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The walls shuddered and the floor lurched beneath Conrad’s feet as the explosion rocked the complex. About halfway down the opulent hallway to Ajax Whittaker’s vault, the companions stopped short, fighting to keep their balance. The halfling wheeled around to face Baldur, who offered only a shrug of his broad shoulders.
“You asked for a distraction,” the Goron rumbled.
Conrad frowned. “A distraction, not a demolition.”
“I’m guessing with Flank you’ve gotta be more specific than that.”
With a frustrated shake of his head, Conrad raised two fingers to his ear and engaged the communications device. A sharp peal and a hiss of static had him yanking the piece of metal and plastic from his ear. “What the hell is going on?” Met only by a second plaintive shrug, the halfling scowled. “Let’s keep moving.”
Conrad crept up to the next corner, his footsteps muted by the carpeting, and peered down the hall. Aside from Ajax Whittaker’s many paintings and statues, it seemed the old merchant’s entire private wing was empty. Given the tremors still coursing through the building, the halfling assumed the security forces had been pulled to the show floor to deal with Brooke, Zebra, and Haruhiko.
The plan was working, Conrad reassured himself. In their many late nights in the back room of the Whispering Tankard, he and Brooke had layered contingencies over contingencies, ensuring they were prepared for virtually any outcome once they had breached the complex. So far, aside from a few snags in communications—unusual indeed, where Sori D’Mani was concerned—things had played out to the halfling’s expectations. Assuming Brooke had wiped the security footage, all they had left to do was clean out the vault and use the chaos as cover to make their escape.
“That’s it there,” Baldur said, pointing a craggy finger to a door near the end of the dead-end hallway. “Last one on the left.”
The halfling nodded, running one hand through his greasy brown curls. “Got it. Cover the door, will ya? I’ll be about ten minutes… if all goes according to plan.”
“Hurry up.” The Goron’s brow furrowed with concern. “I’m worried about River.”
The halfling gave a reassuring smile. “If anyone can handle themselves, it’s River,” he said. “Trust your partner.” With that, he trotted off down the corridor.
The door swung inward on well-greased hinges, without even the slightest sound. Although Conrad had seen this room already on the footage broadcast by Haruhiko, it stole his breath all the same: plush, red carpeting ran wall to wall; rich mahogany furniture trimmed with gold; every inch of wall hung with elaborate tapestries or inlaid with etched bas-reliefs depicting historical events; and, against the opposite wall, the huge steel door of the vault. Behind it, the culmination of his weeks of effort—all the beatings and the late night strategy meetings—seemed to call to him. The normally implacable halfling’s hands trembled as he took stock of the situation. Drawing a lungful of air to steady his nerves, he stepped forward into the room.
The door shut behind him with a resounding slam. Conrad wheeled around, his eyes bulging as the writhing mass of shadow appeared. It coalesced before him, the very air in the room leaking darkness like pus from a suppurating wound. The halfling stumbled backward, eyes wide with horror, as the room came alive around him. The wall etchings wriggled and writhed, ornate figures with glowing, red eyes crawling forth from the stone. Sinewy arms with too many joints protruded from the ceiling, long claws raking the air in front of Conrad’s eyes. He dropped to his back with a strangled cry. Through the swirling chaos, the mass approached, its form growing more solidly defined—sprouting the same quills and batlike wings as it had in the interrogation room. The halfling squeezed his eyes tight, accepting his inevitable end.
Then, as quickly as it had started, it stopped. When he opened his eyes, just like the first time, the room appeared as it had when he first entered, the door ajar and the space empty of murderous creatures. Sheathed in sweat, Conrad staggered back to his feet. What the hell was going on? Had he sustained one too many head wounds in the events of the past few weeks? Had Whittaker’s goons drugged him while he was unconscious, with some potent venom or hallucinogenic drug?
“—something in the—I don’t—everyone going—”
The comms device hissed and crackled, Sori’s breaking through intermittently. Conrad snatched the device from its place on his belt and stuck it in his ear.
