Two nights thence, we find the two rogues atop the roof of warehouse overlooking the incredible structure that was the Lockbox. It was not the tallest or largest building in the city but it’s construction was something of a marvel unto itself. Completely sealed apart from the gate, sporting thick granite walls reinforced with black steel and bound, from base to top, in protective runes. The gate was magical and opened only in one of three ways: by a signet only the king possessed, a secret phrase that was changed every new guard-cycle or a brute force strong enough to shatter the door completely. However, there were other ways of entering the building. Secret passages and cracks in the extensive security system that would allow the burglarising pair to enter, hopefully completely undetected. The Lockbox always had a guard detail of 20 men who lived in a room just past the vestibule, with the guards changed every 4th day and their memories erased, an easy process given the shorter time span. The older and more experienced master treasurer, on the other hand, had such extensive knowledge of the site that his memories of it were instead locked away using cerebral magic, involving a finely crafted bronze chain and the expertise of the finest cerebromantics, magicians specialised in magics involving the soul and the mind, that the royal court could afford.

Cerebromancy was one of the more difficult fields of magical study, as so much of it dealt with the abstract concepts of souls and minds. A master of the craft would potentially be able to dominate his or her fellow man, while a novice delving too deep in its mysteries could easily find it their end. Luckily for Vangelo, he had found one of these masters, and breaking the chain proved doable. The difficulties of unlocking memories lay primarily in the act of keeping the subject alive. Once it was clear between Vangelo and Pascci that the treasurer’s wellbeing was no priority to either of them, the process proved much easier. Vangelo did not relish the action, although memories of men with a title like the treasurer spitting his mother in the face when she begged them for a coin. These memories made the action substantially easier on his mind, even if it was still gruesome.

The plan was quite complex, and required the coordinated skills of the two friendly thieves to succeed. Step one was to teleport inside, which during normal circumstances was a completely impossible action. The runes on the outside protected the building from various magical effects, foremost of which were teleportation and phasing, meaning to pass through the wall. There was one very small spot in the corner of the hallway that ties the outer gate to the inner guardpost however. Ghil had been provided extensive memories of this hallway from the treasurer’s mind, but the move was still very unreliable, with a one in three chance of minor errors in the execution. Anyone who ever tried teleportation and ended upp with a toe inside a rock or an arm fused with a wall would tell you that even small issues could prove quite dangerous. Assuming that the process went smoothly, the next step would be to incapacitate the guard at the inner gate, and then replace him with a timebased clone. Unnecessary killing was unworthy of their professional nature. Step three was to proceed through the gate, down the hallway passing the guards’ canteen as they went and getting to the vault gate. Now the gate was a piece unto itself, making the outer magical defenses look weak in its reinforcement. For this fourth step, the two thieves would use assistance provided by Pascci and his group. Their chief on complex magical engineering had supplied them with an automated safecracker. It looked like a small beetle, matte black and constantly humming. Once inside the lock on the vault door, this little beetle would dissolve and spread in the cogs of the locking mechanism and then bind to them. Given some time, this beetle would then, with a slim chance of error, unlock the massive door, at which point an alarm would normally be triggered. The alarm could however be suppressed, the action requiring an exceedingly precise timing. The fact that few others in the world could accomplish this deed was not lost on Vangelo and Ghil. They would only get one shot at this; should they fail they would never see sunlight again. King Alfons was not known for his bleeding heart, nor his softness towards criminals. His reaction would be twofold, swift and merciless at the offset followed by a slow and patient towards the latter half. Once inside the vault they would be at a disadvantage for their escape, requiring an extraction from the way they arrived. A suboptimal solution with the biggest risk of failure, and yet the route deemed most viable.

Having reviewed the plan in depth multiple times the two rogues merely awaited an opportune moment to strike. It was late into the night; the birds were silent, and the trees were still. Ghil gave Vangelo a questioning look, as to suggest that the conditions could be better. The sounds of birds chirping and small mammals moving about the shrubbery could provide some very useful noise to conceal their movement. Vangelo looked down toward the road before the massive structure. As he pondered their conditions, a strong breeze suddenly cascaded over the scene, rustling the leaves on the trees and making the old buildings creak. Vangelo and Ghil both knew that this moment was perfect. No words needed to cross between them, no contact. Ghil grabbed his compatriot’s neck and lunged them forward at incredible speed, their bodies on a course for the solid walls. The moment before they struck the granite, they vanished. The timing was impeccable, they reappeared perfectly on the other side of the wall. They paused briefly, only listening for any reaction within the building, magical or otherwise. The seconds passed, one by one. After precisely a minute, the rogues made eye-contact and nodded. They were in and they still had an advantage. The hallway before them was completely featureless apart from the gates at each end. So far, so good. Their provided memories had been proven correct. Now the guard that was on watch on the other side of the gate was next on the list of priorities. Vangelo gestured with his hand, and Ghil swiftly teleported the two men across the hallway to the inner gate. Without hesitation, Vangelo then leapt to the right of the door while Ghil lunged through the massive wall to the left. He phased right through and pulled a panicking guard, large and brutish, from the other side. The two struggled, the guard clearly being physically larger and stronger but Ghil being tenacious and flexible. The guard screamed, but his tongue twisted inward whenever he tried, a favourite trick of Ghil’s. Vangelo seized the moment and quickly sprinted to stab the man with a short needle-like blade at any of the weak points in his armour. It was dipped in a poison that would put the large man to sleep for hours, by which point the burglars would be long gone. His first stab missed the target as the entangled pair thrashed about wildly. His second caught the man in the gap between his shoulder and torso. It embedded itself into the man’s shoulder, and his struggle soon yielded. Ghil collected himself and the two then took a moment to listen for a reaction. Even though the struggle had been well handled by the two, it had generated quite a bit of commotion.

