1 Hreth, 1023 StF (Since the Fire)

Fieng finally had a job for us, which was good because things were getting lean in the coin pouch. Between Jia and I we barely had enough to keep ourselves in Faman's good graces. He was an innkeeper by trade, but also owned our boardinghouse. Jia’s uncle left a message with the innkeeper to come see him late in the day and be prepared for a job. As the sun set, we left the boarding house and walked the short way up Rook Street, then east along South Street. 
The evening was cool, a nice spring cool rather than a cold winter cool, but still damn chill. The streets were mostly deserted. All along the road shops had closed and the people had moved to the late-night spots like the Wink and Tickle, a bar and brothel a little north of us. 
I hoped that the old asshole had a decent job for us tonight. For a couple of months, he’d given us shitty jobs that barely gave us enough coppers for rent let alone wood or charcoal. We loved our little place in Faman’s Boardinghouse, it was a nice upper floor room in the northeastern corner, but it was bloody cold during the winter. The room was off the inner courtyard on the east side. It seemed like every west wind got sucked into that long yard and never wanted to leave. It made for cold nights even now in the early spring. Our former welldoer who gave us jobs had arranged it for us. Mother Katho Didz, High Priestess of Frawja in Ealdwik, did her best to take care of the orphans of the city like Jia and I. It made for a cold winter trying to shelter in the streets, so she tried to find them places to stay. Although, when we were much younger it was a different boardinghouse with many children crowded onto sleeping mats and blankets. Still cold, but not as cold as winter outside huddled in the various spots out of the wind. There were only so many spots and far too many orphans. It made for fights and bullying even among us children, sometimes to the point of actual bloodshed. When she got half of us in boardinghouses, most of the violence stopped.
When we turned ten or so, Mother Didz had us running the odd errand here and there – delivering messages, buying things at the markets and such. That was when she moved us into Faman’s boarding house. That was good for a couple of years until she got her acolyte, Hem Granesk. He was a rich asshole from one of the ten richest families in Ealdwik, usually just called the Ten. Everyone knew who you meant. The jobs from the temple of Frawja dried up to nearly nothing because Hem did them. Mother Didz had told us she had little choice. For political reasons the head temple in Heftigmuth had foisted the man on her. She did have good news for us though, which immediately had gotten Jia’s hopes up that the Mother had found her birth mother. Unfortunately, Mother Didz had found that crafty little shit Fieng, Jia’s uncle. Not even a real uncle, a step-uncle. Still, he did agree to help us find work so we could stay at Faman’s.
We did little jobs at first, jobs which 10yo kids found fun and exciting. Thieving. I don’t think the Mother realized that Fieng was Thieves’ Guild or she wouldn’t have left us in his care. 
First, he taught us the snatch and run. Although for a long while we caused distractions so that better snatchers could grab valuable things out of market stalls. You had to be deft and quick to snatch something even when a merchant was distracted. Some of them had eyes in the back of their head. Eventually we did the snatches ourselves when Fieng thought we were ready. Next, we learned how to do second story work, and that was decent fekh, but such jobs were rare. We hadn’t done one in a couple of months, hence our current problem. Most of the jobs were warehouse work. 
With a second story job you were robbing some rich asshole who had more money than he could spend in a lifetime. Grab a few very valuable and easily fencible things and then bolt. Warehouse jobs were surer things than second story work with less risk, but also with less reward. While warehouses had more guards, they were big and easier to hide in. It had been warehouse work for a couple of months, hence our current problem with coin. We were lucky if we pulled in a hundred copper obs, two jobs a month, and that was 200 obs in the best case. We could survive well enough on 100-200 obs a month. Faman only wanted 20 obs a month for rent, the rest we could spend as we liked. Although, most of our coin went to food. Except in winter, when at least half of our fekh went to wood and charcoal to keep our little stove warm and the room barely above freezing. 
Goddess, I hoped this wasn’t another warehouse job.

Fieng let us in doing his usual double look behind us to make sure no one had followed us. The old man sat behind his desk and steepled his hands and frowned. Not a good sign.
“So”, Fieng said, cringing in on himself a bit, “the job is to stage a little raid on the Starcutter’s warehouse on Candle Street across town.”
“Fuck!”, Jia growled, “Another warehouse job? You’ve given us nothing but warehouse jobs for months! We’re dying in the cold, Uncle Fieng!”
Grimacing in the face of her anger he turned away reaching for something on a shelf behind him, mumbling, “It’s a little better than the usual kind of warehouse job, you’ll see.”
The little old man laid a map across the table he used as a desk in his ‘office’, a back room of the house with its own door. Fieng’s wife wouldn’t let him do ‘that work’ in the main house. The old man pointed to one of two warehouses on the map. It was next to a house marked with the name Blem Starcutter. He was the guildmaster of the Caravaners’ Guild. Everyone knew Blem and the Starcutters – his family were one of the Ten.
“Blem got a good load in last week but hasn’t been able to move it yet”, Jia’s uncle explained, “It’s mostly spices and silk from a caravan that came up from the south over the mountains from the deserts of the Wasatna. Currently he’s storing it somewhere in the northwest of the big warehouse.”
The Wasatna made the best silk and traded in the finest spices, so this could truly be a better kind of job depending on what kind of spices.
“Cause a distraction at the house”, Fieng suggested, “and then have a little stroll through the warehouse and bring me back the spices. Take anything else small and manageable – but don’t touch the strongbox. We can’t raid that; it holds not only his personal wealth but the Starcutter family’s money. Blem will have to raise holy hell with the Iron Drikhton, and they be after us on every street in the city.”
The Iron Drikhton was the ruler of Ealdwik and not someone we wanted on our bad side, or our good side, or any side of us for that matter. We were only safe so long as she didn’t even know we existed.
My mind turned back to the spices. All the good spices were very pricey and usually sold well on the black market…
“And no fires!”, the old man growled, “We don’t want an uncontrolled fire…”
“It was one time!”, I growled back, “and we got it out before we left!”
“But you almost got caught!”, Fieng countered, “So no fires this time, or any time, not until you get better at these… powers of yours.”
Fieng didn’t really like me that much. He didn’t approve of my horns, or my skin, or my tail, or anything about me – especially that I was Khthonios, descended from the great kakodaimons of the underworld. Well, descended a few thousand generations back. He really didn’t like it that Jia and I hung around, but he eventually figured out we loved each other and would not be separated. He really, really didn’t like it that I was a Warlock. Jia had some skill in illusion, mind control, and magic in general – but those were wizard powers. Those he understood since the Guild had their own wizards. If she was stronger, she could probably have put the guards at the Starcutter house to sleep. 
My powers worked differently, I had been granted them by the Great Outer One, Anki Sukkal, an unfathomable power even to me. But he had granted me power when I had screamed out in pain and fear and helped me escape from the hirelings my stepmother sent to kill me. He had granted me several more powers over the years like making fire, and they just worked. I didn’t always need to do the chanting and gesturing that Jia needed to do and that made Fieng nervous about my ‘strange powers’ from unnatural gods. I tried to explain to him how Anki Sukkal was beyond all gods, but Fieng just looked at me without understanding. My Khthonios heritage was enough to make him nervous, combined with my powers and my patron… well, he didn’t outright hate me, but I made him nervous, and he didn’t like it that a 17yo kid made him nervous.