Locate and retrieve the painting. Item must be undamaged for the contract to be considered complete.
Pay will be rendered when the item is returned undamaged to the client.
Lyght put down the strange curio he had been examining. It was a glass skull with triangle-shaped eye holes. Or did it just have three noses? Lyght decided that the idea of three noses was funnier since that meant being completely blind in exchange for three times the smelling power.
He walked away, keeping his eyes on the shelves for anything else interesting as he made his way along. The painting would likely be somewhere beyond the wall of crates that divided the building in half.
Why do these guys stockpile this stuff anyway? What’s the point of stealing so much just to hoard it?
He paused as something caught his eye on a different shelf than the one the skull with three nose holes rested on. Sauntering over to it, he picked it up and took a closer look.
Targetball Tournament Champion, huh?, he thought as he read the inscription on the base of the object.
It was a small brass trophy shaped like, and about the size of, a typical drinking glass with two small handles on the sides that somebody had won from a local targetball tournament. It didn’t have a name or date.
Targetball was a simple game where a player stood behind a line with five leather balls placed at different intervals along the line. The player then had fifteen seconds to run down the line from either direction, stopping to kick each ball towards one of five targets that were varied in difficulty and the points they awarded. After three rounds were played with each competing player having kicked fifteen balls in total, their total points were added and the player with the most points was the winner.
Tobi will enjoy this I’m sure. He basically plays targetball with me being the target, anyway.
Tying the trophy to his belt by one of its handles, he resumed walking around the shelves to the gap between the wall of crates that led to the other side of the warehouse. The small souvenir lightly bounced against his right thigh with each step he took.
The rest of the building came into view as he rounded the wall of crates. The floor here was much more open, devoid of the shelves that decorated the building’s front half. More crates along with barrels, sacks, and stacked lumber still covered the walls. Some sections protruded out, creating alcoves that looked strangely cozy, set into the goods.
In the middle of the open floor space were several small tables and chairs. A mixture of dice and empty bottles littered the tops of the tables. Nearby, a few unlit lanterns lay scattered about both on the tables and on the floor.
A large workbench-like desk sat in the far back-right corner. Lyght knew this was an appraising table of sorts, where one of the gang members could examine stolen items and try to best determine their value, who would be the best bet to sell them to, and how to go about doing so. To Lyght’s pleasant surprise, the painting rested on the ground here, leaning up against one of the table legs.
They didn’t waste any time checking it out after taking it I guess. Or… did they set it there for later? Either way—mine now.
He approached the painting and studied it for a moment. It was a still life painting of a stack of books on a table. Four books with thick spines laid flat in a stack on top of one another, colored red, blue, green, and brown in ascending order. Each book was slightly askew of the others, creating a very realistic look of assembled haphazardness. A fifth book, this one yellow, leaned against the stack. Lyght didn’t consider himself an art connoisseur by any stretch of the imagination—he found it all rather boring considering there was no practical use for most art—but his untrained eye could understand it was an impressive piece. Probably, at least.
“It is a pretty nice painting, huh? Maybe you guys should learn how to paint. Then you can make your own art pieces to sell instead of stealing other peoples’ work,” Lyght chided as he turned to look at three men, frozen where they stood.
They were all clearly older than him but still appeared young, possibly in their early twenties, and wore plain gray t-shirts and trousers. The matching outfits could make someone mistake them for triplets from a distance were it not for the three different hair colors each sported—blonde, brown, and red.
Probably hid away when they heard me opening the big door. Guess they were hiding behind the stacks of boxes and other junk in here.
He scanned his situation quickly. One man moved to block the entrance by the crates that Lyght had come through earlier. His blonde hair was slicked back with small pieces still trying to escape down onto his forehead, and he wielded a dagger in each hand.
Both seemingly unsure of what to do next with their sneak attack foiled, the other two were still standing in place. Standing near the tables in the middle of the room, the man with cherry-colored hair also held a pair of daggers, while the one further off to the side in the open floor wielded a wooden cudgel with two hands. Lyght knew that the weapons were simply for intimidation—the Street Crows were thieves but not killers. Still, he decided to go ahead and start charging his circuits just in case.
