Chapter 48 – Curiosity Killed the Thief

A sort of magical pressure permeates the room for a few seconds, causing a slight tingle to crawl up my spine. The feeling disappears as quickly as it arrived and it signals that the compound has successfully been transformed into my very own Hideout. A grin spreads across my face as I take in the feeling of owning my very own secret lair. Just like what I’ve dreamt about since I was a kid. This will be really helpful in the following months, and I can’t wait to see how I can develop the Hideout with the help of the Silver Saints. I just have a feeling the Saints and my class is connected somehow, you know? That’s video game logic for you in a nutshell.

I’m so excited, I nearly forget to do the one thing I came here for, which obviously is to tear the room apart, looking for any hidden loot. Anyone can tell you that a secret lair always needs to have a secret vault or compartment filled with epic loot. It’s common knowledge after all.

I have my underlings scour the room from top to bottom, carefully scrutinizing everything from the simple furniture to the smallest of cracks in the cobbled stone wall. Everything gets looked over at least twice; sort of like Santa’s list. The first thing of interest I come across is a fun little surprise attached to the bottom of the oak desk at the center of the room. Really, it’s super badass! There’s literally a crossbow concealed beneath the desk, aimed at the door. How gangster is that? I love it! If it hadn’t been because the crossbow is better than most of the gear my underlings use, I would have left it where it is.

[Customized Crossbow. Uncommon. 34-38 Piercing Damage, +5 Dexterity, +3 Perception. Requires: Level 10.]

While my underlings keep searching, I spend a few minutes trying to attach one of the low-level crossbows I picked up earlier to the desk, but I’m unable to attach it to the premade fittings. Apparently, the crossbow itself must be customized to be attached to it, and I lack the necessary skills for the job. I have to admit, I am more than a little disappointed about that fact.

We’ve already pilfered through the room for ten minutes, and I’m getting a little worried the room lacks any sort of safe or hidden compartment. Apart from the crossbow, the only other thing we’ve come across is another one of the numbered paintings that seem to appear in most of my jobs.

I frown. I refuse to believe the game developers would add a secret underground lair without adding a single hidden compartment. That’s just completely irresponsible of them. I’m of half a mind to write an angry letter to customers support when a small wooden click resounds from next to the bed. Swiftly turning towards the sudden noise, my eyes go wide in anticipation as I watch a secret panel behind the nightstand swing outwards, revealing a sturdy iron safe behind.

Jackpot!

I quickly make my way over to the safe, carefully eyeing the contraption that hid it. The safe was hidden behind a thin panel, perfectly camouflaged to look like the cobbled stone wall around it. I spot a few hinges attached to one side of the panel, while the other side has a small indenture, which is probably what keeps the panel locked and in place. There’s no visible handle or crack in the wall for anyone to easily open the panel, and I have to send my Cutthroat a questioning glance until he points to a small button hidden at the roof of the bottom drawer in the nightstand. Wow. That’s both incredibly cool and insanely cliche at the same time. It’s definitely effective though. It’s impossible to spot with your eyes, and the button is small enough to easily be overlooked by someone who doesn’t know what to look for. It almost makes me wonder how the Cutthroat found it in the first place, but I guess that doesn’t matter. He found it, and whatever this safe may contain, I’m certain it’s valuable!

Rubbing my hands with a greedy grin on my face, I order my Cutthroat to start picking the lock. The safe looks incredibly sturdy, and I would hate for it to be of such a high level that my Cutthroat will be unable to pick the lock. I’m an optimist, however, and I settle in on the bed, carefully eyeing his progression as he works.

He sits still working for what feels like an eternity but is probably more like fifteen minutes. My excitement is starting to slightly wane when a loud and final click resounds from the safe, signalling that my Cutthroat was successful.

“Finally” I grin, jumping out of the bed. I kneel down next to the safe, putting my hand on the cold iron handle. Oh, the sweet ecstasy of getting the loot. My underlings pile around me, trying to get a glimpse of whatever treasure is concealed behind. It’s almost a little funny, really. Even computer programs are capable of showing this level of curiosity. Well, they have certainly earned it. They are the ones who bled for this after all. Cobra most of all.

… Huh. Perhaps it would be a nice gesture of me to let him get the honor of opening the safe? He certainly earned it, and I really want to show my appreciation in some way. Do you know what? What the hell. I’ll let him do it.

“You fought well today, Cobra. Would you like to have the honor of getting the first look at the loot?” I say, grinning at my Lieutenant.

Cobra’s eyes go slightly wide, seemingly lost for words. Smiling, I slide over to the side, gesturing for him to open it.

Seeing this, Cobra guffaws. “Thanks, boss! Don’t mind if I do!” He laughs, dropping down in front of the safe, putting his hand on the iron handle.

Looking over both shoulders, he grins. “Gather around, boys! Allow this humble ruffian to show you boys the fruits of our hard-won-”

Cobra opens the door in the middle of his sentence, pulling the door open. His voice is cut abruptly short when the door swings fully open, and a powerful magical blast shoots outwards, hitting Cobra in the middle of his chest. The powerful force flings him and two of my underlings backwards, and they all slam into the wall at the other side of the room. Being at the side of the safe, I avoid the majority of the blast, but I’m still knocked backwards, slamming my head into the frame of the bed.

