by DB King
Marcus was not far from his goal now—he could feel it. Soon, he would be on his way back, his small pack bursting with magical dust and his fortune assured.
“Don’t get cocky,” he warned himself. He was good at this, and he knew it, but there was nothing worse than an arrogant thief.
“That’s the thing about a job like this, you can mess it up at any time. There’s always something to go wrong. First you get the dust you need to get out of the house undetected. Then you need to get out of the grounds past the guards, then through the Merchants’ Town, then over the Middle Watch and back through the slums to the Underway.” Every stage in that process was as important as any other. A successful robbery needed careful planning, patience, skill, an eye for opportunity, and a bit of luck, too.
There was a staircase at the end of the corridor. Marcus lay on his belly to approach it, peering down through the railing to the ground floor hall to see if anyone was there.
“All clear,” he said to himself after lying there for a moment. The only sound was the slow, majestic tick-tock, of a tall Doran grand-clock keeping the time in its beautifully carved, polished hardwood case. Marcus squinted at the hands of the clock. He had two hours until first light.
Marcus snuck down the steps on tiptoes, ears straining for any sound of people in the house.
Diremage Xeron will have guards in the house, I’m sure of it, he thought. Then again, maybe he’s just arrogant? Maybe he thinks no one would, or even could, get this far? So far at least there was no sign of anyone in the house but him. The Diremage himself no doubt slept in a grand chamber on the first floor, the servants sleeping on the top floor.
Marcus had spied the kitchens when he was watching the guards from outside – a big, modern extension built from clean white stone. A boy would be sleeping there to keep an eye on the fires, for sure, and maybe even a couple bakers attending to an early batch of bread. Well, I’ll be going nowhere near there tonight. I’m here for one thing and one thing only.
Big, airy, comfortable sitting rooms flanked the ground-floor hallway, the grand-clock’s tick-tock permeating the entire space. Behind the stairway that he’d just come down, Marcus found an entrance to a corridor.
He was just about to peer round the edge of the corridor entrance when a sudden noise made him freeze.
Thump, thump, thump. The noise came from the sitting room on the left. Then a huff, as if someone – no, something – had taken a breath. Then most chilling of all, a low growl.
A dog.
Marcus didn’t hesitate. A good thief was prepared for any eventuality, and dogs were no exception. Usually the dogs he had to worry about were the guard dogs outside, if there were any. This was more likely to be some old house dog. Sure enough, when Marcus slipped up to the sitting room door and glanced in, he found a big, jowly mastiff, long-legged and heavy, with a huge head and small, intelligent eyes.
The dog sniffed twice, then began to growl low in its throat again, eyeing Marcus suspiciously. Perhaps not such a friendly pet after all, then. A bark right now would be disastrous.
Marcus reached into his back pocket and pulled out a bit of black sausage, then crouched, holding the meat out to the dog. The growling stopped and became a high-pitched whine as the dog caught the scent of the meat. He tipped his head to one side and began to salivate, and his tail began to wag slowly.
The big dog heaved himself to his feet and lumbered over to Marcus, tail wagging. He took the sausage from Marcus’s hand then turned and walked purposefully back to his bed in the corner of the room to devour his prize.
That was easy, Marcus thought, stifling the urge to laugh. The sausages were treated with a sleeping draught, not enough to do the animals any harm, but enough to silence a guard dog for an hour or so at least.
Now for the prize. He glanced around the well-furnished sitting room. Cut crystal goblets sat on a little table, fine wines filled a glass case in one corner, and expensive statues were arranged on a glass table by the window. Not to mention the gold plate in the room. It would have satisfied any normal thief to grab an armful of gold plate and leave, but not Marcus. Marcus was here for the prize, the magic dust. Only that was both valuable enough, and small enough, to suit his purpose. His leather knapsack could be filled with gold and jewels, but it would not be near as valuable as the same pack filled with magic dust.