“I was even nice enough to knock earlier. I could have already had the painting and been on my way back to Bovario if you guys would have just answered the door and welcomed me in,” Lyght quipped. “I’ll be taking it now, in any case.”
“You’re outnumbered three to one, kid,” the blonde one blocking the exit piped up, “it ain’t gonna be that easy”.
A mischievous smile crept across Lyght’s lips. “Thanks for confirming you don’t have anybody else hiding in here. Assuming you aren’t clever enough to try tricking me with words, that is.” A flush of surprise flashed across the man’s face.
The red-haired man spoke this time. “I dunno Dane, he seems tough. Maybe if we’d gotten the jump on him…”
“I agree with Roake,” the nearest man with the club began saying, “I got a better look at those swords on his back than you two did. He ain’t just some random kid.”
“Shut it, you two,” snapped the one called Dane. “Don’t matter who he is, Togan won’t be happy about someone breakin’ in and takin’ what’s ours. Payce, back us up and wait for an openin’.”
Payce and Roake each nodded and readied themselves. Dane threw the dagger in his left hand towards Lyght for the opening move. Lyght deftly dodged to his right, thinking quickly to grab the painting by the edge of the frame with his left hand as he did so to bring it with him.
“You’re really going to risk damaging the merchandise?” Lyght taunted.
The dagger passed through where he had been standing and embedded itself in the side of the workbench. He joked, but the contract did dictate that the painting was to be returned undamaged. Couldn’t have that happen and make the last couple days go to waste.
Roake kicked one of the wooden chairs towards Lyght and attempted to use it as a distraction as he advanced to flank from Lyght’s left. The maneuver was likely done to force Lyght to continue retreating to his right, where Payce was waiting.
Still holding the painting, Lyght didn’t take the bait and instead held his ground. Rather than moving out of the way, he leapt up in the air and over the chair. Bringing his right foot down in a swinging motion as the chair passed underneath him, he caught hold of it just as he had hoped, hooking the front of his shoe through the gap in the chair between the seat and back. Contorting his body in a rolling motion mid-air to face Roake—who was now to Lyght’s left after his quick advance—he swung his right foot overhead and brought the chair crashing down on the man in a shower of splinters.
His foot freed from the chair as it broke, he continued his rolling motion as he passed over the now-prone form of Roake until smoothly landing and skidding to a halt with the painting held over his head in both hands. The maneuver put him back in front of the large desk where the encounter had begun. He lowered the painting back down and tucked it under his left arm. Reaching behind him with his free hand, he removed Dane’s dagger from the desk and pointed it forward.
“You can tell Togan that Lyght owes him a chair!” He shouted in jest.
Dane’s face lit up with noticeable surprise at the remark. He began to speak, “Wait—Lyght? Hey hold on a—”, but was cut off as Payce charged forward with a yell, weapon raised overhead.
Lyght sidestepped the first downward swing with ease, then ducked under the follow-up horizontal swing that came after. While crouched, he did a quick sweeping kick to take Payce’s legs out from under him and send him to the floor, crashing on his back with a thudding sound as he let out a gasp. The fallen thief began to haggardly scramble to his feet and ready his weapon for another attack.
“Stop it, idiot! Didn’t ya hear him? He said his name is Lyght! He’s with Cohn!” Dane barked. “They got that deal with Togan.” He grumbled as he strapped the one dagger he still held into his belt.
Cohn was Geren’s nephew, four years older than Lyght and an ex-member of the Street Crows who had gone through what Geren called a “rebellious phase”. It was through him that Lyght had learned of the Street Crows’ hideout in the warehouse and some of the finer private details of the gang. Cohn had struck a deal with Togan—the leader of the crew—and Geren that nobody in the Last Stand Mercenaries would reveal the gang’s secrets so long as they relinquished any stolen items Geren’s company was contracted to retrieve.
