Thief of Time

As night fell, Claud ran through the information Isolde — ahem, Dia — had given him, which was in the form of a little guide for mana-users. Most of them dealt with etiquette, the finer sides of things, but since Claud wasn’t a fan of snobbish arrogance, these bits weren’t all that useful.

No, what he found more useful was the explanation of mana. For the most of his twenty-six years, he hadn’t given it much thought, since there was literally nothing he could do with it. Of course, if he knew that simply burning some life to draw one-tenth of a mana circuit would have prevented prompts to learn new skills from sticking around....

Anyway, like skills, one’s body drew mana from the soul, which in turn drew from the world. One’s connection to the world would affect their affinity for skills, mana and affinities, which could be summed up in one word — talent. Burning mana circuits served three functions in that regard; it served to increase the physical capacity of mana, the transmission rate of mana to body, as well as the ability to control mana better.

Most relevant to him, however, was that skills that identified others through their target’s soul could also work on mana. For Claud, this meant that he could now leave his city, and not have his departure linked with Tot’s sudden absence from the City of Trades. Granted, no one would probably link him — a nobody — to the personage that had struck down Zulan Patra without seemingly making a move, but Claud always liked to play it safe.

There was no point in endangering oneself.

His heart bled slightly as he took out a low-rank lifestone. Tossing it into a bottle, he poured mana into the lifestone inside. Green and blue melded with each other, and the stone seemed to melt away into a pale purple mist. Claud bottled the mist up, and then nudged the box sitting on his bed.

Crown turned to regard the bottle for a moment, and then rolled over to face Claud once more, making him smile. He could tell that the little fluffy thing was confused by the bottle, which could only mean that he had succeeded in creating an item that would help throw bounty hunters off his trail.

He had been wearing the Band of Duplicity ever since he got it, but instead of using someone else as a base template, Claud had hit upon a brilliant idea.

Mirrors.

He then modified his own appearance to not look that outstanding — Claud knew that being too handsome was a crime — and let the artefact automatically adjust his other identification factors; appearance, voice, scent, mana and life signature.

He didn’t quite understand why Dia was interested in disguise artefacts, though. After all, she was clearly trying to be the real Dia’s body double, to draw attention from her pursuers, so disguising herself slightly didn’t seem to help her in that regard. He’d brought that up a few times over the past few days, but she had fobbed him off with a smile.

Seriously, that Isolde — ahem, Dia — should learn to take the advice of ultra-skilled professionals like me. And why am I thinking about her anyway? Is it because she’s so unprofessional at times? There’s an entire Grandis after me, and I’m thinking about random people…I must be crazy.

Preparing another ten bottles, which depleted whatever low-rank and middle-rank lifestones he had scourged up from his backpack, Claud hung them around his body and prepared to leave. At this time of night, Dia would be at the Moon Lords’ base; he would ask her to uncork the bottles every three to five days. She would naturally understand what these bottles were for, since their use was mentioned inside the manual, but she would not connect them to Tot.

No, she would connect them to his help, back when she was attacked by the Shadows of Grandis. With a bit of well-placed persuasion, Dia would help him maintain the illusion that the Thief of Time was still hanging around the City of Trades, even when he arrived at Julan Barony.

Running over his plans one more time, he shuttled through the shadows and soon arrived at Moon Street — the new designation for the street of warehouses that had previously housed the gangs of Licencia. At this time of night, the streets were supposed to be deserted, due to a curfew put in place by Count Nightfall, but some palm-greasing had taken place to make Moon Street the new place to go to for nightlife.

This was the beginnings of Schwarz’s plan to diversify their income revenues. The bartender, using his extensive clientele, had spread the news about a place where under-the-table services could be done at night, in a secure place with neutral arbitrators — the Moon Lords. At the same time, he had gotten the underworld of Licencia to take part in legitimate ventures like food stalls and equipment peddling on the street itself, while reserving the warehouses for more shady issues like fencing.

At the top of it all stood the Moon Lords’ Lunar Ladies, which was a great elegant title for Dia, Farah, Lily and Risti. They had moved to act four times, crushing anyone who tried anything funny with non-fatal, but painful, prejudice. After showing that there were indeed four mana-users backing the Moon Lords, law and order finally settled into Moon Street for good.

Incidentally, Claud had suggested the Furious Fierce Four, but his awesome title had been shot down three seconds afterwards. He didn’t quite know why, but he did at least wrangle out a promise to name some little group that from Schwarz.

