Hounds Rising
Smoke and Barrel

The evening went by smoothly, with Mr. Muffins working on his various designs.

It’s almost done. He thought while holding the satchel in his hands in the magical light set in his room over the work desk. Scratching behind his whiskers, then stretching, he yawned loudly. The sun had probably already set, and there wasn’t much that could be done while tired, so he moved to his bed and laid down. His eyes closed as soon as his head hit the pillow, and the night moved to the morning as if he blinked.

Mr. Muffins awoke and sat up. He looked through the window in his room and saw the gray and slightly overcast sky. The wind picked up briefly, pushing people to and from their destinations like the leaves that fell off the trees during the autumn morning. The sun had just started to rise, giving tints of reds and purples over the eastern wall.

The scene reminded him of his life in Westford. The large castle also had windows that weren’t there, that were actually made of a magic enchantment. He thought back on the days he had spent there, learning various skills and seeing the many students working on their contraptions and gizmos in the hope of benefiting the world. Mr. Muffins knew better, though. It was never about bettering the world for Westford Academy. It was about profit. He shook his head and cleared his thoughts, feeling his mind move east to Moonbright and away from his past.

Like every morning since arriving in the Archmage’s Tower, he could already smell the coffee wafting through his room. He dressed and walked out into the main chamber. Mr. Muffins could see the many pastries and breakfast foods already set out for the day and the pots of coffee, tea, and a large pitcher of water ready for them. Looking around, he noticed that no one else had woken up yet, so he grabbed a plateful of items, poured some coffee into a large mug, and then returned to his room. Though his hands were full, the tower seemed to sense his direction and intent, causing the door to open for him, then close behind as he set his breakfast on the desk and sat down.

Through the next few hours, Mr. Muffins worked diligently on his designs. Adding in the azurite shards, using components he already had and quite a bit of leather, he was able to finish his prototype. He held the satchel out in front of him. It wasn’t perfect, but it was close, and with a little bit more downtime to practice its abilities, he felt he could have it tweaked and ready. The joy of creating flowed through him once more.

It was short-lived, though, as he heard shouting from the main chamber.

What have they gotten into now?

He opened the door and stepped out. From the stairs, Leaf descended quickly, tripping on his robes and stumbling every few steps before making it to the first-floor landing. At the table, Lyla and Myla sat together, and across the room near the fireplace, Rhokhishi caught the last of her juggling balls into her hands, stopping to see the commotion.

“DID ANYONE GO INTO MY ROOM YESTERDAY!?” Leaf shouted, his voice echoing through the chamber, causing the glass to shake with his words.

Rhokhishi started juggling again, and Mr. Muffins noticed she seemed too intent on acting like nothing had happened. He squinted his eyes towards her, then back to the rest of them.

“Why? What’s wrong?” Lyla asked.

“Something is missing.”

Leaf took a step forward. Mr. Muffins could see the panic and anger in his eyes. He also stepped towards the twins, readying himself for anything that might happen.

“Was it something important?” Lyla asked again, looking over to her sister.

“Yes… Extremely important.”

“Are you sure? You don’t seem to have a firm grasp on what’s important sometimes,” Lyla smirked as she spoke. She counted on her fingers, “The book, the Tower’s defenses…”

“It is the most important thing in this tower, Lyla. Where is it?” Leaf asked again.

Leaf took another step forward, and the light in the room started to dim. The Tower seemed to sense his anger and mimicked it. Mr. Muffins watched Leaf’s shadow grow longer, crawling across the floor and up the wall. Blackened-green energy grew around his hands and forearms.

“I’m going to ask again,” Leaf said through gritted teeth. “Did anyone go into my room?”

“Could you have just misplaced it?” Myla asked.

“This necklace wouldn’t have been misplaced. It’s not there.”

“What is so important about this necklace?” Lyla questioned him further.

“That’s none of your concern.”

“Considering we’re here with you, and every time you say that it ends up being our concern, I doubt that’s true. I’m asking questions, Leaf. We want to get to know you better and communicate with each other. Every time we ask, it seems to lead to more trouble,” Lyla explained.

