The
Heroes of Fannen-Dar, Chapter 12
Robin got to her feet,
leaning against the wall for support as her legs shook from the
excitement of nearly falling out of a second-story window. There
wasn't a moment to catch her breath, however. The four scurried
along the wall to find a way down and out.
Anzo found a ladder
leaning up against the catwalk. He waved his hands, ushering the
others to go down before him. Gwynt slid down, and Hudtan jumped
after climbing halfway. Robin put one shaky foot below the other
while Anzo simply lowered himself from the edge of the catwalk. His
long arms brought him only a few feet above the floor, and he dropped
with a dull thump.
When Robin reached the
bottom, Gwynt had found the door. For some reason, however, he
wasn't leaving. Robin weaved through the stacks of crates and sacks
to see what the matter was. Hudtan was on her knees examining the
handle, and Anzo scratched his chin.
“Someone locked the
door from the outside,” he informed Robin. “Hudtan is working
out how to pick the lock from our position.”
“Couldn't you just
break down the door?” Gwynt suggested.
Anzo knocked on the
wood, which responded with a stubborn rap. Normally you would expect
at least a rattle, but this door was so large that it nearly reached
the second floor, and was wide enough to fit two horses side by side.
As such, the massive hinges were holding it firmly in place, and it
was extra thick to boot. Anzo shook his head.
“I'd break my
shoulder first,” he said.
It was at this point
that Robin became aware of a soft, constant hiss.
“Hudtan, are you
making any progress?” Anzo asked. She waved her hand holding the
lockpick at him.
“I need silence while
I work,” she said.
“That sounds like a
'no' to me,” Anzo grumbled.
“Does anyone
hear...?” Robin started to say. Gwynt suddenly looked shocked. He
pointed at the stacks of crates, and Robin whirled around. There was
nothing there, so she turned back to Gwynt. “What?”
“I saw a moving
light,” he said. He walked along the wall, looking into the center
of the room, trying to catch sight of it again. Then he jumped and
waved his pointing finger again. “There!”
Then Robin saw it, and
the hiss grew louder. It was coming from the light, rapidly moving
along the floor, like a spark of lightning riding a miniature
carriage. She dashed forward to where the light had just been, but
it moved more quickly than she could run. She turned her head just
in time to see it turn another corner behind a stack of crates.
Robin looked down at
the ground where she had seen it move. A bit of smoke hung in the
air near the floor, starting to rise and spread, becoming invisible
as it mixed with the air. There was also a faint line on the floor.
She bent forward, and saw that the wooden floorboards had been
scorched black where the light had passed.
“Something's not
right,” she said. She stood back up and looked around, still
hearing the faint hiss in the background. Her eyes darted as she
searched, and she wrung her hands in fear. She didn't like it when
something wasn't right. That always meant something was wrong.
Gwynt climbed a stack
of crates near the edge of the room. His green eyes scanned the
room. “There!” he shouted, pointing, but then shook his head.
“No, it's gone...Wait, there it is again! Ah, too late...”
“Would you please
remain uncommunicative!” Hudtan said.
Robin scurried around
the crates, trying to go where Gwynt was indicating. She kept
finding faint trails of black, sometimes between two floorboards and
sometimes running perpendicular across them.
“It's moving towards
you! To your right!” Gwynt shouted.
“Keep it down,
Gwyntmarwolaeth!” Anzo hoarsely whispered. “What are you two
doing? Find another way out! Hudtan is unable to unlock the door!”
“I would be perfectly
able if I were given the proper environment in which to not get so
distracted!” Hudtan said.
Robin turned to the
right and saw two towers of boxes stacked close together. She turned
sideways to squeeze between them, but was too late to stop the spark
from whizzing by, following a long gap in the wood. She noticed as
it turned a corner that it was following a thin black string which,
as the spark touched it, faded into black powder.
“It's a spark,”
Robin said, trying to speak just loud enough for Gwynt to hear. Her
voice came out cracked and thin, however, so she had to try again.
“A spark is following a string! It's moving too fast for me to
catch up to it, and the string is hidden in the floorboards at most
points.”
