A young body with short mess hair the color of sand slowly crept toward a baker's stall in the busy marketplace of a small city. He looked around warily to see if anyone was watching him, but no one paid the young boy any mind as they hurried about the marketplace with their own goods.

As he crept closer, he could hear the sound of the baker and a middle aged man haggling over the price of a cake. It seemed the man wanted to purchase the cake for a celebration, but the thought the baker's asking price was too high. Not that it mattered to the boy, his eyes were on the prize. A freshly baked loaf of bread, just sitting on the edge of the baker's stall.

The man who was arguing with the baker happened to glance to the side and saw him. The corner of his mouth that was pointed to the boy lifted just a little and he started furiously arguing with the baker. The boy smiled, it seemed his luck was pretty good today, even the man had enough of the baker's prices it would seem. He sidled right up to the stall and very slowly reached up. His hand grasped the edge of the loaf, it squeezed inward softly as he held it. Then he brought it down and slowly started creeping away.

"Hey, isn't that loaf of bread yours?" He could hear the man asking the baker after he managed a dozen steps.

"What?!" The baker whirled around with a surprising amount of dexterity for a man of such girth as he. "Guards! Guards! A Thief! That boy has taken my bread!"

A pair of guards lounging around the marketplace heard the baker and the boy was frozen in fear as they they turned and saw him, evidence in hand. The boy sheepishly waved at them and offered a small smirk before dashing away into the crowd. The guards ran after him, swords in hand.

"Stop, thief! Return the loaf and you will not be harmed!" They shouted. The boy knew better to stop in this city, he grew up here after all. He knew what happened to thieves they caught, regardless of age. After all, this was Markus, a small city in the Merchant Kingdom of Dinus.

Here, money held all of the power. Wanted to assassinate someone? No one would pay any mind if you greased enough palms. You could even buy the throne. That one hasn't happened in a century though. No, he would not stop for the guards here.

He skidded to a halt as a new set of guards appeared on the path ahead. Citizens scrambled out of the way as they marched down the road, swords drawn. It appears the baker had enough money to mobilize the guards. He could not have foreseen this much over a loaf of bread that was merely a couple silvers!

He looked around frantically before seeing an alley off to his left. It looked clear enough. He scrambled into it, almost tripping over some rubbish laid out in front of it. He placed his hand on the slimy, lichen-covered wall and sprung off of it to keep his balance. Then he booked it down the alley, running as fast as his legs can take him.

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He almost made it to the end when he heard the clanking footsteps of the guards in their full armor marching toward the alley. He looked behind him and saw the guards from the main road beginning to enter the alley from where he came. He looked around and saw a small drainage pipe bolted into the side of the building.

"Huh, guess I have no choice." He said to himself. His voice was that of a boy changing into a teen. Still a small squeak to it, but it was beginning to deepen. "I hope that pipe can hold my weight..."

He jumped onto it, grasping with both hands, it creaked ominously for a second, and then he let out a sigh of relief as nothing untoward happened. He climbed up the pipe as fast as he could, it was almost like a mad scramble. With each movement up he could hear the pipe groaning, it really wasn't meant to carry the weight of an adolescent. He reached the top and climbed onto the roof, just in time as the pipe collapsed into the alley, hitting several guardsmen below.

"He's on the roof!"

"Mobilize the other guard!"

"He's getting away!"

"Call the mercenaries!"

Various shouts and cries from the guardsmen reached the young boy's ears. Mercenaries? Not good. If the guard had to pay mercenaries to catch him, he was good as dead. He'd seen a company of mercenaries blow into town once. They literally flew in on a tornado one of their mages conjured up from another city.

They were hired for a capture or kill order on the leader of the local thieves guild. They killed him of course. It was always easier to capture a corpse than to keep a person alive. That night he entire thieves guild was wiped out, sans himself of course. He never belonged to the thieves guild, he just wanted to fill his hungry belly. He had grown up on the streets without the memory of a parent, his oldest memory was getting kicked out of the orphanage when he was "old enough" to fend for himself at the tender age of five.

He hurried across the rooftops. The guards wouldn't be able to mobilize anyone quick enough to chase him across the rooftops, of course if they used tracking magic then he would be screwed. He eyed a rooftop one street over from the hovel he called home. Rule number one of stealing, never stop in front of your own home, that's a good way to get yourself caught.

He stopped at the edge of the roof, he knew it well. There were a series of bricks sticking out of the walls of the two buildings that created the name of this alley. Stutterstep Alley it was called by pretty much everyone who lived in what was quickly turning into the slums. He quickly leapt from brick to brick, landing on each one by the narrowest of margins. As soon as he hit the street level he scrambled through an open window and quickly ran through what used to be a small warehouse. It didn't take him long to shuffle through old broken crates and shattered bottles long since drained of their contents.

He busted through the front door and slammed straight into a man wearing a leather cuirass with metal studs bolted all over it. He looked up at the hulking man who has a curiously shaped scar across his right cheek.

"I think that's far enough, boy." The man had a deep voice with a bit of a brogue accent to it. But that was all he got as the man cocked a fist back and slammed it into his face. Soon after the world went dark, but he heard one last remark.

"You think this scrawny kid will do?"