Chapter 1683: The Store
Umad Tyves, the merchant, lived on the third floor of a massive four story building where the first two floors were filled with all sorts of shops.
All of the shops belonged to him, and sold everything from food, to clothes, to jewelry. Even as night fell, only a few of the shops closed down, with most of the other ones remaining active all throughout.
There were guards all over the stores, so stealing anything was pretty much impossible.
Ning needed to work hard here.
He walked out of the store after having bought a large cake for himself and made his way back to the tavern. He went up to his room where Shara was training with the spear, learning the stances.
She stopped when she saw Ning come in. “Done for the day?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “But I might have a new job now.”
“What job?” she asked curiously. “And what’s that?”
“Cake,” Ning said, placing it down. “And the job is that I need to steal something.”
Shara paused for a moment. “Stealing? Do we not have the money to buy it?” she asked.
“I’m not stealing it for me,” Ning said. “I’m stealing it for a Spirit. The person who owns the hairpin that I need to steal is a rich man. I just came from where he lives, and doing anything by myself is impossible. I will need you.”
Shara froze for a bit. “You… want me to help you steal things?”
Ning nodded. “You can make it in and out of the place without being noticed. I can make us invisible. Together, it should be easy.”
“Okay… but stealing? Really?” she asked.
“We’re doing something good. Don’t worry,” Ning said. “That bastard stole the hairpin first, so it works.”
“Okay…” Shara said. “Do we leave right away?”
“No point in waiting.”
Shara and Ning walked out of the tavern, fully invisible, making their way through the merchant store. They had 12 hours total to do what needed to be done, so they needed to get to work.
They arrived at the building a while later, surprised that it was still bustling despite it being late evening, and made their way inside.
The building was wide and open for the most part, made entirely of large rocks stacked one on top of another with some sort of mortar as a binding agent. The walls were thick and fended off any wind and rain from outside.
Lanterns hung all around the place, making the entire store glow bright all around. It was also rather warm on the inside.
There were grains being sold on one side, and fruits on the other. Bread and cakes were being sold in another room.
Shara looked around, quite amazed to see such a building within this city. She had thought only Whitebridge would hold such a place.
“2nd floor,” Ning told her, and they made their way up the store while trying to not touch anyone on the way. Shara needed to use as little of her power as possible on the way.
There were guards on this floor, waiting outside of the jewelry stores. ‘What now?’ Shara whispered.
‘Let’s go in. See if there are hairpins inside,’ Ning said.
Shara grabbed him by the arm and they walked in. The inside of the jewelry store was alight with lanterns too, and a single man sat inside, reading a book in the limelight.
The man was old and wore a guard’s uniform, similar to the men who stayed outside. Ning realized he was a guard meant to remain on the inside and guard the place.
Perhaps, he was even someone with power.
They were invisible at the moment and passing through items, but they would still make noise. Hopefully, the old man wouldn’t see them. The night was still rowdy with people roaming throughout the outer halls, so the man hopefully wouldn’t look up.
Ning and Shara were the only ones who could see each other, so Ning gestured for her to keep quiet while they moved.
Ning looked through the glass that protected the jewelry, searching for golden hairpins. To his surprise, there were not that many here.
Ning had a feeling before he even did all of this that the merchant might have already sold the golden hairpin the Spirit wanted him to find. If he was able to, he would’ve given up the quest the moment it was provided.
Alas, there was no such ability in him to reject quests.
Ning found a dozen or so hairpins, each one golden with embedded gems in them, but he wasn’t sure if any of them were the correct ones.
‘What do I do?’ he thought. He had only wanted to find one, but there were too many of them. He couldn’t just leave with one. He needed to take them all.
‘Shit!’ Ning thought and decided to take them all instead. There was no other choice. Taking the hairpins out of the glass cases they were in was simple. Shara would simply reach in, grab the hairpin, and pull it out. If she did it slowly enough, she could change which parts of her body she wanted to remain tangible and which parts she wanted intangible.
She handed them over to Ning, and Ning placed them all into the inventory, where they disappeared into the small box that he had emptied out for this exact reason.
Once Ning had all of the hairpins gathered, he left the jewelry shop with Shara, walking back out. The noise that was distant while inside the shop became louder all of a sudden.
They could now whisper without getting caught.
‘What now? Did we find it?’ Shara asked.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om
Ning shook his head. ‘I don’t know if we did,’ he answered.
‘Well, what does it look like?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know. It’s just a golden hairpin,’ Ning said. ‘I have no idea what it looks like. The old man didn’t tell me anything.’
‘Well, then how would we know we did it?’ Shara asked. ‘Someone has to know what it looks like, right? We can’t go around stealing all hairpins.’
Ning nodded. There was also the issue of the hairpin having been sold or gifted to someone
else.
‘If there is anyone alive who knows what the hairpin looks like, then it’s definitely him,’ Ning said, looking at the stairway to the third floor. ‘Come on. Let’s go meet the nobleman.’
That was Ning’s plan initially all along until he realized there was a jewelry store anyway. Ning and Shara walked up the stairway, moving past the guards while completely intangible. Ning still didn’t understand why they didn’t fall right through the ceiling as they walked while completely intangible, but he feared he never would know.
They made it up to the third floor, where a thick wooden door met them right after the stairway. Ning and Shara passed right through, arriving at the other side.
They were immediately met with a warm room with a running hearth on the other side. Decorative furniture filled the room, and a sweet aroma filled the air, as though something was being cooked in one of the many rooms within the house.
Ning searched for people but there weren’t any in the living room. ‘Alright, let’s go find the
hairpin.’
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