Egon drove the steam coach to his warehouse, where all his money was stored. It was raining outside. Ofir, Guillotine, and Homer were waiting for him under the shed of the warehouse.

"You look dejected and tired," he said.

"Homer and I barely dragged all our money here."

"Poor fellow," said Guillotine.

"It's a good thing you're the only one who's empty-handed," Ofir said.

Guillotine turned and started to swing his fists at Ofir, but Homer and Egon stopped him.

"He promised me money last night, you smart-ass bitch! Do you think I've forgotten how you left me on that motherfucker braindead bitch's doorstep? Pray to God, Ofir, that someday I will not come to you while you sleep, and the last thing you will see will be me."

"Egon asked me, I only followed his request."

"Stop fighting, girls," Egon said.

"Where's Metyr?"

"Yeah, where is he? We thought he was coming with you."

"Should be here, any minute now."

"You told him where we are meeting, didn't you?"

"He knows without my telling him, we always meet here."

"Egon," Homer began, "I read in morning's paper that a boy from a wealthy district was killed and his house burned down. Isn't that the boy who led you to the VV crystals, by any chance?"

Egon sighed and asked everyone to come to the warehouse. He locked the stagecoach and was the last to enter.

"So, all the witnesses are in hell, floating in a seething cauldron like potatoes in borscht?"

"Guillotine, don't you think that's too much? You can't talk about the dead like that."

"Robbing me in front of my very own eyes, then to immobilize me, and then to mock me in the end. That's too much. So, potatoes in borscht are a small matter."

"Well, yes. They're all dead, and there's no one to point us out. Unless the rich-kid told everything to inquisitors, and then he and his family were killed."

"I agree, the boiler rooms are exploding, but there are too many coincidences this time."

"It’s too good to be true."

"And when things go too well, you can expect trouble."

"With our luck, we can expect about fifty inquisitors to come after us and then fuck us in the ass."

"Keep your fingers crossed."

"I won't, I don't believe in your prejudices."

"Who killed those two Inquisitors?"

"I don't know. And that's what scares me the most."

"Probably the same people or the person who killed the rich-kid."

"I don't think it's just one person. People can't be that powerful."

"Or maybe it's the ancient metentis, who decided to get rid of all the witnesses and personally find us and rob?"

"I know only one person who is smart enough to hide his power and do all these things."

"Who is it, Ofir?" Homer asked.

"Metyr. This bastard isn't that simple, trust me."

"Your grandfather is more likely to be a great metentis rather than Metyr," Egon said.

"Or maybe we are part of a global conspiracy?"

"Who the fuck cares about four thieves, mate? We are part of a global conspiracy... ha-ha... it even sounds ridiculous."

"Only Guillotine standing in the ballerina pose is funnier."

"Come here, you son of a bitch!"

Guillotine was stimulated again. Ofir took a bag of mustard out of his pocket.

"Fucking hell! How did you find this?"

"I bought it at the market while I was going to get my money, a new acquisition."

"I'll be damned."

"I can afford it, so to speak."

"Just try to sleep, bitch!"

"You're the only one who can attack like a rat, but how about dealing with me while I'm awake?"

"I'll show you who the rat is, come here."

Guillotine drew his sword from under his cloak, but was immediately downed.

"Fuck, Guillotine, he's just kidding."

"I don't give a fuck."

"You'll sort it out later."

"We'll sort it out, you can be sure about that."

"What about our plan?" Homer asked.

Egon took out a map of the country, pointed to the northern border and a small village. He said they would go there. Until then, they will spend the night and move away from people. Egon went on to explain what he had discussed with Metyr (but did not mention metovis), and everyone nodded. Ofir asked what would happen when they left the country.

"Nothing will change. Almost all the neighboring states, even though they are independent, will somehow do whatever the Inquisition orders. So, we'll stick to the plan."

Egon pulled out a second map, showing a portion of their continent.

"See?"

"What should I see?"

"Large cities and villages are located far from each other."

"What's about these small villages?"

"Homer, I understand that as a child you lived in a palace that was larger than any village, but can you stop being an idiot?"

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

"What Ofir is trying to say is that life in small villages is very different – disconnected from the rest of the world. Of course, we will be like ancient gods sent down from the holy lands, but it is unlikely that they will ever point us out, and besides, it is unlikely that anyone will ask them anything."

The friends looked at the maps and after another couple of hours came up with a route, when Ofir suddenly said:

"Egon, is Metyr staying late?"

"I'd say otherwise, Metyr is way too fucking late," Guillotine said.

