Today would hopefully be better than yesterday was. I know I probably jinxed it but come on, give me a break, because it's not like the world has been.
I needed a break.
Well, it's not like complaining would accomplish anything. I climbed out of bed and put on my jacket before a voice startled me.
"You're up early," Argo pointed out and I jumped, not expecting the girl to be sitting at the foot of my bed.
"Why are you in my bed?" I asked with an eyebrow raised.
"I just wandered in here and got tired, your bed was the closest to me," she explained and I sighed in exasperation.
"Well come on, if it's early then let's not wake the others. If you wanna talk we can do it outside," I offered and the young girl nodded as we stepped out the door.
It was pretty early still, the sun had only just risen from what I could tell. It was probably only about six in the morning, and I liked my sleep dammit.
"Mornin' Jun!" Edward greeted me from above me, he must have been the helmsman in the morning. I was never up this early so I'd never seen him do it once in the two weeks we'd been traveling.
The voyage had been pretty standard so far, outside of the storm that hit us on our second day, and I had been getting along with the crew pretty well.
"We're about two weeks out from Valiheim, if you were just looking to leave Aria why didn't you have us take you to Izuna? That would have only been a week-long trip," Erwin pointed out and I laughed.
"Sasaki is a wanted fugitive in Izuna," I said and Argo laughed.
"You guys sure are troublemakers," Argo laughed and I laughed slightly with her. The younger girl had grown on me a little, almost like the little sister I never had.
"Hey if that's true then maybe you shouldn't be hanging around me so much," I joked and she shook her head.
"But I like you," she pouted and I laughed before wandering to the bow of this ship. The crew was fun.
They almost reminded me of my old family.
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"It's an easy job, you shouldn't have too much trouble with it. Just to be safe though we're gonna send Gin in with you," Dante explained and Gin was quick to complain.
"Why the hell am I on babysitting duty!?" he whined and I turned to him in annoyance.
"Just shut up and do your job, you're getting paid for this too you know," I said, chastising the older male.
Nora and Rein both got a kick out of that while Naomi sat in the corner, sharpening her katana. She sighed at all the noise, likely wishing that we would all shut up. Or maybe she was just envious of Derek for not having to be here, he had gotten a job just a few hours ago.
"Fine whatever, I'll do it!" Gin yelled, clearly annoyed at the fact that a 12-year-old was telling him off.
"Get going you two, and good luck," Dante said and Naomi finally spoke up.
"May the shadows guide you," she said as we exited the room and Gin was quick to try and take charge.
"Alright listen up you little shit, you follow my lead on this operating. Do I make myself clear?" he asked and I just nodded boredly.
"Sure man, whatever helps you sleep at night," I replied and I could tell I was getting in my partner's nerves. That was good, I hated him as much as he hated me.
It's not like I didn't have friends among the group, I enjoyed the company of Rein and Nora. And Naomi was always very kind to me, I didn't know Derek very well, he was always on jobs but he seemed nice. And Dante was almost like a father to me, he trained me and showed me the ropes of thievery. I was of course eternally grateful for that, Gin was just too annoying and prideful for me. Or maybe I didn't like him because he was too much like me, maybe I just hated myself and was projecting my feelings onto the mage.
I guess that was a possibility but I didn't think I was that petty. Then again I was a thief so who's to say.
We entered the streets above through our hidden passage and quietly made our way to our target. It was a large house belonging to a wealthy merchant by the name of Henderson, it wouldn't be too difficult. Apparently, he kept all of his valuables locked in a single safe, I was good at picking locks so I didn't think it would be a problem.
Gin grabbed out his spellbook and grabbed my wrist before casting a spell.
"Schatten," he muttered and I felt myself slowly begin to merge into the shadows around me. I turned around and nodded to the game before we entered the estate through the basement window.
This was gonna be stupidly easy, the safe was ten feet to our left after we touched the ground. I quickly checked for traps and concluded that there were none, I crept over to the safe and began to pick the lock.
"Stop right there!" a voice demanded and I cursed under my breath, slowly turning around to be met by a man in silver armor. Gin had neglected to do his job and now the operation was nearly blown. It was fine though, I could still salvage this.
"Got it," I replied, dropping the knife I had in my left hand and father concealing the blade in my right while he was distracted by the other knife.
The man approached me and was about to take me into custody before I used my other knife to slit his throat, he was dead in seconds. I quickly opened the safe and grabbed what I needed before climbing back out the window to see Gin standing there smiling.
"Nice job jackass," I muttered and he smirked.
"I figured you could handle it," he said and I growled before we ran off into the night.
And just like that my first job as a member of the Thieves Guild was complete.
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Was going back there really triggering so many memories. I pondered this question for a moment as I rubbed the exhaustion from my eyes and I suddenly felt a tapping on my shoulder.
"Huh?" I asked, turning around to be greeted by the familiar sight of red hair. "Oh, good morning Christa,"
"Morning Jun," she offered, yawning and stretching as she did so.
"Is anyone else up yet?" I asked and she shook her head.
"Nah, it's just us for now, Arin will probably be awake soon though," Christa replied and I chuckled a bit. Arin always woke up early, probably a product of being a knight. Weirdly enough Loki always woke up pretty early too, I always figured the prince of Aria would sleep in but he was usually one of the first ones awake. Just add that to the list of surprises from him.
