Aloyso Yunger’s fellow soldiers called him by the nickname “Pickles” because pickles were his favorite food. The soldiers had tried other nicknames, like “Yunger the Hunger” and “Munch Man,” but Pickles was the name that had stuck. He ate pickles constantly, even while at work. He would bring jars with him to work, open a jar when his shift began, and just keep eating throughout his shift, which was the morning and afternoon shift. The other solders at the West Gate of the Shield Wall, the border wall of the massive sprawling human kingdom named the Imperium, resented Pickles. They thought that eating pickles made him distracted at work, forcing them to do more work to compensate for his being lazy. They had told him so many times.

  The other soldiers were wrong. The green crunchy outer shell and soft wet inner flesh, the tanginess, the hints of sweetness or salt or spices or heat, their smooth or warty surface texture, the savory smell of pickling brine or vinegar, focused his mind into a razor-sharp sword’s edge. The feel of a pickle against his fingers, its smell snorted into his wide-open nostrils, were merely a precursor to the great joy of inserting one into his mouth, chomping down, and savoring each second of the bite before he swallowed. His coworkers were crazy. The pickles were not his weakness. They were his greatest strength.

  Today, Pickles was manning the gate by himself. The Shield Wall was a gigantic, tall, mighty stone wall that stretched out as far to the left and to the right as Pickles could see; he could make his eyes hurt by trying to see where it vanished into the horizon. The gate itself was a pair of giant stone doors, large enough to accommodate a caravan of horse-drawn carriages, that had been fit into the wall. Pickles’s station was directly in front of the gate at its right-most edge, near a much smaller door in the stone wall that led into an area reserved only for the soldiers who manned the gate. His job was to greet oncoming travelers seeking entry into the Kingdom, inspect them, and, if they passed his inspection, to let them through.

  Not much foot traffic came through the West Gate, which was far at the western edge of the Imperium. The South Gate led to the Five Cities and the North Gate opened into the Northern Empire so both of those other gates saw heavy daily activity. His gate did not. The West Gate was in the middle of nowhere. Pickles was surprised when a cluster of people rode into view on the dirt road that led to the Gate. The West Gate sat at the top of a hill and the road stretched down from it so he could see these people coming from quite a distance away.

  A Red wizard led them. The group also had a Blue wizard, a Black wizard, a Green soldier, a White knight, and what appeared to be a Yellow fae. Pickles couldn’t be sure: he had never met an elf before. Very colorful group, they are. Most merchants are all the same color. This small group of people rode up to the gatehouse. Pickles looked at them, munching on a pickle and waiting for them to approach him and ask him to let them into the Kingdom.

  “May we pass through the gate, good sir?” the Red wizard asked. She was a woman, and her voice was soft and seductive, with the intent to entice and beguile. She had an interesting mask: half of it was pink and half was red. “We are merchants from the region of the western woods on a journey to Imperia to negotiate a deal with one of the merchants’ guilds. We are expected at a meeting of the merchant guild called the Green Traders. I have a signed and sealed letter of invitation from the Green Traders. The letter will attest to my story if you read it. I am happy to give you the letter for your inspection. We have nothing to hide. We welcome it if you seek to inspect our persons or our belongings.”

  Pickles reached his hand into a pickle jar and pulled one out. It was a short, fat, warty gherkin. He was in love. He bit into the object of his affections. This pickle had been made by famous gnomish pickle-makers. It had been pickled in a white wine vinegar that came from a noted vineyard and distillery run by gnomes in the Gnome Country. The vinegar had been mixed with flame-spices and crushed cloves which the gnomes had imported from the tropical regions far to the south. These gnomes knew how to make a pickle! This particular pickle was very crunchy and had notes of cinnamon, plum, grape, spinach, fire-sauce, sour anchovy paste, and—“Excuse me? Sir? Can we enter?”

  “What?” Pickles asked through his pickle-stuffed mouth.

  The Red wizard looked at him. “Can we enter the gate.” It was not so much a question as a statement of her frustration.

