Qube had only been in the sewers once, when they had acquired Sewer Bard. A part of her wondered if he would have liked to join her, just for old times’ sake, but he hadn’t seemed that keen on the idea last time she’d mentioned it.

No, she was going to have to face that den of crime and grime alone, armed only with the fact that she was invisible.

It only took her two attempts to find the grate that led back into the sewers. The hooded guard was still loitering around, looking threatening. Qube took a deep breath, steadying herself.

“[Lesser Shield],” she whispered. She wasn’t sure if this was the same person who had made a sacred vow to never let go of their knives, but she didn’t want to take the risk. As her silvery mana wrapped itself around her in a protective bubble, she walked behind the figure and gently nudged them forward. The grey robe they were wearing was too long for her to see their feet move, but they seemed to almost glide off their post on top of the grate. They didn’t even bother turning around to see what was pushing them, instead just blithely continuing to look straight ahead.

Qube didn’t think this was the same person as last time. They hadn’t hissed once, and, while the last guard had seemed extremely protective of the entrance, this one was so oblivious to the world around them they couldn’t even be bothered to investigate the magical invisible force moving them around. Cautiously she sniffed their back — nope, no smell of alcohol.

Were they in a trance? Or a meditation, like when the Chosen One wanted time to pass faster? It would make sense; guarding couldn’t be a terribly interesting job. But they still should be taking it more seriously!

She tested the grate, half expecting it to be locked shut but, to her surprise, the Thieves Guild had neglected to relock the entrance to their super secret illegal lair.

To be honest, she was starting to suspect that this new guard wasn’t very good at their job. If the Thieves Guild wasn’t Evil she would have almost been tempted to try and let them know they needed to retrain their lookout.

Continuing to warily look at the back of the still silent guard, Qube fully opened the cover and, very gingerly, dropped into the sewers.

---

She wasn’t entirely sure what she had expected. When she’d pictured what thieves did when they weren’t being criminals, she’d had half-formed ideas of arm wrestling, bets, and some kind of game that involved almost stabbing your own fingers a bunch. Like a scene at an inn but with even less light and more talk about stealing.

She certainly hadn’t expected them to be engaged in mortal combat with a bunch of giant, diseased-looking rats.

It took only a few seconds for her to spot the source of the plague. Previously, the large wooden door on the side of the rotunda had been firmly shut. Now, however, possibly due to their belief that the rat problem had been taken care of by the Chosen One, the door had been opened. And a tidal wave of rats had poured through.

Several of the thieves were down on one knee. As Qube watched, another thief fell to their knee. Before Qube could spring into action and start healing, the rats turned away from the downed thief and directed their attention to the man who had spoken to the Chosen One last time. He was the only one left standing, and he was already looking weak.

Pack animals, seeking to reduce the main threats before taking out the weakened foes. The red pustules on the rats pulsed in unison, and their wounds closed. Magically enhanced rats, capable of low level healing. Unusual. Dangerous.

“[Lesser Shield],” Qube cried, protecting the main thief. He blinked as the shield snapped into place around him, but continued stabbing at the horde of rats. She quickly scanned the kneeling thieves. All of them were in recovery pose (kneeling), panting, and none of them seemed to be bleeding out. Time to prioritise.

“[Lesser Haste],” she said, her mana hitting the thieves' leader. His eyes popped wide open and his blade started moving so fast it was almost a blur. The first rat went down. Another thief rose up from their knee just as the leader killed a second rat. How long had they been locked in combat, each thief recovering just as the rats managed to down one of them? The nightmare scenario rose in Qube’s mind of an eternal battle, each person fighting just long enough to give one of their fellow thieves a chance to recover.

The fact that none of them had broken and tried to flee proved that there really was honour amongst thieves.

With the second thief shielded and hastened it didn’t take long for the rest of the thieves to recover and finish off the rats. The head thief and the thief she had hastened both stood there, hyperventilating, while the other thieves resumed their seats at the various shadowy tables.

Two of them immediately started arm wrestling.

“Well-well-well,” the leader said rapidly, before stopping and deliberately taking a deep breath. “Well, well, well,” he repeatedly, more calmly. “That was an experience, lads, make no mistake.” He looked in the general direction of Qube.

Could he… could he see her just from her casting shielding and haste on him?

“I don’t know what you are, missy, but I thank you,” he said. The second thief nodded, while the rest complained about their various aches and pains, even as a few others started stabbing patterns around their fingers. As Qube watched, though, their wounds disappeared. Each of them was wearing a pendant with a complicated symbol on it, possibly some low-level continuous healing item? Given the physical nature of their jobs, it would have been a good investment.

“You can see me?” Qube cautiously asked the leader.

He didn’t reply.

She looked at the second thief she’d cast on, but they too remained still.

As Qube moved, though, their eyes tracked her rough location.

“That’s a mighty powerful concealment spell you’ve got there,” the leader said conversationally. “I can only just make out your outline. And a very lovely outline it is too, if I may say so, miss,” he added.

Qube frowned at the leader of the Thieves Guild.

“If you want to be joining our crew, there’s a quest you have to complete. Killing rats alone ain’t enough.”

The leader paused, and winced.

“I don’t pretend to understand why you’re here, but I’m guessing there’s a reason you saved us. What is it you want us to steal? Or are you looking to join our group?”

Qube shook her head, unsure if he could see her well enough to make out the gesture. He was giving her much the same speech he’d given the Chosen One, when they’d freed Sewer Bard. Were they so desperate for new members that they tried to recruit everyone who wandered in?

