The waiting... The waiting was always the worst part of anything important. Just sitting around knowing that soon you will be in an intense situation that will force you to make life or death decisions creates a dreadful anticipation. No one in the group was immune to it. The few times I checked on them over the course of the next day I found them all either pacing, nervously fiddling with something inane, or generally exhibiting anxious behavior.
I felt a little bad for them if I was being honest. They couldn’t leave the stables at all, which meant that their restlessness was only compounding. Meanwhile I took to wandering a bit, scouting the area more and walking a few back-alley paths I had mapped previously to familiarize myself with the layout of the streets. This helped a lot with my own restlessness, though I still found my mind wandering more often than not and any downtime was filled with little ticks of nervous behavior.
I really hoped that Larkson would take my threat seriously. If not, then this whole thing might go up in smoke. Once we got inside, it would all be played by ear at that point. So many things hinged on our ability to locate all our targets and get out between the patrols around the building. Fast and quiet, two things that don’t normally go together.
Time is a fickle thing, and I still wasn’t completely convinced that it wasn’t being purposefully manipulated by some asshole god with a twisted sense of humor. Right now, it felt like when you are waiting in school for the bell to ring, it just takes forever, but when you aren’t paying attention or sufficiently busy, it passes by in the blink of an eye. Frankly, it was bullshit. Why can’t it just be consistent and spare me the anxiety of suddenly finding myself hours closer to sundown and subsequently leaving me to stew in that anxiety for what feels like hours but is only mere minutes.
Despite time warping, it was inevitably growing closer to night, and as the sky started to turn orange, I met up with everyone else to make the final preparations. We took some rope and tools that could be discreetly carried as part of the kit for this heist. It was better to have them and not need them than vice versa. I got my anonymous outfit on just in case, and I was just banking on the fact that if the others are seen then the Thrainians would not pay attention to their details beyond the most obvious, which was essentially just hoping that they were racist enough to just think they all looked alike.
We set off a little early from the complete blackness that night would bring, which meant there were still a few stragglers wandering around, making their way to their homes or the nearest bar for some drinks. We waited for them to shuffle along for a moment, and when a clearing presented itself, darted across the street and into the alleyways. My mental mapping of the backroads paid off as we were able to avoid most of the streets and any traffic that was there in favor of the shadowed alleys.
The only divergence from the intended path that we had to take was when a drunk man sat down at the entrance to an alley that we were trying to go through. Other than that, we made steady progress towards the bank. Coming around a corner, our target came into view. I told the others to wait here until I came back for them, I needed to confirm Larkson had left the building.
I continued to watch the front of the bank as the soft light of evening slowly grew darker. Just before the last of the light disappeared completely, Larkson exited the building. As he came out, his head turned side to side, scanning across the street and all around him in a nervous manner. The behavior could be either a good sign or a bad one. A good sign is that he was nervous about being caught at work, or a bad one in which he failed to do what I asked and is now worried about retribution. There was only one way to find out.
I collected the rest of my team and removed their collars and stuffed them in a bag Otar had brought before starting the mission, just in case anyone saw them. It would probably be assumed they were rebels, runaways, or even part of the coalition. The collars would then serve as a disguise all by themselves. They all relished the opportunity to be free of the restraining metal, rolling their heads around in a full range of motion for the first time in a while. No time to stop and enjoy the moment though, the streetlights were now on, and we had to move.
The bank looked rather imposing in the harsh light of nearby lanterns. They highlighted bright spots while simultaneously casting deep shadows which gave it a sharp, ridged appearance. Maybe it was just my imagination, but I was almost certain the building looked like it was sneering at me, just daring me to try something. I mentally flipped it off and started heading around the back of the building.
This was it, the crucial moment. The gate could be locked, unlocked, or have a full detachment of guards waiting to apprehend us. A quick peek around the corner revealed no one was waiting for us, a good start, but now we had to check the gates. Fuck yeah, look at that! One of the chains on the gates hung loosely from its bars. Larkson had done what was instructed of him.
