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Chapter 2: Thieves
At Bay Coast, rain fell in drastic bursts at this time of year. Ancient poems told of a ravenous giant in the sea of clouds who demanded sacrifices to satisfy his hunger. The inhabitants grew vegetables, raised animals, and even murdered people from their midst just to feast the giant.
However, the sun had gotten siblings. And with their warmth came sand and salt. The shift of ages brought death to many. What survived struggled against the rich heat of seven suns and the spreading sea of sand. The poor peasants' harvests faltered and decayed, and they ran out of supplies. Enraged, the giant emptied his cooking water, pouring boiling water on Bay Coast.
What the enraged giant didn’t know . . . his boiling water only arrived as a chill downpour, unintentionally saving the peasants.
—
Lanterns hurried through the sparsely lit streets below. I watched my pursuer from the roof of a famous inn, my eyes accustomed to the darkness. Two haggard figures stood at a window in the opposite building, exhaling green smoke into the wet night.
Under my coat, I refilled the Jade Mint in my prosthesis, ensuring it stayed dry. The new cartridge clicked into place, and my mechanical arm had juice again. I squatted on the roof's edge, looked down head first, and checked the windows until I found an empty room.
I hung on the roof's edge and fumbled my cutlass into the narrow gap between window and frame. With a few yanks, it popped open, and I swung myself inside. I rolled up and hurried to the bathroom with my cutlass in hand, checked the closet and under the bed just in case. When no one showed themselves, I searched the clothes scattered on the bed and the nightstand for valuables.
Besides some Jade Mint pills and silver coins, I also found some letters. I read through them. A woman's handwriting explained to have fallen in love with another man. It took me some time to decipher the man's reply. He had crumpled the expensive paper a few times, and only nonsense and death threats covered it, unfinished.
“Now I almost feel guilty stealing from you . . . Here, man, I got you.”
I turned the paper around and snatched the pen from the desk below the window.
“Alright . . .”
‘My condolences for the loss of your girlfriend. The pain of loss may last for a while, but the pain of relation would have lasted forever if not broken. Embrace liberty. The freedom will grant new opportunities for better partners in the future!
Compensation cost for this message: 4 Silver Coins’
“Actually, that’s kinda fun . . . while I’m at it, I can protocol something for myself. Researchers do it all the time, no? Can’t hurt to keep track. Sort of like a diary . . nah, more like a journal, yes! And I guess a book would work better. Sad that they’re so hard to come by.”
I stuffed the coins in my coat.
The whole room soaked in puddles, I went to the next one. I paid attention to the noises behind the door.
“Ugh, sounds like an orgy.” I quickly moved on to the next room and eavesdropped.
“But Elrad said—”
Something knocked over. “Elrad said this, Elrad said that. He's just our team leader, not the Captain! Listen to me, Hale. With what we stole last time, we can go anywhere, sell it on the black market, and not worry about money for years!”
My ears twitched.
“It's shared evenly among the crew; our share is enough for six months at best with the current inflation.”
“Unless . . .” Something jingled.
“No, no, no. Where did you get that? Doesn't Elrad keep everything to share after the Captain's approval?!”
“Ah, there you go again. We—”
The stairs groaned behind me. Without turning around, I walked down the hall. A door handle squeaked.
I clicked my tongue. The person entered the room heart-broken men’s room. With a twist, I pulled off the index finger of my prosthesis, revealing a lock pick, and worked on the next door.
Shortly after, the door at the end of the hall closed, and it slammed open again. A mountain of a man came out while I quietly closed the crack in the door and leaned my head against the cool wooden surface.
A sigh escaped me as I turned around. “Close one. . .”
“What’s close?” someone asked.
My heart twisted in shock.
A woman sitting on a bed gave me a confused look, her ear pressed against a wall.
“I—”
She held up a finger. A towel wrapped around her torso covered her private parts. Her red hair was even more soaked than I was.
I peacefully raised my hands and slowly moved to the wall to press my ear to the wall as well.
“No! I’m telling you that even if we wanted to—we have no chance! If a member betrays the crew . . . they’ll be hunted down.” The voice, Hale, sounded agitated.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
“Alright, you know what?! I’ll do it on my own, then. And prove you wrong!” Footsteps creaked on the floor.
"Riston, wait! I can’t—relax, relax! I swear I'm not going to rat you out! You can't prove me wrong if I'm dead, right?” Hale’s voice wavered.
“Always the coward, huh? I’m off then. Farewell.”
The woman suddenly jumped up and reached for something under her pillow. She pulled out a moderately large saber for her size.
“Woah, easy there.” I got ready to draw my cutlass.
She eyed me, then looked down at her short towel dress.
“Mercenary, perhaps?” she asked.
“Anything you want, Lady.” I stumbled an awkward laugh.
“Come back with Riston’s head, and I’ll reward you.” She shot me a wink.
I swallowed and automatically eyed her from heels to head.
“Not that.” She shook her head with a sigh. “Something even better than the loot Riston carries. Now hurry up, or you'll lose him. You must at least know his face.” She nodded toward the door.
I almost tripped on the way out, but I caught myself again. She was undisputedly the prettiest woman I had ever seen. Not that I had seen many women at sea, but she ranked first with a single glance.
—
Riston strolled through the alleys in the direction of Bay Coast’s main gate. The rain had calmed to a drizzle, so the lower noise level forced me to sneak and skip quietly across the rooftops. Every other aisle, he checked his surroundings, his hand resting on the pommel of his saber.
