The sign swinging in the breeze had an armor, without a wearer, holding a shield with a knife embzoned on it. It told Tibs that he’d find the armor he was aiming to buy here, as well as other items, should he let the merchant know of their common affiliation.
The dispy room advertised the woman’s success by its rgeness. Stands dispyed full armor sets in different leather, from those designed for comfort over protection, all the way to thick leather that didn’t offer quite as much protection as metal armor, while impeding motion just as much.
Those could be quite problematic when traveling, Tibs knew firsthand. The enchanted armor Sto had made him was more flexible than the heavy leather ones dispyed here, but still thick leather. He’d worn it all day and night, during his escape, and had discovered how uncomfortable sleeping in it was, but he’d learned the dangers of being woken up in the night by bandits and not wearing armor.
Once he’d become a guard, he’d had the luxuries of sleeping without it since, even on nights when he had patrols, he was afforded plenty of time to sleep.
Out growing it had left him with mixed feelings.
He’d switched to lighter leather, both because he was more comfortable, and he’d regain enough essence to add to his protection with etchings. But he hadn’t wanted to get rid of Sto’s gift. Coming up with reasons had proved challenging. ‘He wanted to bring it back to his mother’ had worked for a few years, then he’d grown enough to make that cim dubious.
“Welcome to Madam’s Leather and Shields,” the merchant greeted with an appraising smile. “Looking to protect yourself while traveling? Enhance your bearing? Maybe you have challenged someone and are looking to survive the encounter? Whatever your need, Madam will meet them.”
“For the right price,” he replied, studying the hard leather armor on the stand.
She chuckled. “For the right price, anything can be had.”
He faced her.
She was tall, her blond hair in a braid over her shoulder, but easy to move out of the way if she needed to fight. The flowing silk shirt and pants were loose for quick motion and hid whatever muscles she had. Her blue-green eyes didn’t hide her cunning.
“I’m going to be a Runner. They cssed me as a fighter, so I need an armor and a shield for defense, and a mace to fight with.”
She studied him again. “A fighter?”
He shrugged. “I was equally bad at locks and the mace. They need fighters more than anything else.”
Her smiled was filled with understanding. “It’s good to keep secrets. They can help you survive pces like dungeons. I don’t carry weapons, but I can direct you to a reliable associate if you are satisfied with my offerings. Are you looking to blend in among the other fighters, or ensure you survive?”
“Blend in, and I doubt I can afford anything metal as armor.”
“I have competitive payment—”
He raised a hand. “I’ll pay outright. I have no doubt you’re as honest as a merchant can afford to be, but I’ve had unpleasant experiences with having to pay over time.”
She sighed. “It’s an unfortunate reality of my trade that I, at times, suffer for other’s behavior. Still, I’ll do my best to show my honesty. Hopefully, by the time you need to upgrade, you’ll be willing to get what will serve you best, regardless of how much you obtained out of the dungeon. Your ensured survival will mean extended business from you.”
She walked him through the armors on dispy, as well as pieces that could be added, expining their benefits and their weaknesses. Which had the mobility, but what had to be sacrificed with the softer joints, or the yered leather. How the metal strips attached to the leather would let him take a blow, but how the added weight would slow him down. Among the descriptions and expnations were hints that she could add modifications. Ways to ensure he got more out of the dungeon, if he had the coins for them.
He ignored those. While he’d identified himself as sharing a trade, he intended to do the runs only as a fighter. He settled on one with metal pces on the forearm of his sword arm. And the upper arm of both. He couldn’t have her make the forearms looser, to accommodate his bracers without having to expin why he needed to go in the dungeon wearing those ancient things.
And, as much as he hated the idea, he needed to do the runs without them. The temptations to use the essence in them would be too strong.
He included repairs to the purchase as they haggled. In return, she limited how damaged the armor could be, and how much she’d charge for anything beyond that. With the price agreed on, she took his measurements and he left to retrieve the coins from ‘his holding institution’.
* * * * *
No one paid him much attention as he walked within the nobles’ neighborhood. His attire wasn’t that of even a low noble, but he fit among the workers they employed.
He didn’t know how expensive housing was in this city. He’d learn, eventually, from listening to people talk; there was no avoiding that. The longest it had taken him was a couple of weeks. He didn’t have to be told that these houses, which could fit four times the current occupants, on lots that could have another house built there, cost more than nearly the entire city’s popution could afford.
Just like, without trying, he’d eventually find this city’s Street.
