“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about, man!” the balding man. “Potions? I’ve never even seen ‘em in my whole life!”

  “Your friends already told me, mate,” Eik said and held up a large burlap sack wherein two whole wooden crates of potions, all of what he had left in the shed, had been placed. “Plus, I must say, this doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence in your words.”

  “I—…” the thief begun but narrowed his eyes and paused. “What do you want?”

  “Who do you work for?” Eik asked, finally releasing the man from his grasp. He stumbled back, clearly still rattled by the double headbutt.

  “I don’t work for anybody!” he said.

  “So you’ll take responsibility? For all of this?” Eik asked, getting all the way up into the guy’s face as he gestured to the sack of potions. “These are pretty expensive, you know. Can you even afford to take responsibility all on your own?”

  The balding man clicked his tongue. “Why don’t you just take ‘em all back then, huh? Come on, big guy! You’re that up and coming business man, aren’t you? You don’t need little ol me’s permission!” he spat.

  “You would also be responsible for all of the potions you already sold, friend,” Eik reminded him with the brightest of smiles. Immediately, the man’s face paled slightly. “That would cost you… Hmm…” Eik said and scratched his head in mock consideration. “I simply can’t calculate such a large number in my head. But still, you don’t work for anybody so you’ll take it all on your own shoulders, won’t you? That is much appreciated, friend!” Eik clapped him good naturedly on the shoulder.

  All of a sudden, the previously brash and defiant thief had become rather quiet and he appeared to have difficulty letting his gaze meet Eik’s. Somehow, within the last few seconds, he also seemed to have developed a tendency to sweat from the forehead.

  “I, uuh…”

  “Could it be that you would like to change your previous answer?” Eik asked.

  Swallowing hard, the balding man nodded quietly.

  “Great!” Eik exclaimed, clapping his hands excitedly. “So then, who, pray tell, was it that told you to grab my mojo juice straight out of my store and break into my home? My cat lives with me…” Eik said, realizing, as he spoke, what could have happened to her in an alternative reality. Angry curls of glowing blue Profound Toxin rippled into existence around his back, like a luminescent cape billowing in the wind, emphasizing the anger he suddenly felt. Each of the tendrils whipped around, desperately trying to get at the balding man as he could do nothing but stand frozen in fear.

  “If anything had happened to her, I would have made sure your last breath was in agony.”

  Pale as a sheet of paper, the man stammered. “I-I— I swear, I don’t know who made the request! They paid real well so I jus’, you know… I jus’ couldn’t say no to something like that!”

  “Then tell me, how are you of any value to me right now?”

  “I can- I can lead you to them! Yes! I can do that! I have to meet with the contact again soon! I have to show that I got the product to get my payment!”

  “When?” Eik asked, the whirling Profound Toxin calming down slightly.

  “It’s in t-two and a half hours.”

  “Perfect! I’ll wait right here!” Eik said and let himself fall into a chair. Two of the members of the Bankers tried to sneak away but Eik called to them from his seat. “And so will all of you. We’re all going to wait here and have a cozy time together.”

  “Actually,” Lisa said with a raised hand. “Now that I’ve found the guy for you, my part is over and done with. And that means I’m going home.”

  “What?” Eik asked. “Are you serious?”

  She arched an eyebrow. “Very. Believe it or not, but I have other stuff to do besides helping you out all the time. And you can handle yourself on your own, can you not?”

  Eik eyed the thieves, the woman he’d stomped in the face still unconscious against the wall. He tilted his head. “Yeah, sure, but I thought you would follow me through thick and thin. Where has the loyalty gone?”

  “Why don’t you spend the next two and a half hours looking for it? I’m out of here. I have a meeting at Mission Central in five and a half hours so I’m going to bed. Do you know how tired I have been after staying up every night for a week to watch a damn shed while still having work to do during the day?” she said and headed for the opening leading back up to the nondescript house on the surface. With a gesture, her subordinate followed her.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  “I’ll report the completion of the job to Travis,” her voice called down from inside the tunnel. “I’ll have a few people come by in about twenty minutes to quietly take away everybody but your potion thief. You don’t need anybody but him, do you?” The thieves exchanged fearful glances at his name and whispered among each other in hushed voices.

  “Nah, I only need him, so you can do what you want with the rest of them.”

  “Good.” Her voice was very muffled by now.

  “I guess it’s just you and me for now then, guys,” Eik said, putting his feet up on a little foot stool. Truth be told, he wasn’t that comfortable being alone with them but one looks at their downcast eyes told him that they felt the same way but much worse. “You seriously don’t know who you’re working for?” he asked the balding man again.

  “N-No, sir. I never saw their face. But it happens all the time. Lots of people want to buy our services for one reason or the other but the ones who are willing to admit that out in the open are few and far between.”

  “That makes sense. So you guys just…” he swept his arm around the space, looking for the right word. “live here, or what?”

