《Level One Thief》Chapter 23: Trash bin of Wonders
Advertisement
Spoon helps squeeze us past the iron gate as the humans gallop off to fight the undead. We slinked into the shadows, past the weird torch lights that hung high above the ground on little black poles, and down the hilly streets. The terrible gates and the humans that man them are far behind us, and now there is only the city itself.
This village made of stone.
The houses tower over us, but some are bigger than normal human houses. Some feel like giant barns but don’t hold animals. No just more humans, loud and excited humans, while others are dead like tombs. We stay close to the shadow cast by these buildings. Their large size and bulk provide us somewhere to shuffle as we follow the rats that also make this place home as they stick to the walls and away from the weird fire globes that light the streets and the inside of windows.
In this place that feels cold and alien, the humans walk by us or around us but never at us. Never threatening, always wandering and swaying in this direction or that, sometimes peacefully, other times bickering and arguing with each other. I suspect that we could walk the streets and no one would pay us any mind, but… something feels wrong in that statement. It only takes a stray glance, one glimpse of green instead of pink or brown skin, and we would be chased down these roads with nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. The shadows are safer, and neither Dagger nor Spoon protests. In fact, they haven’t said anything since we left the gate behind us…
We are in awe.
It isn’t the grandeur of the city. It was dirty and full of smells, both unsavory and unmistakably dung-like. Or the architecture, which has the elegance of a Goblin tent made of one material instead of stuff we “repurposed”...
Advertisement
No, we are overwhelmed by history being made by three Goblins, outcasts from our tribe on Gabo Mountain. Maybe that’s too much to think about, and maybe trying to truly appreciate this fact makes my head hurt, but it feels strangely exciting. Like, I want to sneak the entire raiding party here! Finally, a place where they’ll never see us coming! Finally, a land where the dogs and other dangerous animals bark and hiss at us before the humans even realize we’re there.
If Elder Bones could see this! This dirty, human-filled place!
And it is with that thought that I realize that we can’t just wander down these streets and alleys forever. I pull my party aside, away from the street and deeper into the shadows, where the space between two buildings forms an alleyway narrow yet wide, as we cower behind some bins no doubt used for trash.
“Goblin Supremacy!” I whisper in excitement!
“Goblin SUPRE—” Dagger shouts in his own excitement before I yank him hard next to me!
“Idiot!” I grunt, followed by ten minutes of berating Dagger while Spoon muffles a fit of giggling.
To be honest, he isn’t listening, but it feels good, so I catch my breath and go into my plan, “We need to steal something!”
They both nod.
“But what to steal?”
They both shrugged in unison. Ok, I don’t have a plan. This place is too big, too strange, too… smelly? Dagger sniffs the air, and his nose points him toward the trash bin. It is taller than a goblin, so when he wanders over, he climbs. I follow while Spoon shakes her head, her face gagging in disgust.
The bin stinks. That is definitely a thing, but the smell is… food-like? But wrong food, as if wedged inside the folds of a Goblins loincloth for days because the Goblin that stole the food forgot he had it. This is the exact opposite of how food smells in human villages, where the scent wafts over the fresh and warm hills. This city and its bins have more in common with the refuse of Mount Gabo, where large enough bread crumbs grow moldy after being hoarded.
Advertisement
And Dagger and I are climbing into it, complete with a soft “gunk” when we land inside. The smell somehow gets stronger, yet bearable, and it doesn’t take Dagger long to find what he is looking for in the dark brown mess.
Leave it to a raider to find food in the least likely places.
“Ta-da!” goes Dagger as he shows me a loaf of bread, not moldy and only slightly as smelly as the trash around us. I take another sniff just to be sure, but the loaf remains what it looks like, golden brown and probably edible.
I reach out to grab a piece, and to my surprise, it’s harder than it looks on the outside. But still, it breaks off. For a moment, it’s me, a piece of bread, and the smells of the dumpster, before I shake my head of any real doubts and take a bite.
I’ve eaten worse.
The crunch of the bread matches the smell of the bin and the refuse around us, and for a second, I fear that I’ve accidentally eaten something better off on the ground than in my mouth! But then the unmistakable staleness kicks in of day-or-two-old bread, and my fears melt away. Dagger takes a bite off the stale loaf, and now we’re munching on the discarded bread without a care in the world.
Until Spoon marches past me and grabs the loaf from Dagger. This starts a fight between Dagger and Spoon, then a fight between me, Dagger, and Spoon as I try to break them up before Spoon starts throwing fireballs inside the trash can!
We fight until we stumble and fall from the bin in a heap, first me landing on the ground, followed by Dagger, then Spoon, who lands on us both with the stale bread held triumphantly over her head.
“Share!” she announces before taking a bite.
“Oh, this is good!” she says between crunches. “Where can we get more?”
Dagger groans as the majority of Spoon’s weight is on his spleen, but Spoon’s question becomes an idea. Where did the food come from? I look past Spoon’s leg and see the building next to the trash bin. Large and unassuming, but also barn-like. Humans store food in big places. And humans tend to be lazy despite having long legs, so—
“From there.” I grunt. And a plan is born.
