Chapter 208: Looking for a Needle

Arthur sat at his desk, staring at the two jagged pieces of black metal resting on the wood.

The first was the key he had pulled from the Wayside Shrine at Saint Orlan. The second came from the leather pouch on Kaelen’s belt. Both were cold to the touch, their surfaces etched with archaic runic patterns.

He needed a third to open the Tomb of the Veiled Knife.

The problem was the Black Prayer Bead. In the game, its location randomized on every playthrough. It could spawn in a monastery reliquary, a minor noble’s private collection, or a junk drawer in a high-end antique shop. He couldn’t search every monastery in the region, and knocking on the doors of wealthy estates to ask if they had any weird black beads lying around was a great way to get arrested by the city watch.

The door to the dorm room clicked open.

Emily walked in, carrying a canvas training bag over her shoulder. She stopped a few feet inside the room, looking at the two pieces of metal on the desk.

"I saw you pull one of those off Kaelen," Emily said.

Arthur didn’t try to cover them. "Yeah."

Emily dropped her bag onto the floor and walked over, leaning her hip against the edge of Felix’s empty desk. "Sylvia said the Kaelen bounty expired months ago. You even offered to cover Garrick’s and Mira’s lost contract fees. I’m guessing Kaelen didn’t owe you money."

Arthur picked up the second key with his right hand, tossing it lightly before setting it back down. "I needed what he was carrying."

"What is it?"

"A key," Arthur said. "For a locked tomb."

Emily studied him for a moment. "You brought me and Felix into a bandit camp for a tomb key?"

"I went after Kaelen because of the key," Arthur admitted. "Once we found the merchants, getting them out came first."

"Next time we go into a camp with fifty armed guys, let me know if we’re also running your personal errands," Emily said. "I’d like to know what we’re actually doing out there."

Arthur looked at her. Fair enough. She’d risked her life helping him get the damned thing.

"I’m looking for a specific dungeon," Arthur said. "It requires three keys to open. I have two."

Emily looked down at the metal pieces again. "And the third?"

"A black prayer bead," Arthur told her. "Except I have no idea who currently owns it."

Emily raised an eyebrow. "You don’t know?"

"No." Arthur picked up his jacket. "Which is why I have to go find a dealer who specializes in old collections."

Arthur struggled briefly with the left sleeve before pulling his jacket on. Emily watched him, then picked up her training bag.

"I’ve never seen you go antique shopping," Emily said.

"It’s not exactly a hobby."

"Good." Emily held the door open for him. "Because I want to see you try to negotiate for jewelry."

The Old Market district sat far from the foundries and training grounds Arthur usually visited.

The streets were narrow and paved with tightly fitted cobblestones, lined with tall shops featuring heavy glass windows. The air smelled of old paper and stale incense.

Arthur and Emily walked past three shops specializing in imported silks before stopping in front of a storefront with a faded wooden sign reading Valerius Estate Antiquities. The windows were cluttered with tarnished silver candelabras, old coins, and framed landscape paintings.

"Looks expensive," Emily noted.

"Looks like a place that buys dead people’s junk," Arthur said, pushing the heavy door open.

A bell chimed overhead. The walls were lined with locked glass cabinets displaying everything from ceremonial daggers to porcelain vases.

An older man in a tailored gray vest emerged from the back room. He adjusted a pair of wire-rimmed glasses, taking in Arthur’s casual clothes and the heavy bow slung across his back, then looked at Emily’s combat boots.

"Can I help you?" the dealer asked.

"I’m looking for a specific religious piece," Arthur said, stepping up to the counter. "A black prayer bead. Probably older, irregular shape."

The dealer considered him for a moment. "A single bead, or a devotional necklace?"

"Could be either. The specific bead is what matters."

The dealer gestured for them to wait and disappeared into the back.

Emily leaned against the glass counter, resting her elbows on the polished surface, being careful not to put pressure on her bruised ribs. "Are you sure you aren’t just looking for a fancy rock?"

"If I can get a proper look at it, yeah," Arthur said.

The dealer returned carrying a flat wooden tray lined with black velvet. He set it on the counter.

Sitting on the velvet were four different pieces of jewelry. One was a polished obsidian sphere. Two were loose wooden beads, dark with age but completely smooth. The last was a heavy string of black glass beads attached to a tarnished silver medallion.

Arthur examined the beads one by one. None had the irregular shape he remembered from the game.

"None of these," Arthur said.

The dealer pulled the tray away. "These are authentic devotional pieces from the Third Era. If you’re looking for something specific, you need to provide a better description."

"I described exactly what I’m looking for," Arthur said. He pulled a small leather pouch from his belt and set three heavy silver coins on the glass counter.

The dealer stopped, looking at the silver.

"You handle estate clearances," Arthur said. "When someone brings in a box of old religious junk, you don’t keep everything in the front room. You catalogue it."

"I catalogue items of value," the dealer corrected. "I am not a warehouse."

"But you keep records of what you buy and sell," Emily chimed in. "And you probably have auction catalogues from the bigger estate liquidations."

The dealer looked at Emily, then down at the silver coins. "I maintain an archive of regional auction catalogues and my own consignment ledgers, yes."

"I want to look through them," Arthur said.

The dealer frowned. "My ledgers contain private transaction details. I don’t let mercenaries browse them for their own amusement."

"I don’t care who bought what," Arthur said. "I just need to look at the lot descriptions and the photographs. If I find what I’m looking for, I’ll pay you for the reference." He slid the three silver coins across the glass. "This is for your time."

