Honor Among Thieves

Baha ordered his man to carry Luden into the city after putting a bag over him. Luden woke up in the middle of a road, his head filled with the fear of the unknown. Half an hour later, the cover on his face gets taken off. What greeted him was a cold tomb and a door that once haunted his dreams— the cursed tomb that cost him his hand.

Baha bends down and looks Luden in the eye. "Little dog, I have one job for you; finish it and you are free; you have my word. I know you can understand me; my men told me you interacted with several adventurers across these few months. Are you willing to do one last job, or should I just end your miserable life now?"

Luden doesn't answer him; he slowly wakes up and gets to the door. He takes out his tools and slowly opens the door; now that he knows there are two mechanics, he takes his time and slowly opens both of them while searching for the third one. Once he is certain there is no third mechanic, he opens the door immediately, causing both machines to switch off.

The door makes a clicking sound and slowly opens, and Baha and his men watch the door with greed in their eyes. Baha has long craved to see what is inside this door; he always wished to see what he didn't get to see inside.

Luden watches Baha and some of the men go inside the door with greed in their eyes; they soon despair inside the tomb. After thirteen minutes, he started to yell at her angrily, shouting and insulting: How come there is nothing in here? Did you guys search well?" "Bring that dog in here."

The men grab Luden and bring him inside. Once Luden gets dragged inside, he is greeted with a big room with nothing inside but a coffin with a corpse inside. There are no treasures or anything.

Baha looks at Luden: "Search the room for any hidden treasure."

Luden said, "You gave me your W."

When he got kicked in the stomach and was sent flying, he felt like he was about to lose consciousness again. "Do it, or I will kill you right now," said Baha angrily.

Luden gets up with difficulty and searches the room; after minutes, he shakes his head at Baha.

Disappointed, Baha commanded his men to depart, saying, "Leave him to die inside." This is a tomb. Is it a gift from me to you? I'm not sweet enough to give you the best grave. Since I gave you my word, I won't take your tools whether you leave or not; it has nothing to do with me."

Baha and his men clear everything and start to leave, leaving Luden at the tomb; the last thing Luden sees is one of the gang members laughing at him and the door closing, leaving him in total darkness alone.

Luden sat there in the dark; soon his eye was full of tears. He cursed his misfortune; he cursed these people for failing to leave him alone. While he was crying, he didn't notice his body absorbing energy from the corpse. Slowly, after 30 minutes of bawling him out, he heard a voice that was neither a man's nor a woman's, hoarse and commanding, filled with pride: "I finally found some original energy in this cursed planet, little wolf. There is something in the corpse's eye. Take it and sell it." Luden, alarmed, started to question the voice: "Who are you? What are you doing inside my head? Why can I see you so clearly? Hello? Answer me," but the voice never answers him again. Luden walks to his tools, grabs a lighter-like device, and sparks it; soon the room is light. He walks to the corpse, looks at it eye-to-eye with hesitation, gives in, and digs his hand inside of it. Soon he notices something round in his eye, takes it out, and looks at it; it's a device-like thing. He puts it in his pouch.

Determined, Luden gets his tools and gets near the door; after some time, he finds the best way to the door is by breaking the tile below and accesses the mechanic that is in the middle of that side; he gets to work; after some time, he manages to remove the tiles and opens the door; he doesn't have to worry about triggering the door from the other side; soon, he hears a click and the door opens.

Luden finally starts to see the light from the other side; he slowly makes his way out of the tomb. He slowly leaves the cursed tomb and goes to the middle of the lower stick; the city is divided into three tiers: upper, middle, and lower, each bigger than the other, with the lower being the biggest and having the most common people. In order to go to the upper tiers of the city, one needs access; all of Luden's time was spent in the lower tier. Making his way to the district where a lot of Tetra workshops are at, where the chips are sold, making his way into one of the shops, he first tries to sell the item he has, but all the shops tell him to go to the Tetra official shop; they barter there for it without even asking to bring his item. Finally, Luden makes his way to the official shop. Once he entered, he was greeted with different disks with ads and screens all over the shop, each playing something different, all of them about the chips. He was given instructions on how to install the various types of chips, as well as information about the new editions. Luden makes his way to a counter where a man in his twenties with a goatee is waiting. Once he sees Luden noticing his dirty clothes and weird bags that are made of fur, he frowns and says, "No beggars, kid. This shop belongs to Tetra Cooperation. I will have you arrested if you come here again."

