Hadassah and I had stayed up late that night on purpose so that I could start becoming more nocturnal. On top of that, I slept rather long, so it was well into the afternoon by the time I got up. When I awoke, Hadassah was gone, but she had left some food and tea out for me. I did some stretches and routines that Chavat had shown me and then ate. I was thankful for the tea, because I was still feeling somewhat groggy even though I had exercised some. I wrote some in my journal, read over the last couple weeks of entries just to occupy time. I'm not sure why, but I didn't even want to set foot outside of the apartment until it was time to go to Lord Tahnit. Eventually I looked outside the door and saw the hues of the setting sun. I picked up my gear, put on my cloak and left.

For the first time since I was told of this upcoming mission my mind was cleared of its questions. I had pondered every thread of thought I could conjure, and they all pointed to the unknown. Nothing would be answered until I got inside, or at least tried to. With a deep breath I accepted this as I made my way over to Lord Tahnit’s. Eventually I got to the manor, hopped the fence and found the hidden entrance I had been shown the day before. I went up to Lord Tahnit's chambers and knocked on the door without hesitation. I was in an all business frame of mind, though now I'm sure that it was simply an attempt to bolster myself against what was most definitely going to be a challenge. I heard Tahnit summon me in and opened the door.

"Mishkal, good." he said, looking up at me. A warm smile came across his face as he got up from his desk. He looked through some papers on his desk, grabbed a few of them, and came over to me. "Here, these are your maps. I'm glad you came. I do apologize for yesterday. You have done more for me than I could ever have hoped for. Again, the hard part is getting in. Umm... let's go back over here so we can look at these maps together."

He then led me over to his desk and set the maps on it.

"This is the first floor here. I've been thinking for some time about how exactly to get in here... See, when Garrett broke in here, he came in through a hole in the basement. From what I understand, this hole has been fixed and I'm not about to send you down a well to find whether or not you have a way back out. However, here by the southeast wall, not far from the well house, the wall is at a low level, and the corner is in shadow. Mounting this wall in some fashion or another would probably be your best bet. Continue to work your way towards the center of the manor, where there's a garden. Across the garden, on the northeast second level is the library. Begin your research here." He then pulled out his map of the second level for reference. "In this main court area, eastern side, is where his quarters, dining table, and bath are. I have noticed when I have visited him that on the other side of the bath is a doorway that must lead to some sort of secret room. If you don't find what you're looking for in the library, try there. This is your primary objective. Make sure you accomplish this before you do anything else. Once that is done... rob the taffer blind. Lightening his purse will help me edge him out on this land deal." He rolled the maps, secured them and handed them to me. "How are you feeling? You think you can handle this?"

"I think I'll manage." I said, remembering as much of the details of the map as I could.

"Good. Wait outside the manor. When you see his carriage pull up, take off like the wind. He doesn't always stay long, but I have plenty of excellent wine here and I hope to keep him occupied."

"I'm guessing the carriage will have that 'B' of his on it?"

"Yes it will. Now go. I'm expecting others to arrive shortly. In fact any one of my guests could arrive any minute, including Bafford."

I walked out of his quarters and then the manor in exactly the way that I came. I sat outside the wall watching as people did in fact start arriving. After what felt like half an hour, I saw his carriage start to approach. Good, he was not at home. I took off, running around a couple of houses to keep away from Bafford's carriage, just to be safe. Really, he didn't live that far away, and I found the whole bit of a carriage to be rather pretentious. It was only about three fourths of a mile. I guess that's just too damn far for a rich man to walk. Oh well.

I found his distinctive sandstone walls and followed them. Lord Tahnit was not kidding when he said that Bafford had quite a bit of outside security. Just about every section of the outside had someone patrolling its length. I saw some servants and commoners pass by without any comment from them though. I guess they were just there to stop suspicious folk or someone trying to do exactly what I was planning on doing; climbing the wall.