  “Oh, what? You want to enter the gate?”

  “Yes,” she hissed. “I said that already.”

  She doesn’t seem too friendly, Pickles thought. I need some more pickle to help me stay calm. He took another bite of pickle. The notes of fire-sauce and plum were definitely the two dominant flavors in the palette. Had they added sugar to it? He detected traces of sweetness, but he couldn’t be sure if it was a hint of sugar or whether one of the other spices had a sweet sugary kick. The mix of extreme spicy hotness mixed with notes of sour bitterness and that faint dusting of sweetness were perfection—“Hello? Hello? Sir, would you please open the gate for us?” the Red wizard said.

  “What? You want me to open the gate?” Pickles said.

  “Yes. That is correct,” she said. Her words were slow, careful and deliberate.

  She looks like an honest person and the others do too. And she seems a bit upset; I do not want to make the mistake of annoying a wizard by delaying her! “Okay, I’ll let you all through,” Pickles said. “Give me one moment. The gate only stays open for a short time, so please be fast when you make your way in.” He put his half-eaten pickle back into its jar, set it on the ground, and took out a small brass key from a ring tied to the belt slung around the waist of his chain armor. He unlocked a door in the gatehouse, stuck his arm in, and pulled a lever. He had done this so many times he knew where the lever was without needing to stick his head in through the door to see it. He came out, picked up the jar of pickles, and resumed munching. The heavy stone doors of the gate swung open. The six strangers rode their horses through. A few moments later, the gate slammed shut. A gnomish mechanism ran the door and opened and closed it automatically after the lever was pulled, which set Pickles free to forget about it after pulling the lever and focus on what mattered: his pickle.

  Hours later, the Imperium soldier who came to take the next shift at the gate asked Pickles if anyone had been through yet today.

  “No,” Pickles said. “I distinctly remember. No one could possibly have come. If anyone had been through, they would have interrupted my pickle-eating. That would have grabbed my attention!”

  Rose looked left and right. She saw no one. She ran, stealthily making her way along the streets of Imperia. She ducked behind a corner, then rushed ahead, and turned sharply left, into a narrow alley. She turned and looked back. She held her gaze steady on the street she had come from. Nothing was there. No one saw me and no one is following me. Good.

  Rose breathed a sigh of relief and turned around. Yarid, Glorissa, Sylis, Kylus and Nathan stood there waiting for her in a group on the paving stones of this empty back alley. Tall, crooked, dirty multi-story wooden buildings rose up around them on each side of the alley. The buildings had no doors: this was the rear of all of them, while whatever front entrances they had were directed towards other, nicer streets that they abutted. The sun was low in the western sky and one of the buildings cut directly in front of it, so the alley was bathed in shadow despite it still being daylight out, a fact attested to by the cloudy blue sky visible above them beyond the tops of the buildings.

  “I cashed in the Dark Wizard’s letter of credit at the First Gnome Bank and Savings Vault of Imperia,” Rose said. She spoke in a hushed voice, loud enough for those close to her to hear but soft enough that anyone living behind the walls of those nearby buildings would hear nothing. “It was good for the money that he promised. I have it.” She paused and looked at the faces of her companions to read their reactions before continuing.

  Sylis had never been to the Kingdom before, much less to any city. Imperia was big and sprawling and stuffed full of humans like too many cattle shoved into a tiny stall, and he was clearly overwhelmed. His eyes were wide with awe, and he kept looking this way and that and almost falling over as he bent down and tried to angle his head to get good views, despite that the party had not been exploring or sightseeing at all and they had done nothing other than walk along streets since entering Imperia. Glorissa’s and Kylus’s faces were calm and expressionless while Yarid’s fine aristocratic elven features were etched by a look of fierce determination. But Yarid’s look of stern and powerful purpose competed with his nose, which sniffled and sneezed every few minutes because the cold salty ocean air did not agree with his delicate fae sinuses. Yarid seemed to have trouble keeping still: he was pacing in a small straight line between one side of the alley and the other side, going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. The elf has a lot of nervous energy, Rose thought.

