I leaned against the surprisingly clean wall of a dark imperial alley, listening to the receding sounds of footsteps originating from beyond my shadowy hideout. I'd ventured into a more wealthy part of the capital, about an hour or so of careful skulking away from my "home". The buildings here were noticeably less dilapidated, and the streets a lot cleaner, though that came with an increased presence of soldiers patrolling around in their shiny, clanking armour. A group of three of them had just passed my hiding spot, announcing their presence loudly among the dim, bleak light of the magical street lamps.

I leaned my head back into the broad, cobbled city street to take another look at my target: a building with an invitingly large entrance portal atop a broad set of smooth stairs, located on a reasonably wide side-street. This wasn't a major trading hub, but the owner definitely wouldn't miss a few coins, I was sure. The building itself had two storeys, constructed from the off-white brick walls common to the more upscale parts of town. A set of finely carved pillars held up a canopy of reddish shingles atop the entryway, below the windows overlooking the street. Next to the large wooden doors of the front entrance, several crates and tables still sat, stacked, devoid of all the wares they must have held during the day. All in all, it looked like a pretty standard vendor around here, except for a small detail: artfully grown branches of ivy snaked languidly around a large wooden sign reading, "Araya's Magical Reagents."

Regular vendors tended to rely on physical deterrents to stop criminals from getting at their goods, such as layers of solid locks, ruffians with clubs, or even by storing their wares and money somewhere else entirely. The more magically inclined, however, usually slept comfortably in the knowledge that their shop was guarded by cleverly hidden runic spells. And for a common criminal, a bit of simple magic would be more than sufficient a deterrent, no doubt. I just happened to be a master of my craft, and not some ordinary thief! I'd rather deal with a few magical defenses than show my face - or rather my ears - to an actual guard. I faintly sensed the runic wards all the way from over here, which had alerted me to this place initially. Whoever ran this place had access to a decent enough Rune Sorcerer. In any case: the fact that there were working runes here told me I was dealing with somebody who probably knew their craft. It wasn't uncommon for charlatans to peddle common herbs as "magical", but those held no interest to me at this moment: I was hoping to borrow the odd healing crystal, after all, and no fake would do. Hopefully, the presence of real magical defenses implied the presence of real magical reagents as well.

***

I'd waited long enough: I'd been standing out here in the cold for a good half an hour, just to make sure nobody else overlooked the street. Scouting such as this was tiring without the use of advanced magic. No matter though, I was reasonably sure I was alone, and so it was high time to make a move.

I casually strolled out of the alley I'd waited in, moving from shadow to shadow and avoiding the light cast by the shoddy street lamps. Moving down the street a bit, I crossed to the other side in a strip of shadow between the sources of light. The stairs leading to my target were framed by the walls of the surrounding buildings, and so by ascending the steps at the very edge, I could blend into the shadows there. I carefully approached the front entrance: I had no need to find a back entrance after all; this would do just fine.

Among the shadows of the canopy, I knelt down to put my hand atop the door's intricate lock. It would certainly be a lot more of a challenge than the last one I'd had to deal with. I was also concerned about further headaches, but I would just be careful and take things slowly.

Years of grueling training and experience had granted me a rather unique talent of spotting magical anomalies, and so I let my mind wander idly until I felt the first sign of something out of the ordinary. I let my mind catch on and followed the intricate forms of energy to their source. I didn't need physical contact or eyesight to deduce the spells that had been cast here. Opening the door a certain amount, would activate a host of unwelcome runic wards. The runes were carved into a brick inlayed in the floor at the very center of the room, and apparently they would only let someone pass who possessed a specific object, probably a key. None of the spells would hurt me directly, but the large amount of noise and light the runes would create would surely put a quick end to my career as a thief, were I to trip them.

I let my mind wander beyond the first defense and memorized the rough locations of the other spells covering the room. With that done, I began the arduous task of picking the lock: I had to figure out the shape of the lock yet again and apply force to the correct places to turn the mechanism. Only this time, the lock was a fair bit more complex, requiring a key with several separate bits turning the mechanism at the same time. I had to send out glowing magical tendrils again to analyze the inside of the mechanism, and the light worried me a little bit. I made sure to block the light with my body as well as I could.

I failed a few times, but eventually this lock, too, proved no substantial challenge to me. I let myself show a little self satisfied grin. And though I felt a slight pressure in my head, no actual pain had materialized so far.

Carefully, I pushed the heavy door open inch by inch. It wouldn't be comfortable, but I was confident I could squeeze into the room without tripping the wards. Somebody should tell the owner of this place that their runes were shoddily placed, but what could you expect from amateurs? I stopped the door's movement just beyond the point where it would cause the alarm to trigger and slowly squeezed inside, thanking my ancestors for my lack of significant bulk.

