The director gave me a guided tour along the way. “The second floor is where some of the guilds hold regional offices, as well as my own senior staff. The immediate level below us is all taken up by our existing account holders who have large accounts but are not of a magical nature, even though their access is protected in a similar way. Most of the magical vaults are found only in the lowest levels to offer them our highest level of physical and magical protections that were designed by the archmage himself.” The director stated proudly

  We descended a winding stair that was quite long with several landings.

  “What number is my vault when we get down there?” I asked.

  “We do not use numbers on our security vaults for obvious reasons,” Edmond said. “When you enter the floor, your vault will glow. You will know it is yours.”

  “Oh, that makes it easy. And I can come here anytime I like?” I asked.

  “If you make preparations ahead of time, it is easier. But yes, magical vault owners can be admitted after hours to access their vaults. And because they are magical, you can access your vault from any branch across the kingdom.”

  “How do I do that?” I asked.

  “You are an enchanter! You must understand it better than I do, but in essence, the vault portal can be accessed from any bank with a magical vault designation. The physical location of your vault is extra-dimensional. The physical portals are only the gateways.”

  “So, my actual vault entrance is here, but any magical vault entrance from another bank will work?” I clarified.

  “In essence, yes. As I understand it, your anchor vault is here, but access both here and elsewhere is still magical. But there has to be a physical location for all vaults, and as I understand it, yours will be below.”

  We reached the bottom, and a guard sitting at a desk was already standing, having heard the bank director’s voice as we descended. His hand rested upon his sheathed blade, but he was smiling as we descended the last set of stairs.

  “Good morning, director.” The guard remarked.

  The director nodded to him but kept speaking to me as we scanned left and right and saw a glowing portal down the right-hand passage from where we were standing. The guard had a dolly with three crates on it.

  “It is important to make sure that you are always up to date on your vault payments. If you tried to come down here without it being in good standing, it would be deadly.” He grew very serious, stopped, and made sure I was paying attention. “If you descend and you are greeted with a red light and a nauseous feeling, back up quickly and seek a bank manager. If you take too long or continue down, it-” he paused, “it will get very messy for us to clean up later.”

  I started to laugh, but saw the look in his eyes. He was serious.

  “Thank you, director, for the warning.” I looked at the door. “There is no keyhole. Do I need a key or password to access the vault?”

  He produced a large platinum key from his pocket. “Hold this against the door and recite your name in your mind, not out loud.”

  I took the key and held it in my hand. It was heavy. I thought to myself, The key was large enough that it could be considered a dangerous weapon.

  AT my hesitancy, the director smiled and said, “Go ahead. There is no danger. It is your key.”

  “I leaned forward and held the key at an angle against the door and thought, I am Gwydion Istari.

  The portal flashed, and the door creaked open.

  “Throw the key down the hallway.” The director said with a grin.

  I did as he asked. It clanged against the stone floor tiles and came to rest perhaps thirty feet away.

  “Oh, nice throw. Now close your fist and open it again while you think about the key.”

  I did, and when I opened it, the key appeared in my hand. It had some heft to it, and I was pretty sure it was made of solid platinum. The key was worth a small fortune just by itself.

  “Nice. I can’t lose it, then.” I said.

  “No, it is, quite literally, keyed to you.” He said with an even wider grin.

  I recognized the spell as the bonding enchantment that Master Glimmerblade spoke with me about at my trials.

  The director continued. “When you come here in the future, all you need to do is put your hand against the door to open it. It knows you now. The key is helpful in case you are in a different city but want to return here. It is a powerful benefit for our magical vault owners. You merely enter your vault in the other city by placing your hand against the correct door, and then, when you exit, summon this key to you. When you walk out of the portal, you will return here. You can summon or unsummon the key by merely thinking about it.”

  “And it will work in any city?” I asked.

  “So long as it has a registered branch of our bank, magical vaults on the premises, and your account is in good standing. Because you have a branch key for Keelwell, you can exit here. You can do that with other keys if you acquire them from the other cities. They are not generally handed out except at the home branch, however, but I do know several mages with keys to other branches.”