  Rose could not see Nathan clearly because he had chosen to stand in the darkest part of the shadow cast by the building next to which the team was huddled, with his back leaning against the building’s wall. He obviously did not want anyone to see him. Does he have a mark on his life like I do? Rose thought. Stupid of him not to change his mask so his hunters won’t recognize him, like I did. Nathan pretends he is smart, but is he?

  Rose waited for one of them to ask to see the coins, but no one did. They’re a trusting sort, aren’t they? I would take the gold and run, but this heist promises bigger money if we win. “The next step is for us to get a hideout somewhere in this city to be our base of operations while we prepare. I reached out to an old friend I trust, a rogue I used to work with, who now traffics in information. He told me about a Noble family named the Van Rozens, a nice elderly couple, a husband and wife with no children. They’re a family of low title, not much favor with the king and his court, but they have ties to the merchants, so I assume they live in a nice house. They’re taking a year-long vacation to the Southern Tropics and are looking to rent their house to some house-sitters to take care of it for them while they’re gone. They want a nice young affluent couple, preferably newlyweds, to take it off their hands. I want us to rent it from them.

  “The house is in the area at the southern edge of the Fancy District, northwest of the docks and northeast of the Central District. The houses there are spacious and nice, but they aren’t palaces or Manor House mansions, so the cops rarely go there, and the high-ranked and well-regarded nobles rarely go there either. I don’t expect any parties or festivities, or the police, to bother us there. It’s mostly houses owned by merchants who are often away on business and who leave behind an empty house or leave their families behind while they go off to do what merchants do. Neighbors won’t be nosy and won’t ask questions. The area is perfect for us. My contact says the Van Rozen house is a very large house and he thinks it will make the perfect residence for us. No one will suspect that a criminal operation is being run from that hideout.”

  “So you think a nice elderly couple will rent their home to a bunch of thieves?” Sylis asked.

  “Not with that attitude they won’t,” Rose said. “You and Glorissa will approach them while the rest of us wait here. You will pretend to be a newly married couple. You are newcomers to the city, fresh from the rural farms of the south, looking to rent a home until you can get settled in Imperia and locate the home that you want to buy to raise your family in. You’re madly in love and starting a family together. You’ll look like an adorable couple. You’re both so innocent and honest, I’m sure they’ll be taken in.”

  “Thanks? I think that’s a compliment?” Sylis said. “Being innocent and honest is a good thing.”

  “Oh no, it isn’t,” Rose said. “Not when you’re a rogue. But that’s a discussion for another day. Negotiate with the Van Rozens and agree to any price, but demand that you pay five hundred gold coins up front and the rest on the back end. We’ll be long gone by the time they return from their vacation. Promise them whatever they ask for. We will never have to pay it.”

  “Isn’t that, like, dishonest?” Sylis said.

  Rose laughed. “Welcome to the world of thieves.”

  “Wait,” Glorissa said. “I don’t know if I feel comfortable faking being Sylis’s wife. What if they ask about details? I know nothing about him. And there’s no look of true love and intense passionate desire in my eyes when I look at Sylis. They’ll suspect that we’re not really newlyweds.”

  “Thanks, I know that was a compliment,” Sylis said sarcastically.

  “Okay, Glorissa,” Rose said. “But the choice is that tonight, either we’re sleeping in a nice house that you won for us by running a con that doesn’t really hurt the Van Rozens at all and which even you are capable of pulling off on some couple who are probably so old that their eyesight is failing and they won’t even see the two of you or the way you look at him, or you’re sleeping in the stable of some local inn, which a girl as pretty as you can always beg from some innkeeper. I know we’re each saving the platinum coins the Dark Wizard gave us for our own individual purposes, and I’m not handing out any of the Dark Wizard’s gold from the letter of credit unless you do what I say. So that’s your choice for your sleeping options for tonight: a pillow and a bed in your own room in a nice warm house, or a pile of horse poop from the ass of some stranger’s horse in some cold stable with random people coming in and out all night.”

