This was Ophelia’s 19th time being imprisoned.

Usually, it was because she wanted a change of pace. And nothing encouraged a change of pace like sharing a dungeon with a group of ogres still patting the blood from their axes. 

They always had the best stories. Ophelia was happy to sit and listen. 

Sometimes, however, she was also legitimately captured, which almost always meant she’d tried climbing something that was a lot smoother than expected, ended up sliding back down while the unimpressed guards watched and she was too embarrassed to try again so just accepted her loss. 

This time, it was neither. 

Wherever she’d teleported with a magical ring, it was somewhere with so many dwarves that they simply tackled her until all that could be seen were her ducks somewhere atop the pile. 

If she knew what was waiting for her, she’d have tried robbing the Underhalls more.

This was her first time being imprisoned by dwarves. But her impressions were highly favourable. 

For one thing, there were no bars. 

There wasn’t a straw bed which wriggled from all the mice in it. 

It wasn’t even cold, damp or dark. 

In fact, it was the complete opposite. Probably because her prison was little more than a tavern disguised as a watchroom. There were more kegs than there were bedrolls.

Ophelia admired the novelty of it. 

Why place her in a dungeon with a single sleepy guard when the place where dwarves naturally gathered, ate, napped and drank was better? It saved on both cost and manpower.

As a result, all that stopped her from leaving was the bare minimum. 

Her legs tied at the ankles. Her arms tied behind her back. Her ducks tied together. And also a score of very serious looking guards.

Despite the presence of a well furnished bar, no bellowing laughter echoed within the walls. 

The only sound was a single bead of sweat landing upon a table. 

Although they shared from the same keg, little in the way of camaraderie could be seen amongst the dwarves sitting around it. 

Eyes filled with mistrust and suspicion appraised each other. As henchmen for a premium shadowy organisation, it meant each of them shared the same ambitions, and also the same lack of inhibitions for achieving them. 

Every soul here was a seasoned rogue, no matter how polished their armour.

However, while that might save them in a back alley somewhere behind a tavern, it did little against those of their own kind. 

It did even less against Ophelia.

“Dragon,” declared a dwarf, sliding his cards ahead of him.

A moment of silence passed, deeper than the emptiness of a grave.

“Dragon,” replied another, neatly placing his cards before him.

“Tail,” said another, flinging his paltry hand to the side for all to see. 

The other dwarves waited, already bested at Dragon’s Tail. 

Still nursing their wounds, their attention fell upon the only player yet to declare her intentions. 

Quack, quack.

They ignored the ducks sitting in their own chair.

Sharper than a frostplume hawk gazing upon an open field, the dwarves watched Ophelia for a sign of her thoughts.

They saw only her forehead hitting her cards and scraping them forwards.

“Dragon,” she said, blowing the silver hair away from her eyes.

Silence met her … followed by every hand of cards turning face up.

The dwarf nearest Ophelia kindly reached over and flipped her cards over for her. 

A full Queen of Tides. 

The highest combination possible. 

Groans escaped louder than complaints as every dwarf rolled their eyes in disgust.

“Fine,” said the runner-up among the dwarves. “I’ll be the one to ask. How do you do it, Snow Dancer?”

Ophelia wore a pleasant smile. Although she had no crowns to either win or lose, the pride she devoured from those present was more nourishing than any amount of earnings. 

“You’re asking for trade secrets. You know that’s not how this works.”

“Yeah? And what do you want, then?”

“I want to wiggle my pinky.”

“Say what?” 

“You can loosen the ropes. Not enough to help me escape, of course. It only needs to be a little bit.” 

A snort came in reply.

“Yeah. And I’ll also lose just a little bit of my neck. You can fool us, but you won’t fool the Black Thane. Once he comes to fetch you, he’ll see if your ropes have been loosened faster than any ship’s captain. But maybe I can bring you our finest stout to enjoy. No use waiting for your fate while being completely sober, eh?”

Ophelia hummed in thought.

“Deal,” she said.

The dwarves smirked as one.

With their complaints forgotten, the crowd around the table parted as a tankard was immediately slammed onto the table in front of her. It was a dwarven concoction the colour of the depths, where even the bubbles seemed to look like boils upon an inky pool.

Ophelia leaned down, grabbing the rim of the tankard using only her teeth. 

Doing away with the fact it was highly impractical, awkward and uncomfortable, she precisely tipped the angle of the tankard and started to drink with practised coordination. 

“Mmmh~ black frothy liquid,” she said, allowing an empty tankard to drop several moments later.

The dwarves looked at her in awe.

“Your talents are wasted on the surface, Snow Dancer,” said the nearest guard as he collected all the cards together. “You should take up the Black Thane’s offer. He has big plans, you know.”

“They all have big plans. And then they get stabbed in the face.”

