Dumrivil stared at Prise, then at Ezra.

“Ezra, I thought I told you to make sure you weren’t followed,” Dumrivil said.

“I wasn’t.”

Dumrivil stared at Prise for several more seconds. She gave a sheepish grin and waved at him. After a moment he turned back.

“Well, too late now,” he said. “How much does she know?”

“Not much. She was on her way to figuring things out on her own, though. Turns out she was investigating the guild’s corruption on her own.”

Dumrivil scratched his chin and looked up. “Oh, that makes sense.” He turned toward Prise. “Looks like I’ll have to give you the rundown, huh?”

Prise took a slow step back. “The rundown?”

Dumrivil went through much the same explanation he’d given to Ezra. Prise was shocked at first, then terrified, then her expression settled into clenched fists and a scrunched-up face.

“This bastard needs to be stopped,” she said. “He can’t continue doing this.”

Dumrivil nodded.

“My thoughts exactly,” he said. “Villscha’s done too much damage. He’s hurt a lot of people, and it’s about time someone stood up to him.”

Ezra leaned back against the wall. Look at them, getting all fired up. Ezra found it interesting, in a distant sort of way.

“I can help,” Prise said. “I have access to guild records!”

Dumrivil stared at her, then furrowed his eyebrows.

“If Villscha finds out… it could end badly for you,” he said.

“I don’t care,” Prise said. “He already thinks I’m a traitor. I’m sure he’s planning to get rid of me eventually, anyway.”

Dumrivil paused, then nodded up and down.

Ezra crossed his arms.

“So, Dumrivil?” Ezra said. “I can’t imagine you called me here for a casual chat.”

Dumrivil grinned and put his hands on his hips.

“After a great period of careful investigation, I, Dumrivil, have discovered the location of information related to one of the monster breeding facilities.”

“Where is it?” Ezra said.

Dumrivil deflated and rubbed the back of his head.

“Funny story, that. As it turns out, it’s… uh…” His voice lowered. “In Villscha’s office.”

Ezra tilted his head. “What’s the problem? Just have Prise sneak in there and grab it, right? I mean, I’m pretty sure you already did something like that, Dumrivil?”

“Yes!” Prise nodded her head and leaned in, her arms folded by her side. “I can do it! Just say the word and I’ll sneak in there and steal the information.”

Dumrivil sighed. “If only it were so simple. Unfortunately, from what I understand, the information is locked in his personal vault. I didn’t touch that when I was there—I just grabbed something from the top of his desk. We’d need extended time in the room, plus we’d have to avoid his wards and traps. That’s ignoring that nobody here knows how to pick a lock. Unless…?”

He looked at Prise pointedly. She pursed her lips and shook her head.

“No,” she said. “Never picked it up.”

“There’s no choice,” Dumrivil said. “We’ll have to go loud or hire a lockpick. Both options have their disadvantages, but—“

Ezra coughed into his hand. “Pardon?”

Dumrivil glanced at Ezra.

“Yes?” his eyes widened. “Wait a second, you don’t…?”

“I was in prison for some time and had to pick up the skill to break out. I’m not an expert, but if it’s a simple lock it shouldn’t be an issue.”

Dumrivil frowned and adjusted his long scarf.

“First of all,” he said. “We need to talk about the prison thing at some point. Secondly, that’s a bit of a gamble, isn’t it? For all we know, Villscha might have some ridiculous lock that’ll require the work of a professional.”

“We won’t know till we look.”

Dumrivil sighed. “Fair point. We’ll need to buy time though—ensure that Villscha won’t be around.”

“Could we just go at night?” Ezra said.

“Won’t work. Villscha sleeps at his office. Besides, there are hidden traps that are only activated in the dark. It would probably be better to just hit it while the sun’s up.”

Ezra clicked his tongue. Go figure.

Prise raised a hand. “I can do that! I’ll just send in some requests that’ll require him to take care of things in person.”

Dumrivil turned his head and grabbed her hand. “You can do that?”

Prise looked down at her hand and slowly pulled away with a raised eyebrow. She looked back up at Dumrivil and nodded.

“Yes,” she said. “He hates dealing with them, so we usually spread them out. But there’s no rule saying I can’t just dump them on him all at once.”

“Nicely done!” Dumrivil said. “That’ll take care of that.”

Ezra held up a hand. “Wait. We’ll need a distraction for the rest of the guild members who’ll be there. You got lucky when you wandered in that one time and stole that stuff—even then, I’d spotted you. What if someone else spots us?”

“Good point,” Dumrivil said. “I’ll take care of it.”

