Rob X Punzel ~ Thirty-One!

A boot softly pressed into Goldie's side, just enough to elicit a groan from the sleeping woman. It came again, and the thief went from asleep to fully cognizant in an instant, sweeping around and to her feet, blades in her hand as she tried to assess this new threat. There she stood, feeling slightly foolish as she looked into Xander's bemused eyes.

“You sleep soundly for someone the alchemy guild has thrown a fortune into capturing,” the forgemaster stated flatly as he looked away from her, casting a critical eye around his storefront. “I'd ask how you got in, but I highly doubt you're going to tell me. None of my wards went off, the door was locked when I arrived… yet here you stand, a fugitive hiding in my store and bringing ruin to me if noticed.”

“Xander? I… sorry.” Goldie blinked rapidly, trying to expunge the last vestiges of sleep from her mind. “I’ll go. I just didn't have anywhere to go or anyone else I could trust. Everything came crashing down-”

“A life of crime tends to do that,” the man stated not unkindly as he ran a hand over his beard uncomfortably. “You came here because you figured a thousand gold wasn't worth enough for me to turn you in. Not a terrible plan. However, you know I can't get on the alchemy guild’s bad side. Without the supplies they sell, I can't pursue my craft. I did what I could, even kept the shop closed all day so you could sleep, but now…”

“That wasn't why I came here.” Goldie stated quietly, tucking her battle scissors behind her back, surreptitiously pushing them into her hair. At his questioning glance, she looked at the ground and mumbled, “You're the only friend I could trust not to give me up as soon as you saw me… no! Did you just say a thousand gold?”

Xander looked at his ceiling, grumbling not-quite-words before looking back at her with a slightly softer gaze. “Look, I know you've had it rough. Frankly, I’ve no idea what you could’ve done to make them this mad. They doubled the bounty overnight, and rumors are circulating that they're going to do it again if they don't catch you soon.”

“Abyss.”

“Yeah, no joke.” Xander glanced around as if worried he was going to be overheard in his own, protected shop. When he spoke again, his voice was barely above a whisper. “There's something else, Goldie. Dozens of alchemy guild members arrived in the last few hours. They have their own community built on top of a mountain—rumor has it they all but stole a city from the crown—and usually they only send out one well-protected member at a time. Whatever they're after, it's not some trinket. What did you do?”

Licking her very dry lips, Goldie tried to decide how much she should tell her friend, only to shrug her shoulders and lay it all out. “My crew emptied out a vault in that fancy-pants warehouse built right at the edge of the noble district. I got a whole slew of potions, a mess of magical accessories, but… only one thing really stands out. Do you know what a potion called ‘liquid sunshine’ is? It took a container with Master-rank Magical Signature Emission immunity to fully hide it, and-”

Already Xander was shaking his head, so Goldie bit off her words and waited for him to gather his thoughts. “No. There's got to be more to it than that. That’s an Epic potion, bordering on Legendary, but there's a few of those circulating through the continent at any given time. Maybe all of it together…? No, that still doesn't make sense.”

The man began rubbing at his chin, lost in thought, but something he’d said tickled at Goldie’s thoughts. She glanced down, trying to remain casual as she swiped the inside of her left arm, subvocalizing her intent to see the shortened version of her Advanced Class Breakthrough Skill.

Bad Hair Yester-Morrow: Level 6/10.

User’s hair will automatically [Considerably] envelop the user in a protective hairball if an unavoidable attack is incoming.

After the user's hair has become immune to a specific type of damage at any rank, it can be infused with a same-rank elemental version of the immunity for [15] seconds every ten minutes.

Once an hour, when the user’s hair extends to cover a barrier, the user can generate a single-use temporal trapdoor, allowing the user and whatever is in the user’s hair to step [.6] seconds in the past, appearing on the other side of the barrier as if they had always been there.

When the temporal trapdoor is not on cooldown, the ends of each strand of hair exist in the astral plane, allowing the user to [Considerably] interact with incorporeal energies.

The user’s hair is able to hide and hold objects totaling up to a maximum of [60]% of the volume of the user’s hair.

The user’s hair can now serve as a [Considerably] effective substitute for any single component in an alchemical recipe up to the Legendary rank.

“Xander…” As her friend's attention return to her, Goldie carefully picked her words. “If I had accidentally taken something that constantly generated a crafting component for alchemy, one that allowed them to Perfectly replace any one component up to the, um, Epic rank-”

“No.”

This time, instead of disagreement, the word conveyed abject horror. He stepped close, too much of the whites of his eyes showing to be healthy. “Goldie… give it back. No matter how good it looks to keep, they'll hunt you and everyone you’re associated with… forever. Components, especially for alchemy, are incredibly difficult to get ahold of. Rare earth, plants that grow only under certain conditions, parts from magical beasts that have to be wild in order to exist at all. Replacing even one of those will save them hundreds of thousands… no, millions of gold, depending on how long it’ll generate the component replacement. It’ll mean faster skill advancement for whatever Alchemist it belonged to-”

“Even Epic rank is that important, huh?” Goldie’s fake smile faltered as Xander continued to wax eloquent on the benefits of having such access to the components. Internally, she was utterly howling at her hair for being such a magnificent replacement for alchemy up to the Legendary rank.

