Silk was praised for her combat abilities ever since she learned to pick up a blade. Much like Victor, her past was fairly murky in terms of her parentage. As far as the guild who picked her up knew, she was left on a random street corner with nothing to her name. Being the Thieve’s guild, they quickly picked her up off the streets and added her in as their newest member, a new recruit carrying on the tradition of taking stuff that wasn’t theirs. Unlike the other children who tried to filch candy or toys, Silk preferred to learn from her benefactors and learn to use their miraculous abilities for her own. After only a couple hundred days of begging the various Master Thieves to teach her their combat arts, she got her own Thief's Blade replica and was trained in their abilities. It wasn’t a true Thief's Blade, made with ancient technology and fitted to the people who got it, but it was close enough. Thief's Blades were made to be incredibly sharp, and as a result often chipped a lot while cutting things. To make up for it, these things would essentially be alive and feed off of various materials they cut, keeping their edge sharp and actually learning how to cut as they grew. Enchanted by the splendor of such weapons, she took her recycled bit of Thief's Blade scraps and did nothing but train. She learned the forms, basic swordplay against others with weapons, how to throw them, and even some advanced acrobatics one could use in certain environments. Even the Master Thieves, in between assassination contracts for nobles and requisitions to steal some information or jewelry were amazed at the progress the young child made. They even let her take the Trial at the age of eleven, something unheard of. Watching her zip through the steel labyrinth of swinging blades, dodging and parrying some while retaining perfect form, it was easy to see why the Thieve’s guild bestowed the young Silk with two of the blades. She could see the expressions on their faces, each of the Grandmasters hoping that she would be their ace in the hole for their assassination missions. After all, who would suspect a child was able to overpower a nobleman and kill him, much less kill all the guards as well?

Shaking away memories of her childhood, Silk dodged a slash from what looked like a Chimera and stabbed it in the eye, backflipping off of it’s head and springing off the wall in order to spear two bear-like creatures. Flicking the blood off of her blades, she then twisted her torso sideways and leaned back, narrowly dodging an enameled horn from some three-headed serpent as it charged at her. Although it might look like she was effortlessly slaughtering the mob of creatures, she was beginning to slow down in the endless horde of beasts. “103. That’s got to be more than you, Victor. Admit it, you’re just making up numbers at this point. There’s no shame in being less deadly than me, it’s just a fact of nature.”, she yelled while clocking a wolf in the jaw and slicing it’s torso open. “Naw--it’s--going--wonder--full--y” retorted Victor, punctuating each syllable with a dagger to some elephant-human hybrid’s face. “I just am more calculated than you. Who needs years of training in some underground dojo when you can just approximate various values of a battlefield in order to--” Victor’s tirade was interrupted by an enormous ant darting through and nearly tackling him to a wall, him having dodged it at the last second. Stabbing it to death in it’s head in a brutal and inelegant manner, he wiped the blood off of his daggers with his shirt while listening to Silk’s response. “Yes, yes, I know about your famed “combat mode”, but the fact is my body is just more conditioned and way stronger than yours. I might not be able to lift two-ton boulders yet, but I am definitely far more powerful than-” STAB “your” STAB “stupid” SLASH “APPLIED PHYSICS BULL-” whatever Silk was going to punctuate the sentence with was quickly interrupted as the having the floor suddenly give way under you is not something that is conducive to conversation.

