Gold and its price

Gold. Aurum. Rex Metallorum, the king of metals, the metal of kings. Like all elements on Earth heavier than iron, it comes from the stars. Like them, it shines. Whoever has once held it in their hand never wants to let it go. It is just a metal, but much more than that, it is an intoxication. Many, almost all, succumb to it.

Gold is hard to obtain, even harder to give away. Generations of fortune seekers have mined, sifted, washed, scraped, and scratched it, searching for wealth and power. They fought each other over it. Rulers around the world have basked in the glory of gold, while their subjects and slaves have given their shadowy lives in return.

Gold is shit.

News of the miraculous transformation of the king's excrement into gold spread immediately, mainly because his messengers did their best to spread it faster than His Majesty could sit down on the toilet.

Count Francois de Alaba sur Mere gazed thoughtfully at the gold pellets that a royal envoy had delivered to him along with a letter from Chancellor Aristide Marchand. The Count glanced over the letter:

"In gratitude for your past services... we hereby present you with the outstanding pay for your excellent troops... We count on your continued support... appeal to your feudal loyalty... honor it with an advance payment... expect more common Landsknechts as well as arquebusiers, gunners and cavalry..."

Sur Mere was bound by contract. His pay had been paid. He would have to provide the mercenaries. All of the king's vassals received similar payments. Unlike Alaba sur Mere, who could extract the precious metal from his own land, they were not permitted to mine gold themselves. They were therefore pleased with the royal payment and only too happy to contribute their share to the allied force. Perhaps it would be victorious, and the king would be able to cling to power.

Sur Mere was unaware that this hope was thwarted by a massive giant sighting, which the Royal Chancellor Marchand had managed to keep secret. The giants had recently been ravaging the king's lands. Their fate, and his own, was, one might say, utterly irrelevant to Comte Sur Mere.

What interested him was the price of gold. The Count had the nuggets delivered from the royal capital carefully weighed, their purity determined, and came to the conclusion: This campaign, and everything that followed, would ruin him. For the price of gold would plummet if it were true that the king was now literally excreting gold every single day. This had to be stopped. Otherwise, it wouldn't be long before the plebeians in the lower city were paving their streets with the precious metal. But it should be reserved for the nobility.

Gold still had value; you could buy all sorts of things with it, including people. Ideally, someone who had influence over the king's digestion.

The dwarf Mitschin is too big again

Mitschin and Claudine weren't exactly Bonnie and Clyde, but they were determined to do anything. There was just one problem: without another dwarf—and for this purpose, he would have to be extremely short—their plan to free Trako, languishing in the Laballes' dungeon, wouldn't work.

Claudine: "I know the way to the dungeon."

Mitschin: “Great. Let’s go.”

Claudine: "It leads from the castle's cistern through the water supply; the access is narrow and low."

Mitschin: "How low?"

Claudine: "You won't fit in there. A normal dwarf would, but he would have to be really quite small."

Mitschin: "I reject the term 'normal'. I am a fully valid dwarf."

Claudine: "Maybe so. But you don't fit in there, as I already said. I can describe the way. For a real dwarf, a truly small one."

Mitschin wished he still had his club. Then he realized he had no choice. He would have to seek support from among his own kind.

The advance stalls – A culprit is found

Duc Bouchand de Laballe sat in his gloomy castle, drank a little bloodwine, and found little pleasure in it. This was a rare occurrence. In his opinion, far too little blood had been spilled in his son's campaign, a campaign in which he had expected more.

It had clearly been a mistake to leave the entire tactical decision to his heir, Henri. The strategy itself, however, had worked: the giant hostage Trako, whose kidnapping had of course been orchestrated by old Laballe, was a real bargaining chip.

Trako was once again safely imprisoned, chained and cemented in place, but progress at the front seemed stalled. A fast runner had just returned with bad news: the giants were wandering indecisively far outside the capital of the Shit King. Laballe's son, while trailing his main force, was busy setting fire to insignificant farming villages and ravaging the peasantry. As much as the old Duc had once enjoyed participating in such activities himself, he could see little of how this would advance the final victory.