  “I don’t like your tone, but I’ll do it,” Glorissa said. “I could probably pay for a room at an inn out of my own platinum coins, but I don’t want to split up the team, and I know we need to get ourselves a hideout as soon as possible.”

  “This is fun already,” Rose said sarcastically. “I only care what you do, not why you do it. Now get going! We’ve been on the road for weeks, but finally we’re in Imperia! I want to sleep in a nice house tonight!”

  “This is not a nice house!” Rose said. She and the others were standing in the front hall of the Van Rozen’s residence. The hall opened into a kitchen on the left and a dining room on the right, and a staircase leading up to the upper levels and down to the basement was in front of them, while the foyer and front door of the house were behind them. At least, Rose thought that’s what she was seeing: she could barely see any of the house itself past the mountains of junk and trash and piles of garbage that filled all the rooms, to say nothing of the actual coating of literal dirt that covered the walls, ceiling and floors in thick dirty smears.

  “This house is the worst, most disgusting mess I have ever seen in my entire life!” Rose said. “I can’t stay here!”

  “It was your idea, Rose,” Glorissa said. “And Sylis and I did a lot of work to convince the Van Rozens. They did sort of suspect something, like I thought they would. This is where we’re staying. I’m not going through all that work again.”

  “This was your idea, Rose, so I think you should be the one to clean it.” Kylus said. “And oh my God someone needs to clean it. We can’t live here in a house with this level of mess.”

  “An army of goblins couldn’t clean this mess,” Rose said. “Look at it. Mud on the curtains. Half-eaten food that looks to be months-old on the floors, where some insects have made their nests. Mushrooms growing in the kitchen sink. I decline to even look in the bathrooms and see what’s there. When I opened the entrance hall coat closet, I had to close it quickly because I didn’t want to disturb the rats living there. I see a pile of broken wooden fragments on the living room carpet. Where did the Van Rozens even get them from? Did they break a table somehow and just leave it there?”

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “They seemed like a nice old couple,” Sylis said. “We should have asked more questions of them, but, oh, that’s right, we couldn’t because we were running a con on them and we were the ones taking them in. Looks like we’re the ones who really got taken in by them. I would pay the Van Rozens money to not live in their house.”

  “We are not living in this house,” Rose said. “This is disgusting!”

  “We need a hideout, and the more we move around, the more we risk attracting suspicion upon ourselves,” Nathan said.

  “Does that mean you’re volunteering to be the one to clean it up?” Rose asked.

  “No, but there is one of us who can,” Nathan said. “A method exists by means of which we can obtain, not an army of goblins, but an army nonetheless, an army of helpful spirits who will happily clean this mess for us. A magic spell uniquely suited to clean up this repulsive abode that I am forced to share with you all until our heist is complete.”

  “You have a Black spell that can clean houses?” Sylis asked.

  “I am not the one who will cast this spell,” Nathan said.

  “What are you talking about, Nathan?” Glorissa asked.

  “I refer to… the fae song.”

  The others turned and looked at Yarid.

  “Yarid, what is the fae song?” Glorissa asked.

  Yarid sighed.

  “The song of faerie,” Yarid said, “otherwise known as the fae song, draws out random local sprites, hob-faeries, nymph-faeries, tree-spirits, house-spirits and other magical spirits, attracting whichever ones happen to be floating around nearby when an elf sings the song. Humans do not see such spirits, but we elves see them. They are always everywhere around all people. Usually, they just fly around and look at people and laugh at us; they do nothing else. The fae song, when it works, makes the spirits come to the singer and inspires them to, well, how shall I describe this… help the singer, such as with house chores, farm labor, or, well, in this case, cleaning. The spirits can appear in their own form or can possess animals or inanimate objects, but they pose no danger. If the song works, their purpose is only to help whoever sings to them. While they help, listening to the fae song makes the spirits happy. When the song ends, the spirits leave.”

  “You sound like you don’t want to do it,” Sylis said.