“Yeah, that happens. Just not to the Black Thane. He gets to his enemies first. Someone like that can live a long time–enough to be your ticket to riches. At the very least, you’d have access to decent taverns.”

“It’s not decent taverns I need. It’s decent opponents. You guys are so bad I have to cheat to help you.”

Nods of admiration went her way.

Elves and dwarves, separated by stone and forest, but united in appreciating insults. A beautiful thing.

“Yeah, I suppose you’ve got us beat. So go on. Before you horribly die from whatever thing the Black Thane has planned, pass on your secret. You got another magical ring we didn’t pry off? Or is it one of those weirdly specific elven traits which lets you do nothing but see through cards?”

“Nope. Some have that. But not me. All I did was bribe the card dealer beforehand.”

“What?”

At once, every gaze turned towards Ophelia’s accomplice.

The dwarf in question was unapologetic.

“She offered to teach me how to burgle more effectively,” he said, raising his tankard to his lips. “Unlike you lot, I have aspirations. I didn’t sign up to the Shadowvault Syndicate to stay as a footstool.”

The laughter instantly returned.

Hoarse and bellowing, the walls trembled from the weight of mocking judgement as all the dwarves remorselessly ganged up on a single nail to have poked its head out.

It was very much the atmosphere that could be found in any dwarven tavern.

And that included the response to follow.

A tankard was swung at a face. A face was swung back at the tankard. 

And then when everyone realised that neither faces nor tankards were thick enough to cause more than a slightly black eye, everything else came instead.

“Get ‘em!!!!”

Dwarves leapt over tables and chairs as all the bottled resentment was freely allowed to spill. 

In the blink of an eye, mutual tolerance turned to mutual brawling as furnishings, counters and even kegs were lifted and then promptly smashed. Alcohol, fists and soles flew in every direction, leaving several dwarves to immediately slip and add to the chaos.

Amidst the traditional dwarven exchange, Ophelia wriggled towards a corner, guided by her ducks even as they were forced to cutely waddle together.

“I heard someone bad mouthing Cousin Dorin,” she called out, as a pair of stamping boots threatened to crash into them.

Gasps filled the air as everybody with the same cousin briefly paused. 

It lasted only as long as it took for the next fist to arrive, now hurled with twice the vigour.

Ophelia wasted no time. 

Rolling the rest of the distance, she nudged over a rack of battleaxes, then went to work on freeing herself. The ropes binding her hands and legs swiftly melted away, followed by the ones binding her ducks together.

Sticking to her hands and knees, Ophelia proceeded to crawl to the doorway, stopping only to wave Duck A back when it stopped to admire the sight of wanton violence around it. 

It did that sometimes. Which was fine. Brawls were there to be admired. Except sometimes she got the impression that if she didn’t do anything, Duck A would also join in. And while she figured that Duck A would probably win, she also didn’t want the paint on the crystal beak to chip away.

After all, the dwarves had pickaxes.

Especially where she was planning on going.

With the sound of cracking fists behind them, Ophelia exited the makeshift tavern and rose to her feet. 

A wide corridor dotted with shafts of sunlight greeted her–but not wide enough to be the Underhalls. 

She was still in the Kingdom of Tirea. Or at least under it. No matter how powerful a magical ring sold by trolls was, there was only so much dirt a single teleportation spell could break through.

For a moment, she closed her eyes, ignoring the nearby clamour to listen for the telltale sound of an exit. She caught the faintest whisper of a draft.

Scooping up her ducks, she turned and headed in the opposite direction. 

Ophelia wasn’t done yet.

She’d come here for a diamond. And she intended to find one.

True, the Heart of the Forge was different to what she expected. It was technically a fragment of a pure arcana crystal. And it was now in a million smaller fragments.

Even so, that simply meant there were enough lying around that the local bigwig could use them as marketing material for what he did to people he couldn’t kill in any normal way. 

But Ophelia was nothing if not generous. She was happy to give him another chance.

“... ohohohohoho …”

Providing, of course, that he wasn’t launched through the dirt and somewhere into the clouds faster than any teleportation spell could achieve.

With the blink of a startled maiden, Ophelia came to a stop. 

Her ears perked up like a fawn in a forest as she swivelled multiple times. 

It was either a hallucination caused by the bump which hadn’t completely healed, or someone had clearly decided to come fetch their own diamond.

Ophelia hummed as she considered the familiar and also slightly concerning laugh.

A part of her leaned instinctively towards scarpering. Another to find a quiet corner to see what hilarious screaming would happen. She had plans. Not very good plans, but plans. And this was far too early to do what she wanted.

Instead, she lifted up her ducks and beamed.

... She had an idea!

It was the worst idea she’d ever had. With no hope of success. And that's why it would work!

Probably.

“All right! ... It’s time to be useful!”