Synopsis

Vahn is a boy well liked in the guild his father belongs to. Ever since it was discovered that his Wisdom stat was higher than his age, he has been hailed as a child prodigy. So, his father trained him as a lookout, and they became the most effective father-son lookout team in the guild.

They helped several other teams whenever they had to hit a place where they were worried about the security catching them, but their luck ran out when they agreed to a job hitting a location in the wealthier district of the city. One of the guards found Vahn a little too suspicious with how much effort he put into running away, and he got caught. This act just so happened to push his wisdom stat over 8, thus fulfilling the conditions for the system to release the lock on the memories of his past life.

-

Vahn was nervous, sitting on top of his father’s shoulders. This was his first time in the wealthy district of the town. Just earlier, they had gotten past the wall through a secret passage controlled by the guild. Now, they were all walking together with Mr. Oslow’s team.

Vahn was not all that familiar with the power structure of the guild. All he really knew was that his father wasn’t very high up in it until he convinced them to let Vahn use the guild’s system access crystal and he’d acquired the “convenient child lookout” class. Now, they acted as a 2 person team and helped a lot of other teams. This, however, is the biggest job they’d ever been on.

Vahn always hated when they had to go out on jobs, but his father had told him again and again that this is what they just had to do. There wasn’t enough money for poor people like them if they didn’t do stuff like this from time to time.

No one said a word since they’d gotten past the wall, and they’d stuck mostly to back alleys. The silence was making Vahn even more nervous. He knew his father didn’t like this job when they’d picked it up, and it was all because of where it was. Security was tighter in the wealthy district, and that meant they had a much higher chance of getting caught.

“Alright, here we are.” Mr. Oslow said. “Gill, take your boy around front. We’ll do the rest.”

Vahn’s father nodded without a word and then scurried off down a side alley. Vahn breathed a sigh of relief to be away from the oppressive atmosphere of the group of high level scary guys who were all around them.

“It’s going to be Ok Vahn.” His father assured him. “Just… stand outside while I’m in the shop. You’ve done this before. You can come in after we’re done, and then we’ll all get out of here. We can even buy some sweet melons after we’re done, don’t you think your sisters would like that? It’s going to be fine.”

Vahn swallowed against a lump in his throat. His father was saying all this stuff to assure him, but he didn’t sound like he believed a word he was saying.

“Umm… yeah.” Vahn said weakly just as they were coming out onto the flagstones of the fine looking streets of the wealthier district of the city. It was dark here, but not because it was night. It was still the middle of the day, but this region of the city was close enough to the sky island to be in the shadow of it at this time of day. This was very close to the elevator that lead up to it after all. It made him wonder if maybe there would be any elves or people with dragon bloodlines in the area, they were supposed to live up there on the sky island.

He scanned the crowd and realized he wasn’t really sure what an elf actually looked like, or if it was even that different from a normal person. What he did notice though was that a few people were giving them strange looks. He quickly realized all of the people here dressed a lot differently than they did down in the slums. They didn’t belong in this part of town, and it seemed like the people here could tell. It wasn’t everybody yet, but Vahn was finally starting to figure out why it was that his father didn’t like this job. The slight nervousness he felt before because of the way his father was acting was now turning into a real deep-set unease.

Vahn was so distracted by those looks that he was a little surprised when his father took him down off his shoulders. He had completely missed how close they were getting to the front of the shop Oslow’s team was hitting. His father knelt down in front of him and started to speak. “Alright Vahn. Here we are, just wait outside like you always do. You remember the rest, right?” Vahn just nodded. This wasn’t like his father at all. Normally, he doesn’t talk to him like this when they are actually doing the job.

“Y… yeah, but…” Vahn looked out to the crowd again nervously. His father was the one who’d told him how they shouldn’t talk about the job while they were doing it, it would key too many people off. What was wrong with him today? The number of people looking at them had increased, all of them wrinkling up their noses and looking at them like one might look at a dead animal in the street. For now, they were all just turning and walking along. None of them had stopped to stare yet. That’s good at least, it doesn’t look like anyone noticed.

“Ok, you just be a good boy. Daddy will be done in just a little bit.” His father said and ruffled Vahn’s hair. Next thing Vahn knew, his father had disappeared into the shop and there was nothing more to be done except to do his job properly and watch the crowd.

The glares had leveled off considerably as soon as his father had disappeared. This was normal, it was why it was him who served as the lookout outside. People looked at children differently. But, while he was not receiving harsh glares, people were stopping to whisper to each other while looking at the shop and pointing now.

This was not good. That’s the first sign that someone’s onto them. It had happened way too quickly, they hadn’t even really started yet! Things were definitely already going wrong. Ok, so, now he needs to identify who’s going to go for the guards. But, there’s way too many groups of people whispering to each other. There’s no way he could keep track of them all.

