Thieves Guild

Overview

The Thieves Guild was - and still is partly - the former townhall of Crúor. It got buried beneath water, pestilence, and rubble as the tidal wave buried the city beneath its unrelenting mass of water. The destroyed part of the townhall was sealed off, and the new townhall was built on top of it.

There are thieves lurking in the darkness. Magic users who practice arts forbidden or unknown. And there are darker, more mysterious things, deep in the old library, where mold and ink-like shadows are a lovely couple these days.

Sunken History

The townhall was flooded, partly destroyed because of pressure and water, and left to rot because of the Bluewave pestilence and rubble. It was easier to seal off the townhall, leaves it to itself, and build another, newer and better, townhall on top of it. There is still a door somewhere in the basement leading into the old townhall, but not even the clerk has a clue that it still exists.

Water, a filthy mass of mold, corpses, blood, and other nasty things, destroyed the entire first floor, a huge part of the library on the same floor, and the basement. Mud blocked off a good chunk of hallways, and gave a lot of illnesses and other life a breeding ground.

For a long time the townhall was entirely forgotten. But the building had a backside door to the outside. Due to pressure, general movement, and the creeping heat from the geyser tunnels, the mud and a huge part of the rubble started to vanish, mostly out the back of the former townhall. This drew attention, and over the course of months people cleared out a lot of the rubble, cleaned a lot of rooms, and kept the appearance of a destroyed building. Also they build a thick layer of wood and mud between the entrance and the old door which leads to the new townhall, so movement and noise in general isn't so obvious.

The people moving in? At first just people who wanted to hide belongings, being of a real worth or just personal worth. Which drew the attention from beggars and then thieves. It took only a few weeks, and the thieves had settled in. They set up traps, passwords, false doors, real doors which looked like false doors, and let the building still look like it was a festering ruin, which it kinda was. Dampness and bad ventilation let the mold still fester, infecting shelves and books in the library.

The thieves guild thrived, as far as a thieving guild can thrive. They used the more or less intact rooms as storage for their goods and treasure, until the demons from out the Spiral appeared.

The massacre was a hellish nightmare. It got problematic as thieves tried to run and hide in the guild building, but something followed them. One by one they got plucked away like ripe fruits, never to be seen again.

Now the old townhall is more or less forgotten. Old blueprints in the new library show the old townhall and the hallways, beggars and other people whisper of the moving shadows in the tunnels connecting the building with a part of the city. They tell of female laughter, of promises in a language strange, cold as a Frost Maiden, biting the mind with its words from beyond the veil.

Hidden Treasures

If you or a friend is brave enough to gather supplies and equipment to go on the hunt for the Thieves Guild, you should listen to the creaking of the wooden beams, the dripping of water from somewhere, the emptiness. Everything tells you to go, to leave, to run and never come back.

But if you are brave - some consider being brave just being stupid without the self-preservation instinct - or foolish enough to go down, you find tunnels leading into hallways. Most of them are equipped with cheap, but reliable light-crystals, others have a lot of torches or oil lamps. You might even find a lightsource which is still usable and will not deplete your own supplies.

The tunnels are tidy and supported with wooden beams. Those are either fashioned from broken ones or were smuggled into the tunnels to keep them from collapsing. There is still a city above you, remember that.

Maybe you can find the bones of rats. Maybe you can also find the remnants of people. Equipment, a rope here and there, sometimes bones, disturbingly fresh ones. They look beaten, scraped, traces of large pointy teeth, too large for a rat.

At some point you might come across a large building with rotting wooden pillars. Blind, destroyed, or barricaded windows look out on the rest of what was once the marketplace. The main door is blocked. It doesn't look that way, but it is barricaded from the inside. You have to go around to find the backdoor. This one creaks very loud and it is on purpose to announce visitors, welcome ones or not. Most likely you have told the Unknown that you are here, if she isn't dead anyway.

Now you need light. You can use whatever you want. Nobody would care if the building catches fire, but it is unlikely because of the hot dampness, courtesy of the geyser tunnels close-by. The townhall presents itself in all of its old, haunted glory. Black molds sits in the corners, accompanied by dark shadows and - probably - spiders. If those are spiders.

