After donning my line of works uniform, I slipped out of the side window of my flat, and climbed up onto the roof. These days, I could never be too sure as to whether or not my front door was being watched by shady and nefarious characters. Even before these times I couldn't be too sure.
Once I was dashing along the Thieves Highway, I quickly made my way to the Docks. Sure Pionell might be considered an aristocrat now, but you could never really take the Dock merchant out of the man. His newly furnished "mansion" was located on the waters edge, upwind from the nauseating stench that poured off the fishmongers, the tanners, the spice merchants and the other businesses, both legal and not.
I perched myself in a tight little nook across the road from his front gate, just watching. From where I sat I could see the entire front of his house, and part of a side garden. There were guards everywhere, each looking as ragtag as Smitson had. If I could bet on it, I'd say that most of the older guards were either old sell-swords, soldiers, or guards who had failed in their previous assignment. This man was not too bright. A sell-sword could only be trusted if you could pay higher then your enemies; old soldiers had seen too much fighting to really care about some pompous fool with money; and failed guards… Well failure in their line of work usually meant the death of their employee. Somehow I had imagined and hoped this little outing of mine was going to be at least a bit of a challenge. It seemed it would just be like a practice run really.
Detaching from the shadows, I climbed up to the rooftops again and made my way around to garden side of the mansion. Here was the challenge I was looking for! Off to one side of the garden was a kennel full of well trained, vicious dogs. With my mechanical eye, I scrutinised the mechanism that kept the dozen or so dogs in their cages. It seemed to me that a single lever, located in the kennel masters house, would drop all of the gates at once. In my mind I was making mental lists of what I had to do. Top of the list was to disable that mechanism. I did not want to be sneaking in the shadows only to have my legs bitten off by some mutt that had caught my scent. And besides; if I could do a job without killing a single person, then I sure wasn't going to be known as the thief who had to murder animals to get the job done!
Taking note of the guards located in the garden, approximately five, I continued my perusal of the actually house. Peering in through windows, I was able to get the basic layout of the house. Bedrooms to the sides of the mansion, possibly a library in the centre. It appeared that at the moment, Pionell had three guests lodging in his house, all of them sound asleep at the moment. All the better for me!
I looked up to the roof for potential threats; it's a thief thing, and what should I see? Why another entrance into the building! On the roof was a huge section of skylight, and if I knew my pompous, self-made aristocrats, than I'd say that it was right above Pionell's bedchambers. How fitting that a would-be lord should gaze upon the realm of the gods of a night, and dream of what he would do with their powers. But as fortune, and some commonsense on Pionell's part, would have it, there was at least three guards up on the roof, further reinforcing my guess that the skylight lead to Pionell's chambers.
Checking the street below me, I leapt from the building I was on, scaring the birds that had not even realised I was there, and landed silently upon the brickwork of the gardens outer wall. Below me, one of the guards was making his rounds around the kennels. His loop consisted of walking past the kennels, far enough from them so as not to disturb the dogs, and then around a fountain, and back to the kennels again. As he looped around the fountain, I lay down along the wall, moving into what little shadows this spot provided me with. If someone were to look down from the mansion windows or the rooftop, I'd have been in quite a spot.
Not wishing to test my luck, I quickly dropped off the wall, and into a darker corner of the garden. The scent of artificial nature surrounded me. Freshly cut grass, hybrid flowers, and overripe fruit. It all blended together to give the scent of wealth. Sickening.
Moving along the contours of the wall, I kept the lone patrolling guard in my sights as he walked by the kennels again. As soon as his back was turned to me, I made a mad dash to the fountain, ducking under the raised lip of the bottom tier. I crept around the concrete monstrosity as the guard made his way around the other side. As I passed by the kennels, I checked the area again for more guards, then rolled back into the shadows created by the kennel masters house. From within the hut I could hear violent snores tearing through the air. I let the guard pass by me again and then cracked open the hut's window, slithering over the windowsill and landing silently inside the building.