It was the kind of under-the-table deal that Geren wasn’t comfortable agreeing to at first, but in the end decided that it wasn’t his or his people’s job to pick up the slack of the city guard when it came to stolen goods. So long as the Street Crows stuck to thievery and kept violence to strictly being used for self-defense purposes, that is. Geren would not tolerate the harm of innocents.
Payce lowered his weapon and looked at Lyght with a mixture of confusion and concentrated focus on his face as if he were closely examining him, but not understanding what he was seeing. Rising from the pile of wood that had previously been in the shape of a chair, pieces falling from his frame down to the floor as he stood, Roake groaned and shook his head wearily before looking towards Dane
“So we let ‘im go then?” He asked groggily.
Letting out an audible sigh, Dane took a seat at one of the tables and propped his feet up on it while crossing his arms.
“Yeah. We do.” He looked at Lyght and then looked away towards the other side of the room.
Lyght released the magic he had been channeling. He didn’t think he would need it for these guys, but had been keeping it ready just in case. The subtle sound of static similar to when two wool blankets were pulled quickly apart could faintly be heard as the remnants of the electrical energy he had on standby dissipated.
“You were just playin’ with us, weren’t ya?”, Dane asked with an air of annoyance as he looked back towards Lyght. His face was now transformed into a scowl as though he had looked away to buy time while he put on a mask that could properly capture his bad temper.
Lyght tossed the dagger into the air slightly and then caught it by the tip. With a smooth flick of his right wrist, the dagger again went airborne in a large arc twirling end-over-end before planting itself on the tabletop in front of Dane perfectly point-first. A satisfied smirk showed on Lyght’s face as he spoke.
“I wouldn’t say that. Sure, I could’ve spoken up immediately about where I was from and spared you guys a chair and a bit of wasted energy, but if you’d just answered when I knocked, the whole encounter could’ve been avoided.”
Pulling the dagger from the table and strapping it to his belt to reunite it with the other, the tone in Dane’s voice was noticeably growing more annoyed. “Bah. Wanna know what I think? You were looking for a scuffle. You didn’t want to just walk in and grab the painting without some action.”
“Maybe, maybe not.” Lyght replied with a shrug. “Well, I better get Bovario his painting back. Oh, by the way—tell the two who were scouting the place to be less obvious next time. If a simple painter can catch on to a pair of your crew planning a theft, you guys are losing your touch. Not that I’m gonna complain about an easy job, but just some friendly advice.”
There was a look of embarrassment on Payce’s face. “That was me and one of the new recruits… I thought I saw that guy watchin’ us a few times, but figured I just imagined it.”
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
As he passed by, Lyght paused and looked over at Roake, who was now seated and fiddling with some dice to distract himself. “It may not be targetball, but I’d say I earned this trophy today, huh?” he said, tapping the small trophy that was still strapped to his belt.
Roake let out a light snort in response. Payce, however, had visible surprise etched on his face as he seemingly noticed for the first time the small prize Lyght had claimed for himself.
“Hey, that’s Hesten’s! He stole that fair and square last month!” Payce shouted. “You were here for the painting, weren’t ya? So why ya takin’ that too?”
Lyght shrugged again. “I figured one small trinket for my troubles wouldn’t be too much to ask. I’ll consider it a thank you gift for going easy on you.”
Payce opened his mouth as though he was going to object further, but then dismissively waved his hand towards Lyght before heading to take a seat at Roake’s table.
“Get outta here already and let us get back to slackin’ off. Guard duty at the warehouse ain’t supposed to actually be real work,” Dane said with a snort.
After giving the painting back to Bovario, Lyght returned to the market district in the south-central part of the city to find Tobi and give him the trophy. He unfortunately wasn’t unable to locate the lad.
Guess his parents or whoever his guardians are must have rounded him up and gotten him home.
