Ch 38

As soon as Lilly began moving towards the door to leave the resting room I went into motion, ducking low behind the cots and using the opportunity of her movement to disguise my own as I moved towards the far side of the door. As soon as she greeted the goblin and moved past him, I saw him stare after her for a few moments, probably looking at her ass, and then turned back to survey the room.

No sooner did he pause while looking at the side of the room that I was no longer on than was I quietly but quickly moving behind him and through the still open doorway and into the corridor beyond. Gently setting each foot down heel first and then rolling forward so as not to make a sound as Lilly had shown me in the hours, we had spent waiting for the sun to set.

Once inside the hallway I hurried up and soon heard the sound of Lilly, once again greeting a goblin who was guarding the entryway to Gikats’s office which should now be empty. I paused in the dark hallway, the only light now coming from a lantern held by the goblin at the door. The goblins who ran the arena did not like to waste money so a bit of oil was better than multiple torches as they used in the day. I waited patiently, watching the goblin who after closing the door behind Lilly stayed alert for several minutes.

After a while, goblin laziness won out and the little green fellow started to snore gently, leaning against the wall. Likely, since nobody ever came through this way after all the trainers left, he was used to napping undisturbed until it came time for shift change in the morning. Waiting a few more minutes to make sure he was fully asleep I approached the door stealthily and grabbed hold of the handle, both lifting and pulling at the same time to make sure that it did not grate against the floor, again as Lilly had directed.

Once, through the door and into Gikats’s office I wanted to relax a bit as I was practically outside but instead, I carefully crossed to the doorway and placed my ear against it, closing my eyes which were all but useless in the darkness anyways. I listened and slowed my breathing and waited. After a while I heard it, a set of footsteps walking past the door.

I kept waiting and soon I heard it again, same pace, same heaviness of step, this was the same person. About a minute and a half in between was my best guess. I kept listening and tried to count the seconds the best I could and after I reached eighty-seven, I heard the footsteps again. Definitely a patrol but I could get out if I timed it right.

One more pass and I started counting again. At twenty I opened the door and moved through it quickly shutting it behind me and then glancing quickly to the left and right I bolted across the alleyway and behind some crates that had been left there. A few more seconds later the guard came by again. This one was an orc in a set of heavy, multi-layered, boiled leather armor and carrying a spear in one hand and a torch in the other.

I waited for the orc to move past me and then fell into step behind him, keeping a couple dozen feet behind and making sure that I placed my feet at the same time he did so I did not alert him to my presence by making new noises. I kept going like this until he had rounded the building and I was in front of the main street and then I split off, keeping my pace but moving down the first road I came across, I intended to cut the next corner and get out of sight before he was able to circle around the building again. After that I should be in the clear, at least as far as getting out of the arena.

I had just gotten around the corner and stopped to settle my nerves after the whole ordeal, learning to sneak and then having to put it into use immediately was really not fair. If the people I had been trying to evade the notice of had been more alert there was no way I could have pulled it off. As soon as I stopped to try and calm myself, I heard a noise behind me and spun around, eyes going wide looking for the threat while my hand pulled my dagger out and moved it into a defensive position.

I don’t know what I was expecting but it certainly was not a giggling Lilly who seemed to materialize out of nothing just a couple feet away from me, apparently there was much more to this sneaking around business than she had yet shown me.

“There you are! I was beginning to wonder if you had chickened out and decided not to come. I was about to go home when I saw the door open at last.” She was giving me a stern look as if I was a student in a classroom who had turned in an assignment late. “What kind of ridiculous expectations do you have?” I asked her. “I got out of there as fast as I could without taking any chances of being discovered just like you said! There is no reason to go making things more difficult by leaving before I have enough time to accomplish the task.”

I thought I had her and was feeling full of myself after having managed to sneak past a few goblins but she was all too eager to deplete my early confidence by telling me that next I was going to have to learn to sneak into peoples’ houses without getting caught, I didn’t need to do anything once in there just enter the building and then leave again without the inhabitants knowing I was there.

My face fell upon hearing this news. If I got caught trying to leave the arena, I was likely to be punished, maybe even beaten but if I was caught breaking into people’s homes, I could very well be killed on the spot. As Lilly led me up the street and towards the first location, she had picked out for showing me the ropes I couldn’t help but ask myself, “How did I manage to get myself into this one?”

Bemoaning my fate, I followed Lilly, trying to practice moving quietly as I moved behind her. With a training period as short as mine had been every single second of practice was going to count.