[You take 113 Blunt Damage.]

[You are Stunned. Speed reduced by 80% for two minutes. Vision reduced by 90% for two minutes.]

[You have a Cracked Skull. Intelligence reduced by 50% for ten minutes.]

[Your underling (Human Elite Thug - Cobra(10)) has died to Enhanced Force Trap.]

[Your underling (Half-Orc Thug(10)) has died to Enhanced Force Trap.]

[Your underling (Gnome Cutthroat(10)) has died to Enhanced Force Trap.]

I cough up a mouthful of blood as my head starts spinning. What the hell just happened? I blink, looking at the blurry room ahead of me. It takes a few seconds for me to read and comprehend the messages in front of me, and when it finally sinks in, I allow my body to slump together.

What the hell was up with that trap!? It killed three of my underlings, one of them an elite Lieutenant with five hundred and fifty health points!? Who the hell adds that kind of trap into a quest for level ten players!? I can feel my blood pulsing through my head as I try to suppress my budding anger. That was totally fucking uncalled for. We had no fucking way of spotting that kind of trap. What are the developers thinking, adding that kind of shit in there? If I had died, then that could have been game over for my character. That’s foul play right there. Not cool.

I sit still and mutter a select few curses for a while, waiting for my crippling debuffs to pass. My vision is completely blurry, but I can spot movement from the other side of the safe. Right. It seems like my second Cutthroat managed to pull through, all the good that does me right now.

The minutes pass by excruciatingly slow, and I’m finally able to move around without feeling like a drunk toddler. I throw a quick glance over towards my fallen underlings, cursing thrice more due to their unfair demise. I’m glad that I can secure all their gear, but their deaths were still a complete waste, and resurrecting them will only burden my already strained coin purse.

My Cutthroat managed to pull through the blast, being on the opposite side of the safe. It seems like he received a larger portion of the blast than me as his health points are almost down in the single digits.

With a grunt, I order him to loot the bodies of his comrades while I check the safe. My good mood is already broken, and I’ll be really pissed off if there is anything less than a twenty-kilo gold nugget inside the safe. I shove my way over towards the open safe, peering into the dark interior. Furrowing my brows, I notice two dusty tomes as well as a couple of linen pouches. “Seriously?” I spit. “What the hell kind of crap is this?” I curse as I pull out the four objects with a little more force than necessary. When I finally get them out and into the light, I take a closer look at my ‘so-called’ price.

2x [Basic Skill Book: Luck. Rare. Increases a Luck-based skill to Novice 10. Requires: Unlocked Luck skill between Novice 1 and Novice 9, Level 5.]

[Small Gem Pouch.]

[59 Gold, 8 Silver, 2 Copper.]

…

..

.

*Drip*

A single drop of blood drips from my nose as my brain tries to process the information in front of me.

…

*Drip*

HOLY MOTHER OF SANTA’S FORGOTTEN OLD GRANDMA! Is this for real!? These items… Oh my god. They are worth a fortune! A god-blessed fortune! How the hell is this possible!?

I sit still for an unknown amount of seconds, my mouth gaping at the immense wealth before me. This doesn’t make sense. How can there be so many valuable items in this low-level quest? Are the developers for real? The sheer value of the items in this vault alone is almost enough to pay for the game subscription for an entire month. Does every Thief Lord get access to this kind of treasure, or am I just special?

Did I find a secret compartment I wasn’t supposed to find? Granted, it took me a hell of a lot of time to find it, but still. If every Villain who performs this job gets these kinds of rewards, then that could completely break the system. People could just infinitely level their characters to level ten, finish the class quest and sell the loot they found in the secret compartment, all in order to delete their character, roll a new one and do the whole thing over again. A professional money grinder could probably manage to level to ten two, possibly three times during a month if he played for roughly fifteen hours per day. More if he got help. That should net him around eight to twelve hundred gold. Huh. Maybe that’s not a very lucrative job after all. Still, though. For someone living in a poor country, this would be an infinite gold loop. Maybe less if the price of skill books drop in the future? The developers have got to see this flaw, won’t they?

Perhaps. It doesn’t sound very tempting to try though. It sounds like the shittiest kind of job ever. I wouldn’t last a month doing that. No, there has got to be a catch somewhere. There is no way the developers would allow this kind of economic imbalance. Or do they?

These are all sellable items, which means the majority of the gold the player makes comes from other people who are willing to buy them. If anyone would try to do this kind of grind, then the gold they earn would primarily come from other players who probably invest real money into the game. And since the game company takes a small cut out of every transaction on the auction house and from people who convert real-life money to ingame gold, then they are looking at a steady increase in the revenue from all sales. Cheeky bastards! First, they kill my underlings, and then they want to profit from it? Those brilliant assholes!

Shaking my head, I take a better look at the safe in front of me.

[Customized Iron Safe. Uncommon. Container. Lock quality: Poor. Trap: None. 50 Slots. Permanent Item.]