The old Duke had the runner beheaded, thus meeting his occupational hazard. Good news, bad news: fatal. As the runner's head rolled at his feet, the long-serving princely villain was overcome by an uneasy feeling that had nothing to do with guilt. He ordered reinforcements for the guards on the battlements and at the gates. Although he didn't expect an attack, he knew he could withstand even a long siege, thanks to the deep spring beneath the foundations of his castle, which reliably supplied water through an extensive network of canals.

Gigantes ante portas, part two and a half

Mitschin hadn't been seen at home for a long time. He quickly made his way back – he let Stelzer the Strong carry him there.

The appearance of the giant, carrying his negligible dwarfish burden on his shoulders, triggered the emergency plan "Gigantes ante Portas" in Mitschin's home village. Unfortunately, it was so secret and well hidden that in the panicked chaos, as the dwarves scurried about aimlessly, no one could find it quickly.

Mic Mare, the smallest of his line and therefore predestined for leadership roles, called his superior dwarves to order with all his authority (here the terminology requires explanation: A superior dwarf was naturally of lower rank than a subordinate because he was larger. This automatically made a superior dwarf a recipient of orders, a subordinate in human terms – but in the dwarven hierarchy he was called a superior, also known as a chief subject. For those interested in a closer study of the intricacies of the dwarven hierarchy, the special issue "Small is Powerful" of the "Leprechaun Weekly" series is recommended, published by the Leprechaun Faculty of Ballybeg University and available only in small print – very small print).

Where were we? On the edge of the dwarf village. There, Stelzer the Strong was carefully setting down his feather-light rider, Mitschin, whom he released from the palm of his hand onto the mossy ground. Then the giant rose, folded his arms across his chest, and watched with interest the activity before his clumsy feet, as far as his nearsightedness allowed. As he clearly noticed, several pots of gold were being taken to safety in the forest on the outskirts of the village.

Stelzer the Strong cared nothing for gold. But he was starting to get hungry. He hadn't had breakfast yet. Stelzer the Strong didn't know the concept of "petit déjeuner," but the throng of dwarves, some of whom were exceptionally plump, gave the scornful man ideas. Haste was essential, in every sense of the word. Mitschin knew this.

Mic Mare planted himself in front of Mitschin. Well, he only reached the tall dwarf's belt buckle, but that's precisely what made him so respectful in Mitschin's eyes. "Greetings, petty administrator, guardian of moderation, avenger of the shriveled, barely recognizable under-dwarf," Mitschin offered his condescension, bowing his head.

Mic Mare spat at his feet and yelled: "Traitor! Abomination!" The dwarf chieftain brandished his diamond-encrusted honorary dagger in front of Mitschin's crotch, a weapon that would hardly have been suitable as a toothpick for Stelzer the Strong, but which nevertheless made Mitschin nervous at the level of his most precious parts (which, incidentally, were not as large as one might have assumed given his other physical anomaly).

“How dare you, half-giant,” Mic Mare continued, “to put your parents, already sorely tested, and all of us in such enormous danger? You will pay for this!” With that, the dwarf leader threw his head back contemptuously, very far and very contemptuously, and snorted up at Stilts the Strong: “And when I’m finished down here, you’ll get what’s coming to you, monster!”

Stelzer the Strong bent down, interested in the scene at his feet. "Did he say something?" he asked.

Mitschin waved the back of his hand reassuringly at the giant and replied to Mic Mare: “Dear Little One, we are all in greater danger than you can imagine. The despicable Laballes, longtime enemies of the Little Folk, have not only declared war on the kingdom, but also intend to exterminate the dwarves. We must stop them! If we play our cards right, even the giants will be on our side! Please hear me!”

Mic Mare was small, but clever. The latter attribute had always outweighed the disadvantages of the former. Intellectually, the dwarves were far superior to the giants. Okay, that had mostly never helped them against brute force, but perhaps one could catch a glimpse of the cloak of history, right at the hem? Mic Mare lowered his dagger. Mitschin's heart leapt.