He was about to head out when something caught his eye. It was a framed portrait of a man, hanging above a low glass case. Two steps took Marcus over to it. He gazed at the portrait for a moment. Soft moonlight shone through the window from the garden and danced on the gilded frame. The picture was of a heavy-set man in his prime, staring thoughtfully out at the viewer. He had long hair, slicked back over his high brow, and a cold, merciless expression on his chiseled face. One gloved hand was raised as if in preparation for casting a spell, in the other a magical staff trailed smoke.
“Hello, Xeron,” Marcus muttered. There could be no doubt that it was a portrait of the Diremage he was looking at. All the weapons of the Vampire Hunter were there. Marcus had only seen the Diremage once, and that had been from a distance, but the strong, arrogant face was unmistakable.
Marcus looked down at the glass case below the portrait. In it, laid out on a thick padding of red velvet, was the very staff that was in the picture. And beside it, three grim relics were laid—skulls, human at first glance. Marcus leaned in closer. Not human skulls—Vampire skulls. The sharp canines gleamed, diamond hard in the moonlight. The cheeks were higher, and the eyes wider apart than in a human. And on the brows, branded with a hot iron, was the seven-pointed star of the Vampire Hunters, burned there to keep any residual magic that might cling to the skulls at bay.
Back at the corridor entrance, Marcus peered round again. Doors let off the corridor on either side, but at the far end he saw his goal—a heavy wooden door with a bolt and an iron padlock. A man dosed in a chair beside it. And not just any man: he wore the mail and hauberk of the Bloody Hand.
The cellar, Marcus realized. That was where the magic dust would be, he was sure of it. An underground cellar was the perfect place for magic to happen – it was private, secure, and with only the one entrance it was easily guarded.
Marcus moved silently, drawing a long, thin tube from a fold in his well-fitted black cloak. He drew a small dark thorn, which glistened with a thick liquid, from a pouch at his belt. The widow’s tear poison – so called because the victim bled from his eyes before dying – was a cruel one, but swift. A man pricked with a poisoned dart was paralyzed. His blood would leak from his eyes as he suffocated, his muscles no longer able to work his lungs.
Not a pleasant way to go, but needs must. Marcus wanted to get to his loot, and this man stood in his way.
He slipped the thorn into the tube, taking care not to scratch his fingers with the point of the dark projectile. He raised the blowpipe up to his lips and fired with a practiced puff of air.
The guard looked up when he heard the sharp hiss of Marcus’s breath. But it was too late. The thorn wedged itself in his neck, and immediately the man stiffened, hands clutching at his throat as his muscles locked up. Marcus left his hiding place and sprinted down the corridor. The guard made a strangling noise as Marcus reached him, but Marcus had a dagger in his hand, and before the guard could make another sound the dagger came up and slammed into his chest, the razor-sharp point punching through leather, mail, and flesh to find the heart.
Marcus flipped the guard onto his back as blood began to soak the man’s jerkin and leak from his sightless eyes. Swiftly, he dragged the guard’s body up the corridor to the first room. He listened for a moment, then shouldered the door open and glanced in. A study, dark and empty. Marcus dumped the body into the gap behind a low sofa. No one would find the guard there until morning.
And Marcus would be long gone by then.
He was about to shove the sofa back into place when something caught his eye. A jeweled dagger glinted on the guard’s belt. Mar
cus knelt and cut the man’s leather belt to free the dagger and its wood and leather sheath.
It was a nice piece of work. Black ivory was carved into a comfortable handgrip and topped with a pommel of red crystal that glowed faintly. Red and green light shimmered along the blade’s folded steel. The edge looked sharp enough to shave with.
He’d promised himself that he was only here for the magic dust, but this dagger was too nice a piece to pass up. It was rare, too, that was clear. The workmanship was beautiful, and the hard ivory of the handle was worn with many years of use.
Too nice to leave with a corpse, he thought, glancing at the swiftly-cooling body of the guard. He attached the dagger to his belt, heaved the sofa back into place to hide the guard, and pressed on.
