You have got to be kidding me…

“Welcome to the Thieves Guild!” The tall man said with a smile. “My name is Taffeen.”

Aurus remained silent and stared at the thief. Being kidnapped was the last thing he expected so his mind was still foggy. The hit he received on his head and face didn’t help either.

“You must be a bit confused for sure. I must apologize for the behavior of my assistant. He’s not the most tactful person when it comes to dealing with others, but I can assure you that you will be treated fairly here.”

“Fairly? I’m a hostage. There is nothing fair about that.” He said after a second of silence.

“That’s true… What I meant to say is that you are going to be treated with respect.”

“I’m tied to a chair with my hands bound to the back of it.”

“Semi-respectfully.” Taffeen corrected himself again. “Look, this is the first time we’ve ever kidnapped someone so please be a little patient.”

“Patient… sure.” Aurus said sarcastically.

“Ok, let me start over. I…”

“Hey boss! Are you done thinking?” The shorter man Aurus assumed was the assistant, walked in.

“What did I say about walking in without knocking?!” He turned around in anger.

“Oh right…” They both stood silently for a moment. “Should I leave and then knock? Or should I just stay…”

“Just tell me what you want!”

“Oh ok. A fight broke out between two guys and everyone is cheering them on.”

“I’ll be right back.” He said to Aurus.

Taffeen quickly left with his assistant and Aurus was alone. He could finally take a closer look at the room and try to find a way out, or at least something that would tell him where he was. Despite being dimly lit, he could see everything quite clearly. It seemed like a storage area of sorts. Boxes and crates lined the walls to his sides and piled up on each other unevenly. Close to the ceiling, on one side of the room, there were small horizontal windows, just large enough to let light in and it seemed like they could be opened somewhat, but not enough to be able to climb through. Very faint light was pouring from them. He judged that sunrise had just begun.

The only visible exit was the door the thieves had just used to leave. The table Taffeen had sat on had a chair pulled up next to it, judging it from where it was relative to the walls, it seemed like a makeshift desk. Taking all of this in and the conversations he had overheard, Aurus assumed he was dealing directly with the leader of the Thieves Guild. He found it surprising that thieves could follow someone else’s orders, but he supposed that if they were organized in any way they would need a leader.

His hands were bound tightly, and so were his feet. Escaping wasn’t an option at this point, so he would have to take advantage of this situation as best as possible.

I guess my best course of action would be to gather as much information as I can. I already got everything I could from the room, now I have to get as much as I can from their leader. Besides, what kind of name is Taffeen?

As the minutes went by, Aurus kept on thinking about how to get info out of someone like Taffeen. Judging from his demeanor, he carried himself like someone important, or at least he thought he was important. Probably had an anger issue or two, remembering his reaction to the news that Aurus was now their hostage and the fact his assistant walked in without knocking.

I guess he’s their version of a guild master if he’s being called to settle a fight, and that he has an office.

Aurus could try to relate to him on that level. He knew personally how much it annoyed him when people walked into his office without knocking. But he was growing impatient, and the little empathy he had was running short. He was missing too much work being tied up like this, and that bothered him to no end. He could probably get by with sarcasm and irony as well as he would’ve with empathy and niceness. Maybe if he pushed Taffeen’s patience enough he would say something useful in his anger, something to help him find out what they were planning. Aurus had made up his mind, and as if to confirm his thought process, the leader of the thieves had walked back in the room with his hand on his head followed by his assistant who remained silent.

“The things people fight over. Honestly! Don’t they have any common sense?!” He complained to himself before looking at Aurus. “Sorry to leave you waiting. Where were we?”

“You were introducing yourself.” Aurus responded dryly.

“Yes right! As I was saying, my name is Taffeen. From this situation you might have guessed I am the leader of the Thieves Guild.”

“Kind of obvious. What kind of name is Taffeen?” Aurus asked, letting his curiosity get the better of him.

“I am very glad you asked! It is my very own thief name. How can a great thief go by using their real names after all?”

“I wouldn’t know. I’m not a thief. The name just seems weird to me.”

“We actually call him Taffy.” The assistant chimed in from behind him.

Taffy’s smile contorted as his entire body froze. Aurus seized this moment of weakness and turned to the assistant.

“What’s his actual name then?”

“It’s Nilbert. I don’t know about his last name though…”

“What did I say about using my real name?” Taffy said in a low voice, through grated teeth.

“Oh right. Sorry Taffy.”

“That one is even worse! GET OUT!” He was instantly facing away from Aurus as he began screaming.

Before Aurus knew it, the assistant was gone and the multi-named leader of the thieves was now facing away from him, breathing very heavily. Taking a minute to compose himself once again, he patted his clothes and ran his fingers through his messy hair, trying to put it back into place.