Dare

Groasni was the smallest dwarf that could be found in the village. He was a scrawny child who might amount to something someday, provided he didn't grow too much. Given the task that now lay before him, Groasni would have to rise above himself, but only a little, his worried parents hoped, as they calculated their chances were good that their tiny offspring would grow up to become the next sub-dwarf of the village.

Groasni faced his first test of courage when he came face to face with Claudine de Laballe. He knew her name from countless fairy tales and from lessons in the dwarf civil defense program. Laballe, it cannot be stressed enough, was for Groasni and his small miner community a pandemonium of impending mine collapses and growth hormones.

Claudine smiled her Laballe smile, somewhere between a snake and a hyena. Her gaze, almost lustful, rested on Groasni, the smallest dwarf she had ever seen. "Sooooo cute," she chirped, until Mitschin, with his rediscovered club, therapeutically tapped her fingers, which she had stretched out towards the dwarf child while crouching down.

"Do not!"

“Exactly,” said Mitschin. “And where that came from, there’s plenty more left for you. Stick to the agreement and instruct our miner.”

He gave Groasni an encouraging nod. "You will accomplish great things in small ways, my friend. Don't let yourself be intimidated. Seize your opportunity. Sometimes you have to get your hands dirty to fertilize the soil for the future."

Claudine gave Mitschin an indignant sidelong glance. "Oh, and that shit, I guess that's me then?"

"Exactly. But only figuratively. Actually, you're much worse. Even if you don't stink as much as when you fell out of the undergrowth at my feet. Now go!"

They crouched in a thicket at the edge of the moat of the Laballe manor. The normally gloomy castle, in this state reflecting the character of its owners, was unusually brightly lit. The old Duke had followed a premonition and taken steps to give his reinforced guards a wider field of vision. His daughter, who had grown up here and knew every path, every footstep, had nevertheless led Mitschin and Groasni undetected to the very heart of darkness. Now it was crunch time.

Claudine unfolded a map she had sketched. "Here," she said, pointing to Groasni's entry point, which was only a few meters away. "This is a ventilation shaft. It runs under the castle moat. After that comes the access to the sewer system. It's partially underwater, of course."

The noblewoman eyed the dwarf child. "Such a water rat—you'd be a tasty morsel for it, my little one." Groasni straightened and drew his dagger. "A small blade for a human, but a big surprise for a rodent," he said heroically.

“Well said,” replied Mitschin, patting Groasni on the shoulder. “But don’t forget your bag with the digging tools and chisels; you’ll have to free Trako from his chains.”

Groasni nodded, packed his things, and set off. Behind his back, he gave Claudine a graceful middle finger. Then the darkness swallowed him.

A small giant is unleashed

Trako languished in the Laballes' dungeon. His pain was bearable, but the humiliation was not. He had watched his father sink into the dust. He didn't know if his friend Mitschin was still alive. He himself was chained, helpless. His tormentors mocked him every time they brought snake food to his cell to keep him alive as long as he was still useful as a hostage. They fed it to him because he was chained and unable to use his hands.

"Good little giant, yum yum," said one of the Laballes' henchmen, grinning. He stood on a ladder and smeared a garbage-smelling porridge around the giant's mouth. "And if you don't open that giant mouth now, you'll get the funnel down your throat again, and I'll pee in it myself to make it slide in," his tormentor added with a chuckle.

Trako looked into the eyes of the human rat. Its pupils dilated. The torturer opened his insolent mouth one last time, unable to elicit more than a surprised gurgling sound. Then he slid down the ladder and writhed in pain on the dungeon floor, clutching his bleeding calves, their muscles completely severed by a small but irresistibly sharp dwarf's dagger.

Groasni finished his job at the torturer's throat before the latter could break into loud wailing. A commotion was the last thing he needed.

Groasni straightened to his full, insignificant height and gazed at Trako, chained to the dungeon wall, who towered over him. The dwarf said, "You know, friend, this is usually how we like to see the likes of you. Let's both hope it doesn't stay this way." The smallest of the dwarves reached into his pouch and set to work, knowing full well that nothing and no one in the halls of the Laballes could withstand an unleashed giant, even a half-grown one. Trako tugged impatiently at his chains.