“Why is this place so goddamn damp?” Pauline asked out of frustration. Illuminated by a single lamp, I saw her tapping the ground she sat on constantly. It was kind of reassuring I wasn’t the only one who hated sitting down here all this time. Probably the only one who wasn’t fazed at all by our surroundings which was basically a large tunnel, only held up by wooden support beams.

“Okay, calm down. Why don’t we tell each other jokes while we wait for the alarm to set off?” We were already waiting for hours, incredibly tense which didn’t help much to improve the mood.

“Don’t tell me what I have to do. Oh, wait, I have a good one.” Pauline said. “Knock knock.”

Nobody seemed to want to answer, so I jumped in to improve the sour mood at least a little bit.

“Who´s there?” I said.

“Control Freak.”

“What?” How was this funny? Was I missing something?

“You are supposed to say ‘Control Freak, who?’ “ She said.

“You know, there is a point where shitty jokes are so bad they actually become good again. You haven’t reached it.” Felix claimed. We immediately fell back into our bad mood, waiting for anything to happen. The only professional in our team who would be able to bear this tense atmosphere was waiting somewhere else for his own little stunt. Not that he would have helped much in improving the mood as he was a bit … quiet.

“What do you want to do with all the money?” Jack asked.

“Buy a ton of explosives and blow some shit up.” Well, that was an honourable goal from Felix.

“We get paid?” Pauline asked.

“Well,” I said and couldn’t quite remember if she actually saw a copper coin from me since I brought the brothel from her procurer. “you will get paid. What about you, Jack?”

“Start a new life somewhere else, freed from the shackles that nobility put upon us.” He said, adamant about learning from the situation that killed his son in the past. No more reliance on someone else was actually a goal I could get behind as well, although it wasn’t feasible anymore for me, was it? “What about you?”

“Pay my taxes, the debts … you know how it is.” In all probability, I would see nothing from the huge pile we were about to steal. Lucinda would reinvest it, pay off her debt and would use the bulk of it to buy new brothels. If something was left over, she would probably use it to wreak havoc or for stealing the crown of thorns, our ultimate goal.

“For sure. Why don’t you buy your mistress a sweet dres-“ The siren interrupted our conversation. It was a quiet sound, but still audible in this tunnel. We all stood up in anticipation, desperately hoping the tunnel was stable enough to withstand the explosions which we didn’t need to wait for too long. A tremor shook the earth, dust fell from the ceiling, accompanied by a few small stones. The tunnel held though and we all breathed out in relief. Jack began his work and the stones in front of us were slowly pushed to the side, slowly revealing a brick wall behind it.

“We don’t have all day.” Felix said, eager to steal as much as he could.

“Magic isn´t as easy as described in fairy tales.” Jack said, visibly sweating from the burden. A few minutes later, he removed enough stone for Felix to plant a small explosive on the wall. He swiftly lit the fuse with our lamp and distanced himself a bit.

“Are you sure we don’t need to keep more distance?” Jack asked, worried that we would all blow up. In all honesty, standing right beside one of Felix’ lit creations was making me nervous as well. Luckily, our worries were largely unfounded as the bulk of the force was directed at the wall, leaving us without a scratch.

As soon as the dust of the explosion settled, a gaping hole presented itself in the wall, wide enough for a crouching person to fit through. This was more than enough as we didn’t need too much space and certainly didn’t want to damage the goods inside the vault.

The first one to go through this hole was Felix, as bold as ever. As he wasn’t hit by anything magical and no mechanical trap activated, I soon followed suit.

“This …” was certainly more than we expected. Sure, we had a list, but seeing this amount of wealth with my own eyes was certainly something different. From piles and piles of gold, family heirlooms, to documents that should never fall into the hands of criminals, everything was in this large vault here. I picked up a gold coin from a huge pile and just by holding it in between my fingers, I already felt richer. The others, while not as careless as Felix were equally amazed by all this stored wealth.

“Guys, we don’t have too much time. You know what to do.” Strangely enough, the voice for reason was Pauline, something I never expected. She threw a bunch of bags inside the vault and started to throw all the gold coins inside. Jack started his work as well by carelessly putting anything remotely magical into a corner while the rest of us kept pillaging and pillaging.

In my whole career as a bandit, we never gained so much wealth as we did on that day. I could even spot a few things from Miss White I naturally directly sacked along with everything else. For quite a long time, we worked undisturbed and meticulously carried bag after bag out of the vault into the tunnel. We were already around seventy per cent finished as a person clad in black hurried into the room through our tunnels. His arrival could only mean one thing. Our time was up.

I could only hope that we got enough money for everything. Reluctantly, we left the vault and went back into the tunnel. Magically, the destroyed bricks repaired themselves and flew towards the hole in the wall. Brick by brick, the wall was closed again. Fully repaired, only a mage could spot the difference between the rest of the wall as these bricks completely lost their magical enhancements due to the explosion.

In silence, we carried all the bags further away from the wall that was slowly closed with stones that seemed to regrow out of the wall, just like they vanished previously. As Jack finished half a metre of this, we already carried most of the bags to their second destination.

“I think we have a day or so.” He said after drinking a bit of water from a bottle.

