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I had done it. I had my prize, I had the loot, and I was sittin' pretty. The trip to town was more or less uneventful, thank the gods, any more damage or excitement for me just might kill me. Heading straight for Ragbert, my fence to unload this tasty trinket I heisted and get my cash, I didn't even stop at my place to clean up. As I approached the building where Ragbert resides I saw something most disturbing. He was being dragged out by a group of Hammerites, whom were also carrying several large boxes. His unsold wares I guess. "Well, just throw me down a well! How am I going to unload this thing now?? Who else can take something like this and pay me fair value?" I shouted to myself under my breath, if that's even possible. Just then it clicked. What was his name? Nighthawk? Nightowl...Nightfall? That's him, Nightfall! Hopefully the Hammers weren't having a record-breaking night for arresting people who collect rare and hard to get items. It was late at night but for something like this I'm sure he wouldn't mind being woken up, and I'm sure as hell not going to hand it to a servant to deliver! To Nightfall's place I went!
I jogged all the way there to minimize the chances of running into trouble and to get to safety as soon as I could. He lived a good distance away from the center of The City, so it was no easy run. Finally the place looms into view, and I look at it. I let out a cuss so dirty I'm surprised that the grass beneath my feet didn't wither and die. There were more stairs, and lots of them. Seems this Nightfall guy was so cocky that he had to have his tower perched halfway up this huge-o hill, and have a nice fancy stairway up to the front door. I damned him and his architects to hell as I started up. Once up the stair, down the walk, and onto the porch, I banged loudly on the door, hoping he didn't try to kill the dusty, bloody, sweating wheezing person waiting on his doorstep.
Just my luck, a servant answered. Or at least I think it was a servant. I know it couldn't have been Nightfall. I've seen drawings of the jerk, and he's not old, skinny, and doesn't wear a monkey suit or glasses. The stiff just looked me up and down for a few moments, as I stood there, hands resting on my knees, still trying to catch my breath after that post 7 mile run stair climb that I enjoyed so much.
"May I help you with something sir?" he said coldly
"Ummm, yeah, listen. I gotta speak to Nightfall like, now," I told him when I had caught my breath enough to say the entire thing without gasping.
He replied quickly, undoubtedly having decided what to say before he even knew I was coming. "Master Nightfall is not in at the moment. I would certainly take a message for him.
"Dammit!" I shouted, and the poor sap seemed to jump a little. "Fine, already, ugh, damn, let me see. Okay, tell your MASTER Nightfall that Ghost, he may have heard of me, has a valuable artifact that he wants to sell to him. Got that?"
"I'm sorry, but I get that story on a day to day basis. Perhaps if you left him a note with a much more detailed description of what you have, and where you stole the artifact, he would be much more likely to meet with you and discuss the purchasing of the object." The stiff was rattling this shit off like he had said it a hundred times, so I knew he must be right.
I just looked at him for several moments before I made up my mind. "Fine. You got a pad and pen? I'll write him a note." He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a quill and pad of paper. "Damn, you keep a stockpile in that coat of yours, doncha. What else have you got in that thing Jeeves?"
"The name is Jossimer, sir, and I have nothing else in my coat. If you intent is to rob me I should remind you that I am well versed in over a dozen forms of martial arts and -"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, sorry Jousmerk! I wouldn't dream of mugging you, honest!" I smirked and sat down on the stone rail. He looked at me with a look that most men bleed for, but seeing as I really wanted Nightfall to buy this trinket, I decided against killing his doorman. "Do ya mind if I sit here and write it?" I asked him, trying to be polite.
"Not at all. Drop it onto the slot when you are done." Then the creep turned around and slammed the double doors behind him.
I invented a new name for him, a not very nice one, sat down, and wrote.
**
By the time I got home, it was a quarter till midnight. I stepped through the double doors to my tower and into the huge foyer hall, where I found Jossimer waiting for me.
"Pardon me Master Nightfall, but I have a note for you. It seems that-"
I cut him off by grabbing the collection of papers out of his hand. I made a beeline down the vaulted hallway to my study, where I sat and unfolded the note. Hopefully it would be from Jyre, or maybe even Lytha. It unfolded to reveal handwriting which I did not recognize.
Standing before the entrance to a place called the Bonehoard, I ponder the intelligence of going down into a place like this again. Too many times it's been a run for my life from burricks or zombies or worse in these places, but this time, supposedly, it will be worth it. How many times have I heard that? Some times this job is just way too dangerous, walking the fine line between that and sheer stupidity. So now I'm here, looking for what my fence called the Star of Alarus, and anything else not nailed down because I need to make some money on this too.
