by Kong, Aleron
The three days came and went surprisingly quickly. The only breaks Richter took from his training was to check on the progress of his new people. Both the humans and nonhumans had been industrious about organizing for passage to their new home. The human settlers, along with Randolphus, had left for Leaf’s Crossing the day before. Richter had paid a coin to a messenger to run ahead and carry a message to Rosy at the Whistling Hen. It had told her that he needed to rent out the entire inn to house the human portion of his people for a day or two. He included in the message what he hoped was a sufficient amount of coins for their room and board, but promised to make up the difference in a few days if he was short.
The nonhumans had slowly ferreted their families to the Laughing Imp or other safe houses that Terrod and his compatriots had access to. It had been an emotional series of days for them as there was a very real possibility that they would not see those left behind for several years, if ever again. Terrod and Richter had decided to implement everything on the same day. The same day of the count’s ball, the holds of the ships they had commissioned were slowly filled throughout the day with the nonhumans. Richter and Sion would join them after saving Isabel. She would also come to the Forest, as it would be way too dangerous for her to remain in Law after escaping the count. Terrod would stay behind, and try to find the other nonhumans that had been sold. So far no further information had been gleaned from the ledger. Ultimately he was planning to sell the inn, and if possible make a new life in Leaf’s Crossing, Isabel could join him some time later. Through his training and organizing, Richter lost track of time. Before he knew it Terrod had walked into the room at the end of the hallway where Richter was sitting with Zarr and simply said, “It’s time.”
CHAPTER 25
Terrod’s contact in the count’s household had found servants’ uniforms for them to wear. Besides holding women against their will, apparently Count Stonuk was also guilty of horrible taste. His house colors were burnt orange and white. Richter felt like a creamsicle. To make it worse it wasn’t just a touch of orange here and there. Instead the servants were required to wear a poncho-like outfit that made them look like the playing cards that served the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland. The only consolation was that Richter was sure everyone would be so distracted by the garish clothes, that no one would remember their faces.
Sion was not happy to be left out of the plan, but agreed to hide in a nearby alley. If all went pear shaped, he could cover their retreat. The noise from a well imbued arrow strike should scare anyone, and might give them precious moments to escape.
The infiltration party was composed only of Richter, Terrod and Jeremy. Apparently the window to enter the count’s home was extremely short, and any more people would cause a problem. Richter wore his armor under the clothes, any buckles wadded so as not to make noise and betray their disguise. Getting into the count’s house was actually surprisingly easy. The party meant a large amount of deliveries and movement. The three picked up an order the head of the kitchen had made at a local bakery, and then walked in through the back gate. The guard only checked their baskets of bread against a list of suspected deliveries, then barked at them to move along.
Richter was somewhat surprised, but then he realized that it was no different than any large upscale party in his world. This was just the house of a rich guy not some secret government bunker. After all, who would challenge a noble who had his own private army, and could kill them with zero consequences? Guess just three bad mofos like us, Richter thought with a smile.
They walked in, and delivered the bread to the kitchen. Terrod’s contact turned out to be a nondescript man of middling height and brown hair. He barely acknowledged Richter or Jeremy. Terrod had told them about the huge risk the man was taking, and they all agreed not to engage him or try to exchange names. They had timed their entrance to coincide with when the food was brought up to the count’s room. It minimized their risk of being discovered as frauds.
Terrod picked up a plate of food, and walked up the stairs. Richter and Jeremy followed discretely behind. When he got to the room, the guards merely waved him through, apparently well used to the count’s captives being fed at this time. He missed half a step when one guard made an off color comment about the girl having more than enough to eat when the count returned. Richter thought Terrod might kill the jerk, but he thankfully stuck with the plan and entered the room. As soon as he was inside, Richter started counting. The plan was to get to a hundred count, and then cast the spell. Jeremy was keeping lookout on the stairs one floor down. The greatest weakness in the plan was that there was no one to watch the far end of the hall. If anyone came from that direction while Richter was casting Troubled Sleep upon the guards, the jig was up.
