“This is… how do I put this… completely insane.” Quinn sighed, his tawny brown hair swaying as he hung upside-down from a rusted pipe, dangling over 40 feet in the air. His words were harsh, but the scheming young human that scurried around the floor of the abandoned brewery didn’t seem to mind one bit. Diagrams and blueprints were spread across the temporarily cleared meeting space, set up between two large fermentation vats that still held the spiced smell of dwarven ale. The human in question was aggressively writing notes and additions at a frantic pace, and the complete lack of words would add to the confusion, if Quinn hadn't grown accustomed to her calculating silence.

  “All geniuses of their craft are called madmen by those who lack the will to innovate…” Clay mumbled from the other side of the room, a brush in each hand moving independently across the bleak canvas in front of him. It was as tall as Clay himself, and the image being formed was a little too dramatic for Quinn’s taste. It held a barren, sandy landscape that seemed to stretch on forever into the distance, nothing but scorched, lifeless plains and the decrepit subject at the centre of the piece.

  What was once curly, shoulder length golden hair was now limp and thin, more than twice as long as it ran down his narrow shoulders to barely cover a naked and desolate Clay. His pointed ears were snapped and gnawed, the scratches and deep wounds across the sides of his head and face giving an impression of self-loathing and despair. He stared back with a single pure-white eye, and held a severed index finger dripping with blood towards the viewer like a brush, as his other hand opened before him to stormy skies that seemed to roil at the morose scene below. The skin of his exposed palm was peeled back like the petals of a crimson flower, and his lost eye was resting in the centre of his “palette” as it gazed directly into its twin, across the painted border between what Clay thought of as his conscious and subconscious mind.

  Rolling his eyes, Quinn called down “You wouldn’t call her a genius if you had actually looked at what she plans on doing, Clay.”. Swiftly clambering down the broken mess of tangled pipes and bent supports, it took him only moments to be standing before their guest with his arms crossed, but Clay spoke again before he could open his mouth.

  “Ah… yes… she was the genius I was referring to…” Clay muttered to himself in a dry tambre, before his focus was stolen once more by the elusive depths of his incessant brush strokes. Quinn rolled his eyes yet again at his brother’s usual attitude and looked down at the scrawled notes, trying to piece together the plan that Lucy was so insistent would work.

  “So… your plan is to, what, “rob a robbery”? At the most guarded event of the year? How does that seem like a good idea to you at all?” Quinn asked incredulously, flicking through the pages as he tried to understand her reasoning. Lucy was eclectic and often a bit “out there”, but she had always put an impressive level of detail and risk analysis into the jobs he had partaken in before. But this… this was far beyond what he had considered possible, or even worth it to attempt. Who would risk drawing the ire of the Adventurer’s Guild, the Merchant’s Union, every noble in the city, the royal houses and even a group of high-level professional criminals? Lucy, apparently. “Just… give me a minute to work this through, all right?”.

  Reading through the notes as she made them, he tried to break down the plan into stages to better piece it together in his head. Lucy had somehow found out about a high-stakes hold-up of the auction, from a group of criminals somehow bold and foolish enough to go against the most powerful patrons the city had to offer, all at once. She mentioned a “contact” in a few places, but she didn’t elaborate on how reliable the information was, only that it was “100% guaranteed.”.

  During the main event of the auction, the raiders planned to appear on stage through some kind of portal-producing magical treasure, an item already rocketing the cost of this venture up to over 15 million gold according to Lucy’s estimations. To pierce the wards and safeguards of the building, they had planted a counterfeit dimensional crystal inside the auction itself, to be sold as one of the moderately valuable items up for bidding. When it was brought to the stage and shown off to the audience, it would instead weaken the layered protections just enough to let them form a spatial tunnel, directly bypassing what could be considered an entire army waiting outside. Impressive, but… how would they get in themselves, he wondered. He looked at the next page.

