A pair of in training thieves were loudly racing their way through the bottom floor of a royal palace searching for an extent. The taller thief carried their ill-gotten gains under hand while reprimanding her colleague between breaths.
“What… were you thinking?!”
Valerie demanded as they rounded a corner to yet another lavish hallway.
“I didn’t want them to find their doll missing a leg!”
Samantha responded holding up the broken appendage for all to see. Valerie gawked at the black glass slipper still attached to the marble white leg in her friend’s hand and became even more enraged.
“YOU BLEW OUR COVER FOR A LEG?!”
Leaping over a food cart pushed by a servant dressed in white carrying carefully prepared cakes and pastries, Samantha snatched a muffin and took a bite as she deftly landed before immediately continuing her mad sprint. Between mouthfuls muffled by her mask she replied.
“It’s a nice leg…”
Valerie barrelled through the man and cart causing them both to fall over and spill the sweet treats. She charged after Samantha letting her boiling anger fuel her sprint and slowly close the gap. She didn’t know what she would do once she caught up to her, but it would not be pretty. Coming to what seemed like a dead end flanked by doors, Samantha rapidly opened each until finding a staircase on the third try.
“Up here! Quickly!”
She said infuriating the huntress even further, how much faster could she go? They clambered up the steps, Samantha going as high as they could before reaching the peak some five floors up. The door at the top was locked and she tried desperately to open it with all the meagre strength she had. Valerie, huffing and puffing, finally caught up pushing her friend out of the way and roughly kicked at the door which did not budge. Cursing, she fished the set of keys from her pocket and tried each one in quick succession finally unlocking it with the last key because why wouldn’t it be. Entering a new equally resplendent hallway Valerie wheeled on her friend and demanded answers.
“Okay genius, where now?”
Samantha looked around trying to find another set of stairs.
“We need to go higher. I’ve got an idea.”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
She then failed to elaborate before taking off again. Groaning, Valerie picked herself back up and jogged after the genius mastermind
“Oh YEAH, because you’re full of GREAT ideas today!”
She complained while they ran. The Gentile palace was a maze of hallways, stair wells and dead ends all surrounded by room after room of endless crap as the huntress would so eloquently put it. They passed three ballrooms, nine parlours, four studies, two libraries half filled with books and fifteen bedrooms and those were just the rooms they checked. They encountered servants milling about who, with clear practice, immediately moved out of the way of the dynamic duo. There was a scant number of guards however the word had yet to reach their ears of any intruders thus they were caught with their pants around their ankles. Both figuratively and unfortunately literally in one case as they interrupted a guard as he was in the lavatory. The “expertly trained” and “ruthless” regiment of guards were quickly and efficiently knocked unconscious, bowled over, tossed, slipped under and left to his business by a pair of teenagers. The honestly disappointing display worried Valerie that she panicked over nothing, and they might have been able to subdue the four original guards guiding the carriage instead of having to deal with all this. In the huntress’s opinion, they seemed to be quantity over quality when it came to royal guards. Her thoughts suddenly and drastically changed upon encountering their captain.
Valerie and Samantha crashed into yet another parlour while searching for the next set of stairs. Unlike the last dozen this one featured an occupant other than a servant. She was a slender woman though you couldn’t tell it by the armour she wore which matched the other royal guard’s sans a helmet which allowed the thieving pair to take in her extravagant Elven features. Her sharp face ended at a pointed chin giving her the silhouette of an upside-down rain drop, while her pointed ears featured several ornate earrings from lobe to end. Her eyes were a mossy green the same as her hair tied into a tight bun that let no strand hang free. The elven guard was caught mid tea break and scowled at the intruders before switching to mild confusion then deadly focus. Samantha and Valerie slowly backed out of the room and then quickly slammed the door shut as the woman reached for something nearby. Moving to either side of the door frame, the pair narrowly dodged a pair of arrows that punctured straight through the door to embed in the wall on the other side.
“Uh oh.”
Both said in unison realizing exactly who they had just encountered. If you stayed in Capital City long enough you would eventually hear stories of the famous Fandrial the Gentle Sword, head captain of the Royal palace guards and famed for mastering five aspects in her long life. No one knew exactly how old she was or what all five aspects were only guessing that she had mastered the bow, bow mastery and arrow aspects as it was her primary weapon. Why she was called the Gentle Sword was even more hotly debated and she had been asked several times by foreign dignitaries as well as romantic courters alike to which she always responded by walking away. Rumours abounded of her skill, able to pierce an iron golems core from miles away, sight so keen she can see the ticks on a dog’s fur coat, and feats so outrageous she was said to be capable of firing an arrow from her bow using just her feet. Exaggerations to be sure although she had secretly tried the latter rumour just to see if she could, and ofcourse succeeded.
Coming across the very peak of ranged combat known across the continent was bad, very bad. Valerie and Samantha stared at each other unsure what to do until Fandrial forced them to act. The elf kicked down the door causing it to fly off its hinges and crash into the wall alongside her arrows. Not waiting for any other cue, the pair of thieves took off in different directions as they searched for the next set of stairs. Fandrial emerged from the parlour looking left and right, she blinked confusedly at the hooded one carrying some small hammer or something, curious as to why her eyes couldn’t focus on them. The one running with the brown package however she had no trouble staring down. Knocking an arrow and drawing her bow she aimed at the thief’s calf set to debilitate them. Slowly letting out a breath, she loosed the bows string allowing the arrow to fly down the corridor and strike her target at an outrageous speed. Unfortunately, she was too used to fighting monsters as of late and put too much force into the shot, her arrow struck home and then passed straight through her targets leg. The thief let out a surprisingly feminine scream, rolled on the floor then immediately shot back up and kept running, their blood splattering onto the tiles. Fandrial clicked her tongue and casually followed after the hobbling intruder, she would reach them eventually, even if they somehow escaped, she would find them. She wasn’t the world’s greatest detective; she simply had all the time in the world to track them down and none had escaped her yet.