by S. R. Witt
But the situation was far from hopeless. Knowing the priestess, she didn’t like spending time with me any more than I enjoyed basking in her company. She was no dummy, which meant she’d done the math on how long it took me to open thirty boxes and knew how long it would take me to open the remaining forty-five boxes she’d set as my goal for the day. Based on all that mental calculus, I doubted she’d step foot back in this room for at least two hours.
Too bad for the priestess her math was all wrong. I’d only been half-assing my work before. If I put my mind to it, I could finish and still have plenty of time left for poking my nose places it wasn’t welcome.
I grabbed boxes that looked new, or with locks that looked crude or more ornate than functional. I’d pay for this cherry picking later when all that was left were the tough nuts to crack, but that was a problem for future me that present me didn’t give a shit about.
Listen up, kids. Think about your future. Trust me on this.
The lock picking went faster than I’d dared hope. The mechanisms yielded to my picks, one after another, and my stack of finished jobs grew higher. By the time I’d finished, the clock in the corner of my UI informed me I’d spent about an hour popping those locks. That left me a solid hour to put my thief skills to work and root out the map.
I decided to shave 15 minutes off that hour for safety’s sake. If I found what I needed, I could come back and open a few more locks just to impress the snooty priestess. That still left me 45 minutes to get the job done. It had to be enough.
The door’s lock was a joke. It gave up trying to keep me in after a few seconds of gentle attention from my tools, and the well-oiled hinges of the door didn’t so much as squeak when I opened it to flee the room.
One of the advantages of being a thief is being superb at detecting other people when they’re trying to be sneaky. I listened for anyone approaching and waited for the Game to confirm no one was waiting nearby to ambush me.
LISTENING CHECK SUCCESS!
You prick up your ears and hear the following:
One armored human male; distant.
One armored human male; distant.
You have increased your mastery of the Listen skill. (Rank 3)
The Templars who’d dragged me here were still standing at the front of the library, grumbling about their dull duties. Those dummies would be easy to avoid.
I didn’t hear the priestess, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t walking around the library. The place was big enough to hide a small army on its upper floors or squirreled away in the maze of bookshelves. I’d have to keep one ear open to make sure I didn’t get an unwelcome surprise.
In the World, finding a specific tome in a library this size would be easy as pie. I’d punch the title into the local search bar on my phone, and the library’s digital docent system would guide me right to it. I didn’t think it was going to be that easy in the Hoaldite’s library.
I crept through the library like a bookworm’s ghost. The shelves weren’t labeled, but the books all had titles branded into their leather spines.
Goblin Tribes of Southern Invernoth.
Wargrai Packs Of the Second Screaming War.
Intriguing, but none of that crap looked like it’d have the map the old man had sent me to find.
After a few minutes of fruitless searching, a yellow alert box popped up in the corner of my vision.
PASSIVE LISTEN SKILL SUCCESS!
Your keen ears pick up the sound of someone’s approach. You detect:
One unarmored male human; nearby.
One armored human male; distant.
One armored human male; distant.
You have increased your mastery of the Listen skill. (Rank 4)
Soft footsteps padded across the carpet on the other side of the bookshelf I’d been searching. My breath stuck in my throat, and I froze in place. Through the gaps in the books, I saw the source of the noise shuffling along. He was about my height, but much older and stooped from the weight of his years. His arms strained under a heavy load of thick tomes, and a spot of blue ink stained the tip of his crooked nose.
After a moment’s concentration, I made out a nametag and health bar over the old dude’s head. Librarian.
Sure, of course, there were librarians. The old guy wasn’t a threat on his own, but if he started kicking up a ruckus because he’d spotted me, a whole bunch of bad guys would drop on my head like a sack of hammers.
I held my breath and hoped the old man was too caught up in his duties to realize a thief was watching him. He stopped on the other side of the bookshelf and muttered to himself, head cocked to one side as if he’d heard something.
Time slowed as I tried to decide what to do. My stilettos were still in my backpack because I was a damned idiot, but I might be able to knock him out with my bare hands. Or I could sneak up on him and choke him out. Then I’d need to hide the body to keep some wandering Templar from tripping over it and raising the alarm.
Just move on, old man, I pleaded, silently praying for the librarian to go the hell away so I wouldn’t have to deal with him.
My lungs were on fire from holding my breath. I didn’t dare take a breath, for fear he’d hear me. Something was going to happen in the next few seconds. Either the librarian would walk away, or I’d turn blue and keel over from lack of oxygen.
“Must’ve been the wind,” the old man muttered and shuffled off to complete his rounds.
I let my breath out, nice and smooth, and leaned against a bookshelf. Being a thief was a horrible pain in the ass.
If I was a map, where would I be?
This was a library; it had to be laid out in a way that made sense, or the Hoaldites wouldn’t be able to find anything when they needed it. They weren’t hiding anything in here, they were storing it for their own use.
