stands, she will have to settle with writing down a reminder to do so on their return journey.

"Must you?" she asks, slowly making her way down crooked ledges barely wide enough to accommodate her claws.

"Must I what? Stop and eat?"

Nua loses her footing but manages to catch herself in time by pressing the length of herself against the grody wall. Though her glasses slip off her snout and her clothes are now extra dirty, she at least didn't make any embarrassing sounds judging by her bodyguard's lack of reaction.

She clears her throat as she rights herself. "Yes, but I was referring to your constant need to loot things." Hopping the rest of the way down, she heaves a sigh of relief. "I thought you said you were a member of the guild."

Across the way, Heden slots his sword into the narrow gap between chest and lid. He puts his weight onto the hilt and pops it open. "You think sanctioned adventurers don't loot? How do you think we can afford better armor and weapons?"

Nue picks her glasses off the floor. They're only a little smeared, nothing her favorite kerchief can't fix. "Commissions."

Heden laughs. "The most I can get with three-hundred gold is two night's stay at the lousiest inn imaginable, a meal or three, and maybe a scabbard upgrade. All the good stuff," he holds up a glittering green gem he pilfers from the chest, "you get outta selling all the neat things you find lying around." Rather than pocket the gem, he tosses it to Nua. "Hold onto that, will you?"

Nua manages to catch it. "You get an extra three hundred upon our return," she reminds him.

"Three nights and four meals then."

"If you don't consider the compensation fair, then why agree to it?" There are a dozen answers to that question, and she's sure each one is as lecherous as the last.

Heden isn't looking at her, hunched as he is over an assortment of clay pots. He picks them up one by one and holds them upside down with a vigorous shake. "Because," he says, inspecting a medallion that falls to his feet, "I've heard rumors about the artifact you mentioned. The kind of rumor a lady like you should've kept to herself if she didn't want any ne're-do-wells overcharging for their subpar services."

Nua straightens up, affronted by his implication. "I am perfectly capable of discerning between an honest folk and a fraud."

"Oh, really?"

"Yes, really." She approaches one of the untouched chests opposite of Heden's looting rampage.

"So you consider me a noble, handsome, honest man?"

Nua opens her mouth then immediately snaps it shut, catching herself just in time. "That's not what I said."

"Oh. So I'm sleazy, handsome, and a fraud? Your initial judgement incorrect, much like that whole deal about your bag?"

"Had I been incorrect about my bag, we would not have gotten cornered by rats starved enough to eat through your armor," she says, throwing open the chest's lid with enough force to dislodge what appears to be decades of accumulated dust. "Every single one of those books has invaluable information on how best to navigate these sorts of ruins, but I now understand that you hold the weight of your ego with more esteem than you do that of practical knowledge—!"

The tickle of sand at the back of her throat interrupts Nua with a cough, the sensation similar to eating her favorite cake too quickly once pulled out of the oven. Warm crumbs against a hard to reach place, best doused by an equally warm drink to settle deliciously in her stomach.

She hiccups, covering her mouth with mild embarrassment at the rude sound.

A warm drink that settles deliciously in the stomach. Like tea, or goat's milk. The kind of drink she would indulge in right before bed, moments before she sunk into the decadent sheets that whisper against her bare skin.

"Oh," she says, now twice as embarrassed, and confused as to where the thought came from.

"What?"

"Nothing! It's nothing." Nua clears her throat, hand still over her mouth as she looks down at the jostled chest. It's empty, but the interior is covered in a thin sheen of purple not too dissimilar to the near microscopic buds she had seen while hiding in the alcove. These look calcified, and she must have inhaled their particles.

She hopes they're plants and nothing more. Although, sparing it another thought, a plant might be more dangerous than ingesting animalia her body might not recognize.

Dozens of tomes, thousands of titles, hundreds of thousands of pages read throughout her lifetime, a sense of memory so impeccable that the College designated Nua an irreplaceable member of staff…and she cannot remember a single damned thing.

"Are you listening to me?"

Nua startles when Heden's voice rings closer to her than she had anticipated. He smells strongly of sweat and burnt leather. The way his grip tightens on the hilt of his sword is audible.

She has to look up at him, meet his eyes to the best of her ability because she was raised in polite society, but midway past his hip she has to look away.

"Miss Kobold?"

"That's not my name."

Heden shuffles back a step. "You never gave me one."

"Yes, I did." At least, she thinks she did. But thinking is proving to be a tad difficult at the moment. "Let's keep moving. The quicker we find that diadem, the faster we can leave this place." She starts walking towards the stone archway opposite from the one they walked in through, and one foot past the threshold she looks over her shoulder at a Heden who loiters at the center of the chamber. "Need I extend a more explicit invitation?"

"Guild-mandated short rest." Heden pats the timepiece hidden away in his pocket.

Nua ignores him and keeps walking.

"And the moral to that story," Heden says around a mouthful of meat and bread, "is that if you think you're going to need it, you probably will."

She would point out his hypocrisy if she could, but most of her mind is preoccupied with conjuring images to go along with Heden's lewd story. Not that he provided anything explicit, his tale revolving around his base desires and how he would take up the opportunity if it ever presented itself.

"I should have brought it up to her, Miss Kobold. The way the barkeep kept looking at me? I knew that look. All I had to do was tell her that I was willing to barter a drink for another drink. She gives me a pint, I give her head."

Nua clenches her jaw hard enough to grind teeth. Pulling at her scarf, she considers taking it off entirely when the heat she's been trying to ignore digs itself into crevices it has no place being.

Heden should be ashamed of himself. She remembers the barkeep but she also remembers him chatting with an elf woman who had little interest in his blatant advances. At no point did he show any interest in the barkeep, a human with breasts as big as her head, but Nua supposes there wasn't any need to look in her direction when her chest sucked up all of the attention in the tavern.

Dumpling finished, Heden holds out his hands and pretends to squeeze the air. "Sure they can't be any good for her back, bending over all the time to wipe the countertop…" He stops talking and Nua quickens her step.

Although she cannot sweat, she figures this is a similar sensation to what her parents once explained. Her skin feels clammy, and it intensifies alongside her heart beats. I don't want to feel that right now! she thinks with utter frustration. She focuses on the stone beneath her feet, the lanterns mounted on the walls, the cobwebs weaved against their corners. The air smells both stale and overwhelmingly like Heden, the spritz of her own perfume long faded. She savors the taste in her mouth: berries, even though they're out of season. Sweet like berries, and heady.

Webs made of spun sugar have wrapped around her mind.

"We're sitting," Heden announces with more authority than she thought him capable of. "It's getting late and I'm making the choice to take our rest now."

"We are certainly not," Nua says, and her biggest mistake is to stop walking. Standing still, there is no friction where she needs it, no way to distribute the buttery smooth energy that insists on dripping into her belly.