It was now late afternoon and the sun was playing hide-and-seek as the clouds overhead passed by, occasionally blocking it from maintaining its watchful gaze on the people of Davied. He decided to walk around town and enjoy having a few free hours with no responsibility. One of the advantages of a quick, easy job. The rest of the day offered a chance to kick back and enjoy the fair weather and the spring breeze.
Taking a nap by the river sounds nice. I think I’ll walk around a bit to see if I come across any interesting happenings, then go do just that.
Lyght scoffed under his breath as his walk through town led him to pass by the main military headquarters located north of the market district. It was a large fortified building four stories high. A wall roughly ten feet tall surrounded the complex’s outer courtyard and gave the headquarters a distinct separation from the rest of the city.
Being the second largest and the far-most eastern city in Freleria, King Aylen kept a strong contingent of the Frelerian army stationed in Davied. With both the Northern Outlands and the country of Daeinado neighboring the eastern border, Davied was well-positioned to operate as the main focus of military procedures for Freleria going on either the offensive or defensive against either threat if the need were to arise.
Lyght didn’t harbor harsh feelings for the individual soldiers. They were just doing their job after all. A job that required submitting one’s free will to a seemingly endless list of superiors and doing what other people decided was right—but a job nonetheless. Perhaps it was just his upbringing in Geren’s crew that had a much different way of life with how work was done and how members treated each other, but Lyght had difficulty understanding how anyone could willingly consign themselves to such a life like that of a soldier. It had greatly confused him then, when Lyranna willingly signed up for that kind of life.
He had heard much of the details from Lyranna during her initial struggles with climbing the ranks. She had left the Last Stand Mercenaries three years ago on her twenty-second birthday to try and become a general who would be able to make a positive impact on the country in her own way. Partly to try and fix the way things were done from the inside, regardless of how futile it was.
Luckily, she was initially kept stationed in Davied, so she was still able to visit the rest of the crew regularly. She was reassigned to be at the capital seven months ago, however, and had not yet been to visit. Lyght had never outwardly admitted it, but internally, he had come to the realization a few weeks after Lyranna departed for Wallesen that her enlistment was likely the catalyst for his feelings about the army.
She’s better than any of the stuffy old guys that love to boss her around without doing any work themselves… he thought bitterly as he rounded a corner and continued his walk eastward towards the river, the complex thankfully disappearing from his view. Well, General Gabriel is okay I guess.
It was Lyranna that had trained him how to fight with dual swords. The dual-fighting style came more naturally to him than Geren’s style which only utilized one sword, much to the man’s dismay when Lyght showed up to a sparring session wielding two blades and sporting a modified technique. Geren truthfully didn’t take it personally, but that didn’t stop him from pretending as if he had suffered some great betrayal in the days that followed—making it a point to wear a forlorn visage any time Lyght or Lyranna walked into the room.
Once he had his fun and decided to drop the charade, however, he actually surprised Lyght with the gift of the same twin dragonscale swords he still wielded today as an early thirteenth birthday present. He never disclosed where they came from, and when pressed for details about how he came to acquire such interesting pieces, he would simply wave a dismissive hand and explain that he had gotten them while on a job years prior.
The daylight glittered off of those same swords still strapped along Lyght’s back, the sheen of the silver scales showing spectacularly underneath the late afternoon sun. A brilliant mixture both beautiful and intimidating, he did not hide the blades within any sort of covered scabbards, instead opting for a custom-fashioned harness built into the vest he wore so that they could be withdrawn and returned easily. This also allowed for their beauty to be seen even when sheathed.
Rather than wear them in a traditional intersecting cross style where both blade handles protruded over the wielder’s shoulders, Lyght’s swords ran parallel to one another along his back. The handle of one blade peered out over his right shoulder, but the other hovered near his left hip. This allowed for the weapons to be unsheathed quickly in a manner that favored his preferred way of fighting, with his right hand wielding the sword in a traditional grip while the left-hand blade was held in a backhand style.
