Hive Knight: A Dark Fantasy LitRPG (Trinity of the Hive Book 1) by Grayson Sinclair (black authors fiction txt) 📕

“Five silver.” He spoke, his voice was hoarse as if speaking caused him great pain.

I slid him a gold. “How long?”

He pondered for a moment, looking the armor over with a keen, expert eye. He scratched at his head before answering. “Two hours.”

I frowned. That would be cutting it too close. I need to get there at least half an hour before to set up in case of trouble. I pulled out another gold and slid it across to him. “How long now?”

The man smiled knowingly and held up a single finger. An hour. Perfect.

I nodded and let him get on with his job. Taking hold of Eris’s hand, we moseyed around the square, looking at the various tradesmen working their craft. It was a fascinating experience to see, watching them mold metal and leather into beautiful works of art.

The hour flew by, as walking arm in arm with Eris was a delightful experience. She dragged me every time something caught her eye, pulling me along, but I didn’t mind, because she was having fun.

We soon found ourselves back in front of the nameless armorsmith, who, without a word, unceremoniously handed me my gear and went back to work.

It was nearly flawless.

He’d had to replace almost all of the metal. The chestplate was entirely new, but the shoulder guards had been left untouched. My vambraces were also new, and he’d used a much stronger metal to form the bulk of it. The tears in the leather and studs had been replaced, but he didn’t have the skin of an elder dragon to patch the holes and cracks, so he’d stretched what leather he could and sewed new pieces of what looked like silver drake's skin over to reinforce the thin areas. The bright silver skin of the drake paired well with the black and gray bane wolf fur and complemented the azure leather nicely.

All in all, I’d say he improved it quite a bit. I donned the armor; the weight settled around me comfortably. It was heavier than I remembered, but with my increased Strength, I could handle it just fine.

With my gear in the best condition I could reasonably hope for, it was time to make our way to the meeting place. Which was obviously a tavern.

The Crescent Rose. A bar that wasn’t your normal bar. I held Eris’s hand tightly as we passed by the merchants’ square entirely and made our way to the slums.

Even in the height of civilization and commerce where gold flows like rivers, there’s still enough room for the poor and the desperate who can barely eke out enough copper to feed themselves. More than anyone else, beggars and the poor made excellent spies. Going largely unnoticed by most, they overheard everything and would happily spill those secrets for a pittance.

I made my way through the winding labyrinth of side streets and alleyways, filled to the brim with the hungry and the despondent. After dropping a bribe to a child who had to have been no more than five or six, he showed us the way to the Rose.

It had moved since the last time I'd been here, but I knew I was in the right place when I saw a single red door and a large gentleman next to it.

The door was always red. No matter in what part of the city the Rose resided, the door was the giveaway. The man standing next to the door was the following factor of authentication.

The doorman was always standing guard outside the Rose, day or night, rain or snow. He was there. I’d never seen him take a single step in all the years I’d known about the place.

In my younger days, Mika, Lonny, and I had bets on who’d witness the doorman moving first. I’d always had a competitive streak, and so I set up on the roof a nearby building. For an entire day, I watched nonstop to see doorman move. Sleep, hunger, and thirst had won long before doorman budged an inch. At this point, I was convinced he wasn’t human. A golem wrapped in illusion magic maybe, or something.

The doorman was waiting for us when we arrived. Pale from lack of sunlight and not a shred of hair anywhere on his face, his coal-black eyes stared straight ahead. Dressed in tight black cotton underclothes and leather armor, he didn’t so much as turn his head, but I knew he’d been aware of us long before we came into view.

“Password?” Doorman asked. His voice, the deepest baritone I’d ever heard, sounding like two stones colliding against one another.

“To the king, who walks in shadow.”

“Accepted.”

He opened the door for us and stood still, waiting for us to enter. Eris was still riding the high of sightseeing and decided to run over and greet the large man.

“Hello, I’m Eris.”

The doorman paused before nodding his head. It was by a fraction of an inch, but unmistakable.

“A pleasure, miss.”

Then he went back to his statue impression. As we went inside, Eris asked me who he was.

“That was Mr. Doorman…the, ah…doorman.”

“I like him.”

I chuckled. “In fairness, you like most people.”

Eris laughed. “True.”

The tavern was dark when we exited the hallway. A quick look around told me there wasn’t anyone we needed to avoid. The Rose hosted all manner of criminals and deviants, so I was always cautious.

The Rose wasn’t like any other tavern I’d ever been in before. There were not any obnoxious bands playing music at the loudest volume they could manage, nor were there noisy, annoying patrons. It was a dark place with sharp corners and dim lighting.

The center of the room was lined with wooden support beams, and the entire far wall housed the bar, in the opposite