TACO Run

Chapter 9

Therion strolled down the street casually, hands tucked out of view beneath his cloak. He'd spent a surprisingly comfortable night beneath an excessively tall bridge constructed of some kind of hard, stone-like material with a texture similar to mortar. Rather than crossing a river, the bridge passed over several other streets below, and seemed to carry a lot of heavy traffic—especially the bigger vehicles Therion had come to realize were used for bulk deliveries. At first the sound had bothered him, but once he'd found a secure enough place, the hiss and rumble of those odd cushioned wheels over the pavement was almost soothing.

Doesn't make the underside of a bridge any cleaner, but it doesn't make it any dirtier, either. And he'd been far enough from any garbage or human waste that he hadn't had to fight rats for space, which was a plus.

Next target—food. The few salted nuts he'd snacked on at the tavern the night before hadn't done more than whet his appetite, and though he'd found a street-market not long after he'd left, they had been in the process of shutting down for the night and he hadn't been able to snatch more than an apple.

It had been a very good apple, sweet and crisp and only slightly bruised from being handled all day long, but no matter how much he loved apples, just one wasn't enough to keep a belly full overnight.

So now he was back among the stalls, briefly glancing through the various wares on display and mentally tallying which ones might be worth stealing. Meat, fish, grains, eggs… those all require cooking. And while he didn't burn water, he wasn't good for much more than stuffing a roll with a wedge of cheese.

Neither of which I've seen yet. The one bakery he'd caught a glimpse of didn't have any rolls or loaves on display, just fancy cakes that would be more of a mess than they were worth to steal. And where was the cheesemaker's stall? The closest thing he'd found was a shop that sold something in pale, rectangular blocks, and whatever that stuff was, it wasn't cheese. He knew, because they'd actually offered him a sample when he first took a look.

Blander than wet beans. They didn't even salt it, whatever it was.

He'd had to filch a carrot from the nearest vegetable-seller just to get the not-taste out of his mouth. He almost hadn't recognized it at first, since it'd been bright orange instead of yellow or white or purplish, but the crisp, sweet crunch had been satisfying nonetheless. After that, he'd followed his nose to where a vendor was selling grilled meat-and-vegetable skewers. He recognized the meat as some kind of bird, and the mushrooms had to be one of the safe varieties or they wouldn't be included, but he wasn't sure about the trio of vegetable strips in red, yellow, and green.

Fading back a step or two, Therion watched the sweating man behind the counter slice the odd, lantern-shaped fruits and remove the seeds and white strings of flesh from the hollow insides, and then skewer them along with slices of purple onion, mushrooms, some kind of yellow squash, and the kind of fleshy green vegetable called a cucumber that grew in the Riverlands. No meat on that skewer, he noted, interested, as the cook set a number of similar skewers atop a metal grate over a fire, where they immediately began sizzling.

Very quietly, Therion's stomach reminded him that one carrot and a bite of bland not-cheese did not make a satisfying meal. He'd gone without for longer periods before, but hard experience had taught him that if you had the opportunity, you ate your fill. Stuffing yourself was a good way to be too sick, sleepy, and heavy to do your work, but if you let opportunities to eat pass you by, you might not have the strength to finish what needed doing.

At least my stomach doesn't roar like Alfyn's. Therion watched another patron pay for their lunch, and then bought three skewers of his own, pointing to the ones with bird meat and paying for them properly, like a good upstanding little citizen. And if his cloak swirled out a little as he turned to leave, briefly obscuring where he'd laid down his coins, well, it was somewhat windy. And if some of the coins were no longer there afterwards, well… he was obviously preoccupied with eating the first of his steaming-hot skewers, and surely couldn't have been responsible.

Therion didn't have a lot of scruples when it came to stealing. He wouldn't take coin from children's savings-boxes, he wouldn't steal food from the tables of the poor, he never stole from taverns—though their patrons were fair game—and he wouldn't pilfer the belongings of anyone who treated him with respect or kindness. Beyond that, well, the more someone told him he shouldn't take a kid's candy, or a good dog's bone, or that heirloom sword someone had been hunting twenty years to recover, the more something inside him decided that he really, truly should.

