--The wagon Zarak bought in Nomad’s Rest slowly clattered towards Bartertown’s walls. Zarak knew the wall guards were perched in their sniping nests dotted along the city’s defences, even though he couldn’t see them. In his mind, they were training their crossbows at him. Of the four men Zarak had under his command, he got stuck with the dumbest of them. He kept wondering if Rosencrantz would spill his guts in front of the guards and bury them both. They would have no cover if the guards started shooting. Looking toward the clear ground that spanned in front of the city gates, he could clearly see himself lying face down in the dirt, his back impaled with arrows. Rosencrantz managed to remain silent, but he was pale, sweating and shaking like a stick. The guards found this quite suspicious, but as Zarak noticed they were eyeing Rosencrantz a bit too keenly, he blurted out that his servant has a fever, and that they ought to stay away from him, lest they catch it too. This quickly discouraged them from leaning into Rosencrantz’s terrified face. And so they passed...

--Once inside, they made their way towards the thieves’ guild, the “Slum Dogs”. They took a roundabout road just in case, as Zarak wasn’t sure if anyone had followed them from the gate. “Waste of time” he thought to himself, but did so anyway. The guild building was the city’s old theatre. Once the new one was built, it’s as if this one vanished under a shroud. Nobody could see it anymore, or even remember what its name used to be. The local shops followed suit, and poverty claimed the neighbourhood. A perfect seeding ground for thieves. Vice was present all around town, but in this part of it, the populace saw the thieves as punishers; making the rich feel their indignation. They didn’t get to see any of the gold the thieves stole, but everybody around here seems to have grown up personally knowing someone from the guild. They were brothers, sisters, uncles, or childhood friends. The lines which held them together were thick, and mostly immune to bribery. The occasional outlaw would get caught and hanged from time to time, but likely due to betrayal, rather than the town guard’s deliberate persecution. After all, the guards too grew up with those same thieves. Guard or thief, these were the only two jobs that didn’t involve toiling in hard labour until you’re all used up, old and broken.

--The guild itself though, it seemed impenetrable. Which fascinated Zarak. To him, it seemed to be out in the open... He rode his wagon in trough the doorway which had no doors the first time he got here. The roof was missing here and there as well, and so were the walls. Old banners were swaying in the breeze, hung from the terraces. Too pale to discern what was once depicted on them. Suspicious characters were hanging around, playing cards, sharpening knives, or trying to barter their loot with each other. Gracing their laps were hookers that didn’t look pretty enough to be hired by the merchants; trying to squeeze out some of that looted gold, to feed their syphilis ridden, bastard children. A few discreetly leered onto Zarak and his companion as they rode in. So yeah, pretty much in the open. And yet, the town guards never came by.

--Upon arrival, Zarak and his no longer mute henchman were greeted by two twins, who were among the top ranking thieves. The “twin blades” as they called themselves. Both equipped with vicious personalities, annoying catchphrases and a secret handshake, which was all pretty average around here. After all, bandits weren’t the most refined of people, and their tastes showed it. Zarak never bothered remembering the twins’ real names as he couldn’t tell them apart anyway. When he was forced to communicate with them, he limited his responses to the words “hey”, “yes” and “no”, to avoid getting dragged into their personal dramas. Needless to say, they didn’t seem to like him much either. They, as always, tried to provoke Zarak with stupid remarks. He paid no heed, but Rosencrantz found himself obliged to start trading insults. Upon being reminded of how annoying he found Rosencrantz to be when he was allowed to speak, Zarak gave him some pocket change and instructed the man to keep himself busy with one of the bustier local “entertainers”, while the big boys divvy up the loot; according to guild customs.

--The blades valued the melted gold to about 12,000 gold pieces worth. A well off peasant would have to sell all that his land birthed for 5 or so years before he’d be able to assemble such a hefty pile of gold. And of course, this would be without taking into account any food or supplies for the peasant and his family… Seeing so much bling in one place gave the twins a gold rush, as they hurriedly rolled the barrels away into the guild’s treasury, cackling like hyenas all the way. The treasury that only a select few had access to, as trust was an exceedingly rare commodity among thieves. Although Zarak had climbed the guild’s ranks enough to become a raid leader, he still wasn’t a part of that circle of trust. After a while, the blades returned with a large sack which rattled as they dragged it across the ground, struggling under its weight. He lifted it with one hand and opened it slightly, to inspect its content. This was the other half of the loot that was due to Zarak, only in coin form. The half which was his to share with his men as he pleased.

--As he pleased. He had been working hard to earn that part of the deal over the past couple of years. To be precise, it’s now been about two years of stabbing livers, holding heads under water and breaking knee caps, and all for this. Two years where he was just another henchman, who had to settle for other people’s leftovers. Other men led the robberies, and divided the loot to their own accord. Often more generously to those that had crawled deeper up their asses, which he wasn’t doing. Zarak despised this pathetic circle of leeching for existence. He was never truly a henchman to begin with, and his “leaders” often berated him for his disobedience. But not anymore. The glitter of the gold danced on his face. He thought back – back to the first pay he got in Bartertown.

--15 years old, and he was gutting fish for one of the local shops. At the end of a hard work day, he barely had enough to keep up with the steep prices of living in Bartertown, while his employer’s belly seemed to inflate a bit each day.

--Upon being thrust from his thoughts back into the real world by the twin blade’s snarking voices, Zarak was invited into the back room, which was a rare privilege indeed.

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-Thank you for reading. I noticed quite a bit of room for improvement over the last couple of posts. If the story gets more attention, I will probably go over them and improve them a bit, possibly adding some drawings here and there. Next update will be on Monday. If you liked my work, please rate, follow or favorite, to support my content. Prost!