Nick let out a satisfied sigh. The food that Kim had been packing was incredible, he felt reinvigorated almost instantly. Lost half his weight in blood? No biggie, just a few slabs of meat and he was feeling 100% again. Nick could only gleefully await the kind of food his father would be able to create as he progressed his class further and further. Nick would have to be on the lookout for ingredients, and build up a stockpile of all the best stuff so his dad could make him the best food. With a full belly, Nick decided to re-examine the room he was in. The low hanging ceiling was deceptive, it made the room feel much smaller than it actually was. The inside of the room was very long and rather wide, with temporary walls set up all covered in various papers.

Interestingly enough, no one in the room was paying any attention to these papers. Everyone was standing or sitting around tables, chatting and drinking. Another detail he got to learn about the Hogs was that they all carried alcohol in their rings, and lots of it. In no time at all a majority of the room was on their way to getting plastered, much to Nick’s amazement. It was barely 12 PM and these people were drinking enough to hospitalise an entire pub of hardened drinkers. Nick was almost impressed by the tolerance of the gathered Hogs and rogues, that was until they started dropping like flies. In no time at all, half the room was passed out drunk.

That’s when Kim decided to jump up onto one of the tables and get everyone’s attention.

“Arrghh! Attenshon alllll! I called fahh thish ‘ere treasure hunt fah a reashun! Nick! Get ya shelf ova ‘ere!”

Nick hung his head and walked over to Kim, standing himself next to the man’s table.

“Good lad ya are. Erryone! Thish ‘ere is Nick!” The remaining crowd all cheered loudly, Nick even noticed some of the people on the floor groan. “He a frush Splora! Today he wheel prove ‘imshelf a real Splora!”

Once again, the room broke out into cheering. Nick hadn’t realised that this whole ordeal was some sort of initiation rite, he didn’t really know what he was doing here. That’s when the crowd started chanting his name, getting progressively louder and louder.

““““Nick! Nick! Nick!””””

Nick was then unceremoniously dragged to a door at the end of the room, it was pulled open and before he could even protest he was thrown through. Nick’s vision flashed and he suddenly found himself outside, like actually outside. It was dark and a cool breeze tore through him. Nick shuddered, he hadn’t felt any wind in a while now and his body certainly wasn’t ready for it. Nick suddenly wished he had a jacket. Nick looked around and tried to work out where he had found himself.

He was standing in a garden, a huge garden at that. It was very dark so Nick struggled to make out all of the details, but he could tell that it was a very well kept place. Trimmed hedges, organised flower beds and manicured lawns. It wasn’t as perfect as the Garden back in the Parklands, but it was obvious that a lot of care went into this place. The garden he found himself in wasn’t the most attention-drawing feature of this place though, the massive palace at the centre of the garden was. Nick remembered the prompt he’d been given when he entered the challenge, he was supposed to have planned a heist on this building before him.

Nick suddenly realised that he was also holding something, a large black sack. He opened it and found that it was just a black void, similar to his magic bag. He looked over the sack and found a rather comical detail. Embroidered onto the bag was some fancy lettering that read ‘for all stolen goods!’. Nick assumed that this bag was where he’d have to put whatever he stole from the palace. Nick tried to put the sack into his own bag and it simply refused to enter. Sighing, Nick stuffed the bag into his pants, not having anywhere else to try and hold it.

Nick realised how truly boned he was. The maps, pictures and floorplans from the previous room had all been for planning. He’d been thrown right past them all without getting the chance to study them, without the chance to even put a rudimentary plan together. How the heck was he going to rob a place like this? With no planning at all?! Nick took a deep breath and cleared the panic from his mind. He was competent, he could get this done. The prompt had also told him that the rewards he got were based on the value of what he stole. That meant there was likely plenty he could steal from the palace, with likely varying levels of difficulty.

Nick would just have to try exceptionally hard to channel his inner Tom Cruise and make this impossible mission possible. Nick began to stalk around the garden, the most important thing he needed right now was information. He’d been completely cut off from any information he could get from the hideout, so he’d have to do this the old fashioned way. As he attempted to stealth his way around he noticed his first issue. Patrolling guards. Teams of four moved around the property in uniform patterns. The guards' appearance also gave Nick a pretty good understanding of what he might be up against here.

They were all wearing pristine metal armour, with swords at their hips. Their appearance, plus the architecture of the palace gave him a pretty good idea of the time period he might be facing. Tudor or Elizabethan was his guess, as it all didn’t come off as modern enough to be Victorian or anything later. This was a very important detail, as it meant that, unlike Cruise, he probably wouldn’t have to deal with lasers or digital alarms. This was great news, as Nick certainly wasn’t prepared for anything on that level. Not that he was prepared at all, but he was focusing on the positives here.

Nick circled the palace and noted a few important details. Firstly, it was bloody massive. Secondly, there were a lot of guards, though they all seemed to move in rather mechanical patterns. Thirdly, the building’s architecture itself. This was a very important detail, as while Nick wasn’t a climber in any capacity, he could see that climbing into or onto the building was going to be his way in. Each of the doors into the building that he could see was heavily guarded, so if he wanted to get in, he’d be doing a bit of climbing.