We had to be quick though. I didn’t know exactly how long we had until the next rotation of guards, but from an estimate of when they showed up last night, we probably had around twenty minutes until the next patrol. Not a whole lot of time, all things considered, and it was only an estimate. We could have more or less time than that, and I was leaning towards less.
I pushed the gate open, cringing as the metal moaned from the movement. Everyone moved in quickly and I then closed the gate with a similar unfortunately loud sound. We all kept deathly quiet and listened for anything to indicate that someone had heard our entrance. I let a tense ten seconds pass in silence before I concluded that if anyone had heard that, then they would have made themselves known.
We were good, the mission was still on. Jorn and Otar took up their positions in the shadows to keep an eye on our exit while Kala and Holdrem followed me in as per the plan. A careful peek inside the building revealed a well-lit hallway that was vacant of any guards. There weren’t many doors in sight from here, only a variety of small tables and potted plants which served as décor. I slipped inside, followed by my two shadows.
There’s an odd sensation about being someplace that you know you aren’t supposed to be. The sensation is exhilarating and scary at the same time, and my heart was pounding with every step we took into the building. I did my best to fall back on what Dart had taught me about stealth, evenly distributing my weight with each step to prevent any unintended sounds of footsteps. Kala and Holdrem were also surprisingly good at moving quietly, their bare feet apparently padded enough to minimize any amount of sound.
Speaking of, the echoing sounds of what was unmistakably another person walking down a nearby hallway caused everyone to freeze. I don’t think anyone even took a breath as we listened to the steps traveling through the building. We were in an awkward position. If they were heading our way, then we had nowhere to hide. The only thing we could do was hope that they weren’t going to pass by us.
Through some small measure of luck, the footsteps started getting further away. There was a quiet collection of air from the whole group as we all remembered that we needed to breathe. We needed to find the damn archives before someone accidentally stumbled upon us.
We started moving while checking every door we came across for any sign of the archives. Certain doors were marked with plaques that declared their use, so we would just need to find the one we were looking for. As we searched, we slinked through the halls, even ducking into an office once to avoid a passing night guard. Every delay we experienced just made me increasingly anxious as the invisible clock ran down. We didn’t have the time to be waylaid every other step.
Just as my concerns with time began to reach a pinnacle, we found it. The beautiful door with the clear bronze label on the front read the majestic word, archive. My heart jumped for joy, but that was before I reached for the handle and attempted to turn it, only for it to refuse to budge.
It was locked. Fuck! And not only was it locked, but around the metal which the handle was set in there were runes carved into it. A quick glance over the inscription revealed that it would activate some kind of security measure should the door not be opened with the correct items in hand.
Damnit, what the hell are we supposed to do now? I briefly considered breaking the door down, but that would just create a situation where every guard in the building would converge on us. There had to be another way in without making a lot of noise. Then I remembered that Larkson had access to the archives, meaning he had to have a key somewhere, which he hopefully left in his far more secure office instead of taking it home.
I turned towards the other two and spoke in a low voice. “We have a problem, but there’s a chance I can fix it.” I opened a random door that led to a supply closet. “Stay in here, if you hear any sort of commotion or I'm not back in five minutes, get out of here.” I gave a very pointed look at Kala who I was all but sure would disobey that order if I wasn’t exiting with them.
She understood what the look meant. “Don’t force me to come after you then.” She replied with expected defiance.
“Both of us being caught serves no purpose. Get out first, rescue later.” Before she could protest further, I closed the door, putting an end to the conversation and setting off towards Larkson’s office.
Moving fast and low, I strode across the polished marble floor with only a soft shuffling sound of my feet across the stone. I had to dodge a single guard on the path I chose, and it was an awkward moment where I hid behind a plant inside a bulbous vase. Luckily it seemed that these guards weren’t used to having an actual situation on hand, and he just idly wandered down the hallway in what was probably a very worn path.
After that small encounter, I was close to the office. I remembered some of the décor in this area, and slightly increased my pace in my eagerness to search for the key only to stop dead in my tracks as I saw a leg slightly sticking out from around a corner. A guard was apparently taking a load off in a chair, bouncing his leg slightly in boredom.