His tone was final. Ezra didn’t bother arguing the point.

“When do we do it?” Prise said.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Both of them turned toward Ezra. He frowned—why were they looking at him? Wasn’t Dumrivil supposed to be the boss?

“Might as well just do it tomorrow. Does noon work for everyone?” Ezra said.

“I should be able to arrange things by then,” Prise said. “I’ll give you guys a signal when you come in so that you know it worked.”

“Right,” Dumrivil said. “Ezra and me should come in at seperate times to make sure that any spies of Villscha’s don’t realize we’re in on it together.” He gasped. “We should go in disguises!”

Sounded like a good move.

Filamenta shuffled on his shoulder. “If you do the bandana disguise again, I’m going on strike.”

Got it. Use the bandana disguise.

“That’s not what I said—! Ugh, whatever.”

Dumrivil left soon after, leaving Ezra alone with Prise. They’d agreed to leave at different times to hide the trail. As the seconds stretched on, Ezra noticed a languidness to Prise’s movements. Her eyes were unfocused as she stared at the light of a flickering torch.

“I know I said I want to do this,” Prise said. “But I’m already questioning if this is a good idea.”

Ezra raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Have I explained my mother’s condition?” she said.

Ezra shook his head.

“I thought so,” Prise said. “In short, my mother is ill. Very ill. It’s a rare disease, and the cure is impossibly expensive for people like us. Thanks to my mother’s herbalist training, I can hold back the worst of the disease and prevent her death. But still, almost every part of my paycheck goes into affording the necessary herbs.”

“I’m sorry,” Ezra said.

Even Ezra could have a little bit of empathy for someone going through such a hellish situation.

“You see the problem I’m faced with, right?” Prise said. “If I’m caught, no one will take care of her. She’ll die. On the other hand… Villscha needs to be taken down. After all, it’s his fault that I’m in this mess.”

“There’s a story there.”

“He owes me. My contract with the guild covers medical expenses for my immediate family, but he found a loophole.”

Prise gripped the edge of the stone slab she was sitting on “I can’t leave the town because I can’t save any money. Even if I did, I wouldn’t be able to find a job that paid well enough for my mother.”

Ezra took a guess and figured there was no such thing as public healthcare in the Kingdom of Cortia.

She was silent for several seconds.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’ll help you, like I said. Maybe the next guildmaster will honor my contract and help me if I end Villscha’s reign.”

They spent the rest of their time together in silence.

----------------------------------------

Ezra arrived at the guild early in the morning. For the first time since he’d gotten there, he ordered at the cafeteria. Not only that, but he remained unmolested by staring eyes. Once or twice he got a vague look of familiarity, but then they’d stare at his bandana and shrug.

“I hate the fact that this disguise works,” Filamenta said. “I’m beginning to believe that there’s some kind of mass hallucination going around, maybe caused by an illness.”

“You may hate the fact that it works,” Ezra said. “But there’s no denying it works.”

Dumrivil arrived about an hour before the appointed time. He stepped and didn’t seem to notice Ezra. As time went on, the man seemed to get more nervous. Every couple of seconds, he would glance around, as if he was looking for something.

Ezra took a sip of his… coffee? Ezra wasn’t sure what it was, but it tasted like coffee.

“I don’t think he knows I’m here,” Ezra said.

Filamenta slapped one of her legs into her face.

“Again. I hate this town. So much,” she said.

A few minutes later, Villscha stormed out of his office. His face was twisted up and each of his steps slammed against the ground. His posture was bent and it seemed like his spine was poking out against his clothes. A few people turned and looked at him, only to avert their gazes when Villscha looked back. He walked through the door and slammed it behind him.

“I think Prise’s little gambit worked,” Ezra said.

“Good, now she just needs to give the signal,” Filamenta said.

Prise looked at Dumrivil and gave him a subtle nod, then returned to her work. Dumrivil drummed his palms against the table and looked from side to side. Eventually, he stood up and walked toward the office.

A moment later, there was the sound of an explosion. It rocked the building, and dust fell from the roof.

“Oh no, what was that? I’d better go check it out!” Dumrivil threw a smoke bomb at the ground. A few seconds later, he leapt out in the opposite direction wearing a different set of clothes.

Disguised-Dumrivil pointed at the door. “He went that way!”

“What was that?” someone said.

“We’d better go check it out!”

“Dumrivil might need help!”

While the rest of the guild hurried out the front door, Disguised-Dumrivil scurried toward Villscha’s office. Ezra followed behind him, then shut the door.

