The Hero's Stronghold
“It never would have gotten this bad if you just had just thought with your heart instead of your dick.” My best friend was standing above me, ranting furiously as his spell held me paralyzed in place and his girlfriend, the one he’d caught me with, was crying for him to calm down by the doorway.
“We can-” I started to talk but suddenly choked up as his magic dug inside of me feeling like I was being stripped of my flesh.
“Don’t bother talking. It’ll only make this all hurt more. You’ve taken everything from me Hero… I loved you. You were my brother… you were everything… now you’ll be nobody.”
His magic dug deeper into me and the harder I tried to thrash and scream the worse it attacked. Eventually the darkness took me.
---
The Thieves Guild Sewers
“Bad dreams Boss?” I looked over at Frank as he offered me his hand. We were alone of course. Our ‘guild’ was still in it’s infancy. Just the two of us. Far away from my days as a hero, funny enough though I might be closer than ever to being who I wanted to be.
“Just bad memories. Comfortably in the past.” I explained to him just the basics. This is how we talked. Knowing exactly what we needed of each other and nothing more.
He couldn’t remember anything else about me anyways, and I didn’t feel right taking advantage of that one sided exchange.
“Mmhmm. Got an update.” I forced myself to not be surprised at the idea of an ‘update.’ I had asked him to look into ways for us to expand our influence but it was mostly just an offhand comment.
“Tell me.”
“Slave Girl. Broke slavers curse. Killed master. Hiding in slums. Rescue her and she’ll be loyal.” His explanation was gruff and to the point but I got the idea of what he was going for. Somehow, this girl has managed to break a slavers curse which should be impossible and on top of that she’s successfully killed her master and evaded her pursuers. She’d be an extremely useful asset for us.
Plus we got a lead they don’t have, the voices of the dead.
I wanted to properly thank him. To tell him how grateful I am. But that won’t work, it’s not the role I have to play.
“Good. Get the Artifact and lets go.”
He nodded and left the room, as he did I murmured the keyword for my status and looked over it fearfully.
Hero System Activated (Earth, 21rst Century, American Variant)
Name: *&@$)*# !$)&*@ Self Titled Name: John Doe
Level: 99 Class: Stealth Archer Job: Noble Thief
Stats: Hero System Stealth Build Override Applied
Infamy: BLOCKED Fame: BLOCKED
Titles: Robinhood, Harem Protagonist (Former), John Doe, Fallen Hero, Cursed Hero, Betrayer….
Active Abilities:
A Shot In The Dark: Your arrows will never be seen flying through the air. (Must fire from darkness) 10/10 shots remaining, regen over two hours.
A Good Deal: Businesses will be more likely to negotiate when you're offering protection. 0/10 remaining, regenerate over twenty four hours.
A Bad Deal: When assaulting someone, if they owe you money their cries will go unheard. 8/10 remaining, regenerate over twenty four hours.
….
Passive Abilities:
One Man’s Trash: As long as you occupy space for disposal your chance of finding valuables rises greatly.
The Cover of Darkness: When crouching in shadows you cannot be seen.
It’s a Kind of Lock-picking: When you make contact with a locked object, dissolve it.
Appraisal: Identify and understand how to use magical artifacts on sight. (Ability must be Applicable to your job.)
Friend of the Turtles: Unless you allow it you’ll never be found in the sewers.
Hero’s Allure: People you're attracted to will always be attracted back. (ABILITY LOCKED DO TO CURSE)
…..
“Damn. I think it’s gotten even more tilted since I last looked.” I pushed away the screen with a wave of my hand and leaned back quickly swearing as I saw a glowing chess piece right where I was trying to rest my head.
“I don’t need more damned mind-control artifacts!” I yelled at the gods before picking up the piece and throwing it into a box in the corner of the room titled. ‘CURSED TOOLS’
I glared at the box full of hundreds of different artifacts all with the same general mind-control like ability of ‘When on a job, you compel the target person to join you and give up all their wealth.’ I didn’t know if it was the gods who gave me these abilities, but I didn’t want that villain-like ability. If I had to play the role of noble thief so be it but I wouldn’t go down the mind-control route.
I haven’t fallen that far.
“Boss.” I closed my eyes to regain my composure talking to Frank behind me.
“You got everything together? Good, let's get moving and go rescue us a slave girl.”
I turned around to face him only to freeze in place as a young woman in her late teens with a steel band covered in runes and chains dangling from her hands and legs looked at me without a care in the world. “Your former friend, the wizard guy says and I quote. ‘Sup, Bitch. How’s life with a mic-’ Never-mind I’m not saying that. You get the idea.”