Going back to the corridor, he was pleased to see that not a drop of blood had stained the carpet. He looked for regret for killing the guard, but there was none. The guard was a mercenary, paid to fight and to accept the risk of death in his master’s service. The Bloody Hand were notoriously vicious in battle, and this man had probably done worse things than killing in his days.
I’d have felt worse about killing the dog, Marcus thought, glad that he’d not been obliged to harm the docile animal.
The door was warded again, and Marcus felt the warm rush of satisfaction as his spell increased in potency from breaking the ward.
Spell: Charm and Disarm Level IV
Level increase: 2%
Current progress to Level V: 52%
The spells increased in potency fairly slowly, particularly this one, since it was fairly advanced already. Marcus calculated that it took roughly four wards disarmed to gain a 2% increase, but that was hard to say for sure because it depended on the strength of the ward.
That last one had been a good one, and he felt relieved that his spell had been enough to disarm it. To be truthful, breaking the ward spells was probably the most unreliable part of his plan. There was no way to tell in advance how strong the Diremage’s ward spells were likely to be.
Still, Marcus had thought it through and concluded that it was worth the risk. The Diremage was buying magic dust in bulk. Why? If he was an immensely powerful mage already, why would he have need of the dust? Not to sell – his wealth was as legendary as his miserly hoarding of it. No, Marcus calculated that Diremage Xeron was buying magic dust in quantity because he wanted to level up fast.
A man who sought to use his wealth to buy shortcuts was likely not a man who had put a great deal of effort into increasing ward spell levels. Ward spells were neither flashy or prestigious, and a man with Xeron’s arrogance and riches would be unlikely to put careful effort into unimpressive spells.
So Marcus had hoped.
By contrast, Marcus had diligently put time and effort into developing his Charm and Disarm spell, and now that had paid off.
He held his hands over the padlock and muttered, “Ethereal Key.”
The spell’s power coursed through him, and the pins inside the lock clicked back as if pressed by a key. The well-greased lock popped open silently. Marcus slipped the bar back, pushed the door open, and stepped through into the darkness beyond.
The Ethereal Key spell, already at level 6 from many years of use, did not level up any further, but Marcus barely noticed. He was on the cellar steps now, making his way down carefully through the pitch darkness. When he reached the bottom of the steps, he stood completely still, listening, until he was content that he was alone.
Practice had given him an instinct for dark spaces. From the feel of the air around him, he judged that he was in a small space. Experimentally, he let his hand fall gently against his leather belt. The sound fell flat, without any suggestion of an echo. So, not only a small space, but a small space filled with things to muffle the sound.
He crouched, touching the floor and feeling stone flags. Groping outward, he contented himself that the floor was stone for at least six feet all around him.
Working quickly now, he drew out a flint and his dagger, then huddled over them to strike a spark onto a little ball of dried linen fibers. On his second try, he got a spark which quickly developed into a flame. He lit a black candle and blew out his little pile of kindling.
Marcus stood and looked around.
The orange light of the candle showed him a long, low room with a floor of big stone flags and walls piled high with stores. Shelves were stacked with dusty bottles and some chests had been rusted shut. Stacks of scrolls decayed in one corner.
But at the far end of the cellar, there was a stack of four crates next to a big black table. Unlike the rest of the cellar’s contents, the crates did not look at all dusty or worn. They looked, in fact, as if they had only just arrived.
Jackpot.
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About the Author
DB King’s stories feature competent main characters, magic and skill progression, and nothing too dark. While he doesn’t shy away from violence, he mostly avoids cursing and doesn’t have any adult scenes. When he writes a character, he’s always interested in “what would I do in this situation?” and not forcing them to be dumb and/or ignorant just for the sake of the plot. Most of his stories aren't strictly Gamelit/LitRPG, but a lot of his magic and progression systems often feel like something you might find in a video game.