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  I looked at the crates resting before my portal.

  He motioned to the dolly. “Only you can take that into your vault. Do you have any questions?”

  “I don’t think so. I looked into the vault. “It is bigger than I expected,” I said.

  “Nobody else can see inside your vault. I am standing beside you, and I only see a dark portal. Only you can see into it and enter it. No other creature, mortal or spiritual, can do so. It’s part of our claim guarantee.” And then he added, “Thanks to the archmage, of course. If you have any questions, just call out. And if you ever just get stuck and feel like you are trapped, just put your hand against the door, and it will open. Works every time.” He turned and took a couple of steps. “Well, nearly every time.” And he walked away, chuckling to himself.

  I shook my head. Everyone’s a comedian, I thought.

  I walked into the vault, pushing the dolly ahead of me, and was amazed. The vault was well-lit and far larger than I expected. It had to be fifteen yards end-to-end and was square in layout. The room was more like a room in my father’s library than a dungeon vault.

  The size appeared impossible given that there were archways not three yards on either side of my entrance, but as an enchanter, I was accustomed to such things. Clearly, summoning magic was involved and of a powerful nature.

  A desk stood prominently in the middle of the floor and across from the entrance. On its surface was a leather-bound ledger with quill and ink neatly placed beside one another. The chair behind the desk was also made of leather, but it was at a taller level than I would use. I could imagine Sundance sitting at this desk, working on his books.

  Walking around, I could see that the chair rested on a tightly woven rug displaying a wide mountain landscape, and I wondered if it was his Copper Mountains. The scene was depicted in the fall, and the trees were full of color.

  I lowered the chair to a more comfortable height and sat down at the desk. In total, there were three upper drawers below the desktop, including a shallow central drawer in the middle. The left side of the desk held two more equally sized drawers below the top drawer, but the right held only one large and deep drawer beneath it. The desk itself was kidney-shaped and had open bookshelves on its front facing.

  It took me a minute, but I drew up the courage to open the drawers. I began with the top middle drawer, which was empty except for a single envelope with my name on it. I slowly withdrew a letter, and the envelope was not sealed. The letter read:

  Gwydion,

  If you are reading this letter, it is likely that a commission I completed ended in my final silence. I should never have accepted it and for that, and anything it led to after, I apologize.

  I debated with myself if I would tell you about it and I decided I would not. I then debated whether I should tell you about it in this letter and feared that doing so could lead to your being silenced as well. You have many amazing talents and are powerful beyond your knowledge, but there is evil in the world that goes beyond our understanding and for the sake of those I love, I will honor a pledge to take it with me into the next great Dwarven Hold.

  Your father and Corwyn agreed with me to keep you ignorant of your inheritance. I know that you do not care for treasure as a young dwarf should, but I forgive that oversight. Nobody is perfect. But I am so very proud of you and hope that the plans I put into place for your future and inheritance fill you with joy and adventure. You have plenty of that ahead of you!

  Depending on when things happened, you may or may not have been aware of certain requests I made on your behalf. You are a talented metalsmith and jeweler beyond anyone I have ever encountered at your age and experience. Your future awaits and I will look up upon you from the Great Dwarven Forge, may our sweat mingle over the anvil.

  All my hope,

  Sundance

  I had teared up more in the past day than I think I had over the past decade. I wiped away the tears, but was happy with one exception. I wish he had shared who the commission was for that led to his death, and why killing him for it was necessary. But then, he knew I would not rest until it was avenged, which is why he certainly did not tell me. That hinted at someone of power- physical, financial, political, or magical. Maybe all the above.

  I looked through the other drawers, and they had inks, parchments, some old bills, and communications with clients, but no obvious clues about what happened to him.

  I got up and slowly walked around the room, taking note of other objects that must make up a standard vault of this size. It was a way for me to clear my head and get an idea of what he had given to me.

