Polymath Redux – Chapter 7

Polymath Redux – To the lady and gentleman, a Solaris style greetings to you!
Chapter VII

Yda.

Pick pocketing and information brokering was her game, she lived life as a rat, getting into the nook and cranny of all sorts of pockets and classified information. For the past 17 years that’s how she had lived her life and although she had amassed quite a bit of fortune with it she continued to do this.

It was no longer just about survival, it was about the game. The thrill of the hunt! For now she lived a free life with little to worry, the ‘patrons’ of the capital city were very ‘generous’ and ‘plentiful’. However that was it, there was one thing that defined her particular character; a creed to her life if you will.

It was the fact that she hated the nobility. No, perhaps not limited to merely nobles, anyone rich, be it merchants, traders, adventurers or knights. Even royalty was not exempt from her disdain, why? Because it was because of the rich that her life was trampled to the ground and that she had to even resort to pick pocketing to survive!

Then, on a bright mid summer’s day, she happened to chance upon two particular people that looked rather well off. Well, at least one of them were. They were walking around the streets of the marketplace; a handsome looking young man, perhaps not any older than her, wearing a sturdy looking armor. It was dirty but those usually were the best kind as they were hard working, meaning their pockets were also ‘hard working’.

Next to him was a woman, perhaps a little older than the man, she looked rather well off, she even showed off her great sword slung on her back. It looked extremely expensive, no saying it was ‘expensive’ would rather be an insult. She didn’t know what kind of ancient tomb she had to raid to obtain such weaponry but there it was. Unfortunately even for Yda, stealing a great sword was too tall of an order, but this just mean that the woman’s pocket was also ‘plentiful’.

Perhaps they were some kind of adventurer couple? Or so Yda had thought about, but their relationship didn’t particularly look ‘lovey-dovey’. Then adventuring friends, comrades? Well, no matter they were just targets. ‘Thanks for all the hard work’, Yda prayed to them in her heart as she lined her sights up for the plundering.

Though she did consider it a little odd that the man carried no visible weapon even though he was wearing armor. Well, that wasn’t any of her business, her business was ‘infiltration’ and ‘recovery’. Wearing a subterfuge she crept closer to the duo walking around like they weren’t paying attention, ‘all the better to steal with, my dear’, she commentated to herself in her mind.

She started phasing out and drooling just thinking about how much gold would be in that fat pocket of the lady’s or even the man’s. The problem was where they were keeping their gold, most of the time for adventurers they placed it in their pockets of their dominant hand, though Yda couldn’t find any noticeable bulge. There were smart adventurers that left their money at their inns or whatnot but for someone who carried around an expensive looking great sword that kind of thinking probably wasn’t on their minds.

As she drew closer the female companion opened her mouth to talk.

“Master…”

Out of all the words, Yda did not expect her to address the man as ‘master’, why did the servant look more lavish than the master? There were a few scenarios in which this could be the case, perhaps that armor was more of a heirloom? Which would explain the damage to it… yeah… ‘that might just be it’, Yda thought, reassuring herself that she hit the ‘jackpot’ today.

“Don’t worry about it.”

The man replied with a carefree smile. Though that smile looked rather fishy it wasn’t anyone of her concern. ‘Oh, I’ll show you something to worry about, soon enough!’ Impish thoughts ran through her brain more and more as they drew closer and closer. She even started fantasizing about what she would do with the loot.

She locked on her gaze towards his right pocket and started to speed up. Now her plan was simple, all she needed to do was emulate a small collision and during the time when the other party was distracted she could take their wallets. The key ingredient to the success of this heist was to make it seem as harmless as possible.

There was no need to rush, rushing would only give out her intentions, there were many people that could read other’s intentions these days after all. She almost got caught by one of them the other day, thus she would try her best to not make the same mistake. The duo seemed to stop walking, they were admiring the view of the fountain in the middle of the town square.

“It looks nice.”

Yda was so focused on her objectives that she didn’t even know who it was that said those words, one would think it would be easy to distinguish between a female and male voice, oh well. It wasn’t a problem in the end. That being said, she was off!

“Ouch!”

Yda had crashed into the man and they both fell over. She searched through his right pockets during the ‘accident’ but she was wrong, there were no wallets of any kind in there, she had missed her greatest chance!

“S- sorry, I was in a hurry.”

She quickly made excuses, but the man didn’t seem particularly angry at her.

“Are you okay young lady?”

The man offered her a hand, there was no need to rush out, if she did she would look suspicious. After all, all she needed to do was try again once more later, the main point was that she needed keep her composure. She took the man’s hands gentle hands gracefully and stood up.

“Thank you.”

She replied with a smile, giving a gracious bow she started walking away. She had guessed wrong, the wallet must’ve been on the left pocket after all. However the problem was how to emulate another collision, if she did it again it would only look strange. Later on she might be able to run into them again and distract them by claiming it was fate or something.

Still, it was odd she was usually quite intuitive about these things and had guessed right most of the time. That’s how she had lived for the past 17 years after all. This little failure didn’t demoralize her, instead started a new fire to try harder next time, since this entire thing was simply for the thrill.

She looked back to check on the status of the duo, she couldn’t forgive them for not letting her steal their wallets. However to her surprise they were nowhere to be seen.

