Petty Theft is Impartial to location [monkeyislandfan1, Knight_of_G & Razgriz]

Erick, wearing a blue shirt and brown shorts, exited a wagon with his bag at the north-west gate of Castle Town, two male Hylian guards stand in front of the entrance. "Ah I'm here, Excillent! I wonder who I'll meet here hopefully nothing crazy will happen, I do not want to fight something like a giant squid right now." As he approached the gate he was stopped by the guards. "Halt," the one on the left said, "We require to search your bag and your pockets!" Curious, but otherwise compliant, Erick handed them his bag, the left guard looked though his bag and the right one searched his pockets. When the right guard was done looking though his pockets he told the other guard, "He's clear." after emptying the bag the left guard started to put everything back and returned it. "Everything checks out, but before you are allowed in answer this, what happened to that book to make so damaged?" He asks "Oh I accidentally dropped it in the ocean, if that's all I'd like to enter please." Nodding the guards stepped aside and let Erick enter. "Oh and I would suggest keeping that pin you have in a safe place along with keeping an eye on your things, there's been multiple thefts reticently, we'll catch the thief soon but until then be careful, oh and welcome to Castle Town, enjoy your stay!" said the right guard.





As Erick entered the town’s Residential District while putting his pin in his left pocket, He looked around at the different houses and buildings, along with the different people walking around and a clearer view of the castle. "This place is so much bigger than I thought it would be with so many people too, it'll take me awhile to get used to this place, but I'm certain that if there's anywhere I can find info about my parents this place is my best bet! Although right now one of my top priorities is to figure out where I'm going to stay, another is food, I wonder if there's an inn somewhere that sells food?"





Erick walked around for a bit trying to find an inn, after about 15 minutes of looking and asking directions he finds what he was looking for and enters. Upon entering the building, he saw that there weren't that many people in the room, about a handful not including the employee’s ether manning the front desk or waiting tables that had people sitting at them. Some of the employees where hylians, others where Gorons, but all the customers where Hylian. Sitting down at a table in a corner he looked at the menu and after five minutes he called a goron waiter and ordered a breaded fish with a glass of water and a side of veggies.

Callad kept looking at a small onion bottle he'd set on the table. It was corked, about the size and shape of the bombs his bomb bag produced. Rather than alchemical explosives and iron pellets, however, this one held three gems of different colors: a blue one, which was the reason the glass was fogged, a green one, and a golden one. Each emitted a soft light, and from what he could tell, each one was imbued with an element.

He'd bought the blue one, and procured the second two during that volcano adventure. He'd been wondering... If he ever got a hand on the rupees for it, could he have the gems, and with them, their power, imbued into his sword?

He took a swig of his beer, then continued looking at the gems. He was so engrossed, that he didn't even notice a new entry into the place.

Venn took note of the guards at the gate; normally they weren't so nosy and let people through freely but those on duty seemed to take an interest in travelers, searching most that passed. She was sure she could get into the city this way, after all she hadn't bought the poisons yet, but didn't want anyone knowing her face and as a Gerudo in Hyrule Castle Town she was sure draw unwanted attention.

Walking for a few minutes revealed another route in: a tree growing only a couple meters from the town wall. Running at the wall and kicking off, she gained a few feet of height. She repeated herself against the tree and against the wall again and again until she neared the top of the wall. Just as she was reaching the apex she loosed an ember seed further down the wall, so it would explode about twenty meters away from her. The moment the guard had turned his head, she pulled herself over the wall and threw herself across it. Landing on the roof of a shack built against the wall, she rolled off the wooden slope and unto cobblestone. Righting herself, she replaced her hood and walked calmly away, doing her best to avoid attention.

After a blessedly short walk, she walked into the inn and sat down at the bar. She was late and her contact still wasn't here, that was never a good sign. After a few minutes the bartender silently placed an ale in front of her and walked away. It was good he wasn't in the mood for conversation either.

(PS: Sorry I didn't post earlier, but I had a project worth 60% of my mark that I only had a couple weeks to work on, so I really didn't have time for much.)

As Erick waited for his meal, he looked around the inn to see if he could find anyone interesting. He first saw a man sitting at a table looking at an oddly colored bottle. "Huh, that is an interesting looking bottle, I wander if that's the color of the glass or of something inside it?" He tried to see if he could figure out what was in it but lost focus when he heard someone else come in, turning to see who it was he saw a woman walk in and take a seat at the bar. Shrugging, he began to think about his plans. "Okay after I eat and get myself a room here I'll go out and ask around if anyone about people who have the last name Marten, after that I'll go get a weapon somewhere and head out."