Both weapons were of fairly modest size with each blade having a rough curvature near its point. From a distance, a bystander who spectated Lyght fighting with the weapons would likely very easily mistake them for a pair of steel falchions. The silver scales that the blades were forged from were complemented nicely with accents of black that gave stark contrast to the shine of the silver. Ebony obsidian sheathed the backside of the blades and rough black leather wound tightly around the handles, with the scales continuing past the leather binding to form sharp points that protruded at the bottom contrary to a traditional pommel. This unique pommel was one of many features that highlighted the rugged beauty of the weapons.
Though hard to tell from a distance, when the pair was viewed up close, there were multiple places along the backside of the blades where the obsidian stuck out in small points rather than having a perfectly flat finish. When viewed flatly at eye level, the flats of the blade contained various minute imperfections where pieces of scale were attempting to escape the amalgamation of their brethren and created a very rough broken glass-like texture. It was a natural beauty that made the twin swords feel alive almost, and Lyght loved that about them.
He was not far from the river now; it could be seen glimmering in the distance as the buildings began to thin out. The Faldo River passed through Davied from its source at Lake Freleria to the north, slicing through the eastern and southern portions of the city like a cutlass as it entered from the northeast quadrant and curved to the west, exiting out the southwest quadrant.
Lyght arrived at his destination in the northeast part of town where the river had not yet begun to curve—now he just needed to find a good spot to rest. With the sun beginning to descend, a tree on the west side of the river would be the best choice so that he could lay in the shade between the setting sun and the river.
He found a good-sized old oak tree along the riverbank that adequately shaded a section of grass he could lay in and withdrew both swords, sticking them into the ground blade-side up with the sharp pommels dug into the dirt. Laying on his back with his hands behind his head like a makeshift pillow, Lyght crossed his ankles and closed his eyes.
The slight breeze that had been prevalent during his walk through town was thankfully still present, whistling as it blew like a nearby pedestrian taking a stroll. He could hear the leaves and branches of the oak tree behind him rustling in the wind and imagined that it was waving to the incorporeal passerby.
Opening his eyes, he looked down towards the river, which was on a slight downhill grassy slope from where he currently lay. From the angle he was at, the water’s surface reflected the sun just right in such a way that it appeared to be almost crystalline and sparkled as though it contained thousands of tiny stars trying to break free from their crystal prison. Closing his eyes again, he took a deep breath and began drifting off into thought.
He did indeed fall asleep. After roughly an hour, his sleep was interrupted by a growling voice from behind him where the oak tree stood. “You seriously don’t have anything better to be doing?” the voice inquired.
Lyght yawned as he stretched his arms lazily before returning them to their position behind his head. He smiled as he recognized the gruff voice.
He responded without bothering to open his eyes. “Maybe—but better is subjective. To me, this is the better thing for me to be doing at this moment in time. Ask me that same question in the morning when I’ve just rolled out of bed, and what’s better in that moment will likely be something different. Then ask me a third time a couple hours after that when I’m getting ready to head out for a job and you’ll get a different answer yet again.”
He heard a slight exhalation of amusement prior to the voice answering back, “Ever the philosopher. You could save your breath and just say that you finished a job too soon and wanted to delay going back to the hall.”
Lyght sat up and let out an audible chuckle. “Too soon? That’s a pretty glass-half-empty point of view. Is that why you’re here too then? Does this tree attract those who finish their jobs too soon and draw them in, purposely delaying them on their return back?”
He turned and stared at Feros, who was standing and leaning against the tree with his arms crossed. Lyght was happy to see the gibe had garnered a dry smile from his friend’s typically stoic face.
Feros was a Feroxi. Feroxi were very unique among the Venterian races, in that they were the least Human-like. They were covered in fur rather than smooth skin, and wielded dangerously sharp claws on both their hands and feet. Large triangular ears rested on either side of the top of the head in a slightly different manner for each individual. For Feros, the tips angled to point upward and slightly to the rear. A flatter skull structure than that of Humans gave them less detailed facial features but provided them with a muzzle that housed teeth as sharp as their claws.