He counted silently and at ninety seven began to cast the spell. As he was counting he realized that he had never discussed with Terrod if the count to one hundred was when he could exit or when Richter was supposed to cast the spell. It would be horrible for them all to be killed for such a stupid mistake. Go on ‘three’ or ‘one, two, three then go’ was one of the biggest flaws in guy communication. Even though sleep spells were lethal weapons as they allowed for a coup de grace, the entire plan would fall apart if Terrod exited before the guards were knocked out.
Peaking around the corner to see the two guards, Richter focused his will and cast the spell, the necessary words and hand movements coming unbidden, but flawlessly executed. The guard closest to him slumped as soon as Richter finished casting the spell. The other reached out a hand to brace himself against the wall, though. He strained to straighten his legs, and his mouth opened to shout, but after a second more, he collapsed next to the other one.
Richter ran forward, knocking twice on the door. Terrod opened the door and grabbed one of the guards under the arms, dragging him into the room. Richter did the same with the other guard. The entire process including the spell took fifteen seconds. Jeremy came in behind him, and they closed the door. The two of them began to strip the guards. A brown haired beauty with haunted eyes held onto Terrod for a second with frantic strength. He murmured in her ear and then stared into her eyes. She nodded her head and released him, but Richter noticed her hands were still shaking.
The livery of the guards was similar to the uniform of the servants, but of course they were also wearing armor. Luckily it was not plate, or there was no way they would have gotten it off in a reasonable amount of time. Each guard was wearing a chainmail shirt, chainmail coif and a kettle helm. They each had swords and kite shields as well. Richter tried to slow his breathing as he focused on his task. He cast Haste on the three of them hoping to save precious minutes. He grimaced slightly at the loss of the mana, almost half of his total. He hated to waste it, but if there was a fight on the way out he would want his mana higher. He took a mana potion. His mana bar increased quickly forty points over six seconds.
After several minutes, each guard had been stripped and Terrod and Jeremy were wearing their armor and weapons. They would of course not pass a close inspection, but from a distance they looked like any other two guards. It had been decided Richter would not pose as a guard on the way out because his Wood Sprite armor was superior to anything his colleagues had. He had lost the bonus to having the complete set on unfortunately, having had to remove the helm, gauntlets and shoes as they could not be concealed in his disguise as servant. They tied up the actual guards, shoving gags in their mouths. The spell was supposed to last an hour, but one had shown some resistance so who knew how long he would actually be out. Richter stood up and took in his surroundings.
The room was opulent to say the least. Paintings and tapestries covered the stone walls. A round table of almost black wood was off to the left side of the room with four upholstered chairs, each with intricate stitching. A canopied bed that could easily fit 10 people was against the back wall, the sheets rumpled and hanging off the side of the bed. A large fireplace was resting cold against one wall.
The mo
st fascinating thing in the room was the woman they had come to save. Isabel was about five feet eight inches tall. Her hair was loose around her shoulders and hung well past her shoulders. Her skin was the dusky brown of the Wood Elves. It had the appearance of a black base that had been painted over with chestnut in a way he had associated with Indians he knew back home. A tight fitting gown didn’t hide hips that were neither narrow nor wide, a slender waist and small firm breasts. What arrested him was her eyes though. Her irises were gold like wheat seen on a cloudless day in midsummer. Those same beautiful eyes were bloodshot and sorrow filled. They convinced him of one thing. He would kill the count if he ever had the opportunity.
Terrod was holding her again, and her grip seemed even tighter than before. Richter waited a few seconds, not wanting to disturb the comfort this woman was clearly seeking from her loved one, but ultimately had to. He couldn’t ignore their precarious position for long. Clearing his throat he said, “Terrod. Terrod we have to get her dressed, and get out of here.”
