by S. R. Witt
He helped me back to my feet. Before I could pull away, he gripped my shoulders and pulled our faces close together. His voice dropped and grew stern. “This is one of the reasons they hate us, you know. What I just did breaks their petty rules. It moved me outside the unnatural prison they’ve built around your perception of the true nature of reality.”
A hundred questions jostled inside my head, but none of them could make themselves heard before the old man shoved a scrap of paper into my hand. “If you want to learn more of the Dragon Web and the laws of Dominion, bring me the Burning Codex. Return to the Sanctuary with it, and we will discuss what comes next for you.”
SECURE THE CODEX
The Society of Shadows has tasked you with retrieving the sacred Burning Codex. Will you accept this quest?
REFUSAL PENALTY: -10 Shadow reputation
FAILURE PENALTY: -50 Shadow reputation
REWARD: 2,000 XP, +100 Shadow reputation
DIFFICULTY: Average
It was nice to see the game could provide a decent amount of detail about quests when it felt like it. The penalties were new and gave me pause. If I turned the quest down, it would cost me a small amount of standing with the Shadow faction.
But, if I failed after accepting the quest, the faction hit would push me into the negatives with the Shadows, and that seemed like an awfully big problem.
The reward, on the other hand, was pretty sweet. The big boost with the Shadow faction had to mean bigger, better quests, which meant better loot and more money in my pocket.
My luck had been pretty shit lately, though. If I failed at this, would the negative Shadow faction get me kicked out of the cool kids’ club?
The Grandfather offered me a slight, sad smile. “The Shadows won’t force you to learn the truth. If you refuse this quest, there are other tasks for you. Less demanding, perhaps less rewarding, but safer.”
Safer. That sounded good.
And, yet, the idea rankled. Turning this quest down was turning my back on something bigger that just a single mission. If I wanted to find out why the Shadows were so hated, and what was going on with the Burning Codex, I needed to suck it up and see this through.
Fine, I thought, I’ll do the damned quest.
I took the parchment fragment the old man had pushed on me and read the details of my new assignment.
RECOVER THE BURNING CODEX
Lord Wenderly was the last known holder of the Burning Codex and the Burning Key. Though he lost the key while on an ill-fated expedition to purge the Corrupted Shrines from the Anthalor Range, the Society of Shadows believes the key is still somewhere within his estate.
Though many looters have attempted to ransack the abandoned mansion, none have retrieved anything of value. There are those who claim the ghost of Lord Wenderly and his many lovers haunt the place, eager to seek vengeance on any who dare to defile its halls with their unwanted presence.
QUEST OBJECTIVES:
Retrieve the Burning Codex from the Wenderly estate.
Return the Codex to the Grandfather of Shadows.
A burglary. I could handle that.
Before I could ask the old man how long I had to complete the task, a gust of wind ruffled my hair. The Sanctuary’s candles guttered, sending long shadows racing across the walls and floor. When the light steadied, the Grandfather was gone.
Awesome.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Wenderly mansion crouched on the north edge of Frosthold’s richest neighborhood like a crumbling gargoyle guarding the perimeter of a decaying church. It had sat empty for most of a hundred years, a relic of another age, abandoned since the death of Lord Wenderly. Some say the former ruler of Frosthold died of natural causes. Others claim he was killed by jealous merchants out to seize control of Frosthold for themselves.
And some say the ghost of the last Lord of Frosthold still roams its halls, protecting his territory from invaders for all eternity.
“That’s what the lore says about the place, anyway,” I whispered to Bastion after I’d read him the details for the Secure the Codex quest. He claimed there was a way to share quests with other players, but we couldn’t get it to work for this one. Maybe it was locked to the thief profession.
“Hope no other thieves sneaked in here while the place was empty and stole your book,” he whispered back. “Be a shame if you’ve already failed this quest. Two strikes and all that.”
I jabbed by brother in the ribs with my elbow. “Everyone thinks this place was already ransacked. When old man Wenderly went missing, the city fathers raided the mansion in search of fat loots. But they didn’t find what we’re looking for because they weren’t as smart as me.”
We watched from our hiding place in silence as a pair of guards wandered by us. The poor bastards muttering to one another and huddled under their thin cloaks as they made their rounds. Life as a guard in Frosthold looked like it sucked.
Bastion had logged in a couple of hours ago, and after I tracked him down and let him on the new quest we’d taken up position in the alley across from our target. Patrols had come by three times during our stakeout, regular as clockwork.
“We should have thirty minutes before the guards show up again. I’ll sneak in, take a quick look around, then open the back door so you can come inside and help me carry out the good stuff.”
“All right, then.” Bastion adjusted his armor and leaned back against the alley’s wall. “I’ll watch from here.”
“See you in a few minutes,” I said and started across the road. Though a guard patrol had already passed, I kept my head low and looked both ways when crossing the street. If some noble out for a late-night stroll saw me, I could pretend I was doing something other than breaking and entering.
