Hope

"Dat the shop?" Waylan asked, looking from a distance at the Road street restaurant. It was well past dusk, the alchemical lamps illuminating parts of the rich districts. Another difference between this place and the rest of the city. Obviously, their group stood away from sight.

"The Gobblers Respite," Kalista read, staring through her monocular. "Gotta be the place.”

The crisis with a rampaging caster was still ongoing but Aaron and Old Crow have reluctantly decided that it was relatively unlikely they would be targeted. The Tears were known to be children and it remained true that the Duchess of Black would not allow people to slaughter children. And it wasn’t like staying home would make it much better, only Irwyn could maybe protect himself and that was a significant maybe with unpredictable consequences. The caster that was running around was perhaps worse at hiding than Rage had been but that did not necessarily imply being worse in a fight between casters. Moreover, half the reason Rage had lost was that he greatly underestimated Irwyn and was caught off guard repeatedly; it was stupid to rely on incompetence for survival.

“Aaaand, the owner is out,” Kalista declared with a stage whisper, listening with one ear to their conversation but never relenting in observing. “Locked the front door and left, lock looks basic enough from here.”

“Me turn then,” Waylan nodded, flashing his lockpicks. He was wearing all black, including a full head cloth mask. As were all of them for a night job like this. Then Waylan stepped out of sight and disappeared. At least to Irwyn’s sight and probably Rainer’s too. Only Kalista could confidently spot Waylan sneaking in the night; assuming that she knew about him beforehand.

“So you know why Narci wants us to rob this place in particular?” Rainer asked.

“Is that not rather obvious?” Irwyn stared at him a bit dumbly.

“I mean…” Rainer looked at Kalista for support.

“It absolutely is, dear,” she was still looking through the monocular but noticed, or perhaps anticipated, the pleading look.

“Ok, I might not have been paying the most attention in the briefing,” Rainer admitted.

“And why is that?” Irwyn sighed. Rainer just put a hand behind his head and did not answer, however, based on Kalista smug snort Irwyn decided that he would rather not know.

“Fine, she wanted us to retrieve a personal memento and rob the place while we are looking for it,” Irwyn explained.

“From there of all places?” Rainer questioned. “Did she use to cook there or something? She had to have learned somewhere.”

“Waylan’s in,” Kalista announced but then remained silent to let them continue their conversation.

“Well, technically,” Irwyn shrugged. “That place used to be called The Gobbler, ran by a chef. About a year ago a magelord was passing through and ate a meal there, apparently, it had not gone down well and they ended up puking in public. Not long after ‘accidents’ started happening. Thugs came in to thrash the place while guards ignored them, professional obnoxious guests, thieves. You can imagine. Soon enough the place was driven out of business and the owner supposedly committed suicide. Then the new owner, a former business rival, swooped in and bought it out for dirt cheap. That’s as much as Aaron could find and I am not going to ask Narcinia where exactly she fits into that. Are you?”

“Fair point,” Rainer grimaced. “She must have a grudge if she wants us to also rob the place, right?”

“Yep,” Kalista nodded. “Also, we have a code 3 from two streets over, no badge,” code 3 meant thugs of some kind that did not look friendly. “I don’t think they know about us but better be quiet,” and so they were. Irwyn did not even see them but implicitly trusted Kalista on her specialty. They waited for a few minutes in silence before Kalista announced that Waylan is waving for them to come in; and that the thugs were gone.

“No one in,” Waylan whispered as soon as he let them enter, quickly closing the door behind them. It was dark but any light source would be easy to spot through the windows. Irwyn, unfortunately, had not yet managed to make light stay inside just a room, therefore they had to rely on the street illumination as well as moonlight because lighting up a restaurant well past closing was a shortcut to meeting a guard patrol.

“A safe on the second floor,” Waylan whisper-announced. “Second room on the left, not even hidden."

“On it,” Rainer nodded and went upstairs. That was his job.

“Found the spatula?” Kalista asked.

“Nah, not yet. I spotted a few but pro’bly not the one.”

“You two look, I will do my part,” Irwyn nodded and got to work. Kalista and Waylan would find the memento but there was a reason why Irwyn went to almost all robberies on Road street:

Fancy places had magical items.