  “The SEWERS, Lucy? The ones known for getting people killed, dissolved and excreted as paste? THAT’S our way in?!?” Quinn stared down at the papers with a shocked and frustrated look on his face, because he knew in his heart that it was both a fantastic and terrible idea.

  The sewers of Gahmor were a deathtrap of depth-dwelling monsters, so overflowing and numerous that there were at least six deadly outbreaks a year. Sentient slime bubbling up from the drains and gutters to melt flesh from bone; bloated, shambling corpses breaking open the scattered tunnels leading deep into the earth to consume the living in massive hordes; even waves of all-devouring rats larger than rabid dogs, reaping through the lower class neighbourhoods like scythes through grain. But the sewers were once used for access, maintenance and actually keeping the city clean, back when the people in charge had actually cared about its populace. That was over 400 years ago, however, and now they were a whetstone for the wealthy and adventurous, and a writ of execution for everyone else. But… there also wouldn’t be any guards or nobles in the sewers…

  “So… we climb through a maze of deadly, infested sewers and…” he turned the tangle of interconnected pathways over and over in his hands, before Lucy stopped him at the correct angle and tapped her finger in a specific spot. There was a thin, spiralling passageway, coiling up for more than half a mile and leading directly beneath the auction house. “Interesting…” Quinn’s mounting concerns were briefly put aside as he marvelled at Lucy’s thorough investigation, a spark of excitement and curiosity in his eyes as he flipped to the next page.

  That spark died the moment he saw where the passage led. The auction house had a hidden basement it seemed, but it was not a vault of treasures or reinforced bunker for the aristocrats as he may have expected.

  “… we sneak in through a… secret… underground… brothel… really, Luce? Really?” Quinn stared in genuine disgust at the blueprints before him, a top-down layout of sprawling hallways with connected rooms that varied in shape and size. He would have thought it was some kind of underground servant’s quarters, if the words “-SECRET-UNDERGROUND-BROTHEL-” hadn’t been highlighted in bold at the top of the page. The look of disgust was replaced by a distant, thoughtful expression, as he read the deductions and conclusions Lucy had made about the layout.

  According to Lucy, the tunnel was connected to a secure emergency service hatch, which led into a span of the complex that was primarily for just the escorts and entertainers themselves; cleaning facilities, large wardrobes and dressing rooms, kitchens, a few private bedrooms and even a small chapel were mixed in for the performers to use on and off shift. It was a safe place to recover and, knowing the local nobles, most likely heal from the acts of depravity they were put through on a daily basis.

  The interesting part to Quinn wasn’t the seemingly lavish quarters for the courtesans; He knew that the management of such a place would need their employees to feel somewhat compensated for their troubles, otherwise they would have no incentive to debase themselves and even risk their lives for the perverse pleasures of the wealthy and elite. No, what Quinn found interesting was that many of the “performing chambers” had hidden entrances for the workers to use, providing them either a safe way out or a place to store any… “special tools” they may need for their clients.

  He could finally see the cogs turning in Lucy’s head, as he was begrudgingly coming around on the idea. While all of the nobles were above for the auction they would enter through the sewers, break open the service hatch and wait for a “signal” that Lucy’s contact would send her. She actually showed him the crystal she would receive it on, a small, brown ear-stud that was already pierced into her pale and freckled ear. When she received the signal, it would mean the robbers upstairs were taking over the upper floors and corralling the gentry, leaving the rats to scurry about and gather any valuables left behind by the visiting nobles. Lucy believed that there would be a veritable hoard of jewellery, bags of coin, expensive clothing and even the possibility of minor magical items left behind in the performing chambers. Quinn agreed with that assessment; why collect all of your belongings from a place that you were, almost definitely, coming right back to after the auction was over? Especially when it was a den of inequity and beautiful paramours…

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  Quinn always tried to keep at least a neutral-to-friendly relationship with many of the pickpockets, fellow thieves, smugglers and escorts that hung around his usual grounds of operation and shelter. To him, they were “honourable” criminals, ones that broke the law and just the law, rather than legs and skulls for petty coins. He avoided thugs, bandits and assassins, and never took jobs where people would get hurt, as violence was not something that he nor Clay was interested in. He would defend himself, Clay and a fellow rat on the job, but he had never spilled blood, and didn’t plan on doing so if he had a choice. He had seen what taking a life had done to others of his ilk, and he didn’t judge them for seizing the chance to live in a struggle of survival, but the others… the ones that chose to hurt and kill, for riches, pleasure or experience; they were the ones that he stayed away from like the plague. They had a darkness that could taint those around them, and his life was dark enough as it was.