Her thoughts turned to how they could’ve possibly figured out what her hair could do, only to remember how a large swath of it had been cut through by the Alchemist and his long-distance acid attack. She murmured her thoughts softly. “He must’ve been trying to make a tracking potion, or something like that, only for my hair to be absorbed into the mixture. Celestial feces, Chay’s greed killed me. No, worse… they're going to lock me in a tower and harvest my hair for the rest of my life. On the plus side, I likely won't even realize it. They'll probably keep me in a magically-induced slumber, so I can't figure out a way to escape.”

Xander was staring at her queerly, prompting Goldie out of her thoughts. “Well? Do you?”

She offered a weak, sheepish grin. “Sorry, I got lost for a moment there.”

Letting out a huff of annoyance, Xander tried again, “Do you think you can give it back to them without them catching you?”

“No,” Goldie firmly but softly stated. “Definitely not. I need to go… before they start looking into you.”

She walked slowly toward the door, but his hand shot out and landed on her shoulder, turning her around. Looking at her with a slightly agonized expression, the man let out a harsh exhale and bid her to wait by tapping on the counter. He hurried into a back room, coming back moments later with an ornate box. “I made this for you… I was going to try and convince you to let me out of my debt to you by dangling this in front of you like a carrot in front of a mule. But, well, circumstances being as they are, you need to be properly equipped if you're going to survive.”

He shoved the box toward her, looking away as she pulled it open to reveal a beautifully crafted, yet seemingly plain set of battle scissors. She lifted them out of the box, looking at Xander curiously as he shifted back and forth uncomfortably. Finally, he couldn't contain himself any longer, and burst into motion, pointing out different features of the bladed weapons.

“Look here. This mark, the inscription, denotes extreme durability. Here, shearing force, which is different than cutting or slashing, at least according to the system. Never found a real difference, myself. These four, different elemental imbuements. Fire, corrosive, vibration, and pressure. When you place the scissors together to make the oversized shear-”

Xander took them from her hands and pushed the blades together, shifting and melding them into a single weapon. “It creates these two inscriptions, the first of which is repair, because you seem to delight in breaking things that should be nearly impossible to break. This one is… actually, I'll just show you. Cut the tip of your finger, and allow a drop of blood to flow onto this mark.”

Though she was extremely hesitant to injure herself, Goldie pressed her pinky finger against the blade, allowing the smallest drop of blood possible to ooze out and onto the mark. It shimmered with a soft bronze light then vanished. Seeing that his magical scribble had disappeared, Goldie opened her mouth to frantically apologize, only to pause as she saw Xander let out a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank the system, it worked.”

“What just happened?” she stated dangerously, wondering what sort of blood-fueled magic she’d just activated. Her friend lifted his hands defensively, waving them to hold her back so he could explain.

“It's a retrieval function. Now, even if you lose them, you can retrieve them by taking a drop of your blood and drawing out the symbol of the imbuement.” Seeing her confused expression, he smiled and pointed at her still-bleeding finger. “Allow me to demonstrate, as this is one of my newest inscriptions. Actually, I only have it thanks to your help. It's the first time I've used it. Now follow me midair… a circle… a dot, press your finger in the dot as though it is a key going into a lock. Flip it upside down, make a come-hither motion-”

Pow!

A tiny thunderclap rang through the enclosed space, and Goldie’s new weapon dropped out of midair onto her closed fist. “Ow!”

“Oh, yeah, you should practice that with all fingers extended so you can catch ‘em.” Xander explained even as he rubbed at his aching ears. “Distance shouldn't matter, especially since that was… well, a lot more powerful than I expected it to be. Faster, too. Strange. Either my runes worked better than advertised, or more likely you have a stolen trinket on you that increases the power of my artifacts.”

“This is… these are amazing, Xander,” Goldie humbly stated, swallowing hard to keep herself from tearing up. “Consider our debt settled, with these as the one item I request for free.”

The shopkeeper’s eyes went wide, and he tried to refuse, but his hand unconsciously clutched at his chest as the oath they’d made was slightly resolved. He took a deep breath, his eyes glittering with energy. “I’d intended those as a gift, Goldie! I don't know if I'll ever see you again. I meant them as something to remember me by, and… oh, hey, press against those symbols and say the name out loud if you want to change the elemental imbuement. Fire, corrosive, vibration, and pressure in order, top to bottom.”

They looked at each other for another long moment, neither of them certain what to say next. Finally, Goldie gave him a slow nod, and stepped to the door. “Goodbye, shopkeeper.”

