54 Blessed Artifact

After Realta left I went back to sleep, no need to keep worrying about future problems, the next day me and Hadrick went back to experimenting.

Sapphire: "hey Hadrick can you tell me about the Dwarfen Kingdom?"

Hadrick: "what do you want to know?"

Sapphire: "what it's like?"

Hadrick: "the dwarfen kingdom is without a doubt the most advanced of all kingdoms, because dwarfs naturally love building and inventing, so technology always is evolving and changing, so much that most kingdoms try to buy, copy, or even steal our weapons and products, but most of later fail though."

Sapphire: "does that mean that the dwarfen kingdom gets attacked very often?"

Hadrick: "not at all, no one dares to?"

Sapphire: "why is that?"

Hadrick: "we are the number one supplier of weapons, tools, and other products to all the other kingdoms, no one would be dum enough to attack us or else we would cut our trade with them, of course the weapons we sell the other kingdoms are second rate products, unless we make something better, we keep the best weapons and products with us."

The dwarfs are surprisingly clever..

*BOOM*

Hadrick: "*sigh* another failure"

Hadrick been trying to make a new advance in alchemy using the darkness element.

That was the third explosion this morning.

Hadrick: "we need to by different ingredients and extra tools."

Sapphire: "but how, the dwarfen kingdom is under lockdown."

Hadrick: "in cases like this the kingdom opens a market outside in a nearby village, even under lockdown we can't exactly stop the trade."

Sapphire: "does the kingdom go under lockdown often?"

Hadrick: "only when someone blows up a castle or an orphanage."

Sapphire: " I don't even want to ask, but your lucky you aren't executed."

Hadrick: "I was just on a simple mission to do some Public Relations stunt, how was I supposed to know that nuns are flammable?"

Sapphire:"HOW ARE YOU NOT IN JAILLLLLL ALREADY!!!"

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After walking for about an hour we reached the market, it looks like a giant carnaval except instead of game stalls everyone is selling something.

Hadrick: " HEYYYY GAAARRRFF YOU FOOOL, GET YOUR BUTT HERE ALREADY"

Suddenly Hadrick started shouting... Is this really okay?

Garf: " HADRICK YOUR ALIVE, I'M SO GLAD"

Hadrick: "we came here to get ingredients?"

Hadrick said as he handed him a piece of paper.

Garf: "I'll get them right away"

Sapphire: "wow you sure are highly respected."

Hadrick: " Ha Ha, of course Garf is the village chief and every time this market opens he profits, I must have made him a fortune"

Sapphire: "WHAT'S SO FUNNY ABOUT YOU BEING A NATIONAL DANGER?!!!"

Garf: "here you go"

Garf came back with a cart full of what we need, we'll that was sure quick.

Garf: "by the way did you here the news?"

Hadrick: " what news?"

Garf: "apparently the goddess of light gave the church a new artifact as a gift, it's a magic staff that can remove any curse or blessing, and it's on display at their grand temple at the human capital."

Hadrick: "that a bunch of bull crap"

Garf: "but that news came from the top brass of the church of life, there's no way they'd lie about that"

Hadrick: "suit yourself, come on we got what we need so let's go"

I kinda wished we could have looked around more, I didn't know we would just walk in wait for 15 then walk away, ah well at least we didn't waste time.

Me and Hadrick started chatting on the way home.

Hadrick: "do you believe that nonsense he was spouting?"

Sapphire: " why is it nonsense?"

Hadrick: "you of all people should know how hard it is to remove a curse, an artifact that can remove them would be too complex to make, curses differ in nature and in method of removal, in order to be able to remove every curse, you need to be able to identify it, and use the best method to remove it."

Sapphire: " but this is the goddess of life, surely she can make a sentient artifact that can analyze the curse and the best method to remove it, it's probably within her power. "

He seems to be considering it, but he quickly dismisses the notion.

Hadrick: "I don't think so, even if she made one and fed it all information needed to every curse in existence, she won't be able to let it know future curses."

True, dark magic is Realta domain, unless he helped she won't be able to make it.

Hadrick: "also, don't you think their is alot of suspicious details and flaws in this story?"

Sapphire: "mmm.. What are they"

Hadrick: "well for starters, why would she make it in the form of a staff, staffs are best utilized to make offensive magic and defense, their not used much in curse removals, it would have bean better if she made it in the form of a piece of jewelry"

I guess as a Smith and a tinckerer he is much used to magic weapons.

Hadrick: " second, it's the flaws in its function itself, I understand curses, but why blessings, blessings are given by the gods or from priests and healers, the later two blessings aren't permanent, but still, let's say you had a priest gave you a small blessing from cold or motion sickness, why would you want it removed, it would be even worse on the battlefield when you have buffing blessings, if you used the artifact then it would be harmful, not to mention that curses and blessings are complete opposites, and to think a single artifact would have such contrasting powers is unthinkable."

Sapphire: " Really? "

Hadrick: " trust me the dwarf royalty have a few blessed artifacts in the royal treasury and I studied every single one of them... and broke a few, and although they had amazing powers and properties non of them were ever this contradicting."

Sapphire: "ARE YOU THE KINGS FATHER, BECAUSE I DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW ELSE YOU CAN ESCAPE EXECUTION ?!!!"

Hadrick: " and lastly is the fact that the artifact is on display, the old geezers at the church of light are all a bunch of stingy crows, sure they would brag about getting new artifact from the goddess, but non of them would even accept an outsider to look at the artifact, nevermind touching it, this all smells like some sort of hoax."

I kept silent, because although I kept asking questions, I already knew all that, excluding the gods I'm probably the only one that knows the truth and purpose of that artifact.

(it's a trap isn't it Ruby)

Ruby: "most likely, it seems the goddess of light have given up on finding you and decided to draw you in instead, as long as you step inside any of her temples she will find you."

(does she really think that I'm that stupid? to fall into such an obvious trap?)

Ruby: " She is probably assuming that the curse is still active and you are just surpassing it by will power, like some leviathans tried to do at first, so she is hoping that the curse have affected your sanity enough to make that mistake."

(well let her wait as long as she wants, I'm not going to her temple)

This goddess sure is sneaky, Realta wasn't kidding when he said that she likes to plot.

Well we almost reached home.

*cough* *cough* *thud*

Sapphire: " HADRICK?!!!! "

Chapter End