  A woman hurried to answer. “N-No, we just meet here sometimes. And stash a few things on occasion.” She probably didn’t want him assuming that he could come directly here any time he wanted anything with them.

  “How many of you are there? In the Bankers, I mean.” They glanced at each other seemingly trying to come up with and answer that wouldn’t result in a beating.

  “We, uuh… We don’t honestly know how many of us there are. It’s kind of a security thing, I think,” one of them said. “The less you know, the less you can give away, so to speak. You know what I mean.”

  Eik nodded. “I think I do, yes. You’re talking about situations such as the one you’re in right now. Even if I slapped you around to the point where you wish you were dead, or pumped you full of pain enhancing poison,” he said as Profound Toxin once more rose up aggressively, lunging for the group of thieves like an attack dog kept on a chain. “you wouldn’t be able to reveal too much even if you wanted to.”

  The balding man tried his best not to look at the whirling blue substance. “That’s— Th-That’s right. You really wouldn’t get anything out of doing s-something like that whatsoever.”

  “Riiiight.” Eik got up and walked to the center table that had all the papers strewn across it. There seemed to be a variety of information that he definitely wasn’t going to bother going through right now but Travis Lockwood and Elaine Haness would probably appreciate something like this.

  He unslung the rucksack of holding and began to shove the many sheets haphazardly into the depths of its magical storage space while the thieves watched with clenched teeth. Those stares of hate filled fear might have bothered him if they hadn’t been criminals taking advantage of the misfortune of other people doing their best to survive and thrive in an age where most people struggled.

  He looked around the space as he tossed the rucksack over his shoulder again. “How many hideouts like this do you have anyway?”

  Again, they exchanged glanced as if they were telepathically communicating among themselves. For a few seconds they didn’t say anything but once Profound Toxin flared up aggressively again they suddenly couldn’t wait to answer.

  “Two!”

  “None!” two of the thieves said at the same time before realizing what they had said.

  “So which is it?”

  “None of us know for sure,” the man who had said none said. “It’s on a need to know basis, so while I only know this one, someone else might know about more.”

  Eik taped his fingers on the table as he stared at the thieves lined up on their knees on the ground. “Well, isn’t that convenient?”

  “… Yes,” the thief said hesitantly.

  Sitting back down, Eik just shrugged. “Well, I don’t really care. Travis will take care of your interrogations. I wonder if we still have laws regarding proper interrogation methods,” Eik wondered to himself. “But I guess you guys will find out soon, huh?”

  All of them grew a little paler than they already were.

  Soon three men and a woman came down the stairs, armed to the teeth, looking around the dirty room with disdain painted vividly on their faces. “Mr. Magnasen,” they greeted.

  Eik waved from his seat in the chair. “You’re here for these pilfering little raccoons?”

  “Yes, we’ll bring them to a location to be kept for now.”

  “Sure, but leave that guy,” Eik said with a finger at the potion thief. “I need him.”

  “We’ve already been informed so we’ll leave him in your hands.”

  “Great. Then perhaps we should get going as well,” Eik said and got up.

  “A-Already?” the balding man stammered. “But there’s almost two hours until I’m supposed to meet the contact.”

  “Since I’m going to hide and wait, we’re obviously going to get there early. Would you prefer to wait here just the two of us?”

  “… No.”

  “Good, then we’re leaving.”

  Eik pushed the man up the stairs after the handlers sent to transport the prisoners. Now that he wasn’t going for stealth anymore, he let Profound Toxin flow up and across the dirt walls, only just avoiding the potion thief’s skin. Like a cave filled to the brim with bio luminescent moss, it bathed the entirety of that section of the stairway in soft, mildly pulsating light.

  The balding potion thief shrunk into himself as he, with the utmost vigilance, watched the blue liquid ignore gravity as it slithered its way around him menacingly. An undulating tendril would occasionally snake out from the main body to nearly caress the top of his blank scalp.

  “Uh, could you maybe… not do that, please?” he pleaded.

  “Never mind this naughty little guy,” Eik said as a twig of toxin spiraled down around his finger playfully. “He’s just teasing you… But you really shouldn’t touch him. That would totally suck for you.”

  “R-Right.”

  Breathing in the cool night air of the surface felt great after spending even that short amount of time underground. Had all these damn thieves Awakened to mole powers or something?

  “Lead the way forward, good sir,” Eik ordered, twirling Viper Fang around his fingers.

  “Yes…”

  “And don’t even think about trying anything sneaky. I really don’t like you.”

  “I won’t. I promise…”

  “Great!” Eik said with a bright smile. “Onward!” he announced, pointing into the night with his knife, the balding thief shedding a quiet tear as he watched the lunatic at whose mercy he now found himself.

  Check out my Patreon if you'd like to read even more than what is currently posted on RoyalRoad! 20 extra chapters!

  The Green Forest