There was no way around him, Larkson’s office was around that corner. I had to do something about him. Slowing down significantly so my movements barely made more noise than a whisper on the wind, I approached him from behind, all the while hoping he wouldn’t suddenly get the urge to do his job and look around. I managed to get right up behind him and went to use what was quickly becoming my signature move. My hand gripped him on the shoulder, causing him to jump with a start. As he turned towards me my magic reached the targeted nerve and did its work, causing him to slump and start to fall out of the chair.
I dived to catch him, barely managing it from an awkward angle. Propping him back up in his seat, I leaned his head back and he was now looking like he had fallen asleep on the job. Hopefully anything he might have seen of me will just be relegated to dreams when he did regain consciousness. Best not to wait around and find out.
I passed by the now sleeping guard and entered Larkson’s office a few doors away. It looked much the same as the last time I was here, so I wasted no time and started looking for any sign of a key. The desk was the most obvious location for storing things like that, so I sat down in his chair and started opening drawers.
Each one of the little cubbies slid open smoothly and with very little sound, a testament to the quality of the materials used in its construction. The first two drawers contained nothing but ink, quills, and paper, standard office supplies for the man's line of work. There was also the seal I would need to apply to the merchant license when I found it, so I pocketed that for later. A larger drawer revealed where he had stashed away the wine I had given to him as well as the cups he had used back then.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
In the second to last drawer that I checked in the desk I found a lock box. It was a small thing, mostly constructed out of wood with bits of metal to serve as hinges and the locking mechanism. I immediately thought that this was the sort of thing you would keep keys in. There was no way to open it without leaving a mark, but Larkson already knew I was here. Taking one of the small chisels I had brought from my pocket, I jammed the tool into the crevice of the box near the locking mechanism before applying pressure in a lever motion. The wood squeaked under my attack of it for a second before giving way to my brute strength and popping open with the slight sound of splintering wood.
Inside was a stack of small envelopes, but more importantly, a key ring with four keys attached to it. I had a way to open the door now, but whatever the security measure is for opening it without the counter item was still going to trip when I used the door. The box did not have anything that looked like it was magical in origin, and I did a quick sweep of the last drawer which only held a hodgepodge of letters both opened and unopened. I would just have to open the door and hope that it wasn’t some sort of alarm system that would alert the whole building.
Checking the hall before emerging, no one walked by while I was inside, and the guard was still asleep in his chair. I took the opening and made my way back towards the archives. There were no guard patrols in my way this time, though I did hear the footsteps around. Once I made it back to the archives, I gave a small tap on the storage room door I left the pair in before opening it.
They both looked rather relieved to see me, and I flashed the key ring with a smile before motioning for them to step out with me. I immediately started testing the keys for the right one, coming up with two duds before the third one slotted into the receptacle. There was a soft click as the door's basic security was undone, but there was still the magical aspect to worry about.
“Something is going to happen when I open this door, it’s protected by some kind of magic system. Be prepared to run if this sounds an alarm.” I warned the other two who nodded and hunched down, ready to bolt at a moment's notice.
Taking a deep breath in preparation, I pulled the handle of the door down and pushed it open. The moment the door clicked opened, I felt my chest seize. It suddenly became extremely difficult to breathe, and a stabbing pain penetrated me. My body refused to listen to my commands as my legs gave out underneath me. I dropped to my hands and knees as the door slid open fully, but I was too preoccupied to bother looking around.
I didn’t understand what was happening, I just knew that it hurt, and I couldn’t get any air. There were muffled sounds that I think were Kala and Holdrem trying to talk to me, but it was garbled nonsense to my ears. My vision was slipping on the edges, slowly growing dimmer by the second until everything went black and the pain disappeared.
An unfortunately familiar sensation came over me as I once more drifted through the void between life and death. Fuck, that thing actually killed me? If that’s the measures they go through to protect their documents, I don’t even want to know what kind of hell it would be to try and get in the main vault.
Again.
Yeah, yeah, fuck you too, I'm trying to work here.
I woke with a start and a gasp as I refilled my empty lungs. I was on my back staring up at the concerned faces of Kala and Holdrem. “James, are you okay?” Kala asked as I blinked at them.
