I silently slipped down the street, my dark hood covering my head… the shadows wrapped around me comfortingly. They were my friends…they were my allies! They took my body and tucked it into their inky blackness hiding me from the sight of the ever-watchful guardians of the night. Their golden crowns watching silently from the rooftops, I snuck down an ally way deeper into the city. The city of Konoran was a beauty to behold in the daylight! Golden and shining, magnificent and glorious, righteous and peaceful! A floating city above pristine untouched forests… but to put it plainly… At night it was a cesspool of vileness and despair. When the sun fell away the upper-class locked themselves away and left the poor wretches like me to scrape out our living. In the darkness between sunset and sunrise, the night market would come alive.


The night market is an enchanting place like all things in Konoran… but with a dark twist! Granted you could find completely legal stuff if you wanted but the real appeal was the forbidden items. Curses, ancient spells of untold destruction, magical weaponry, and even commonplace stolen goods were all for sale. On the odd occasion, the prices were more reasonable than the regular market prices. My place in this jumbled mess called an economy was as a supplier… ok more like a thief if you want to get technical, but hey if you aren’t born in a castle with a silver spoon up your ass then you have to squeeze a living out somehow. I was a one-man in and out cat burglar. It’s simple if you think about it. Sneak in, steal the goods, swipe a snack! The three Ss to a successful robbery! That’s what I was doing at that very moment. I was sneaking into one of the five castles for the count. Normally I wouldn’t dream of breaking into such a heavily guarded place. But I had received info from a trusted source that the count was away at the moment and had taken the majority of his guards with him! You know what they say! When the pricks away the whores will play. I grinned to myself as I quietly climbed the ruff rocks. I was in luck as it was a dark cloudy night and there was no moonlight to give me away. I finally reached a window where I stopped climbing. There perched precariously about a hundred or so feet from the ground I took out my S.S.S. short for Spell, Seeing, Spectacle (a nifty artifact composed of a hag stone and an enchanted piece of glass that allows the user to see a spell’s formation). As I peered through it, the world became brighter and the flowing currents of energy that made up the castle's wards became visible. It turned out to be a simple wontons ward. You would think that the count would have a more effective warding system. I guess he really had gone out of the city! I thought silently. It was rare for people to go to other floating cities. The forests below were vast and treacherous and rumors of monsters and bandits were common. However, this was still good for me as it meant there was an even better chance of unguarded valuables to steal. I slowly summoned my energies and began to chant a dark prayer to the goddess of the spear Otumba. I felt the numbing sensation of a few drops of my blood being consumed in payment for the spell. The ward parted like a curtain allowing me to pull out my tools and begin to work towards prying open the window. I was in the room in less than a minute. The castle was lavishly decorated with paintings worth more than the shack I lived in (not that that set the bar high). At any rate, the room was fit for a count and chances were looking better and better that I was going to hit the jackpot. I quickly held up the S.S.S. and began to search the room for any sort of hiding places where a rich fool might hide his valuables. I saw the flowing lines of magic collecting on the floor signaling that there was something more to a frankly hideous rug. I yanked up the rug and tossed it aside with disdain. Under it was a false wood panel that when I pried it open revealed a few rather expensive bottles of a rare blood multiplier. I smiled! Potions like these were used to increase the amount of blood one could sacrifice without dying from blood loss and were hard to come by and cost a pretty penny too. Grabbed the bottles and tossed them into a sack slung across my shoulder. after this when I got back to my own house ( which had much better decore by the way), I would have to take a little and water down the potions so I could keep some for myself, sure it brought down the value of the goods but you never know what might save your life. I stood up and quietly walked to the door for some reason it felt like time seemed too slow as my hand reached out and slowly opened the door. My first thought was it was raining… the next was blood! I gagged and nearly vomited over the crimson-stained carpet. The sole thing stopping me was the fact that I might need the vomit as a sacrifice to fuel a spell in the next few seconds in what could turn into a very one-sided fight. “Hello there!” came a cheerful voice behind me. I gasped and twirled around… where a door had been a second ago there was now a long hallway and five feet away from me was a girl of about 8 years. I say that so simply but it's more complicated than that… for one her exact features were hard to pin down I couldn't tell her skin tone or hair color even looking right at her and for another, she was dancing on the wall!