"I'm here to buy a chip," says Luden resolutely.

"Do you even have the money?" says the man, chuckling.

"Here I will trade this for it." taking out the items and putting them in front of the man

The man notices the item, grabs it, notices it is dirty, frowns, and cleans it. He is surprised it is an extra ability module for fire users; it's worth at least 400 gold.

Notices that Luden is clueless about the item, and he asks for this expensive thing for a chip that costs 1 gold and sees an opportunity.

He brings out a chip from behind, wraps it in a bag, and gives it to Luden with a smile on his face.

Luden's face lights up, and he takes the chip and examines it with sparkles in his eye; oh, how much he craved it. Thanks the man and rushes out of the shop happily.

Luden puts the items in his bag carefully and rushes out of the city.

But soon he hears, You are being followed." From the mysterious voice that he is being followed, he is frustrated. These bastards won't leave him alone after all this, even after they left him to die. He starts to use all his items to hide his scent, and his tracks slowly walk from one tree to another just to avoid them using all kinds of means he has.

Finally he climbs a tree, notices more than 15 men down there following, and soon he sees Baha arguing with his right-hand man. "That bastard sold something to one of the shops. He lied to us. Find him. I will choke the life out of him myself this time."

His men scatter. Luden, horrified, holds his breath and stays camouflaged. From time to time, he sees the gang members coming down; he even notices the leaves scatter with no one there and figures it's the guy who kidnapped him two times.

Luden waits until it's dawn and no one is around and takes the chip; he watches the box with anticipation, slowly unboxes it, and looks at all the different items inside. The chip is inside another see-through box with a few instructions, and on the top of the box is written, Congratulations for getting a hold of our proud chips soon. A new life will welcome you, and you will join the ranks of the awakening.

He opens one of the pamphlets that is inside, showing the different elements one could awaken, like fire, earth, water, or air, or exotic ones like ice, magma, or lightning; finally, it shows the super elements like light and darkness. The more Luden reads, the more excited he becomes for what awaits, like a kid with his toy. He slowly gets hold of the chip, takes it out of the box, and starts putting it on the palm of his hand. He watches it, a box-like chip that is supposed to open when activated that you have to apply to where your heart is, is in his hand. Luden takes the box-like chip and clicks the power button on it; the box lights up, and just as it's about to open, it shuts down. Confused, Luden tries again, and this time it won't even light up. Horrified, Luden tries again and again. Read the instructions ten times, but nothing there shows what to do if this happens. Fear grips him about the possibility of the man selling him a defective one and starts to complain in his heart, You can't even take this away from me; give me a chance at least. Just as he is about to despair, he hears that voice again. "Relax, I won't let you use that wretched thing and become a tool. I have already planned this. When you think I let you notice that box you found in the wood, I just needed the original energy in this thing." Just as Luden is about to ask what box, he notices a strong vibration in his bag. He slowly takes it out and notices the once-dead box that he used as a pillow now has lights on it and notices a small light on with weird symbols on it. He runs his thumb over them and watches the box soon open, showing a box just like the chip he bought but three times bigger and with nothing else, just some engraving that shows a picture of a man taking the box and clicking it and it opening up and becoming a spine-like thing that he puts on his back. Luden grabs the box, follows the instructions, and clicks the box. He watches it unfold just like a snake takes his shirt off, and just as he grabs it near his back, it attaches to his back, and soon Luden sees millions of lights and feels something inside of him awaken; something was awake from the ancient times. He grabs for breath. And soon he was greeted by the system with a ding.