"You said Metyr never comes late," Homer said. "You said that he always comes in advance."

"Maybe he's saying goodbye to his family?"

"And his bitch wife won't let him go?"

"Can we stop by his place?"

"Let's move the money to the stagecoach."

"Ofir and the money."

"Guillotine and the murders and insults."

"I think Ofir is right, let's move all the money to the stagecoach, maybe by this time Metyr will come, and we will immediately set off."

"How do we get through the guards at the main entrance of Agernox?"

"When they see Metyr, they won't even ask anything."

"It's convenient to have such a powerful man in behind our backs," Guillotine said.

"Yes. He's not your typical pyromaniac revolutionary parents." Ofir said.

"And not your parents, who were they, tho?" Guillotine asked.

"They worked on the farm until they died of the disease, only my grandfather is still alive."

"Was it hard to say goodbye to him?" Egon asked.

Ofir paused. Everyone was waiting for an answer.

"I couldn't say "goodbye" to him. We probably won't come back here again, and if I lie and say "see you later," he'll see right through my lie. In the end, I said I had to get out of town, and as soon as I could, I would come to him and take him with me. It's just that while I'm not here, he'll be all alone. He won't give up his business right away, it takes time. He's an old-school guy. But when I was closing the door behind me, I saw the tears welling up in his eyes. He had no one left now. Fuck…"

"I'm sorry to hear that," Homer said.

"Okay, let's not talk about sad things. Let's move the chests with money already."

"That's right."

They went into the back room, and to the left of the door were three chests of Homer's gold coins. On the right – eight chests of Ofir’s.

"Fuck my eyes," Egon said.

"I had the same reaction," Guillotine said.

Egon went to one of the opened chests and made sure that it was not gold, but platinum coins.

"It's platinum."

"I keep everything in it, gold devalues over time."

"Hell, you can buy out three countries with that amount and become a great king."

"Ofir, I got a stagecoach, not a train, how can we put so much money there?"

"How many chests do you have?"

"Ten."

"Ten fucking chests!" Guillotine shouted.

"There's gold in there."

"Well, then, no questions asked!"

"We have 21 boxes."

"We'll put some of the chests in a compartment in the floor, and a few more will fit under the seats. We'll put the rest on the passenger seats."

"What if we're stopped?"

"Then we're fucked, Homer. But don't worry, we'll say you're holding us hostage, they'll take you away, and we'll move on."

"Let's start with the floor compartment."

Homer went downstairs and began pulling out Egon's chests, handing them to the disgruntled Guillotine. Guillotine carried the chests up the stairs to the first floor and handed them to Egon. Ofir was originally there, but Guillotine said he wouldn't work alongside a hypocritical maniac and a cheapskate. Egon handed the chests to Ofir, who carried them to the coach."

An hour later, when the work was coming to an end. Ofir said to Egon:

"Hell, our stagecoach looks like we're harboring all the homeless kids in Agernox."

"Just a little bit more."

Egon shouted to Guillotine, asking how many more boxes were left, and Guillotine replied that there were two more. After 10 minutes, the stagecoach was full of chests with coins, but Metyr was still not there.

"We must leave without Metyr," Guillotine said. "If he's still missing, it means something serious has happened. Down will be here in a few hours."

Egon stared at the streetlamp lit road, but he couldn't see or hear anything. A skinny white dog ran past the stagecoach. It stopped, looked in the direction of the warehouse, and ran on.

"Isn't that the dog that ran past us last night?"

"I don't know, they're all equally skinny, white, and dirty."

The friends stood near the stagecoach and thought about what they should do next. Egon tried to convince everyone to stay, but no one listened to him. At the end a decision was made to go towards the main gate by themselves, relying solely on luck.

Accidentally Egon saw a black silhouette appear on the road. It was a man in a police uniform. He ran as fast as he could, then stopped near the stagecoach.

"Grayson!" Guillotine said. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

"Do you have policemen on your payroll?" Egon asked softly.

"Yes. Unlike you, I don't approve of child labor."

"He's the head of the local police station!"

"That's good, isn't it?"

"Am I interrupting your flirting, boys?" Grayson asked.

"No, we are listening."

"I'd like to listen to you first. Guillotine, can you tell me why the local black-robed saints are looking for diamonds all over the city, and tell me an incredibly interesting story about someone who killed a coachman, two inquisitors, and a huge overgrown goblin, as well as a rich-boy from a wealthier area?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Maybe your friend Ofir knows what I'm talking about, he kind of dragged you across the town with an arrow in your ass, an arrow from the same crossbow that was found near the dead overgrown goblin. So, tell me everything from the beginning, from the very beginning."