Regaining some of my composure, I sat up. “Yeah, I'm good, though that is the deadliest fucking door I've ever encountered.”
Her eyes widened. “It killed you?”
“Yep, whatever you do, don’t touch that handle.” I looked around for the first time since waking up and found that we were now inside the archive room. There were many large desks that were positively littered with documents and letters. On top of the desks also sat a sorting system of many individual wooden cubicles stacked on top of one another. The whole place looked almost like a mail sorting room of all things.
The killer door was still ajar, which needed to be fixed. I could now see a crystal sitting in a metal sconce-like apparatus which was attached to the other end of the handle. Removing the power source rendered the trap inert, and I was able to close the door again without suffering any fatal effects. Now secured, it was time to find the damn document.
“Kala, let’s get to work. Holdrem, keep an ear to the door in case someone comes by.” Everyone got to work, Kala and I took up opposite sides of the room as we shuffled through the papers in search of the merchant license.
Business revenue, land claims, taxes, and client information, but no merchant permits. Just as I was starting on another pile, Kala spoke up in an excited but quiet voice. “I think I found it!”
I moved over to see what she had. The paper was filled with a bunch of jargon about permissions and rights associated with the document in terms of trade goods under the authority of the king. This was it! Finally, after all this insanity we had the document. I took the stamp out of my pocket and applied some of the ink from a nearby jar to it. Making sure to leave a clear mark, I pressed firmly down with the stamp and came up with a clear image of the Thrainian flag. Signing my false name onto the paper completed the process, and I was now an officially licensed merchant of the Thrainian empire.
“Alright, let’s get the fuck out of here.” We bade a hasty retreat from the room. I slotted the crystal into the trap again on the way out, closing the door by pulling it shut on the wooden part which seemed to avoid the death aspect of operating it.
I handed the paper over to Kala. “Take this and wait by the exit, I'm going to return these things and meet up with you.”
She nodded. “Be careful.”
I managed to make a quick trip back to Larkson’s office to put everything back where I had found it. The sleeping guard had not woken yet, and either no one has been through here on a patrol, or this area was supposed to be covered by him alone because there was no sign that someone had stumbled upon their compatriot fast asleep on the job. Once everything had been returned to its rightful place, I once more made my way back to the others.
The patrols inside seemed a little lighter than before, and I was able to make it to the exit hallway without incident, maybe they went on break. Whatever it was, we didn’t need to know. I opened the back door and saw everyone crouching down next to the gate we came in. They were all smiling as they saw me, and I returned their grins with one of my own before nodding towards the gate to signal it was time to leave.
The metal groaned again as it was opened, and I was glad that this would be the last time I had to be subjected to that grating sound. Once everyone was outside, we locked the gate again and it was like we were never there. I was excited, dopamine hitting me hard for the success of such a crazy mission. All that was left was to head back to the inn, sleep through the night, and get out of here first thing in the morning. But like all things, it could never be simple.
I checked the corner of the building we were attempting to pass by. All clear, so we moved across the gap and into the alleyways nearby. Just as we made the transition, a voice called out from behind us.
“Hey! What are you doing there!” Around the opposite corner of the building from where we were heading came a trio of guards on patrol.
Shit! What do I do? Talk my way out of it? The odds of that working were low to say the least. I looked like a robber and the others didn’t have collars on. We would be detained for questioning and then arrested once they saw what we were carrying and the papers we had stolen. There was no other course of action, we ran.
I turned around and shoved the two nearest to me forward as a signal that now was the time to start moving. Luckily that was readily apparent to the others who had already begun picking up speed by the time I did that. There was a lot of shouting from behind us and calls for backup. I got the feeling that we would have to deal with more than just the building guards soon enough.
We sprinted down the alleyways as I called out direction to turn, hoping that my memory would hold up under stress. Left, right, across the street, left again. I was taking a slightly winding path to try and confuse our pursuers. Voices carried over the dark of the streets as the local patrols started to become aware that something was amiss.
This was what I was worried about, the whole town coming down on us. More than once we changed directions as voices were yelling out from where we were trying to go. We needed to get out of their search area for long enough to make it back to the inn and simply meld into the population again.