I flipped through a range of wild emotions from wondering what she was talking about when she said ‘former friend’ to wondering how she even found us down here, and then finally to trying to see why Frank looked so terrified of her. Finally I just settled on “Who the hell are you?”
She raised an eyebrow at me questioningly. “I’m that ‘slave girl’ your trying to rescue. I’m not the type to wait for princes and heroes so you’ll just have to deal.”
“I get that I meant who are you to have figured out where we are? And for that matter you seem to have a very good idea of who I am. How is that?” I couldn’t help the shaking of my voice at the end of my sentence. It’d been over three years since he cursed me, not once in that entire time had I met someone who could remember me. Yet somehow this girl I’d never seen before seems to have a better idea than anyone.
“Ahh, your curse. Right. It doesn’t work on necromancers. Well those of us with any real skill anyways. It only affects the physical body, not the spiritual one. I’m just supporting myself by overlaying a ghost's eyes over my own. Think of it as sunglasses for the soul. The Wizard says ‘in the words of your people, I got gud bitch.’ whatever that means.”
I wanted to protest what she was saying but the results spoke for themselves and they also brought me to my final question, perhaps the one I wanted to ask the most. “The Wizard… It’s Tommy isn’t it?”
She nodded solemnly, maybe he told her what happened between us. Maybe it’s some kind of necromancer magic to just have a deep understanding of the dead. It didn’t really matter at the end of the day, I just wanted an excuse to finally say my piece. “You won, Tommy. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined you had the power to change the nature of the system. That doesn’t even really matter… your curse showed something in my status. I guess it was obvious thinking about it from your perspective. Heroes mind control their party members. I thought it was just me at first but I’ve read deep into it, for past summoned heroes and ones still being brought forth up to this day. Within a year all of them have some kind of ridiculous harem form around them. As long as a person theoretically could have an interest in the hero they inevitably will have an interest. I swear to all the gods and devils in existence I didn’t know it, the ability only showed up in my status as a locked one AFTER you cursed me but thanks to you I know it’s blocked now… Emily… when she realized what had happened after your curse… she left the party, all of them did. I think on some level maybe she knew, she could tell something wasn’t right. I don’t know what I can ever do to make this right Tommy but I promise you someday I will. I just hope you can rest before then. No matter what happens, you’ll always be my best friend.”
I thought that was the end of it but suddenly Frank stepped forward and glared at the girl, and Tommy by proxy, before saying, “You cursed Boss… You saved Boss… I still can’t like you… but thanks.”
The Slave Girl tsked in annoyance presumably at something Tommy said.
“I’m running out of mana, and I don’t love being a messenger anyways. If you want to talk to your friend again then help me.”
I nodded at her and walked up before reaching out to touch the collar but to my surprise she stopped me. “What do you think you're doing?” She asked me with exasperation clear in her voice.
“I’m getting rid of your collar? That’s what you want right.”
She pushed me back quickly. “When did I ever say that? I came here to make contact for the others not to have you destroy the collar. He’ll punish me much worse if you do that.”
I stopped my movements and carefully chose my words, doing my best to set aside all that's happened and focus on my role as the leader of our minuscule thief’s guild. “Ok Ms. Slave, lets step back for a second and have a proper meeting.” Nodding to Frank he walked with us, making sure she didn't wander off, as we went to a small, dry, chamber to the side of the chamber we had been standing in.
As we stepped into the room it was as though we’d walked through a portal into another world. The walls were covered in fur pelts to contain heat and the ground itself had a thick shaggy carpet to cover the cold stone. There was a small fire going in the corner covered by a metal mesh that was magically enchanted to contain the flames. Finally in the center of the room was an oak table with a fine tea set sitting atop it.
“Did you pour all your wealth into just one room?” The Girl asked in polite amazement.
I couldn’t very well tell her that the room actually looked significantly worse and she was just seeing a ‘Permanent Illusion’ set up around the room by a relic installed into the wall. I had just played around with the settings a bit before installing it so it fit the aesthetic a bit more. It does it’s job well enough though, making the room look more inviting and hiding the doorway to the real space. “Yea. It’s just the two of us after all. Nothing to gain from overindulging when we have all this space to ourselves.”
She just scoffed and shrugged at my explanation before walking straight past the illusion and through the wall into the main center of our base.
The center of the base was a wooden plaza built on stilts forming a floating man-made base within an underground lake. The city's sewage and water seemed to flow in and out of the lake through some kind of magical filtration system attached to pipes running all across the bottom of the lake.
