#CipherCraft

[hiltofthesword]

Silent Strike: PART ONE

Summary: Valacirca receives a message from the great wizard Gandalf that she must decode. Though when she does, she finds it leads her to someone she'd rather've gone without.

Words: 1.4K

Content Warnings: Bit of violence towards the end but that's about it.

A/N: OOOOOOOOOOOH LETS FUCKIN GO - FIRST PART BBY!!! I have like parts 2-4 ready to go, and I will say, this is very much a slow-burn! Hope this isn't A S S :D

Series Masterlist | PART TWO

Valacirca willed herself not to think of her day’s earlier interaction. Of her meeting of the strange wizard Gandalf and his obscure demands of her. 

Instead, she busied herself with returning the proof of her latest assignment’s completion to her paying customers. Taking the stolen goods from the body of her victim, as well as a little part of him to prove his passing (namely; his head), Valacirca returned to the town of Misthaven, where she was served a filling meal and provided adequate payment. 

Yet nothing felt heavier in her pockets than the paper left to her by Gandalf. 

As she sat by herself in the corner of a lowly tavern, Valacirca took out the small paper, and began to study the rune drawn in greater detail. Staring and staring, Valacirca realized this rune to be a challenge unlike any she had ever read before.

Filtering through symbols she’d seen in the past within her own mind, Valacirca recognised the shape not as a simple rune, but as a sentence. She’d seen the collection of lines and shapes drawn once, in a book; "Ciphercraft: Arcane Glyphs for Rogues, Riddlers, and Renegades", and recognised the sentence to read along the lines of “Burglar wants a good job, plenty of excitement, and reasonable reward. Come find it in The Shire”. 

The Shire was of course the homeland of the Hobbits, it was where her father lived and wanted Valacirca to stay once her mother had passed. Though Valacirca knew Hobbiton was no place for a merchant like herself, and so she kept her distance. To her knowledge, the town was peaceful and passive. No place for burglars or thieves either. 

Valacirca gave it no more thought. Gandalf’s message was clear; she was to eliminate this supposed burglar before the end of the day, just as he had said. 

He had given her the gift of a challenge with this rune, a challenge of language Valacirca had not felt in a long time. So, she would return the favor and rid the world of Gandalf the Gray’s nuisance burglar immediately.

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The journey was shorter than she had expected, and in a mere few hours Valacirca found herself walking through a small town of rolling hills, with small, rounded doors painted in bright colors protruding every fifty meters or so. The atmosphere was peaceful, Valacrica felt herself breathing-in with greater depth; the air felt cleaner, fresher, crisper. 

This certainly was no place for a burglar. 

Valacirca walked through the various streets of Hobbiton, expecting to be met with crude stares and harsh glares, yet the townspeople paid her no mind. Assuming her to be a normal hobbit going about her day, paying no attention to her abnormalities. Finally, she stopped at a large oak tree, which was itself at the edge of a large clearing, next to a poster labeled ‘party tree’. 

Valacirca took a moment to collect herself. She unsheathed her blade, which was previously kept in a pouch which ran down the length of her leg. The blade itself, for which she had given no name, was lightweight, though did not appear as such; the double edged blade was long and straight, with small serrations toward the base. The metal from which it was made was of elvish quality, the guard was ornate and decorative, adorned with intricate patterns that flared out in the shape of small axes. And she was prepared to spill blood with it.

Moving her gaze from her sword, which she held defensively across her chest, Valacirca began to scan the rolling hills and the various hobbit holes protruding from them.

She spotted the offending home nearly immediately. 

Sitting at the very top of the hillside, was a rounded green door, left slightly ajar. The two windows beside the door flickered with light as extremely muffled shouting sounded from within the hill. Most obvious yet however, was the rune left on the door; an exact copy to the one scribbled on the paper in her pocket. 

She had found her burglar, or rather, burglars.

Valacirca moved with agility and swiftness up the side of the hill. She was unseen, there was no doubt in her mind, as she moved silently around the side of the home, until she was nestled comfortably and secretly within the vegetation and bush lining the side of the hobbit hole. 

What caught her off guard however, was the sounding of song within the hill.

The song was cheerful and was played with flutes and pipes, accompanied by the roaring of several masculine voices. 

“DUMP THE CROCKS IN BOILING BOWLS

POUND THEM UP WITH A THUMPING POLE”

The voices confused Valacirca; sounding far too joyful to be from hardened ne'er do wells. 

“WHEN YOU’RE FINISHED IF THEY ARE WHOLE

SEND THEM DOWN THE HALL TO ROLE”

Definitely not criminals. Then why had Gandalf-

“THAT’S WHAT BILBO BAGGINS HATES” 

No. Valacirca felt the blood drain from her face as her breathing became shallow and short. Her hands began to perspirate immediately, slicking with sweat, causing her sword to fall from her grip and clatter to the ground. 

Yet, before she could comprehend, Valacirca felt a searing pull at her scalp, as she was yanked from her crouched position beside the door, before being slammed back down to her knees on the concrete in front of the hobbit door. With her back to her offender, Valacirca’s hands flew up to those still tangled deeply in her hair in an attempt to relieve the pressure growing from such a tight grip. She saw, as a great and heavy sword appeared in front of her face, before the hand gripping the metal, rotated it, and beat the pummel against the door in three, short knocks.

The cheering sounding inside meer moments ago died immediately, and Valacirca willed her mind to keep from spiraling. 

Was this a trap? Was this some kind of fucked reunition? How could she have been so stupid to put her trust, so quickly and without question, into the vague words of a crazed, eccentric, gray wizard named-

“Gandalf. I thought you said this place would be easy to find. I lost my way twice and now find myself inconvenienced by an armed hobbit hiding in a bush”

The voice from behind Valacirca was smooth yet graveled, so deep yet not aged. In different circumstances, hearing such a voice might have made her swoon.

He continued, “I wouldn’t have found it at all had it not been for that mark on the door”.

A lighter, anxiety-filled voice followed, “Mark? There’s no mark on that door. It was paint a week ago-”

Cutting himself short, there he was, in all his great awkwardness; Bilbo Baggins, staring down at his estranged daughter. And for the first time in perhaps the last hour, he was rendered speechless. 

“There is a mark. I put it there myself. Now please put my linguist down.” Sounded Gandalf, completely indifferent to both Valacirca and Bilbo's shared distraught.

“She is one of your hires?”

“Yes, and I typically prefer them with all the same hairs they had on their head before I met them”

After a moment of hesitation, the stranger released Valacirca’s hair and let her fall to the floor once more. Where she immediately tucked her chin down, keeping her eyes from her father’s at all costs. 

Though it was to no avail, as she felt her father rush immediately to her side, wrapping one hand around her forearm to hoist her to her feet, while keeping the other on her shoulder to steady her. He spoke to her in a soft voice so the crowd around them could not hear “Are you alright Circa?”.

Valacirca looked to his face and saw the concern in his eyes. In the years of her absence her father had aged, to be expected of course, though she couldn’t help but think some of it had come from his near-constant state of stress and worry without her.

She ignored the question and looked to the crowd gathered within the house. The man, who had her by the hair a mere second ago stood out in front of them all, glaring. He was, to her surprise, not a man, but rather, a dwarf. He stood tall, with a strong, muscular build and long, flowing black hair. 

“Bilbo Baggins, Valacirca… Baggins. Allow me to introduce you to the leader of our company: Thorin Oakenshield.”

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A/N; I should say as well - lmk if y'all got any suggestions for the direction of this story, I'd like to spice it up a lil