“That’s more than enough. Good job.” I said and grabbed the next heavy bag, with Jack following shortly behind. The tunnel he dug was over a kilometre long and ended way outside the containment zone the guards set up. We used a winch to move all the bags up to the surface where we put everything on one of three carts. The area we were in was quite deserted as it was a backyard of several ruins that were burned in a fire a few years ago. Still, we masked ourselves properly to avoid being seen by anyone as we did our work.

We were all sweating as we heaved the last bag onto the carts and covered them with tarpaulins while Felix prepared the last explosives he made. As soon as he finished the work and climbed out of the tunnel, pulling a long fuse with him, he grabbed the lamp and set it on fire. The oily rope burned slowly but still did the job. After a few minutes of waiting, dust rushed out of the tunnel as it collapsed into itself at several places further towards the other end of it. Even if they managed to catch onto the false wall, they wouldn’t be able to follow us now or gather any evidence we left behind.

Whistling innocently, I sat on the driver's seat and ordered the horses to pull. They were struggling with all the weight but nonetheless carried out their duty perfectly well. Four carts rattled along the street, loaded with a load of valuables that would make others drool with desire if they knew. But luckily, they didn’t and so we could easily use streets that were somewhat used by others carts and pedestrians. We naturally avoided the main streets, but still used one of the quickest routes to get to another tunnel Jack dug. In the red-light district, we began unpacking all the bags again, heaving them down into the tunnel that only spanned a few hundred metres. Once finished, Pauline drove the carts away while we hauled the bags towards a large cave at the end of the tunnel.

Jack was already using his magic again, so Felix, Luke, our trusted assassin and I had to carry the bulk of it. Or rather, Felix and Luke carried everything because I was already incredibly exhausted and rather supervised Jack as he used his magic.

He soon revealed a wooden wall and made something akin to a doorframe. Exhausted, he kicked against the wood which sadly didn’t move an inch. Frustrated, he continued to kick, but simply gave up after some time.

“Felix, do you have some explosives left?” He asked after Felix put down another bag.

“No? But if there are no explosives around,“ he said and ran up to the wooden wall, only to slam directly against it with his shoulder and breach through it in one go. “you have to be explosive.”

That was certainly a motto to live by. The room behind the newly opened hole was obviously our meeting room, just beneath The Red Baron. Still energetic, Jack returned to haul the bags while Felix, I and sometimes Pauline as well took a break. We were all incredibly exhausted and as soon as Jack and Luke finished their work, they sat down at the table as well. Before we started our last meeting, I went into the tunnel and closed it off from inside with a thick metal plate. Nobody would get through this trap door too easily as long as they weren’t able to unlock it from the inside. Afterwards, I went back to my chair and let myself fall down on it.

“So … that was easier than expected.” Jack said. In all honesty, it probably was. “The only thing to tidy up now are the five idiots we captured.”

“Oh, yeah. Pauline, did you really fuck them?” I asked.

“Do I look like an idiot?” She said while frowning slightly.

“Alright, Luke, I trust you on that one. Remember, no deaths.” Luke nodded and immediately went upstairs to deal with the problem. He wasn’t a social person in the first place and thus, I was glad he didn’t seem to mind.

“Have you prepared our payment?” Felix asked. Obviously, nobody could use the stuff we stole just like this and so I used the rest of the money I got from Lucinda to prepare their final payment. “It´s in her room.” I said and nodded towards Pauline. Happily, Jack stood up and retrieved three bags, full of clean, usable gold coins.

“If I knew how much we would steal, I wouldn´t have agreed to this amount.” It was by no means a small payment he received. It was certainly ten times the amount a wealthy person spent during their whole life.

“It is good that nobody knew how much we were actually going to steal back then.” He sighed quietly while I snatched the bag he was just trying to grab. I opened it and as I couldn’t spot a noticeable difference to the amount I prepared, I handed the bag over to him.

“Sorry for that.” I said and leaned back into the chair.

“Nah, it´s alright. I know where you are coming from.” He said, saluted like a soldier and took his backpack from the corner. Just as he stepped onto the first step of the stair, he stopped and rummaged through his stuff. “I nearly forgot to give you that.”

For a second or so, I was seriously interested. For one second, I hoped he was a responsible adult and wouldn’t throw a goddamn smoke grenade into the room while laughing madly.

“For fucks sake, Felix!” Jack exclaimed while he grabbed his own bag along with his cockroach and fled out of the room along with Felix. “It was fun working with you, but please let me enjoy my retirement!” He exclaimed as he was on the stair, just as the smoke grenade exploded and sent this weird white stuff everywhere.

I could only cough violently, grab Pauline`s hand and the last bag and stumble towards the stair. I nearly fell down on it as I missed a step, but luckily Pauline held me up from behind as I was about to fall.

“Watch out where you are going, Mr. Richest Thief Alive.” Pauline pressed out after coughing violently. Luckily, the door was already at arms reach at this point, so it was relatively easy to escape this room, despite the worsening air condition.

“This guy never changes, will he?” I asked after Pauline closed the door behind us and took a deep breath.

“Probably not.” I said. It was doubtful in the first place if I was ever going to see him again. The explosions were a bit over the top probably and it wasn’t too hard to connect him to the destruction. He wasn’t dumb and would probably flee somewhere safer for now. “Shall we go up?”

Still carrying Luke’s payment, we went into my room where she directly laid down on the bed only to yawn loudly.

“I´m so tired.” She said and threw her shoes away.

“You aren’t the only one.” I answered and soon accompanied her on the bed, slowly forgetting something.