Chapter 40 – Thieves Guild

Edelgard’s thieves guild. It was hidden underground along with all the other unconventional businesses. The only way of reaching it was having a thievery related class. This was mostly considered to be either a thief class or a bandit class.

The first one was your usual pickpocket and someone primed for stealthy operations. The second one was more of a thug, closer to a warrior in stat distribution. The only difference was mostly in some passives while fighting in a less honorable way. The way you achieved it was by stealing, robbing, or even killing other human beings.

Just like the adventurers guild it had a notice board where the guild members could take on tasks. They ranged from your typical fetch quests where someone petitioned a certain item from someone’s house be taken. All the way to assassination missions and even brutal robberies with no witnesses.

Some thief guilds outright forbade missions like those, leaving it up to other more dark organizations like the assassination guilds. This depended on the guild leader and the one in Edelgard had no problem with getting his guild members’ hands bloody.

The man running the show here was called Reinald the Razor. This was mostly due to his fondness of cutting up his target’s throat with his daggers. He was a high leveled person that had taken over the job just a few years ago after the previous guild leader died during one of the job runs. He was the one that brought in some changes to the guild that refrained from the more bloody deeds.

The guild now was considered weaker than it was while the old guild master was around. Mostly due to the fact that the previous one was a high level tier 3 and an owner of a prestige class. His replacement was just a regular Master Blade-Rogue without any strong skills in particular. Still, he was the strongest person here and no one could go against his daggers.

The night was slowly winding down and some of the guild members were returning after carrying out some missions. This brought in a small commotion as the party that had tried to ransack Roland’s workshop had returned with two of their members missing. News soon started spreading about the encounter and that one of the more experienced members was killed.

“Hey did you hear, that old idiot Rawson got himself killed.”

“What? But he was a tier 2? Did he try to fuck the count’s wife or something?”

One of the talking thieves laughed while the other took things a bit more seriously.

“It’s even worse, they even caught that idiot Bryan. I bet old Reinald will skin the rest of their party alive.”

The thieves knew that getting caught was close to a death sentence. Either you got hung at the gallows by the city guards, or if you gave out any information implicating the guild you’d have to worry about them chasing you down. Anyone betraying the guild would be marked for death depending on the guild master. The one that was here liked to put out hits on people like handing out cookies.

“Maybe he will be in a good mood today? We have been getting a lot of work for the past few months.”

The guild had been busy lately, someone was spending big time and they were carrying out various tasks.

A party of adventurers would mostly win against one composed of thieves and thugs. That was only in an outright brawl. The thieves guild members never played fair, always waiting for the right time to strike. They played dirty using poison and only attacked at night, some of them even used monster attacks as cover.

There had been a couple of blunders through this period but the people outside couldn’t really distinguish between a guild member and a regular person. No one would talk about it out of fear of retaliation either. The event that happened today was quite a problem as an assassination attempt was considered a big deal.

The two thieves that returned here after escaping out of fear were now getting questioned by the guild master. They were now kneeling down in a dim-lit room, the guild master was sitting behind his desk while playing around with a sharp crimson knife.

The two men had their hoods down and their faces were clearly revealed. They both were regular humans as the party was very uniform in their race. They weren’t alone in this room with only the guild master, there were four other people here.

Two were beast men from an undisclosed feline tribe, another one was a halfling that was leaning up against a wall and skillfully playing around with some throwing knives. The fourth one was quite large and his skin was pale green. He didn’t have the look of a rogue and clearly followed more of the bandit route with his class, he belonged to the half-orc race.

“So you are trying to tell me that that idiot got killed by some brat blacksmith?”

The two nodded in panic as they didn’t hide any details from the operation. They were sure to not leave out any details. The only problem was that they didn’t really see what really happened as they were the lookouts. None of them expected their experienced leader to be killed by an underage blacksmith. They even knew that he was only a steel adventurer, how could he go against a tier 2 rogue at night?

“Did that idiot step into some magic trap?”

The guild master had a hard time believing this report. The man that died wasn’t much but he still was a tier 2 class holder. He smelled a conspiracy, did someone snitch? These two escaped the moment their leader’s dead body shot out from the window impaled on the gale arrow.

Reinald didn’t think that these two were lying, the spell that did their party leader in was apparently a green arrow. This he could clearly identify as something a higher mage could use but a magic scroll could also have been used.

He had no reason to not believe these two so they were allowed to leave. They didn’t do anything wrong and the guild master thought that someone must have given out information. When they found the one responsible they would pay dearly.

“Have someone go to the guardhouse, either buy out that idiot or silence him for good. This has to be done tonight.”

The one listening was the halfling that nodded and left right after the two other thieves. Some of the guards in the city were on their payroll so they could try paying for their guild members’ freedom. This would be something that the man would have to pay off with interest. If they failed they would need to get him removed before he could reveal the guilds hiding place.

None of the thieves would actually speak out on their own volition but there were certain skills that forced people to talk. There were special inquisitor classes that could force people to speak the truth. There were also special magic spells or even potions that could be used instead. This was a hit related to the council of merchants and business owners. They had enough money to order a specialized potion or even hire a mage.

“One more thing.”

The guild master spoke out while the halfling and one of the beastmen was ready to go and carry out the mission.

“That blacksmith brat that was involved, kill him, no loose ends.”

He needed to silence both sides, the person from his camp could live if he was set free but this unknown person needed to die. They also already accepted the mission by the customer and needed to carry out the request. Otherwise, they would just have their good name tarnished.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

The two people nodded while smirking but before they even left the room a certain thing happened. They two were already tier 2 and even close to level hundred but even they couldn’t react in time.

The magic candlelight flickered for just a moment and the guild master could slightly see the shadows expanding. He was the only one in the room that saw what was happening. A shadowy hand reached out as his two guild members were walking out.

The hand looked like it wasn’t part of this plane of existence. It looked like it was composed of black smoke as it flickered in the candlelight. The shade hand was holding a very real looking dagger. It probably felt more real when it was pushed into the cat man’s back. The halfling was a bit luckier as thanks to his small stature he was hard to hit.

He rolled to the side after seeing a pointed tip going through one of his guild buddies. He quickly tried flinging his throwing knives at the shadowy hand but before he could he felt something piercing him from behind. The two men were dead in a flash and no one could even react, the assailants soon revealed themselves while all dressed up in black leather.

“Reinald the Razor? More like the idiot. Your greed will be your downfall.”

A woman’s voice came out from under the hood. The person that had backstabbed the halfling sunk back into the shadows ready to strike. The other two guards that were in the room stepped forward. The Half-Orc was huge and had a giant mace in his hand, the other bestman a regular long-sword.

“Who are you, what do you want?”