Mr. Muffins watched as Lyla stood up and walked away from the table. As she passed by him, she saw something shine against her neck. Without drawing attention to it, he turned and glanced to see a necklace around her collar.

What the hell did you do…?

The energy radiated more intensely, like a fire catching and burning hotter around Leaf. The room dimmed even darker, centered around his body. Mr. Muffins took a step forward, blocking Lyla from Leaf’s view.

“Woah, buddy. Okay. Tell you what, we’ll take a look around for it. The morning just started, so make yourself some hot brown morning potion, and it’ll all work out, alright?” He gestured to the coffee and tea on the table.

Leaf took a few deep breaths, now seeing what was happening around him. Mr. Muffins could tell that he was still anxious and angry but was trying to reel back whatever he was letting take hold of him. He grabbed Lyla’s arm, moved her closer to her bedroom door, and quietly spoke while Rhokhishi started moving things loudly, trying to look for the necklace on the floor or in cushions that Mr. Muffins knew wasn’t there.

“What the fuck did you do?” He asked Lyla.

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Bullshit. Don’t try to play me. I can see it on you.”

Lyla looked playfully offended.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” She tried to dismiss him.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, this!” He pointed at her neck.

Lyla’s smile faded, and she sighed.

“We both know that he likes to hide things! And, if he doesn’t want to give us the information he thinks is important willingly… I just want him to communicate with us. So much is happening now; we can’t let it happen again. I didn’t know it was that important of an item anyway.”

“Let me get this straight,” Mr. Muffins calmly tried to state, but his anger was showing. “You knew that this was an important object?”

“No! It was just the only shiny item in the room.”

“Oh, so you didn’t know it was in there. You just broke into his room and just took it!? Then you’re going to try to justify this?”

“I just thought we could use it as a conversation piece, but that was clearly not the case. I tried to turn it into a learning experience, you know? The guy doesn’t talk to many people.”

Lyla gasped and put her hand to her head. She closed her eyes briefly, then looked at her sister, who was doing the same.

“You too?” Myla asked.

“Yeah, head feels like it’s splitting suddenly,” Lyla replied.

She looked back up to Mr. Muffins and whispered.

“Maybe I handled this wrong, and you seem to have this covered. I need to lay down,” Lyla stated. She took the necklace off discreetly and placed it in his hand.

“Handling it wrong implies that there was something to be handled. I-I don’t have time for this…”

Mr. Muffins looked over at Rhokhishi, who was picking up chairs and looking under them. It dawned on him that this must have happened yesterday when Leaf and he had left for the potion shop.

“You were here too. Were you involved in any of this?” He asked her.

“Maybe handing the necklace back is the best choice. It could start the conversation you wanted,” Rhokhishi said with a shrug, then turned and started lifting other furniture in the room.

“The Archmage might need better security, too. You might want to mention that his doors are easy to pick,” Myla whispered as she walked past Mr. Muffins to her sister, who both started moving towards the bedroom door.

As the two of them made it to the door, he watched as it vanished, turning into a smooth stone wall. Mr. Muffins turned back to Leaf. His anger had regrown, and he could see Leaf started to breathe uneasily again.

“No one leaves this room until I replace my necklace.”

Mr. Muffins walked closer to Leaf. His hands stayed by his side, and he felt his weapon, Jimbo, in its holster.

“I already told you that I’d help you replace it. We’ll get this sorted out. They have a migraine. We can handle this without them,” Mr. Muffins gestured back to the wall where the door had been moments before. “And Rhokhishi, wasn’t I just talking about those wonderful little fish dumplings at the cafe? Why don’t you go and get some for all of us.”

“Sure thing,” She said, backing towards the front door.

Mr. Muffins walked closer to Leaf, their eyes locked.

“You and I can try to replace this necklace of yours. Then, we can settle down and have some fish dumplings.”

Leaf stared at Mr. Muffins for a minute. He kept his eyes locked on Leaf, trying to show his intentions as good. After a moment, Leaf lowered his hands, and the light brightened the room again. Mr. Muffins turned towards the twins and saw the door had reappeared.

“Now, doesn’t everyone have somewhere to be?”

Rhokhishi grabbed her bag and walked out into the town. The twins quickly walked into their room and closed the door. Leaf moved over to a cushioned chair and sat down. Mr. Muffins could see Leaf was shaking, and it wasn’t from the tea he had in his hands.