A few minutes later, a man wearing a plain purple mask enters the inn, looked around and made his way towards Erick. "So you arrived, I was wondering when you would come to this town, I just didn't think it would be this soon." Erick looked at the man with an odd expression confused at the stranger who just started talking to him out of the blue. "Uh do I know you?" The stranger shook his head. "No, but I know you, I have for quite some time, may I?" The individual gestured towards the chair across from Erick, he hesitated then nodded, and the person sat down.
"Thank you, I'm sure you have a lot of questions as to what I mean by that, and I do want to answer them, but there are more important things to worry about. Tell me, have you heard of the recent thefts that have been occurring around here recently?" While Erick was confused about this weirdos actions, he decided to let him have control over the conversation for now. "Yeah, one of the guards out front warned me about it when the both of them checked me for anything." When the waiter came back with the food and water, he asked the new customer if he wanted anything, after asking for water he continued. "I see, the reason I bring this up is because I have an offer to make, you see I have something that you want, something that can help you with your search for your parents, if you can catch this thief you can have it." Erick was surprised at how this man knew about his search. "How did you know so much about this, about my parents?" "Like I said, I've known you for some time now."

Callad finished his beer, set the stein down on the table, stuffed the bottle into his bag, and stood, stretching his back and arms. He hadn't realized how long he'd been sitting there. He felt a bit stiff. He relaxed his muscles, then put on his cloak, paid the tab, and was on his way out when he heard a snippet of conversation that he wasn't sure he was supposed to.

"...have you heard of the recent thefts...?"

He stopped, forced himself to breathe deeply, thinking, Come on, Callad, you need to go. It's not your problem. Need to rendezvous with the teams at the Eastern Caves. But his spirit kept nagging him. He looked at the table he was fairly sure what he'd heard had come from. There was a man in a purple mask, and a young man sitting next to him. He was pale, slim, brown hair, and very naive-looking.

He turned around, swirling his cloak as he did so, and exited the place, before sitting on a nearby crate, pulling out a pipe, and lit it up. He was going to wait for the kid to come out, then offer his help. Then, he'd see how things went.

Venn waited patiently for her contact to arrive, scanning each person as they entered the bar but there still no luck. Still, if nothing else she was thankful her business partner didn't call attention to himself like the idiot in the purple mask. He'd have no privacy where ever he went. Too much time had past, he wasn't coming.

'Had she been too late?' she pondered, 'No, it couldn't be, I paying more than most earn in a year.'

Then she heard the words "Tell me, have you heard of the recent thefts..." had a thief been too greedy or too stupid to stay anonymous? If he or she whoever had brought trouble back to one of their fences, then the entire black market would've gone to ground, and would stay down until it was safe again.

Venn allowed herself the tiniest smirk underneath her hood, she'd come to Hyrule Castle Town to buy illegal goods; stolen ones no doubt; and now she had to catch a thief to do it. At least this might lead to the thief's horde.

She approached the pair before taking a seat. "Sorry, I couldn't help but overhear you, it seems you mean to find the one that's responsible for a string of robberies lately. I'd like to help, call it being a 'concerned citizen'."

Before Erick could respond to him a woman sat down and asked if she could help out. Erick turned to great her and held out his hand "Hi my name is Erick, nice to meet you, and I would be happy to accept your help, unless," He then turned to the man. "would getting help from others with this make me unable to get what your offering?" the man shook his head. "No, how you catch this thief is of no concern if mine, as long as they're caught I will be content, and each of the people who help you will get a reward from me as well." Erick pondered the offer for a moment before responding. "Before I accept I have one question, what's the item you're offering to me as a reward for doing this?" The man reached into his jacket to pull out a rolled up piece of paper. "This is the deed to your parent’s house in the Castle Town Residential District, if you can catch this thief it will be yours, and for your reward ms, I can get you almost any item you can name for free." Erick's eyes widened at this. "How did you get this?!" Erick asked in surprise. "Your father gave me it, asking me to give it to you when you got to this town, he just didn't specify how I was to give it to you. Now unless you have any more questions, do you accept?" Erick took a moment to think and as the man's water arrived he accepted.