Hmm. It seems like ownership of the container transferred to me the moment we opened it, which is a good thing. I could really use a proper storage container, and this little beauty will do just fine. The safe differs a bit from the jewelry box I obtained earlier, where the safe is not only bigger, but it also has an attached lock as well as the possibility of attaching a trap to it. It’s a pity the trap seems to be single-use, or else I could probably be guaranteed to kill whoever had the balls to steal from me, but at least it’s something.

Well, since the safe is now mine, I suppose I should just put the majority of my valuables inside. They’re safer in there than in my pocket I guess. The safe is large, but it’s not too large. I should therefore put all the spare armor and weapons into the armory I found earlier. Rooms like armories and storage rooms can serve the same function as regular storage containers, but only if they are part of an owned building like a personal home or guildhall, or in my case, a Hideout. It’s a neat little feature, and only stresses the importance of having a place to call my own.

Taking a few minutes to fill up both the safe and my armory with all the contents of my inventory, I feel ready to head back out and see Ulf. I only bring about twenty gold to do a little shopping for new ingredients and schematics. I really ran my reserves dry during this quest, but I’m not really in any position to complain. The benefits sure as hell dwarfed my expenditures.

My only remaining underling and I depart my recently acquired Hideout, taking extra care to conceal the entrance to the underground passage as well as locking the tavern up above. Unfortunately, it seems like Cobra completely broke the back door, and we need to figure out a way to lock it up. Since neither of us has any skill in carpentry, we use the time tested strategy of stacking a bunch of crates in front of it. Luckily, Alzahr dropped a key to the front door, so we won’t have to worry about burying the entire building behind a stack of crates quite yet.

The trek back towards Ulf’s store doesn’t take too long, and I only take a moment to swing by a tavern to resurrect all my underlings. From experience, I know that my underlings who participated in the job or quest share in the experience reward. The seven dead underlings may have lost half a level worth of experience when they died, but the one thousand reward from this quest should put them well on their way to catch up to me, and that’s not even counting the bonus they get from my Mentor skill.

After sending my underlings back toward our new Hideout, I enter Ulf’s store by myself. I’ve already realised there is no point for me to walk around with an escort as I most likely won’t be able to hide my identity for long if I’m discovered by any players anyway. I’ve already out leveled the majority of the randomly spawned criminals who roam the back alleys.

As I enter the empty store, Ulf gives me a quick glance before his head disappears below the tall counter. The dwarf immediately darts out from behind it, running towards the entrance to lock it tight. I’m starting to get used to the secrecy and eccentricity of the Silver Saints, so I stand quietly and watch until he’s done. When Ulf is finally satisfied that no one was following me, he turns towards me.

“Well?” He says, frowning.

“Well, what?”

“How did it go ya dimwit!” He muffles his shout, glaring at me.

“Ah.” I let out a grin. “Alzahr and his entire organisation are dead, as per your order.”

Squinting at me, Ulf soon lets his shoulders drop. “Good work, boy. I hafta’ admit. I didn’ like ya chances.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Uhm, I have to ask. How do you know I’m not lying? Don’t you need any proof?” I ask. Really; NPCs can’t be this naive, can they?

“Tssk.” He snorts. “Of course I know ya ain’ lying, boy. Ya think I’m stupid? Every merchant that’s worth a dime has the skill ‘Detect Lies’.”

Huh. I didn’t know that. I guess that’s what happens when I play a class that hardly ever interacts with NPCs. I miss blatantly obvious information.

“So, I guess ya want ya reward now, huh?” He grunts, rummaging through his pockets. “Ah, here it is. Catch!” He picks up a small item from his pocket and throws it towards me. I catch it without fumbling, which is a huge step up for me. I guess the bonuses I’ve gained to Dexterity is finally starting to pay off. Before I can inspect the item, a notification lights up my view.

The Class-Quest: Syndicate Slaughter is Successful!

A Thief Lord has enemies at every corner, constantly challenging your authority. Since you seem to have a knack for overwhelming violence, your methods have grown to a level where you can suppress your enemies rather than having a need to outwit them. Keep going, Thief Lord, your path has only begun!

Rewards: 1000 Experience, (1) Class-Unique Item, (17) Pieces of Equipment, (5) Miscellaneous Items, 95 Gold, 5 Silver, 8 Copper.

[Congratulations! You have reached level 11!]

[You have gained 3 free Attribute Points and 1 Skill Point!]

My grin threatens to split my face in two as I read the notification. Wow. I didn’t even realise how many items I managed to loot during this quest. These numbers are huge! Hell, I even reached level eleven. This day just keeps getting better, and I haven’t even checked to see what my class-unique item is.

With great anticipation, I inspect the small object in my hand.

Thief Lord’s Signet Ring. Class-Unique. Per (5) level gain: +3 Charisma, +3 Luck. Soulbound. Special: Once every 10 hours, completely block any attempt to uncover the Thief Lord’s identity for 10 minutes. This feature is automatically triggered upon the first attempt.

…

What the hell! I can’t use this!