"We don't have time," Egon said.

"You have time, kid. Because now the Inquisition has staged a night raid. They are spreading through the whole city like rabid hungry dogs. And the process is led not by the dick from the mountain, but by Thomas him-fucking-self."

"What Thomas?"

"The Thomas who is second only to Alba, the Thomas who can do everything and even more. The Thomas who wears a strange mask and acts like a crazy nutcase. That fucking Thomas, who is scarier than a meteorite falling from the sky, we have only one Thomas in our country, and you should know about him very well."

"All right. We went into the woods," Guillotine began. "We met the coachman there. He was driving a big carriage."

"Good guy."

"Hardworking guy."

"Just a little cheeky guy."

"Then?"

"Then Homer started talking to him."

"What Homer? King Homer, your friend Homer, or the Homer of fairy tales, which Homer?"

"This Homer."

"From-a-rich-family Homer."

"I talked to him."

"What did he tell you?"

"He told he was carrying a big chest."

"We took out the chest, and there was a goblin in it."

"A huge three-meter goblin?"

"Yes. With a club and a one-handed hoe."

"How did he get there?"

"Who the fuck knows, we didn't think about it!"

"Yeah. It's hard to think when a huge goblin swoops down on you to kill you."

"All right. What's next?"

"He attacked us and we took the loot and ran away."

"Where did he get the crossbow?"

"Homer dropped it."

"Did the goblin follow you?"

Guillotine began to think…

"Get him into the thicket!" Egon shouted.

Ofir and Homer were dragging Guillotine. Branches smashed into their faces.

"What kind of killing machine is this?" Ofir shouted.

"Kill! Kill!" Goblin shouted after them.

"Fuck, this is not fucking normal at all!"

"Leave us alone, Bitch!"

"This fucking butcher will kill us all, for god's sake!"

"Stop whining, you idiot and run!"

"Not for long. We broke away from him quite easily."

"Did you kill that poor rich-kid?"

"Guillotine is a fine guy," Egon said.

"Good guy," Homer said. "He doesn't do anything like that."

"Tell that to his ancestors, Candy kid. If Guillotine will kill someone or will blow them up, I won't be surprised at all."

"Actually, as a result, we did not kill anyone, the diamonds have already been sold, and all the witnesses, as I understand it, are dead."

"That's the end of the fairy tale."

"There's only one thing you're wrong about, Guillotine."

"In what am I wrong about?"

"In the fact that this is not the end of the fucking story, but it’s the very fucking beginning, I would say that this is a fucking prologue. Someone killed two inquisitors, and the saints will find out who did it, they are idiots, but they won't let anyone get away with this, just as they won't let four idiots get away with stolen-from-them diamonds."

"We didn't know the diamonds were theirs when we took them, we thought they were the goods of the rich-kid."

"Have you decided to leave the city?"

"Yes."

"You won't get out. All the exits are blocked. And I can't help you this time."

"That's why Metyr isn't here yet."

"The Inquisitors will be here soon. I'm leaving, the police are also involved in this raid. You'd better hide at home or somewhere nearby, if possible, and get your understated carriage out of the way. God, what did you put in there?"

"Plush fucking toys! What the fuck do you think we put in there, getting out of town?"

Egon pulled three gold coins from his pocket and handed them to Grayson. He took the coins.

"What's your name?"

"Egon."

"Egon?"

"Egon."

"The same Egon who attacked the inquisitors in the square in front of everyone, trying to fuck one of them in the ass, and then was killed under torture in the prison cells of Agernox?"

“Yeah, that’s me.”

Grayson glared at his friends.

"It seems, you know how not to attract attention. Why not shoot preacher Constar in the square in front of everyone, so that you would definitely stay in the shadows."

"Thank you for your advice, Grayson."

"Yes, thank you, Grayson."

"You're a good guy, Grayson."

"Fifty Inquisitors are on their way to this area for a raid. They'll be here in an hour. Good luck to you guys."

The policeman shook his head and ran down the road toward the walls. After a few minutes, he was nowhere to be seen or heard.

All four of them stood there in silence. Guillotine broke the silence.

"Fifty fucking inquisitors. It's fucking awesome. And how do we quickly hide a huge stagecoach that will probably barely drive anyway? It's not like hiding a fucking needle in a haystack."

Everyone fell silent again. Egon stared at the lantern, creaking in the wind.

"I have an idea."