“Sir, I assure you, despite the occupation that I have chosen, or chose me for that matter, I am a man of my word and will return here promptly to make amends for the damage to your goods,” Azerick assured him.
“Well,” the farmer pondered, “if I call for the Watch you’ll just run off or they’ll arrest you. Either way, I’m not getting my money, so I guess I’ll trust you to your word. You be back here an hour before the sun sets and you can help me load up for the day. And if you don’t show, well, I still got a good story to tell over a mug of ale tonight!” The vendor let out another good belt of laughter and clopped Azerick on the back hard enough to set him in motion out of the square and away from the laughing eyes of the other patrons and vendors.
All Azerick could think about as he walked back towards his home, hidden beneath the buildings and streets of the old industrial district, was the feeling of everyone’s eyes on him and hearing their laughter at his humiliating failure.
Oh, I will be very careful of robbing a wizard again, very careful indeed. This is not over by a long shot. I will have my revenge wizard. I always get my revenge.
The old wizard likely thought his show of power and embarrassing the young thief would put enough fear into the typical petty cutpurse and street urchin. Ordinarily he would likely have been correct in his assumptions. However, Azerick was no ordinary street thief. At least he did not think of himself as such.
The key problem with trying to intimidate Azerick was that nothing seemed to intimidate or scare him. Many have tried and nearly all have failed. Azerick was, to all appearances, completely incapable of experiencing real fear. It is not that he is immune to it or oblivious of its effects. The problem is that his mind instantly transformed any fear that a particular situation may cause, into anger.
Instead of suffering the quaking effects and indecision that fear would normally bring on, he instantly became angry with whatever or whoever dared to try to frighten him. That anger triggered an incredibly powerful sense of determination and stubbornness that would push him to cross the Great Barren Desert to exact revenge for any harm or severe wounding of his pride.
These thoughts of revenge so occupied his mind that he let his street awareness waiver; yet another thing that he would never have allowed to happen under normal circumstances. Had he not been so preoccupied, he most certainly would have noticed the three guild thugs before they took notice of him and easily avoided them.
“Well, well, what have we here?” snarled the obvious the leader of the group.
“Hugo,” sighed Azerick “not now, I’m having really a bad day.”
“Well, that’s too bad because it’s about to get a whole lot worse,” Hugo replied as he launched a strike at Azerick’s head.
Azerick easily ducked the clumsy but powerful swing and struck Hugo twice in the stomach with a quick blow from each fist. The big, young man let out a whoosh of expulsed air as he backed up a step. A red haired youth named Carrot overcame his moment of surprise and let loose with an attack of his own. Azerick blocked the punch with his right and delivered two quick jabs and a right cross that rocked his assailant on his heels and leaving a broken nose and a stunned look in his eyes.
Azerick made to charge between the two punks and make his escape when the third youth, Rolly, made a running slide towards him and executed a leg trip. Azerick went crashing face down towards the cobbles. Only a quick, last-second twisting of his hips kept him from landing on his face and preventing serious injury.
Hugo and Carrot both recovered from their assault in those precious few seconds and started laying in with a series of kicks into Azerick’s legs and side. Azerick protected his vitals as best he could with his arms and twisting motions, but enough blows got through that he was taking a significant beating.
After a few moments, Hugo decided that he made his point and he and his cronies ceased their assault.
“Faralynn says that if you don’t pay your taxes real soon that I get to take care of you myself.” The gleam of cruel anticipation in Hugo’s eyes left little room for doubt as to the pleasure he would gain causing Azerick a great deal of pain.
Faralynn was the local chapterhouse leader that collected taxes and tithes from all thieves working in the area in which Azerick unfortunately found himself. He had originally worked within Andrill’s district, but Faralynn’s rise to power over the past year redrew the lines, which put the young street rat within the powerful and unforgiving hands of one of the most dangerous and only female guild leaders in the city.
Hugo and his friends laughed at the implied threat and gave him one more good hard kick to the ribs as they left Azerick curled in the fetal position on the cobbled street.
“You and your moronic friends just got a permanent entry on my list, Hugo,” Azerick muttered as he picked himself up off the filthy, hard cobblestones.
As soon as he regained his feet and his breath, Azerick once again continued his trek home designing two plans of payback for his wounded body and pride but this time keeping more alert of his surroundings.
No, best to focus on one plan at a time
, he thought. Azerick devoted his full revenge-filled thoughts to the wizard. Hugo could wait a bit longer he reasoned. Azerick had never had magic used against him before. It made him feel powerless in its grip and that made him feel, well not scared, but certainly disconcerted. And angry.
Hugo and his friends have been a pain and an annoyance for the past several years. Azerick guessed that made him about sixteen or seventeen years old now. He had stopped keeping track some time ago. Azerick started to think about his life before the streets and the one or ones who made the top of his revenge list, the ones who started it all.
Azerick made his way towards the warehouse district, often referred to as the old industrial district, ghost town, or squatters’ district due to the many abandoned buildings in the area and the homeless that sought shelter within them. Azerick picked his way through a dilapidated warehouse with half its roof caved in. He looked around carefully before entering a large crate that covered the trapdoor beneath it. He reached down and lifted several planks to reveal the entrance. This allowed him to grip the opposing floorboard. When he pulled up on this one, a whole section of the floor pivoted up to reveal a passage with ladder rungs built into a stone shaft.
