by James Hunter
I rolled my eyes and headed over to the wall, grabbing a stool near the stairs and away from all the action. I got a couple of funny looks from the guards as I nursed my drink, but mostly they left me alone. These goons were supposed to monitor the floor: to watch for cheats, either clients or dealers, not for random drunks far away from the money. That suited me just fine. I drank, waiting nervously for Amara to call. Another few uneventful minutes passed by like molasses, but then I heard a faint chirp, chirp, chirp in my ear.
“Grim Jack,” Amara whispered through the officer comm link.
I glanced down and murmured “yes,” trying to play it cool.
“Forge and I are up top,” she said, sounding far more excited than I felt. “The escape route is roped out all the way back to the Rooster. Move whenever.” She paused, suddenly serious. “Good luck, Grim Jack. And tell that fool Cutter to be safe.” I could’ve sworn I heard a hint of genuine concern in her voice, but then the line clicked and she was gone. I pressed my eyes shut tight and did a quick ten-count to calm myself before opening them. Cutter loitered by one of the craps tables, watching a lithe female Accipiter with chestnut hair shoot dice.
I nodded at him, and though he wasn’t looking at me, he dipped his head a fraction of an inch in return.
A second later, he lurched as though someone had bumped into him, and his drink went flying onto the dice table, mead splashing a handful of players and drenching a pile of dusty coins. An honest accident from all appearances. An accident that drew every eye in the joint, including all the guards on the upper balconies. I used the brief window of opportunity, triggering Shadow Stride, praying no one would see the poof of inky smoke which accompanied the spell. The world skittered to a halt, abruptly frozen.
Quick as I could, I hustled up the stairs and onto the balcony, slipping past the pair of guards and heading over to the far wall. I pressed up against the wood, cloaked by a pool of shadow, and dropped into a crouch, activating Stealth. The nearest hired goon was eight feet away and the door to the back room was almost directly below me on the main floor.
Life jerked back into motion as I stepped into the material realm, accompanied by a wave of sound: a laughing voice and some good-natured swearing all directed at Cutter. There were no cries of thief, though. No winged guards bum-rushing me, feet pounding, cudgels flashing. And just like that, another piece of the plan clicked into place like a jigsaw puzzle nearing completion. I waited a few more minutes, giving the players below a chance to resume their games and the guards an opportunity to get comfortable again. To get complacent.
Time for phase two. The big distraction.
Once I was sure no one was looking at me, I reached through the void and summoned my newest minion, Nikko, from the Shadowverse with a burst of pure Spirit. My winged ape materialized above the card tables in a blast of shadowy power, her wings pumping as she hovered in the air, a blue crystalline orb clutched in one simian mitt. More of the orbs glimmered on her chest, held in place by the leather bandolier Vlad had shown off earlier. Thanks to her Weapon of Opportunity ability, she could use simple tools or weapons—weapons like the alchemic hand grenades—and it had only taken a minute to equip her before coming over.
There was a shriek from below as one of the bargoers finally saw the winged ape, followed by a chorus of confused shouts from the guards. Obviously, they should’ve been paying attention to me, since I was now visible, but everyone was focused—understandably—on the flying shadow chimp equipped with magic hand grenades. I had to hand it to her, she was a real attention grabber.
Nikko didn’t waste a second. She lobbed the blue freeze grenade at one of the dice tables, unleashing a snowy blast which offered an excellent movement reducing debuff without causing too much actual harm. The guards scrambled to respond; several rushed down the stairs or pushed through the stunned onlookers. Another threw himself from the second-floor balcony, his powerful wings beating at the air—scattering chips and sending playing cards flying—as he lunged, arms outstretched.
Nikko was too quick for him, though.
She swooped low, slashing one guard across the face with her razor-sharp claws before flipping through the air and kicking another in the chest. She let out a shriek of victory, then stuck out her tongue at one of the downed thugs, mocking him. Nikko, apparently, was a terrible winner. One of the patrons, a weather-beaten Accipiter woman, dived for the ape, a short sword slicing through the air with a whistle. But Nikko vanished in a blink, stepping into the Shadowverse just before the sword landed. She instantly appeared behind the guard flapping overhead—clobbering him in the temple with a wicked hook.
