It didn’t take long before the time was ripe for them to strike, less than a week later some the followers of the thief god left the city with a caravan together with merchants and other people who wanted to travel, disguising themselves as part of the group.

They would make their way to a hidden location where the people who had gotten the chance to learn from the thief god gathered in order to discuss the different plans and plots happening around their cities, which had been carefully selected by the thief god himself.

He was the one, in fact, that had originally created this meeting so that his followers would meet and learn from each other, though with time the objectives of this yearly gathering changed to meet the people’s agenda at the time.

At one point they almost split into two different groups because of a harsh political discourse that had divided most of the continent. It had started with a simple situation where a human wasn’t let in inside a town of elves. It hadn’t been the first time such a situation happened, but the person in question was a pretty famous guy and, as he spoke of this “grave” situation he had experienced, more and more people started to voice their opinions as well.

The situation unnecessarily increased in tension and soon thereafter not only were the people in disarray for such a simple problem, cities and countries were arguing for one side or the other as well. This, in turn, also affected the followers of the thief god, but they managed to cool down when one of their now deceased members called their attention that they were followers of the thief god, not a city or a country, so they would do whatever the thief god would’ve done.

The same day that the caravan left the city, Gabriel went directly to the location he had received through a letter. It didn’t take too long before he got there yet he could see that he wasn’t the first one to get to that place.

Some people he had coincidentally met when he was leaving some objects from missions in the building that worked like the headquarters were there. Also present were some people he had heard things about, though he couldn’t be completely sure if it was them, as he had never seen them in person. There was also a person he had never heard anything about, but because everyone else was quiet, he decided not to inquire.

For a moment Gabriel was worried that he had been the last person to get there, but with the door opening one more time as he finished looking around the room that nervousness went away. After a few more minutes of waiting and just before more people getting inside the room so that it would starting to feel a little cramped, the boss appeared in a built-in balcony inside the building. An interesting design choice, but it was probably ordered by his boss himself because he would use it at times like this, Gabriel thought.

* It is finally time to turn ourselves into the single power in control of this city for once and for all. May you be here for money, revenge, obligation or fulfillment, we are going all in. It isn’t going to be an easy task, but I’m sure we’ll be able to kick the few followers of the deceased thief god out of this city and enjoy the powers of the alive descendant of him, me!

There were mixed reactions between the now dozens of fighters and specialists inside the room. While some did indeed want to follow a person who was alive or their interests aligned more with this leader, other didn’t care at all who was in charge and other people were helping because they believed that this guy would be weaker than the followers of the thief god and, in consequence, they would be able to have more freedom or even get his position for themselves.

* We won’t leave immediately, no. – He spoke again once the murmurs that had formed in the room had quieted down enough. – Instead, we’ll spend a day or two inside here, making different teams based on your abilities and at dawn of the next day we’ll strike. – He paused for a moment to make sure that everyone was still paying attention to him and then he continued. – I know that some of you may worry that they may be back by then, but throughout all the years they have had this meeting and I’ve been alive, they have always been away from the city for over a week, so even if they decided to come back at half the time, we will still have already beaten the ones staying in the city and we’ll be in an advantageous position.

With that statement, he left the podium and soon thereafter some of his close aides started organizing the people into different groups by the numbers they had gotten on the letters. Gabriel himself had gotten a two-digit number, 63, and he was called into a group of nine other people.

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After all of the members, except Gabriel, had presented themselves, it was his turn to talk. He wasn’t sure whether to trust these people but after seeing that there would be no clear benefits of telling the truth, he decided to give his pseudonym, Petrió Mill, as his name and craft a small backstory by arranging some of his experiences and telling them in a new order and with some aspects changed.

As soon as he finished speaking, they were called by a supervisor so that they could learn their objective, which they were told was made of two distinct parts, btu everyone would have to partake in each of them. Before the task itself was told they gave everyone a last chance to leave had they changed their mind, but it didn’t cross the mind of anyone there.

Therefore, they were taken into a noise-covering room where they finally learned what they’d have to do. At the beginning of the raid, they’d need to sneak into the cube where the followers of the thief god and check how many people were inside, just in case they had been duped and they had remained inside the city.

After checking that they need to leave and inform the same person who was giving them their orders the information they had gotten. If everything went well, the main forces would rush in, and their second task would start. There, they would need to prevent anyone from escaping the cube.

This was, of course, only for the first half of the conflict, when they were attacking and the followers of the deceased god defending, but if everything went according to plan, they would be tasked to guard the city against the incoming followers, but at that time they would be tasked to join different people in new teams.

Now, they were sent out of the room and were given a map that would direct them to the beds they’d be sleeping for the next day or two. The map also included the facilities built inside, so they could train together or by themselves, if needed.

As a group, they decided not to select a leader and instead believe that everyone would make smart choices when faced with a challenge, but they still decided to practice against each other to test both their sneaking and fighting skills.

With all the members of the operation combined one could count over a hundred different people and with “recently gathered data” there should be about a hundred followers of the thief god remaining, while about eighty of them were gone.

They weren’t dumb as to leave their base unprotected, but at the same time they had to show they were strong at the congregation of different cities, otherwise they may receive “volunteers” from other cities which would slowly but surely break them apart and giving the other city a chance of taking control of their original city.

This wasn’t all fantasy, it happened two times before, one time it happened quite fast, with the city being overtaken between three different gatherings, while the other was a longer operation that lasted about a generation until the city’s control was kindly “donated” to the followers of the thief god of another city.

Destin had been free of most problems as their original leader was a kind yet stoic person who managed to keep good relationships with basically everyone. Most of his good characteristics were passed down to his son, who managed to keep the situation afloat, but some cracks between the cities started to appear and sooner rather than later, he was murdered by an unknown person before he could see his own son, who had been growing with his mother.

So, during the last few years, the members of Destin had to show off more than usual and therefore more of them had to leave the city, even though they wished not to do so, because they knew that their base was more important, but their base itself may very well be attacked if they didn’t show off.