Suddenly jogged back to reality by something shuffling around behind a nearby crypt, I quickly zip into the hole that counts as a doorway to this place. "hmm" I thought, "how convenient for someone to leave this rope here, couldn't possibly be a set up now could it??" If I get killed because this is a set up, I'm going to haunt the guy who wants this thing for all eternity. I test the rope, seems solid enough even though it looks like it's older than I am. "Well lets make this quick" I mutter to myself as I slide down the rope , surprisingly I get down softly, so far so good. Only one way to go, looks well traveled, now I'm really paranoid. There's nothing worse than finding living people in a crypt, they can't be up to anything good. Does that make me a hypocrite?? yeah probably, but who cares, I'm just here to loot a little, no one should mind.
"Concentrate!", I always have to talk to keep myself focused, hardly a quality you look for in a thief who is supposed to be quiet. Crawling down the roughly cut tunnel I end up on a wooden platform, and another rope?? Weird, I'm using my own this time, doubt I'd be that lucky twice. Thunk! "Okay, here we go" Climbing down the rope I notice the body parts scattered around the floor, boy I hope there aren't any zombies here. Checking my map, old as it is, the Alarus area shouldn't be too far in.
Nothing to loot here, damn I hate it when that happens! I like my loot in large quantities and readily available, why is it never easy? "Ah ha!" Some steps not very visible in the corner, leading to a downward slope. "YES!" I mutter triumphantly as I see the stone carved with the Alarus name. Through the rubble I decide this was almost a wasted trip, almost. The rocks are everywhere like an earthquake happened here, but I notice a small hole way up by the roof in a dark corner of the room. From the looks of it, I may be too late, it sort of looks like someone got here before me, some rocks piled in a corner under the hole, but maybe that's just a convenient coincidence, damn I'm amusing! Obviously I'm too late, how could someone not get in there, the path is so simple. Climb the post to one side of the room, jump onto the large flat stone ledge dangling precariously from the roof, slide to the edge and bounce off those stacked rocks into the hole. "Too easy...something is obviously going to kill me when I go through there" I laugh.
Following my planned route, the only thing I really had a problem with was making it to the fallen roof section, I can now add several scrapes and a brand new head wound to my list of credits. "If only the people who thought I was so great could see me now haha! Dusty and bleeding, master thief I am!" Finally I make the jumps without significant injury to myself, and peer over the ledge into the black area behind the hole. "Okay Ghost, just whip those legs up over that ledge and try to land on your feet, and lets hope it's not a long drop." With the skill of many escapes by vaulting over walls, I slide up into the hole, spin my legs around so I can try to not kill myself and let myself drop into the hole....
Crash! "Ow damn! Who put those stairs there??" Nothing like falling down a flight of stairs to wake you up in the morning. More importantly was what I landed on. A dead body! Looks like he's only been here a week at the most. "EWWW! Well I guess now I know that I'm not the first to get in here, hopefully just the first to make it out alive." Quickly frisking my new buddy I find a few coins, his map to the place which looks surprisingly similar to mine, and much to my delight and dismay, no necklace! Lighting my small lamp, I scurry down the hall, ready to hide the light source at the first hint that I'm not alone here.
Well I find out that just around the corner, is a wall. No more hallway, "damn, never can be easy" I spat as I realize there must be a secret door somewhere near here. A family as notorious as Alarus wouldn't be so easy to rob. They can die out but still lock up their valuables with the dead, go figure. Angry at the greedy dead people I feel around the walls looking for the secret panel or maybe stumble on the button to open it, that would be much easier. Just like I knew it, I found the door, now I need to open it. It's amazing how well they can blend two pieces of stone to look like one. A little pushing and poking later I discover that I can't open the door without the button, which had to be here somewhere since they added bodies after the first few. Retracing my entrance up the steps, now with light it seems a much better trip, but luckily due to the quakes in the area and shifting stone, the stairs are a bit cracked and I spy a small metal piece between two steps. "Well, this could either be a trap, or a door knob...I'm betting it's a trap" which is when I close my eyes, kick the metal piece and hope for the best. To my surprise I'm still alive, not killed by a falling rock or dead in the bottom of a pit, amazing I lived this long with my methods. Peeking around the corner I discover the door is open about halfway, probably blocked by some fallen rock inside the wall. Big enough for me to get into though "wow, finally something not too difficult!"