“I keep losing sight
of it,” Gwynt replied. “I don't think we need to be worried
about a string too much.”
“I'm not worried
about the string,” Robin said. “I'm worried about what's at the
end of it.” She paused, an idea forming into her head. She looked
up from the floor, where she had been scanning for signs of black
string that had been untouched by the flame. Instead, she looked
around at the stacks of crates.
Anzo was still trying
to direct Hudtan. “Just turn the pick a bit to your left. No, no,
too much! You must stay steady, Hudtan.” Hudtan made a sound like
an elk trapped under a fallen tree.
Robin ran her hand
across the top of one of the crates she stood near. A layer of dust
came off, coating her hand. She brushed it against her pant leg
before realizing that her clothes were even dirtier. Then she hiked
around the room, glancing at the top of every crate, box, and barrel.
They were all coated in about the same layer of dust towards the
center of the warehouse. Suddenly, she came across one that had no
dust on it at all. She looked up to see it was the tallest stack of
crates in the room. There were purple swirls on the boxes.
“Can anyone read
alchemical symbols?” Robin asked. Gwynt, whom she could see still
perched on his own pile, shrugged. Robin decided to find out for
herself. She tugged at the lid of one of the crates, and was
surprised to find it open. She lifted the wooden lid to see that the
box was filled to the brim with sinister black powder.
“I'm pretty sure this
is a bomb,” Robin said in a high-pitched whine.
Gwynt started to say
something, but his eyebrows shot up and he pointed yet again. “There
it is!” he said.
Robin turned to see the
spark heading straight for her, and the crates with purple squiggles.
She bent down and dug
her hands inbetween the floorboards, searching for the black string.
The spark hissed closer at a speed faster than a track star
sprinting, giving her only a split to realize...she had chosen the
wrong crack.
The spark fizzled past
her.
And it disappeared.
Robin blinked, looking
up at the huge pile of crates behind her. They remained unexploded.
She examined the floor next to her where the spark had disappeared.
She found the remaining bit of string, and it was indeed connected to
that pile of crates. If it was a fuse to light the powder on fire,
then it had simply failed.
“Did you get it?”
Gwynt asked.
Robin tried to slow her
breathing and heartbeat enough to respond. “Yugh,” she
stammered.
She then noticed a
glint of metal out of the corner of her eyes. She reached down to
find two pieces of a broken lockpick. It wasn't just a thin piece of
scrap metal like she would usually try to use (and fail, of course).
This lockpick had been crafted by a metalworker to finesse even the
toughest of locks. It had a decoration of a flame at the base.
There was a snapping
sound from the door. “Oh, these tratten things!” Hudtan swore.
“Get me another!”
“You need more
practice at this,” Anzo grumbled, handing her another lockpick.
“My foot I need more
practice!” Hudtan snapped back, and jammed the new lockpick into
the keyhole, where it promptly broke. “Trat!”
“Here,” Robin said,
approaching with Gwynt behind her. “Try this one. It's already
broken, but it's got some useful hooks at the end.”
Hudtan raised one
eyebrow, but took the broken off tip of the lockpick. It was long
enough that she could fit it into the keyhole and move it around, her
ear pressed up against the door. Anzo started to say something, but
Robin and Gwynt both gave him a wide-eyed look, and he closed his
mouth. The sound of the latch greeted their ears, and Hudtan stood
up. She handed the pick back to Robin, then opened the door.
“About time,” Anzo
said, then gave Hudtan a pat on the back. “Excellent work,
Hudtan!”
Hudtan sighed. “Thank
you, boss.”
“Now,” Anzo said,
“let's get out of here before those guards find us!”
Robin couldn't agree
more. She did find it strange, though, as they fled down the street
and returned to the dark alleys, that she didn't see a single cop on
the lookout for them. Robin shrugged and decided to take it, along
with the fuse failing before sending them up in flames, as another
sign of good luck. Maybe her life was finally starting to head down
the right track.
It was then that she
realized she had helped conduct her first heist, and still came away
without having stolen a single thing. Being a thief was a lot harder
than she'd thought. Robin sighed inwardly and followed Bedlam on
their way back to their base in the Plinth.
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