Darkness enveloped Vidar once the hatch was closed above his head, and he'd climbed down the all-too-narrow ladder. Already prepared, Vidar slipped out the kenaz rune and put it on his forehead before tying off the leather cord. Once triggered, light flooded the short hallway that led out onto the platform overlooking the raging torrent of running water pushed along by thrust runes somewhere far away, near the water intake and cleaning stations.

  Walking around the corner, he didn't pay close enough attention to the wall, and the side of Vidar's head brushed against the stone. It didn't hurt, but the leather cord came undone and the small wooden disc tumbled through the air as it fell off his forehead, blinding him as the light pointed this way and that.

  "Dammit!" he cursed, trying to grab the thing before it hit the floor.

  He failed, but at least it didn't bounce into the water. Vidar carried plenty more kenaz runes these days, so he'd never be without again, but it would still be a pain to replace the leather cord. No matter what he tried, he just kept losing the damn runes for one reason or another. Vidar pondered the question of alternatives to the leather cord as he headed over to the basin, following the increasingly loud roar of the many streams crashing into the water below.

  Shining the light down the drop revealed no sign of Rend. No floating corpse.

  As he turned to head back, he slipped on the wet stone and almost went into the water again. Thankfully, this time he caught himself before going in. He'd gone in and over the edge once before and once was already too many times. Repeating that experience did not appeal to Vidar, who remembered being submerged in the icy cold, spluttering, and on the verge of drowning.

  He stopped and rubbed his chin, frowning as he peered into the water he'd almost fallen into just a moment earlier. The water... The water! That was it! He'd just thought of the perfect way to never again fumble and lose a rune. Grinning like a madman, he hurried back the way he had come, already planning for when he could fit in a new excursion into the already full couple of days ahead of him. Sooner rather than later would be best. Excited like a child waiting for a new toy, Vidar hurried down another walkway.

  That excitement had dulled somewhat by the second water basin. By then, his clothes were damp from the misting spray of water and the two waste basins he'd inspected had yielded no results either. What a waste of time, searching for that stupid dragon rider. Still, Vidar wouldn't give up. Not yet. More than anything, he wanted answers. He would find the bastard and make him reveal everything he knew about the dragon's essence holding Vidar's heart in a gentle embrace. Also, he wanted to know about Lytir. Rend sounded like he knew the man, or at least knew something of what he was, and Vidar did not want to meet the vagrant again without knowing more. The look on Lytir's face, his entire demeanor, and the way he'd spoken were those of a different man than the one he'd known since boyhood. That man was an unknown, one that now frightened Vidar more than he wanted to admit.

  Vidar hadn't found Rend this time either, and he wasn't sure what to think about it. He had been checking basins with the assumption that the dragon rider was dead, and dead men couldn't answer questions.

  With the warmth runes flaring in anticipation of the cold above, Vidar climbed up the ladder and out through the hatch, hearing the loud click of the mechanism locking behind him. His mood was a mix of frustration and excitement as he headed back to the workshop.

  Frustration over not getting answers to his questions and having wasted time looking for a ghost. Excitement, though, because of what he was returning to. The workshop. His workshop.

  The part of his back between his shoulder blades prickled as he walked. Vidar turned around with a shudder. It felt like he was being watched, but he could spot no one suspicious in the mass of people going about their daily tasks.

  That baker kept glancing at him and the woman with the headscarf kept her head down for no reason. Suspicious. He shook his head. No. The thieves' guild didn't even allow women to join. Paranoia was getting to him after the talk with Ida.

  Spending so much time next to the underground torrent of water meant his clothes were damp, and the sowilo runes struggled to keep the cold out. Vidar's teeth chattered as he hurried down the street. He couldn't quite shake the feeling of being watched. Just to be safe, he double- and triple-checked the barrier runes. They were all rejuvenated and ready to protect him if necessary. Still, he felt exposed. There were parts of him not protected by runes, and even with them, he wasn't fully safe, as the kidnapping showed.

