Chapter 39

A week and a half has passed since the book heist and the city is completely different. There’s a tension in the air and everyone walking on the streets hurry along to where they’re going, not willing to stop for even a moment to talk. People are more hostile now and one glance at the wrong person could mean you end up with your throat cut out. And no, it’s not because of the book heist. It’s because of Alister’s disappearance.

Alira doesn’t usually keep up with his adopted son too regularly and lets him roam free, doing whatever he wants. But when he didn’t hear anything from Alister for nearly four weeks, he sent someone to get a hold of him. However, he was nowhere to be found. Alira eventually found out his adopted son was trying to clear out a dungeon and sent his men there. His men didn’t find anything aside from the dungeon entrance being scorched. Though they weren’t sure what happened exactly, they think Alister and his crew were ambushed and captured by someone. Hearing this news, Alira lost his mind. His favorite prostitute mispoke and made it sound like Alister was dead instead of missing and he cut off her head before nailing it to the brothel’s front door. Alira is on a warpath and no one wants to get in his way otherwise this city’s streets will be filled with blood.

It seems Wraine and I are fine though. Listening to Quinn filling us in on the city’s news, there’s been no mention of the bodies being found at all and it’s clear that Alira is searching for his missing son, not his dead son. Bertrand’s in a good mood though. Since hearing the news, he’s been smiling more and Quinn told me when he first heard the news, he actually jumped for joy. That giant of a man. Jumping for joy. I can’t even picture it. There’s a grudge between Bertrand and Alira that I don’t quite understand but from what little I know, it’s a deep seated resentment that’s been building for years. Regardless of what’s been happening in the city, our training continued as usual without an issue. Though I have noticed an increase in intensity in Bertrand’s sword practice. I think he’s expecting something to happen sooner rather than later and he wants me to be as prepared as possible for the fallout.

“C’mon! You really think you’re gonna block me with those arms of yours!? Deflect the blow! Deflect and then parry! Use the boss! Good! Now’s your chance! Borrow the momentum and throw out your shield arm! Now link the attack! Where’s your follow up!?” After I switch stances and bring my sword to Bertrand’s neck, today’s practice is over and I collapse to the ground, gasping for air. “That was good, all you really need left is some variation in your attacks and maybe some polish. I’m talking about changing the levels of your attacks, you don’t always need to go for the neck or the head to kill. A blade through the heart or a tear through their belly are just as lethal. Hells, cut the thigh deep enough and they’ll bleed out in seconds. What I mean is if it looks like they’re guarding their vitals tightly then don’t overfocus on ending the fight in one blow and go for whatever’s open and if you do that, they’ll open up by themselves for you. Don’t forget you can switch stances mid-attack or after an attack for a better position to follow up. If you do that, your weight and pivot point will follow you and your opponent will stay inside your range. I noticed you always resort back to your default stance after finding success with an attack and you’re not capitalizing follow ups when you’ve broken your opponent’s guard. There’s no point in letting them get their footing back, you just need to end them right then and there. But that’ll come with experience. Once Derriv gets back, I’ll make sure he puts you on a couple of missions and you’ll get there once you wet your blade a few times. Speaking of which, you were complaining about not earning enough from your cut from the book sales right?”

“Yeah. I did.” I manage to get out before continuing to gasp for air. Bertrand found a buyer for us who ended up buying 12 of our books for 5 silver each. However, he said he was taking a finder’s fee for finding the mark in the first place, keeping an eye on him for us, and for finding a fence for the books. Of the 5 silver, Wraine and I only got 2 silver and 50 copper per sold book. It was a pretty good amount, earning 30 silver in a single night without any obstacles but considering we only have 79 silver and 72 copper left, we need another mark soon. Coincidentally, we kept four books out of the 16 we stole. Wraine kept a book about magic for himself. It didn’t teach any magic but rather explained the current systems in place and how one could start to learn magic and its processes. I kept the book about Nasaar’s flora because I wanted to try and make poison. It looked fun. The last two we kept was the children’s storybook which Ilya keeps in her room and the final one was a copy of The Foolish Sage. I could finally read up on Oswald the Benevolent and see what all the ruckus Kapri made was about.