“You made a water town…” The Slave Girl whispered quietly as she looked out on our ram-shacked together island that I knew looked much more impressive from afar than up close.
“Don’t be in awe just yet, you still need to actually see it,” I laughed and guided her along to the raft that led to our island.
“You can’t be serious.” She muttered in fearful distrust as she looked at the wood and rope plank that acted as our raft.
There was another, much easier, way to get to the island but no way in hell am I showing that to someone I just met. It's much easier to just have everyone think they need to go on a trek through Sewage Lake and risk taking a tumble just to get there.
“I mean we can just go back to the meeting room. There’s not much over-there to speak of really…” I offered her the chance to get out of this but she just clicked her tongue and stepped onto the shaky raft, grabbing the guiding rope and using it to start pulling herself along.
“I guess you're just gonna leave me here then.” I muttered under my voice as I walked to the first secret pathway. A long road of clear glass planes suspended in the water by tiny, nearly invisible, bands of rope and long thin rods stuck into the ground. Normally it’s something that would definitely fall apart or break if you attempted to walk on them but thankfully I have an unfair bundle of skills and tools.
Murmuring an activation phrase I saw my boots glimmer slightly, jumping to test it I felt myself noticeably lighter and my descent much slower. After that I used the thin crossbow attached to my wrist to impale a string to the island far away and started jumping.
I thought, as I jumped across the surface of the lake, that the only real shame was I couldn’t see myself, though to the Girl I probably looked something like a monster or maybe just a Spider.
After just a couple of minutes I managed to make it to the island just as the slave girl did, though one of us looked like they had just gone for a walk and the other was practically crawling on the ground in exhaustion.
“You…. Cheater….” She glared at me panting as I just offered her a disarming smile and murmured the deactivation phrase for the boots.
“I’m a resourceful thief.” I laughed at her struggling and walked into the center room. From the outside it didn’t look any different from the rest of the island, wood planks bound together half haphazardly with rope and adhesive in the shape of an octagon with more circular buildings branching out in a spiral pattern. Once you're inside though the illusions begin to break down and the truth of the building.
Magical artifacts and trinkets dangled from the ceiling emitting an array of colors and strange sensations as you moved around them. As I guided her further into the room it felt as thought we were walking into another world. Perhaps unsurprisingly it used the same trick as the fake meeting room we were in before but this time it was used in reverse. Rather than hiding waste and debilitation this illusion hid value.
The roped together planks transformed into solid stone, marble specifically. Unlike the apparent wooden shafts stabbed haphazardly into the ground, the actual beams were strong stone pillars built into the stone at the lake bottom through the use of magic.
On the walls were intricate paintings stolen from numerous noble mansions and all throughout the room were metal racks holding even more valuables. While most of them were things like the painting that might be difficult to sell off, others were just straight gems and currency. One shelf was just entirely filled with gold bars.
“Please tell me this is an illusion too.” The girl murmured to my side as I led her through the treasury to a sitting space off to the side where all of it was still in view.
Normally most wouldn’t notice it but I suppose this girl had more than proven how different she was from the rest as her eyes immediately locked in on the source of this wealth and power.
“A crown?” As she pointed out, on the wall attached to a stone head jutting out was an old dusty crown. It had gems embedded into it and was made from a silver mix giving it a sense of majesty, but among all the rest of these valuables it seemed almost… quaint.
“Yea, a beautiful monstrosity without a doubt.” I waved for her to sit in the leather chairs there as I pulled the crown down. As soon as it left the head of the statue it seemed to shine magnificently and take on an aura of its own. “The Crown of Banziah. One of the gods must be a gamer with a sense of humor…” I murmured my annoyed cursing of the gods below my breath as I explained how the crown worked to her. “It’s an indescribably valuable tool you see, if you wear it you will find gems, gold, and valuables of all kinds whenever you're looking for something of value.”
I saw the greedy shine in her eyes as she stared at the crown. “That sounds amazing! Why did you call it a monstrosity? Surely something like that is a blessing of impossible value!”
I sighed at her predictable response. “Yes. It is impossible. That’s the problem.”
She tilted her head in confusion showing she didn’t understand my point.
“Imagine how the nobility would react if some beggar thief looking bastard suddenly tried to see off a handful of gems? Or maybe a solid gold bar? Hell even the damned currency this fucking thing makes has to much value to be broken or is from countries lost to antiquity!” As I ranted I felt my frustration begin to rise again forcing myself to take a deep breath and toss it to the side half-hazardly throwing it on the table.