I made my way over to the corner that Tahnit had talked about. Sure enough, the wall was maybe ten or twelve feet high and completely enshrouded in shadow. Something along the lines of a grappling hook would have been a lot of help, but I didn’t have any. It was time to get a little tricky. I waited a moment until the patrolling guard had come and gone to where I could no longer hear his footsteps. I then backed away from wall and jumped on it, kicking off and spinning around to the other side and just managing to get a good hold on the top of the wall. I stayed there silent for a moment, making sure no one had heard me so far, and to gather myself for the next part. I then edged my arms up further until I had enough of a hold to throw first one leg over, then the other. I had done it. I was in. Or so I thought.

Although there wasn’t a lot of light in the section of the rooftop where I was, it was very flat. I could also see that there was a large watchroom in the center of the garden, which was patrolled, so sneaking across the roof and somehow dropping into the garden was not going to be easy. I laid there for a moment, studying the patrols, afraid to move. Then I realized that Bafford’s visit wasn’t getting any longer and that I had to move on, one way or another.

There was a guard walking back and forth along my side of this watchroom. There was another standing inside of it, scanning the rooftops. I thought to myself how boring that must get. Slowly I crept along the roof on my stomach, keeping to the shadows until I found myself just above the southwest corner of the garden. There was a large tree blocking most of light coming my way there, and would also hide me fairly well once I got some ways down that wall. I studied the shadow and noticed that there were some gaps here and there in the mortar. Okay, I had hand and footholds and a nice, shady, soft landing spot. The trick was getting on the wall without being noticed.

I waited for a while longer, then I saw the patrolling guard stop what he was doing and walked over to talk to the other one. Just as he did that, and had the guards attention, I rolled off of the roof holding on to the edge with my hands as I found footholds. I quickly moved down the wall, getting into the shadow, then landed softly in the grass. But it wasn’t over yet. I heard another guard walking along the corridor inside. I then heard the two guards above start laughing. I guess one of them had heard a good one. Then the other guard patrolling the corridor came into the garden and started shouting and laughing at the two above. They exchanged jibes, and he turned around to go back in the corridor. The other two muttered something amongst themselves and started laughing again. I then dashed across the garden into the hall. I saw the patrolling guard ahead of me, and moved carefully but quickly behind him. I thought about knocking him out, but didn’t want to. There was going to be too much else to do without dragging bodies around, and something could go wrong. I saw a room off to my left as I followed him and went inside of it, taking out the torch in it with a water arrow. For the first real time, the fact that I was inside Bafford’s manor hit me. I felt my knees get weak with excitement and fear, but realized the room I wanted to visit was over on the northeastern corner of this floor, and I was almost in the southwestern.

I waited until the guard came back on his patrol, and as soon as he entered the garden, I started heading down the hallway where he had come from. I heard him yell and froze in my tracks, turned around, and realized he was socializing with the other guards upstairs. Breathing a sigh of relief, I hustled along the hall, carefully following it around to the other side. I heard guards walking around in the rooms to the left of me, and another one patrolling the hallway opposite of the one I had entered from. For a moment, the footsteps in the room quieted down, and I heard the patrolling guard walking down some sort of staircase. I then moved quickly down the hall to the door at the end and tested the handle. It opened. So I then moved inside the library, shutting the door quietly behind me.

Somewhere in between the feeling of sheer raw panic from the fear of being discovered, the excitement that I had made it this far, and the relief that I was away from the immediate patrol of any guards I almost forgot exactly what it was that I had come for. Eventually I collected myself and started looking around the library. The walls were filled with stacks of what looked like unused books. I smiled for a minute wondering who he thought he was fooling. I then noticed a table with a pile of paperwork on it, including a letter that looked very recent. I picked it up.

Dear Sir,

I have read your note and researched the situation. Given our current standing I feel we should have no difficulties securing the land you so desire. Personally, I don’t understand the wisdom of this, seeing as how all you know is that Lord Tahnit wants it, but it is after all, your money.

Sincerely,
Eckert

So, Bafford indeed knew nothing. What I found odd was that there was no acknowledgement of Bafford’s maximum bid. I was worried by the possibility that he may have said “Buy it no matter what”, but Lord Tahnit wanted to know for sure what the case was. I searched through the other papers on the desk. Aside from some receipts, there wasn’t anything else of interest. I looked around. It didn’t seem as if the books would have anything stashed in them. No, this other person was probably his treasurer, and his office was most likely that secret room that Lord Tahnit had talked about. I had to find my way down there.