The place was very well kept so orienting even in the darkness was no problem; few tripping hazards. In the main room of the restaurant, he immediately found a few similar enchantments which he was pretty sure were odor removers imbued into small marbles which he promptly pocketed. There were a few elevated tables to the side that even had small silencing enchantments; in the bag they went. Next was the kitchen in the back. The first thing he found was a preservation field; those were not that hard to get but very expensive to keep running, still, he took it. Next was a single marble embedded into a wooden tool of sorts, this one Irwyn didn’t immediately recognize.

It was something to do with the element of Realm/Matter. It made things looser, less attached, though only ever so slightly and seemed to work selectively? It boggled him for a good minute before the realization struck: It was a grease remover. Probably. Either way, in the bag it went. With nothing else in the kitchen, he left Waylan and Kalista to do their thing and headed upstairs. By the time he had arrived Rainer had opened the safe despite the abysmal lighting and was counting through the loot.

“How is it looking?” Irwyn asked in another whisper. There were not any magical items on the top floor as far as Irwyn could tell.

“Not great, being not their only place and all, but it will probably sting,” Rainer said, not looking away. Irwyn went for another look around the second floor but it was basically just barren guestrooms. No magic items. He took whatever looked small and pricey from the decorations and that was about it. With that he went back downstairs to keep watch by the door. The night seemed calm.

“Irw, come over.” Kalista stage whispered from the other side of the room and waved him back into the kitchen. There she led him into the pantry where Waylan was already waiting with a stack of spatulas. Closing the door behind himself Irwyn immediately understood and summoned a ball of light. There were no windows in there.

“I think this is it,” Waylan announced after a few moments of searching. One particular spatula had the letter ‘N’ engraved into it in seemingly gold. They looked for other possible candidates but upon finding none Irwyn extinguished the light and returned to the main area while Waylan and Kalista went to pack the Silverware. Rainer was already waiting by the door on the lookout, his loot long packed.

“Should we ransack the place as well?” Rainer suggested. If Narcinia was after some sort of perceived revenge they might as well.

“Do we want to make it obvious it was targeted? For all we know the owner is conn…” Irwyn was saying but couldn’t finish his sentence as a loud boom sounded from outside. In the distance, Irwyn could see and feel a pillar of flame rising from the center of the city. Kalista and Waylan immediately rushed out of the kitchen, still closing their sacks.

They shot each other a glance and did not need to say out loud that they were running before the guards had the time to swarm them. Following Waylan and Kalista they just barely made it out unnoticed.

A week later and Irwyn was mopping the floor. The career caravan guards, albeit currently employed in Ebon Respite, that were supposed to be looking after them had been enjoying cards for the past hour and it would be the time to make their move soon. He could, after all, feel the magic from all the way where he stood.

Waylan was with him as well as 3 other younger men from the Tears, they had each just recently survived their Trials to become full 'adult' members but were still acting mostly as the cover for Irwyn and Waylan, being between 12 and 13 years of age.

The tensions in the city were at an all-time high; the gangs of the slums were essentially revolting. The rampaging caster kept killing, except they became much more selective and perhaps smarter. People that were not that well known started getting done in; the paranoia certainly did not help stability. In the meantime the Stars were in a full civil war over succession, Irwyn and Waylan had to avoid them daily, while other large groups descended into chaos. Splinter groups formed, alliances shattered, a lot of people died. That was before Irwyn accounted that a significant portion of the slum population thought that the only way to stop a genocidal caster was to provoke the city guard into a war. For now, the conflict remained at greatly increased security plus the nightly raids.

What Aaron, Irwyn and everyone with any awareness were afraid of was how far the officials could be pushed before they cut their losses and called for a more extreme pacification solution. The kind that significantly reduced the labour force.

Anyway, the guards were really engrossed in their game and Irwyn nodded to Waylan it was time. His friend was the first to vanish and Irwyn shortly followed, the rest of the boys remaining to clean as cover.

And where were they? At one of the main storehouses of a major merchant group. The one which happened to have their one and only Magical vault. Margarate, the former Tear turned secretary, had managed to get them hired for the cleaning as dirt-cheap labour so that Irwyn could inspect the enchantments.