“Alright, I have another target for you. But it definitely won’t be as easy as last time and you might need to get your hands dirty. You up for it?” Seeing me nod, Bertrand leads me back to Derriv’s compound where we’re keeping most of our things. It’s odd, we can keep our things there and we can visit, but until Derriv actually accepts us, we can’t stay there. Apparently his whole gang lives inside the compound and keeps most of their belongings there which is why outsiders aren’t allowed to stay long. When we get there, Wraine and Quinn are already inside, waiting for us.

Bertrand clears his throat and starts, “Now that we’re all here, let’s talk about who we’re robbing tonight. Aside from the three major factions in Midriver, there’s countless independent or semi-independent outfits scattered across the city like ours. However, most of those outfits can only control territory in the southwest part of the city, in other words, the slums. Reason being if any of them try to move into the entertainment, business, or residential districts, without being affiliated with the respective faction, they’ll get crushed to oblivion. Tonight we’re targeting an outfit in the slums who call themselves Midriver’s Finest. Pfft. Pathetic name, I know. Anyways, we had some conflict with them a few months ago, some blood got drawn but no deaths. It was over them pushing drugs near the church Ilya visits. They promised they’d stop and stay away from the church and they have. That is, they did until Derriv left the city with most of the outfit. They started again a few weeks ago and yesterday Ilya almost got attacked by an addict while walking back from church. Angelene was there though so nothing happened but we’re not gonna take it lying down. Quinn and I already spent about a week scoping out their territory and we found one of their stash houses. We know their schedule and how they rotate their guards. Your job tonight is to sneak into the stash house and rob it clean. They’ll have two guards in there and all you need to do is knock ‘em out, tie ‘em up, and then rob the place. This time won’t be as easy ‘cause Quinn and I need to run interference in their territory and make it seem like we’re not the ones who did it which means you lads won’t have backup. When you get in there, everything will be at your discretion. However, I don’t really want the guards dead since Derriv isn’t back yet and we can’t fight a war with three members and two hangarounds. If we only rob them, they’ll try to figure out who did it first and try to get their stuff back but if we kill their members, they’ll be out for blood. But if shit happens, you know what to do.” Everyone’s silent as we’re taking in Bertrand’s orders. Alright, now this is what I was thinking of when I thought I’d be joining a bandit gang. Not the book heist we did. Though the book heist was pretty fun.

Before it gets dark, we have to head over to the special store in the entertainment district again. Bertrand still won’t tell me the name of the store or how to get inside. I guess a special store needs a special way to get in. He knocks on the door with a specific rhythm and when the eye level metal slider opens, he says some incomprehensible phrase and the guard behind the door opens it. Once inside, we quickly buy what we need. Two black linen face masks for 1 silver and 50 copper each, two ropes for 80 copper each, two wooden blackjacks for 2 silver each, two gagging cloths for 30 copper each, another leather bag to carry our goods for another 2 silver and 25 copper, another brightstone in a box for another fucking 3 silver, and finally a leather pack for myself for 10 godsdamn silver. At the end of it all, our savings dwindled down to 55 silver and 27 copper. I really hope we earn big tonight.

When it gets dark, we start heading southwest, toward the slums. Looking around, this place looks and feels like a different city. All the buildings are more clustered together and the elevation isn’t the same throughout the slums. There’s random upward slopes all around us and we even found a set of stairs that led up to the roof of a building. What is this place? The people all around us are different too. Whereas the beggars in the entertainment district stick to the alleyways and away from the main streets, there’s beggars all over the place here and they don’t seem to care about being seen. There’s even someone standing at the edge of someone’s roof and pissing off the side of the building. Now I understand why the major factions don’t touch the slums. When we reach one particular road, Bertrand and Quinn tell us the stash house is one block over before splitting up with us to handle their own roles for tonight. Wraine and I step into a dark alley and keep our heads lowered as we make our way through the backroads toward our target.

