AN: Hello and thank you for checking this story out! This story is co-authored by me and my brother. More info at the bottom, but first, please enjoy our first chapter!
Chapter 1: Azrud Sherwood
The day was early and the streets were bustling with activity, plenty of opportunities to slip a few lien off an unsuspecting victim. Fluidly making his way through the crowds, picking a pocket here and a pocket there, Azrud was quickly making his way to his destination along the way.
Azrud was one of the most talented thieves for his age, and rather small as well but this made it easy to slip into tight spaces. He was of average height with a slim build and was dressed in a sleeveless green tunic with a large hood that concealed his face.
The tunic sported a fancy gold embroidery along the edge of the hood with intricate designs and leaves blowing in the wind, complimenting the deep forest green tunic. His tunic spotted with patches from previous damage. Fastened around his waist was an earthy brown leather strap with a gold buckle. Attached to the belt were several pouches along the length of it but the most important was the one that draped down his right side, containing a mixture of Dust pellets used as ammunition for his bow. From Azrud's back hung two quivers, one that was strapped over his shoulder that held five arrows above his right shoulder and one horizontally strapped to the back of his belt, locked with a shocking defensive mechanism if tampered with.
Azrud wore a pair of archery gloves designed to withstand extreme heat, cold, and electricity. These were worn over a black sleeve that was part of an undershirt that he wore beneath the tunic. Wrapped around his left wrist was an Archers pad that was made from some of the strongest leather. Following past Azrud's tunic was a pair of loose fitting pants that allowed minimal restriction to his movements. These were the color of a freshly brewed pot of coffee that had a lighter brown patch on each knee. These patches made kneeling down on hard surfaces much pants were tucked into a pair of leather boots that reached halfway to his knees they were stained with splotches of mud, paint and god only know what that boots were a muted dark grey, almost black, that had a gold buckle and leather strap that tightened around his ankle.
Finally pushing himself into an alleyway that contained a booth right on the corner. Azrud leaned against the corner nonchalantly and knocked rhythmically and waited for a few moments until a large heavy set man came to the booth and pretended to mess with his wares.
Azrud never once made eye contact with the shopkeeper but quietly whispered to him "You said you had something?".
"Lien first" grumbled the merchant.
"Fine" groaned Azrud as he placed a couple of lien on the counter "what's so valuable here in Vale? I have a score in Mistral so this better be good".
The merchant smiled brightly with the few teeth he had "There's rumors there is an ancient artifact deep within the Academy but the only way to get close is to join. The object..." The shopkeeper hushed quickly as a pair of guards walked by but continued once they left "it's said to have great power!".
Azrud now frustrated and growing impatient spat on the ground "I don't need power, I want money" preparing to walk away he heard the one thing he could never ignore as a thief..
"It's impossible to break into thief, good luck" with that said, the merchant disappeared into a building behind the booth.
Azrud scoffed at the man's remark but continued on his way through the crowds, ignoring the urge to take every purse that hung so openly and vulnerable, for he was on a mission to break into the unbreakable. Having been trained to always be aware of his surroundings, Azrud quickly spotted the group of bandits closing in on him quickly. With a frustrated groan he darted into a secluded and empty alleyway then pressed himself into a small alcove and waited for his pursuers to come around the corner.
Finally making their way around the corner and into the alley, Azrud waited for the last one to come by. Grabbing the final pursuer, Azrud spun him around and sent him head first into the wall and let the bandit fall unconscious to the ground.
"Ladies, ladies I know I'm a hunk and all but you only have to ask for my autograph..." Azrud had his hands up in an innocent 'what did I do?' gesture.
The bandits growled at his remark "Knock off the smart ass attitude! Gem sends her regards Thief!".
"Hey! There is no need to start calling names! We are all friends right? No? That's unfortunate... For you" with a swift flick of his wrists, Azrud whipped his two daggers from their sheaths, making a ringing sound as they slid past their buckles. With a devilish grin Azrud charged forward with his enemy in his sights.
Azrud swiftly leapt onto a raised platform and over to the adjacent wall and used it to kick himself into a backflip over the bandits. After landing, one of the bandits stabbed outward toward Azrud's throat who easily dodged to his left and parried, then he jumped up and spun in circles sideways and ended it with a heavy kick to the first attackers chest which sent him flying. With him out of the way, the second attacker should be a piece of cake to handle. Entertained by the attacker's attempts, Azrud easily parried every attack the rookie tried to hit him with.
Noticing the large group of bandits running around the corner, Azrud chuckled nervously and tripped the bandit he was dueling and swung his daggers around and pressed the hilts together. The daggers began to shift and transform into a bow, a metallic ringing sound as two objects extended from the blades and shot to each other, creating a bow string. Azrud removed a light blue Pellet from his ammo pouch on his hip and notched it into the string. After he pulled back the string the bow hummed to life and began to glow a light green throughout the bows design. Pulling back the bow, Azrud took a breath and then released the string and the pellet sailed through the air and exploded into a large chunk of ice, slowing his pursuers. Once the coast was clear, Azrud took in a deep breath and upon exhaling almost faded into the wind and with an eerie swiftness disappeared from the scene.
AN:
(Thyme): This started out as a little writing project between my brother (he'll go by Majick for future reference) and myself that we decided to post it here because we fell in love with the characters we created and the plot we've planned out. We've been writing the perspectives of two of the characters each. So this chapter was Majick's character Azrud, the next chapter will be my character Auburn, and from there it will be both of us and at least two characters perspectives will be represented.
We're already a few chapters in and we're thinking about posting one chapter a week for now. We might release the next two chapters sooner than that so we can introduce the characters. Admittedly the future chapters are pretty short, but once we finish the first main Arc, we're thinking about revamping and polishing and republishing the whole thing. Apologies ahead of time for any inconsistencies in writing style or confusion in switching between perspectives.
Anyways, thank you so much for reading our nonsense. If you want to leave a review letting us know what you think, it would mean so much to us!