Rob X Punzel ~ Fifteen!

With each step deeper into the slums, no matter how familiar the territory was, Goldie felt a sense of suffocation as the ‘guards’ flanking her began to get more antsy. Every instinct she had was screaming at her to make a break for it, to run, but she couldn't… not yet.

The first guard took a deep breath, letting it out as a long *hiss* between clenched teeth. When he spoke, his voice had lost its earlier hint of civility, shifting back into a suspicious, dangerous growl. “You've been keeping us walking for quite a while, Goldie. I'm about ready to just chuck you in with…”

A brown-speckled red aura surrounded Goldie’s hair as the imposter trailed off, and the scent of cinnamon and hot metal emanated from her as she moved. Her pounding heart felt slightly twisted as anger roiled deep within her, but the young thief did her best to keep her voice calm and level, forcing herself to move steadily and confidently forward. “Sorry, I think I got turned around a little bit… it's so easy to get lost in this part of the slums, and I'm, I hope, understandably flustered.”

“We don't have time for this.” The quiet, snappy guard wasn't speaking to her but to his partner in crime. Goldie watched in horror as his hand twitched down toward his sword, fingers brushing the leather-wrapped hilt. “Let's just-”

“I can only thank you both for being so understanding and kind. You're not like the other guards I've seen, so ready to use violence instead of thinking,” Goldie cut in, keeping her voice light and polite, as though she was completely unaware of the subtext, though the words burned on her tongue like acid as she spoke them. “I think… yes, it's just around the next bend.”

The imposters exchanged glances, mollified for a moment, though it was clear her words weren't enough to quell their intensifying impatience. Goldie could practically feel their readiness for violence, like a storm cloud in the distance about to drop a deluge on the city. Their steps became quicker, their hands rested closer to their weapons, and both of them started paying even closer attention to their surroundings, keeping their heads on a swivel.

Luckily for her, they were looking out, meaning they were no longer watching Goldie as intensely, as she hadn't shown any indication that she would try to run for it. As they stepped around a tight corner, she fell back a step, then made her move without hesitation. 

Thanks to the intensity of the stress over the last short while, her hair had grown from her lower back down to reaching her shins. When she crouched, her hair completely covered her feet, Perfectly muffling the sound she made as she sprinted back the way they’d come before ducking into an alley. She knew this particular spot well, as it was an entrance to the thieves' road. As the imposters shouted in anger, she abandoned her stealth and sprinted down the narrow passage.

“The rope is right behind those crates!” Goldie’s heart was hammering wildly as she launched herself up, kicking off the wooden box and scrabbling for the rough fiber rope. As soon as her hands clenched around it, she began pulling herself up, legs kicking against the wall as she did everything she could to gain as much height as possible. A quarter of the way up, halfway…

But the men were fast, even in their bulky, heavy armor. Just as she passed the ten-foot mark, they reached the base of her rope. “You think you can escape the Scammer’s Society? I don't know how you saw through us, but you're not going to live to spread a warning!”

The rope creaked dangerously as a pair of hands gripped the base of the rope and yanked. Miraculously, the shoddily woven braid only protested and didn't snap.

“Frankfurt! Grip! Pull!” the gruff voice barked out, and the second imposter grabbed on and lent his strength to the efforts of the first. They strained as Goldie’s hands shot up, reaching toward the edge of the roof—just as the stone shingles the rope was attached to finally popped loose and slid off.

For a moment, Goldie felt suspended in midair, then gravity asserted itself and began pulling her back toward the filthy ground of the alley. A blood-curdling scream tore from her throat as she shifted her head slightly to avoid the falling tiles… then inspiration struck as she tumbled backward. Goldie shifted her body, hoping her hair would get the message.

Instead of flipping to land flat as her instincts demanded, she twisted in a controlled spiral, forcing herself to land head-first on the cobblestone below. Goldie drove her skull into the ground with the entire weight of her body behind it, a maneuver only survivable due to the five hundred percent strengthened neck muscles her skills granted her. Allowing her body to crumple limply as she made contact, she internally thanked the system that the silent, absorbed impact was masked by the sound of stone tiles shattering as they landed all around her.

The thief played dead, remaining perfectly still with her face hidden beneath her hair, limbs awkwardly sprawled. Goldie nearly smiled when she realized she could see through the curtain of her hair, though the two stricken imposters couldn't see her watching them. They stepped closer, freezing in place as they looked down at what they believed was her corpse. 

“Abyss, Frankfurt, that was cold. Even for you,” the chatty ‘guard’ chastised his fellow.

“No, it wasn't.”

“Yeah, fine, you're right.” The first chuckled softly, causing goosebumps to flow across Goldie's skin at the malicious enjoyment the man exuded. “I guess that doesn't even rank in the top ten, does it? Well, she's dead, so there's a payday we're not going to make. Who else could we get today? I think there's a kid near here who got an apprenticeship with a jeweler. Maybe we could check in to see if he's been given a key yet?”

The casualness with which they simply moved on from their failed scam and her apparent murder caused Goldie's lips to curl as she grit her teeth, needing to put solid effort into not doing anything foolish. Frankfurt stepped close, lashing out suddenly to kick her in the side of the face.

If her hair hadn't absorbed the impact, the sudden show of brutality would’ve either knocked Goldie out or forced her to show some reaction. Luckily, she was able to remain completely limp and unresponsive, earning a grunt of annoyance from the more brutal of the two scammers. “Yeah, she's dead. Abyss. This was supposed to be an easy mark… everyone knows she makes a bunch of money every day, what with the mountain of food she brings home with her daily. Hold up…”

Goldie tensed slightly, but luckily they had completely written her off. “She said her stash was under a loose cobblestone near the manure pile, there's only one or two of those nearby. Should we go check it out?”