The guard, caught by surprise, dropped like a rock, smashing into a table; clay chips exploded out like shrapnel, peppering any nearby onlookers.
Then it happened—the thing I’d been hoping for. Banking on, really. The door leading to the back room burst open as a handful of reinforcements poured out, including a stumpy Accipiter who could’ve been Hakim’s twin brother: fat and balding with a perpetual scowl etched onto his face. That had to be Yusuf. Had to be.
“What in the bloody hells is going on out here!” Yusuf bellowed, staring around wide-eyed at the destruction before finally homing in on Nikko, who was now perched on the balcony railing, opposite to me. “Who did this? What is that, that thing?!” He pointed a quivering finger at the chimp, his jaw clenched, his face flushed beet red. Yep, a dead ringer for Hakim. “Well don’t just stand there,” he shouted when no one answered, “get it! Fifty gold marks to the person who brings it down.” Instead of bringing order, though, his hasty words unleashed absolute chaos.
Guards barreled for the stairs, knocking aside patrons who were too slow to make way. But other customers—dollar signs flashing in their eyes—rushed for the chimp too, eager to collect the reward.
Nikko regarded the madness below with a mischievous grin, right before hurling a smoke grenade with a Confuse Enemy debuff. The orb shattered, and a low-clinging fog rolled out, making it even harder to see. In seconds, the debuff set in, and the casino-goers—both patrons and guards—started attacking each other instead of Nikko: A pair of dirt-caked bargoers threw wild haymakers at each other. One guard socked another square in the nose. A woman sporting a stained work tunic tackled an overeager thug to the ground, laying into his face with her fists.
Absolutely perfect.
I glanced down and grinned as Cutter, Vlad, and Abby slipped into the back room, completely unnoticed amidst all the craziness. Then, before anyone spotted me, I conjured Umbra Bog. Black tendrils, obscured by the gray smog hugging the ground, erupted from the floor, snagging wrists and ankles. Rooting Yusuf and his guards in place and buying us a solid forty seconds to get through the door, rig the vault, and get gone.
The classic bait and switch.
NINETEEN: Vault Job
I triggered Shadow Stride, vaulted over the railing, dropping to the main floor, and leisurely made my way into the back room. I stepped into the material realm a few seconds later and slammed the door closed behind me with a satisfied grunt. I literally couldn’t believe how well it was going. “Vlad, get moving,” I said, glancing at my Umbra Bog countdown timer, ticking away in the corner of my vision. “I want that vault door down in twenty seconds.” The Russian was already moving, though, pulling free a leather bag near to bursting with glass vials and flasks full of strange alchemic substances.
Meanwhile, Cutter edged over to the door and dropped into a crouch, going to work on the lock with his steel picks, securing the door from our side. Chances were, Yusuf would have the key—though it was possible he’d left it in here—but it didn’t matter because any extra time we could buy was gravy. Cutter stood a handful of seconds later, stowed his picks, and stepped aside. Abby raised her hands, a quiet incantation on her lips, and used a low-level levitation spell to drag over a heavy couch, which she shoved up against the door, wedging it beneath the knob.
One more obstacle for Yusuf and his boys to overco
me.
“Ready,” Vlad called, darting back over to our position. I glanced at the vault door, now riddled with packets of odd-colored dust, all placed at strategic locations around the hulking glass frame. No way would those charges take out the crystalline door itself, but the wall was merely rough-hewn sandstone—resilient, but not indestructible.
I strode over to Yusuf’s massive wooden desk—identical to the one Hakim had in his office—and flipped it on its side with a grunt and a heave, making sure the thick tabletop faced the vault. “Alright, Amara,” I hollered, bringing her up on chat as I dropped to a knee behind the desk, pressing my shoulder into the wood. “Tell Forge to get working. He’s got about thirty seconds to get through that roof.”
“Consider it done,” she said, calm and professional. The link clicked off.