Dumrivil turned. When he saw Ezra, he jumped back into the table, knocking over a stack of papers.

“Who are you!? How come I didn’t hear you come in!?” Dumrivil said. “I swear if you’re one of Villscha’s men—“

Ezra grabbed his bandana and pulled the left side down, creating his distinctive eyepatch.

Dumrivil paused. He blinked slowly, then reached up and rubbed his eyes.

“Wait a second,” he said. “Both your eyes work?”

Ezra stared at him for several long seconds.

“Yes,” he said.

Dumrivil nodded. “That’s a good disguise. Double layering it like that, well done. I didn’t see you at all.”

Ezra glanced around the room. The walls were ornate with finely-crafted wood pillars at the corners. A pale green wallpaper covered the wall while assorted pieces of rosy oak furniture surrounded the central desk. The desk itself was a large, imposing thing. A magical lantern sat on top of a stack of paper. Ezra idly wondered if it was a burn risk.

“Where’s the safe?” he said.

Dumrivil went behind the desk and approached a massive painting on the back. He lifted it and pulled it away, revealing a keyhole embedded into the wall.

“Right there,” Dumrivil said.

Ezra pulled a set of lockpicking tools he’d made last night. Sure, his lockpicking was only level 25… but that’d been good enough to break out of a capital jail, so maybe it would be good enough for this safe?

Ezra reached in and started sweeping the pins while applying leverage to the locks. Nothing happened. He frowned and flipped his tool around to click the pins one at a time. After a couple of seconds, he got a click. He pulled to the next pin and went through them one at a time. He to got the final pin, twisted the lock, and…

It stopped, unable to get any further.

He frowned. He’d gotten a click on all of them, but the safe wasn’t opening. That didn’t make any sense.

“One-eye? What’s going on?” Dumrivil said. “I thought you said you can pick locks.”

“I can,” Ezra said. “I don’t understand what’s happening.”

There was some kind of security measure he didn’t understand—at the end of the day, he was just an amateur who’d watched YouTube videos in the past, and it looked like that little fact was rearing its ugly head now.

He stopped giving the lock leverage, allowing the pins to fall back in place. He went through again, one at a time, clicking each pin into the unlock position. Once he was done, he pushed on his turn tool, but once again came into the same resistance.

Dumrivil turned toward the office door. “I don’t want to have to go loud, One-Eye. We’ll attract the attention of everyone outside.”

Ezra pursed his lips and continued adjusting the lock. Maybe he was thinking too small. He had several other abilities, after, all… but what would help? Could he just use [Bind] and… evaporate the lock? No, what if there was some kind of failsafe that would render the safe unusable? What about [Restrain]? Could he just… rip the pins out? No, again, he risked triggering a failsafe of some sort.

“Don’t you remember?” Filamenta said. “You got the ability only a few weeks ago.”

Ezra was quiet for a moment.

“[Telekinesis],” he whispered.

His mental hand wandered into the lock. He felt around the lock and pressed up against the walls and the pins. After a few seconds, he figured out what was going on.

Rather than a set of pins, the lock had several tiny metal disks that produced a false clicking noise. But with Telekinesis, he could feel along the inside and figure out the exact proportions of the disks. For once, he was rather happy that his ability was so weak—if his [Telekinesis] was strong, he’d just rip the lock apart.

After a few seconds, the lock clicked into place. He rotated the lock and the safe door cracked open with a wheeze.

“What was that?” Dumrivil said. “It looked like [Magic Hand], but more controlled.”

Ezra shrugged. “Who knows? Now, how about we check out these documents?”

They reached in and distributed the papers. Dumrivil continued to glance at Ezra. Behind his eyes, Ezra could see Dumrivil’s brain working to try to figure out what was up with Ezra’s abilities. In retrospect, Ezra probably should’ve put his tools back inside to make it look like he was picking the lock normally. Oh well, he’d keep it in mind for next time.

They spent several minutes searching. Time seemed to stretch on—they knew that Villscha would be returning, which made the pressure all the worse.

“I’ve got it!” Dumrivil put the stack of sheets aside. “Here’s the paper. He disguised the actual purpose—it says it’s just a farm… but this so-called ‘farm’ has a hell of a lot of money going into it.”

“Where is it?” Ezra said.

“It’s close. Not far, just over in the west by the—“

Footsteps.

“My office is just over here, sir.”

Ezra and Dumrivil looked at each other. Both of them grabbed their stacks of paper and stuffed them into the safe. Ezra pulled the safe shut and then jumped back, landing softly. Dumrivil ran toward the painting and set it back up and onto the hanger.

The door swung open.