“Sorry about that. It won’t happen again.” He turned with a smile on his face once again.

“I’m sure it won’t… Taffy.” Aurus noticed a twitch on the man’s eyebrows as he said that name.

“I’ll let that one slide since you are our very special guest.”

“Hostage.”

“Hostage. Right. Well, I already introduced myself twice. How about we skip your introduction since I already know you are and get to the good stuff?”

“The good stuff?”

“Yes the good stuff! You know, questions like: Where am I? Why am I here? Why does it smell so funny?”

Aurus raised one eyebrow as he heard the last question and stayed silent.

“I think we can ignore that last one… Well… Aren’t you going to ask any of them?”

“For the first one, I’m pretty sure we are in the side room of a warehouse. So my question is: Am I still in Anderess?”

“Yes you are.” Taffy answered with a smile.

“Ok. Then regarding the second question, if the conversation I heard before was right, my being here was a complete accident on your assistant’s end.”

“You are right.” He continued. “Until I realized that this was an accident I could profit from and proceed with our original plan.”

“Did your plan revolve around stealing the Honor Badges from my adventurers?”

“Oh no, that was just a bit of practice. Honestly stealing the badges from two drunk adventurers was really easy.”

“Two?”

“Yes. We tried stealing it from that Dorus guy but he was sober the entire night and extremely vigilant to boot, so we just gave up.”

Then who stole it? It could be that he lost it like I originally thought but he just said that he stayed vigilant the whole night. Aurus stayed deep in thought for a moment.

“So? Any other questions?” Asked Taffy excitedly.

“Any chance you would tell me your plan then?”

“Of course! My plan is something I have been plotting for quite some time. It all started when I was a child…”

Shit… I’d rather be tortured than listen to this.

“I was asking about the Thieves Guild original plan, not your life’s plan.”

“Oh but they are one and the same! My plan is to become the greatest thief of all time!”

“The greatest thief? The Thieves Guild plan is to make ‘you’ the greatest thief ever?”

“Yes. I mean. If you wanted to get really technical you could say that my plan and the guild’s plan are different, but they have the same goal. It’s why I founded it in the first place, to achieve that goal.”

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“Do your members know this?”

“Of course they do, but fortunately for me all they care about is money. So if everything goes according to plan. They will be rich, and I’ll be known as the greatest thief of all! Greater than even Lyssa herself!” He said, stretching his arms outward, with a large smile on his face.

“You want to be greater than Lyssa?” Aurus asked sarcastically, almost in disbelief.

“Yes I do.”

“The only thief who ever managed to break into the Royal Bank and not get caught, Lyssa?”

“Yes, that Lyssa. I want to be greater than her.” Taffy crossed his arms.

“Here?” Aurus was shocked but his expression remained unchanged. “You want to be great in a city like Anderess? What makes you think you can achieve that level of infamy here?”

“Because I have a plan. You see I actually started my thieving career in the capital and I was one of the few people to ever work with Lyssa.” Glancing at Aurus’ expression, he could tell that the tied-down guild master didn’t believe him. “Ok, I mean, I didn’t work with her exactly, it was more of a case where I worked for her.”

Aurus expression remained unchanged.

“You see I am special, and she sought me out because she recognized my…” Taffy looked once again at Aurus, whose face practically screamed doubt. “Ok fine. I saw her in action this one time.”

“Now that sounds more plausible.” Aurus commented.

“Ahem.” He paused. “The focus and seriousness of her eyes the moment I looked at her was bone chilling, but inspiring. There I was, a fledgling thief, content with the small things I was stealing, when I saw her leaping from one rooftop to the next. This happened about five years ago and it drove me to become better, to become someone who could be recognized by his acts of thievery!”

He paced the room and his arms accompanied his speech as if he was performing in front of an audience. Aurus thought about how this reminded him of Marc, except in that case of Marc his arms were usually in an exaggerated pose, meanwhile Taffy seemed a lot more controlled, less ‘artistic’ as Marc would put it.

“I thought you said you wanted to be the greatest thief when you were a child.”

“I did. It was just at that moment that I realized that if I ever wanted to reach that goal. I would need the same focus and intensity that she had. I would need to do something that not even she did, to steal from the only place she didn’t. The only place in the kingdom that is more defended than the Royal Bank, the Adventurer’s Guild Warehouse.”

Aurus raised his eyebrows slightly, pausing before speaking, “And you expect me to help you?”

“Oh goodness no. I’m not ‘expecting’ anything, for now. But just by having you here makes things a whole lot easier.”

“I don’t see how stealing from a warehouse located in the capital while your entire guild is here could be any easy.”