I waited patiently until he stopped at a hut to grab a bite to eat. He went into a secluded alley, leaned against a wall, sat on a barrel, and wolfed down his food. Meanwhile, he rummaged in his green-filled bag, which bathed the entire alley in a jade-colored shadow.
I reloaded my percussion pistol. My modified version had more penetration power for the nobles' armor, but unfortunately, its durability couldn't keep up, so it required a lot of repairs.
“I really should get some better gunmetal when I have the coins.”
I attached my grappling hook to a chimney and took a breath. Closing my eyes, I hearkened to the pouring rain and felt it prickle on my skin. It calmed my rapid heartbeat.
Now, the salty breeze felt almost comfortable. The air, which I had once found thistly, had upsides. Without it, the roofs would be slick with rain. But the rough, pitted surface offered good grip.
I ran my fingers through my wet hair but immediately got stuck. It hadn’t gotten used to the salty air and was still brittle. On the other hand, my skin had adapted and was no longer wrinkled.
“Maybe I should also try applying some Jade Mint to my hair as the nobles do.”
I immediately dismissed the thought of becoming even remotely noble before my dinner crawled up my stomach. I jerked my eyes open and refocused my gaze on my target.
Cutlass drawn, I leaped from the slope of the roof and hurled toward the opposite building’s wall. I spun around my center of gravity, slid down the brick wall, and pushed myself off to Riston.
He perked up as I descended and protectively used his bag as a shield. My blade pierced the fabric but didn’t reach him. Before his food landed on the ground, his saber swung at my face. With a button press, my hook snapped me back towards the roof. I threw my cutlass. It dug deep into his saber-holding hand as I ascended. Leather boots first, I landed on the roof overhang, bending the wood. I flashed down in a vertical line and pistoned my fist at Riston.
Glass shattered in his bag as I struck through and into his face. The barrel beneath him crumpled, and Riston thudded flat in the muddy sand.
I picked myself up and retrieved my cutlass, then stepped on Riston’s arms and observed him from above.
“Who’s the redhead?”
His eyes fluttered open. He crooked a brow. “Oho.” He didn’t look at me but under my coat, and a perverse grin spread across his face.
“Men . . .”
The next moment, he choked on my cutlass, which I shoved down his throat.
“Why are you all so disgusting, huh?”
I watched him lash out until he died and searched him for goods. I stripped him of his coat, wiped his blood off my blade, and wrapped the bag with various Jade Mint products in it. Otherwise, some would fall out of the hole in the bag.
“Some broke . . . whatever, work casualties.” I scratched at my aching left shoulder. The full force of the pistons had dislocated it once in the past.
A low hum sounded behind me. As I turned to Riston's corpse, green rays of light stung my eyes. The wound on his throat glowed a brilliant turquoise. His eyes brimmed alive.
“What the—”
He—it twitched wildly for a moment. And it stood up. It stood.
My heart drowned out the breeze, and an uncanny warmth made me sweat from the inside out.
The thing cleared his throat. I triggered my grappling hook and shot up. From my feet to my hips, a heavy jolt thumped through me.
I tasted cold, muddy sand. My brain throbbed against my skull.
Squishy steps closed in. I ignored the dizziness and instinctively rolled away. The world spun out of focus. The green light was coming toward me. I scrambled for my pistol. The blurry aurora came closer. Fortunately, my artificial arm shook less than the rest of me. I aimed at the center of the light. And pulled the trigger.
The blast buzzed like a thousand bees in my ears. It stung so hard that I lost my balance. Pulsating waves wobbled my brain around while squid blackness speckled my vision.
—
Torrential rain greeted me as I coughed up the salty water from the puddle I lay in. The twin moons dimly lighted the inky black night.
I scanned my body for injuries but felt fine except for the ringing in my ears. The rope of my grappling rope had snapped, and my percussion cap pistol’s barrel had sprung outward. Only my cutlass remained unscratched. I stumbled and reached for the coat with the loot bag.
No more light shone from Riston. The bullet had broken apart and obliterated his face.
I should have been sure that he would not get up again, or he would have done so already . . . but I decapitated him as a precaution and stuffed his head into his coat with his stolen loot so it couldn't grow back on when I was gone.
“The redhead had requested his head, after all, might as well take it literally.”
I floundered through the sticky sand, maintaining a low posture to relieve the pressure of the wind. Every section of cobblestone was welcome. Most of the lights were off, and the clouds had decided to deny me most of the light from the twin moons.
Too tired to get upset, all I could muster up was a frustrated sigh.
After almost entering the wrong inn, I finally arrived at the popular one. Two lanterns above the double doors lit the words Sea Inn.
“Huh, I get it,” I murmured, defeated, and opened the doors by falling against them.
Wet tracks and muddy sand stains followed behind me as I wobbled up the stairs. The maids and the bartender eyed me, aggravated. I paid them no mind.
I flailed against the redhead’s door. It opened. Fatigue overcame me, and I allowed myself to fall on two springy pillows. Two floating pillows enchanted to open the door and catch me.
“Ah, yes, technological progress. How convenient.”
“Excuse me?”
I hit the ground hard. The coat with the loot and Riston's head slipped out of my hand, and I finally got to rest.
The redhead’s voice asked above me, though I had already gone to dreamland.