The first thing that Anton did was use Delver’s Discernment.

Zaphar Alpashan, Level 15, Thief/Burglar

So he is a thief then, Anton thought. It made him feel a little better about hitting him. The man out-levelled him, but not by much, and both those classes were common. Anton probably had the edge on Zaphar in most Abilities, except for Agility and Dexterity.

With that in mind, Anton grabbed the thief and hauled him up before the man could recover his wind. Zaphar tried to resist, but the difference between their Strengths was just too great.

“This way!” Kelsey called, leading them into another narrow alleyway. She must have been spending some of her time while shopping scoping out the various small streets and alleys that made this place a warren. Anton supposed the knowledge was proving useful, but he’d prefer it if he never had to go down another one of these dirty and cramped streets again.

“This should do,” Kelsey said. “Now, do you want to tell us who you were going to sell us out to? Or was the plan more of a general auction?”

“I wasn’t!” Zaphar said desperately. “You’ve got the wrong guy!”

Kelsey rolled her eyes. “Right. We’ll see if you change your tune once the spiders have had a little nibble.”

“Wait what—” Zaphar protested, but Anton stepped in, talking over him.

“No spiders, Kelsey,”

She sighed in exasperation. “They’ll only eat a little bit of him, Anton, he’ll be fine.”

“You can’t torture some guy just because you think he was listening to us!”

“It’s not torture, it’s animal husbandry! Spiders need to eat too, you know.”

“I know they’re undead spiders, Kelsey, you’re not fooling anybody.”

Zaphar watched them both during this exchange, getting more and more nervous. Finally, he yelled out.

“I swear! I wasn’t going to sell you out! I was just trying to get some work without giving Rashaq a cut!”

“Is that so?” Kelsey asked. “Then why were you following us?”

“I needed for you to go someplace quiet before I made contact!” Pinned against the wall with barely any exertion on Anton’s part, Zaphar screwed up his face in fear. “Yeah, the best place for that would have been whatever inn you were staying at. But you just kept wandering around the market, where anyone could get word back to Rashaq.”

“Huh, that is a pretty good explanation,” Kelsey admitted.

“I think you owe this guy an apology,” Anton pressed. “We didn’t need to hurt or threaten him after all.”

“What? No way!” Kelsey blew a raspberry at the pair of them. “You’ve got to expect these sorts of misunderstandings when you’re part of the criminal underworld.”

“Uh, yeah, it’s fine,” Zaphar hastily put in. “No permanent injuries, just a few…” he winced, “love taps. You’re pretty strong, huh?”

“Sorry for hitting you,” Anton said. “I was kind of following her lead.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know how it is. How about letting me down now?”

“Not so fast,” Kelsey said. “If you’ve got a pitch to make, you’d better make it now.”

“Uh, no offence, lady,” Zaphar looked at Kelsey warily. “I like money as much as the next guy, but I’m a lot less eager to work for you after all this. There’s plenty of jobs out there that don’t involve getting eaten by spiders.”

“That’s perfectly understandable,” Kelsey agreed, stepping closer to Zaphar. He was already pressed against the wall, but Anton thought that the man was trying hard to go further back. “But the thing is, you don’t have any proof for that little story you spun, so if you don’t have a pitch, well…”

“Ah… sure, sure, I see how it is.” Zaphar swallowed nervously. “You know, I’m a lot more persuasive when I’m not stuck against an alley wall.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Kelsey said.

“Sure, sure… so, yeah, Rashaq’s got contacts in the Administration, that’s for sure. He can find a guy for you to bribe to get what you want. But those guys are rich. It’s gonna take gold to get them to risk their asses. A thief will get you those documents for silver.”

“A thief?”

“Yeah, before I would have been saying that I was the only one who could, but that would have been a lie. There’s a few guys I know that could do a good job, I could put you in touch…”

“I don’t think so,” Kelsey said. “I don’t want people knowing my business unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

“Course, of course. Don’t worry about me, lady, I can keep my mouth shut!”

“One way or the other,” Kelsey agreed.

“Why are you cheaper than the official?” Anton asked. “Seems to me that you’re risking more.”

“Thanks for noticing,” Zaphar said. “Reason is, I’m a lot poorer than whatever Lala that Rashaq gets for you. I need silver to live, while he wants some gold so he can visit his perfumed courtesan a couple extra times.”

“Ah, the injustice of poverty,” Kelsey said. “Good news, though, Zaphar, you’ve got the job.”