  Despite his usually friendly yet aloof demeanor towards most of the low-level criminals he kept contact with, he often found himself working and getting along best with escorts and streetwalkers. They were more open by nature of their profession, and most of the rare bouts of compassion he and Clay had received over the years had come from men and women of the night. Argus once said it was because they were trained to always know what people wanted and needed, and knew that what they themselves needed was someone to help fleece their marks for more than they were willing to pay. They used their insights to lure and distract customers, and Quinn searched through their discarded clothes and bags while they were “busy”. It was a good hustle to pull in a pinch, as there were always desperate people looking for a connection, or simple brutes that enjoyed using someone they had all of the power over. This time, it would be rich nobles that were distracted, under attack and likely a bit tipsy from the festivities…

  “Who else are you talking about this job with, Luce? I know I’m not the only one you’re bringing in for something like this, and I want to know who would be having my back if I decide the reward is worth the risk.” Quinn asked as he lowered himself to a cross-legged position in front of Lucy. She was already taller than him by a significant margin; his measly 4 feet and 4 inches of height shrinking even further as the lanky, red-haired human already stood a foot taller than him. Her short, frizzy locks bounced as she bobbed her head side to side, considering his question as she pulled out a stack of octagonal slates from somewhere inside her sleeve.

  It had been a while ago now, but Clay had started making these for Lucy at her request, helping to ease her often slow and frustrating forms of communication. She threw a slate into his open hands, a small copy of his own face staring back at him with a sly half-smile on his lips and a large sack over his shoulder. He inwardly groaned at the image. Clay loved to make him look either cunning to the point of looking wicked, or stoic to the point of looking stupid. At least he had reigned it in slightly for this piece, making him appear as a scheming trickster. Flipping it over, it had “Quinn the Thief” in an elegant golden font at the centre, with glittering painted coins giving off the illusion of being inside a small purse.

  Quinn had long worked out the small signs that Lucy gave off to indicate her thoughts. She had thrown his slate first, indicating he was the first potential collaborator she had brought this to, aside from perhaps their hidden contact. He smiled at that; he liked working with the calm and quick-thinking human, even if standing next to her made him feel even more like a child around adults. It wasn’t as bad as Clay, however; his elven blood made him more than half a foot taller than Lucy herself, leading Clay to often call him “little brother”, despite their dynamic actually being the opposite.

  Next, she threw out another slate. This one Quinn knew was coming, as he hadn’t seen Lucy pull a big job without also dragging Argus along for the ride. His slate showed a scaled, serpentine head with short, feather-like protrusions forming a thin stripe that ran down from the top of his flat skull to the base of his long neck. A somewhat bashful expression was shown on their elongated face, their snout slightly turned away as their forked tongue flicked to the side. The sandy yellow of his scales was highlighted by the bright blue eyes that were looking down, half-slitted pupils gazing at their extended claws, a six-sided die held between them in a sharp grip. Flipping it over, blocky letters curved around a green and red roulette wheel that read “Argus the Gambler”.

  Argus was someone Quinn honestly didn’t like to work with most of the time, at least when Lucy wasn’t making the plans. It really wasn’t Argus’s fault; he was a talented actor, a capable translator and a good judge of character and intention. He often worked the smaller street-level hustles in the market district; “fair” card games with travellers and drunk locals, rigged games of skill, and he even worked as a bookie for some of the unlicensed fighting rings that operated out of the abandoned warehouses and disused factories. The problem with Argus wasn’t his demeanor, class or abilities, but rather his reliance on a single, problematic stat; Luck.