“Get outta here, thief.” Xander smiled at her as she threw her cloak over her head and stepped out of the shop.

She slipped through the wide roads of the artisans’ district, her mind clear, but heart pounding from seeing her face plastered at every intersection. Goldie tried to avoid everyone's eyes, and quickly slipped into an alleyway with easy access to the barrier wall between the districts. Having learned her lesson about the limitations of her skills, she pulled the cloak off into the side, allowing her much-shortened hair to flow out—thankfully her long rest had somewhat restored it.

Stepping into the no man's land along the wall, fully on edge and ready to run as needed, Goldie felt her blood freeze in her veins as she felt the feathery touch of a magical ward. An alarm shattered the quiet of the early evening, and for an instant, she felt her legs lock in place. A cry went up behind her, and the sound of boots echoed through the air as people swarmed toward the noise. Her instincts took over, and Goldie bolted forward, throwing herself against the wall hair-first and phasing through the thick stone.

Only to be greeted by a new, wailing alarm as a new ward activated. “By the system, they trapped the walls!”

She forced herself to move before the hidden watchers could spring into action and chase her down. Hands, feet, and hair pushed against the bricks of the fine house she found herself behind, and she raced up the surface of it onto the rooftops in moments. Immediately, she began rushing along the weathered, though well-made tiles, no noise escaping into the open air around her even as she pounded along with all her might.

Unfortunately, having lost her once, her pursuers were now relentless as well as armed with the knowledge that she was a slippery character. Magic crackled in the air, and arrows whizzed by her zigzagging body as both guards and mercenaries swarmed up the surrounding buildings, climbing after her in an organized jumble. It didn't seem that the two groups were necessarily working together, as they each at best ignored the other.

She could hear the clank of armor approaching behind her and felt tingles on her skin as spells wove together into binding nets ahead of her. Goldie's hair streamed out; catching on tiles, chimneys, gutters, whatever it took in order to either continue or arrest her momentum as necessary. Still, they were too fast, too prepared for her to be in this part of the city. As far as the thief was concerned, there could only be one reason for it.

“Chay… if you sent them after Xander, I'm going to find you and cut your tongue out so you stop singing the answer to every question they have.” Goldie’s growled threat didn't even leave the confines of her hair, muffled as every sound was when she didn’t actually intend for others to hear it.

Half an hour passed in a merry chase as she swung across buildings as though she were a half-beast cavorting in a jungle with jaguars and wolves closing in on her. Finally, she was in range of the barrier between the citizens’ and the merchants’ district, but her eyes widened in realization as she made her way toward it. “If they could set up a detection circle back there… they can definitely do so here.”

 A simple plan formed in her mind, and she shifted her vector ever so slightly. Pouring on the speed, she moved in a straight-line sprint toward the barrier wall, leaping over a steepled roof and cutting off the line of sight of her pursuers. Immediately, a terrible klaxon call went out as yet another ward alarm was breached, nearly drowning out the sounds of booted feet above Goldie’s new, hidden position.

“She went through the wall again! Go around or over if possible! Intel says she can't come back anytime soon.” The shouted order brought the tiniest of smiles to Goldie's face, but she waited several minutes before slipping out of the hair-hammock she’d used to plaster herself to the underside of the eaves.

In that short amount of time, her pursuers had cleared out of the area, so Goldie took the opportunity to backtrack. In only a few minutes, she’d crossed nearly a twentieth of the district and was well on her way to escaping over the wall instead of going to ground level and potentially setting off yet another alarm. Freedom was near at hand: she could feel it.

Already planning her grand escape from the capital, a meaty thump, followed by a pained grunt made her ears twitch as she leapt over a wide side road. Landing on the rooftop on the other side, she glanced back and down, seeing a routine mugging going down. The thief almost turned away, but a flash of steel recaptured her attention, making her take a second look at what was happening.

Below her, a man was being pummeled by a gang, fists and boots striking him from several sides as they shouted obscenities at him. But one man, clearly the leader of the group, had just pulled out a knife and was slowly approaching the downed man.

“You think you can come into our house and try and hustle us? Sandbag your first fights to drive up your betting odds, then scoop up a sack of gold like that?” The blade-wielding man shook his head, as if he were completely shocked by his victim’s audaciousness. “No one steals from us and lives to tell other people how to do it.”

Goldie continued to hesitate, knowing that if she just kept running, she could get out of there. As the other members of the gang stepped back to give their leader easy access, the beaten and bloody man rolled onto his back and let out a gurgling groan. The thief felt her heart drop into her stomach as the man stared uncomprehendingly up at the sky.

“Celestial feces, Bob. What have you got yourself into?” As the blade rose into the air above the only other known sponsor of the orphanage, Goldie made her choice. Pushing herself out into the open air, she dropped into the fight—battle scissors at the ready.