When we’re a few yards away from the building, we put on the masks and start creeping towards the windows. Peeking inside, it’s a dimly lit room that looks like a kitchen. There’s a wooden round table in the center of the room with a single candle in the center of the table. There’s two figures sitting at the table, playing with cards. One’s older and has gray hair while the other’s a young muscular man with dark brown hair. There’s a door right next to us and if we go inside the room using the door, they might not see us. I look at Wraine and point towards the door. He nods and slowly creeps towards it. While he’s lockpicking the door, I open my leather pack and grab the wooden blackjack. I’m not sure how close we can get to them without them noticing us but I’m expecting them to notice the moment we open the door. In that case, we’ll need to run inside and bash both of them on the head at the same time.

When Wraine’s done, he gives me a thumbs up and I nod at him, showing him the blackjack in my hand. He nods and takes his blackjack out as well. He creeps back to the window and points at himself before pointing at the young man and I shake my head. I point at myself and then at the young man. I know how much training I’ve gotten from Bertrand and I have a pretty good idea of how much stronger I’ve gotten. I don’t know how strong Wraine is as he’s been training with Quinn and I don’t want to fuck this up. Wraine pauses for a moment but nods in the end. The both of us creep towards the door and we wait. With Wraine on my right, I put my left hand on the door handle and looked towards him. He lifts his left hand up with three fingers pointing up. When he folds his last finger down, I open the door wide and rush inside. My target is just getting out of his seat when I smash my club over the back of his head. He instantly goes down with a thud and I twist my head to look over at the old man. He’s down on the ground as well. Phew. So far, so good.

Wraine takes off his leather pack and takes out the two ropes and the two gagging cloths. He starts tying up the young man first while I stuff the cloth inside his mouth. This guy better appreciate the effort we’re putting in, I’ll have him know this cloth I’m gagging him with, cost us 30 copper and that rope we’re tying him up with, cost us 80 copper. When he’s finished with the young man, we prop him up against a wall and start tying up the old man. I stuff the second cloth into his mouth and take out my leather bag along with the brightstone in a box. Before we start going through the building, I go through the two guards’ pockets.

The young man has a coin pouch with 3 silver and 23 copper inside. He doesn’t have a sword but he does have a dagger hanging from his waist. I’ll be taking that. He also has a single blue paper package shaped like a square inside his pockets. So these are the drugs they’re selling. Bertrand told us to keep an eye out for these and to take any that we see. Once the young man is cleaned out, I move onto the old man. He only has 8 copper coins inside his pockets and doesn’t seem to have anything else. Not even a weapon? I guess their job was mainly to call for help if they saw anyone they didn’t know. Once I’m finished checking the two guards, I move into the next room and slide open my brightstone in a box while Wraine searches that room thoroughly while keeping an eye on the two of them.

This looks like some sort of living room because there’s dressers all over the place and there’s tons of trash on the ground. There’s a small wooden box on top of a dresser which catches my eye. I need to drag over a chair from the kitchen and stand on it to reach the box but I get it done. There’s a lock on the box and I can’t get it open but it sounds like there’s coins inside. I put the locked box into my bag and then I open the dresser’s doors and I find dark blue paper bricks stacked neatly on the shelves. On one of the shelves is a bunch of blue square paper packages and next to those is a roll of blue paper. After searching through all the dressers in the room, there’s about 20 bricks and countless individual paper packages. Well, Bertrand did say to take what we can grab. When I finish putting in the last blue brick into my bag, I hear a crash coming from the kitchen and then someone that’s not Wraine screams, “Intruders! Someone help!”

Dropping the leather bag, I rush back into the kitchen and I see the young man that was supposed to be tied up, unbound and on top of Wraine, strangling him. My heart drops and my breathing accelerates out of my control. Why is this so familiar? One second, I’m in a dimly lit kitchen watching Wraine being choked out by a rival bandit gang member, and the next second I’m lying down in bed in a moonlit room, watching a fake Kayman try to crush Wraine’s throat as my own throat is being crushed by the real Kayman in the tunnel. It hurts so much. I force my eyes open, expecting to be back in the kitchen but all I see is Kayman on top of me, crushing my throat with his hands. What the fuck is happening to me!?