Once inside, I left the door open behind me in case I'd need a quick escape and took a cursory look through the room before me: Shelves upon shelves lined a number of narrow corridors, interspersed with the odd ornate chest or table covered in all kinds of tomes, scrolls and alchemical apparatuses. An ornately carved wooden countertop sat to my left, behind which I spotted more shelves, filled with bottles and vials and carefully labeled wooden boxes. A set of narrow wooden stairs in the back of the room lead to the top floor of the building. Large bundles of dried plants and leaves hung from the ceiling by the shuttered windows and by the walls, giving off a slight but pleasant herbal aroma. I smelled various common herbs among the plants, but others were definitely at least somewhat magical in nature. However, I could glimpse nothing of particular rarity or value in here yet, which dampened my hopes of finding genuine elven crystals. On the other hand, something like that would be an exceptional rarity around here, so they wouldn't just leave them laying around, I pondered. I hadn't much hope, but I'd take a look around anyways.

I casually hopped over the magically infused area before me, easily avoiding setting off the runes. The next spell had been set much more carefully, covering pretty much the entire room like an invisible wall. Were I to touch any part of it - you guessed it - it would set off the defenses and out me as an amateur burglar. Whoever had set the spell hadn't expected somebody like me, however: being able to visualize the outlines of the spell was quite frankly unfair. I turned to my right, walked all the way to the end of the room and pressed myself against the wall. My face was smushed into a bundle of the equivalent of dried magical weeds, but sliding carefully to the side, I managed to avoid the invisible wall and make it out on the other side. It took quite a bit of precision to set wards like this, and without actually seeing them, good luck making them cover a room from wall to wall without leaving gaps.

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I extracted a dried leaf from my nose, hoping to get rid of the incessant tickling this way. I scrunched up my nostrils, struggling with the urge to sneeze, but annoyingly it wouldn't go away. Trying to ignore the annoying feeling, I made my way over to the counter, scanning the surrounding shelves all the while. If I'd been in the market for cough medicine, perfume or fertilizer for magical plants, this store would've been the right pick. However, since none of this was the case, I started feeling disappointed. Not what I'd hoped for. I jumped over another magical trigger to get behind the store's counter and started the process of reading the labels on the shelves. I recognized most of what they had in stock, and most of it was rather underwhelming. I did grab a handful of Hephoric Leaves from a glass jar though: they'd help staunch a wound's bleeding in a pinch and made for a great herb in soups and stews as well. I took off my cloak and quickly wrapped the brown and green speckled leaves in it. When I spotted an open jar of what looked to be raisins on the counter, I quickly grabbed that too: I was beyond starving, after all. Before stashing the glass jar into my bundle, I took out a handful of the dried fruit and popped them in my mouth, chewing on them with gusto. I could hardly stop myself from letting out an actual moan at the taste of food on my tongue, even though I'd never been particularly enthusiastic about dried rations in the past. It wasn't easy, but I managed to persuade myself into eating later, when I was safe and alone.

Looking beneath the countertop, I couldn't help but grin. Stashed beneath boxes and sacks of herbs, sat what had to be a decently sized lockbox, bolted to the countertop. Just as I was about to start fiddling with it, I remembered I'd sensed a spell somewhere over here earlier, so I quickly closed my eyes again in order to visualize the extent and effects of the spell I was likely dealing with here.

They'd actually warded the lockbox against being moved, picked or opened using violent measures. This was by far the most intricate spell in this entire room, and I was hooked! The runes had clearly been placed somewhere inside the lockbox, which made accessing them impractical with the level of magic I was currently capable of wielding safely.

Hovering my hand in front of the lockbox, I unleashed a few glowing tendrils and let them feel all around the treasure before me. The glow still worried me, and so I took off my hat and tried to keep the light from the rest of the room that way. After several minutes of magically feeling up the lockbox, I could now say with absolute certainty: there was no apparent weakness to the cursed box. The sturdy metal had no sufficiently large openings to work with, and the lock was well warded against intrusion.

I weighed the pros and cons of going all in. Using more complex magic, I was sure I could get around this problem. On the other hand, this would consume a lot more energy, and I had precious little of that currently. I was technically still in the process of healing, and so the crystal's magic was happily sapping away at my powers. In other words: bad headaches, possibly unconsciousness. The last time I'd been injured this badly, I'd spent a solid week in bed.

There was really no way around this, though. I definitely couldn't leave without taking at least a little look at the contents of the lockbox now. Picking the lock and triggering the alarm also wasn't an option, however.

