Hi,

Edit 5/2014: Explanation is below.

Althalus wandered through the large, empty house, hoping to find what he was looking for and then high-tail it out of there. All the halls and corridors looked similar, so much so, he doubted that it would be an easy job to handle. The amount of rooms seemed endless, and simply stretched out into the horizon, if a house could even have one of those. No wonder Ghend had given him this task. Such a search for an item like a 'book' would be near impossible. It could take him weeks to look for it.

Althalus had only covered a couple dozen rooms so far, and if he was right in his assumptions, it had hardly made a dent in the number remaining for him to search through. His footsteps echoed soundlessly in his head, and only there. As a professional thief, one had to make sure to be soundless; otherwise, what was the point?

The house was starting to concern him. It was quiet and deserted, granted that helped his task way more, but the layout and emptiness was giving him a bad feeling about it. Althalus frowned; he hoped that his luck wouldn't fail him now. He loved her dearly, but of late, she had given him the cold shoulder. He was slightly concerned that maybe she didn't appreciate him anymore. He needed her. Althalus had a reputation to live up to; after all, they didn't call him the greatest thief for nothing.

In the middle of his half musings Althalus stumbled upon an old, wooden door. He turned the brass knob, pushed it a fraction and the door creaked slightly in protest. He paused and waited for a few agonisingly slow moments, listening. When he heard no sound, Althalus swung the door wide and peered inside. There was a flight of stairs leading to an upper floor. Why a door was obscuring this, he wasn't sure. What Althalus was positive of was, if this 'book' was such a huge project that Ghend couldn't handle, there would have to be traps scattered throughout the perimeter.

Trying to remain cautious, and with a hammering heart, Althalus reached out with his bronze sword and tapped on the stairs in front of him. When there was no trigger pulled, he advanced forward…

At the top of the stairs was a small circular room in which there was only a bed. The ceiling was domed, and a window hung out to the side. Peering through the sill, there was a long drop to a seemingly endless chasm. Clouds were the only things visible below. Advancing back toward the middle of the room, a loud purring emanated from the bed. Almost as if on cue, the ceiling lit up and revealed a small, black cat, which woke up and turned to the intruder.

"You sure took your sweet time getting here -" it said in a distinctively feminine voice, before doing a double take. "Who are you?!"

Basically this is one of my first fics on this site and it really didn't have much direction. There isn't anything written for it beyond ch5 and it's been sitting here since 2011... I agree with my last reviewer for this, it is confusing (and I wrote it), so now it's listed as complete. Maybe I'll redo this someday but for now - it's done.

Thanks for your patience/understanding,

Shadow