He understood there would always be those on top, and those at the bottom. He’d read enough to know that even if he tore down an entire kingdom and rebuilt it as fairly as possible, in time, some would have, and others would not.
He hated how those who had sneered at those who didn’t. As if they chose to be on the Street. He didn’t know how he and Mama had ended up there, but he was certain it hadn’t been her choice.
He walked among those wasteful houses until the sun disappeared over the roofs, crossing it multiple times in different directions to that the guards at the entrances of the three-story house he decided on didn’t realize how often he walked by it.
When he had the time, he’d find out who lived here. If they turned out to be one of the rare decent noble, he’d find a way to make up what he’d take from them tonight; from one of the worse of the nobles. Maybe someone who already caused these people trouble. But that was for ter, and if they were decent.
Right now, he chose it because it provided easy access. The upper windows’ protection was in the form of an old enchantment. The weave was sufficiently frayed, he wasn’t sure it did anything. It had houses close enough at the back he’d be able to jump the distance easily. The people he sensed moving about the house had no metal on them he identified as armor or weapons. They might have guards inside once they went to bed, but Tibs didn’t expect problems from them.
The one complication he foresaw was the safe. It was in a room on the ground floor in the center of the house, the head of household’s office, probably. Entering through a ground window would be the most expedient way, if not for their protection. The nobles here hadn’t let the enchantment on those windows deteriorate.
While he’d worked out how to tease a weave’s strands apart until he had a gap to pass through, better enchantment had more strands, which meant he needed more time, and each strand was a chance for something to go wrong. He looked at the high windows. They had to be it, and he needed to make his way down while avoiding guards and night servants.
He returned to his room to sleep. He needed to rest for his night’s work.
* * * * *
Tibs sat on the roof, annoyed.
It was his own fault; he reminded himself. He hadn’t taken the time to fully study the house and its occupants. He hadn’t had the time, since he needed the coins by morning, but he only had himself to bme.
He sensed the rooms under him. By the people and their positions, they were bedrooms. Maybe that was why they’d let the weaves fade. If the rooms were occupied all night, it made getting in complicated.
He looked at the other houses. He could sense plenty with unoccupied upper floors, even one with a weave that was failing, but without getting closer, taking the time to study what he sensed, he couldn’t tell where the coins were, or how much there might be.
If he had time, he’d find a better house.
Now, he needed to go through this one without raising arms. He needed to do this without anyone noticing. It was why this house was perfect. There were so many coins in the safe they wouldn’t notice the few he needed for his armor.
Once he was settled in. Once he’d found the people to make up his team and created in identity with which to sow chaos among the city’s nobles, then he could afford to leave evidence to be bmed on that extravagant thief.
Right now, this needed to be an unseen crime.
He teased the enchantment’s remaining strands apart, not counting on how worn it was, and etched hooks to hold them out of the window without altering how they interacted with those around it. He’d built this skill even after the guild took most of his essence. He didn’t even need his bracers to make the hooks. His minuscule reserves were enough for them.
The rest? That needed more essence than they had.
He stretched the etching of air within the new gap in the weave to keep the sounds of the window opening from reaching the lone sleeper. Then he wrapped it around him as he passed through, so it kept his foot from making sounds as he pced it on the floor. He closed the window, then crossed to the door.
The sleeper’s breathing hitched, and he stopped, an etching of darkness at the ready. As careful as he was, people still woke on their own. It settled, and he reached the door.
Stretching the etching around the door, he cracked it open. Shadows filled the corridor, and he needed to make a choice. Not being seen, or not being heard.
He was already maintaining the etchings for the seven hooks holding the strands out of the way, and the etching of air. While none of them were complex etchings, they each needed he keep some attention on them. Adding a ninth, of a complexity matching his air etching, wouldn’t be a problem, until he had to deal with the unexpected. He’d let go of the hooks, as the least ‘useful’ ones at any moment, but it meant he’d have to remake them, tease the strands apart again, while in a bedroom with someone who could wake up at any time.
He didn’t need that kind of aggravation tonight.
He sensed three moving about on the ground floor, no one elsewhere in the house. One had a sword at their hip.
It would be the air etching for now.
He reached the stairs as a servant started up them. When they passed the floor below him, Tibs moved to a deep shadow, let go of the etching and made one of darkness, which formed as the candle light became visible.
A half asleep woman with linens draped over the arm walked by him, entered a different room than the one he’d exited, and headed for the bed to join the person already there.