Advertisement
Grimoire Knights
A world of magic, where the system seems to no longer be present. Follow along as Cara who has a cursed bloodline and is fed up with having the world, her peers and even her own bloodline get in her way. When attempting to go through the motions to return back to her regular life, she is soon thrown in over her head. The pillars of knowledge that her world operates on are fundamentally flawed.When performing a ritual to summon either an item of power or a familiar, she summons and binds...him...Part familiar, part mentor, a world's underlying system of knowledge is about to be upturned and the source, a small girl in a back water town. Knowledge is dangerous and dangerous people desperately desire dangerous knowledge.Follow Cara, her best friend Jessica and their familiars and some friends on some adventures that will surely get out of hand, and possibly how the underlying fabric of the system will shift for the universe(*) as a whole.----- Please note, I will be jumping between multiple different POVs to initially build the universe before I settle into something more stable. Thank you if you take the time to read my fever dreams of the past decade that I've finally decided to put down for everyone else to maybe enjoy or at least ensure I do not repeat the beginning as much in my dreams. *Cover is a mash up of a few pics, if there is an issue, I'll remove.
8 218The Returner’s One Millionth Life
Every time the mc dies he returns to his childhood bedroom at the age of three until his one millionth life were the world suddenly ends. \System Notification The author of the following novel is new and has no idea what he wants to do with his story so please be patient with him and his novel. He is open to critiques but please do not be a jerk about it or he wont read your comment. Thank you for your consideration/
8 94Swindle
—A Celebration of all things chess... Shounen Sports–manga Style. Anasthese is the current reigning World Champion for the Junior Chess Female Division. For years, she's wanted nothing more than to beat the Male Division Champion, Rei. These two are considered prodigies way ahead of their age; none of their peers even come close to holding a candle against them. But be that as it may, Anasthese too, cannot hold a candle to Rei... She's never beaten Rei once he's serious. Anasthese has always considered Rei the best of her generation. It's her lifelong goal to beat and surpass him. That's why, when Rei's cancer had become fatal after their 3rd year running, Anasthese took it hard. Rei will die, with her never having beaten him, not even once. Things take an unexpected turn when Rei reveals that he is far from the "invincible" player Anasthese envisions him to be. Even he has someome he could never beat, not even if his life depended on it... a fellow apprentice who studied with him under GM Amane. A guy so-called "Net". This enrages Anasthese. A person stronger than Rei should not exist. Because if he did, then what has all her efforts for the past years been for? And if this Net "does" exist, why doesn't he challenge Rei for the title? Rei tells her it's not that simple... Net's playstyle is void. It's an enigma. It's chess that should not exist, and should physically not be possible to play. It goes against all logic, and it's power is not something that can be measured in numbers. It's something that would "absolutely not work" in a professional setting. Anasthese attends Rei's funeral as a last rite before setting off for Japan, bound towards the disintegrating Futenma Shintenkan Highschool chessclub, of which there are only two members left: Mukuro and Net. She has to see it with her own eyes, a playstyle that Rei lost to... And as Anasthese stays for the long-term, various misadventures are started at Futenma High, including rebuildung the club, Anasthese's "Royal Guards" (four girls dedicated to serving Anasthese and helping challenge Rei) coming to take her back to America, and unexpected guests gracing the local Sports Meet chess scene. From a guy who can only play well everytime money's involved, to a girl who plays on a weird "Magical Girls vs Orcs" chess set, get introduced to the quirky playstyles that make chess wonderful. (Disclaimer: I am not a chess pro, I'm only 1400. Expect me to have no idea what I'm talking about at certain times...)
8 291Powerful
3 highschool aged girls with super abilities are kept secluded from the outside world by their adoptive father. After a tragic incident, they are then sent to a special academy to learn how to control their abilities. At this academy, they meet others like them, and discover a sinister plot going on within the academy's walls.
8 81INFERNO: Destruction [Completed]
Дэлхий ертөнц урьдын тайван байхаа больжээ. Гэнэтхэн энд тэндгүй хүчтэй газар хөдөлж, олон хот тосгод сүйрч, хүмүүс сая саяаараа үхэж үрэгдэв. Гэвч дан ганц энэ аюул дэлхийд нүүрлээгүй байв. Тун удалгүй дэлхий даяар хүн рүү дайрч, тэднийг тасчиж, өөртэйгөө ижил болон хувиргадаг үхдлүүд тархсан юм. Гэвч эдгээр аймшигт сүйрэл болоод үхдлүүдийн цаана маш том нууц, далд зорилго агуулагдаж байв.Ким Жисү их сургуулийн ангийнхантайгаа зугаалж байхуй эхний сүйрэл нүүрлэж, тэр зугтаж явсаар, нэгэн айлын зооринд орж амь гарах ч, дээрээс нь нуранги дарж, дээш гарч үл чадан олон хоног өнгөрөөнө. Ертөнцөд тэр эргэж ирвэл шууд үхдлүүд таарч, түүнийг болоод хамт байсан гэр бүлийг нь тасчин идэж, хөнөөж орхисноор үйл явдал эхлэх билээ.
8 91Tord x reader ~love wins in the end ~
*the red leader walked up to your cell and said "have a good time in hell " *your eyes widen * *he laughed crazily and smirked * "have a good stay because you might never know when death might come your way "
8 203