Zaphar somehow managed to slump against the wall when his name was mentioned. “You’ve got an identification trait,” he said.

“That I do,” Kelsey said. “Is it a coincidence that you’re sitting at the top of Tier Two, or is there some reason for it?”

“I’m holding on going up,” Zaphar admitted. “Wanna see if I can qualify for a better Tier Three.”

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“Oh? Do you have something in mind?” Kelsey asked.

Zaphar grimaced. “That’s not the sort of thing that people talk about,” he said.

“That’s a shame. I do happen to know of one that you might qualify for,” Kelsey said. “Occult Larcenist”

“Sounds fancy,” Zaphar said. “What’s it do?”

“That’s Risor’s Class,” Anton said.

“Yeah, that’s how I know about it,” Kelsey said with a shrug. “I haven’t read all those books on it like you have,”

“How do you qualify?” Zaphar asked, trying not to look too eager.

Anton thought back to the description that he’d read. “You have to be a burglar and you have to have stolen something magical, from a wizard.”

“Oh,” Zaphar said. “That doesn’t seem likely.”

“Hmm…” Kelsey said. “Maybe, maybe not. We should talk more, maybe we can help each other out.”

“There are others,” Anton told him. “Thief paths weren’t my main interest, but I should be able to remember some.”

Kelsey rolled her eyes. “Ah, fallible memory. I don’t miss it. If we really need to, I can get Suliel to check the book out and read it to us.”

Anton blinked. Kelsey had been passing communications between the group and Suliel for the whole trip, but using her bond to read a book from all the way across the ocean seemed like cheating. However, Kelsey had moved on before he could say anything.

“So, Zaphar. You in? You going to help us out on this little heist?”

“Do I have a choice?” Zaphar asked.

“Yes,” Anton said. He released the man, and let him drop to the ground.

“Anton!” Kelsey protested.

“At some point, we’re going to have to trust him,” Anton said. “If we force him into it, then the first chance he gets he really will turn us in.”

“We have options in that regard, remember?”

“For someone who complains that it was used on you, you’re awfully eager to use that option,” Anton told her.

“Does this option involve spiders?” Zaphar asked nervously.

“No, it’s… better not talked about here.” Anton held out his hand. “So, seriously, are you going to help us? Kelsey does pay well, for all her faults—”

“I have no faults!”

“—so we can sort out remuneration back at the inn. Or you can disappear and forget you ever heard of us. It’s not like we know this city well enough to find you.”

“Actually,” Kelsey put in, “I bet Rashaq could find him if we paid enough. We have his name after all.”

Zaphar winced. “Yeah, yeah, that’s true enough. I can hide, but I can’t look for work while hiding. Guess the only thing is to prove what I said.” He took Anton’s proffered hand. “You just hired the best second-story man in Rused, Anton Nos.”

“You have an identification trait as well?” Anton asked.

“Nah, nah, I overheard you at the club,” Zaphar said. “Keen-eared Lookout. Saved my life a couple of times.”

“I’m sure,” Kelsey said. “Aris? How are we doing? Anyone paying attention to us?”

“I don’t think so?” Aris said. She had been paying attention to the mouth of the alleyway they had ducked down. “There were a few people who noticed when we grabbed him, but they all left in a hurry.”

“Good enough. Do you think you can take Zaphar here back to the inn? I’ve got one more errand to run. I’d send Anton with you, but…” she trailed off without finishing.

“Of course. I can do that. I think I’ve managed to keep my bearings, and Zaphar probably knows where our place is.”

“Sure,” Zaphar boasted. “Just name an inn and I can tell you how to get there, and whether your silver is safe.”

“Great! We’ll come running if we hear any shots, and if this guy runs… shoot him in the back.”

“I’m not going to do that,” Aris said.

“You can’t do that, you’ve got no bow,” Zaphar pointed out. “What level are you, anyway? You’re way too strong for someone so young.”

“Don’t answer that,” Kelsey said. “No point in revealing all our cards just yet.”

Aris rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t going to,” she said. “I’ll see you back at the inn.”

“See you, then,” Anton said, trying to keep the concern out of his voice. It was her first time in a city, the same as him, but he had to trust that she’d be all right.”

Kelsey didn’t waste any time looking back. She just strode off, clearly with a destination in mind.

“Where are we going?” Anton asked.