Sticking to the shadows, I sneaked down the aisle and peered around the corner. As I’d hoped, there was a brass placard mounted on the shelf, identifying its subject: Nightspawn Culture.
Creeping down the central aisle, I found a section on warfare and tactics.
Political science.
History.
More history.
Religion.
Arcanothic Philosophy, whatever the hell that meant.
Divine Mathematics.
Seriously. Had programmers actually designed each and every book lining the shelves? It seemed an extravagant waste of resources for a Game area most people would never even have a chance to see.
Dragons.
Now we’re getting somewhere. The Burning Throne was related to dragons, which meant I was getting warmer.
Saryle’s voice cracked the silence of the still library air like a blast of thunder. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Thanks so much, passive Listen skill check. The priestess was sneakier than I’d expected, and she’d found me. Her harsh words made me dribble a little pee in my big boy pants.
I gulped and struggled to find an excuse when my thoughts were interrupted by another voice.
“These books were damaged. I was just taking them to be re-covered and—”
It wasn’t my ass that was busted, it was the old librarian’s. I ducked low and sneaked away from the confrontation between the Hoaldites. I didn’t leave the section because this is where I needed to be, but I put as much distance as possible between us.
Their argument continued, the librarian insisting the books needed to be fixed, while the priestess berated him for removing them without filling out the proper paperwork. Apparently, this was a big deal to her, because no one would know where the books had gone, someone might think they were stolen, someone might believe that they were shelved incorrectly, and it was all going to be such a problem for her.
The librarian just wanted to fix the books and then put them back where they belonged without getting his ass chewed.
This lady was the worst boss ever.
The librarian took his tongue-lashing like a good boy, and I spen
t that time looking for my book.
As the priestess ran out of steam or interest in using the librarian as her punching bag, I got lucky. I found a book that resembled Burning Codex, except its title was embossed in funky brass lettering.
The Undercity of Frosthold and Hall of the Burning Throne.
QUEST ITEM RECEIVED!
CONGRATULATIONS! You have completed Prove Your Loyalty, Part 2. Return the quest item to the Grandfather of Shadows to receive your reward.
What do you know? I still had about 20 minutes left before the dragon lady would come check on me. I imagined she was going to be very, very pissed when she showed up, so it was best if I got back pronto and cracked open some more boxes. There was nothing I could do that would make her happy, but maybe she’d be pleased enough with my progress not to lay into me like she’d blasted that poor librarian.
PASSIVE LISTEN SKILL SUCCESS!
Your keen ears pick up the sound of someone’s approach. You detect:
One unarmored female human; very close
One unarmored male human; nearby
One armored human male; distant
One armored human male; distant
You have increased your mastery of the Listen skill. (Rank 5)
Saryle was full of surprises. In a few moments, she’d round the nearest edge of the bookshelf and see me crouched down in a most suspicious manner. There wasn’t time to sneak down to the far end of the shelves and get out of sight there, which only left one option.
With a quick prayer that the bookshelves were firmly anchored, I tucked the little book into my cloak, jumped up, and hooked my fingers over the shelf’s top edge.
My boot scrambled one the shelves below me, and I breathed a sigh of relief when my toes found purchase. One kick-off was all it took to boost me up to the top of the bookshelf, where I curled up with my back pressed to the ceiling. If the gap were any smaller, I’d never have made it.
There was a soft thump on the carpet just below me, and my heart shuddered to a stop.
I must have dislodged one of the books with my toes, and it had tumbled out of its place on the shelf and now lay face up on the carpet.
Shit.
The priestess stepped into the aisle and nearly tripped over her own feet when she saw the book on the floor. “What is this?”
Saryle snatched the fallen tome from the floor and stormed down the aisle, trembling with rage.
Her words snapped like a cracking whip, and I offered a silent apology to the librarian who was about to catch hell because of my clumsy toes.
It was time to get back to the lock picking room before I ended up on the wrong side of that woman’s wrath. The mood she was in, Saryle would haul me down to the local guard shack by the ear and turn me in before I could say boo.
There was no room to scurry along the tops of the bookshelves, so I rolled off and took advantage of all the shouting and whining to mask my hurried footsteps. My pulse pounded in my ears as I scrambled back to the makeshift prison cell, and I trusted to fate that I wouldn’t cross the priestess’ path.
For once, my luck held. No one saw me slink back into the room, and no one saw me close the door and lock it from the inside.
Well, almost no one.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Who are you?”
I found it really hard to concentrate on explaining myself when an angry woman had a nocked arrow aimed at my Adam’s apple. Instead of trying to talk my way out of the potentially deadly situation, I raised both hands over my head and forced a weak-ass smile. I hoped she’d decide I wasn’t a threat and aim her bow somewhere less likely to end in my sudden death.