The man made eye contact with Richter, his gaze initially furious that anyone would take him away from comforting his lost love even for a moment, but he came back to himself, and nodded, separating from the woman again. Turning his back to give her privacy, Richter looked out at the wealth in the room. Turning to Jeremy he said, “You move very quietly my friend. Am I correct to assume that you have a, *cough* nontraditional way of earning a living.”
The man stared at him for a moment before chuckling, “You might be safe to assume that. Why?”
Giving a ruthless smile, Richter replied, “Because in the next few minutes we are going to rob this bastard blind.”
They rummaged through a small chest at the foot of the bed, finding a pouch of coins and several daggers. In one nightstand, he found more coins, and a small blue wand about a foot and a half long with a white jewel the size of a robin’s egg at the end held in place by a stylized claw. More basic items were present, and Richter didn’t leave anything behind, sweeping everything into his bag. He cleared the expensive flatware, plates and goblets from the table. For good measure, he opened the closet and shoved all of the clothes and shoes he found there into his Bag of Holding. He thought again that the Bag was worth at least twice what he had paid for it. Whatever he shoved in, the Bag remained flat on the outside. He took his glass dagger to the edge of the framed paintings, cut them loose, and rolled them up along with the rest of the stolen loot. That was when he saw Jeremy looking intently into the cubby of the other nightstand.
A focused look was on the other man’s face, and he was reaching inside the top drawer. Searching for a moment, he seemed to press something. The side of the night stand popped open revealing a hidden cubby. The metal door of a safe was seen built into the night stand.
“Damn! I could open this, but we don’t have the time,” Jeremy angrily shook his head.
“Wait,” Richter told him. “Let me try something.”
Richter placed his hand on the safe and invoked his Dungeon ring. He gave a delighted smile when he heard a click. He pulled open the safe and saw it was full of jewels, papers and, what was this? It looked like the count’s signet ring. With an evil smile, Richter placed it in his bag thinking the good count would love knowing his ring would help to feed the nonhumans he had been prosecuting. Gesturing to the jewels, he looked at Jeremy who smiled and nodded his head. The man swept half the gems up and placed them in his pouch. He left the rest for Richter.
“We are ready,” Terrod called. He was wiping tears from Isabel’s face and telling her to be brave. “We need to go.”
Richter shoved the rest of the jewels and the papers into his bag and stood. The four of them mentally prepared themselves, and then Richter stepped out into the hall. Seeing that it was still empty, he waved his companions forward and they walked down the hall. The hardest part was remaining calm, and keeping an unhurried pace. To know how difficult it was imagine having to pee really bad and also walking away from a growling dog. It was nerve racking, and yet still they couldn’t show it.
Despite the stress of the situation, they made their way along the servant corridors with no issues. The most dangerous part of the scenario was behind them, and they walked to the side gate that they had used to enter the estate. The two guards were still there, but no one else was currently around. Not wanting to take any chances, Richter cast Troubled Sleep, and both slumped to the ground. They then just walked out.
They met Sion in the nearby alley and ditched the livery of the count. Pausing only to retrieve his bow and don the rest of his armor, they were quickly away. Jeremy doffed the guard’s armor saying it slowed him down too much. Richter shoved it into his bag, waste not want not. They picked up the pace alternating between a walk and a jog down the dark alleys of the capital. Nearing the harbor, they turned down a wide street that exposed them to the light of the full moon. Which was the only reason that they saw the man standing in the middle of the street.
“Impressive! That wasn’t a bad bit of crime you did there! Coming from me you should take that as a compliment. All of you! Terrod, inn keeper of the Laughing Imp, Jeremy, former cut throat of the Lawbreakers, Isabel, the lovely Wood Elf, Sion, the Wood Sprite, and Richter, the unknown man.” He smiled broadly.
“How do you know us?” Terrod shouted.