“Sori, do you hear me? What the hell is going on?”
“—no eyes—surveillance wiped—get out—”
Again, a sharp peal of static swallowed Sori’s voice and clanged around in Conrad’s head, forcing him to remove the device. He growled his frustration into the empty room. The glower soon melted away, replaced by a look of sheer determination.
“Enough.” He strode up to the vault, placing his ear against the metal. The lock’s tumbler was cool against his hands as he twisted it, first one way, then the other, listening for the subtle clicks and whirs indicating the locks disengaging. After a while, he felt the tumbler resist his turning, the telltale sign of a wire being drawn tight. He froze, pulling a small drill from an enchanted lock on his belt, and began drilling into the space just above the tumbler. Had he allowed the wire to snap, it would have shattered a glass pane inside the door, likely setting off an alarm and trapping Conrad inside the room. But the halfling was no novice safecracker, and he had dealt with complex traps such as these enough times to understand the underlying mechanisms.
Pulling the drill back, he peered into the tiny, dark hole he had created. The warped glint of light off glass confirmed his suspicions. Replacing the drill, he retrieved a bottle, no larger than a tube of lipstick. Two pumps of his fingers and the resin sprayed forth into the hole. He counted silently—1… 2… 3—and then engaged the tumbler again. The wire gave way with an audible snap, but the glass pane, now made firm by the coating of resin, held strong. Conrad sighed with relief as the vault door swung open.
The halfling’s breath caught in his throat as the golden glow fell over him, not warm, but suffusing him with warmth all the same. Tables piled high with gold bars, plastic trays overflowing with gems, and sheaves of yellowed parchment filled every inch of the vault. Narrow paths wound between the piles of wealth. Conrad took a moment to regain his composure before stepping inside.
While the surveillance systems had been shut down by Brooke—at least, he hoped so—, Conrad knew it was only a matter of time before an auxiliary security system either brought guards swarming upstairs from the complex show floor or worse, locked him inside the vault to await his fate. Without further ado, he began grabbing gold bars and trays of gems, shoving them greedily into another pouch on his belt. This one, a heavily ensorcelled bag of holding, swallowed the vast riches greedily, its huge interior dimensions showing no sign of filling as hundreds of pounds of precious metals and minerals were stuffed inside it. On Conrad went, clearing one table, then another, the opening of the bag adjusting to the size of the loot so he could fit delicate paintings, maps, historical texts, and other parchments. Always he kept one eye on the vault door, ready to react with typical halfling swiftness if it began to close, or if the sound of approaching footsteps or the cries of his Goron companion met his ears. But there was only silence as the little thief pocketed more wealth than he had ever imagined.
Just as he felt the pouch of holding begin to protest, filled for the first time almost to capacity, he caught sight of the true prize. Hanging on an innocuous hook on one side of the vault door, a familiar set of dangling keys caught and reflected the light. Though he was across the space and could not make out the delicately engraved writing on the side of the thin pieces of metal, he knew instinctively what they said: Gulliver.
No sooner had he taken a step toward the keys to his stolen ship, Conrad heard a warning cry from Baldur, the Goron’s voice high-pitched, relative to his usual deep, gravelly bass, with alarm. The sound of grinding metal soon followed as the vault door began to swing shut, promising to trap the halfling inside.
“Baldur!” the halfling yelped, letting the stuffed pouch fall and sprinting across the room, vaulting over tables and piles of scattered wealth. His delicate fingers closed around the keys and he spun to see the door closing quickly—too quickly for him to make his escape. The halfling lunged, his horrified gaze fixed on the thin sliver of red carpet in the room beyond, knowing in his heart that he had run out of time…
… and, just in time, the huge hand of his Goron companion darted through the opening, gripping the door and wrenching it a few inches backward, creating just enough space for the ever-fortunate halfling to dart through, landing face first on the floor of Ajax Whittaker’s office.
Post 4/9: 1,556 words.
Personal Quest Progress: 8,320/10,000 (+968)
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