Ch 41

I wanted to ask Gikats more questions but that was not in the cards. No sooner had he finished telling me that I would become more valuable than a trained gladiator than Lilly burst into the room. “That dumb elf is gone? Good now back to practice!” She grabbed me by the arm and dragged me from the room, unexpectedly strong for a diminutive woman.

When we got back into the training room I was placed back at the table and once again given a set of picks and a lock to work on. She watched me fiddle with it for several minutes without giving me any instructions before finally laughing out loud and taking the lock from me. After taking a moment to calm herself she explained the process of picking locks.

“First you are going to insert this one with the ninety-degree angle on it into the hole and feel around until you feel it slip into the tumbler.” She placed her hands over mine and guided my movements, after a moment I felt the tool slip into a pocket. “Now that you have it in the tumbler you need to gently slide in this long, thin, flat tool simultaneously and then gently-” She twisted both tools in tandem and the padlock popped open. “There see?”

After this she showed me on a series of harder locks that required more tools for additional tumblers that would have to be held between different fingers of one hand so that the flat tool could be manipulated with the other hand. I then was made to practice with different locks until it was time to sleep for the night.

I had trouble sleeping that night, perhaps it was the lack of physical exertion or maybe I was a little shook up after having seen my master again but in any event I was rolling over and staring at the ceiling for most of the night and only managed to fall asleep a couple of hours before I once again was awoken by the sounds of goblin screams and the announcement that it was once again time to go to the waiting room before my fight.

I was expecting a difficult fight after the last couple of fights against the lizard woman and the drug smuggling wood elf but surprisingly I got lucky and was pitted against a scrawny looking human man with long, straggly brown hair and brown eyes. He was wearing nothing but a loincloth and leather sandals and carried a long dagger that reminded me a bit of a machete from earth.

As soon as I saw him, I took off running towards him and unexpectedly he turned to run. It seems like he wasn’t prepared to fight in a life or death struggle. Wondering how he ever made it through his initial ten matches I quickly caught up to him. He ended up trapped against the bars of that prevented him from going back out of the arena again. Turning to face me he swung his blade wildly, it seemed like it was moving in slow motion and sloppy.

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Easily dodging by bending my knees and leaning sideways, I then leaned in and grabbed hold of the wrist that held his weapon and squeezed. This guy was seriously weak, I immediately felt his bones creak and he dropped the blade with a scream. This guy has no business in the arena, seriously how did he make it through his first ten fights?

I decided that I didn’t even need to draw my daggers for this match and so I simply punched him in the side of the head a couple of times until he dropped and then began walking out of the arena again. There were jeers and boos coming from the crowd. No blood today guys! It was time to go find Lilly and hope she had something other than picking locks for me today.

I was not disappointed as she did in fact have other plans for me. Unfortunately, I did not like what she had in mind much better. We were going back to the abandoned house and we were not waiting for the sun to set. I protested that we were less likely to be caught if we waited for dark, but she brushed it aside stating that since it was an abandoned house, nobody was likely to intervene even if we were seen.

This is how I found myself once again trying to sneak past the goblins, and this time they were not asleep nor lax in their guard because there were still a couple of hours left until evening. I ended up spending a bit of time pondering my problem from the resting room while the guard stood around doing nothing much but staying alert. After a bit I managed to come up with a solution.

This goblin was not the same one as before so while he was not relaxing his guard, he was also not paranoid about me or watching me especially hard. Taking advantage of this I made a show of walking into the training room and then immediately dropped low and crept back into the resting room and crawling behind the cots for cover. I then circled around the room the long way until I was close to the door and the goblin guarding it.

Now all I needed to do was wait and with a bit of luck, YES! He took the bait. The guard started walking towards the still open door to the training room, muttering to himself about inconsiderate slaves always leaving the doors open. Taking advantage of this I quickly pulled the door open and slipped through, pulling it quietly closed behind me. Obstacle number one, down. Next up is the guard before Gikats’s office.

I needn’t have worried about this one. It seemed that this position always took naps and relied on the echoing footsteps on the stone floor to alert them to someone’s approach. By walking slowly and taking care not to make any noise I was able to creep past him without waking him up. Gikats was engrossed in his book and did not notice me as I quietly creeped around the edges of his office, staying low. Then the final hurdle turned out to be easier during the day as instead of an orc guard on patrol there was only the goblin posted outside to take in new customers and he was facing away watching for incoming traffic so I was able to casually stroll away.

I was off and, on the way, to meet Lilly, she had insisted that I find my way to the house on my own this time and meet her inside it in the attic. It only took me around half an hour to reach the place and there was still some time before the sun would start to set. I looked around, trying to find another way in besides the front door on the main road. I was sweating a bit and it was not because of the heat of the day. The bundle of lock picks tucked into the clothes that Lilly had given me for these events was clear evidence of my intentions should I be stopped or searched.