After the increasingly finer hallways were largely quiet, Darius started walking into the heart of the Lumbert mansion. He didn’t know the layout of the building but increasing riches on the wall and change of the furniture and expensive statues told him that he was heading in the right direction. He managed to avoid people because they were too occupied by the fire and rambling about it in loud tones. Darius could hear anyone distance away before having to go around them. On one occasion, two guards were at the section with double doors. Darius opened a pink-coloured liquid bottle and sneakily threw it on the soft chair.
“What was that? I heard a soft voice like a cat jumping?” Another soldier said to the other.
“Naa, it is probably some rat. The cats are way too well kept for rat hunting nowadays.”
While guards were talking, the first one suddenly fell to the floor. The other guard hurriedly went over, but it was too late. At the same time, Darius had run silently and stabbed the other guard’s throat. While silently dying on the floor, Darius took the key from the guard and moved both guards behind the chairs without taking a breath. Then he opened and closed the door immediately, and he breathed again with heavy panting while continuing to walk inside. He came into the office of Lord Lumbert. Darius did the same good old trick and put the travel sack on the table. Next, he started breaking locked boxes and drawers. Darius left the papers as they were only collecting money and other weird-looking items and locked in items. He didn’t have much time to check everything. After noticing that the books on the shelves were just normal, he lost interest. Still, he knocked few places to find any hidden locations. He only found one metal safe with big hinges.
“Perfect,” Darius mumbled while downing first some liquid on the hinges. The rapid fire started to burn in intense white light. After a while, Darius downed black frost liquid on the hinges and kicked the safe hard several times. The hinges broke like they were made of glass, and the one-meter-long heavy door crashed on the floor. Darius managed to dodge it just in time not to get scratched by it.
And there it was, a signet ring lying on the middle shelf. Darius put it into his pocket and started going back and forth with many bundles and purses. He even found two gold bars! Without even thinking anything else, Darius just methodically cleaned the whole room of carriable items, downed a lot of papers on the floor and lit them on fire. While at it, he dipped several books into the fire and threw them in all manner of corners with other books.
Then Darius said goodbye to the office and opened the double door again. Without seeing anyone, he went past a few sections of the hallway, opening doors here and there. When he noticed that he had presumably opened the bedroom of Lord Lumbert, he went inside. After breaking into some drawers, he found some extra money, and in one dark oak dressing cabinet, he found three swords that he stuffed scabbard first into the travel sack. Next, he went through drawers and took all the jewel ornaments, medals, and rings. There were also boxes of jewels for females, presumably Lady Lumbert’s possessions. Darius hunched his shoulders and emptied all the boxes inside his increasingly larger travel sack. Necklaces with embedded diamond rings, blood-red rubies, and poison-green jade tokens go into the bag like a river of wealth. He thanked himself for putting several wood blanks inside the sack for support. Otherwise, some items might break in this heavy load.
After two minutes of breaking into the bedroom, Darius returned to his original position and climbed downstairs to be at ground level. He didn’t want to throw his heavy backpack outside and cause tons of noises while retreating from the manor. While climbing down, he saw a quiet butler cleaning shoes at this hour. Darius couldn’t do anything since he was surprised. He dropped the sack on the ground and threw two daggers at the butler. The first one missed, but the second hit the butler’s stomach, and he winced himself down on his old knees. Without further hesitation, Darius slid butler’s throat, left the daggers on the ground while lifting the sack again, and continued his way out. In one bedroom, he was met by an angry sleeping guard who gave some rough treatment before jumping with the sack from the window.
