Month Four: All Falls Down

Sky and Ren discovered as much of the room as they could with the bunk beds, going through drawers and everything alike to find out what the thieves guild was doing stationing themselves under such an important building.

Upon the first drawer they saw, Sky pulled out a book from what looked like a library. The book had a weird title, but didn't stand out too much to him. He investigated further, looking through their items until he found a key underneath a bed. The shape of the key was just a normal key, but it was poisoned with strands that wrapped all around the front part of it, rapidly changing the shape.

The locks on the doors were never enough because of the key Sky had in his hand.

"Ren, check underneath all of the beds for me," Sky said. He stood guard near the entrance to the sleeping room while Ren gathered eighteen other keys that looked exactly like it.

Somebody had been distributing these keys to the thieves in Alicas, somebody capable of using strands to such an extreme extent. Sky didn't want to point fingers anywhere, but it had to have been an Arkian.

"What does this mean? Why are there so many keys here?" Ren asked Sky. He shrugged, destroying them all with a saber before dissipating it and burying the keys underneath a hole he made.

"There's twenty keys, and the last one is still out there. That means there's a large group using one key, otherwise more would've been taken," Sky suggested, looking out of the tunnel to see if anybody was coming his way.

"So, there are strands in this key? That's really impressive, isn't it? That kind of control, I mean. That's like something you could only do," Ren brought up to Sky. He nodded, understanding that not just any Arkian could've done this, but one with powerful Strands, like Dani and him.

"Huh, something is amiss then. We need to go find those thieves and give them the same treatment," Sky told Ren. As soon as he turned around, the tunnel flooded with one person, then three, then six, then ten, then nineteen. All but one was now in the tunnel, locking eyes with Sky in the sleeping room.

"Well! Look who it is!" The thieves called out. Sky didn't think he spent too long in the base, but knew that any amount of time could be dangerous to people who were so good at sneaking around during the night.

"Where did you get the keys?" Sky asked. He didn't falter, showing no signs of fear to the mysterious people.

"Somebody made them for us, what's it to you?" One of the thieves in front of the people in the tunnel asked him.

"It's the safety of my people. Are you suggesting that you'd rather continue to hurt my people than tell me where you got such an item?" Sky asked next. He wielded a saber next, summoning it with his strands. Four opponents wasn't difficult, but nineteen might be.

"Nobody is gonna miss you, you know that?" The first thief said to Sky. He nodded, refusing to be enraged by the ignorant comments he heard.

The thieves all ran in a straight line at Sky, charging back their jagged blades as Sky summoned a saber, and threw it straight down the tunnel.

The saber interacted with most people. If it missed on the initial throw, the saber curved off of the wall and knocked the others down by cutting into their arms, legs, or even bodies. All except the first thief.

"You don't scare me," The thief boldly said. Unlike the others he encountered on the street with Ren, this one was serious. He wasn't afraid of anything, and knew Sky wouldn't kill him above all else. He didn't have the fear that everybody else did.

Which is exactly why Sky decided to preserve his life.

"I like you, I really do. You're not a wimpy bitch like the rest of your people. However, there's one of you missing here. You got these keys from somebody who can wield black strands, they change their own shape to fit the lock of any door. I don't remember making these keys, so who did?" Sky asked him.

"I believe it was, Dani, was her name?" The thief told Sky. He was unshaken, knowing that Dani would never do such a thing. This man had contact with somebody else.

"Right, I'll have to give her a little chat then," Sky said. He faked a disengage from the right, grabbing onto the man's neck and throwing him toward all of the bunk beds in the room. He knocked over every single one, bending the metal pipes that held them up and collapsing a portion of the room by caving the roof in from the force of the throw.

Ren stood back again and watched as Sky began to interrogate the person he threw.

"I know of very, very few people who can use strands like that. Do us both a favor, and tell me the name. You are no longer a person to me, you are a full-fledged Arkian capable of wielding very destructive strands. It's the perfect excuse to kill you," Sky told him. Again, he was unshaken by the threat, pushing his neck out and holding his jaw up toward Sky.

"Then cut my thro--" As soon as the man invited Sky into hurting him, he obliged.

Sky slid his knife over the man's throat with a quick nick, causing blood to gush out in high volumes. The man's eyes filled with dread and surprise as his people behind Ren began to beg for his life for him.

"Wait! It's not that! Hey! We know who it is! It's Finlis! Finlis Vega!" The men shouted out. Sky turned his head at the name, unsure of what to think of such a weird name.

Sky pushed golden strands into the thief's body and healed him back to perfect health, holding him up by his arm while looking at him with dead eyes.

"It's not so hard to give out information, is it? I mean, you could've died today. Remember that, the next time somebody asks you a damn question," Sky told him. He threw the man into the mess of bunk beds and headed for the exit of the thieves tunnel.

"Hey! You probably won't be able to take Finlis… he's very powerful!" The thief who initially revealed the information said to Sky.

"I don't plan to," Sky told him, leading Ren out of the tunnel and leaving the thieves to rot.