  When he made it to the workshop, all thoughts of being followed dropped away. A sign over the door proclaimed the name of their establishment: 'Runes Aplenty'. To the left of the name was an algiz rune, and to the right, a sowilo rune. All lines were crafted without fault, showing what their skill.

  Vidar couldn't reach, so he grabbed a crate and placed it below the sign, going up on his toes to touch the barrier rune. It was rejuvenated. Extra protection. A good thing, certainly.

  The front door held a large pane of glass, allowing customers to see into the shop. A sign hung on the inside, telling any passersby they were closed.

  Both signs allowed Vidar to read them without the letters dancing around. By this time, he didn't question it anymore. Sometimes, his reading worked just fine, even if it most often did not.

  The light inside, cast by kenaz runes in the ceiling, gave an inviting glow. Warm air greeted him as he entered, making Vidar let out a sigh of relief. The front of the shop was still empty except for the shelf on the wall beyond the counter. On it, square pieces of thin wood about the size of Vidar's head displayed the different runes the shop was offering, one rune on each piece of wood, large for the customer to see.

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  From the left: kenaz, light, followed by sowilo, warmth. Then izas, the useless chill rune. Algiz, the barrier rune, finished the set. Vidar was sure that last one would outsell the others by quite a margin.

  Three runes were missing from the wall. Alvarn had decided they would not sell those particular designs, and Vidar could only agree. Stakra, the thrust rune, was a new discovery and not something for just anyone to handle. Even if the rune scribes' guild knew of it, like with most runes, only those capable of triggering runes themselves could use it, and it was a powerful weapon in its own right. Vidar figured the guild would come for them if they attempted to sell that one. Then, the styrka rune. That one was perhaps even more dangerous than the thrust one, with the ability to pull essence from a person against their will. A threat Vidar knew all too well.

  The image of Torbjorn withered to a husk after Vidar drew every ounce of essence from the man, flashed in his mind. He shuddered at the memory. The palm of his hand hurt with remembered pain.

  "No," he whispered. "That rune is not for just anyone."

  The final rune, the one only two people knew the symbol for, was logiz, the fire rune used by the dragon to rain death upon Halmstadt. So, four runes to sell and three to keep for themselves.

  Voices drifted in from the room behind the shop. When Vidar entered, he saw Alvarn and Erik standing over the workbench, crafting something.

  "Welcome back," Erik greeted, wrinkling his nose. "You smell."

  Alvarn added, "Sewers?"

  "Sewers," Vidar muttered. "What are you doing?"

  A pair of clamps on the workbench held a wooden disc clamped between them. Alvarn worked on the edge with a file and a piece of sandpaper, gesturing for Vidar to come closer.

  "I'm showing Erik how to make the wooden discs more presentable," Alvarn explained. "Removing the outer layer and smoothing the surfaces gives a sense of quality to the product, even if we're using a cheap base like wood."

  Vidar leaned in to get a better look. "Does that make a difference in how the rune works?"

  "No," Alvarn chuckled. "But the feel of the product is important to many customers. A more premium rune can sell for twice the amount of one of these."

  He picked up a shoddy sowilo rune crafted from what Vidar guessed was the leg of a chair, sawed into thin squares.

  "If it sells for more, I'm all for it," Vidar said, standing back again.

  "You don't want to know how to do this?" Alvarn called after him.

  "No, that's an Erik job," Vidar called back down. Vidar stopped for a moment, then hunched over to peek back down the stairs. "Love the name of the shop, by the way."

  Erik called up after him, "It was my idea!"

  The sound of eager hands sanding wood resumed as Vidar climbed the stairs.

  Hanging up his coat was a relief. With the many sowilo runes around, the cold no longer bothered him, but the dampness of the fabric made it cumbersome. The boots stayed on. All three of them tracked in snow, which soon turned to water and dirt, and none had thought to wipe it off. Either they would have to get a maid, or he'd just found another task for Erik. Either way, the problem was insignificant at this point, a mere annoyance.