I walked over to the door on the other side of the library and listened at it. I heard a guard walking down the hall next to me. I took a deep breath and opened the door, not knowing what I was going to see. Right in front of me was a torch. I quickly pulled out a water arrow, doused it, and looked down the hallway. Way down at the other end I could just see a guard starting his approach my way. I quickly moved off into the newly made shadow and closed the door behind me. My heart pounding, I watched the guard make his approach. He didn’t see me, but he looked curiously at the torch that had gone out. I held my breath as he stopped there for a moment, all but an arm’s reach away from me as he padded himself. He then sighed and started back on his way.

“Hey Stan?” I heard him call.

“Yeah John.”

“You got a tinder box er sumthin’?”

“Yeah, you ferget yours again?”

“Yeah. The torch by the library‘s out.”

“Well, I’ll get it then.”

Although I was relieved that the guard hadn’t discovered me, there was another one about a minute away from doing so. I thought of going back into the library, but that would be fruitless; I’d still have to come out one door or another, still have to put out a torch. The only difference being that the guards would get more suspicious if torches kept going out. Although I had tried this far to avoid even touching anybody, it was looking as if I would have to. I pulled out my blackjack as I saw the second guard start approaching from the other end of the hall, and adjusted my sword in case I needed it in a hurry. Then, I heard something strange in the library. As if someone was in it, rummaging around. But who? A servant? His bookkeeper? As the rustling stopped I could all but faintly hear the footsteps of this person, and I didn’t hear him enter the library. Which led me to the only conclusion; I wasn’t the only thief about! All this went through my mind as I looked up at the guard. I could feel the sweat beading on my skin as he came closer and closer, finally getting to where he was preparing his tinder box.

He walked up to the torch, little more than an arm’s reach away from me, and started playing with the tinder box. I will say that he was very quiet about it, which, for my fellow thief was unfortunate. I was trying to think of a time to strike when I saw and heard the door from the library creak open.

“Huh?” the guard said, turning to see who had opened the door. The thief made a panicked attempt to blackjack the guard, which failed. Then he bolted to the other side of the room with the guard following him.

“Hey John! We’ve got a thief! After him!”

At first I was completely terrified of the place being on high alert, having no idea how I was going to get back out. For the first time, the impossibility of getting out the way I came occurred to me. There’d be no way to climb that wall and know whether or not anyone could see me. Cold despair reached at me as I sat silently in that corner watching the second guard go chasing after the found thief. Then, I blinked.

“The other guard… ran after the other thief. This hall… is now vacant!” Although I didn’t know how I was going to leave the manor, I was at least going to get what I came for. With a renewed sense of resolve, I stepped out of the shadow and carefully made my way across the tiled floor, heading over to where the bath was. Sure enough, I saw the doorway that Lord Tahnit had referred to. I went across the bath, through the doorway and down the steps. After the initial steps, a long winding hallway, and a very long spiral staircase, I came to the secret room. In it was a table with a large book and an additional stack of papers. Since the note to Lord Bafford was very recent, I expected Bafford’s note here to be equally recent. I found it near the top of the pile.

Dear Bob,

It has come to my attention that Lord Tahnit is interested in buying some land outside of the city. Seems as if the fellow had something going with the owner, but the man died and now his land is up for sale. I know we’ve had quite the profit lately, so I want you to spare no expense in securing this land. Whatever it is that Tahnit wants to do with this land, it will probably make him some money, and I don’t want that to happen. Besides, it could always be used for something or another, no?

Sincerely,
Lord Bafford

My suspicions were right. I committed as much of the note to memory as I could quickly and left, treading again carefully as I approached the doorway, not knowing whether anyone had returned or not. I could barely make out the shouting of guards somewhere outside the chamber area I was in. This thief was probably leading the whole manor on one wild chase. Well, I wished him the best of luck. It was time to follow through on the second half of my mission.

I noticed on the other side of the bath a rather large circle, set below the hallway proper, with steps going down. I decided against going in there and instead opted to find his bedroom. I went back towards the library to the door I had seen there and decided to try that one. It was locked, but Renik’s lock picks came in very handy, and the door opened with a satisfying click. I was again in luck; I had found the bedroom. There were a few assorted jewels and stacks of coins, which I quickly stashed, and a large strongbox on the floor, with a note by them.

