Eternity | T.J.

A Cursed Ring! I Love Cursed Rings!

     Wow, not only was it a demise, it was a tragic one. Not even the einherji used the term 'Tragic Demise' a lot. I almost applauded his high vocabulary skills.

     Magnus tightened his grip on he dwarf." Where's the gold? Don't make me unleash my swords playlest."

     Andvari continued his attempt to escape." You fools don't want my gold! Don't you know what happens to people who take it!?"

     " They get rich?" Magnus offered.

     " No!"

     I raised an eyebrow." They don't get rich?"

     " Well, they do. But after that, they die! Or, at least, they want to die. They always suffer. And so does everyone around them!" He wiggled his fingers as if that were supposed to intimidate us.

     One person stole gold. Hearth sighed. No consequences. Loki.

     " Loki stole your gold once," Magnus translated for our elven friend." And he didn't die or suffer."

     " Well, yeah, but that's Loki! Everybody else who got the gold after him, they went crazy! They had horrible lives, left a trail of dead bodies! Is that what you want? You want to be like Fafnir? Sigurd? The Powerball Lottery winners?"

     " The who?"

     " Wait, that last one was you?"

     " Oh come on!" Andvari said." You've heard the stories. Every time I lose my ring, it bounces around the Nine Worlds for a while. Some schmuck gets ahold of it. They win the lottery and make millions. But they always end up broke, divorced, sick, unhappy, and/or dead. Is that what you want?"

     Magic ring, Hearth realized. Yes, that's the secret of his wealth. We need that.

     " You mentioned a ring," Magnus said to the dwarf.

     " Did I?" Andvari asked quickly." Nope, must've misspoken. No ring."

     " Jack." Magnus turned to his sword." How do his feet look to you?"

     " Real bad, señor. They need a pedicure."

     " Do it."

     Within a split second, Jack had completely cleaned the dwarf's feet of everything besides his skin, all without causing any bloodshed, and while continuing his usual singing.

     " All right! All right!" Andvari yelled." No more torture! I'll show you where the treasure is! It's right under that rock."

     He pointed to a boulder near the pond.

     Traps. Hearth warned.

     I shared a look with my brother, before heading down into the earth to check it out. Normally, I don't look around while I'm underground, there's not often anything interesting to look at, just dirt, but this time, sure enough, there was a long series of traps under the rock.

     I popped back up." Yeah, I recommend we do something about the booby traps before lifting the boulder." I looked at the dwarf." Andvari, unless you want your body to be used as a human- or rather dwarf- shield against said traps, I recommend dissarming them all."

     Andvari squinted his eyes in concentration for a moment, before opening his eyes and sighing." It's done, I've disarmed all the traps."

     Hearth reached a hand over the boulder before nodding. Safe.