"So what's on the agenda for today?" I asked and Christa sighed.
"The same as it has been for the last two weeks," she replied and I felt like jumping into the ocean. Yes, I thought the crew was great but the workload was something else. I guess that was the downside to having such a small crew compared to other ships.
"You shouldn't complain," Argo said as she sat on the railing of the ship.
"I don't see you doing any work," I pointed out and she blushed.
"I'm too cute for that," she said, giving us her best cute face. Christa just smiled at the younger girl while I yawned.
"Hey, there's another ship passing by!" Tiny yelled and Christa and I turned to see the ship. The flag had a skull with crossbones, which typically only meant one thing.
"Pirates!" Erwin yelled as Christa ran to wake up the others.
After everyone was awake we focused on the quickly approaching ship and tried to come up with a plan.
"Argo," I said "go hide below deck okay,"
The girl nodded and ran to the interior of the ship while we all got ready to greet the pirates. Finally, the ship was right beside us, and I presumed to be the captain of the ship.
"Greetings gentlemen, I am Captain Henry Avery," the man greeted. He seemed to be polite enough, but I wasn't an idiot. This man was planning something.
"I don't see the point of introducing myself to my enemy," Edward replied and Captain Henry scowled.
"There's no need to be so harsh, just give me all the valuables you have on that ship and I'll let you all live," Henry offered "I'd also like the girl with the exotic hair if you don't mind,"
"I'm going bald, I don't even care anymore," Christa muttered, clearly irritated by the pirate and probably also everyone's weird fascination with her hair.
"I do mind," Edward stated as he drew his cutlass and stared down the pirate who in turn laughed before smashing a bottle of rum against his head.
He turned to us with a crazed grin and continued laughing, blood trickling down his forehead from the cut he just gave himself.
"Aww, now look what you made me do," he said as he continued to laugh "that was a perfectly good bottle of rum,"
"Okay so this guy is completely insane," Sasaki pointed out and Arin gestured to his crew.
"Hopefully they're not as insane as he is," he said and Loki looked at him doubtfully.
"Kill them!" Henry shouted as his crew prepared to board, they threw planks down to run across and began to charge.
"I'm usually against killing if I don't have to," Loki started, "but there doesn't appear to be another option here"
Yuna nodded, firing an arrow into one of the men. And then she hit another, and another, and another. She continued picking off the pirates one by one as they tried to board.
Henry jumped down and crossed blades with Edward, their blades crashing together as they wrestled for control. The rest of the crew was getting involved too.
Tiny had picked up a club and was beating the pirates over the head with it, Kaya grabbed a dagger and began expertly assassinating the enemies, Grey wasn't using a weapon as he only needed his hand to hand skills to take out the pirates and Erwin grabbed his cutlass and began to cut the invaders down.
"Wegblasen!" Christa yelled as a forceful gust of wind sent a massive group of pirates overboard. Another pirate almost took her head off but she was saved by Arin, who blocked the blow with his shield. Arin then pushed the enemy away with his shield before slamming it into his face and sending him overboard.
It was becoming increasingly clear that we were winning this fight. Sasaki was on his own completely tearing their forces apart, each one of his swords slashes taking the life of a pirate.
Three pirates rushed at me and I drew my daggers. I rolled out of the way of one of them and drove my daggers into his chest, then I used him as a human shield to block the second pirate's attack. I kicked them both away and slit the throat of the last one.
Loki was effortlessly dispatching pirates left and right as well. And before we knew it, only Henry was left above deck.
"My whole crew," he muttered as he began laughing hysterically.
"That's not how I would typically expect someone to cope," Sasaki pointed out as we heard a door open.
"Is it over?" Argo asked and Henry ran at the young girl. Did he want a hostage? No, he was planning to kill her.
I was the only one close enough to stop him, I was the only one fast enough to reach her in time.
My dagger wasn't sturdy enough to stop his cutlass though, I needed something else. At that moment I knew what I needed to do, I used the best possible thing I had available to block his sword, and then I drove one of my daggers through his heart.
Henry was dead, and Argo was safe.
"You okay kid?" I asked as I placed my right hand on Argo's shoulder and she began to cry.
She was full-blown sobbing at this point, everyone else looked shocked and terrified. But I just smiled at the young girl.
"What are you crying about?" I asked "I'm the one who just lost a hand"
I turned my attention to the bloody stump that used to be my left hand. Luckily I didn't lose the whole arm but damn that hurt. Instead of screaming I just kept on smiling, if I were to break down Argo would just cry more.
"Heilen," Christa chanted as a warm golden light enveloped where my hand used to be, stopping the bleeding entirely.
"Are you okay?" Edward asked as he rushed to my side.
"I'm fine, it's only a hand," I said "you should focus on comforting your daughter"
Edward just stared at me and smiled before helping Argo stand. Loki made his way over to me and smiled.
"I never viewed you as the type of person to make such a sacrifice," he pointed out "It's gonna be pretty hard to use two knives with one hand"
I just smiled at him.
"I'll manage," I said "maybe I can get a hook for a hand,"
Loki just laughed and offered me a hand up, which I gladly took. The others rushed over to me but I assured them I was fine.
I couldn't afford to be weak right now. Not with what we were about to face.
I was ready. I was ready to face my past once and for all.
The Valiheim Thieves Guild would be destroyed.