Well, it shouldn't be a big area, at least it doesn't look big on the map, but then again, these maps are rarely accurate. The first area I find seems to be the major family tomb, lots of uncles and cousins from the plaques on the sarcophagi. No women buried here, weird. Must be a male dominance thing in that family, no wonder they died out. I grab a few trinkets sitting around, a gold cup here, a ring there. "Not much to loot, maybe their women got that after they killed off the cheap bastards." Well I took it as a good sign that no one had looted the little things already, means I'm the only one to get this far, now where oh where is grand-daddy Alarus? After an tiring search of the place, I came to the conclusion that I was in need of a break to clear my head and a small snack and some water would pick me up, not to mention I needed to stop the bleeding from a few places on my head from my earlier acrobatics. Sitting down on the floor I lean back against the resting place of Entar Alarus, which didn't occur to me to be anything unusual until the coffin slid back into the wall so smoothly and easily I couldn't stop myself from falling down another set of stairs!
"Son of a..!" I cursed as I nursed a new bruise and bump on my head, maybe that's what's wrong with me, too many hits to the head. Maybe I can get the Hammers to make me a nice metal crash helmet for these jobs. Just then I heard a moan, and thinking it was just a subconscious moan of pain from myself I didn't think anything of it until I heard something move. Injured but not totally stupid I ran back up the steps to wait and see what came into view. I pulled a mine out of my pack just in case, sounds like a zombie down there and this is about all I have to deal with them. Why couldn't it just be a guard I could stab? Without time to answer my question the answer staggered into view, sure enough it was a big ugly zombie. "Bye bye Mr Alarus zombie!" I chuckled as I arm the mine and toss it down the steps. As usual for the zombie they have great hearing and not much sense, he drags himself over to the corner where it landed and just as I duck out of view I heard the satisfying explosion and subsequent splattering of body parts on stone. I hop down the steps, careful to avoid the body parts and look for the arms. Quite disgusting really but you never know if these zombies are wearing rings!
Luckily the shuffling of feet is now only my feet. Scanning the room it seems there are only 3 coffins here, and none of them have names on the plaques! There are no dates on these things and all of the sarcophagi look similar, so I guess I have to open each one to see if it's in here. Grabbing the crowbar from my pack I try to pop the lid from the first coffin, discovering once it's opened that there isn't much inside. Only the remains of a person and no real valuables, obviously has been here for a really long time. Next I go with the obvious choice, the one in the middle, it's a little bigger than the others and seems almost dumb that I didn't open this one first. The lid is heavier than anything I ever tried to open in my life, but with a lot of luck and adrenaline flowing from excitement it finally falls off the other side only to show me the second coffin. "Ohhh man! Hope that one just flips off 'cos I can't lift it out of there!" Something was going good for me at last, the second lid opened and slid off without much trouble to reveal the mummy of a woman! maybe this is grand mother Alarus! Now this is the part I didn't like. There was nothing of value showing in the coffin. "Well this means one of two things. Either it's all a total lie, or it's under the bandages, or the good stuff is under the body." Counting was never one of my strong points, unnecessary unless I'm counting gold or guards. I decide that as much as I hate dealing with the dead, I hate wasting time and falling down stairs for nothing even more, so I pull out my dagger and slice the wrappings from stomach to near the mummy's neck. "Nothing visible from here...damn. Hmmm except that scar in the chest." I had read that some mummies had their organs removed for some reason, maybe that's what the scar was, or maybe it's a treasure chest! I jammed my dagger into the body near the scar and heard a soft clank of metal on metal, and had a disheartening thought that I just marred a great artifact with a nice stab wound. "Good thinkin' Ghost" I told myself as I pried open the chest cavity and felt sick at the idea of it. The sickness disappeared when I saw the glint of loot inside and reached in to fetch my prize. It was heavy, as I spread the item out on the floor near the lamp I knew I had found the Star. It was a spectacular gold necklace trimmed with what had to be hundreds of gems, all dancing wildly in the lamp light. "Thanks Lady Alarus! This will pay the rent for quite a while." I chuckled as I grabbed my lamp and headed back out quickly before any curses could take effect on me.
And that's it! So do you want this thing or not? I need to get it out of my hands fast before it burns me. I'm sure you know what I mean. The address where I want to meet with you to make the sale is written on the back of this paper. If you don't come alone, I won't be there.
- Ghost
Hey, Nightfall. Your doorman says that if I want to sell you this artifact that I stole, I need to supply you with lots of good information about it. I always enjoyed writing, so I made a fancy little narrative out of it. Ok, here it is!
My eyebrow was most definitely raised. Garrett, the thief who killed the Trickster ,was unable to find his way into the Alarus Chambers, and yet this Ghost was. Slowly, I pondered what use this skilled thief would be in the situation at hand.
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