  “It’s embarrassing,” Yarid said. “The faerie who sings the fae song has to make it fun and exciting and happy so that the sprites and spirits have fun doing the chores; that’s the whole point of the song. It doesn’t force the spirits to help; instead, it makes them want to help.”

  “So?” Glorissa asked. “Why can’t you do it?”

  “I’m not a bard!” Yarid said. “I don’t sing! I don’t sing, I don’t dance, I don’t dress up in silly clothes or tell jokes. I’m good at seducing men and women, but that’s only because I’m good-looking and not afraid to ask someone to go to bed with me, it has nothing to do with me amusing or entertaining anyone. I don’t even think I can do it. The fae song is supposed to make the sprites so happy that they’re singing along and dancing around and having a really good time while they do the singer’s bidding. The song does not control the spirits, it only motivates them. If they’re not happy, they leave. To be honest, I do not know how to sing or how to keep a tune. The sprites will take one listen to my fae song and go flying in the opposite direction.”

  “Do you know the magic words for the song?” Sylis asked. “Like, can you cast the spell, regardless of how good or bad your singing is? We need to do something about this mess.”

  “The fae song does not have specific magic words,” Yarid said. “The lyrics are supposed to be about what you want the spirits to accomplish for you. But, yes, I am very talented at using Yellow magic; it flows in my royal blood as a member of the court of faerie. I can cast the spell. I do not fear my ability to use the magic. I only fear the results.”

  “I have faith in you!” Glorissa said. “You can do it, Yarid!”

  “You cannot do this to me!” Yarid said.

  “We’re doing it to you,” Rose said. “I will not sleep in a bed that is literally a pile of dirt. You’re doing it.”

  “Ugh,” Yarid said, frowning deeply. He looked at the others, his eyes moving from face to face as if waiting for someone to rescue him by suggesting a different idea. No one said anything. “All right. I guess I’ll have to do it. I can’t live in this house as it is, so my survival depends on it. But you all have to stay here and watch. If I am to be tortured by having to sing, you all will be tortured by having to listen to me.”

  “I will be listening and loving every minute of it,” Nathan said. Nathan was grinning, and Yarid could hear the grin in the necromancer’s voice. “You couldn’t pay me to miss this. This promises to be high-quality entertainment.” Yarid pointedly looked away from Nathan.

  “We’ll sing along!” Glorissa said.

  “Please don’t sing along,” Yarid said.

  “Will that ruin the spell?” Sylis asked.

  “No,” Yarid said. “But it will increase my level of embarrassment.”

  Yarid took a very deep breath, formed his lips into an O, and slowly exhaled, making a slight whistle. He flexed his shoulders and back and cracked the knuckles of his hands together.

  “All right. I can do this. I see no point in waiting. I’m going to get it over with.”

  Yarid started to glow with yellow light, and the air around him filled with yellow sparkles that crackled and sizzled. Rose took a step back from Yarid; she had never seen Yellow magic performed and didn’t know if it was dangerous. Yarid began to sing, in a deep, masculine voice:

  “Hello friends, what are you doing?

  Want to have some fun?

  Cleaning up this house for us

  Will get your happiness done!

  Here comes a task for you

  That will put a smile on your face:

  First one to wash all the dirt off the floors

  Wins the race!

  Save your best for last

  To sweep the floors and remove the mess:

  Because happy fun clean-the-house-for-us time

  Is a great joy with which you’ll be blessed!”

  “It rhymes, too!” Nathan said. “This is just perfect!”

  “This is humiliating,” Yarid said. “I’m questioning my choice of lyrics already. I’m no bard.”

  “Yes, we know,” Nathan said. “Please continue!”

  Yarid sang, repeating the same lyrics over again.

  “Well, I think Yarid is doing great with the fae song,” Sylis said. “I mean, look: it’s working!”