The arrow aimed at me sported an enormous bladed head, and it was nocked to a long, recurved horn bow. The bow and arrow were held in nimble hands attached to wiry arms belonging to a tall woman wrapped in animal hides with bones stitched onto them. Some sort of skull was perched on her head like a crude helm, and her eyes stared through its gaping sockets. “I’ll ask one more time, then I shoot. Who are you?”
I swallowed hard, and my tongue unglued itself from the roof of my mouth. “Saint. I work for the church.”
She gave me a quick once over and drew the bowstring back a little farther. “You don’t look like a priest. Or a librarian.”
“I’m not. I’m more of a specialist.” I crooked one finger of my raised hands to point at the boxes on the table. “I open things.”
That did nothing to allay her suspicions. “Then why weren’t you opening things when I got here?”
“Needed to stretch my legs. Just went for a little walk.”
She pursed her lips as she tried to decide whether or not to go ahead and pin me to the wall. There was something about her skin, a faint iridescent sheen, that was distracting and unnerving. “Did the priestess know you were wandering around her library?”
This woman clearly knew her way around the church, so I made a snap judgment and told her the truth. “No. She’d be pissed if she knew I was roaming the stacks without her oversight, but I was going stir crazy. I didn’t touch anything. Just needed to get my circulation moving.”
The arrow left the bow in a blur, and I was sure I’d spoken my last words.
But, no. My rare moment of honesty had saved my hide, and the archer flipped the missile into a quiver on her back. She slung the bow over her shoulder then pointed to a leather sack on the floor next to her. “Your secret’s safe with me, for the moment, but I wouldn’t press your luck. Give these chests top priority.”
She perched on the edge of the table and watched me with wary eyes as I lifted the boxes out of the sack. There were four of them, each about the length and width of my forearm. The wood was lacquered black, and the locks were set into the tops of the boxes rather than their fronts. The latches weren’t even visible.
Fancy.
Unlike the other treasure chests I’d been opening, these looked new. And expensive. “Where’d you find these?”
I lined the boxes up on the table and waited for her response. When she remained silent, I crossed my arms over my chest and eyeballed her
She returned my stink eye with dramatic intensity. I realized her pupils were slit, and her nose was little more than a bump in the middle of her face. After a few more seconds of the staring contest, she asked, “And you think I’ll tell you because?”
If she wanted to play 20 questions, I was game. “How long have you worked for the church?”
I lifted one of the boxes and examined it. The thing was heavier than it looked, which made me wonder whether it was the contents or the materials of its construction that made up the weight. The locks were sinister skull faces with snakes wrapped around them and silver flames inlaid into the surrounding wood. Either their creators wanted me to think these were dangerous contraptions, or they were dangerous, and their rightful owner wanted to make sure he didn’t forget that fact.
The archer let out an exasperated sigh. “Not long. Why?”
The truth was, I wanted to know whether she was a player or an Artificial Intelligence. Dragon Web Online was only a few weeks old, despite the fake patina of age layered over everything. An NPC would work to uphold that façade of age and tell me she’d been working for the church for years. A player, on the other hand, would probably fess up to being a short timer.
“Just wondering if they removed your sense of humor right away, or if they let you keep it for a while.”
She pulled the dagger from her boot and cleaned her fingernails. “Maybe you’re just not funny enough to earn a laugh?”
I examined the first box for traps. My Thief’s Eyes told me there was something there. A faint red flicker moved when I tried to focus on it. Which made it impossible for me to say where it was, or what kind of danger it represented.
“Might want to step back, I’m not sure I can disarm this without blowing us both up.”
She didn’t move. “Then leave it. It’s too valuable to risk damaging it. Maybe there’s someone
with real skill who can open it for us.”
That stung. I was only level two, but I was the best thief I knew. Other than the Grandfather. And the other Shadows. “Still not going to tell me where it came from?”
She laughed and removed her skull helm. Her head was bald, but not smooth. Without the helm shadowing her face, I could see the source of the iridescence: scales. She was covered in a fine layer of them, so delicate and small they shimmered like glitter. “You need to learn mind your own business.”
“This is my business.”
Her thin lips parted, and a forked tongue darted out to taste the air. “Your business is doing what the church tells you to do. Same as mine. Asking questions isn’t part of that deal.”
Well, there was an interesting twist. “What does Saryle have on you?”
That earned me a cold stare and a long moment of silence. “Some of us do this by choice.”
There was a warning in her words, but I ignored it. I was dreadful at picking up social cues and even worse at avoiding trouble. “And some of us don’t. I’m willing to bet you’re part of the don’t crowd, just like me.”
A key rattled in the room’s lock. Mommy was home.
The archer scooped her helm off the table and plopped it back on her head. She swept her locked boxes back into her sack and hoisted it over her shoulder. She leaned in so close her breath tickled my ear when she spoke, “You don’t know the first thing about the Hoaldites or what they do. Keep sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong, and someone’s going to chop it off.”