“What?!”

They had already left the scene of the crime; she couldn’t even feel their presence anymore. Now this was a real first for the young Yda, not only did she make an amateurish blunder but now she lost sight of her target! Her day couldn’t get any worse.

“This is bad, I have to find them.”

“Oho, find who, young miss?”

Looking to the source of the voice there were two ruffian looking men. They all wore some kind of dark leather as if it was some sort of fashion statement. She knew these men, they were in the same line of work as her after all.

“Blare, Rob. You guys again…”

She casually blurted their names in public. She couldn’t exactly say she trusted their integrity but at least it wasn’t a stranger, she could use them for help and pay them a small cut afterwards. Thus she explained the situation to them.

“Hmm, two adventurers eh? Very well we’ll help ya.”

Blare said with a smile, as he did his golden and malformed teeth were on full display. Each time she saw that sight she could only recoil in disgust. She gave them each a one-time-use ‘contact token’ which was exactly as it sounded, a one-time-use item that they could use to contact her. It wasn’t really cheap but it wasn’t really expensive either.

Afterwards they each went their separate ways trying to find the mysterious duo.

Yda thought it would be best to use one of the transports to cover more ground quickly. Since the marketplace and the general city was extremely large the common mode of transport were done by carriages, there were different kinds too. Those pulled by horses and those pulled by monsters, of course the monster carriages were much faster meaning they also costed a lot more.

No choice, she herself wasn’t exactly poor so she could afford the monster carriages if she wanted to. The thing was, she had to ask herself whether it was worth wasting this money just to track down two people, but once again she couldn’t let her tarnished honor go, she had to track them down and rob them!

“Why not, this is what makes life fun after all.”

She made her decision. Whether she made a profit or not was never part of her hobby. She only really wished to steal from the rich. She walked up to a nearby monster carriage.

“Where to ma’am?”

The rider asked with a husky voice. Most monster carriage riders were a rugged bunch, they would have to be since they were taming monsters to pull their carts instead of docile horses.

“I just want to have a little tour.”

“That so? It’ll be 3 gold coins upfront.”

“Ugh, I didn’t know it’d be this expensive.”

While she complained she still had enough money to use the transport, in comparison the horse carriages cost little over 70 copper pieces. The currency system worked like this:

100 copper pieces = 1 Silver piece
100 silver pieces = 1 Gold piece

Obviously only nobles would carry around gold pieces, that or rich merchants. Though Yda was an exception since she was a little ‘special’ case.

“Well, fine.”

She reached for her lower pocket to take it out… Only to find that it wasn’t actually there. Not the pocket. The pocket was still there, the thing missing was her purse.

“What?!”

She voiced in a volume one level too high for everyone in the vicinity to hear. Her purse was gone! Did she drop it?! No that was unlikely it was attached to her by a string. It wouldn’t have needless fallen out.

Then what other possibilities were there? Was she robbed? That would be an ironic twist of fate, but she made sure she didn’t, she knew all of the tactics employed by conmen and thieves, there was no way she’d fall for one herself. In fact she was never spoken to or bumped into the entire day. Then what was the actual cause of the missing purse.

As she gasped and realized what had just taken place her entire world came to a grinding halt. She understood as she dropped some copper coins in slow motion to the floor. The coins made a loud audible pinging sound as they hit the concrete floor. She did bump into someone today! Specifically a man in heavy armor! Unforgivable!

She had been robbed during her attempted robbery!

Interrupting her train of thought her contact token rang.

“Oi, young miss, we found them. The tall man and girl you were looking for.”

She took it out and spoke into it.

“You found them? Where?!”

“It looks like they’re next to a place called ‘Orietta Restaurant’.”

She knew where ‘Orietta Restaurant’ was, she went there on multiple occasions.

“Thanks, I’ll be there right away!”

…

After running for about five minutes her lungs felt like they would give out, but she had a reason to continue running despite this. Finally she could almost see the ‘Orietta Restaurant’ signpost.

“Oi, missy, in here.”

It was one of the ruffians that were helping her, they were pointing towards a small alleyway, well they did say they were next to the restaurant and not inside. But it wasn’t a place that adventurers would go, which only meant one thing. The two ruffians had cornered them and taken them in. Yda gave out a sigh as she entered the alleyway.

“Good, did you find them?”

“Yeah we found them, they’re just around the corner.”

She felt an odd sensation. Like her entire body was telling her to run, that this was a trap. It was most likely a trap, there was no way those two powerful looking adventurers would come to this place, even if they were met by the two ruffians. Then it hit her! She was so naïve!

“Haha, missy I can’t believe you’d fall for such a stupid trick!”

So in the end it really was a trap. What she regretted most was not being able to get her wallet back before this had happened. She tried to make a run for it but one of the ruffians grabbed her by the arms. Indeed Yda was an impressive short distance runner but the ruffians were just as impressive in their physical strength.

They grabbed her and she was pulled down to the floor. Tears could be felt running down her face.

“Oho, are you crying? This is so hot!”

One of the ruffians jumped onto her and pinned her down.

Through tears in her eyes, the two ruffians she knew turned from petty hooligans to full-fledged criminals. She was thinking of what kind of revenge she wanted these two to suffer when she got out, that was the only way to distract herself from what was to come to her.

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