  Rose stared with wide eyes and her jaw dropped. The rats had come out of the coat closet and had started dancing. The rats were holding tiny brooms and dustpans and were sweeping up the dirt as they danced around in graceful circles. The insects crawled out of their nests in the old piles of food, and each insect had tiny wet sponges clutched in four of their six legs. The insects danced and sang along with Yarid’s song while they washed the dirty surfaces of the house with their sponges. Both the rats and insects had faces with large happy eyes and smiling mouths that were singing along to the lyrics of Yarid’s song.

  The mushrooms in the sink sprouted arms and legs and developed faces with cute, adorable eyes and tiny noses and mouths. The mushrooms began to wash the dirty dishes in the sink and polished and sorted the cleaned dishes into the kitchen cabinets. The mushrooms were dancing and singing while they worked, as were the rats and insects, and a group of rats, insects and mushrooms were holding hands and dancing in a circle around Yarid, who was aglow with yellow light.

  Yarid continued to sing, although his face was contorted into a look of extreme concentration and discomfort with his brow furrowed and the muscles of his cheeks and around his eyes and mouth tight and tense. Rose looked at Yarid and her eyes met his eyes. He gave her a pity-me look that said the happy dancing animals were having a much happier time than he was. Rose turned her head and saw through the mouth-holes of their masks that both Sylis and Nathan were smiling, but theirs were two completely different types of smiles: Sylis was just having a lot of fun watching the magical spirits sing and dance, while Nathan’s grin was an evil smirk that mocked Yarid and enjoyed Yarid’s discomfort.

  “Hey, look!” Sylis said. “Even the mushrooms are happy! That’s important. You’ve got to have happy mushrooms. Can’t do anything unless the mushrooms are happy! Those mushrooms are good dancers, too!”

  “Those were the fungus living in the unfathomable filth of this house!” Rose said. “They were the wild mushrooms growing in our kitchen sink! And now they’re cleaning it!”

  “I know! It’s great, isn’t it!” Sylis said. “I feel like we should have snacks and drinks. Yarid puts on a better show than most plays or dances! I’m having a great time!”

  “Indeed, the boy is right,” Nathan said. “I too am enjoying this.”

  Kylus carefully stepped back, and then panicked when he accidentally stepped on a rat. The rat said: “Oh! I’m sorry, human friend!” in a tiny squeaky voice and it went back to dance and clean with the other rats.

  “They can’t… hurt me, right?” Kylus asked.

  “You’re afraid of the singing dancing rats?” Glorissa asked.

  “Um… yes?” Kylus said.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you from the rats who are happily singing and dancing and cleaning our house for us and couldn’t possibly threaten you because you’re a grown man and it’s a tiny rat,” Glorissa said.

  “I would like to say thank you and I’m insulted at the same time,” Kylus said.

  “Both points taken,” Glorissa said.

  More and more rats, insects, and mushrooms joined the party until an entire army of creatures was cleaning, happily humming and singing and dancing around as they went. Yarid continued to sing until the spirits had completely cleaned the house. Yarid looked around and saw nothing but pure, clean, sparkling surfaces, with all the mess gone. He stopped singing, and his entire body went limp with exhaustion, his arms dangling loosely at his sides, his chest heaving as he breathed in rapidly. The glowing yellow light vanished, and, in a sudden instant, the rats and insects and mushrooms stopped singing and dancing and their tiny arms, legs and faces disappeared. The rats squealed and skittered about and ran away, while the insects swarmed and then crawled out of the house through the crack below the front door. The mushrooms just stayed on the kitchen floor, lifeless.

  “I knew you could do it!” Glorissa said.

  Yarid blushed. “Thanks. To be honest I didn’t think I could.”

  “We owe you for this, Yarid,” Rose said. “I will not forget this.”

  “Thank you, Rose,” Yarid said.

  “So that’s it! We have a hideout!” Rose said.

  “Well, there’s still a pile of dead mushrooms on the kitchen floor,” Kylus said.

  “The least I can do is repay the kindness of our elf friend for his fae song,” Nathan said. He pointed at the mushrooms. They vanished in a puff smoke. Nothing was left other than the smell of burnt mushrooms in the air.

  “Nice,” Rose said.

  “Do you also owe me for that, Rose?” Nathan asked.