And all that because Aaron had been able to confirm it: There indeed was going to be a magical item of incredible value stored here in just a week. Exactly what, no one had a good idea really. Just that it was something maybe consumable and highly magical. Old Crow got in touch with some old friends from all over the Duchy in order to make sure where the item was coming from and more importantly, who they would sell it to once stolen. And they would need to sell it quickly. It would be out of Ebon Respite within 2 hours of being stolen and bidding could begin as soon as they knew what it actually was. Because unlike ingredients, high-grade magical items or even artifacts were always in extreme demand and the Guild was more than happy to guarantee the transaction for a cut of the sale.

“This place be a bloody maze,” Waylan muttered as they quickly made way through the sprawling corridors. Even after having studied the map it was a bit of a struggle to not get lost; that might have also been intentional. The map showed a lot of dead ends and subtle loops tightly wound around the warehouses or vaults, however, those had signs pointing the way straight to them as well as the exit. The good stuff could only be found if you knew the way; or stole the building plans. However, Irwyn wouldn’t scare away the bigger prize by breaking into some other storage area, not at this point. Despite the struggle with navigation the map was accurate and Irwyn could feel the vault getting closer. Within 5 minutes of leaving, they were there, a massive vault door literally glittering with magic.

What was better, it was empty and open.

Irwyn did not need to tell Waylan to keep guard as he entered. The first thing that achieved his attention was the hunk of enchanted metal used as a door. Whatever spellwork was imbued in there it was beyond what he could decipher, although there was no intention imbued into it. On Calm’s Blackbox scale it was a 2. It was a toss-up whether Irwyn would be able to burn through it. Thankfully he wouldn’t have to.

The walls were far worse defended. All Irwyn could feel from them was a simple enchantment that hardened them, simple enough Irwyn with his lack of expertise easily recognized it.

“I have got it,” Irwyn nodded to Waylan and they immediately made their way back. A guard crossing the corridors nearly spotted them but in the end they got back to their group unfound; being gone for at most 15 minutes the guards supposed to look over them did not even notice. That being said, the hard part of the scouting operation was over and without a fault. Now came the tedious. They had to sell the act that they were an actual cleaning crew after all.

“And den the fucker slipped into dat fucking latrine. I couldn’t believe me eyes but all of sudden barely got away,” Waylan was recounting some of the exploits from his earlier years to the others. All exaggerated and extra profane.

“Language, Waylan,” Irwyn sighed half-heartedly. The rest of their group were younger and sufficiently awed for Waylan to keep going while Irwyn kept a constant vigil. The slums had grown significantly less safe even for them. There was no telling when some idiot tried to rob them despite their armband. And it was difficult to retaliate because someone had advised all those idiots to remove their own identification before they tried. Aaron had even suggested getting involved in this civil war to get a side they wanted into power, a motion the Old Crow vetoed.

They were getting close when Irwyn felt it. And he almost tripped.

“Waylan, code 9. Inside the building.”

“Code 9?” one of the younger men asked.

“A caster, fuck.” Waylan cursed. “Y’all stay here and hide. Wait ‘til someone gets ya!”

“We are going in, fast,” Irwyn nodded. They rushed through the hedge maze and knocked on the door. “Horses will be milk,” Irwyn said the password of the day, tense. The caster was further inside in one of the side rooms, clearly using magic to hide themselves. The young boy on door duty seemed calm and when questioned about ‘anything strange’ he had not noticed anything. That at least calmed Irwyn down a bit.

They ventured further in, practiced in dodging conversations with the curious kids all around the main hall; instead, Irwyn led the way straight towards the caster. Into Aaron’s office.

After a moment of consideration, he decided that it would be best to pretend nothing was wrong. He signaled Waylan as much and then knocked on the door as he normally would.

“Come in,” Aaron’s voice sounded, Irwyn suppressed a sigh of relief. Whatever the situation was everyone was still alive. He just had to keep it that way.

Inside the room, Aaron had entered full mastermind mode. A bulletin board with maps, drawings and notes covered the wall behind his desk. Old Crow was sitting next to him, doubtlessly double-checking and discussing their ideas. The price was big enough for him to get fully involved. Maxim, Kalista, Rainer and a few other ‘adults’ were also in the room, probably throwing the occasional suggestion or answering questions about their area of expertise.

And among them, like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, the caster swayed. Unnoticed, going from note to note, exposed document to exposed document. Listening to all their plans, coming to understand perfectly all that they knew or planned about the heist.

They were so fucked.