That would explain why the new guard was so bad at their job.

Instead of bothering to reply, she started towards the wall, where several beautiful weapons were mounted directly behind the leader’s desk. There, in the place of honour, was a golden sword, a regal-looking crown embossed on the hilt. It would have been impossible for any normal person to sneak in and take it without drawing everyone’s eye to them.

But Qube was, as she had been reassured by the beings who made her, special. And so only two of the thieves watched as she picked up the sword and tucked it into her backpack.

As she turned around, she saw the expression on the head thief’s face. He looked as if he was trying to think several contradictory thoughts at once, and was worried about his brain exploding. He closed his eyes, cradling his head.

“You’d best leave miss,” he said in a strangled voice, his eyes still shut. “Quickly. I don’t… I don’t think you’ll be safe here in a minute.”

Qube didn’t hesitate. She ran.

As she scrambled up the ladder out of the hole, she heard him roar behind her; “Thief! Thief! Someone’s dared steal from the Thieves Guild! Get your weapons, lads, let’s hunt the sewers for them! They’ll regret the day their mother birthed their sorry selves!”

As she pulled the grate shut she saw all the thieves jump to their feet, now fresh and uninjured, and begin hunting for the elusive thief. Not one of them looked up, even as the cover loudly scraped closed.

The guard, meanwhile, casually walked back on top of the grate and continued their silent vigil. They couldn’t have avoided hearing their leader cry out that an unguilded thief was on the loose, but they didn’t even try to catch whatever invisible creature was clearly operating next to them.

Clutching her backpack, she ran towards the main shopping area.

There was something profoundly disturbing about the whole experience. It had felt … wrong. Not at all like the adventures she had with the Chosen One. Maybe that was part of what made him Chosen — adventures with him were always fun. Sometimes it was only because he was busy trying to break everything in existence, but this… this had just been different.

If this was a sample of what adventures were like without her best friend, she was going to have to find a way of getting him to agree to be her co-researcher/breaker of things when she did her TIMES research.

She wondered what the devs would make of what she’d just done. Or if they even had any way of knowing, outside of what the Chosen One reported to them. Actually, she’d never stopped to think about how they gathered information — she would have to ask the Chosen One. Hopefully the restriction of talking about the devs didn’t apply to such general knowledge.

Although, knowing the Chosen One as she did, it was also entirely possible that even the strongest restrictions from the creators of their universe wouldn’t be enough to stop him from breaking the rules. Not that she would ever encourage him to go against the wishes of the devs, of course. It’s just that she obviously didn’t know exactly what the restrictions were, and could only trust that he would follow their guidelines.

After all, if the devs couldn’t trust their chosen saviour to do the right thing, then whom could they trust?

And, given they had explicitly not given her any kind of instructions or direction, they could scarcely expect her to know what she should or should not ask, right?

Nodding along to her own logical reasoning that let her do what she wanted to do anyway, Qube skidded to a stop as she reached the high street lined with shops. Theoretically, the pair could have been in any of the shops. In reality, all Qube had to do was listen for the sound of children screaming, and merchandise pinging off the walls.

“How dare you imply that I have anything to do with your scrubby little shop exploding,” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady was fuming at the alchemist. The alchemist, a rather cross-looking gnome, was attempting to demand that the wood elf vacate the premises.

“If you will leave important bottles filled with hot, steamy things lying around, of course they’re going to get excited and explode when they see a pair of beautiful young women,” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady overrode whatever the shopkeeper was saying. She swung around, and more bottles went flying.

Qube wasn’t quite sure how she felt about the implication that potion bottles had romantic feelings, but she deferred to the Hunter’s much, much vaster knowledge on all things love-related. She quietly slipped into the shop and watched as Squiggles carefully sniffed at a dye bottle rolling around on the ground before darting forward and instantly crunching through it. In an instant she’d swallowed it, only the blue stains around her lips revealing her crime. Judging by the rainbow of colours staining her teeth, this was not the first bottle that had fallen victim to her eternal hunger.

“I will blow this shop sky high if you don’t stop throwing things around!” the shopkeeper screamed, pulling a giant blue bomb out from under the counter. It was the same style as the one Mr. Igma had once threatened the Chosen One with. That seemed counterproductive to keeping the shop clean to Qube, but she reached out and tapped Sexy Screamy Spider Lady on the shoulder anyway.

“We should probably go,” she whispered.

Sexy Screamy Spider Lady looked down from her superior height at Qube.

“My dear, trust me, I would love nothing more than to leave this pokey little shop to rot, but I refuse to leave until I have been properly serviced. I wish for this peon to give me what I want.” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady swooped down and picked up Squiggles, her arms phasing in and out through Squiggles’ multitude of legs. “Which is for them to make my little Squiggles the cutest squish ever. Not that you aren’t already the cutest ever, of course!”

Squiggles, now smelling very strongly of the various dyes and perfumes that she’d eaten, wriggled in pleasure, her tentacles knocking over the remaining stock, making the shopkeeper screech in anger.

“She’s already perfect. I love the colours,” Qube said hurriedly, tugging at Sexy Screamy Spider Lady’s arms. “Look at her lip paint! Also, there was a slight problem with the Royal Observatory. I forgot that I was invisible.”

“Oh, my love! Of course!” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady cooed. She glared at the shopkeeper, who was still holding the bomb aloft. “I will be back, though, and I will expect you to be fully stocked and ready to accommodate us.”

With a final sniff through her nostril slits, Sexy Screamy Spider Lady turned, and stalked out of the shop.