Dear Sir,

To secure some of the transactions you wished to pursue, I have translated some of your resources into hard cash. Please put a careful watch on them until the order for a more secure strongbox arrives.

Sincerely,
Eckert

“This is almost too good.” I thought to myself.

The box was of course locked, but I started to put Renik’s picks and what skills I had to the test. This proved to be much more challenging than the door. If it were simply a puzzle set away someplace safe where I didn’t have to worry about anyone coming around any minute, it wouldn’t have even mattered. As it was, I was having to change picks, repick parts I messed up, back and forth… finally, when my patience was at an end and I was about to crack the thing open with my sword, I felt the last tumbler fall. I was about to collapse on the thing with relief. I took a deep breath and opened it.

Inside were many, many gold coins. More than I could possibly carry with me. It was all I could do to not cry out with joy. Instead I grinned widely and started loading up my bag. After I felt that I had made enough of a dent in his coffers, with as much as I thought I could carry safely, I closed the lid, got up, and set myself to the task of escaping.

I left the bedroom and headed back to the library. Everything was quiet, dead quiet. I opened the door to the hallway I originally came from, bracing myself having seen what happened to that other thief. There was no one in the hallway. I noticed a room off to the right not too far down the hallway. I scurried over to it and peered around the edge to see if anyone was coming; no one did. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and headed over to the room I had seen the patrolling guard go into, which must have connected to the steps he went down. I didn’t hear him coming. I put out the torch in that room and stood still for a minute. I didn’t want to walk into this search party. Then I heard it come. It was underneath me.

First I heard some sort of gate open. Then I heard a chorus of shouts following it.

“He’s opened up the gate!”

“After him! He’s getting away!”

“Don’t worry! We’ll get ‘em!”

“Wait, Stan. Stay here and guard the gate fer when we come back.”

“Yes, sir.”

I sat down on the carpet for a moment to collect myself and let the idea that was coming to my mind take shape. At least most of the guards stationed in my area were off in search of the thief, with one of them being left to guard this back gate. So it appeared that it was just a matter of knocking out that one guard, then going wherever the search party wasn’t. Something in my head, however, couldn’t get over the idea that this was somehow all too easy. I thought I’d have to talk with Lord Tahnit about that. I then got up and went down the stairs. To my left was another small staircase. I went down that, turned left, and entered the area before the gate.

I peered around the wall to check out the guard’s position. He was facing outside. Naturally, he was guarding the gate for people coming in, not people trying to leave. With my little sit-in, and the care and caution I’d taken in getting this far, I figured the search party must have been far enough away and that this guard’s adrenaline was probably going down again. So I pulled out my blackjack, crept up behind him and whacked him over the head. He fell into a nice little armored heap at my feet. The door was mine. I figured it wasn’t worth the bother to go dragging the guard off to someplace else for him to sleep. Everyone who was going to be alerted already was.

I went out the doorway and looked over to my left. There was quite a lot of shadow, but nothing leading anywhere. Which wasn’t good, because it meant that the search party had gone the only way I could go, and would definitely be coming back that way. It was only a question of when. Well, I had come this far. I started to proceed carefully down the street.

It didn’t take long for me to catch up with the sounds of the guards keeping in contact with one another as they explored the area in search of the thief. Of course, the easiest and safest thing to do would have been to go back to the large shadow outside the gate and just wait for them to go home. Then I remembered the guard that I had left out in the open, and realized that the odds of them not starting to search all over again were slim. For all I knew, a second search party could be starting behind me. I cursed myself for my lack of thoroughness in that regard. Now, search party or no, the safest way home was straight ahead. Keeping to the shadows I moved forward, keeping my eyes and ears open.

“Where’d the taffer go?”

“He couldn’t have gotten far. I know I plugged him a couple of times.”

I heard them talking ahead of me. I think at this point I decided to just follow them until an intersection or something came up to where I could head back home. Or else, until they gave up, then I’d just hide as best I could and hope they passed by me. As I continued to follow the trailing man, though, another option arose. He passed over a sewer hole. The main difficulty with that was the fact that it was underneath a street light, in plain view. I continued creeping along my shadow laden wall until I got to the edge of the light that the street lamp was giving off. When the last trailing guard turned a corner, I opened up the cover on the hole. I saw an intersection right where he turned and for a second thought about going down it. But I decided the sewer would probably be the best place. I hopped down closing the lid behind me.

