Thief of Time

An awkward silence prevailed as Dia and Lily walked down a random street of Licencia. Truth be told, Dia didn’t really know what Lily was like; she was apparently heiress to the Julan Barony, daughter of Baron Julan. However, in the greater scheme of things, a baron was normally a character of little interest to Dia, who had a far greater background.

This attitude was coming back to bite her, however.

“Erm, so what’s the Julan Barony like?” Dia asked.

“It’s a rather small place, an agrarian barony,” Lily replied. “It’s under the administration of the Schwa Dukedom.”

The Dukedom of Schwa was the third and last duke under the Umbra Sovereignty. Occupying the westmost territories of the Umbra Sovereignty, Dia knew very little about it, since the Dukedom of Lustre was at the east of Istrel and of Umbra in general.

“So…what’s it like?” Dia rephrased her question slightly, which made Lily pause.

“It’s at the coastline, so there’s many beaches there. It’s a pleasant place to go on a vacation, and most of my people make a living through catching fishes and other aquatic life,” said Lily. “There’s three medium lifestone mines in my territory, but one is about to be fully depleted.”

She paused and shook her head. “Nothing much to look at, in general.”

“Now, now. You’re only thinking of it that way because you’re looking at it as a ruler,” Dia replied. “Once you look from the ground, there has to be something charming about the place. For instance, Licencia has lots of peace-loving people—”

“You looking to die, punk?”

Two men exploded into action after bumping into each other. Within seconds, they charged at each other, swords and daggers stabbing at each other. Everyone stopped moving to watch these two men fight each other, and it was only after an arm flew into the sky that the two stopped fighting.

“Sorry, were you saying something?” Lily asked. “I didn’t quite catch that last bit.”

“I was saying that Licencia has some friendly—”

“I’ll dig your eyes out!” One woman, who looked as harmless as a kitten, shrieked as she ran towards another woman drinking her tea peacefully. Before the latter could even respond, the first tiger-like woman had flipped her entire table, knocking the tea-drinking one out.

“That’ll teach you to stare at my husband!”

The husband in question trembled as he was being dragged away by the cattish woman.

“Sorry,” said Lily, “but I thought you said friendly.”

“Not at all!” Dia forced a smile out. “I was saying that Licencia has lots of law-abid—”

“Stop, thief! Get back here!”

Dia glared at the thief running towards her, and then kicked out. Her legs left afterimages, and the masked fellow reeled backwards as three successive kicks slammed into his abdomen.

Without waiting for the victim to show up, Dia unleashed a few more punches at the befuddled thief. “That’ll teach you to contradict me! Was it nice making me eat my words? Huh? Speak! Was it nice?”

The ground shook a few times as Dia sent fist after fist into the thief’s chest. After her third punch, the damned fellow fainted, and Dia grabbed him by the shirt, dragging him back to Lily.

“I don’t think he’s Tot, but we might get something out of catching him.”

“Y-yes. O-of course.” Lily took a few steps back, and then pointed at the distance. “Look! There’s the victim.”

After settling the small incident, in which the victim, a burly man with a giant chopper, thanked them with some silver coins, they continued on their tour of the less than peaceful, friendly and law-abiding city. After seeing the extent in which the Moons decided to play with her words, Dia had resolved not to open her mouth beyond necessary.

Given the events that had just transpired, if she were to talk about famous tri-folders of Grandis right now, it was entirely possible that one would really show up. Instead, it would be better to talk about Tot, who was someone she was actually looking for.

“So,” said Dia, “about Tot…what do you think he’s like?”

Lily perked up. “I think he’s a great fellow. See all that mess he made? He even made Emperor Grandis issue a royal decree! If I could be just a tenth as famous as him, it would be nice.”

“…that wasn’t what I was expecting,” said Dia, “but okay. Since you came with the others, you must have some confidence in capturing Tot, right? What kinds of preparations have you made?”

