Chapter 25: Thief in the Night

It was strange to be able to go outside at night, and have it be genuinely dark. It could never have happened in London, where fluorescent lights were never more than a few feet away, and even the suburbs had street lights that never went, courtesy of the cheap and plentiful electricity that the modern grid supported. It was different, in Frontier, where such lighting had to be sourced from either flammable fuels, which were expensive and volatile to handle, or through the use of magically imbued crystals that were exceedingly rare. Accordingly, the only places lit around the clock were those of strategic significance: the guard posts manning the walls, keeping watch for monsters, for instance, or perhaps for those guarding the home of the mayor, the Kingdom’s local representative in the town.

Accordingly, when I snuck out of the inn to go plunder the local shops, I did so by following the moon and stars, and by the gods, what a wonderful sight they were. The clear sky gave way to a dazzling river of lights, clustered so tightly together as to produce a blanket, each star’s radiance merging seamlessly with those of its neighbours. I didn’t recognise any familiar constellations, driving home yet again that this was a different, alien world. I felt small, under the stars, which only reinforced my determination to grow powerful: back on Earth, I’d travelled extensively, and whilst I couldn’t claim to have seen it all, not even close, I’d visited every continent except Antarctica, and had a long photo reel of some of the greatest landmarks across human history. I’d do the same again here, I vowed, and nobody would stop me.

A nip at my ankles brought me back down to Earth (metaphorically), Pumpkin having grown impatient at my pause, and doubled back to get me back on track. Indeed, he’d been taking the lead ever since we left the inn, heading unerringly towards the shopping district, with the surety of night vision that far surpassed my own. He was being very helpful here, both as a guide and a potential alibi: if I was caught somewhere I shouldn’t be, then I was clearly just a hapless young man, chasing after my rebellious cat. Assuming I wasn’t caught during anything too incriminating, that is.

Putting the stray thought aside, I concentrated on following Pumpkin: it was still tricky, even after my eyes adapted to the dark, as he wasn’t very big and his coat blended in well with the ground, but I made it work somehow. We couldn’t see anyone else, either, another marked departure from what I was used to, and so we met no resistance as we arrived at our first target: the tailor.

Whilst oddly advanced in some areas, thanks to the presence of magic, pret a porter was still a concept ahead of time, at just this far out in the middle of nowhere. Instead, people of means bought cloth at wholesale and brought them to a tailor, who would take their measurements and create clothes on demand. The poor, meanwhile, would make do with rough clothes of wool or linen, which they made at home or communally. This meant that not only would I be stealing from the tailor, but also whomever commissioned the clothes I took; I was hopeful that this would double any EXP gained from the theft, or at least provide a positive modifier to that effect.

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Defying the stereotype of the master thief, we entered the tailor’s not by a rooftop window, but simply by walking in through the front door. It was locked, yes, but that presented little challenge to me, when all I had to do was place both hands around the lock, grasping it uncontested and claiming it as mine, and letting the System do the rest.

[Padlock (Locked) stored.]

This was unlikely to be useful in future, unless I somehow found the key, but I figured it would be easy enough to toss it down a well somewhere. The door swung open, and we entered at the ground floor, which helpfully doubled as the main office and shopfront. Ignoring the mostly unfinished clothes on the tailor’s table, we instead began to search the shelves on the walls, where the finished articles were stored pending collection from their commissioners. This part, admittedly, was always going to be down to luck: I simply had to hope that there would be clothes of a sufficient size and make, at least close enough to fit without too much discomfort. As it turned out, luck was on our side that day, and amidst the unsuitable sizes and appearances of far too much women’s clothing, I found not one, not two, but three distinct pieces that fit me amidst the mess.

[Gambeson stored.]

Someone was clearly preparing for battle, and had ordered a thick woollen gambeson to serve as his armour, or to supplement heavier defences. Trying it out was made easy as well, as I simply had to store it, before pulling it back out around my body. It fit well, barring a slight emptiness around the lower abdomen; whomever commissioned this particular piece clearly ate both well and often. I didn’t mind the mismatch, as there were several ways I could think to deal with it, should it prove necessary. Next up were a more conventional pick-up, a linen shirt and pants very similar to my own, enough that the System recognised it as such.

[Backup shirt and pants stored.]

Always good to have a spare, given the potential wear and tear imposed by an active lifestyle: my pocket dimension could remove dirt, but it couldn’t yet repair clothing on its own, after all. Finally, perhaps both the most frivolous and potentially important, was a black cat mask that fit snugly around my face, covering nearly its entirety while leaving holes only for vision, breathing and eating. Frankly, I wasn’t entirely sure what this was made for, as Halloween didn’t exist as a concept in Frontier, but I decided not to look into it too deeply, for fear of finding answers that I’d prefer not to know.

[Mask (Cat) added.]

It was a good haul, all told, and quick as well, taking no more than ten minutes to go through the lot. Predictably, it was as we prepared to set off for the next target, that we heard footsteps coming down from above.