  In the leftmost corner as I entered, there were two empty torso mannequins for robes or armor, complete with unadorned heads for a helm or other headgear. Several empty weapons racks were mounted along the central wall behind the desk, with a single Dwarven Copper axe in a prominent position. I wondered if it had special value to him and why he never shared it with me. The racks were designed to hold a variety of other weapons from swords and maces to daggers, slings, and bows, but they stood empty. Sundance was a pacifist, not a typical attitude for a dwarf.

  The right wall as I entered held several tall bookshelves. Although the shelves did not seem to be movable, they did vary in size to accommodate both large and small tomes. There were a few books on dwarven history that I recognized and had read with his help in my early years. There were also some books on advanced gem cutting, with a note to give them to me one at a time to expand my skills beyond just 7pt gem cutting, which I had mastered.

  The walls to both sides of the entrance door held low, open-faced shelving. The shelves were quite thick and reinforced, which made sense given what they held. The top of the thick shelves held a series of empty carved and grooved wooden boxes. The ones below were filled with coins: copper, silver, electrum, gold, imperium, and platinum.

  Doing some quick calculations, there was around 35,000 gold value in the coin boxes. With my parents' gift, my own wealth, the coins in Sundance’s open account upstairs at the Teller windows, and these, I had over ninety thousand in gold.

  That was a staggering amount for me. For nearly anyone, in fact.

  Finishing my tour, I walked up to the final section just to the immediate left of the entrance. It was mostly open space with a few empty crates like the ones I had wheeled in, but there was a nicely engraved tall cabinet with two vertically hinged doors. I opened the cabinet and smiled despite myself. The five-foot-tall cabinet had many narrow shelves, perpendicular rods, and silk-lined trays for jewelry and trays for gemstones.

  It was full of plain, precious metal jewelry and jewelry with non-magical gems. A lifetime of dwarven hoarding of only the finest gems. There had to be 25,000 gold value in jewelry and gems before me. And in one drawer in particular, there were magical cut gemstones of many gem types and cuts that ranged from 7pt to 21pt. It was worth a small fortune, easily worth 50,000 all by itself. I would need to review them for possible use in defense of the city and myself in the future.

  That jumped my total to over 165,000 gold pieces in value and likely higher, given the rarity of magical gems right now.

  Another larger drawer was filled with just emeralds. They were not magical, but beautiful to behold, and I could see my former master in here spending hours just setting them out and looking at them. Dwarves loved emeralds.

  This was a fortune that two hundred families could live off of for a lifetime.

  And a sobering thought struck me. “Not if the goblins and their infernal master got their wish.”

  And then I remembered the crates. Inside was another 50,000 gold value from the Duke to use to get started saving the city.

  I opened the crates and found that the top one held platinum, gold, and many empty black silk bags that looked like they would hold 500 coins. The second crate held the silver, and the bottom one held the copper. I took some time to bag up 10,000 copper and 1,000 platinum. The copper would be melted down to make rings. Some of the platinum would find a similar fate, while others would be used to purchase additional equipment and gems. My adventurer's backpack got filled, but I took what I could. I would need to come back later to retrieve the other coins. But they were safe here.

  I looked around the room one more time, thanked Sundance for his kindness, and wondered how all this could be used to make repairs to his shop.

  My shop now.

  And I would use the shop to rekindle his memory in the hearts of those who knew him.

  The stairs seemed shorter going up than they had coming down, and I was in the bank lobby in no time, where I was met by Biff and the Watch guards.

  I made my way back to Guilds Row, where I met with Guildmaster Lionel Grunge of the Amorers ’ Federation and Guildmaster Fiona Flametongue of the Guild of Weapon Guilds. Her role was an odd, guild of guilds arrangement, but it was how they operated.

  Neither was especially motivated to talk with me until I mentioned Dwarven Copper armor and weapons, and then they were far too interested for my liking. I didn’t get a good feeling from either, but promised to be in touch and asked them to choose a bright journeyman who might like to join the Special Services. They said they would get back to me since their best and brightest were working alongside the masters to meet the Duke’s impossible requests. Their enthusiasm for the coming horde filled me with a mild disgust. But I was sure we would all be thankful for their talents before the week was over.