Milo “Lightfoot” Anderra took a deep breath, then swung himself silently over the wall of the manor grounds. He landed on the manicured grass with the characteristic light touch that got him his nickname and waited.
One… two… three…
The golem defending the mage’s property thumped past, each of its heavy footsteps shaking the ground, and paused in the middle of the lawn. The golem was constructed out of a single massive boulder, and its deep manalit eyes scanned the property for any sign of unregistered intruders. When its gaze swept over Milo, his only thought was: I swear to the gods, if this enchanted cloak doesn’t work, Chef is dead…
But after a heart-thumping moment, the golem continued on its determined path, starting another loop of the grounds.
Milo let out the breath he’d been holding and stealthily made his way closer to the manor proper. Looks like Chef gets to live another day. The man was more rodent than human, but he’d been Milo’s go-to source for illicit enchanted equipment since he was nine. But in the past, it had always been small items. Lockpicks that could open unenchanted locks with ease. Goggles that allowed him to see in the dark, like the ones hanging around his neck right now.
This was the first time Milo had trusted Chef with an item that put him in a life-endangering situation. If the cloak didn’t work, the golem would’ve alerted to his presence and not only awoken the other defense systems on the grounds, but also would’ve attacked with him the type of force only a stone automaton can show.
Well, Chef knew I’d survive out of sheer spite to gut him if the cloak didn’t work, Milo thought idly as he approached the wall of the manor. A window was set just above him. He reached for the pouch tied to his belt and pulled out a fingerful of ground alertmoss. He sprinkled it along the sill and waited, unable to stop himself from glancing over his shoulder. That golem had him on his nerves. As a general rule, Milo avoided stealing from mages like they had the plague. But he was desperate, so desperate he was willing to put his life in Chef’s grubby hands. Culver’s payment was due, and as scared as Milo was of mages, he was even more scared of the Butcher.
After a minute, the alertmoss remained inactive. It would light up in proximity to mana that had the command to create an alarm effect, and since it didn’t it meant the window wasn’t enchanted.
Milo frowned. He hadn’t been expecting that. While he didn’t expect the window itself to be spelled against intruders, he thought the entire manor itself would’ve had a blanket protection on it. The moss should’ve at least had a faint glow to it.
His eye twitched, like it always did when he thought something was up. It could just be that the owner of the manor was so confident in his external defenses, like the golem, that he hadn’t bothered to protect the house itself.
Shit, Milo thought anxiously. Shit, shit, shit!
No time to waste. Indecision killed a thief more than noise. According to his intel—he knew a housemaid who worked inside the manor who was sweet on him—the owner was away on business at the palace for the weekend, and he took his whole family with him. There was no better time to strike than now, and he needed the money by first light tomorrow.
Shit! Milo thought again, as he brought out his shimmy. He ran the flat piece of enchanted metal inside the middle seam of the windows until he hit the latch, and then gave it a little flick. The enchant did its work as the metal melded itself around the latch and then with a little tug Milo popped it open.
The glowing blue runes on the shimmy faded, its mana dead. Enchanted items were temporary and needed to be rejuiced in order to keep working; a good way to keep people reliant on the chokehold mages had over mana production.
Milo shook his head, tucking the dead shimmy back into his belt. Now wasn’t the time to get angry over mage politics. He eased the window open, the whole time his body rigid with anxiety over tripping some unnoticed spell. But nothing happened, and Milo swung himself inside the house. He closed the windows in case the golem was spelled to detect some anomaly like that but didn’t latch it shut.
Breathing as quietly as possible, Milo eased the goggles around his neck over his eyes. The enchanted glass illuminated the shadowed interior of the house as if the lights were on. He had entered into some kind of dining hall, as evinced by the long table in the middle of the room with ornate chairs arrayed around it. A crystal chandelier hung overhead, and Milo looked at it temptingly before looking for easier prey.
He pulled out the looting bag from his pocket and unfolded it multiple times. The small square of cloth became a large burlap sack that was enchanted to be noise-proof. Then he reached into the pouch with the ground alertmoss and coated his hands with it. If he approached anything that would expose him, they would light.
He went around the room, stuffing gold goblets and real silverware into the bag, the whole time in disgusted awe at the sheer wealth displayed so casually. Some people were so rich they ate off of literal jewel-encrusted plates—which he quickly stuffed into his bag.
There are people in the Dregs right now who would kill for a copper coin, Milo thought, as he carefully exited the dining hall and entered the kitchen. And here these people are, stuffed with so much gold it oozes from them.
He passed through the kitchen without stopping, wanting to find more choice areas to hit. The longer he stayed in this manor, the more that feeling of suspicion developed. He wanted to get out of here as soon as possible.