“The meeting place those street rats told us about,” Kelsey said.

“Already? I thought we weren’t going to need them again.”

“Neither did I, but you never know how things are going to go. That’s why I asked them where we could find them.”

Kelsey had gotten directions to the Nest, but showing up there would probably lead to the kids scattering while someone made an ill-fated assault on the pair of them. The meeting place they’d arranged was a plaza, well populated with bustling cityfolk. Kelsey looked around when they arrived and spotted a likely target.

A hungry-looking kid was eyeing off a street vendor, selling some kind of meat on a stick. When they got closer, Kelsey tossed a copper coin so that it hit the ground behind the kid.

Whirling around, the child quickly snatched up the coin, even as he looked about for where it might have come from. His eyes quickly locked on to Kelsey, standing with another coin held out.

“I want to talk with Karim,” she said. “Or Leila.”

The kid nodded and held out his hand. Kelsey snorted.

“When you get back with him,” she said. “I haven’t got all day to play chase the beggar.”

The kid grimaced but nodded and took off.

“I’m surprised you didn’t offer him silver,” Anton commented.

“We’re in public view,” Kelsey explained. “If I gave him silver, it’d be stolen from him before he got back to the Nest.”

“Ah.” Anton let the pause grow. They were standing against the wall of a building, out of the way. No one seemed to be paying attention to them. “Do you want to talk about the dungeon?”

“I want to save it,” Kelsey admitted. “But I don’t think I can. No matter what I do. If I was to raze this place to the ground, in six months, a year, they’d be back to harvest it.”

“You can’t move it?”

“Taking a Core out of its dungeon is what kills it,” Kelsey told him softly. “I can’t put a living Core in Storage.”

“How do you know?” Anton asked. As far as he knew, she’d never had another core to practice with.

“I asked Mel, she’s had to deal with this a lot. And… she doesn’t have any suggestions. Other than kill all the humans.”

“You’re… not going to do that, right?”

Kelsey snickered. “As if I could. Tier Three is pretty strong where we’re from, Anton, but there are Tier Fours and Fives out there, maybe in this very city.”

Anton felt a chill at the thought. “So we get strong,” he said.

“I’ve stalled out though,” Kelsey said. “I made a mistake, back at the start, prioritising safety over growth. I kept the rewards down because I didn’t want to attract a lot of high-tier adventurers. But without a challenge, there’s no growth.”

“Couldn’t you just increase the rewards?”

“I’m doing something different now, you might have noticed. I’ll have to see how it plays out. Ah, here they are.”

They were too small to be spotted in the crowd, so it seemed like they appeared with a magic trick as the pair stepped out of the crowd. Kelsey tossed a copper coin to the boy who had fetched Karim and gave the boy himself a wicked grin.

“Good to see you again,” she said.

Karim looked to be split between wary and hopeful. “There’d better be money in this, spider lady.”

“Of course. Here, have a copper for showing up.” She tossed the coin to him and he caught it out of the air, never taking his eyes off her.

“Now,” she said. “There’s two jobs I’ve got for you. First, I want to hire however many of you kids as it takes to watch a guy, day and night. How does a twelve copper a day sound?”

“Sounds pretty good,” he admitted. “He’s going to be asleep a lot of the time though.”

“Then I want to know how loudly he snores,” Kesley told him. “He might be doing a lot of work at night though, so keep an eye on him at all times.”

“We can do that. Who’s the guy?”

“Zaphar Alpashan. He’s a burglar by trade.”

“I’ve heard the name, not sure if I know his face.”

“He’s at my inn right now, so I’ll get you an opportunity to see it. He’s going to be working with us, so don’t be surprised if you see him in our company. I need you to make sure he’s not working for anybody else.”

“Got it. What’s the other thing?”

“I need a place where I can stash, say, thirty people without anyone noticing. An abandoned building like the Nest, or a warehouse I can rent with a landlord who won’t ask questions.”

“I can ask around,” Karim said evasively.

“Take your time, and be discreet! I don’t want everyone knowing where my new hideout is.”

“Yeah… I can say we’re looking to expand the Nest. What do you want a hideout for, anyway?”

“That’s a question, kid.” Kelsey tossed him another copper. “If you find a good place, I’ll give you a silver.”

“Sure thing, spider lady.”

Kelsey smiled and clapped Anton on the shoulder. “Let’s go back to the inn, show this guy what Zafar looks like. I think my plan is starting to come together.”