“Here is the thing. I heard from a very good contact of mine.” Taffy pulled a piece of paper from his coat pocket and waved it a bit before putting it back. “That the Guild Warehouse has two entrances. One located in the capital and a second, very well hidden entrance right here, in the guild itself. We tried looking for it before but we couldn’t find it, so we just contented with stealing some poison.”

“An entrance? From the guild to the warehouse?” Aurus questioned.

“Exactly. We hardly believe anyone would take the time to build a tunnel from here to the capital. So I’m sure that the entrance is magical, and since you know a thing or two about magic, I’m also sure that you can tell me where it is.”

“I thought you said you weren’t expecting anything of me and besides there is no magical entrance in the guild.”

“Well I’m sure that you are lying, because my contact is very reliable.” He tapped the pocket where he placed the paper he had shown just before. “And about expecting anything from you, I’m not! That’s why a have this.”

Finishing his sentence, Taffy took out a dagger from his belt. The blade itself looked normal except for a faint black glow that emanated from it. The hilt also seemed engraved with a few patterns that seemed familiar to Aurus.

“You know what this is?” Taffy asked.

“It’s a magic item.” Aurus responded deadpan.

“Not just any magic item. This knife here is enchanted.”

‘Enchanted’ was the word most people used to refer to a magic item that had passive magic transferred unto it. Aurus knew better than anyone how rare and valuable items with passive magic were since they didn’t require any activators. The last item he had seen like that in recent memory was a pendant with weak illusion magic a kid used as payment for the beginners adventurer’s fee. The guild warehouse was filled with these kind of items because of the danger they posed. Armor plates that could increase the strength of their wearers, swords that could cut through nearly anything, and nearly unbreakable shields, in addition to the already huge list of active magic items that could cast nigh world ending magic if activated. If any of these were stolen and distributed, the situation in the kingdom would grow chaotic very quickly.

“Do you want to know what it does?” Taffy asked smiling deviously.

“I have a feeling you’re going to tell me.”

“You are right! This dagger is infused with what I like to call ‘pain magic’.”

Pain magic? There is no pain magic.

“Any wound, as minor as it is, made with this knife has its pain amplified by about 50 times the normal amount.” He said, holding the knife on one hand and tapping the tip of it with his finger. “So you see, just a tiny poke and you’ll be.. Shit! AAAAARRRGGGHHH!!!”

The dagger clanged on the floor and Taffy dropped it and held his now-poked finger.

“I think you might have tapped it a little too hard.” Aurus said calmly to the screaming man.

“OWWWW THIS HURTS! WHAT THE HELL KIND OF… AAAAAHHHH!!!”

Aurus watched the thieves’ guild master fall on his knees screaming and swearing while holding his finger. Despite really wanting to, he kept himself from saying any more snide remarks. The pain Taffy was going through was probably enough, probably. After a good minute the screaming ceased and the future ‘greatest’ thief got up.

“So… That was a demonstration of the power of the dagger.”

“Very informative. Glad to know what awaits me.”

“Yeah… You should be scared… Heh…”

“Boss how’s the torture going?” The assistant asked as he opened the door.

“The torture is going perfectly. Now what did I say about knocking?”

“Right sorry. Just wanted to know if you wanted water.” He said, putting a glass of water on the makeshift desk.

“Yes I would love some water. Thank you.” Taffy picked up the dagger as the assistant walked out. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go drink some water while you and your maybe dry mouth watch.” He said in a mocking tone.

Aurus watched as Taffy placed the dagger in his belt without looking, nicking the side of his leg through his pants.

“Awww! SHIT! MY LEG AAARRGGGGHHHHH!” He tossed the dagger to the side as he fell on the floor, doubled over in pain.

Aurus once again sat back and enjoyed the sight of someone getting a taste of their own medicine. Looking at the size of the scrape, this would probably take a lot longer than the previous injury. He now had some time to think about what to do about his situation, if he could manage to hear his own thoughts through the screaming, that is.

He actually knows about the entrance. That is not good. Only a few people in the kingdom should know about it. If one of them is the reliable contact he talked about, this could be very bad. On the other hand, who’s to say that he isn’t bluffing this entire thing and hoping I take the bait. It would be one hell of a stretch though. Hmmm… I need to see that paper in his pocket. Then I’ll know for sure whether I should be worried or not. Even if he ends up torturing me, I’m never letting on about the entrance. It’s too important to let him or anyone else find it.

After around ten minutes, Taffy shakily got up from the ground, breathing heavily.

“So… what do… you… think? Terrifying… isn’t it…” He said between breaths.

“It looks really painful.”

“You… haven’t seen… anything yet…” He picked up the dagger and carefully put it back in its hilt. “Let’s try something else… for now.”

“Seems like you guys are prone to accidents.”

“Yeah… well, we are lucky above all. I mean, that whole accidental letter we left to you worked in our favor.”

“Accidental letter? You mean you didn’t plan to reveal yourselves?”