Besides, the man obviously ran a pretty popular business, if not an excessively prosperous one. He could afford the loss.

Mm. Chicken. Young chicken, too, which was a surprise. Only the wealthy could afford to slaughter chickens for their meat while they were still young and plump and juicy. You were wasting a perfectly good source of eggs for a one-time meal, after all. Either the local hens stop laying eggs early, or someone had too many roosters hatch this year.

Therion drifted down the street, working his way through the skewers steadily. He hadn't seen any local wells or fountains, but the one small river he'd found the night before was clear enough that he'd been willing to risk refilling his waterskin from it. He'd need to find a reliable source of water soon though, because man did not live by ale alone. Or mead, for that matter.

Hm… are there no public fountains in a city this rich? He supposed that made some sense. Fountains were put in town squares, but the city squares here all seemed to be major crossroads, and those big vehicles couldn't navigate around a fountain the way pedestrians or even horses could.

Maybe a park, then. There had been small, cultivated parks in Noblecourt, made for the delicately-reared aristocracy to enjoy nature in without fear of monster attack. Maybe this city had something similar. They certainly seemed to like plants, if the trees lining every avenue were any indication.

Oddly enough, there didn't seem to be many children or youths out and about. It wasn't even noon yet, so he supposed that those with apprenticeships were likely at work, but that couldn't be all of them. It didn't matter how wealthy a land was, everyone couldn't be gainfully employed or prenticed. There had to be wastrels and ruffians, street rats and tea leaves like he'd been once.

…ah, there we go. Maybe half a street away, skulking in the mouth of an alley and boldly sharing a thin white cylinder that produced an acrid smoke between them. Some kind of drug, if he had his guess. Maybe pipe-leaf. Alfyn would have known for sure, but the apothecary was nowhere nearby, and therefore useless.

Therion tugged one of the red vegetable strips from his second skewer with his teeth, idly drifting closer to the young toughs as though he didn't even realize they were there. One of them had a small flame dancing atop his head instead of hair, the second had a mess of brown spikes and the nastiest slant-eyed gaze Therion had seen in a while, and the third…

Ugh. Lizardman. Therion agreed with H'aanit that Lizardmen were just obnoxious. Difficult to hit, tougher than they had any right to be, and they wouldn't. Go. Away. This one didn't look like the bulky, spine-covered varieties common in the Sunlands and Frostlands back in Orsterra, though; he was smooth-scaled and oval-headed, more like a harmless forest gecko or skink. Still, Therion had no intention of tangling with them if he could help it.

Hmph. Come to think of it, Candle-top and Spiky-hair don't look that much younger than me. Though that might just be because they were taller. Spiky-hair was just under Alfyn's height, and Candle-top might even be a few finger-widths taller.

No kids out and about during the day. Barely any youths… For such a safe and wealthy country, they sure like to restrict their children's freedom. Are they paranoid about danger? No, his marks had been too easy here. Are only adults allowed to roam the streets? No, he'd seen a few youths and children in the afternoon and early evening the day before. Which meant they had a reason not to be out and about right now.

…I'm an idiot. A wealthy country where signs had words on them instead of pictures half the time? Literacy was expected, even among the relatively poor. Therion had taught himself to read, determined not to be without that advantage in life, but a lot of Orsterran commoners learned the bare minimum necessary to do whatever their job entailed.

Mandatory education. Cyrus would be ecstatic.

Or maybe not. He liked teaching, and dropping lectures on people at the first hint of interest, but the scholar respected people's right to choose what they would and would not study. After Therion had rejected his offer of scholarship, he had politely refrained from bringing up the subject again.

