Three Months Prior...

“I say, boy! Budge your bottom or I’ll budge it with my cane!” The mean merchant scolded. He rapped his oaken cane on the stone porch as he came out the front door.

“Sorry, sir.” Jake Narmolanya replied, wiping his eyes with his black silk scarf. He’d been sitting, crying over the loss of his best friend and steed, Gunner. The gelding had served him faithfully for many years, and the horse’s recent death had sent Jake into an emotional tailspin.

“Don’t be sorry, begone!” The fat man growled, advancing and thrusting his cane menacingly.

“Okay okay, no need for - ouch!” Jake had begun backing up, but not fast enough. The merchant thumped him in the ribs with his cane, and took a second swing as the half elf dodged backwards.

“Look, I didn’t mean to offend,” Jake said, both hands raised defensively, “I just needed a place to sit and think. I lost my closest friend, and-”

“N’jal take your friend, and your soul too! Now begone!” The portly man made another few feeble strikes at the half elf and then retreated into his manor house, slamming the door.

That miserable old bastard, Jake thought as he paced down the street, what a way to welcome someone to Serenti. If I ever come back here, I’m going to rob him.

~*~

Present Day...

“That miserable old bastard!” Jake slapped his copy of the Radasanthian Reader down on the tavern’s table. A few nearby folk looked his way, only for a moment, but long enough that a blush rose to his tanned, youthful cheeks. “Sorry, won’t happen again,” he murmured, green eyes cast low. He ran a hand through his thick dirty blond locks and re-read the headline in the newspaper.

Merchant Vard Smellson to sell a dozen Fallieni yearlings.

Jake remembered the fat merchant well. He’d vowed that if he ever returned to Serenti he would rob the man, and he’d been thinking recently of procuring himself a Fallieni yearling for training. It seemed a perfect storm had formed for him to steal something he desired from a man he rather desired to take something from.

The half elf sipped his ale, leaning back in the sawdust smell of the tavern and remembering what the merchant’s property looked like. It had been a big manor house with attached stables… perhaps a ranch would be the best word to describe it. He could picture the positions of the whitewashed fences and glaring red walls in his mind’s eye.

I’ll need a partner… someone to go in and do the stealing while I provide a distraction. But how to find such a partner? None of Jake’s friends approved of his thieving habits. In truth, he hadn’t stolen anything in years. But it would be worth coming out of retirement to burglarize the mean merchant of Serenti.

Could I place an article in the Radasanthian Reader? No, that’s too obvious. I’d be taken by the Watch. And then he remembered the bulletin boards he’d seen the last time he visited the black market district of the bazaar.

That could work…