From the kitchen he entered into a short hallway that led into the foyer of the manor. There were multiple offshoots here into different rooms, but a cursory look through netted him a few small items but nothing of true value.
That’s not right, Milo thought after a moment. This haul here would be enough to set me up for months. But I’ve gotten nothing that would satisfy Culver’s tastes. The man was the self-proclaimed king of the Dregs, the lord of the slums, and he had a lord’s greed.
Milo fought with himself for only a moment before taking the grand staircase that led to the upper floors of the manor. Tonight, he’d broken two of his rules: never steal from a mage, and never go past the first floor of a house. Two simple rules that had kept him alive all these years.
He swept through the second floor quickly but knew he wouldn’t find what he was looking for here. The second floor of an estate like this usually housed the servants—at least, the trusted ones who’d been indentured into servicing the family over generations. They wouldn’t have any valuables there.
So, he went up the third floor, his eye twitching like a strung out whore on Devil’s Day. Lords always had to have the high ground; in that way, they were similar to dragons. The third floor landing was set up in a little seating area with plush chairs and expensive drinks—he stuffed a few bottles into his bag and moved on. This floor was the smallest and consisted of a series of closed rooms.
His internal alarms were ringing madly. The cloying taste of anxiety was rich in his throat. But he had done his due diligence: he had watched the lord leave the manor with his family in their grand carriages. The lord was a powerful mage, so he didn’t need to leave a retinue behind to guard the manor; his reputation alone should have sufficed, along with the golem and other hidden systems Milo had the skill and fortune to not activate. The alertmoss on his hands still remained dull.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Gritting his teeth, Milo shoved his anxiety down and scanned the doors to the rooms. The first two were closed with enchanted locks that made the alertmoss on his hands glow, so he ignored those. The third, however, had been left with the door slightly ajar.
Milo cursed himself, Culver, and the gods as he carefully stepped inside. This room looked to be an office of some sorts, with towering bookshelves filled with impressive-looking tomes. A grand desk sat at the back of the room with papers strewn haphazardly about its surface, a large window behind it overlooking the manor grounds. Milo quickly scanned the bookshelves, spotted a few books he thought Culver would be interested in, and stuffed them in his bag. On the desk was an enchanted crystal ashtray, so he swiped that too.
This is all small pickings, Milo thought, frustrated, looking around the room. I need something big… something…
There, on the wall. A bare sword mounted on a plaque. Forged out of some strange black metal, the sword had powerful runes etched down the middle. It looked like some blade out of legend, a dragonslaying blade. It was perfect.
Milo crept up to it and raised his hands near it. The alertmoss stayed quiet.
Ignoring the voice in his head that screamed at him to steal something less innocuous, Milo grabbed the handle.
“WHO DARES TOUCH THE BLADE OF ANCASTER?” roared an inhuman voice from the blade itself. “WHO DARES AWAKEN THE BLADE THAT STRUCK DOWN THE FEL BEAST IGNEOUS?”
A powerful jolt ran through the sword and up Milo’s hands, sending him flying backwards. He crashed into one of the bookshelves roughly, and a particularly thick book landed on his head, making him see stars.
Oh, fuck, Milo thought, trying to get to his feet. His body felt all out of whack, the room spinning dizzyingly around him.
Then, the door to the room slammed open, and a man’s voice shouted, “[ILLUMINATE!]
A radiant burst of light exploded through the room, and Milo cried out, stumbling backwards, blinded. He tripped over something and landed on his rear, the bag of stolen goods tumbling out of his hands.
“You no-good, dirty Dreg rat!” bellowed an angry, patrician voice. “Trying to steal from my brother? Trying to steal from MY FAMILY?”
Still blinded, Milo acted on pure survival instinct, tearing the goggles off his face and flinging them in the direction of the voice. He heard a surprised grunt as he spun around and dashed blindly in the direction of the window he had registered earlier. He hit the desk on his way with his leg but barely registered the pain as he flung himself through the window.
Glass tore him to shreds, cutting lines all across his body as he burst out onto the roof and rolled towards the eaves. He managed to stop himself from tumbling over the edge, and with his vision cleared, Milo hurriedly worked to put on the pair of gloves tied to his belt.
“[Ring of Frost!]” the man casted from the room. Milo cursed and used the edge of the roof to swing himself towards the gable of the house, slapping his palms on it and activating the enchant, making him stick to the brick. He just barely avoided a burst of ice magic that shot outwards, freezing the very air itself.
“You can’t run from me, thief!” the man roared, and Milo cursed himself as he skittered down the wall of the house as fast as he could. Who the fuck is this guy?! he thought. He said I was stealing from his brother? But the lord doesn’t have any siblings!