From the abyss below them, a massive bat-like creature with a muscled form burst up from the ground, rising up while cackling all the while. “REEEEEE HEE HEE! IT IS ME, I AM HE, BAT-RAS-CU THE BLOO-DY '', it forced out of it’s mouth after coughing up a copious amount of blood. “I’M THE SKIN EAT-ER,THE ELF BEA-TER, NIGHTMARE OF SKIES! TO BE FAIR, I WARN YOU TO BE-WARE OF MY LUSCIOUS HAIR”, it screamed, slashing open the remaining monsters while staring directly at the blood-covered duo. “HAHA, I KNEW VISITING THIS PLACE AFTER IT ROSE FROM THE DEPTHS WAS A GOOD I-DEA, KNEW IT WOULD BE REAL ENTERTAINING RIGHT IN HE-AH”. Victor, slipping out of his emotionless “combat mode” back to his normal self, spoke up and proceeded to admonish the legendary Bane of Elves. “Okay, I can appreciate some rhymes, but slipping into an accent was kinda forced in terms of that last one. Why didn’t you just replace “idea” with “nothing to fear”, saying something like this:” “I told my homies it was nothing to fear, I told them that this place rose again and it was real chill around here”. “I’m just saying, it is far more lyrically superior and-” Victor was then slapped by it’s foot, with the legendary Lord of Madness spinning on one foot while clipping him with a vicious roundhouse for seemingly no reason, saying “CRAP YOU RIGHT, SUCH A BAD RHYME IS WORTHY-OF-A-SMITE!”, it agreed while closing its eyes and doing a handstand. It then opened it’s gleaming eyes and stiffened, looking at the Ring around the planet in rapture and what looked like fear. Darting it’s eyes from side to side, it began moving restlessly and more erratically than before. Silk attempted to stab it, but it simply dodged out of the way and slapped Silk for her troubles. Groaning, Silk peeled herself from the wall and attempted to throw a sword in a last-ditch attempt, but it merely snorted and hit her again. “I WOULD LOVE TO KILL YOU BUT I CURRENTLY LACK TIME, THANK YOU AGAIN FOR HELP ON MY RHYME! “ it proclaimed while giving its wings a mighty flap. Air moved at a furious pace, the resulting cloud from the force required to lift such a heavy beast causing particles of dust to sting at the defeated duo.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Victor and Silk, an hour later, crawled up the tunnel and down the mountain to the ship, collapsing like a puppet with its strings cut. Levi dragged them to the central area, where the hallways converged to have ease of access to any part of the ship. She then called Bundo over for medical help, saying “Bundo! Quit cooking, I think Silk and Victor are hurt!”. Tottering over as fast as his stubby legs would allow, the ship’s resident chef quickly looked over them. “Bundo thinks we should let them wake up. They need rest, and there is no medical help nearby. Helmsman Levi will have to sail to the nearest island and hope that there will be assistance there.” “Alright then. Next stop: Argosy Isle, junkyard and central market for ancient technology”, Levi said grimly.

Meanwhile, the comatose bodies of Victor and Silk were still blood-soaked and covered in stone bits from the massive whooping they had just taken from Batrascu. Victor’s parched lips opened up, and from between the gasped words were said: “109”. Silk, still not moving, responded “110… you loser”. No more words were said, the pair attempting to regenerate from the first major loss they had suffered since their failed heist and Gildhelm.

Speaking of which, Victor was dreaming of that exact thing while his broken body was attempting to deal with the latest round of madness he had inflicted upon it. See, while it was true that Victor and Silk had spent nearly all of their lives at their hometown of Scinticius, they had spent a very small amount of time at Gildhelm in an ill-attempted robbery. The reason the duo were so wanted (well, at least Silk - Victor’s masked appearance made the wanted poster kind of short on details) was because of this misadventure. The big heist that nearly ended their careers and had their mugs plastered on nearly every bounty billboard was their failed attempt to break into one of the most secure places on the planet. More specifically, the Grand Vault of Gildhelm.

Gildhelm, or Gildaheim as it was known before the language took on the standard Scintician accent due to ancient civilization colonization, was a banking city. Records and various books from the library in their hometown showed that the entire city was one of the founding cities of the Ancient Civilization. Not being able to take it over or breach it’s walls of nigh-invulnerable crystal, the city-state of Scinticius decided to form an alliance with the jeweled city and take over the other areas instead, Scinticius trading them scrolls and books in exchange for various luxuries. As time went on, the alliance turned into a melding of the two city-states as they ruled their vassal lands, Gildhelm becoming the economic and fine products center while Scinticius the scholarly center. As time went on, the city of Gildhelm became so prosperous that they were forced to use their crystalline architecture to build vaults to contain the bloated coffers of the city, digging deep and expanding upwards to make room for the wealth they obtained. With Gildhelm, Scinticius and eventually a different city known as Arcnest forming a triumvirate, it was no wonder these three bastions of civilization became known as “the jewels of the Omnic Empire”.

“And thus, this is why--” “okay Silk, I understand. No need for a history lesson, it’s just a job. We just need the physical schematics of the place and it’s all good”. Silk sighed, annoyed at Victor’s materialism.

“One of these days your disregard for anything that isn’t pure numbers of empirical evidence is going to land you into hot water -- so long as I’m not here to correct you”.

Victor rolled his eyes, clearly ignoring the clash of their philosophies. Strict, empirical utilitarianism tended to contrast with Silk’s more intuitive approach, and this showed when they were scheming more than any other time. Their plans had never failed, and a shiny foil city wasn’t going to make things any different. He threw on the typical Scinticius noble attire and joined Silk at the exit ramp of the boat onto the docks, ready for their subterfuge.

Memorizing their scripts one last time, they then proceeded to enter the Grand Vault, a massive crystalline dome with spires that each cost as much as a small town. Entering the doorways, they both steeled themselves for what would be the biggest heist of their lives. Gems of every color in a spiral tiling made up the floor, a picture of extravagance that would be the envy of any king. Victor and Silk linked arms and marched to the counter, ready to pull off their meticulously planned con. After all, what could possibly happen? As it turned out, it would also be the most disastrous one, and the heist that was the reason for both Victor’s nigh-paranoid planning and Silk’s constant vigilance for danger.