The dealer pocketed the silver. "The viewing desk is in the corner. I will bring you the public auction catalogues from the past five years. If it passed through a legitimate estate sale in this city, it will be in there."

For the next two hours, Arthur and Emily sat at a cramped wooden desk in the corner of the shop, flipping through heavy, leather-bound catalogues filled with dense text and grainy black-and-white photographs.

Arthur scanned pages of imported ceramics, ceremonial armor, and old furniture, looking for the small jewelry and religious lots.

"This is useless," Emily said, closing a catalogue from three years ago. "Half these things just say ’miscellaneous religious articles’ without individual descriptions."

"Check the photographs," Arthur said, rubbing his eyes.

"I am checking the photographs. They’re blurry." Emily pulled another catalogue from the stack. She flipped past a dozen pages of antique silverware before stopping. "You’re searching the wrong way."

Arthur looked over. "What do you mean?"

"You’re looking for specific beads," Emily said, tapping the page. "But when minor noble estates liquidate, they don’t catalogue every individual rock or loose piece of jewelry. They lump the small stuff together into ’curiosity’ lots to get rid of it."

Arthur pulled his chair closer.

It was a catalogue from four years ago, handled by an auction firm called Blackwood & Sterling. Lot 412 was listed simply as: Mixed devotional ornaments and archaic curiosities.

The photograph accompanying the lot was small and poorly lit. It showed a velvet display board covered in assorted debris—a tarnished silver chalice, a handful of smooth stones, a broken amulet, and several loose beads.

Arthur leaned in closer, his eyes locking onto a small, dark object near the edge of the display board.

It was a black bead, but it wasn’t perfectly round. It had a slightly jagged, irregular shape. The photo was too grainy to make out any surface details, but the silhouette caught his attention.

"Might be what I’m looking for," Arthur said, pointing to the bead.

Emily leaned in, her shoulder pressing comfortably against his. "Are you sure? It looks like a piece of coal."

"It’s a candidate." Arthur traced the lot number with his finger. "Lot 412. Did it sell?"

He checked the catalogue entry beneath the photograph. There was a stamped red ink mark next to the lot description, but the ink had smeared, making the handwritten note beneath it illegible.

Arthur picked up the heavy catalogue and walked back to the front counter.

The dealer looked up. "Found something?"

"Lot 412 in this Blackwood & Sterling catalogue," Arthur said, setting the book on the glass. "What does this red stamp mean?"

The dealer adjusted his glasses and leaned over the book. He squinted at the smeared ink.

"It means the lot was altered before the hammer fell," the dealer explained. "Usually, a family realizes an item holds sentimental value at the last minute, or a private buyer makes a direct offer to the estate before the public auction begins."

Arthur frowned. "So somebody bought it before the auction?"

"Not necessarily the entire lot," the dealer said. He tapped a magnifying glass against the smeared handwriting. "It says ’Item C withdrawn.’ The rest of the lot sold normally."

"Which one is Item C?" Emily asked, coming up beside Arthur.

"The catalogue doesn’t specify," the dealer said. "The photograph was taken before the withdrawal. You would have to ask Blackwood & Sterling for the final sale manifest."

Arthur looked at the blurry photograph of the black bead. If that was Item C, then someone had deliberately pulled it from the auction.

"Where is Blackwood & Sterling?" Arthur asked.

"They operate out of the upper financial district," the dealer said. He closed the heavy catalogue. "But I must warn you, reputable auction houses do not hand out client information to anyone who walks through the door."

"I can be very persuasive," Arthur said.

"They have armed security, young man. Not shopkeepers."

"I’ll keep that in mind." Arthur pulled a notebook from his pocket and copied down the auction date, the lot number, and the name of the firm. He slid another silver coin across the counter. "Thanks for the help."

They stepped out of the stuffy antique shop and back into the cool afternoon air of the Old Market.

Emily rolled her shoulders carefully, keeping her back straight to avoid pulling at her bruised ribs. "So we paid four silver coins to look at a blurry rock that might not even be the thing you want, which might not have even been sold."

"We got a lead," Arthur said, tucking the notebook into his jacket. They started walking back toward the main transit line.

"You’re putting a lot of effort into this," Emily observed, glancing at him. "This tomb better not be full of useless rusty swords."

"It’s not."

"Then what’s in it?"

Arthur glanced at the people passing them, then steered Emily toward a quieter stretch of the street.

"A class extension," he told her.

Emily stopped walking.

She turned and looked at him. "A class extension," Emily repeated, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "Arthur, are you insane? If people find out you’re tracking something like that, you won’t just have bandits coming after you."

"That’s why I haven’t exactly been advertising it."

Emily stared at him, shaking her head before she started walking again. "You are unbelievable."

"You’re the one who wanted to know."

"I thought you were looking for another weapon, not an entire second class." Emily bumped her shoulder against his arm. "What kind of extension?"

"Assassin," Arthur said.

Emily snorted. "You don’t need an extension to be a sneaky bastard. You already have that covered."

Arthur grinned. "It helps."

They reached the transit stop at the edge of the market district. The sun was beginning to dip lower, casting long shadows across the cobblestones.

"So," Emily said, leaning back against the stone pillar of the transit station. "Blackwood & Sterling."

"Not today," Arthur said, flexing his sore left wrist. "I’m not dealing with corporate security guards until I figure out exactly who we need to talk to."

"Good," Emily said. "Because this is the worst treasure hunt I’ve ever been on. No monsters, no traps, just two hours of dusty auction catalogues."

Arthur watched a carriage pull up to the corner. "I almost got my head taken off by a mace looking for the last key. I’ll take the catalogues."