As I looked at the walls of the tunnel, I saw something curious; blood. It was in the stagnant water as well. I started following the trail. It didn’t take me long until I found the source… the other thief was now lying dead in the sewer.

The one guard was right, he had plugged him a few times. He also had a couple of cuts and scratches, probably from warding off sword blows. My best guess was that he had gotten far enough ahead of the guards to where he could drop in here unnoticed. Probably fell down the hole trying to climb down the ladder, and managed to drag himself this far before he died. Completely forgetting that there were guards above looking for him, that would make a fair substitute of me, I sat there in amazement, shock and fear. I had never seen someone dead before, well, not in such a way that I could sit there and look at them, look at the face of death. In a way the fact that he was at one point alive was very apparent. There didn’t seem enough “wrong” with him that he should just be lying there so still. At the same time, this stillness, the open eyes and mouth, no breathing, all seemed so unnatural, so terrifying. Keeping my eyes on his face, inspecting it, I felt over his person. Standard equipment, lock picks, he had some water arrows and one gas arrow that might prove useful. He must have been doing pretty good up until that point, because he also had quite a fair stash of loot with him. I tied his bag to mine and slung them over one shoulder. I looked at him lying there and couldn’t think of just leaving him there to rot. I didn’t have any tools or time to dig him a grave or anything like that, but perhaps up above someone might claim him and bury him. Maybe the guards would see him and give up their search. I hefted his body up on my other shoulder and turned left, starting head to head towards home. As I did that though, I heard the cover open where I had come from.

“You taffers, you ever think he coulda gone in the sewer?”

“No… didn’t think o’ that.”

“Look, there’s blood. It’s gotta be him. Let’s go.”

A change of plans suddenly occurred then. Since they were looking for this particular person, I wasn’t about to disappoint them. I dropped the body where I was. I then started moving ahead as fast as I could without splashing around. Not too far away, I saw another cover ahead. I headed up the ladder just as I heard them find the thief.

“Well here’s our little thief. Not too light on his feet now, now is he?”

“Oh shut up. Let’s get the gold back and go home.”

I opened the cover carefully, looking around at the street above. I still heard them beneath me.

“Wait, there’s no gold!”

“Where’d it go? Did he drop it? Stash it?”

I climbed out of the sewer hole, closing the lid quietly behind me. I don’t know whether or not they heard me, but I heard splashing directly underneath where I was. I quickly darted to the nearest shadow, which led nicely to a street that I had used on my to Bafford’s in the first place.

“Almost home.” I thought to myself.

The cover opened and the guards started popping out of it. I started creeping along my dark space trying to get to the other street. The weight of everything I was carrying was becoming unbearable. I had grabbed plenty for me to carry when I was in Bafford’s. Carrying the other thief’s load was getting to be too much.

Something inside of me wanted for me to just drop it. Just forget all the loot and go home. At least I had the information for Lord Tahnit. Somehow, I didn’t listen, but instead carried on, making it into the intersection and getting as far as I could with the shadows there. I turned to look behind me to see where the guards were.

They were not too far behind, exploring the intersection very near to where I just was. They were coming closer. I thought about pulling out my bow, but they might see that and I’d need my hands free. Quickly, I reached into my own purse, grabbed a coin and lobbed it into the air, throwing it towards the other side of the intersection. They turned around at the sound of the coin hitting the cobblestone. I quickly darted down the street out of sight of the intersection.

“Hey! It was a trick! He’s going that way!” I heard behind me.

Now I was truly afraid. The same group that had tracked down and killed the other thief was now after me. I knew I could have easily out run and dodged them if I weren’t carrying about a quarter of my weight in loot on my shoulder. I saw another small alleyway coming up on my left and turned to go into it. Just as I did, I felt the impact of an arrow go into the bag of loot over my back. For some strange reason, this angered me a great deal. That somehow these fools thought they could just sit back and plug away at me as I tried to make my way home. It was getting obvious to me though that there was no way I was going to make it home with everything I had on me.