Therion crunched into a juicy slice of grilled onion, continuing on his way as if he'd never seen the youths. The red, green, and yellow vegetable strips were sweeter than he'd been expecting. Not apple-sweet, and definitely not honey-sweet, but sweet the way the carrot from before had been sweet. His mouth watered from the taste and heat, and he swallowed the saliva to temporarily quench his thirst, looking for a park that might have a fountain.

A few hours later, having slaked his thirst and returned to the skewer-seller for a second round—he actually left the coins this time, but picked the pocket of an obnoxiously loud blond standing in line behind him as he yakked away at some kind of rectangular device—Therion decided it was time to actively start searching for his friends. He had a place to sleep, a source of food, and a source of water. None of them were ideal, but he'd secured the bare minimum he needed to make venturing further afield worth the risk.

He'd feel better if he could understand a single word the locals were saying.

It was impossible to eavesdrop on anyone, or even question them directly the way Tressa, Alfyn, and Cyrus would, if he couldn't understand the local language. Oh, he could get by just fine without that, but learning what he wanted to? That was a whole different animal.

I need a drink.

He needed several, but a thief who let himself be impaired that way was a thief headed directly for the gaol.

It didn't help that this world was so loud. Not just the market-chatter and the growl of passing vehicles, either, though those were bad enough, and the crowds on the main streets were worse than the Goldshore auction house. One long building had disembodied voices calling out names from within, other disembodied voices emerged from the tops of slow-moving boxy vehicles, and there were odd devices in some of the store windows, which displayed moving pictures and sounds.

Therion lingered near one of those, mingling with a crowd of children who'd apparently been released from their daily imprisonment. Heh. Scholarly studies, he should say. They were watching with wide, shining eyes as a figure on the moving-picture device fought bare-handed against various monstrous or humanoid opponents. While wearing the most ridiculous outfit to ever have the misfortune of existing. Therion made a face mentally. Colored brightly enough to draw every eye, tight enough that every little twitch of muscle would be easily seen and read by his foes, and thin enough that it obviously offered no protection whatsoever. H'aanit, Primrose, and Olberic would be actually horrified. Cyrus would question his life choices. Alfyn and Ophilia would want to know if he was mentally ill. And Tressa would laugh herself sick.

He had to be an actor of some kind. No other profession wore outfits that flashy and ridiculous. Not to mention, some of the feats being shown were flatly impossible without the aid of magic. If Tressa used Tradewinds just as Olberic struck with all his strength, it might look something like that. Though even Cyrus couldn't send enemies and loose stones flying that far, not even with Alephan's enlightenment concentrating the full force of his strongest wind spell on a single person.

And that enormous, shit-eating grin and belly-laugh were pure actor's farce.

The kids seemed to eat it up, though.

Speaking of eating…

As Therion walked away from the chattering mob of kids, he took stock of his spoils. Hard candy, hard candy, shiny bag of something that crinkle-crackles, roll with a crumbly coating, small box of… sticks? There were two of those; one kind looked to be dipped in something pink, and the other seasoned with salt. Weird. I'll try those later.

Tucking everything but the roll back into their hiding-places, he drifted down the street towards one of the larger crossroads, taking a big bite. Huh. Not bad. The top crust was crunchy, crumbly, and very sweet, while the roll itself was soft and milder in its sweetness.

Yeah, I can see why brats would like this thing. It was a little too sweet for his taste, but he wasn't one to waste food, so he finished it anyway, drinking deep from his waterskin once he was done to clean his mouth out.

He wasn't getting anywhere with finding the others. Should I try a tavern again? The chances of them running into each other weren't really any better there than on the street, and it wasn't like he could gather information by eavesdropping when he couldn't understand what anyone around him was saying.

He almost didn't hear the screams at first. The mill and chatter of the crowds, and the growl and rumble of the vehicles, had merged into a kind of background clamor that blurred more distant sounds. But Therion hadn't made a successful career as a thief without being able to listen through the chatter, and his eyes snapped towards the distant cries of fear almost before he registered what they were.