Vahn’s wisdom stat was abnormally high for his age. Almost nobody has any stat that’s higher than how many years old they are, but his wisdom was an entire two points higher already. Wisdom was the key stat that helped with perception, and that was why he was the best kid to be a lookout. But, keeping track of multiple things going on at once was something that required the Deftness stat. His Deftness was also high, but nowhere near as high as his wisdom. He just didn’t have enough to do this at all!

Vahn glanced in through the shop window. He managed to catch sight of his dad standing against a wall, glancing quickly between Vahn and a man inside the shop who seemed to be upset with him. Would this mean his dad might miss the signal when he gave it? Hopefully they guy stops distracting his dad when Mr. Oslow’s team starts.

Just then, he heard some scared sounding yelling from deeper in the shop. It sounded like things had started. Vahn cringed. This was definitely bad, now is when some of the people outside might start figuring things out. He just decided to stop bothering with watching this number of people and instead turned his eyes toward the street that was in the direction of the closest guard station. If he could catch… oh no! There it is! A man from the crowd just started running in that direction!

Vahn turned back and made eye contact with his father while taking a few hesitating steps directly away from him. The very moment he was sure he’d caught his father’s eye, Vahn turned and took off running down the street. This was the signal. From this point forward, there was nothing else Vahn could do. He just had to escape on his own and make his way home.

He immediately made for the alleys. He was sure it would be safer there for him, the people on the main street would probably just grab him on the spot because they could tell he was too poor to be in this area.

He had to find his way back to the secret passage to get outside the inner wall. The problem is, he couldn’t really remember the route they had taken to get here in the first place. Vahn just ran somewhat aimlessly through the back alleys for a while before concluding it was absolutely hopeless.

Ok, this should be ok. All he needed to do is just find his way back to the wall, he could probably find the passage again since they’d used it to get through in the first place. He kept wandering the streets, even coming back out onto the main streets from time to time, all the while making his way toward the wall. In his desperation to get there quickly and just get back to a part of the city he knew, he started using the main streets more and more and even found himself heading in the direction of a gate now. Suddenly, he heard a sound that made a chill go through his shoulders and all the way down his spine.

The sound of boots hitting flagstone at a running pace resonated through the rows of houses. It wasn’t just one set of boots either, it sounded like there were at least three people rushing down the street at a jogging pace. Vahn had learned to recognize these particular boots and this regimented running pattern. It was the sound that would inform him that he was late at missing the first signs of danger approaching, and that now he only had seconds to give the signal and get away.

He tried to beat a hasty escape back into the alley ways, but as soon as he was off the streets the sound of the boots stopped.

“Hey! Why’d you stop all of a sudden?” One of the formerly running guards asked.

“Hmm… I just saw something that looked a bit out of place. You two go on ahead.” Another voice said. That’s… DEFINITELY not good! That guard just saw him! Vahn was sure of it!

He scrambled to run away faster, but he was already hearing those tromping boots making their way down the very alley he had just fled through himself. There’s no doubt about it anymore, this guy’s after him! Vahn tried to will as much speed out of his legs as possible, but “will” was one of his lowest stats. It was even a little bit low for his age. There was no way he had any hope of outrunning this guy if he was chasing him seriously. His only chance was to find a good place to hide.

Vahn turned a corner and then jumped behind a rain barrel. He tried to get his breathing under control. It was heavy, he would definitely be given away by it in a heartbeat once that guy rounded the corner. He had to… oh no! It’s too late!

The guy’s heavy footsteps tromped to a halt as he rounded the same corner and looked around. Vahn clamped both hands over his mouth and desperately tried to hold his breath.

“Hmm…” The guy seemed to think for a bit, and then yelled out. “Hey kid!” Vahn jumped and knocked against the rain barrel, causing the water to slosh inside it. Shoot! The guy was probably didn’t know he was that close, he was yelling pretty loudly after all, but now he had just given himself away!

He wasn’t about to wait for the guy to come investigate. Vahn scrambled back to his feet and took off running again. “Oh no you don’t.” The guy said, and in a second Vahn felt the cold metal of a steel gauntlet against his neck as the guy’s fingers closed around the back of his shirt. He felt the material strain against his neck, and the sound of it ripping a bit. In this moment, Vahn considered just letting his shirt rip in order to escape the man’s grasp. However, his arm was grabbed half a second later by the guy’s other hand.

“Hey! Let me go!” Vahn complained and struggled.

“No can do little guy, what were you running away for?” He asked. It was in this moment that Vahn realized he had made himself look more suspicious by running.

Congratulations! Conditions met. Wisdom stat reaches 8 and class holder has learned the value of secrecy. Memory seal partially unlocked, memory seal reduced from 90% to 70%. Vague event memories as well as all knowledge based memories will be made available.

“Huh?” Vahn froze in confusion at the system access text window that had just appeared in his vision. He hadn’t even touched a system access crystal! Why was this appearing in front of him!? Also, for that matter, how does he know how to read it!?

While he was struggling with those questions, he started to get a very strange feeling in his head. He started remembering things that couldn’t possibly be things that actually happened to him. Most of these sudden new memories involved him being an adult.