Inside the hut, the air smelt and tasted like dog urine, harsh alcohols, and the fetid breath of a lifelong drunk. There were empty bottles of cheap wine lying all over the room, and even a few dirty cups. A mean looking truncheon rested against a wall in easy reach of the snoring kennel master. Good for taming young pups, both canine and human. As I crept around the room, I looked down at the kennel master, a large, bulky man who seemed to produce most of the stench in the room. His ears and nose were bright red, and starting to decay from the years of alcohol abuse; his hair was long, thinning, and extremely greasy; and his clothes were stained with animal waste, his and the dogs, alcohol and food.
Just above him was the lever that obviously controlled the gates to the kennels. If I wasn't careful in dismantling this mechanism, I could cause the cages to open anyway. Wouldn't that be a fine irony to top this night's adventure. As quietly as possible, I climbed onto the table next to the sleeping man, and leant over him. One wrong move and the whole table would topple over, dumping me on top of the man. I took out my lock pick set, and pulled out a tiny screwdriver. As quickly, but carefully as possible, I undid the few screws that held the lever onto the main mechanism, and pocketed it along with my lock picks.
Somehow, just taking the lever didn't seem as if it would completely stop the kennel master from opening the cages. I got off the table and went to the window again. Making sure the guard outside was nowhere near me, I opened the window and climbed out and up onto the roof of the hut. I crawled over to where the mechanism for the cages came out of the hut and took out my screwdriver again. With nimble hands I took out a few more screws. From inside the hut I heard a piece of metal fall and hit something hard. All of a sudden there were no more snores coming from the hut.
With a creeping sense of dread, I crept back inside the hut. The piece of metal had fallen off the wall when I took the screws out, and hit the table next to the kennel master. Cringing, I waited in the shadows. For a few seconds there was only silence, but than his snores filled the hut once again. I took a deep sigh of relief and instantly regretted it as the stench of the hut filled my lungs.
With a small chuckle I climbed back outside of the hut, closing the window behind me. Once again in the shadows, I watched the guard make his rounds past the kennel and fountain again. I kind of felt sorry fro this guard. He must have had the most boring patrol in the whole house. Not only that, but he seemed to be a fresh guard; an amateur. Older guards would have found a nice set of shadows to sit down in and get some sleep. He'll learn soon enough.
Shaking my head to rid myself of this misplaced sentimentality, I dashed out of the gardens, once again following the run of the wall. As I moved silently in the shadows, I managed to pass by three other surly guards. One was sleeping under a tree, and the other two were currently getting drunk on stolen cheap wine.
As I reached the back of the mansion, I searched the walls of the house for a way to reach the roof. There were clinging vines climbing up the stone, but these could not possible support my weight. I would have to go inside the house. Just as I was about to search for a safe way inside, I heard a voice that brought a smile to my face.
"..just got back, sir! Master Pionell wanted me to do something for him." Smitson said to his superior.
"I don't care! Pionell is fool! He pays us almost nothing to protect him and than uses his own guards as a personal message service. Get back to your station before I use your breeches as a brazier and fill them with hot coals! And tell Harry that he doesn't have to watch over your post anymore. You're a flaming moron Smitson. Leaving the roof to go on some silly errand."
"Yes sir!" Smitson barked.
It seemed other people could scare Smitson silly too. Damn. I thought I was just gifted. Apart from a downgrade in ego, this turn of events was greatly in my favour. All I had to do was follow Smitson up to the roof and I would have my way into Pionell's chambers.
I cut my musing and crept after my unknowing guide. Keeping to the shadows and keeping up with Smitson proved a challenge, and I almost lost him a few times. At one point, he entered the actual mansion, but I was unable to follow due to three other guards standing around the doorway, chatting. This proved to me that I could only push my luck so far.
I looked up the stone walls of the mansion for a possible way past this current obstacle, but even when I was inside I'd have to find Smitson again. I couldn't help but scowl. Sometimes I wished I hadn't gone around annoying the gods.