With the rather disturbing backstory out of the way, Garrett got down to brass tacks. The cloak would be in the east wing, on the twelfth story – the level that housed clothing artifacts. At the moment, it was one of only a handful of treasures, though apparently dead elven mages and toilers were hard at work creating others for the afterlife’s overlords.

We would need to get inside, get to the twelfth story, and get the cloak – all without tripping any of the traps or alerting security. Because if we did that, there’d be no way out that didn’t involve bone saws.

Even if we got lucky enough to get to the cloak and grab it without winding up in pieces, we’d still need to get out. And since the vault had magic woven into its every brick, that would be trickier than it sounded.

Or so Garrett said, and I was inclined to believe him. He was the details guy after all.

But, if we did everything right and had a little luck on our side, we’d be able to cross over to the Sector of Ascension without any difficulty.

As far as I could see, there was only one real problem standing in our way.

Salvidora.

The avenging goddess I’d robbed, and consequently pissed off. It was one thing to risk an inopportune fall or sneeze or whatever weird thing she’d throw my way on an average job.

But robots with saws? That upped the stakes a little. A point I raised to Garrett, and which, after he had finished laughing at me, he consequently shut down.

“You really think the tin cans would have been any nicer if they caught you in the cathedral than the automatons will be if they catch you here?”

Which was a good point. But in the cathedral heist, there’d been a whole lot of money involved. And that somehow made the risk seem…well, worth it.

I figured Garrett wouldn’t understand. Like Artemus, his understudy and eventual successor, he was a little too high-minded for a thief. His ideas about decency and right and wrong and duty were better suited to rich men.

They could afford them.

Thieves couldn’t. I was okay facing down death by misadventure for a sizeable profit. But upping my risk of gruesome dismemberment for the sake of humanity? Not if I could help it.

So as I stood there, surveying that grim gray megastructure, I tried to think of how I could placate an angry goddess. And, quickly. As quickly as possible.

It wasn’t like I hadn’t tried before. Or, rather, it wasn’t like I hadn’t thought about trying before. I’d considered leaving some sort of offerings at her shrines. I hadn’t actually done it though. The idea of a lightning bolt striking me down on the spot stayed my hand. Better to take my chances, and a few kicks here and there, than to further enrage her by showing up at her metaphorical doorstep.

At least, that’s what I’d thought in the Realms.

But maybe, just maybe, it would be worth a try now. Now that bone saws were a possibility for failure.

“Hey,” I said, “are there any shrines around here?”

He stared at me. “Shrines?”

“You know, to the gods?”

“Don’t tell me you’ve found religion. You, of all people?”

I wasn’t quite sure how to take the incredulity in his voice. “No. But, I’d like to try to, I don’t know…make peace with Salvidora. So she doesn’t do something horrible while we’re inside.”

He laughed again. “And what, you think leaving some trinket on her shrine will do the trick?”

“Well…yes.”

He shook his head. “There are no shrines. Not anymore.”

“Damn,” I said, and an electric bolt shot through my back, rattling my teeth and jarring my bones.

“Careful,” he warned. “You already singed half your hair off at the wall.”

“I what?”

He gestured to his head, and then made a crackling sound. “You were smoking.”

I raised a hand to my own head, and swore again. And earned a second, more forceful zap. I hardly noticed, though. The ends of my hair felt shriveled and melted under my fingertips. Some crumbled away as I touched them, and that stink I’d noticed earlier wafted to my nostrils.

The stink of burned hair.

“How bad is it?” I demanded. I didn’t consider myself a vain guy, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t pay a little attention to my hair. It was the dark part of the tall, dark, and handsome thing I had going on.

He shrugged. “Well, you don’t look much worse than usual. Just a little sootier.”

I scowled at him, but he seemed to take no notice.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“If you’re serious about making peace with Salvidora – and, as much as I want to get a move on it, I’d rather not die because you made war with a goddess – there may be a way.”

Forgetting about my massacred hair, for the time being anyway, I said, “I’m all ears.”

“Not just ears,” he said. “Don’t forget the freakishly big nose. But Salvidora – there may be a way to reach her. As I say, the shrines are all gone. Torn down long before I got here. Back when Leopold and the Sorcerer took over. I guess they were worried that if people could still get in touch with the gods, they might be able to regain control of this place, somehow. I don’t know.

“At any rate, they took them down. But I’ve heard rumors about a grotto, where devotees go to pray to their patron gods.”

“I’m not exactly a devotee,” I pointed out.

He snorted. “Hardly. More like enemy. Still, if they’ve figured out a way to get messages to the gods, that might be a way to contact her.”

Which sounded like a good idea, until we got down to specifics. Garrett didn’t know where the grotto was, nor for that matter which gods – if any – devotees could contact. He’d heard rumors, but he hadn’t dug into them.

“For being Mr. Prepared,” I complained, “you’re not exactly on top of this one.”

“Well, I didn’t expect to have to placate an angry goddess, did I? That’s the sort of problem only you would bring. So, what’s it going to be? Do we go search for the grotto, see if we can put some specifics to the rumors? Or do we take our chances?”

I glanced around the gray sector. It seemed to be growing grayer by the minute. Night must be approaching, I realized. Soon, it would be dark.

Probably, a night tinged with gray, like everything else in this wretched place.