  “For doing one tiny thing to finish up after Yarid did all the work? I owe you a kind word. Thanks,” Rose said.

  “I accept your word of kindness,” Nathan said. “Now let’s get to work preparing for the crime of the century.”

  The six members of the group were seated at the Van Rozen’s dining room table. It was night; earlier that day they had settled into the house, each one choosing one room to be their own. Candles burned in holders on the table, and curtains were drawn over the windows, to prevent anyone outside from seeing in.

  “A special night happens two months from now,” Nathan said. “It is the night known as the Darkest Night, that one precise night of the year when the world, the sun and the moons align so that the light of the moons is at their darkest that they will be all year. During that night, a celebration takes place in Imperia called the Festival of the Darkest Night, a party in the Central and Poor Districts featuring much merry-making, alcohol-drinking and crazy-leaf smoking. Our heist to raid the Temple of Light has its highest odds of success on that night: the City Guard will be unlikely to see us in such dim moonlight, and many City Guards and Serve-Swords soldiers will be drunk and high at the festival, and will remain so even after they return to the northern area of the city.”

  “Won’t we need light to see by?” Kylus asked.

  “Any competent wizard can make light when he needs it,” Nathan said.

  “Nathan’s plan makes sense,” Rose said. “That gives us two months to prepare for the heist.”

  “I am no rogue. I’ve never stolen something before in my life. I have no idea what will or won’t work. I’ll trust you about when to do it,” Sylis said.

  “We will need gold, or so the Dark Wizard said,” Yarid said. “Will that be enough time to acquire it? And how many gold coins do we need?”

  “We need enough gold to bribe the gardeners of the landscapers’ guild to plant the magic bomb on the Temple grounds at base of the North Tower,” Rose said, “and to buy a hot air balloon for our escape. We’ll need to buy whatever spell ingredients Nathan will require for his magical ritual to summon an imp spirit. And we’ll need money for living expenses to live in this house during the time it takes for us to complete our two preparatory missions: to raid the Star Knights Estate’s Tomb of Heroes to pick the worm-eaten brain of the architect who designed the Temple, and for Kylus to go into the Barracks of the Servants of the Sword and steal Serve-Sword armor as disguises for us and to add fake names to the registry list of Serve-Swords who are allowed into the Temple.”

  “I’m going to handle breaking into the Star Knights Estate,” Glorissa said. Her dark-brown eyes held a gaze that was steady and unblinking, so that her eyes reflected the flames of the candlelight. “I know the layout of that castle like the back of my hand. And that way I can prevent any of you from doing any damage to the Star Knights, who are good and don’t deserve it. I will go and I will take only Nathan with me. He can cast the necromancy spell on the architect, and I will guide him into and out of the Estate. It will only take one night, not two months.”

  Kylus frowned. “I will have to take the lead on our mission into the Order of the Servants of the Sword Barracks,” he said. “I’m not looking forward to my return. They kicked me out, and I never wanted to go back. But I will. I want Yarid to go with me, and no one else. I remember him saying he can cast invisibility and teleport around. I can use those two abilities when I invade the Barracks.”

  “I am happy to go with you, Kylus,” Yarid said. He reached out and patted Kylus on the shoulder. But Kylus continued to frown.

  “I will take care of the spell to summon the imp,” Nathan said. “Do not concern yourselves with that part of it. All I need is a few hours of privacy the night before the heist. And I think that I will have a lot of fun going with just me and the girl to infiltrate the Star Knights Estate. I am not afraid of entering a castle filled with hundreds of good-aligned Star Knights who would cut me down on sight. In fact, I’m looking forward to it. But money is the problem. A gnomish balloon will cost at least several hundred gold coins. Gnome-made mechanisms are not cheap. But the gnomes make high-quality equipment. If we spend the right coins, it will work with no risk of failure. Getting the gold for it is the issue.”