Immediately, a dull thunk sounded overhead, repeating again and again—thunk-thunk-thunk-—like a jackhammer biting into asphalt, which was close to the truth. Aside from Crafting, Forge had also invested a few points into some Mine-Craft skills, so he had a handful of abilities that allowed him to burrow right through the mud-lined brick ceiling. Hopefully. And if not … Well, we’d be in trouble.
Everything’ll be fine, I reassured myself. Then, I shoved my uncertainty away as Vlad, Cutter, and Abby scooted over to the desk and piled in next to me.
“Okay,” Abby said, a twinge of nervousness in the word. “So, everything’s ready?”
“As ready as it’s going to be,” I replied with a nod, trying to sound confident and self-assured.
She glanced down, running her palms over the folds in her velvety dress. “I know we’ve already talked about this a hundred times, but …” She paused and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “But this isn’t going to kill us all, right?”
I shot a look at Vlad, one inquisitive eyebrow raised. Abby shifted, stealing a sidelong glance at him as well. He cleared his throat several times, looking anywhere but at Abby.
“Theoretically,” he said, seesawing his head left then right, “we should be okay. But? Impossible to know until we try.”
Abby looked far more worried than reassured, but she cautiously poked her head above the table, sticking one arm out, palm forward. “God, I hope this works,” she muttered as braids of golden flame snaked around her outstretched limb, twisting, dancing, and merging into a single fiery orb in the center of her palm. “Get that shield ready, Jack.”
She unleased the conjured fireball, which smashed against the vault door like a dump truck made of flame and force, setting Vlad’s sand pouches ablaze. The reaction was instantaneous: the vault door went up like a bunker buster plunging into the heart of an erupting volcano. The room rattled beneath me—chairs toppled, dust rained down from above, and the torches lining the walls guttered and died under the gale-force rush of wind. A series of deafening booms ripped through the air, each louder than the last, as a tremendous mushroom cloud of flame filled the office with golden light and scorching heat.
I popped up and called on the power of Dark Shield—a shield of flickering purple light—an instant before the debris cloud hit us like a tsunami. Jagged chunks of sandstone pelted my defensive barrier while tongues of red flame lapped over everything. My shield wavered under the intense pressure, never meant to withstand this kind of raw force. After a few seconds, the skin-searing heat bled through, clawing at my exposed skin, singeing my eyebrows, and leaving my face red and raw as my HP plunged.
Still, I held on, teeth clenched, brow furrowed, knowing if I dropped the shield we were all dead. Finally—after my HP had dipped by two-thirds—the massive fireball dissipated, leaving scorched stone, charred furniture, and thick plumes of cloying smoke in its wake. I let the shield die, my Spirit nearly spent anyway, and stared through the thick layer of smoke to the vault door. Unbelievably, the damned thing was still standing. My heart seemed to falter inside my chest as sheer panic invaded. No, no, no. This needed to work—there was no other plan, no other option. But as the smoke cleared further, I let out a ragged sigh of relief.
The door was still standing, true, but it was wobbling on its last legs. The thing was drunkenly tilted forward, attached to the right wall only by a small wedge of cracked stone. A stiff breeze would bring it down.
Abby stood, a softball-sized chunk of blackened debris in hand, and she casually lobbed it at the remaining section of wall. The rock hit with a dull thud, and that was the straw to break the camel’s back. The vault door lurched forward with a screech and crashed like a felled redwood, hitting the floor with a thunderous clang that bounced and echoed off the walls, kicking up a huge cloud of sooty dust.
“Perhaps a bit too much powder,” Vlad said, peeking over the table’s edge, unconsciously poking at the bridge of his nose as though he were pushing up a pair of glasses. An old tick from IRL beat into muscle memory, I guessed. “Still, it is most impressive.”
“Yeah, impressive is one word you could go with,” Abby whispered, staring at the damage with a look of muted horror mingled with begrudging admiration. She’d been so busy running the guild that this was her first chance to actually see Vlad’s weapons in action. Effective, but a long, long way from pretty. I could almost see her envisioning the wholesale slaughter and devastation marching toward us like armored shock troops.
