Thief of Time

After rolling out five gold coins for the bartender, Claud slid his empty glass of apple juice for a second refill. “So? Mister Profiteer, bartender of Triple-D, lord of information in Licencia, what has your mighty mind have as an opinion for this incident?”

“That’s something I’m interested to know too,” said a familiar voice. “Oh. Hello, Claud.”

Claud turned to look at the source, and narrowed his eyes as he saw Isolde. “Evening to you, Isolde. And uh…what were your names again?”

Isolde rolled her eyes. “That’s Farah, Lily and Risti.”

“You all look quite alike to me,” said Claud, measuring the four ladies up and down, “so do forgive me if I cannot remember or mess up your names. Other than your clothes, the four if you look like you’re almost the same person, save for certain…uh, areas.”

“Where were your eyes looking at when you said that last bit?” Isolde asked.

“At the colour and shape of your pupils,” Claud replied, keeping a straight face. He wasn’t even going to admit that his eyes wandered to the same place ninety percent of men would look at when it came to women — it was disrespectful, and more importantly, he had been trying to kick the habit.

He had heard of many situations where a thief was caught because he paused a second too long to look at beautiful women; it was a personal failing that would make Claud contemplate suicide if he ever was caught due to it. And more importantly, there were enough scumbags in the world. It wouldn’t do if a handsome chivalrous thief like him were to fall into the same habits; the world would be a darker place if that really happened.

“Hmm. I suppose that is a rather useful way of telling us apart,” said Isolde.

“It is,” Claud replied. “Albeit limited. Your eyes are in varying shades of brown and black, so it wouldn’t work well in low light conditions. If not for the fact that this pub is nicely cleaned and lit up, I wouldn’t even be able to see your eye colour probably, Isolde.”

Isolde nodded. “Right, you should call me…Dia from now on.”

“Dia?”

“Princess Dia of Lustre Dukedom,” Farah added. “Do you not know of her?”

Claud frowned and tried to rack his brain for any memories, but there wasn’t much he could recall at this juncture. For one, the recent focus on Tot had turned him somewhat neurotic about his current situation — anything not related to the personage everyone knew as the monster of the Third Godsfall didn’t exactly register in his mind. Secondly, he didn’t really care for matters outside the Istrel Dukedom yet; there were still more than enough rich fellows for him to steal from.

“Alright, don’t trouble him with this,” said the bartender. “Claud has always been the cowardly kind. If someone strong comes over to Licencia, he would hole up somewhere and refuse to come out. This Tot business has gotten him quite on edge, see?”

Claud shot a glare at the bartender, but he didn’t say anything.

“Well, for…reasons, you should call me Dia from now on,” said Isolde.

Farah leaned in, and in a low voice, she said, “Isolde’s acting as a body double for Princess Dia, who’s wanted by the Shadows of Grandis.”

Claud glanced at the group of four, and then rubbed his nose. He had a feeling that there was something off with the whole deal — his thieving instincts were tingling — but for him, anything related to the nobles were bottles of poison that had ‘Not My Business’ labelled on it.

“Alright, uh, Dia.” Making a mental note to ask the bartender about who this rather familiar-sounding personage was later, Claud took his glass of apple juice, which had been refilled, and took a sip from it.

“Anyway, master,” said Dia, “what happened at the end? Why did the Spear of Fate fall from the sky? What did Tot do?”

“At this point, I assume that you’re wise enough to know that you five have no chance whatsoever, but I suppose hammering in the point home might help a bit more,” said the bartender. “Over the past few days, I’ve been reviewing the Third Godsfall, since Tot might just come ask me for help.”

Claud fidgeted in his seat, before covering up the moment smoothly by taking another gulp from his cup, and he regained the ability to listen properly once more.

“…probable identities. First, a familiar spirit who served under the Six Gods of Virtue, who had escaped the battle back then. Second, a Chromatic Lord. Third—”

“Hold up,” said Claud. “What’s a Chromatic Lord?”

“It’s a position granted to the ten octo-folders who followed the Coloured Gods during the Third Godsfall,” Isolde — no, Dia — replied.