He switched etching again. The other servant was in the kitchen and the guard leaned against the wall next to a door. Guarding it. Guarding the door to the room with the safe in it.
He confirmed it by peeking around the bottom of the stair. Of course. Where else would the one guard in the house be than in his way?
He let go of the etching to focus on the lock, using metal essence to move the tumblers. He turned it enough for the tumblers to stick in their unlock positions, but not enough to make a sound.
He prepared a darkness etching, this one much more complex, and readied himself. Even if all the man wore was leathers, he’d make sound when he hit the ground. He sent it at the man, and as it clung to him, the etching drained his wakefulness.
At first, he yawned. He gnced at a chair, but shook himself and straightened.
Tibs couldn’t tell when the man wouldn’t have enough left to remain awake, other than by him falling asleep. Wakefulness wasn’t an element he could sense, only a result of darkness absorbing some of the man’s strength, and shaped by the etching.
He’d refined it over years of research and practice, starting from the principle that darkness weakened people, and reading from schors who wrote about tiredness, and its retion to the elements, and theorized about what might be happening. He’d even found a diagram that looked like what sorcerer made for their spells. It had been a starting point, although a blunt one.
He hadn’t wanted something that just rendered the target unconscious. They’d wonder what had happened once they woke, and, considering the situations Tibs pnned on using it, would investigate. With the right people, and enough dedication, they could work out they had been the victim of essence work. He’d adjusted it, changed this Arcanus for that one, moved them about until the drain became gradual enough to be no different from staying awake too long.
Which night guards had a habit of doing.
The draw back was that the gradual aspect gave the target time to do something about it. There were drinks caused wakefulness, he could ‘walk it off,’ or he might call for a repcement. The st one couldn’t happen here, and the second one could py in Tibs’s favor, but it looked like the guard pnned on willing himself to remain awake.
Tibs nearly ran to catch the man, but the teetering stopped as the guard caught himself and straightened. When it happened again, Tibs nearly waited too long, and ended sprawled under the limp form, carefully siting him against the wall as if he’d slid down.
The servant was in the kitchen, cooking, by the smells, and no one else moved about the house. He unlocked the door and entered the office. He sensed the safe’s lock as he headed for it, wishing he could take the time to pick it. He enjoyed picking them. It had been a while since one had challenge him, and this one might have. Instead, he used essence, then opened the door.
He liked nobles who didn’t bother ordering their coins, like this one. So used to them, they were in pouches, instead of in neat stacks. It made it easier to spread what he took and not have it noticed.
He took the coins he needed for the armor, and a few extra because who in this house would miss them, and closed the safe’s door, locking it.
He sensed motion on the top floor and was at the stairs when he realized it was the sleeper in the room he’d entered from.
What were they doing already about? They did their business in the chamber pot, but didn’t return to the bed. Early to wake? Way too early, as far as Tibs was concerned. The night was his time, not that of nobles. As they dressed, others, in the rooms, started moving.
Abyss, would the entire household be up well before the sun? What kind of nobles were these? He’d needed more time to study them. He couldn’t hope to exit the way he’d come.
He let go of those etchings.
Did he have enough time to tease the weaves on the windows or the doors? The back on didn’t have a guard posted outside. If he could open the weave enough to pass undetected, but on top of the time it would take him, he needed to account for the servant in the kitchen and everyone else. How long until they came down and found the sleeping guard? Or that the servant walked out of the kitchen?
He tried to get a sense of what the weave on the door did, but it was too complex, had too many elements he didn’t have. It extended to the lock. Did that mean that unlocking it let him exit without the weave activating? Or was that to sense a matching etching on the key?
Conversations above. Too loud to worry about waking others. Someone headed for the stairs.
He was out of time. Even if he found a shadow deep enough to hide in with an etching, he’d be stuck there until enough people left and he could move about undetected.
He had the coins, there was that.
He peeked into the kitchen. An obese man was rolling dough on the counter; something sweet was cooking in the oven. He hurried to the other side and eyed the door. He’d have to hope they thought that what the weave did, when Tibs rushed outside, had scared the would be thief away, and not bring that up with the authorities.
If they did?
He doubted anyone in the house would be able to tell he’d taken anything. So he’d be fine.
He etched darkness around him, then took hold of the tumblers in the lock. He turned them as he ran, shouldered the unlocked door open and ran into the night as the house yelled in distress.
AnnouncementBottom Rung is avaible on KU: https://amzn.to/3ShmXzW
You can read the previous arc in Tibs story here
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