“Oh no. We thought about it, and even made a first draft of the note which is what you got, but the plan was to remain unnoticed as much as possible.” Taffy was back to smiling once again.

“Huh.” I kind of overestimated them. At least they seem to be aware of their mistakes. “So the leak about the location of one of your meeting places was intentional or not?”

“Of course it… Wait, what leak?” His face froze in a half twisted smile.

“The leak that I assumed was false info you guys*creak*” Aurus stopped mid-sentence, both guild masters turned in the direction of the noise.

One of the windows near the corner had been opened and through it poked the face of a ranger Aurus had seen in the tavern sometimes. The room fell completely silent as the adventurer stared at the two surprised men.

“Hey Gherson.” The ranger said; his voice barely above a whisper.

Aurus nodded slowly in reply, his face in almost shock, as the man retreated from his spot, slowly closing the creaking window, and leaving the room once again in silence as the both guild masters tried to process what had just happened.

These idiots actually leaked their own location. Not a distraction. Not an intentional false lead. They just talked about their meeting place out in the open.

“Oh shit.” Taffy said, running out of the room at top speed.

Aurus could hear screaming coming from outside the room, a mix of anger, disappointment and desperation all directed at the thieves who were now probably packing everything they owned as quickly as possible. He knew adventurers were idiotic, but they were smart enough to understand a hostage situation when they saw one. If Aurus had to guess, they probably came to investigate under Nia’s orders since he never came back after the meeting with the captain of the guard. Now that they knew that he was a hostage, who knows how many of them would attempt a rescue. Not because they cared about him, but because of the recognition that came with rescuing the guild master himself. The last thing he wanted was for things to get messy in the middle of the city, now that he was involved; things had just taken a turn for the worse.

“Hey remember the question about it smelling funny in here?” Taffy spoke very quickly as he walked in with his assistant.

“I never asked that…”

“Well, it’s because we have access to the sewers from here, so let’s go before your entire guild descends on this place.” He said as he began packing the things on the table and in a few of the corner boxes.

“You say that as if I’m in a position to do anything.”

“Oh yeah. Hostage. Right. Untie him from the chair but leave him bound, don’t want him to run away on us.”

“Yes boss!”

The nameless assistant moved over and quickly untied Aurus from the chair, but left him just bound enough not to be able to run away. His feet were tied in a similar way to prison chains, which did allow him to walk, but with very short steps. His hands were bound in front of him, rather than behind, so now he had a bit more freedom to move around.

“Ok! Let’s move.”

Taffy finished packing up, and the assistant grabbed Aurus by the ropes on his hands, almost dragging him behind him. They moved through the warehouse and Aurus finally recognized the place as the actual warehouse they had leaked just the day before. Except that it was now full of thieves moving around frantically, carrying boxes up and down, figuring out what to take and what to leave behind before the adventurers arrived. An older thief with barely any hair and a groomed mustache approached Taffy and began talking to him while they walked.

“There is a bit of a problem with the sewers.”

“What problem?” The leader of the thieves asked quickly.

“There is too much flammable gas in there! We don’t really know where it all came from but the moment we opened the door there was a lot of gas. We won’t be able to use torches down there unless we want to explode the entire underground of this warehouse.”

“Then we’ll just use the light rocks we stole from the guild. We have enough. Now let’s go!” He called the other thieves, making them move even faster.

Aurus stared at him. Last time he did inventory he didn’t notice any missing light rocks.

Taffy noticed the look and answered. “We stole them from the Builder’s Guild not yours.”

Aurus was slightly relieved that he wouldn’t have to do inventory on the light rocks again, but it was still something they stole that he would have to either replace or return, hopefully the latter.

They reached two large metal doors that Aurus recognized as a sewer access entrance. They were large to allow the city workers to go in easily for any repairing that needed to be done on the underground ducts and tunnels, and now they were being used to smuggle who knows how many stolen goods, and the entire Thieves Guild, with Aurus in tow.

As they opened the doors, a horrendous smell hit everyone, making them grimace. Aurus had been down to the sewers before but it never smelled this bad. He could feel his eyes burning slightly at the horrible smell that came up, and he completely agreed with the old thief, if they cause a single spark down there the entire place would go up in flames. Not only that, if this was something that was happening around the entire city, the whole sewer system was in danger of igniting. Despite all of this Taffy seemed intent on going through the sewers, even though the slightest spark could kill them.

They began heading down. Taffy first, followed by his assistant and Aurus and then the rest of the guild, carrying whatever they could that was valuable enough. Even though the smell only grew worse as they headed down, mess of the sewers could give Aurus the chance he needed to take the paper about the reliable contact from Taffy’s pocket. All he needed was an opening, and if he wasn’t given one, he would just have to make it.