The first two points were technically joined. The building was so massive that it required the vast quantity of guards that it had, though there were still gaps in their patrol. Nick counted and worked out that he would have about 30-40 seconds of time to scale one of the walls beyond ground level before the next set of patrolling guards would stumble upon him. Now that raised the next very important question, could Nick climb three metres of wall in 30-40 seconds? It would also have to be a first try, as he didn’t have the time to attempt it more than once.

Nick didn’t really have any experience with climbing walls, but he noticed that the palace walls were filled with decorative ledges and stones. They offered him plenty of handholds, so with a bit of strength, he could surely muscle his way up. The next step was finding the best place for him to try and scale the building. He noticed that a few of the windows on the higher floors had been left open, which was a very enticing opportunity. Though when thought about it, he had absolutely no idea about the layout of the building. He’d have no idea what sort of room he’d be entering into. He’d rather not end up climbing his way into a barracks or something similar. When he sized it up, he could see that the building was about four stories tall and roughly 20 metres. Nick decided that the safer option was to climb onto the roof and try and enter the palace through any sort of maintenance doors or hatches.

Nick circled the building until he found the perfect spot. It was a decorative dip in the floorplan, giving Nick two walls he could try and post his body between. All the windows that he’d have to pass by would were closed with curtains covering them, meaning he wouldn’t have to worry about getting seen by anyone inside the building. The other major benefit of this spot was the fact that it was indented into the architecture, so any patrolling guards would have to be close to actually seen into the space, effectively buying Nick more time. Nick then took a moment to go over what he had available to him that could assist with his heist.

First things first, he stripped his armour off. The leather pieces and vest were light, but they still only served to slow him down here. So into the bag they went. He also took off his wraps, he’d need all the grip that his hands could offer him in the coming climb. He did keep his boots on though, the tiny speed boost they gave him could prove vital in the dash he’d have to make between the garden and the building. Though he did realise that he’d have to take them off inside the palace. His socked feet would be a lot quieter than stomping around in the sturdy boots. Then Nick turned to his skills, sighing as he realised that all of his Brawler’s skills were going to be useless here.

Nick was certain that he couldn’t take on the entire force of guards that were walking around the palace, let alone any that were lurking inside. Though it did make Nick think, was a loud option available? Could someone strong enough waltz into the palace, defeating all of the guards and just taking whatever loot they wanted before strolling back out? Surely it defeated the purpose of the event and there were measures against that, right? Nick would have to ask the Hogs when he got out of here.

Nevertheless, Nick certainly wasn’t strong enough to attempt a loud approach to this heist, so stealth it was. That meant that his Brawler skills were useless. Nick looked over his Explorer skills and had to admit that they were going to be exceptionally useful here. Just cursory usage of his Treasure Sense told him which rooms he’d be looking to try and get into, which meant he wouldn’t have to stumble around the palace blindly searching for something valuable. Lucky was Lucky, he was sure it was doing its best. Hasten was going to be his best friend during the next few minutes, he’d certainly be relying on it to help get him onto the building. Nick was hesitant to use his map skill, as his conversations with the Hogs made him realise that becoming reliant on it now would only make it harder for him when it became unusable. His latest skill, Fight for your Treasure, he just didn’t fully understand how to use yet but he was sure it would come in handy.

Leif had been right, getting another level in Explorer would have proven far more useful for him right now. If he had have been told what the event he was going to had been, he probably would have made a different decision. He couldn't change the past though and he felt like his reasoning was still solid given what he’d been working with. Intolerable Weakness was far too good of an ability to have any regrets about. He was slightly worried about how Paige was going to react though.

Nick shook his head. He wasn’t thinking about that right now, he was here to enjoy the event and so that’s what he was going to do. Nick waited until a patrol passed by and activated Hasten. He then dashed forward, out of the garden, across the gravel path and right up against the wall. He was shocked for a moment at how fast he had been, it was only a marginally increased boost compared to Hasty Escape, but Nick certainly felt the difference. Nick then focused on the wall before him. He took a slight run-up, reactivated Hasten and ran up the wall, pushing himself off it and reaching for the large stone windowsill of a second-story window. Then pulled himself up onto the windowsill, it wasn’t very wide and he was precariously balanced but he didn’t fall. Nick was shocked, he’d soared up the four or five metres of the wall with ease. Even pulling himself up hadn’t felt as hard as he thought he would.

Nick realised something, he had a whole sticker dedicated to strength, and one to agility. Were they why it felt so easy? Maybe they had more of an effect than he was consciously aware of. Nick realised that he’d have to start measuring this stuff a bit more objectively, or maybe finding someone who already had.

Then Nick held his breath. It was the moment of truth. The next patrol came along and Nick’s heart started pounding. He was entirely relying on the guards to not look up as they passed by him. He knew that he had to stay perfectly still, he knew that the human eye detected movement much better than static objects. So that’s what he planned to do, move between patrols and become a static object as they passed him.

The patrol marched right by him, none of the guards bothering to look up at the wall he was perched on. Nick let out a sigh of relief. Now he could start properly scaling the palace.