A sharp crack from the wooden door behind us stopped the conversation cold. I wheeled around and checked the cooldown timer. Sure enough, Umbra Bog had worn off. I could still sense Nikko capering around in the front room, hurling alchemic grenades and sowing havoc, but obviously, Yusuf had finally seen through our sleight of hand. The miniature atomic blast we’d set off was probably a huge tip-off, since Yusuf would have to be blind, deaf, and damn near dead to miss that.
“Move it, Cutter,” I yelled, eyes trained on the door. Even with the vault open, the amulet was still locked away in a smaller, secondary safe; it was Cutter’s job as a master thief to get that bad boy open before the guards broke in and murdered us all.
“Don’t get your knickers in a twist,” he replied, leaping over the capsized desk and making for the vault.
“Amara,” I said, activating the Officer Chat. “What in the world is taking so long?”
“Patience,” she offered flatly. “It is hard work, but he is almost through now.” There was a giant crack from overhead, as though to emphasize her words. Another blow followed, crack, and another still. “I would watch out if I were you,” Amara said, sounding a tad self-satisfied as a huge square of ceiling, three feet by three feet, plummeted to the ground, exploding in a spray of dust, mud, and stone. The comm link went dead as Forge’s grinning face popped through the opening, framed by the night sky overhead.
“Y’all okay down there?” he called, taking a quick sweep of the room before disappearing back through the hole and tossing down a thick length of rope with a circular foothold at the end.
“Yeah, fine,” Abby called back up, cupping a hand around her mouth. “Just a little hectic. We’ve got to move, though. Yusuf’s guards are almost through the door.”
Vlad was the first to go, running over to the rope and slipping the loop at the bottom around his foot. With that done, he gave three curt tugs, ready to go, and immediately the line went taut, hauling Vlad toward the opening in the ceiling like an overgrown trout on the end of a fishing line. I could hear Forge and Amara grunting on the other end, doing all the heavy lifting. It was only a matter of seconds before the Russian disappeared through the hole and the rope was lowered back down once more.
Abby went up next, following the same rehearsed procedure and disappearing even quicker than Vlad had. Still, though, Cutter wasn’t done yet, and the door didn’t have much fight left in it. The wood was splintered, and a huge crack, large enough to see through, ran straight down the middle from top to bottom. Another couple of chops and the thing would be ready to use as firewood. “Hurry up, Cutter!” I yelled again, planting my feet. Preparing to fight. To buy Cutter however long he neede
d.
“I’m doing the best I can, Jack,” he called in return. “Lock picking’s an art, you know, and this safe in here is like a master painting. Another thirty seconds ought to do it.”
“Do it faster,” I replied as one of the Accipiter guards jabbed a fist-sized fishhook, connected to a length of rope, in through the split, then sunk the razor-tipped head into the wood.
“Heave,” someone called out from the other side. The hook bit deep as the rope twanged and the door groaned—the wood almost screaming, while the metal hinges issued a rusty squeal. Then, boom-pop, the door flew off, sailing free and leaving us painfully exposed to the guards on the other side.
Cutter rushed from the vault a heartbeat later, a lopsided grin on his face, an old golden necklace with a fat emerald in the center hanging from his fist. The smile faltered and faded as he finally saw the state of the room and the guards shouldering their way in.
“Bollocks,” he muttered, stowing the necklace in his inventory before drawing the twin daggers at his belt and dropping into a low crouch, ready for a brawl. “This is a right mess,” he said. “I don’t see a way both of us are getting out before they”—he nodded toward the guards—“get in. One of us is gonna have to stay behind, I’d wager. And since I’m the pretty, funny one, I figure it oughta be you that stays, Jack. Privileges of leadership and all.”
I pulled my warhammer free, lips pulled back in a grimace as my mind raced. Cutter was right: no way we’d both make it out in time. One of us would have to stay behind and find another exit. And though I hated to admit it, Cutter was also right about me staying behind. He was a heck of a good thief, but I had a better chance of making it out alive, and if not? Well, I’d lose the Path of the Jade Lord quest, but better that than to see Cutter permanently kick the bucket, hacked to pieces by a bunch of machete-wielding guards.