I rounded a corner, and ran face first into a group of guards. Both sides were temporarily stunned by the sudden confrontation. After an eternity filled moment, the eyes of the guard immediately in front of me widened, and he reached for his sword. Acting purely on instinct at this point, I lashed out with my fist and struck him on the nose. The sensory organ was pulverized under my blow as the guard reeled from the impact. Not letting up, I boxed his body, hitting him in the kidney followed by a gut shot. Even with the padded gambeson he was wearing, the blows were crippling. With one last uppercut to the jaw, he went limp and crashed to the ground.
A small conflict had erupted around me as soon as I had swung the first blow. Jorn had actually picked up a guard by the belt and the shirt and threw him against the wall. The wind audibly left the man's body as his back slammed into the brick, and Jorn, not being one to leave a job half finished, delivered a bone crushing kick to his stomach. The man opened his mouth in a noiseless scream before gaping like a fish out of water trying to gain any amount of air for his starved lungs. A second later, he passed out from lack of oxygen.
Holdrem lunged past me at one of the guards and thrust his claws into the neck of the unfortunate guardsman. With a jerk and a slight splash of blood, his throat was opened up, putting him out of the fight as he desperately clung to his neck to stop the bleeding, but it was a futile effort. Kala had also launched into action and managed to clamp her jaws around the sword arm of her opponent and locked the limb down in a painful way as they both went to the ground. She was struggling with him and just trying to keep his other arm from being able to do anything.
She didn’t look to be in any immediate danger from her current target, so I charged in with Otar at the remaining two. The last two had managed to get their weapons ready. A spear was thrust at Otar, and he twisted his body out of its way. The weapon managed to graze his side and cut into him, but it wasn’t deep and he had enough combat experience to completely ignore it as he continued towards his target. The spearman was tackled to the ground and then had his face beaten in by the powerful blows of an Ulgor.
My next opponent had a short sword and knife combo and slashed at me with his sword in a horizontal manner to keep me at bay. Not wanting to give him the advantage of reach or give up my momentum, I dropped into a slide under the blade and kicked at his legs. The man’s stance crumpled as he came down on top of me. His sword, even though short, was not useful at this range. The knife, however, was still a dangerous problem.
Grabbing him by the throat, I rolled until I was on top. I attempted to strangle him unconscious, but he wasn’t going to take that literally laying down. He used his knife to stab me in the side twice in quick succession. I growled as the sharp pain erupted from my side. removing a single hand from his throat to grab onto the arm wielding the knife, I then slammed the appendage into the ground several times until the blade came loose from his grip. Once the major threat was taken care of, I punched him in the face to stun him and redoubled my efforts to choke him. Eventually his struggling slowed down before stopping entirely.
My adrenaline was pumping which probably blocked a lot of pain, but I was still bleeding profusely from my side. Fuck, this is bad. I couldn’t afford to die or lose consciousness right now. Everyone had finished cleaning up their fights and what was left was a pile of unconscious or dead guards. Kala, whose mouth was covered in blood from her victim, noticed I was bleeding.
Before she could even start fussing over me, I silenced her with a hand. “No time to stop, we have to get back to the inn and then I can treat this.” I wasn’t able to fix these injuries right now anyway, the only thing we could do was keep moving.
We started off again, though I was grunting and trying to power through the pain as my adrenaline tapered off. We were close to the inn now, just a few more streets away. I noticed I was starting to lose feeling in my limbs, and my head was light. Fuck, no, stay awake, you’re almost there. My gait became unsteady, the inn was right there! Keep moving, get a crystal, heal yourself. Just... keep... moving...
I was seeing double, everything became bleary, I was losing too much blood. My foot caught on something, and that was all it took for me to go to the ground. My vision flicked in and out when I landed, I couldn’t find the energy to get up. I felt hands grab me and hoist me up before dragging me forward. Stay awake... stay awake... stay... I passed out.
Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck! There was no way I could be healed now that I was unconscious. I would continue to bleed, and thus I would die. I was right there! Come on! I just mentally sighed, feeling a little defeated. This is going to be awkward to explain to the brothers when I wake up.
Again.