“For three silver?” the first scoffed in an incredulous tone. “If you want to go sift through the feces, I won't even ask for a share. Your call, but let's get out of here before someone looks around the corner and notices the body. Actually, if we stack these crates in the entrance, the rats might take care of the mess before anyone can identify…”

Their voices trailed off as they stomped away, but Goldie remained still just in case they circled back to make doubly sure she wasn't moving. Soon the sound of crates scraping reached her ears, followed only by silence. She waited half a minute, then a full minute before hopping to her feet and racing off down the alley to figure out where the two men were going.

Her body was shaking as the adrenaline coursing through her veins burned itself out, leaving her feeling jittery and unsteady. Fury raced through in its stead, and she set her jaw in grim determination as she rolled over the crates and swept her gaze along the road. In the distance, she just barely made out the duo as they casually backtracked along the path they had tread earlier. Noting their direction, she started to formulate a plan. 

“I need to get up on the rooftops.” Her eyes lingered on where she’d last seen the scammers, and she tried to force herself to remember where every rope to the rooftops was placed in this section of the slums. “No. That's gonna take too long.”

Without realizing it, her hand had closed around the leather grip of her battle scissors. Letting out a nearly animalistic snarl, she charged down the road, keeping low to the ground to eliminate the sounds of her approach. By the time she got to the intersection, they were almost out of sight. Goldie rushed after them, earning a few odd glances as she sprinted silently. 

There they were. Their backs turned, they were moving along casually, trusting in the look of their armor to keep people at a distance. She closed in on them, her hair poofing out behind her like the wings of an avenging valkyrie. Goldie raised her scissors, aiming to drive them into the back of the man who had kicked her in the side of the head.

Just before she could get in range of the duo, a too-warm form slammed into her, tackling her to the ground—silently, thanks to her hair—and rolling them through a door that opened just in time. The rot-coated wooden door *clicked* into place behind them as Goldie shot to her feet, ready to cut her away free of this situation. Before she could start swinging, she caught sight of her assailant's face and went still. “Chay? Why’d you stop me? I need to make those two bleed.”

“That's not what we do, Goldie.” Chay raised both his hands in a non-threatening gesture. “We're thieves. Those are guards. You cut one of them, the whole place is going to be swarming. The guards have burned entire neighborhoods before when they were looking for someone who went after their people.”

“They're not guards!” she shouted, shoving her knife in the direction of the door. “They're from some sort of Scammer Society! They pulled me off a building, dropped me on my head, and kicked me in the face to make sure I was dead! I barely got away. They manipulated me, they made me… I was so scared, Chay. They knew your name. That I worked for you, who you were. I was told they had you in custody, and they were going to execute you. They knew practically everything about me-”

Chay slowly lowered his hands, putting them on her shoulders and pulling her in for a hug. “I see. I understand. I've got people watching them, and they’re following them right now. Now that I know they're not guards, we’ll make sure to trace them back to their hideout… then we’ll collapse the building on them and everyone they work with.”

“If they knew all this information about me, who else does? What if they work at more than one place? What if there's a whole-” Chay squeezed her tighter as she babbled, finally going so far as to grab a handful of her hair and gently draping it over her mouth to muffle her.

“Stop.” Though he said the word gently, it was clearly an order. “As of this moment, this issue is a guild matter. I'll let you know what happens to them, and I'll make sure you get a cut of their bounty. Cuz’ I'll tell you now… if they’re wearing real guards’ armor, there's definitely a bounty.”

Only the cold steel in his voice kept Goldie from demanding to be a part of the raid, of having the satisfaction of seeing the two men suffer or demanding to be the one to cut them down. “I… I don't know what to do, Chay.”

“It's pretty simple, really. It's time to take this life way more seriously, Goldie. First of all, if you remember nothing else, remember this. You are never, and I mean never, to give yourself up for anyone else in the guild. If someone gets caught, we expect them to do everything they can to save themselves. But it’s not on you. Under no circumstances are you to give yourself up for one of us. The only thing that's going to happen is that two people get sent to the chopping block.” Chay stepped back, and it slowly dawned on Goldie that he was full-on chastising her.

He took a breath and launched into his next thoughts before she could manage to speak over him. “Going forward, you need to have coin stashes in multiple places. I've told you this before, but the fact that you use the same routes every day and have the same routines that you follow without fail? That's why these guys were able to target you so perfectly. Everyone knows what you do. Where you go. What you do with your money.”

“Are you… are you blaming me for this?” Goldie flushed with anger, pausing only because Chay began to shake his head.

“It's not your fault they targeted you, but it is your fault that you made it so easy.” He took a deep breath. “You're not a child anymore, Full Class or not. It’s time to make a choice and go all in on it. I want you to stop living at the orphanage and rent a room at a guild safe house. You're going to have a new place every week, and you're never going to hit the same street more than once every other month. Are you ready to make a change… or are you going to let something like this happen again, because you’re letting yourself be an easy mark?”

Completely deflated, and in slight shock at the demand, Goldie stepped back and tried to gather her thoughts. Unfortunately for her, Chay didn’t give her a chance to weigh the pros and cons, as she normally did.

“I can get you a special dispensation for the safe house, but if this is really something you need to think about… then maybe I already know the answer. Maybe you need to go make a new life for yourself.”

Her head whipped back and forth furiously, hair poofing up like that of a startled cat. “Chay! No… you're right. This is my life, and I need to choose to live by choice… not by chance. I’m with you. I’m all in.”