“But you're a thieves guild, you must have some way to launder valuables. Even if it’s just the two of you here you must have a fence or someone out in the cities. They could take the valuables to another city, that way the locals won’t connect it to you.” Her response was basic and predictable to such a degree I couldn’t even get annoyed anymore.
“It’s a matter of quantity and how the valuables were found. Your misunderstanding a key point but it’s easier to show you than tell you.” I grabbed two chests from beneath the table instructing her to look in both of them. With a confused look she did and confirmed they were empty. Handing her the crown I told her to wear them and in the process swapped the chest back and forth a few times to create the “uncertainty” element the crown required.
Once again I prompted her to open both chests. She was confused at first but still went along with it opening the chest and to her surprise found a small leather bag inside and an unmarked gold bar.
The other chest was empty.
“I couldn’t explain why it works but what I do know is how. As long as there is some element of ‘uncertainty’ when you’re wearing the crown and open a container there is a 50/50 chance of valuables appearing.” I emphasized the fact that the valuables appeared to try and stress the fatal flaw at the heart of the ‘why not sell them’ debate.
“They’re fake.”
I gave her a half-nod, “It’s not correct to say they're fake, at least not when you're talking among guild members who know how it came into existence. They are real, do any test you’d like and they will show to be real. The problem is that they didn’t exist until you opened that chest. They have no history in the flow of commerce. If you tried to sell them you’d destroy the entire country's economy. Well in all likelihood you’d be killed before that happened. A slave girl walking around with that much wealth definitely wouldn’t go without being murdered in this city.”
She stopped her hand’s movement to the jewels in the chest, before letting out a deep sigh. “Right… I guess it’s time we move on to the main topic.”
I nodded back to her as we both sat back down in the leather chairs facing each other. I poured tea from a magical pot into two cups offering her one after taking a sip of my own and adding just a dash of sugar to it.
“You said you want me to help you, but you don’t want me to destroy your collar freeing you. You came to a thieves guild so I guess the better question is what do you want me to steal for you?”
She grinned a vicious little smile as her hands ran around the circumference of her collar. “To be honest I wanted you to steal one of my friends. She’s just a child but the mas- that man has taken a liking to her.”
My face made a disgusted expression as I thought of the few singular reasons for her phrasing of ‘taken a liking.’ But I held her tongue as she seemed to have thought of a different course of action.
“These gold bar and gems are all my own correct?”
I hesitated before nodding to her question. “You did find them… and it’s not as though I’m lacking in gold and gems.”
“Then rather than buying one slave girl, why not buy us all? Or attempt to anyways.” As she proposed this she offered me the gold bar and bag of jewels.”
I started to groan that she hadn’t listened at all to my explanation before I realized it was the opposite… she’d listened to every word and discovered the loophole I never would have seen.
She seemed to have seen the understanding forming in my expression as her own smile grew wide making my heart skip a beat. “Yea.. You get it now right? When a slave is purchased as long as both buyer and seller agree the magic binding us to the buyer instantly transfers. Best of all though slave owners, certainly not mine, aren’t the kind to look to deeply into a purchase.”
I had to point out the two flaws in her logic. “I get what you're thinking, that eventually someone is going to realize the gold is suspicious and the purchase will be quickly canceled . I’m not a slave trader so it’s not like they’ll be able to get in contact with me to contest the purchase. So they’ll do the next best thing, cancel the purchase and track down the escaped slaves.”
She laughed viciously and shook her head. “No… No… that’s where you're wrong. Normally yes, they would just cancel and free us and never look twice at the person reporting the claim but that man is hated. He takes pleasure in betraying other merchants and has abused more than a few innocent people who merely spoke to him wrong. I know for a fact that the local lord has been looking for a way to arrest him. How do you think they’ll react when he goes and tries to sell the gold and gems?”
I couldn’t help but laugh at her plan but all the while I imagined the look on this man's face as everyone, including him, scrambles to try and determine what to do. “It’s so reckless and there are so many ways this can go wrong but how about this.” I thought back to my dreams as a kid in school before I was brought over to this world, about what my job as a ‘Noble Thief’ could ever mean if I didn’t step up here… “If it works I’ll help you and all your friends find a safe place to go AND I’ll make you an executive in our little guild here, you’ll always have a safe place to come to.
She and I high fived, sealing the deal as I called over Frank who’d been following a distance behind us watching from the shadows. “We’ll need to be careful about making sure all possible situations are planned for and that we are moving as carefully as possible…”