Despite their outward uniqueness, Feroxi’s overall body structure from the neck down, save for the claws on the hands and feet, were more similar to that of Hylennials—another Venterian race who resembled taller and more well-refined Humans in their outward appearance. Many people believed that, due to their physiological similarities, Feroxi and Hylennials were actually descended from the same singular race further back in their ancestry. At some point in history, this ancestor race had split into two halves. The Hylennials were blessed with elegant features, a natural grace in the way they moved, and faces more akin to that of Humans.
Feroxi, however, were cursed to look more animalistic with rough bodies covered in fur and fearsome facial features. They truthfully looked more like bi-pedal foxes which, along with the beliefs many held about their shared ancestry with Hylennials, led some to have unjust prejudice towards them.
The fur that covered Feros’s body was midnight blue with shades of black accentuating his ears and face. Lyght always thought the dark colors suited his personality very well—colors like pink or bright orange just wouldn’t look right given his abrasive personality.
He wore a sleeveless black tunic with thick gold trim around the arms, neck, and waist. The tunic had matching leggings that covered his legs down to his knees. Lacking traditional shoes or boots, he instead wore black leather wrappings in a fashion akin to sandals that only covered the middle of the foot and up around the ankles so that his claws were still free. His forearms donned vambraces of similar material, maintaining the freedom of the claws on his hands as well. Feros was on the shorter side of the height scale for a Feroxi, standing at roughly the same height as Geren. Some could get as tall as 7 feet, though this was rare, while even the shortest Feroxi would never be smaller than 6 feet when fully grown.
Feros scoffed. “I just returned from being gone for six days; I don’t think I would define that as too soon.”
“Okay, but too soon is also subjective,” Lyght retorted. “You may not define it as too soon, but somebody else could. Like me, for example. If you had returned even just a little bit later, I would have gotten to enjoy a longer nap.”
“I don’t have time for this.” Feros replied, shaking his head. “Just back in town and see you asleep by the river, I decide to be nice and wake you up so we can head back to the hall together. But, I guess that was a mistake. I would have let you sleep if I’d known you were just going to waste my time with debates about subjectivity.”
Laughing, Lyght replied, “Well, what else did you expect? Me to proclaim how happy I am you’re back and how much I missed your brooding presence?”
He stood up and reached down to grab his swords. “Seriously though, glad the job went well,” he said as he sheathed the blades.
The dry laughter that came from Feros caught Lyght slightly off-guard. “Of course it went well—it was a simple escort to a village. That fool merchant could have made the trip without a guard just fine… He’d have been better off, truthfully, considering my presence seemed to frighten him more than the idea of any robbers jumping us did. Now come on, let’s get going. I’m hungry. A nice dinner and drink indoors will be a nice change from the last few days.”
Feros separated from the tree and began walking away, but Lyght heard him mutter something else under his breath before he got out of earshot.
“Damned ignorant man thinking I eat raw game like some kind of beast…”
Lyght frowned as he watched his friend depart.
Why? Why do people treat him that way? He thought in frustration.
Lyght couldn’t comprehend the prejudice some held towards Feroxi. Most people in Davied treated Feros the same as they would treat anybody else thanks to his association with Geren, but the occasional idiot amongst the citizenry would still poke their head out of hiding. The treatment of Feroxi at large across the continent was an issue that bothered Lyght, but he didn’t know where to begin fixing it.
Things weren’t as bad as they had been in the past, at least. Geren told Lyght of a dark time fifteen years ago when innocent Feroxi were being killed because a subset of sickeningly evil people decided their pelts would make good decorations. Lyght couldn’t imagine it—though he also couldn’t imagine anybody actually being able to kill Feros, powerful as his friend was. Thankfully, High King Vangren did eventually step in and authorize the High Army to hunt those who engaged in the practice.
His stomach grumbled in an attempt to remind him that he had not eaten since breakfast. He shook the pervasive ponderings from his mind and jogged to catch up with Feros, cracking a joke about the Feroxi’s long stride in an attempt to trick himself back into a cheerful mood as they started back towards the mercenary hall together.