  Luck was a strange concept for many to wrap their heads around. It could help you narrowly avoid death, find hidden riches, and give you an advantage in games of skill and chance (in the case of Argus), among other things. But, as all good things do, Luck also has its drawbacks. If there were winners, there were losers, and few enjoyed having their money rinsed by someone abusing their statistical advantage to get better hands at cards or higher rolls of the die. Many gambling enthusiasts learned to memorize past hands and outcomes of the players they faced, to try and keep ahead of the lucky curve with skill and foresight. Additionally, that luck had to come from somewhere; there had to be an actual chance at success, with the amount of “heavenly guidance” depending on the amount of one’s Luck, and their willingness to gamble with their fate. It usually can't help you accomplish something outside your potential, but there had been many recorded instances of adventurers and scholars using high Luck to enrich and empower themselves by discovering lost magical treasures, receiving rare quests, and even gaining new skills through strange and unusual circumstances. With Argus, it often led to bizarre and, ironically, unfortunate outcomes.

  On their first job together, they had, in order; stolen a cart full of middlingly expensive booze, run over a guard’s foot, been chased by more guards, crashed the cart, found a corpse with 30 gold coins, paid off another guard with some of the stolen liquor, rescued a dog from a lone giant rat, gave said dog to an escort pal of Clay’s to hide them from the heat, then ended up drinking half of the liquor in a mouldy basement. The other half made them roughly 400 gold each, which kept them fed and topped up on supplies for over a month. To Quinn, Argus was a mixed bag, but he had to admit that he usually came out on top; even if the path to success was a little more crooked than he preferred.

  The next slate was one he hadn’t expected, and not because he didn’t like the subject; it was in fact quite the opposite. It depicted a broad, grinning face with chipped and broken teeth; small ears covered in thick lumps that looked like they had been crushed between slabs of rock, jutting out from a wide and squarish head. A tight bun of chestnut hair complimented their burnt chocolate skin, and their copper eyes seemed to glow as they stroked a short, braided beard studded with silver beads and brass rings. On the back of the slate was an intricate bouquet of white and yellow flowers that were spattered with blood, the crimson droplets running across the petals to spell out “Mona the Medic”.

  “Oh shit, Mona’s back? I thought she was still out recovering after she pissed off those ‘12th Street Ghouls’ losers…” he half-whispered to himself, remembering the scene that Clay had spent nearly a week painting in different styles and interpretations; A grisly and beaten Mona, kneeling in the centre of nearly a dozen unconscious thugs, setting the snapped thigh bone of a female leader as she cried and whimpered through a bloody, swollen mouth. According to Mona, the boss of the gang had gotten too rough with a male escort close to her block, and had obviously intervened by knocking most of her teeth out with a brick. A few days later, that same toothless idiot tried to jump her with a squad of crystal-huffing lackeys, only to end up with them knocked out and the boss unable to walk or eat right for the foreseeable future. That painting showed exactly why Lucy wanted her on the team; she was a tough and brutal pugilist, but with a kind heart and hands that sought to heal, rather than harm. If a mishap occurs and someone needs either fixing or breaking, then Mona was just right for the job.

  Quinn leant back, looking at the laid out slates in front of him as he weighed the risks, then the rewards. Even a single purse from one of the toffs could bankroll all of their operations for months, maybe even years, and any magical item could be sold at a high price, whether it actually was valuable or not. If it went wrong, it would go very wrong, but… if it went right…

  “So… an investigator, a thief, a gambler and a medic walk into a brothel…. rob sycophants and perverts from right under their stuck-up noses and vanish into the night?” Quinn said out loud, a snort escaping from Clay as he rubbed his chin in thought, the same sly-half smile as the slate in front of him unknowingly appearing on his lips as he looked up at a grinning Lucy.

  “Why didn’t you start with that?”.