Life and Death

I gasped as the ice water brought me back to the world of the living.

“So I see you met Bruto.” The man from earlier said. “He’ll be your associates so learn to play nice.”

“Tell your beast to keep his hands to himself.” I grumbled as I rubbed the back of my head. “Why am I here exactly?”

“You can call me Boss. Word on the street is that you’re on of the most promising rising young talents for getting things done quickly and discreetly. I think we can be of use to each other. The deal is you take orders without debate and I make you a wealthy woman. If you don’t I send you back to your mother in pieces.”

They had taken all my possessions, equipment, and communication pearls. This didn’t seem like a good time to argue. “Really I think the threats are overkill. All you had to say was wealthy beyond my wildest dreams and I was sold. I am a Thief after all. What can I do for you gentlemen? And define wealthy if you wouldn’t mind.”

I didn’t mean a word of it but I felt I should go along with this until I could determine what I was up against. I mean the wealthy part I could handle but I didn’t want to work with a group who resorted to threatening my life and my mother as a recruiting technique. I am a Thief but I like to think I am one of the more moral respectable types. These men seemed sleazy brutes.

“Well I am happy to hear that. The job happens to pay better than mugging a master goldsmith on the way to the auction house. It comes by request of a very well respected upstanding citizen who only desires to use his wealth to help eliminate an elusive criminal. A murdering plundering pirate who has slipped threw the cracks of the legal system. Not only will you be rewarded with the satisfaction of serving the upstanding honest people of Vana’diel but you’ll get ten percent of the financial reward.”

“And what will that amount to?”

“One million gil.”

I’m sure I could have bartered but I have never been paid anywhere near that amount before and wow did it ever sound good to me.

“Lay off the life threats and give me half up front and I’m in.” I smiled.

“I third up front.” He sneered.

“Good enough. When do we start?”

“Now.” He said as he tossed a purse of gil to me. “This is the man we need to bring to justice. He’s known as the Dread Pirate Beldin, Dagger of the Sea.”

He slid a photograph across the table to me. He was a tall black haired Elvaan with a well groomed beard. He certainly looked the part of a pirate in full Corsair artifact armor. He was sitting on the cargo boxes in upper Jeuno with a Mithra on his lap and a bottle of Hume pale ale in his hand.

“We need you to help us track him down. A little spying, lock picking, and investigating is all. Bruto here will use his skills as a Dark Knight to take care of the bloody business of cleansing this world of his nuisance. You only need to back him up if necessary.”

And so started the hunt.