  Vidar let his gaze slowly make its way around the room, taking in all its glory, before sitting down in one of the chairs with a thud.

  Once rested, he headed back downstairs to find Alvarn still by the workbench, working with a set of tools foreign to Vidar.

  "Where's Erik?" Vidar asked, shuffling up to stand next to the bench to get a better look.

  Alvarn bit his lip, concentrating on the task before him as a thin stream of smoke rose from the wooden disc when he touched a pen-like object, if thicker, to the surface.

  "He went out. Said he needed to gather wood for a personal project."

  Leaning in even closer, so his face was almost at level with the workbench, Vidar narrowed his eyes. "Is that thing burning the wood?"

  Having completed a kenaz rune, Alvarn stood and leaned his upper body backward, stretching his back. "Yes. Good thing you're here. I wanted to show you these, but figured you might be asleep."

  "Just resting," Vidar grunted.

  Alvarn held up the pen-like instrument with the tip facing Vidar. "Look closer. Can you see it?"

  Narrowing his eyes, Vidar leaned in. A clear material covered the tip with something painted underneath it. It was too tiny to make out, but through his stellar skill of deduction, Vidar understood. "Sowilo."

  "That's right."

  "How? It's so small."

  Alvarn rendered the rune inactive and put the instrument on the workbench. "A set of magnifying glasses are used to craft these by artisans in the guild. Then it’s coated in that resin. It can withstand the heat while conducting it to whatever the tip is touching."

  "Sounds expensive. Can I have one?"

  "No," Alvarn said, pulling it away from Vidar's itching fingers. "All I've been able to afford is two, and they better stay here in the workshop. They are used when creating decorative runes in wood or in making minor corrections to ones deemed repairable."

  "With one of those things, you wouldn't need to carry paint and a brush around everywhere. You'd be able to make runes wherever there's wood. Or anything else that can burn."

  "That's right," Alvarn confirmed.

  Vidar nodded to himself. "You don't have a tool that can cut into stone?"

  "No such tool exists, but I have this," he said, holding up a strange pair of rulers with the ends sliding around a metal circle.

  "What is it?"

  "This will be your best friend," Alvarn promised, taking out a piece of paper and a thin stick of charcoal. He placed the ruler in the middle, then looked up at Vidar and grinned. "What is the angle between the primary line and the secondary line in the kenaz rune?"

  Vidar gave him an empty look, then sighed and raised a hand to show he was plucking the answer out of the air. "Fifty degrees?"

  "What? No," Alvarn said, frowning. "It's sixty-five degrees."

  He gave Vidar another look, then shook his head and turned his gaze back to the rulers, pointing at the metal ring. "See here? You can see the angle between the first ruler and the second. With this, you can find," he paused, drawing a line along the first ruler, then the second. "The angle of the lines in the runic symbol will come out correct every time."

  Vidar plucked the rulers off the workbench and moved them around. "Is this really necessary?"

  A deadpan look from his friend told him everything he needed to hear, but Alvarn answered as well. "It is if you want to craft runes for me to sell."

  "What about stencils?"

  "Stencils?"

  "Yes, stencils," Vidar said, grabbing a knife and another piece of paper, putting it on top of Alvarn's kenaz rune. The paper was of inferior quality and thin enough for the charcoal to show through. Vidar cut the symbol out of his paper, leaving a hole showing the kenaz rune. He handed it over to Alvarn. "Stencil."

  "This takes the craft aspect out of the process, does it not? Crafting runes is the work of an artisan, not child's play."

  Vidar wasn't listening. His mind had already continued to the next step. "What if we take metal pieces and make them into the shape of runes? That way, we could heat it and stamp runes into wood. Like that, we could mass produce them!"

  Alvarn looked a little pale as he put down the burning tool and walked over to the door leading to the front of the shop. "I'm not sure what to think of this."

  "Progress," Vidar said, following his friend.