The front door was a big old ironwood monstrosity. An enormous knob dominated its center, but there was no keyhole or other visible lock for me to pick. Dozens of deep scratches and gouges marred the door’s surface. Someone, or lots of someones, had tried to bust their way into the mansion and failed. Whoever had built this barrier had meant it to keep unwanted visitors on the outside.
Good thing I hadn’t planned on going in the main entrance.
Satisfied no one had seen my approach, I hustled around to the back of the mansion. There was a back entry, but it was a featureless slab of iron without even a knob to mark its surface. The door sat in grooves in the doorframe. Closer examination told me it opened up, not out. There must be a crank or a pulley system inside to raise the barricade for deliveries of wood for the fireplace or food to stock the larder. It wasn’t the most convenient system, but it was certainly secure. Old man Wenderly took his home defense very seriously.
With both doors out of the question, I moved on to casing the windows. There were five of those on the ground floor at the rear of the house, but they were all barred and shuttered. A quick check confirmed the bars were inch-thick iron. The gaps were too narrow even for a skinny runt like me to squeeze through, and the hammered copper shutters were barred from the inside.
So much for that plan.
That left the upper floors. Ten windows ran across the back of the mansion’s second floor, but all of those were also barred.
The third-floor windows were sealed up tight, too. There was a lot of space between the pinnacle high-peaked roof and those windows. Maybe the old man had an attic where he hid his illegitimate offspring.
A quick peek around the far corner of the house showed me a square wooden grate set into the wall just below roof level.
Bingo.
The estate walls were originally smooth stone, but decades of neglect and crumbling mortar had created plenty of hand and footholds for a skilled climber such as myself. After a few moments tracking the path I’d take up the wall, I pressed my belly to the wall and clambered up it like a lizard.
It was tougher than it looked. The stones were littered with decayed pockets that crumbled under my fingers and protruding jags that snatched at my stilettos. To ma
ke matters even more exciting, the winter wind tangled my cloak around my legs. What I thought would be a quick climb became a ten-minute ordeal.
My fingers ached, and my knees were raw from scraping it against the stones as I climbed. Even my toes hurt from digging my soft leather boots into whatever gaps or crevices I could find.
SUCCESS! You have increased your mastery of the Climb Walls skill. (Rank 2)
That was something, anyway. Invigorated by my increased skill, I pushed on. Turned out I was good at climbing. Like, really good. One more push and—
The stone block I’d rested my weight on picked that precise moment to say “screw it” and slide out of its place. The rock plunged into the snow, and I was going to follow it.
With its support gone, my left foot flailed in the wind. My right leg collapsed under the sudden load, bending in toward the wall. My knee banged off the stone and levered my toes out of the crack I’d jammed them into.
The sudden drop popped the fingers of my left hand off the wall, leaving me hanging by three fingers on my right hand. A quick glance down told me I was twenty feet up. It might not kill me, but a fall from that height would bang me up, make a lot of noise, and probably cause me to fail this quest.
Nope. Not gonna happen.
The hole left by the falling stone block had to be close to my left hand. My fingers groped across the cold wall, searching for purchase.
The ring finger on my right hand went numb and slipped loose from the wall. That left just two aching, almost frozen fingers between me and a very nasty fall.
My fingers scraped across the mansion’s wall. A little lower.
Where was the hole?
My Stamina bar flashed an alarming shade of red, alerting me to imminent exhaustion.
There you are.
With the last of my waning strength, I lifted my foot to meet my left hand. The front half of my boot slipped into the hole in the wall. Sweat ran down my spine and dripped from my nose, but I wasn’t falling, and that was a good thing.
Straightening my left leg took the weight off my right hand and let me reach up to find purchase with my left hand. Three points of contact were enough to stop my Stamina from draining out. Maybe I’d get up to the grate after all.
SUCCESS! You have increased your mastery of the Climb Walls skill. (Rank 3)
Every little gain made the climbing slightly, but noticeably, easier.
The grate’s wooden frame was cracked and crumbling from long years of exposure to the elements and hungry insects. A quick tug pulled the barrier free, and I let it fall to the drifted snow below where it landed with a muffled thump. The attic’s shutters had long since surrendered to the elements, and their wooden slats lay discarded across the dusty floor like a child’s broken toys.
Moonlight streamed through the now-empty space the grate had occupied and illuminated a patch of the bare plank floor. Holes in the roof let in more slanting bars of silver light, as well, revealing clusters of dusty, yellowing sheets covering what I guessed was furniture scattered around the attic floor.
I took a deep breath and braced myself. While I clung to the stone wall, I was relatively safe. The worst that could happen was a fall, and I was confident I’d survive that.
But as soon as I set foot in the attic, the danger would become much greater.
The floor might be rotted, and I’d plunge through as soon as I put my weight on it. There could be a hidden alarm, a wire so fine it would be invisible to the naked eye. Old man Wenderly might have even left some sort of guillotine trap inside. Stick your head through the window, trigger the trap, now your head’s in a basket.