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The building remained still, and the two took a deep breath of relief before swiftly progressing to the next part of the plan. Ghil whiskered forth some of the balm he had used to clone himself and applied it to the man’s right hand, careful not to get some of it on himself. The more of his body that was used for the cloning process, the more useful the clone would be. For something so simple as to make it seem that Ghil was sleeping, only a finger was necessary as it needed only to lie still. For a guard that was expected to stand at attention, it was necessary to use far more. Ghil ended up using the man’s entire arm up to the shoulder. The clone formed, and while it was not exactly perfect it did look like the man and did respond to basic instruction. With it formed, Ghil carefully phased through the wall once more with the clone and placed him at attention. He then returned for Vangelo, and once on the other side they made another incredible leap towards the far end of the T shaped hall. Ahead was the vault, to the left was the guards’ quarters. They could hear the guards faint conversation coming from the canteen, the part of their quarters closest to the vault as to be available and alert for anything. Before them was the incredible vault door. Impenetrable, allegedly, unless by great force. Well, thought the two rogues in unison, let’s put it to the test. Vangelo gently brought forth the little beetle. It was humming ever so slightly, and when he placed it on the vault door it sprouted legs and scuttled towards the edge of the door. It suddenly stopped a bolt over hole where the King would put his signet and dissolved itself. Matte black liquid seeped into the hole and made its way through miniature cracks in the metal, deeper and deeper until it made contact with the cogs and innards of the lock itself. It was covered in magical protection and alarms. The black liquid washed over the cogs and bonded itself to them, washing away the magics and moving the cogs slowly. Ghil and Vangelo listened in agony as the lock made various mechanical noises. Every tick was like a jolt of lightning for the two thieves, their bodies tensed up, ready to dart down the hallway for escape at any sign of failure. Tick, tick, tick.

After about three minutes of elapsed time, the ticking stopped, and the handle turned. The two rogues stopped breathing as the massive door slowly swung open to reveal the treasures within. Hoards of old artifacts of various shapes and forms lay within. Ancient rusty swords, bookcases full of strange volumes and suspicious, twitching scrolls, piles of gold that melted before their eyes and then reformed again. Vangelo took cautious steps inside, mindful not to step on something besides the tiled floor. If the vault were to shut them in, they would have no chance of escaping, and so Ghil stayed outside. Vangelo made his way around the room looking for the old ring. As he reached a desk with some official documents on it, a small wooden box on top of a pile of parchment caught his eye. He gently picked up the small box and slowly opened it. Within was the ring, he recognized it from the memories provided by Pascci. He made for the vault door but…couldn’t move. Something was holding him in place. He saw Ghil paralyzed by the entrance, his body contorted in pain. Their panicking stares darted around the room, searching for a cause for their sudden predicament. Looking at the ceiling of the vault, Vangelo noticed something in the shadows. Two…eyes, staring right into his. “It took you a while now, didn’t it…”. The piercing gaze opened something within Vangelo, he felt as if he was spread out like a scroll with all his secrets laid bare. The eyes turned towards Ghil, burrowing deep into his soul. Ghil knew them immediately, they were a cold lemon colour. “Yes, acrobat. You know me, and you were right to be weary of me. I fear you shall never know to what end you have been used, and you have my sincerest condolences for what is about to happen.”

An arm made of darkness reached out of the shadow and grabbed something on the desk. In the corner of their paralyzed gaze, the men could barely make out something gleaming in the light as it was hastily ferried into the ceiling. Another two shadow arms then appeared bearing two chains with a little silver hook at the end. The cold pale lemon eyes looked...empathic for a second, but soon hardened as the chains shot out straight into the skulls of the two men. It phased right through the skin and bones, and as it struck the meat inside a searing, radiating pain set in. Their memories were being wiped, the chain crushing their memories but leaving their physical being intact. Soon their eyes turned blank, their bodies trapped in an upright position. The chains and arms evaporated, and new arms of shadow appeared, this time with what looked like small seeds, faintly glowing. The arms stretched towards the same place where the chains had pierced only moments ago.

They phased through the skulls of the two men and, after the seed had been planted in the minds of the two men, disappeared much like before. Meanwhile, the ring in the small box floated slowly towards the shadow on the ceiling, disappearing into the darkness. The shadow then hastily made its way toward the exit, casting one final gaze, betraying a hint of regret, upon the two rogues before leaving.

It was first come morning that alarm was raised and all hell broke loose. The guards flooded the vault and were puzzled by what they found. Inside they found two bodies, apparently killed in a struggle amidst each other. One with half his leg melted off in puddle on the floor, the other with a dagger embedded in his skull with such force that the handle had broken off. Why they had fought would remain unknown to all but Limoneia and the two burglars. A serious investigation was launched into how they had broken into the supposedly impenetrable fortress, but their motives was assumed as greed and the case closed. The defences of the Lockbox were overhauled and the guards subjected to decimation, the act of killing a number of the men to both punish and inject discipline into the unit. It was the last major attempt to breach the Lockbox until the kingdom fell to ruin a quarter of a century later.

The same morning that the deed was discovered, half a continent to the east a young woman stirs from the rays of the morning sun through her window, oblivious to how this event would change her life.