He walked over and sat in the chair across from him. The fireplace had already gone out, but the room was still warm from the embers. Mr. Muffins sighed, leaning forward in his seat.

“It’s clear that you’re trying to do something here,” Leaf stated. “Just set my necklace down on the table right now, then the situation is dropped, and it’s not coming up again.”

“So, Mr. Archmage, I distinctly recall us needing to have a conversation about how some things are important to tell people. You have a god-awful sense of what those are. This is obviously not just a pretty piece of jewelry, and you replace yourself in a powerful and possibly dangerous position.”

Mr. Muffins looked into Leaf’s eyes, paused momentarily, and continued.

“You’ve partially come into that powerful position through the loss and suffering of my company. I understand that this hasn’t been a particularly easy time for you either, so I feel we can be civil about this and come to an even plane. But still, what the fuck? You don’t get to push this aside. We are all involved now, and some important things are happening.”

“This necklace has no importance whatsoever to you. It regards something in my past.”

“I’ll repeat… You have an awful sense of what is and isn’t important. Now, what you say may be accurate, but I have no way of knowing that based on your previous judgments. A little bit of perspective would be useful for an all-powerful archmage.

They sat in silence for a moment. Mr. Muffins tried to understand the look on Leaf’s face. He seemed to have a look of loss, and he imagined this item was probably the most important thing Leaf owned.

“Look, bud,” Mr. Muffins said as he leaned back. With a small flourish of his hand, the necklace appeared in the palm of his hand. Leaf’s eyes locked on it and opened wide.

“At no point did I ever want this to come into my possession, Leaf. I don’t even know what it is other than it’s important to you, right?”

“Yes…”

“I shouldn’t be the one to teach you this. Let me state the facts. You are one of the highest-ranking arcane officials of the realm, and in the last five minutes, you have raged in, in a hissy fit, threatened your comrades, and have yet to give me a convincing reason as to how you feel about any of this. I just wanted to work on my projects, not be part of some political sphere, but it seems that this isn’t conduct becoming of any civilized member of society, especially one of your status.”

Mr. Muffins let the charm fall from his hand and leaned forward over the small table between them.

“I’m gonna say this as a friend, as I consider us friends at this point. Figure it out, bud. You better do that soon or replace someone who can help you. We can be adults about this. I’m going to calmly and reasonably put this on this here table. I hope you will be a reasonable person and just give me a reason, any reason at all, as to why I should leave this alone and not make me have to keep an eye on you for every hour of every day from here on out.”

Mr. Muffins set the necklace on the table. Leaf paused momentarily, staring at it, before moving quickly forward. He gingerly picked up the necklace and placed it in his hands. He spoke while staring at it.

“This necklace was from a love I once had. They died…” Leaf trailed off.

“That is a reason, personal attachment,” Mr. Muffins stood up, brushing down his vest and looking over Leaf. “That I can understand. I can even see why you’re this level of upset about it missing. But, was that so hard?”

Leaf shook his head slowly. Mr. Muffins took a few steps away, then stopped and turned around.

“And you can be sure that I will handle this on the other side as well. This is not my fucking job, but hopefully we can all come to the end of this better for it.”

He watched as Leaf stood, bowed slightly, and then turned towards the stairs. A silvery mist wrapped around his body, and Mr. Muffins knew he would teleport away. Before turning, though, he watched as Leaf stumbled forward, and the fog faded. Leaf looked down, shocked.

“What?” Leaf questioned.

The front door opened, followed by the twins’ bedroom door. Rhokhishi walked in, carrying a small sack of food. She closed the door and turned around as the room stood still.

Mr. Muffins watched as Lyla and Myla walked out of their room. Their movements were shaky as if they weren’t in control. He moved his hand down to his holster and watched. The twins walked forward one step, a second step.

He noticed that neither of their eyes were open. It was as if they were sleepwalking, but something was off. Then, they collapsed to the ground. Rhokhishi rushed forward, dropping the food sack as she kneeled beside them.

“What happened?” Rhokhishi asked.

Mr. Muffins just shook his head, confused.