Going in without being very certain it was safe could be suicide. I needed to check for traps. There had to be a skill for that, or being a thief would be the most dangerous job in the world.
I closed my eyes, concentrated on finding hidden dangers, and opened them. It wasn’t quite the same as the visions of the patterns underlying reality that the Grandfather had shown me, but it was similar. I thought of it as my Thief’s Eyes, which showed me hidden dangers and treasures.
The world became a dull, fuzzy gray. Wherever I looked, everything took on the same, monotonous shade. I searched along the attic’s wall as far as I could without sticking my head through the window. The floor was gray, the walls were gray, even the dust was a pale gray.
Either I was terrible at finding traps and would soon be dead, or there wasn’t anything to find.
I twisted my head a little to the left, and a flicker of color caught my eye. On the floor in front of the window, a single wooden slat glowed a dull red that intensified to a flashing crimson as I studied it.
SUCCESS! You have learned the rudiments of the Detect Traps skill. (Rank 1)
Ha! Take that, Lord Wenderly. Your devious security was no match for my skills.
I reached up, found secure handholds on the roof’s edge, and eased my feet through the hole in the wall. It was a stretch, but I was able to step over the trap without touching it.
Inside the attic, I froze and listened intently for any sign I’d been detected. I didn’t expect anyone to be waiting inside the manor, not even the rumored ghost, but better safe than sorry.
VERBOSE LISTEN SKILL CHECK:
UNSKILLED
1/2 Wisdom (5) + d100 (25) = 30
vs
Listen Difficulty = 75
Skill Check Result = -45
Degree of Success = 0
Skill Activation Time: 5 seconds
Stamina Cost: 0
FAILURE! You hear nothing. Maybe there was nothing to hear. Or maybe you’re bad at listening.
You have learned the rudiments of the Listen skill (Rank 1)
Had I heard something coming from the floor below? Had I really detected a muffled thud, or was it just a shutter banging in the wind?
Or maybe I was paranoid. I’d failed a Listen skill check, but that didn’t mean there was anything to hear.
You don’t have time for this, I chastised myself.
I turned my attention back to the red plank. The floorboard trigger was the same width as the window. Anyone not paying attention would throw a leg over the sill and stomp right on it. The pressure plate goes down, the trap goes off, and there’s one more burglar to plant in the pauper’s field outside of town.
At least, I assumed the trap was deadly. Maybe it wasn’t, but I’d feel much better treating it like it could kill me than being careless and actually getting killed.
If pushing down on the trigger would set the contraption off, then the smartest thing to do was pull it up.
I fished a slender bar from inside my cloak, which apparently sprouted thieves’ tools on demand, and very delicately pried up the trigger’s left end to reveal the mechanism beneath.
A trio of notched metal rods jutted from the bottom of the space beneath the plank. A complex series of gears surrounded the rods and meshed with three toothed discs rising from the floor like blunted circular saw blades. If the rods got pushed down, the notches would rotate the gears, and the gears would turn the discs. The rotating discs would do something below the floor, and that’d trigger the trap. What happened after that was a mystery, but I knew it wouldn’t be good for me.
Maybe an alarm would sound and summon a bunch of guards.
Maybe spears would shoot down from the ceiling and impale me.
I licked my lips and took a hard look at the rods. They didn’t have notches below their resting positions. If I could lift them…
VERBOSE DISARM TRAPS SKILL CHECK: UNSKILLED
1/2 Dexterity (8) + d100 (53) = 61
vs
Trap Difficulty = 60
Skill Check Result = 1
Degree of Success = 1
Skill Activation Time: 5 seconds
Stamina Cost: 0
You disarmed a Type 1 Pressure Plate Alarm Trap!
SUCCESS! You have learned the rudiments of the Disarm Traps skill. (Rank 1)
The rods slipped free of
their places with ease. I stowed them in one of my cloak’s many small pockets. The trigger pieces weren’t valuable, but they might come in handy later.
Plus, if they were in my pocket I didn’t have to worry about them somehow finding their way back into the trigger.
The floorboard dropped back into its slot snug as a bug in a rug. With the trap disarmed, I wouldn’t have to worry about Bastion’s big metal boots setting it off.
After a few minutes of investigating the attic’s supply of sheet-covered furniture, I found a chest of drawers that wouldn’t budge. No matter how hard I pushed against it, the thing refused to move even an inch.
Perfect.
The rope in my inventory, another thief’s tool just waiting for me to need it before it appeared, was thin and strong. It only took me a few seconds to slip its coils around one of the chest’s legs. It wasn’t perfect, but the polished wood made a reasonable stand-in for a pulley. Crossing my fingers, I carried the rope to the hole in the wall and tossed it out. It uncoiled as it fell, and I was pleased to see its end just reached the snow-covered ground.