I started preparing a spell that would just melt away the runes covering the metal surface inside the lockbox, when I suddenly thought about the alarm again. Could it really be that easy? If the lockbox really connected to the same alarm runes the rest of this place used, then that would mean there was a second access point to this spell. And I very specifically remembered the runes of the alarm spell being carved into one of the bricks making up the floor. Letting my mind wander once again, I could make out the faint connection between the runes in the lockbox and the spell causing the actual alarm. If I severed that connection, say by destroying the correct runes on the alarm spell, then it wouldn't matter if I triggered the runes on the lockbox: nothing would happen.

Excitedly, I jumped over the countertop and looked around on the floor for the correct brick. I must've looked rather silly, crawling around on the floor, analyzing the bricks for magical properties. I was positively surprised at the cleanliness of the place, though. After a minute of appreciating the owner's penchant for sweeping, I finally found it: the brown slab had been covered with a dirty carpet, but there they were: the runes that kept me from my well deserved treasure! They must've been left accessible in case the owner had to reset the alarm.

I quickly determined which rune connected the lockbox and the alarm, and using a short knife I'd found laying around, I quickly scratched the intricate little rune away, severing the connection. I wasn't particularly concerned about the faint sound of the knife on the brick, and the work was quick and easy. I blew the remaining dust from the knife and with a little shrug, decided to keep it. I wrapped it into my cloak with the Hephoric Leaves I'd found earlier. Hopping over the counter again with a grin on my face, I could finally get back to the mystery of the lockbox.

I covered the light of the magical tendrils with my hat again, just in case, while I worked. The lock, interestingly, wasn't particularly hard to pick; they must've bet on the magical wards being sufficient.

"They clearly didn't expected a master sorcerer turned thief to come along," I thought grinning, and with a final satisfying click, the lock sprung open. I was just in the process of carefully lifting the metal lid to get at my treasure, when I heard the creaking.

***

I'd been too focused on my work, driven by the promise of treasure, and hadn't noticed somebody descending the stairs. I cursed myself: I'd acted like an absolute fool. Was it the loud munching of raisins that gave me away? Or was it the sound of hopping carelessly around the room to avoid the spell defenses? It was probably the grinding when I'd removed the rune on the ground with a knife.

The creaking stopped, and I could clearly hear the steps continuing lazily on the brick floor of the shop now.

"Is that you, Araya?" asked a tired sounding male voice from the other side of the room.

"You should go to bed, it's already dark outsi-" The steps faltered, and I could hear the voice mumble: "Why is the door open?"

I started to panic, and quickly opened the lockbox to get at the valuable contents before I had to leave. Unfortunately, whoever had made sure to cover this lockbox in safety runes hadn't thought to put some bloody oil on its hinges, which was made obvious to me by the audible "squeeeeeak" I caused when I opened it.

"Who's there? Araya?" The tired voice asked, though with a lot more suspicion this time.

The steps started closing in on me, likely giving me a mere few seconds before discovery. I quickly scanned the contents of the lockbox, finding a cloth pouch and a number of loose coins in it along with some folded pieces of paper. The jig was clearly up, and so I gathered up the pouch and coins quickly - and noisily and threw them into the hat I still held. Without another thought, I jumped up and over the counter, casting a quick glance back at the person who'd ruined my perfect heist: human, male, around twenty-ish. Pretty ordinary all things considered, except for the suspicious amount of bandages wrapped around his head, and the one arm he held in a sling. Well, and the look of pure astonishment of course, as what probably seemed to be a shadow suddenly vaulted out from the counter and towards the door.

I didn't have time to avoid the runic wards this time, and so I booked it to the still opened exit, my hat - filled with coins - clasped in my hand, clinking merrily away. Just as I triggered the big ward covering the room from side to side, I noticed my error: the runes would cast light, and the hat that was supposed to cover my ears was in my hand rather than on my head. I tried to stop myself, but the momentum kept inevitably pushing me forward in what felt like slow motion. Maybe he wouldn't notice my ears, I told myself.

Suddenly, there was light. Blinding light. And an ear shattering noise resembling bright, terrible bells that would surely wake up the entire neighborhood.

"What the-" I heard the guy behind me exclaim as I quickly disappeared through the door.

The outside was now lit up as well: a number of bright white orbs of light hovered in the air, clearly illuminating the wide set of stairs descending before me. With one huge lunge, I cleared the steps and sprinted toward the next best alleyway. I could already hear doors being slammed open and tired people complaining about the terrible, ear shattering noise. From down the street, the clanking of armor approached quickly, and so I ran.