Even if the jump was not very long, Darius could feel the weight on his knees, but he jogged back into the garden. He cursed when two guards noticed him entering the gardens, and they ran to him. Darius hid inside the bush, and while the guards were running, he threw one dagger, jumped on one of the guards, and stabbed him in the chest. The other guard had blocked the throw, but Darius was already on him before he could do anything. Guard blocked his attack with a dagger with sword and was just about to overpower him when Darius drew a second dagger with his other hand and stabbed the guard on his side before continuing with the earlier sword-locked dagger on the guard’s throat. He heard some questioning shouts outside the garden, but Darius didn’t have time for inconvenient conversation. He ran to the wall and started lifting himself with the robe on the wall. When he was nearing the top, he saw several guards running towards the nearby tower to get to him on the wall. Darius sighed, took two potions from one purse, and threw them near the tower door that connected him to the guards. While he knotted the robe to the wall's outer side, the door opened just when he started climbing down. The guard shouted in terrifying agony, and Darius presumed that some guards were now on fire. Without further due, he dropped himself in several jumps with the robe on the streets and started running. There were many people in the streets at this point. But this street part was quiet because it was the opposite part of the fire. Darius jogged with his noisy luggage into the next alleyway and went into the sewers. After lighting the small oil lamp Darius did not check if he was followed, but he continued to run at least a few blocks down the sewer before stopping for a while. After not hearing anyone entering the sewers, he continued walking.
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The rest of the trip was an uneventful one. However, Darius contemplated how, at every point, he could have been caught if he had stopped at all. He wasn’t that too clever to his own good farm boy anymore. The everyday survival game in the city had proven otherwise. His one choice could have been to serve at some house, but Darius wanted to be master of his own faith and not in a situation solely depending on his betters' whims. Or so he told himself. Deep down, he still questioned his choices but could do nothing. At least this time, he could save someone else from worse slavery. With this thought in mind, Darius continued in a better mood.
While resurfacing back to the streets nearby the slums, Darius decided to meet Mr. Trader. He threw a hidden blanket from the sewers on top of his loot and started walking back to the tavern. At the counter, he asked for his workroom key back and went inside. He hid most of the pouches and gold in miscellaneous boxes and put some alchemy apparatuses and containers on top. When he looked at the room, he saw a messy and almost full alchemy lab with sprinkled papers and tools everywhere.
With a much lighter travel sack, Darius told the maid that he would look at what was happening at the border of the nobility area since everyone knew there was a massive fire. Darius had also taken in one potion pouch for minor healing potions. Albeit it was large, it still fit into his travel sack after a few adjustments.
“Hello Melinda, any news from the fire?”
“Not only thing I know that nobody died in the fire, but there might be a few injured people.”
“I see what I can do.” Told Darius and went back outside.
At least the news of a few deaths in the nobility area was not spreading. It only meant that lord Lumbert had at least part of the issues still in control. Darius didn’t wait for longer and walked briskly in the slums with the token on his robe like he knew what he was doing. *Sometimes, the bluff is the father of security.* grinned Darius at the front door of Mr. Trader. This time the security guards just nodded in a friendly manner, the frontman even going so far as to salute him while giving him a pass into the office of Mr. Trader.
“Greetings young man, I have been expecting you,” leered smiling Mr. Trader in half shady office. “I happen to have heard that the rapid-fire overtook the whole block owned by what was his name? Oh yea, the lord Lumbert.”
“I see, what a shame indeed, what a shame,” Darius answered while putting the signet ring on the office table.
Mr. Trader watched the ring for a while, and they waited for a bit until both of them started laughing.
“I also heard there were some mishaps, and even the manor was partially on fire. Lumbert's family had to buy the services of mages to end the fire more quickly. This will offset their finances this year quite a bit. It is now in my interest to give you 50% more for this mission. I cannot tell you the details, but your mission has been conducted with the utmost satisfactory results.”
“Thank you mister Trader. Would you mind also trading some jewellery and prime swords with me?” Said Darius while laying items one by one on the table.
“Oh, I see. I was thinking of receiving money from you for the slave, but it looks like I have to give you money or something else back instead. You see, this sword with the lion hand guard is an imperial weapon strengthened with at least intermediate acolyte magic. It is not the highest end of the magic swords, but still, it is quite expensive. We can negotiate this later separately. These two swords are alone worthy of the slave by a factor of four. That leaves a dent in my coffers, but it is still a win for me. You see, these are probably heirlooms of the Lumbert family.”
“Oh, I see you might be profiting from the very willing buyer.”
“Indeed I will.”