The Thieves Guild starts in 90 seconds, but first, we wanted to provide you
with a quick showcase from our Artifacts of the Arcane podcast.
Master Simmon created multiple illusions of us leaving the station.
Someone looking for us would have had a hard time choosing which group was the real one,
or even knowing there was an illusion at all.
That alone is extraordinary,
but he also excluded us from the illusion, which is something very few
magicians can do.
"Parlor tricks," Naomi scoffed.
Naomi
pulled her legs in and pointed at Master Simmon.
"He didn't help at all while I was saving us.
Uh, at least his friends did something."
"Naomi."
Master Simmon raised his hand at Mr. Ali.
"It's okay, Ali."
He stared at Naomi for a moment, and then made a few movements with his hand.
Naomi screamed and grabbed her throat.
An enormous snake was curled around her neck.
"Get it off me!"
Her hands grasped at her neck, her fingernails scratching and clawing at the snake.
"Enough, Simmon."
I looked at the master, and he smiled and shrugged.
"Just a parlor trick."
Artifacts of the Arcane. To find out more, check out the link in the
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The Thieves Guild
by Jake Care.
Episode 112:
The Three Diaries.
Rafe threw the book across the room and immediately felt guilty.
He pushed his chair back, its hard wood scraping across the stone,
and retrieved the book, gently closing it and brushing dust off its cover.
It was a diary, and Rafe had hoped that he could find some information
about the magic guild somewhere in its pages.
But rather than any discussion of spells or magic guild matters,
it was simply a journal of memories.
There were a number of the diaries in the collection that Rafe had hauled back from
Pietro's quarters. They were all similar in that they contained handwritten
stories told in great detail about the lives of the authors.
It was the third and final diary that Rafe had thrown across the room.
Stories of weddings, of births, of important moments in
relationships.
There were even sad moments of great loss, including the death of a child.
Standing up, Rafe thought over the books as he went over to a side table
to pour himself a glass of water. They were in Pietro's personal
quarters, so they were important. But why were they important?
"What do they all have in common?" Rafe thought as he drank an entire glass of water
and poured another one.
As he sat back down, he pulled out a piece of parchment and a quill.
He started to list the common threads that held the three books together.
"They have the same binding," Rafe said aloud as he wrote.
"They all seem to have been written around the same time period, with a few of the events overlapping."
He tapped the end of the quill against his chin.
"Ah, yes, they're also written by different people with different handwriting."
Rafe picked up one of the books and looked at it, examining the binding in more
detail.
A small indent that he had overlooked before caught his eye.
It was on the lower left side of the cover, and was round.
He grabbed one of the other diaries. It had the same indent.
So did the third.
Looking from one to the other, it finally hit him.
"That's the same shape as the magic guild seal."
He pulled the book over that showed the guild seal to confirm his finding, and
was disappointed to see that it actually was not the same size as the
seal. He ran his finger over each indent.
They were subtly different, and they didn't seem to be built into the book.
"This feels like someone had pressed something against the book again and again..."
Rafe once again spoke aloud to himself.
"Creating this impression, and each book had something different pressing into it."
He noted it on his parchment and continued his list.
"Each diary ends with some memory from early adulthood, and each has a few dozen empty pages at the
end."
Rafe looked at the empty pages more closely. There was something there.
But as he touched, peered, sniffed, and examined the pages,
all he could really say is that it felt like there was writing on them.
He didn't actually have any evidence of it.
He closed the books and set them in a pile in front of him.
"Someone felt it important to record their most personal memories.
Not all of them, and not in any kind of organized fashion.
Just important memories, written down in great detail."
But why? A knock on the library door distracted Rafe from his
musing. "Enter." Philos entered, his arms behind
his back. He looked grim.
"Raylan has not returned,"
he said, not bothering with a greeting.
"How long has it been? It's Raylan, after all.
He may have taken a liking to an outlander girl."
Rafe smiled, but Philos ignored his comment.
"It has been too long. The journey is long, but his horse is
swift."Filos started to pace. "He should not have gone alone.
Too many things could have gone wrong.
The Rangers could have captured him, Outlander brigands may have killed him, or the Outlander
king may not have been as friendly as Raylan had thought."
"Crown, not king?
He is the Crown of the Outlanders."
Filos gave Rafe a withering look, as if such a detail was
insulting to mention with Raylan missing.
"Has Allard returned? What does he say?"
"That's the other concern. Allard is missing.
He was last seen in the flats. One of our guild members observed him walking along the throughway
back toward the guild, but that was the last time he was seen.
He was dressed as a Ranger. But you know Allard.
He is a difficult man not to notice."
"Do you think he was captured?"
"I do. But whether it was Knight, Merchant, or Harvest, I cannot say."
Rafe stood up.
"We need to do something. We have members in each of those guilds.
They need to find out what has happened."
"It has already been done, Rafe. Messengers are going out to our key members in each of those
guilds. If Allard has been captured, we will know soon."
Rafe sat back down. Things had suddenly turned very bad.
"Will we be able to free him like before?"
"If the Knights captured him, he is dead already.
They will not risk another escape.
If the Merchants captured him, I'm unsure what the young guild master will do, but I fear
it will be to kill Allard as a show of strength."
"And the Harvest Guild?"
"If the Harvest Guild captures Allard, Polo will kill him himself."
"It all sounds so hopeless. And Raylan is nowhere to be found."
He turned to Filos.
"What can we do?"
"We will know of Allard's fate soon enough, and if he is alive, we will free him.
There is no longer a concern of our guild being exposed."
"That's true," Rafe replied, feeling at least a little hopeful.
"But what of Raylan?"
"We can send a force out into the plains to look for him.
They can follow the trail from the south gate to the Great Road and beyond."
"Yes, let's do that. The Captain of the Plains, who is that again?"
"Mio."
"Can we send Mio out with our best fighters?"
"I will take care of it."
"Is there anything else we can do?"
"I'm afraid not. We continue to maintain order and build goodwill in the Old Quarter.
That is all we can do for now."
"That's good."
"I'll report back if I hear something,"
Filos replied, turning toward the door.
"Filos, one more thing."
The guard turned and walked over to Rafe.
Rafe pointed to the indent on the cover of the top book of the pile of diaries.
"What type of thing could make this indent?
Anything official?"
Filos reached out and ran his finger over the round depression.
"I know not," he eventually replied.
"A metal rod or stick perhaps? Something with a small, hard, round end."
"Not a knife then?"
"No.
Something blunt and round, like a rod."
Filos pulled his arm back and peered at Rafe.
"Why do you ask?"
"I have scoured these books," Rafe waved around to the piles of books within
the library, "and I am more convinced than ever that the key to our guild's history is in these
books, and that the only way to unlock them is to find that metal or wooden rod."
Filos nodded. "If I find a wooden rod, I'll be sure to
let you know." And with a nod, he turned and left Rafe alone,
surrounded by his books and swirling doubts.
(dramatic music)