  “You never want to be cheap about buying things that are critical to a heist,” Rose said. “I know rogues who can make connections for me to place the bribes to get the magical bomb in—if our necromancer gets the right location out of the dead man’s brain. But that won’t be cheap either. In fact, to make the correct bribes to the correct people, I’ll need hundreds of gold coins, or even a thousand gold coins. So, yes, other than the Star Knights and the Serve-Swords, getting money is the issue. I estimate that two thousand gold coins will cover all the bribes and pay for a top-line gnomish hot air machine. We could do it with less, but the cheaper we pay out, the lower is the quality of what we buy.”

  “Two thousand?” Sylis asked. “I’m not the expert here, but I don’t think we can possibly get that much money in two months. Unless we rob a bank, which sort of defeats the purpose of having this whole other heist planned to begin with.”

  “I know of a way that we can do it,” Nathan said. “I have an idea. One which poses minimal risk while guaranteeing maximum rewards.”

  “What’s the idea, Nathan?” Rose asked.

  “Let me think about how to phrase this without offending anyone,” Nathan said. “There is a certain type of, how shall I say this, object that is being sold in shadowy marketplaces. It is very popular, and it has a high price. Were we to go into the business of selling it, we could make a lot of money and fast.”

  “What is it?” Sylis asked.

  “They have many names,” Nathan said. “I refer to them as elf porn balls, although others call them erotic fae orbs. It’s a little crystal ball and when you hold it in your hands and shake it and look inside you get to watch an elf man and an elf lady do naughty things to each other. I have never bought one, but I have a friend who buys them all the time, and they sell for ten silver coins if you buy a real one from the Druzilch Consortium and five silver coins for a cheap knockoff counterfeit one. Men have bankrupted themselves to buy them because they’re so much fun.”

  “Surely you’re not proposing for us to get a license from Druzilch to buy these wholesale and retail them at marketplace?” Rose asked. “The merchant guilds are not nice people to do business with, and Druzilch is the worst of them all.”

  Nathan laughed. “Of course not! I’m proposing we buy one elf porn orb on the legal market, use the colorless cantrip called duplication on it to make copies, mass-produce them, and sell fake counterfeit ones on the stolen-goods market!”

  “That is… disgusting, but it could work,” Rose said. “Any wizard can use that spell, so I, Nathan and Sylis can all contribute. With three wizards, we can make a ton of them. I know rogues who specialize in selling stolen goods at illicit markets. Some of them even operate stalls at the legal markets and pretend to be legal, right under the noses of the City Guard, and they’re good enough they get away with it. If we make the orbs, I can see to it that someone buys them from us and resells them to the public. And these rogues are old friends of mine who will give us a favorable cut of the profits. At the prices you mentioned, if we three wizards work for several hours each day to cast the spell repeatedly, we will generate the gold we need within our time frame.”

  “I think it’s gross that you intend to sell fake counterfeit fae erotic orbs to make money,” Kylus said. “It’s a repulsive way to get gold coins.”

  “No one asked you,” Nathan said. “You know, Rose, we could make the fake elf porn balls ourselves. It’s a Blue magic spell that freezes a scene of time inside a crystal ball and causes time to rewind and replay infinitely within it, until the spell runs out. We have a Blue wizard. And we can make the elf porn. We have an elf.” Nathan looked at Yarid. Yarid blushed.

  “No, it’s too dangerous,” Rose said. “We don’t need the people who use the orbs to be able to visually identify a member of our team by either face or body. I’ll go buy some of the fake orbs already on the market from my rogue friends. They’ll have access to the best ones for us to copy. Then I, you and Sylis will get to work making copies for me to sell. We’ll make as many as we can, and I’m sure I can sell them all. The ones my rogue friends give me from the market for stolen goods won’t have any anti-duplication enchantments on them. I can’t think of any reason why this plan can fail. The City Guard will come after us if they catch wind of it, but with my skills, they never will.”

  “I guess I have volunteered to help out without me ever actually volunteering,” Sylis said.

  “I love your enthusiasm, boy,” Rose said sarcastically. “You’ll go far with that attitude. So that’s our plan. Let’s get to work!”