With a mask on his face, Claud headed straight to the Moon Mansion, while buying a bag of tuna sandwiches in passing. Moon Street was patrolled by twenty teams of five people, each of them wearing a mask. Those masks were artefacts that obfuscated one’s identity for thirty minutes, and each of them had three uses every day.

The main goal in hiding their identities was to prevent customers from making use of personal connections. As Schwarz explained it, personal connections between customers and members of an organisation would eventually create conflicts of interest. Claud didn’t quite understand what he meant, but the bartender was an expert in this, not him.

Claud drew up at a small, transparent booth right outside Moon Mansion, which was actually now enclosed inside a transparent dome that reached to the sky. This booth, some three metres wide and tall, was made of soundproof, ultra-tough glass, and was the main method of entry for people. The three pairs of guards outside would scrutinise all visitors inside, to make sure that they didn’t do anything funny, but the booth would also prevent anyone outside from hearing conversations that happened inside.

“Halt.” A mechanical voice spoke. “Purpose?”

“To rule from the dark,” Claud replied.

“Purpose affirmed.” A grinding noise followed as a black square emerged from the booth. “Remove all disguise artefacts, and place your hand on the designated area. Non-compliance will be dealt with on the spot.”

Claud removed his Band of Duplicity and his mask, before pressing down on the glowing palmprint.

“Administrator confirmed. Master Claud, welcome. May the Moons light your way.”

“The Moons light my way,” Claud replied.

The booth began to move through a track built into the walls of the mansion compound. It was a very short trip, but this was the only way people could get into the headquarters of the Moon Lords. These arrangements were created by Claud, with the bartender providing the necessary artefacts.

Claud’s expertise in less-than-legal entry had made him paranoid about the headquarters of the Moon Lords, which was bound to be heavily scrutinised by everyone else in the city. To that end, his ideas had been very drastic.

First, a dome would be constructed to prevent people from climbing, flying or dropping in. It would be followed up by a single method of entry, which would make use of every identification factor, as well as a passcode. The latter would be impossible to hear, while any attempts to record or tamper with the booth’s equipment would be noticed by the guards immediately. Furthermore, only one person was allowed entry at a time, unless authorised by the Lunar Ladies, the bartender, or Claud.

Even Claud himself would not be able to think of ways to enter Moon Mansion easily, without relying on his Presence Nullification skill. Even with it, Claud would have to rely on the human factor — the guardhouse, and spend quite some time. The only other way he could think of was to use either the mansion’s staff or the founding members of the Moon Lords.

Things like coercion or blackmail was the best way to go, but that would really be out of his expertise. Other than that, there were all kinds of defences he’d built; the most egregious of which was a set of ballistae designed to shoot down siege engines…which could be operated remotely. Supposedly, it could even harm up to tri-folders, and if Claud had a choice, he would have gotten weapons that could even harm Zulan Patra…but it was too expensive.

Fortunately, the money for those renovations came from the bartender’s pocket, not his.

The booth doors opened once more, and Claud stepped into Moon Mansion proper. The interior was brightly lit, with all kinds of artefacts working at full blast to ensure a super comfortable environment. It was somewhat astounding to see how Schwarz had managed to create a stronghold of this level within a few days, but again, the bartender had immense reserves of money, lifestones and connections.

To tell the truth, Claud had the feeling that the bartender could have usurped control of Licencia’s underworld anytime, if not for the fact that there weren’t mana-users backing him up.

“Claud?” A voice floated over. “What are you doing here, punk? Aren’t you supposed to be leaving tomorrow?”

“Master Lunar Lord,” Claud replied, an exaggerated, flattering smile on his face. “Tis great to see you!”

“Alright, stop. I’m getting the goosebumps.” The bartender rolled his eyes. “So?”

“Just making some preparations for my departure.” He took out a small stack of envelopes. “Here’s a bunch of instructions and contingency plans, in case I’m not back and something happens.”

The bartender took them, glanced through the labels Claud had pasted on them, and nodded. “Thanks for your hard work. Are you sure these would work?”

“If you follow the instructions and keep in mind that the information inside is time-sensitive, yes,” Claud replied. “Right, where’s Dia?”

“At the back, why?”

“I have something for her to do while I’m gone,” Claud replied.

“I see. Well, don’t let me hold you up.” He paused. “Good luck for your next time-sensitive high efficacy fetterless trade.”

The two of them exchanged grins at that, before Claud headed to the back of Moon Mansion.