Eresh’s Chimney looked like a mud castle made by a giant. A mish-mash of crude bricks, rough boulders, and hewn beams the thickness of tree trunks, the spire gnarled its way skyward, knobby, crooked, and enormous.
There was a single entrance at the ground level, two massive doors of stone. They were the color of storm clouds and seemed to take forever to open.
The sun had started its drop toward the western edge of the horizon when Levi, Gibs and Addas watched Snat delicately unwrap a leather bundle of long wire instruments and with a wink, get to work on the mechanism. “Have us in before you can say ‘Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.'”
Twenty minutes later, he was still fussing with it with his tools, but muttering in goblin under his breath.
Levi steeped up behind him and peered down over his shoulder as he worked. “Legend has it that lock was fashioned by Völundr himself, sort of a payback to Eresh for helping him escape an island where he’d been imprisoned. Cunning genius that he was, I’ve read the smith crafted such things looking in a mirror. That way, spying eyes would be hard pressed to understand, let alone copy the secrets of his trade. Perhaps if you imagined yourself inside the lock—”
“Credentialed in gobermouch before the Shattering, were you?” the goblin snapped. “Cause you’re a bit mouthy to have been a picklock.”
“Ah, it’s just we should gain entrance before the sun sets. While there’s still light, you see.”
“I see.” The goblin gritted his teeth, put one pointed ear against the lock plate. “If you’d quite yammering. I’m—” A grin. A soft click. “There!” He tugged gently. The massive stone door whispered open.
Snat knelt and wrapped his tools back up. “In you go,” he nodded. “While it’s still light.”
Hot Space Station Justice 