“Quite a bit,” Lily replied. “My skills are geared towards creating interesting things. Things like sweets, food, medicine, explosives and poisons…there’s really a lot. If I were to spot the master thief, I’ll set up some traps, and then force-feed him all my poisons.”

“Well, that at least explains why you were so familiar with the process of force-feeding alcohol to Farah.” Dia rubbed her head, selectively tuning out some items in her head. “Just what were you doing before you left on this journey to catch Tot?”

“Hmm. I was listening for the latest developments regarding Dia. Oh, and I was making some nice sweets to sell,” Lily replied.

Why do I get the feeling that the first one’s more important than making sweets to sell? Dia rubbed her head again. She didn’t really know how to deal with Lily, who was an ardent fan of Princess Dia.

“What kinds of sweets do you make?” Dia asked.

“Oh, rather normal ones. Things like Devil’s Bite, or Drunken Cocoa…little confectionaries that children love.”

“Why are the names so scary, then?”

“Children love scary names,” Lily replied. “Give them something that’s called Rainbow Spice and they’ll ignore it. Call it Folder’s Poison, and they’ll eat it without any hesitation.”

“Ah. I, uh, see.” Dia cleared her throat. “How…intriguing.”

“I know, right? And they also like more exciting sweets,” said Lily. “Normal sweet stuff just isn’t cutting it anymore. My most popular item was an Inferno Candy, which numbs the tongue through sheer spiciness upon consumption. It ran out of stock in a day.”

“Am I out of date, or is it just that the children of Julan Barony that’s weird?” Dia muttered.

“Did you say something?”

“Yeah,” lied Dia, “I was thinking that you should make the others try out that Inferno Candy too. Unfortunately, I cannot eat too many sweet things, so I’ll have to pass. And besides, Risti and Farah are probably experts are confectionaries. They’ll be able to give you expert advice in no time.”

“Now, why didn’t I think of that?” Lily muttered.

“You should try it out. Anyway, I’m going over to Triple-D. I heard that there’s a storyteller there during the afternoon, so that’ll be our destination for today.”

“A storyteller?” Lily asked.

“I’m intending to see if there are any clues about Tot being a native of Licencia,” Dia replied. “A city like this should have some rather good stories and songs. And some about thieves too.”

“Is there any point to this?”

“We’re grasping at straws now. The guy we’re seeking out — the one who brought some herbs — was obviously prepared for anyone pursuing him,” Dia replied. “And that name he left behind was definitely fake too, or another person’s name.”

“So we’re stuck.”

“Yes, to put it bluntly. We can only wait for the bartender to gather the intelligence we need, but we can do some listening of our own too,” said Dia. “And it’s good to have a local understanding on the City of Trades. What legends does it have? Who should we look out for? Are there any things we shouldn’t do?”

“And we can learn all these from storytellers?” Lily asked, incredulous. “Don’t take offence, but I don’t think singers of folk tales are a good source of information. Back in Julan, we would hire lots of them, plus some bards, to sing about our lush fields and great beaches, but we didn’t even put in effort to make them look nice.”

“There’s a scrap of truth in even the wildest of rumours,” Dia replied. She couldn’t help but think about those things that the others talked about regarding her as she said this.

“I suppose that’s our only choice…but in that case, why aren’t we heading to the bar directly?” Lily asked.

“Well, the storyteller’s coming at around three, so I want to take this chance to familiarise myself with the streets of Licencia. Get a rough understanding of the terrain, things like that.”

“You really are bent on catching Tot, huh?”

Of course! My life literally depends on it! Why else did you think I’d spend time walking outside? I also want to sleep! Forcing out an enigmatic smile, Dia said, “I have reasons that compel me inexorably to capture Tot. That is the purpose of my excursion, my sole purpose.”

“Looks like your…family was really affected by Ruler Umbra’s death,” said Lily. “Am I not wrong?”

Dia knew what she was referring to, and smiled. “You aren’t that off the mark. But enough of small talk for now. Let’s go get an understanding of this city, and then we’ll go over to Triple-D.”