Claud’s eyes turned into saucers immediately. “Octo-folders? Like, eight-fold mana-users?”

“Correct,” Dia nodded her head. “They are charged with killing off any seven-fold mana-users, should they appear in Grandis or in the other continents, and—”

“Hold up, hold up, hold up. What do you mean, other continents?” Claud asked.

“Don’t worry about that. Grandis isn’t the only continent in the world.”

Claud swallowed. “Really? Wow. I…I feel like an idiot or something. Um. So, what other continents are there?”

“I also asked my fath — teachers that question,” said Dia. “But he didn’t know the answer to that. Whatever goes on in the other continents and Grandis is only for the bigshots in the three sovereignties to deal with, apparently.”

Narrowing his eyes, Claud took another swig from his glass. Once again, something about her words had stirred his mind lightly, but since it wasn’t related to him, he ignored it in favour of thinking more about the theories regarding Tot.

“Right, master,” said Claud, “what’s the third identity?”

“A familiar spirit of the Coloured Gods,” said the bartender. “From what I and some of my…peers could tell, Tot had retaliated against the use of Zulan Patra’s skill directly. And if you recall that snappy soundbite about divine deed and mortal moira Iso — ahem, Dia — told you, you will realise that activating a skill to counter his shouldn’t have injured him.”

“Zulan Patra activated a skill, only to be injured,” said Dia. “Since mortal miracles cancel each other out, a sound, logical explanation would be that a divine deed was at work.”

“Yes,” said the bartender. “Dia, you truly are well read.”

“Only for things I’m interested in,” she replied. “Otherwise…”

Putting aside his worries about any new troubles that were probably on their way here, Claud let out a long sigh. “If a bunch of one-folders and a bartender could come up with this conclusion, I’m almost dead certain that virtually every other bigshot could have too. What’s going to happen to Licencia?”

“Beats me,” Dia replied, “but it’s good that I met you here.”

“Why?” Claud asked.

“Remember that thing we talked about earlier? The one about making an alliance to rule Licencia’s underworld?” She looked at the others, who had been eyeing the menu during the conversation, who nodded back. “Yeah, we’ve decided to take you up on the offer. But on one condition.”

“What condition?” Claud asked.

“That we rope the master into this too. His information network is too useful to pass up, and too deadly to be an opponent.”

Claud thought about it, and then nodded. Spending a minute or two to explain the whole thing to the bartender, he asked, “So, what do you think?”

“You want me, a normal person, to be part of your little game?” asked the bartender. “Are you sure? I’m a Profiteer, remember? I’m definitely going to get my money’s worth from helping you.”

“Iso—Dia has a point, though.” Claud glanced at Dia. “Do you have any particular reason for asking him to help, other than what you mentioned?”

“Uhh…”

“Alright, so you do. Just spit it out.”

Dia took a deep breath. “Well, if we were to work together, he won’t charge that high if I need information from him, right? My ultimate goal is to at least last until Tot is captured. The bartender can help me get some clues about Tot out into the public sphere. Maybe someone might capture him and…aa”

Claud took a long, deep breath. I’m literally getting the bartender onboard so that he can provide low-cost intelligence to help people capture me. This is my life now, isn’t it?

“I’ll let the good master decide. We’ll need to work out the division of labour from our side, although I think we just need to stroll into the headquarters of every minor gang in the city and get their leader to obey us,” said Claud.

“Before anyone else does,” said the bartender.

“If you’re saying that, do I take it that you’re joining us?” Claud asked.

“Yeah, count me in!” He grinned. “After all, it is an easy venture with little work required. For you and that Dia body double, it’ll fulfil your security needs. I’m not sure what the other ladies want from this, but with a group of five mana-users, it’s probably going to be free money from the sky.”

“When should we start, then?” Dia asked, turning to look at Claud, along with the others.

“Whenever the bartender’s ready,” Claud replied. “For our first takeovers, we should all be present. And besides, everyone knows the bartender of Triple-D. With him around, even if he doesn’t speak…”

“It’ll be a lot easier?”

“Yes,” Claud replied. “Because no one wants to be forcefed his special mix.”