A/N: The Mystery of Uncle Yargums Legs is a very silly thing that has been sitting in my WIPs for a solid 2 years partly finished until now. Who took the poor old dwarfs prosthetic legs? Read and find out.
I wake early one morning with the unshakable feeling that something is not right. Casting a candlelight spell, as I’m still too groggy to bother lighting an actual candle I check the children’s rooms- all still asleep. Alfe and Beyte sleep soundly and are undisturbed by the brief light in their room. Delte I find still asleep though with an arm hanging off the bed, and Uupse has somehow ended up so her head is at the foot of the bed and the rest of her is where her head should be. How that happened I’m not sure, nor am I awake enough to find out. Ayron I find sound asleep as well hugging his favorite stuffed animal, a Guar named Gua-Gua. With all five magic using forces of chaos safe and accounted for, and nothing else being out of place in my own room, the study, or the lab, the problem must be from downstairs. I brew myself a very quick cup of tea to drink while scouting out the first floor to try and find what it is that has me feeling as if something is off. With my cup of tea in hand I head to the lower level, and eventually to the sanatorium where the patients live. I hope none of them have died, that would be unfortunate. I seem to be getting closer to some form of treatment for their disease, though trials so far have failed. I ask the guard, an old friend of mine, if there have been any issues during the course of the night. As he goes to answer I hear someone calling my name, sounding rather distressed. “That’s been the only issue.” The guard says, pointing to an old diseased Dwarven man who is very upset. My old, very old, friend Yargum attempts to crawl in our direction. He lost his legs long ago and since then has used a prosthetic of sorts that I made for him…the only problem is he doesn’t seem to have it. “When were you going to mention the fact he’s lost his legs?” I ask the guard, who avoids eye contact guiltily and shrugs as an answer while staring at the floor.
Carefully avoiding some of the patients who are still awake and alert to avoid getting infected myself or torn to pieces, I get to Yargum eventually. After some time I manage to calm him down, though I’m troubled when he tells me someone has stolen his legs. He went to take a nap, as he manages to transfer in and out of them when needed, and when he woke up they were gone. None of the other patients have taken them, only a few still have the skill to do so, as Corprus turns the mind to mush in most cases before killing the infected person. That’s strange indeed, there’s been no one here recently to plunder the dungeon either, a little game I’ve concocted to test adventurers. If they don’t kill or hurt anybody they can keep most of what they find, I have more than enough relics and treasures that are hidden away safely that I can part with a few every now and then. That means it must be someone within the tower. I doubt it’s the guard, though he is the first to be interrogated as he’s nearby. Not wanting to bother with five sleep deprived children I go back to bed for a few hours with a note to myself to ask them all once morning truly comes. Ayron wakes me from my brief slumber by repeatedly poking me in the shoulder and occasionally the face until I get up. “Stop that, it's not polite.” I tell Ayron sternly, grabbing his hand before he has another chance to poke me in the eye. He makes a face that conveys both unhappiness and understanding so I let go of his hand a moment later and get up out of bed. The girls I find still asleep as we wander down the hall to go make breakfast. I’ll let them sleep, it’s a weekend anyways. Besides letting them sleep gives me the chance to question Ayron without added distraction.
Rekindling the fire I have Ayron fetch some ingredients to help make breakfast before giving him instructions on what to do with them. With the little potential fire hazard busy and out of the way I can carry on with the part of making breakfast involving open flame more or less in peace. Breakfast is eventually served only slightly burned though nobody complains. I’ve had worse and Ayron certainly has as well. “You haven’t been down to the sanitarium lately, have you?” I ask while stirring more hot water into my tea. The boy shakes his head though the nervous look on his face suggests otherwise. “Why? Have you been down there lately?” He asks me in return. “Oh, no reason. One of the patients was having a problem last night so I went to go check on them this morning. It seems we have a mystery on our hands.” Ayron perks up at the last sentence. “A mystery? What kind of mystery? I like mysteries!” That is evident by the amount of books he has on the subject and insistence to talk to the Telvanni guard whenever I take him to Sadrith Mora. I’m fairly certain one of my magnifying glasses is still missing after he took it to go wander around the island to go look for “clues” with Gua-Gua as his trustworthy sidekick of course.