“You are absolutely right! I am being rude,” the man replied sounding genteel and magnanimous. “Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Ronin, and I am the leader of the Night Blades. You may remember that you killed almost all of my new members, and burned my house to the ground a few nights ago. Now it has been a hard few days for me and mine. We lost a few more members to attrition and other thieve guilds that smelled blood in the water. It also took a few days to figure out who to thank for the, ahem, warm welcome, I was greeted to when I came back to my home. Then I remembered who we had sold those pretty little nonhumans too though. So I checked up on anyone in their lives.” The man gave a short laugh. “Now we couldn’t be sure which one would be rescued, or exactly who would come, but somehow I had a feeling this little elf maid would stir someone’s heart.” He laughed again, and ugliness could clearly be heard in the sound.
“Where are the rest of the people you sold,” screamed Isabel.
“Be calm Isabel! Be calm,” the friendly note was back in his voice. “Don’t be so rude. After all, my friends and I have worked so hard to repay all of you for the kindness you showed us.” His voice lowered with each following word, the tone of his communication weighed heavily with anger and scorn. “I NEED, to settle, this DEBT!”
Richter heard a faint scuff on the cobblestones behind them, and realized the purpose of Ronin’s entire speech had been to stall. It had allowed the other thieves to find and catch up with them. To come up behind them! Throwing his arm back he cast Grease, and was rewarded with cursing coming from multiple spots as thieves came into view, their Stealth interrupted by the fall.
He turned back and cast Analyze on this man who would face down four armed men alone, even if only as a delaying tactic.
Name: Ronin. Human Level 22. Health 400. Mana 160. Stamina 310. Disposition: Hatred. Humans are one of the shortest lived, but most prolific breeders in the Land. Humans have a broader affinity for skills than other races. No special bonuses to race, but no special penalties as well. Profession: Thief.
What?!? This man had a Profession! Xuetrix had said that only the powerful had Professions. And this Ronin was level 22! This could not bode well!
Sion drew and fired at Ronin, but the man leaned almost leisurely to the side and disappeared from sight. Terrod pushed Isabel against a wall, and turned to draw his sword protecting her. Jeremy activated Stealth and vanished as well.
Richter began to cast Troubled Sleep, but was struck with a spear of rock. The attack made his Ice Dagger look like a tooth pick. The one strike removed thirty health, striking him in the side and knocking him down. Praying he had a second before being struck again he c
ast Haste. His power with Air Magic let him quickly get back to his feet.
When he stood up, he saw the mage off to the right with a black wand pointed at him, purple light gathering at the tip. Sion shot an imbued strike at mage which stopped a good three feet short, causing ripples in cylinder of force around him. The wizard changed his target and pointed the wand at Sion. A purple sphere shot out from the end of the wand. Sion had started moving as soon as he saw the wizard aiming his wand. The tennis ball sized purple ball struck the cobblestones right next to Sion. When it struck it popped and spread a thick purple liquid over the stones, which began to bubble and hiss. A small gobbet landed on Sion’s leg. The sprite screamed in pain. He quickly dragged his leg on the street scraping off the viscious acid.
Richter could see the flash of bodies and blades in front of him, Jeremy and Ronin disappearing and reappearing quickly, fighting as only stealthed figures could. They must be guessing where the other would be in a fast paced and close range game of cat and mouse. It was impressive that Jeremy had lasted even a few moments against a level 22 Thief! Who knew what benefits the profession brought!
The rogues behind him were rolling out of the radius of the grease spell to rejoin the fight. Knowing they would be swarmed if the men got up, Richter reached into his quiver and found the Arrow of Flame. He shot it at one thieves in oil. The thief gave a grunt of pain that became squeals of agony when the arrow ignited the oil he had conveniently been rolling around in. The fire spread through the rest of the oil and ignited two other thieves, three others managed to escape the oil though, and were quickly getting to their feet. He shouted to Terrod, “Get her out of here! The longer we wait, the more of them will come! We have to get escape!”