Unless… he was illegitimate. A bastard, a hidden kept secret. That’s why he didn’t have any protection on the manor… this guy is the protection!
The air around Milo grew colder and colder, until it felt like his blood was freezing. Milo didn’t know much about mages, but he knew they had various specializations. Clearly this guy liked his frost magic.
When he was close enough to the ground, Milo dropped off the wall entirely and landed with a grunt. He was bleeding all over from his hasty exit through the window, but he would deal with that later. First he needed to get out—
“INTRUDER. INTRUDER ALERT,” rumbled a grinding voice. Milo slowly looked up and saw the golem staring at him.
Milo looked down at his cloak. It was tattered to shreds.
“Ah, shit.”
“ACTIVATING DEFENSE PROTOCOLS.” A burst of mana expelled outward from the golem, and all over the manor grounds, smaller golems began tearing themselves out of the lawn.
Milo burst into motion, running towards the low wall that surrounded the manor. The large golem tucked its limbs inside itself and rolled towards him with frightening speed, but Milo had the head start and he was almost there—
“[Ice Wall!]”
From out of nowhere, a jagged wall of ice ten feet high formed in front of Milo, blocking his path and continuing all the way around the manor.
His body working faster than his mind, Milo leapt to the side, anticipating the rolling golem striking where he was; it would bash through the wall to make an opening.
But the damn thing somehow impossibly stopped in place, completely negating the momentum it had built up, and unfolded its limbs back out.
Now Milo was really starting to panic. He looked left-and-right wildly for another way to escape, but in his panic he forgot the smaller golems. He was reminded of them quite strongly when one of them burst out of the ground underneath him and gripped him by the legs.
“Fuck!” Milo shouted, trying to get free, but the tiny golem wouldn’t let go. He was locked in place and could only watch as the frost mage walked up to him, his hands dripping with icy mana. The man was tall and handsome and bore striking resemblance to the lord of the manor with his piercing blue eyes and swept back black hair.
He stepped right up to Milo, who stopped struggling. He was dead. Least he could do was meet his death with dignity.
So he met the mage in the eyes.
The mage backhanded him with enough force that Milo would’ve fallen over if the tiny golem wasn’t keeping him upright. His cheek burned with frost.
“You gutterscum low-born trash,” the mage spat, his voice dripping with condescension. “You really thought you could steal from the Ancasters and get away with it?”
Milo turned his head to the side and spat out blood. “Yeah, as a matter of fact. Would’ve gotten away with it too if I didn’t get greedy.”
The man backhanded him again, then gripped his face with both hands. Milo hissed in pain; his hands were freezing.
“Isn’t it strange how something as cold as ice can burn?” the mage said with a sadistic smile. “It’s one of the mystic realities of the universe, not that a dirty sket like you would know of such things. Tell me, thief; have you ever seen a man die due to the cold?”
“T-tell me, m-mage,” Milo stammered, frost creeping up the sides of his face, “h-have you ever b-been called a b-bastard…?”
The mage’s eyes bulged, and despite the unnatural cold coursing through Milo’s body, he still felt a small glimmer of warmth at seeing how pissed off he had made the mage.
“You know, I was going to spare you,” the mage said, his voice devoid of all emotion except hate. “Show you leniency, as my brother likely would have done. But I think I’ll have to make an example out of you instead.”
“[Mana Overflow],” the mage said, grinning, his hands tightening around Milo’s face.
Suddenly, a strange sensation of pressure erupted in Milo. It felt like he was being pumped up full of air, but there was nowhere for it to go, so it just kept building and building and building to the point where the pain was blinding and his screams reached the heavens itself.
The mage laughed maniacally. Milo screamed and struggled. The pressure kept increasing, swirling inside him, searching for somewhere to go but not finding anything…
Somewhere in the pain, a memory glimmered.
His ma, still alive, holding him in her lap, rocking him back-and-forth, one of the few quiet moments they had together when she wasn’t entertaining clients or drunk or high.
You’re destined for greatness, Milo, the ghost of her whispered. You’re the son of a powerful man, and he would kill you if he ever knew you existed. That’s why you have to grow up and become strong, my love.
Grow strong, and show the world what you can do.
A raw, agonized yell tore out of his throat.
The pressure popped like a cork.
An explosion of mana burst outward from him, sending the mage flying back and destroying the golem holding him in place. Milo collapsed to the ground.
A clap of lightning lit up the world in front of him.
A man appeared out of nowhere, dressed in regalia. He bent down in front of Milo's rapidly darkening vision with a curious expression on his face.
The... lord...? Mile thought before passing out.