I headed into a niche in the alley, quickly threw off the bags and untied them. I dumped some of the gold coins from my bag into the other thief’s, to make it look like he had somehow gotten that far, dropped it, and continued sprinting down into the darkness with the much lighter load on my back. It wasn’t difficult to hop the alley wall. I stopped for a brief moment to hear how far they were behind me.

“He must have gone over that wall! After him!”

“Maybe not. There’s doors here and all. Coulda gone somewhere inside.”

“B’sides sir. I ain’t gonna make it over dat wall.”

“Me either.”

“Well, search around, go around to the other side.”

“If he went over the wall, he’ll be gone by then, sir. Face it, we lost him.”

“Damnit! We were so close! We had him!”

“We got the gold though sir!”

“Did we? Finally! Something’s gone right tonight!”

“Let’s go back, sir. It ain’t worth it.”

I was glad that I had stopped, because originally I was going to run like a mad fool all the way back to Tahnit’s. Now though, I could just take my time and meander back home. Yes, they had gotten the other thief’s stash, and part of mine. I still had a hefty bag of gold with me though, and I had done what Lord Tahnit had asked of me.

I went back to his place, made my way up and knocked on his chamber door. I decided to surprise him, so I dropped the bag of gold beside the doorway, out of sight.

“Mishkal! Good! Very good!” he said smirking as he opened the door. “The party was a smashing success. I doubt Lord Bafford is as happy now as when he left though, am I right?”

“Well,” I said, “I have good news and bad news for you.” I paused as he looked curiously at me.

“The bad news is that Bafford wants to spare no expense at securing this land away from you.”

“And… the good news?”

I then reached over, grabbed the bag of loot and let it fall with a loud thud and jingle on the floor.

“He doesn’t have as much cash as he thought.” I said with a smirk.

Lord Tahnit’s eyes bulged at the sight of the gold coins. A bubbling laughter rose from within him as he ran his fingers through the bag. Then he broke out into full hysterical laughter as he rolled around on the floor.

“You did it!” He managed to gasp in between his fits of laughing. Finally, he managed to settle down, tears rolling down his red cheeks. “I couldn’t have asked for anything better! Oh, have you done your job tonight.”

“It actually could have been better. I had to leave a lot behind.”

“Oh?” He said curiously, raising his eyebrows, eyes wide open at me. “Do tell.”

I then explained everything that had happened with the other thief being in there, the diversion he wound up creating, finding him in the sewer, almost getting caught, and so on.

“Hmmm. Yes, perhaps not as clean as we would like. Heh. Poor guy. He probably just heard that Bafford wasn’t going to be at home and decided to try his luck.” He then paused for a long time, still smiling whenever he glanced at the bag of gold that I had brought.

After some time he said, “Well, it’s best we both went to bed. Here…” He then went to fetch a purse, which he filled with gold coins from the sack. “Take this home with you. You’ve earned the rest, and I promise to keep it for you, but with where you’re staying I don’t think I’d trust a pile like this there. Take this for now, and enjoy your time off. You’ve earned it. I’ll let you know when I need you. Thank you so much my dear boy. But now, please, let’s call it a night.”

I then went back to Hadassah’s. She was asleep when I came home, but I woke her up to tell her about what had happened and about how Tahnit was letting me keep the gold I had gotten from Bafford. She was very happy about it and insisted that we celebrate the next day.

I was in amazement at the turns that life takes. Less than a few hours ago I was being hounded for my life by some guards, now I was slightly rich with a contented employer and in the arms of a wonderful girl. At that moment life was good.

Which brings the first half of this story of mine to a close. The story of how it is that I went from a novice thief to a Keeper… this will follow. I will say that there is a certain irony that after all that training and time spent at Lord Tahnit’s that this job at Bafford’s would be the only one I would ever do for him. I suppose he merely saved the Keepers some work in that regard. It is almost impossible, unbearable for me to think that it was a mere three weeks or so between when I broke into Bafford’s manor and when I began this writing. So much has happened since then. So much gained and lost. Ah well. Hopefully soon, I shall be able to collect myself and finish what I have begun. I suppose from your reading “entertainment” perspective, the best is yet to come.