Azerick began his descent, barring the trap door from inside. He carefully avoided the rungs designed to cause a slip, make a bell ring, or worse, launch a spike into the belly of the one unfortunate enough to trip it. His underground lair had many such traps and alarms throughout its passages. The entire complex ran under several buildings, most abandoned, some still in use. Smugglers and fencers of illicit and illegal goods once used it decades past.
He left at least half the exits barred at any one time and alternated the viable exits he would use every few days just in case someone saw him disappear into one. His lair was his best-kept secret, one that he was sure the guild would kill him to get their hands on if they became aware of its existence.
Azerick settled himself into his abode, his stomach singing to him in a rumbling baritone, and once again started to think of his past. Back nearly five years to a time of safety, comfort, and happiness. Those thoughts, as he waded back upstream in the river of time, took him once again to those days of happiness but also to the most horrifying and dreadful moments of his young life. He thought back to the cause of his whole purpose of being, the purpose of revenge against those that responsible for his life and the loss of his family, fine home, and education. His education had been the most important thing in his life aside from his parents.
By the time Azerick came out of his reverie, it was nearly time to go back to the market square of shame as he now referred to it and make good on his debt. He was a man of his word after all.
“Well as I live and breathe, who ever would have guessed a street rat would keep his word and do some honest labor?” the produce merchant commented as he watched Azerick approach his cart. "I really didn’t expect you to show up, boy. Might be some hope for your character yet.”
“Be rest assured, good merchant, that my character is just fine as I see it.”
Azerick spent the next half hour moving and stacking the crates of fruits and vegetables so the farmer could safely cart them back to his farm. It was not terribly difficult work and he was finished in fairly short order.
“You owed me a debt, boy, but I’ll thank you for your service anyway. Here, take these as a token of my good character,” he said as he handed Azerick a small bag with a few apples, pears and a gourd.
“Payment is not necessary, I owed you for what I damaged and my labor made us square,” protested Azerick.
“Nonsense, boy, I know you’re hungry and now you don’t have to worry about stealing a meal tonight and that makes me feel well enough that we’re still even if you accept it. A man, a boy even, needs to know what it feels like to receive compensation for honest work. Perhaps if more thieves and street urchins knew that feeling then maybe they would be more prone to doing honest work instead of trying to take the easy road and just steal it.”
“Yes, sir, thank you,” he simply replied and walked away, not wanting to argue with the man who obviously knew nothing about living on the streets if he thought it was an easy life.
Azerick did not think anything about his life had ever been easy since his father’s death. He did appreciate the food. He was not particularly interested in trying to filch a loaf of bread or a small wheel of cheese today. His earlier exploits still stuck in his craw and he just did not feel up it. Tomorrow however, was another day, he thought as he made his way across the city yet again and crept back into his bolthole.
Azerick spent the next week plying his usual trade, nicking bites to eat, lifting purses, avoiding Hugo and his crew like the plague, and occasionally burglarizing the occasional home. He stuck mainly to the middle and upper middle class homes of merchants. He never pulled off another caper as lucrative as the one that made him enough coin to buy his precious alchemic set and accomplish his justice against the guild house that murdered his friends.
His gift to his friend Bran had absorbed the remaining gold he had made from that run over the and now he was having a hard time making his payments. He was at least two weeks past due.
He realized that he would have to invade another house and make a decent score soon before the guild got tired of leaving the collection job to those three idiots and send out some real thugs to finish the job. He could always pawn his alchemic set back to Azeel but immediately discarded that as an option. He would have to burgle another house and soon. Maybe he would start casing some likely hits tonight.
“Or maybe they would just have to wait a bit longer,” Azerick muttered to himself as he spied a familiar old man in robes striding up the street.
He looked around for some way to make a big enough distraction that would break the old wizard’s attention enough for Azerick to get in and out quickly. Once again, the fates supplied the perfect means. Hugo and his motley little band were across the square, likely scoping out a mark or two as well. Azerick’s quick mind went to work and formulated a plan in seconds.
He threaded his way through the crowded streets towards his three nemeses, scooping up a fresh lump of horse dung along the way. When he came within range, he shouted at the three thugs to gain their attention.
“Hey, Hugo, I got all the taxes you’re worth right here.”
As soon as Hugo looked up at him, Azerick flung the fresh dung at Hugo’s broad face with the accuracy of a champion archer. The filthy ball of manure hit Hugo right in the mouth with enough force to peel back his puffy lips and shatter the dung ball into dozens of tiny projectiles that caught Carrot, Rolly, and a few unlucky bystanders in its expanding spray.
“Kill him!” Hugo screamed, spitting out bits of horse dung.
Azerick took off like an arrow launched from a bow with the three hoodlums in pursuit. He ran through the crowds as fast as he could without knocking into any of them and slowing his escape. His path of flight intentionally took him on an unerring course towards the old wizard who had so humiliated him previously.