Can't see the danger; too far away, and there's too many people and buildings in between. Therion didn't stop walking just because he'd recognized potential danger. Rather, he let experience take over, moving him with the flow of people around him as he focused conscious thought on determining what the threat was, and how best to deal with it.

More screams, closer this time, and followed by the rumbling, crunching roar of a building collapsing under its own weight. Something massive bugled to the sky, and the screams grew louder.

Therion stopped walking. The flow of the crowd had stalled, was shifting to move the other way—

Therion's eyes went wide, as he was swept up in a tide of bodies fleeing whatever disaster had struck their town. He didn't have Olberic's bulk to withstand the pressure of the crowd, and was carried along like a leaf in a river, doing his best to move with the flow and keep his feet, so as not to get trampled underfoot.

Master thief crushed to death by panicked mob. Tressa would never let me live it down.

Someone's elbow found his cheekbone, and Therion rolled with the hit, sliding under someone else's flying handbag and twisting out of the way of another person's knee. A high-pitched yell of pain said that one of the kids from before had gotten knocked over somehow, but Therion didn't have the time to spare to worry about that, too busy keeping his own hide intact.

Another shout, this one not panicked or in pain, but alert and worried, slid across Therion's awareness as he slowly worked his way towards the edge of the crowd, hoping for an eddy that would let him slip out of the main mass of people and into an alley. Something else slid across his vision—a humanoid figure clinging to the wall of a nearby building at just above head-height, slipping along it like an otter down a riverbank, before diving into the crowd ahead.

Light-pole! Therion snagged it with one hand, clinging to sturdy metal as he huddled in its lee, taking a moment to breathe and get a look around him. Thumps and pained yelps from where the crawling-gliding thing had jumped into the mob like a moron sounded like it was taking an inadvertent beating, but in a few seconds it emerged again, darting back up the side of the wall like a forest skink up a tree. One arm was snugged around the squirming body of a six-year-old girl, and the figure—Therion tentatively identified it as a guy around the same age as the weird young toughs from earlier—stopped at just above head-height again, looking around frantically as if searching for a safe place to put her down.

Not my business, not my business… Therion stuck the fingers of his free hand into the corners of his mouth, letting out a piercing whistle he'd picked up from H'aanit. Once he'd caught the guy's eyes with a hand waved overhead, he jerked a thumb upwards, towards the flat-topped roof of the building the guy clung to.

The guy called something back, some kind of acknowledgment at Therion's guess, and darted upwards with the kid in tow.

Then something big slammed into Therion's light-pole, and he was tossed into the tide of panicked humanity again.

It wasn't until several minutes later that Therion managed to slip free of the crowd, and it wasn't without gaining another couple of bruises. Once he'd gotten somewhere relatively safe, he slugged down the rest of his water and took a few minutes to just breathe, and make sure he still had all of his pieces.

Knives, money, food, limbs… check, check, check, check.

From the sounds of distant battle he could still hear, someone had arrived to deal with whatever monster was wreaking havoc on the city. A large white vehicle screamed past the alley he was resting in, lights flashing atop it as it wailed a warning to any who might stand in its way. It was followed by other vehicles, large and small, the biggest ones being bright red and the smallest black-and-white in sections.

Therion rubbed his left ear, back sliding down the alley wall until he sat on a discarded piece of something sturdy and relatively clean.

I hate this place, he decided. Wealthy or not.

A/N: 'Tea leaf' is Orsterran thieves' cant for 'thief', especially a young and inexperienced or clumsy one. Therion sometimes uses it for himself when he believes he's being sentimental or too trusting. Also, while drugs are mentioned briefly in Octopath Traveler, you see maybe one guy with a pipe, and no other indication that tobacco exists in Orsterra, so my guess is that it's relatively rare and generally lumped in with other recreational drugs. Also, that's actually zucchini, not cucumber on the skewer, but Therion doesn't know the difference. For those curious, the snacks he stole from the kids were hard candy, potato chips, melon bread, pocky, and pretzel sticks.