“Take our chances,” I said. The hell with it.

He eyed me dubiously. “I sure hope you know what you’re doing.”

Me too. Aloud, I scoffed. “Of course I do. The curse hasn’t killed me yet. I don’t expect it will any time soon.”

Garrett grimaced. “That sounds like the kind of thing you say just before we both die horribly.”

“Oh shut up. If we’re going to do this, let’s just do it.”

At that moment, I felt rather than knew I had a new objective assigned. I pulled up my chart, and saw not just a new objective – a new tab.

<<<<>>>>

[Rogue Objectives]

As in life, a soul has many options. Some souls choose to grow and better themselves, to overcome the sins of their past life. Some choose to cause mischief and chaos.

Rogue Objectives may be accepted from other souls, or self-assigned. Be aware – the wages of sin are toil. And suffering. And sometimes death.

Rogue Objectives:

* Steal the Cloak of Kharon

* Infiltrate the Hall of Holy Relics

* Locate the Cloak without alerting security

* Escape alive

* Quest giver: Garrett, thief and wayward soul

<<<<>>>>

We waited for darkness to fall. It wasn’t a black darkness, like back on Earth or in the Realm when the moons were out of cycle. It was as I’d expected, a gray-black, like a perpetual deep dusk. Dreary and grim, like everything in the sector.

Once it settled, however, we could move more freely. Only the keenest eyes would pick us up, and even then, we’d look like little more than fleeting shadows – there one moment, and gone the next.

So it was we made our way half a block west of our original vantage, to a misshapen and ramshackle hut built near the edge of the Hall. It looked like two intersecting blocks, the original stacked vertically, with a horizontal second story added later.

Not added particularly well, though, as the overhang sloped precariously toward the earth, and the whole building had started to lean in that general direction.

It was, Garrett said, one of the few tenement buildings in the area to survive construction. It and a few others that had been near, but not too near, had outlasted the initial demolitions. A few had since fallen on their own, thanks to time and gravity. This one hadn’t yet succumbed.

On the contrary, unlike the others, the occupants of this particular dwelling had since discreetly added on.

“Well,” I said, eyeing the dubious shelter, “we know they weren’t architects in a past life, that’s for sure.”

He ignored my comment, and ushered me toward the side of the building. “Quietly. If anyone’s home, we don’t want them to hear us.”

“What are we doing, exactly?”

Instead of answering, he started to scale the building. Nimble as a cat, he pulled himself off the ground and climbed. The tilt certainly worked to his advantage, but I couldn’t help but be impressed anyway.

Angle or no, the wall looked far too sheer, with far too few handholds, to scamper up so effortlessly.

Still, up he went, while I remained below watching. Finally, he pulled himself up onto the roof and turned. Seeing me, he shrugged in a questioning gesture.

A, “Well? What’s taking so long? Hurry your ass up,” gesture.

As if everyone could perform ninja stunts on command. I was a thief, not freaking Ezio. Still, he was watching, and even though I couldn’t make out his expression, I could feel his impatience growing. So I gritted my teeth and steeled myself for the climb.

I reached out and grabbed a plank just above my head level. Grunting, I hoisted myself upward and holding fast on one side, on the other reached for the next handhold. For several seconds, I groped more or less blindly in the dimness, my fingers finding nothing. All the while, my boots scraped the siding, looking for a nook.

Finally, my arm quivering, my right toe dipped into a space in the uneven planks. This provided a little relief, and while I searched for another toehold, I went on feeling for a sturdy point to grab.

Suddenly, something thin but heavy dropped onto my head, and coiled down my body. I yelped and jumped backward, onto the street below.

I could hear Garrett muttering overhead as I took in the thing that had hit me: rope.

He’d sent down a rope. Or rather, thrown down. Right onto my head. I might have appreciated the assist, if he’d given me a little advanced warning.

Still, I didn’t reject the offering, and with the rope to aid me, I made it up in no time.

Garrett pulled me up so that we were both standing on the roof. “Well, no one’s home,” he said.

“How do you know?”

“Because you made enough noise getting up here to raise the dead. No pun intended. And no one came out to see what’s going on.”

Coiling up his rope, he stuffed it back into his bag. Then, slowly, he started to cross the sloping surface. The roof being flat, at least in its initial design, we’d alighted at the tallest point. Now, it dropped by some fifteen or twenty degrees.

But I saw at last our reason for being here. Six feet across from the farthest end of the roof lay a tall glass window with a concrete ledge.

A window to the Hall of Holy Relics.

Garrett paused halfway across and turned to me. “You think you can make it?”

I nodded. I was a decent jumper, and I’d covered longer gaps than that in pursuit of treasure.

He nodded too. Then, drawing a deep breath, he darted across the rest of the roof and leaped forward. He landed as nimbly as he’d climbed, making almost no noise at all as he hit the ledge.

I knew for a fact I wouldn’t be quite that graceful. But I’d make it.

No sweat.

I started forward, as fast as I could go. I’d taken two strides when suddenly my foot flew out from under me. A shingle had come loose, somehow, and the forward motion bowled me over.

Before I could right myself, or do anything at all, I was spilling downward into the gray-black abyss.

A thought flashed through my mind.

[Salvidora’s Curse: your sins will find you out. May this luck penalty recall your sins to mind and put your feet on the straight and narrow path.]