“Someone, or something, has taken Yargum’s leg prosthesis. I’m trying to figure out who it could be. You’re sure you haven’t been down there lately?” Ayron reiterates he has not gone near the basement recently though he continues to avoid eye contact while doing so. I still have some suspicions yet I also doubt he could move the heavy metal by himself, he is only nine and beyond that is small for his age. “Did you ask Uupse? She likes it down there. Oh! Did you ask the guard? He’s in there all the time.” Ayron offers suggestions on what to do next and additionally brings up Beyte as a possibility after I tell him the guard has already been interrogated. She has begun to exhibit some strange behaviors recently, I wouldn’t be surprised if compulsive theft is a new one in the increasingly concerning string of behaviors. “The case of uncle Yargums legs…” Ayron mutters to himself, tucking Gua-Gua under his chin and hugging the stuffed animal. “What did Yargum say about it?” he asks a moment later and is seemingly disappointed at the lack of helpful information as Yargum was asleep when the theft occurred. We continue to swap ideas until the girls one by one come downstairs each making their own breakfast and scattering to their preferred places. Alfe goes and sits in her favorite spot by the fire, Beyte goes to the small table by the front door, Delta disappears to the lower floor alcove on the way to the basement, and Uupse…sits at the table with Ayron and I. “Good mornin-” I go to say before I’m interrupted by “Have you seen anything weird in the basement lately?” Ayron asks Uupse. She turns her head and looks at the boy, mouth still full of rice and unable to speak as a result, though the look on her face speaks louder than any words could. “...Sorry.” Ayron says upon receiving such a look, turning to face away from her in a mixture of guilt and embarrassment. Having swallowed her food and gotten Ayron to shut up she turns back to me “To answer his question which I’m going to ask is really your question, no I haven’t seen anything down there that’s out of the ordinary.” she tells me honestly, and I believe her. Out of the five of them she is the worst liar, and usually speaks the truth because of it.
Before continuing she thinks for a minute eyebrows furrowed in thought as she attempts to recall something “Now that you mention it actually, there was something odd a few days ago. I was sweeping down there and found a trail of what looked like little footprints going from the gate to the area where Yargum usually is and from there to one of the closed off areas before coming back to the gate. It was like a big loop. We don’t have any child patients, do we?” Unless there was an admission I didn’t know about that the temple placed when I wasn’t looking there are no child patients. Only adults of various ages and disease stages from those in the earliest phase who appear more or less normal to those close to the end that are mindless and suffering great pain, and those in-between like Yargum who are mentally intact yet physically disabled. “We do not have any child patients that I know of. The reason I ask is that Yargums leg prosthetic has gone missing, possibly stolen. Before you ask, the guard has already been interrogated, as has Ayron. I don’t think you are the one responsible, but I had to ask.” I explain to her and when Ayron hears that he too was interrogated pipes up with “Hey, that was not an interrogation! That was a conversation between investigators.” crossing his arms in annoyance. Uupse stifles a laugh, pats him on the back and tells him that sure it was, he can keep telling himself that if it’ll make him feel better. With two out of five questioned that leaves the other three to go. I begin with Delte, she will be the easiest to ask. With Alfe and Beyte one has to be a bit more careful with language as it will either be taken extremely literally or twisted out of context. I find her in her typical preferred area working on a list of required replacements for the next trip to Sadrith Mora. “You haven’t been in the basement recently have you?” I ask, poking my head around the corner. “Nope. No reason to go near the sick people on purpose in the middle of the typical period for seasonal illness.” She answers without looking up from her list making. “Good talk.” I say before going back upstairs. Her comment on seasonal illness was all that needed to be said.
Three down, two to go. Alfe goes easier than expected by giving a daily recount of the past two weeks of where she has been and when it’s clear that she has spent most of her time up in the lab or in the spot I find her finishing breakfast and reading a book that is nearly the thickness of her arm. I remind her to not overwork herself and to make sure to take breaks before moving on. And then there was one, this could go very well or very poorly the chance of either is roughly the same. “Beyte, have you been down in the basement with the patients at all in the last two or three days?” I ask and she turns to look at me “Last two or three days? No I don’t think so…oh wait, yes. Yesterday afternoon, very briefly. Why? Are they all okay?” I notice out of the corner of my eye Ayron peeking over one of the short walls that separates the entryway from where he and Uupse sit listening in on our conversation. He seems unaware that I notice him spying so I continue explaining the situation to Beyte, that everyone is safe, but we are missing some important equipment that makes quality of life greatly improved.
I then ask what it was she was doing down there yesterday. She pauses for a moment and I see out of the corner of my eye again a now very nervous Ayron pulling at his hair in a mixture of anger and anxiety as Beyte begins to speak. “I was helping Ayron to move something, it was too heavy for him to move himself, even with magic.” I nod in understanding and thank her before turning back to where Ayron had been eavesdropping. The boy blinks twice before jumping like a scared cat and attempting to run away out of the room and upstairs. Uupse stops him before he can get fully out of the kitchen and picks him up before plopping him back in his original chair. “Where did you put them?” I ask calmly, but sternly. “I’ll show you.” The boy mumbles getting out of his chair and leading me, and Uupse who is now curious, to the basement and down past the gate along the rough path until we reach one of the areas closed off for storage. He points to one and upon opening the door out fall the intricate metal legs and their main base. The mystery of uncle Yargums legs has been solved, and quicker than I thought it would be. With nothing else to proclaim at the current moment all I have to say to the two as we stand looking at the now no longer missing prosthetic is simply “Case closed.”
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