The wooden floor is creaking, splintering under your weight. The building itself appears to be creaking in every nook and cranny, sometimes it even sounds like as it would be breathing. But that could have just been... wait, what wind?

Anyway, you decide to go deeper and go up first. Maybe you can find a door which isn't locked or blocked for whatever reason. But lets pretend you can open doors just for the sake of it. What is there to find? Reading material, armchairs, light sources of all kind, quills, inkwells with or without ink, rotting parchment. Sometimes even a coin or two when you look close enough. Some of those desks have hidden compartments.

The attic is just a farce, there is no storage there, nor is there a ladder up. It just looks that way to help the building with the structure of the city, so it does not stand out too much. Doesn't make sense? Well, we don't know either.

So you find nothing or something, and you still have the urge to explore, ignoring your brain screaming at you to fucking bolt. You ignore the sweet scent under the dampness and the scent of black mold. Maybe you put up some cloth over mouth and nose, which only helps a bit with the black mold. Better than nothing at least.

You venture down, you find the larger rooms on the first floor. Here you might find notes from the people working here; used quills and inkwells again. Maybe a pouch, maybe a letter, a coin most likey, even an Aureli if you are lucky. Veskar, Shard or Galliat for sure. Not a treasure, but it might pay for the equipment.

The main hall is a littered mess. Broken desks, chairs, boxes laying around. Tapestries are rotting away, ripped and slightly moving in a wind which isn't there. There are old and ripped pillows and blankets scattered around. You find the pattern strange, as someone would be living here; the hall itself does not look as battered as one would expect after a tidal wave and a demon invasion. But people have been cleaning up, no?

Alright, the desk of the mayor looks promising. You find a letter opener fashioned from silver; you find copper seals and sealing wax; you find remnants of cloth, maybe a rusted key for a box inside the desk or in the building or maybe just from a door. There might be a few coins scattered in one of the drawers. But you are not here for a few coins, you are here for treasure!

So, down you venture, into the basement. There you find dozens of rooms. Some belong to the original building, some were added after the tidal wave, others were build from rubble and look like an after-thought. Here you find storage rooms; rooms full of maps or scattered wood. Some rooms look like as they were left in a hurry.

But you find treasure. Golden mirrors, coins of all currencies - a good finding for the Golden Hoard Capital and Investment Management to open a depot - and some trinkets like a bracelet, an amulet, a fancy dagger with an even fancier sheath. A pearl necklace might be in the boxes as well, or a tiara? The thieves were not only stealing, they were also smuggling for all kinds of people.

You stuff your bag with whatever you fancy, until you notice that the sweet scent hasn't vanished, it even got stronger. You notice the hairs on your arm standing up, finally you hear your instincts screaming at the top of their lungs to just run as fast as you can. There is a presence, you feel eyes on you, observing you. You notice amusement, and it is not your own.

You hear the voice. Sweet, promising all kinds of things in a language strange, cold as the sea during a winters night. You do not understand the words, but you have the feeling that it would not end good for you.

So you bolt with whatever you managed to grab. You try to remember the way up, the way out. Wasn't there a staircase? Or a door? Wait, yes, there it is. Up and... wasn't there an entrance? Why are you in the main hall? There were no stairs into the main hall. Somehow there is also light, but it hurts your eyes, even when it is dim as a dying light-crystal.

Suddenly you freeze as you hear breathing behind you. Words enter your ear, rattle in your brain, scratching the surface of your mind like fingernails over blackboard. Then you feel her fingers wandering over your body, putting your equipment aside. Your brain screams at you to get moving, but your body does not listen. Does it want to be in danger? Has the scent done something to you? Or is it the voice, or the words? Both?

Then you can feel her four arms slowly hugging you; black scales cover her skin like a snake, but she is warm. Her head rests on your shoulder and you can see the four splitted jaws and the two glowing purple-red eyes. You can feel her embrace, her huge chest against your back. She whispers words, maybe words of endearment, of encouragement, or she could just mock you, while she gets rid of your clothes.

I should never have come here., you think as her sharp claws open your skin. For some reason you're actually looking forward to it. It is still a nightmare, a story, right? Just a myth of an old building with a long history, surviving wars and catastrophes.

Still a myth.

Right?