Einden's Envy
Overlooking the city of Hillstop, sat the cabin owned by the miser Lord Lindwisp – and it was being burgled by the lemsktomten Einden and Stendrik. Their plan was to stuff in their sacks all the valuables they could from the first floor, as to not alert Lord Lindwisp or his maid, who slept on the second. A good plan, until Einden’s jealousy got the better of him.
The lemsktomte thieves had an argument which led to a deal that they would not split what was stolen from the Lindwisp cabin, but each lemsktomte would only get what he left with in his sack. Once they were finished going through the bottom floor of the cabin, this deal did not work out so well for Einden, so he decided to sneak into Lord Lindwisp’s bedroom to see if he could get something he could sell for plenty of kassar in a prideful attempt to show up Stendrik who protested against this risky change of plans.
Einden lit his way through the cabin with a small flame he conjured in his palm using theurgy, and ended up at Lord Lindwisp’s bedroom door while Stendrik waited downstairs. Making his conjured flame as small as he could, Einden opened the door to Lord Lindwisp’s room and sidled inside.
“Were you coming here to kill him?” asked a woman’s voice, as the bedroom door shut behind Einden. Shocked, Einden leapt away from the door. He hit the dresser and lost his flame, so he began to use theurgy to conjure lightning in his hands, ready to strike his opponent into ashes. The theurgy lightning Einden held in his hands lit the room and showed a timid young lemsktomte maid, covered in blood, and holding in her right hand a wood-chopping axe that was just as bloody as she was.
Einden looked back towards the bed and saw a murdered Lord Lindwisp, with blood on his sheets, gashes in his torso, and a nearly disconnected head with open lifeless eyes. Turning back to the maid, ready to release his lightning on her at any moment, Einden asked, slow and unsure of himself, “What’s going on?”
“Praise Jato, god of misfortune, he must have heard my prayers and sent you here to help me,” replied the maid. “You must understand, my master is… was… not a good man. He’s the reason our kind has had such hard times here, brother. Most of Hillstop is under Lord Lindwisp’s name, and I’ve overheard him many times telling those who work for him to only give our lemsktomte kind lowly jobs, and to only give our lemsktomte kind homes in the slums. Why do you think we’re not allowed to pray to Jato, and we’re not supposed to use theurgy? Lord Lindwisp had to be stopped so the lemsktomten could prosper. You understand don’t you?”
Before Einden had the chance to respond, there was a heavy bang on the door, which caused the maid to jump away from it and drop her axe. Einden, spooked worse than before, also jumped and lost control of the lightning he was holding on to. The lightning smashed into the dresser and caused a fire to kindle, as there was another heavy bang on the door, and Stendrik burst into the room.
The flames were steadily consuming Lord Lindwisp’s bedroom, so the scene was illuminated for Stendrik once he entered to see: a shocked Einden, a scared lemsktomte maid bathed in blood, and a dead and bloody Lord Lindwisp lying in a bed that was beginning to go up in flames.
“What the fuck is this?” said an irritated Stendrik. “You killed Lindwisp? Can you imagine the price they’ll put on our heads for this shit?”
As the flames grew around them, Einden became more aware of the situation, so he grabbed the maid by the arm and said to Stendrik, “Let’s get out of here!”
The three raced downstairs and out of the cabin, as the flames spread faster to consume it. Once outside, Einden stopped running, forcing the maid to stop running as well. The lemsktomte maid looked at him and asked, “What are you doing?” Einden placed his hand on her forehead and stunned her with a paralysis theurgy.
Stendrik ran back to Einden, and his eyes went from the paralyzed maid on the ground to Einden. “You can’t think this will work,” said Stendrik in grunts.
“No one is asking you to stick around,” replied Einden, staring into Stendrik’s eyes. “You’ll get enough kassar from what you took from this house. This is how I’ll get mine.” With that said, Stendrik snorted, turned, and ran off into the woods.
It didn’t take long before the good people of Hillstop noticed the flames from the Lindwisp cabin and marched up to it, some to put out the fire and some to be nosey. But once the mob stepped onto the Lindwisp land, it did not take long for them to notice the two lemsktomten there: one paralyzed and one proudly standing over her.
The next morning, the city of Hillstop had the gallows set up in the city center. Einden looked to his left at the lemsktomte maid as the stool was kicked out from under her feet by one of the town guards. Watching her bound body flail about, suspended from the rope around her neck, Einden felt sick knowing his turn was coming up soon.
Einden looked out into the crowd of spectators, trying to hold back his fear, and noticed there wasn’t one lemsktomte among them. His eyes kept scanning until they landed on a lemsktomte sweeping in front of a bar. Despite how far away he was, Einden could still make out the distinct lemsktomte features of the sweeper: charcoal skin, silver hair, and big red eyes. And despite the din from of the crowd waiting for Einden’s demise, the lemsktomte kept his head pointed down, focused on his sweeping.