"Excellent, now as for finding the thief I have some info that can help you two, the thief is a red headed male wearing plain colored cloths, he pickpockets during the day and steels from shops during the night. My informant here has tried to apprehend him many times before during the past few days but to no avail, whenever the guards have gone after him he runs into a dead end and somehow disappears, no one has figured it out yet." Erick upon hearing that the thief pickpockets hurriedly checked his pocket he put his pin in and sighed with relief when he felt it was still there. "So he just vanished, did he use an item to hide himself or was there a hidden passageway?" Erick asked. "No," the masked man replied after taking a sip, "the guards made sure he was still there, and there where no secret paths ether."


((I am SO sorry for waiting this long, I had a lot to do the past few weeks, and I couldn't think of anything to post.))

Ven began mentally questioning the proposal; he seemed to want the thief gone, but didn't seem to care about retrieving an object and didn't come across as the type to do it because it was "just". And the reward, any item? She could even ask for the shield of the hero? No bounty should be that high, even for legendary thief.

That left two options: either the man was lying about the reward, or already knew what she would choose. He was was either a mole, looking to gain information by bringing down the thief, or someone who already knew what she wanted... her contact.

To her though, neither answer seemed to make sense: there were better ways of gathering information and better ways of contacting her.

Suddenly, she realized she'd been quiet for far too long, and a grimace of doubt had marked her face. "Anything eh? I'll need to think about what I want, but I'm in. The market seems the obvious place to start looking. And if he can escape from anything, we'll need to surprise him."

She didn't like the situation, she didn't know whether she was working with or against herself right now. Of course, certain things would be worth such a risk.

The man nodded, "Good thinking, I'll wait here until the job is done, and since your helping... I don't believe we got your name, regardless, here is a list of items that we have to offer, the top of the list is the ones that are the most difficult to obtain and the most expensive, and the bottom of the list on the last page are the easiest and cost the least, also on the other side it's listed alphabetically instead." He hands her three pages that list various items on both sides as he described. Erick ate while the two of them talked listening intently when he handed her the list he spoke up. "So are you some kind of merchant or trader?" The masked man nodded. "Yes, I have people stationed in almost every town in Northern Hyrule, some of them sell our inventory, others are messengers who deliver info to and from the others, and then there are those who craft the items our clients want. We hope to expand our traid out to Southern Hyrule and the Great Sea, when more people know about us." The man gets up. "I will leave the both of you to your job now, good luck." He said as he walked away to a chair at the bar, ordering a drink when he got there.



Erick took a bite out of his last piece of broccoli before asking for a check, payed for the meal and left a tip, he then got up and addressed Venenum. "Well I guess we should head on out towards the market then, let's go." He said as he grabbed his bag and exited the Inn, looking around before turning to ask, "Hey uh, where is the market? I just got here less than an hour ago and I have no idea where everything is."

Ven kept quiet when the man mentioned her name, for the moment she had no intention of revealing herself or burning an alias, at least not yet. She doubted the man minded though, as he too had yet to give his own name.

She sat silently at the table as the talks progressed, nursing her ale and nodding her head when the conversation demanded she respond. When the sheets of paper were passed out, she scanned them intently, not to check if there was anything she wanted on offer, but to cross reference what was on the page with her memory of what sort of items her contact had to offer. Unfortunately for her, all the items listed were legal, or at least border-line, even if many were rare, imported, or nearly impossible to make.

But perhaps the man had given her a hint to work with: naturally fences moved stolen goods out of their cities of origin, into new ones to be sold, should he be a travelling merchant, he could easily move the stolen goods around under the cover of his legitimate ones.

In her mind the issue was nearly resolved; the man before her was not her black market contact, but a fence trying to get rid of reckless thief drawing too much to the criminal underworld.

She handed the papers back to the merchant, "nothing on here interests me, perhaps I shall take the bounty on his head instead. Or does it remain true that outlaws here can't own property, that anything they may claim remains unclaimed in the eyes of the law?" That may have been too strong a hint, as she worried the boy may pick up on her true meaning.

Keeping an eye on the client as he left, Ven quickly sighed at the boy's question, the city may be a maze but the market was massive, loud and right in the middle; nearly impossible to miss. "Follow me, it's not far..." she spoke in a voice none too amused.

Callad blew the smoke out of his mouth, watching as the light breeze blew it away. He wasn't comfortable sitting here, and he was getting impatient. He took a pull off his pipe, expelled it again, and sighed. Then the door opened, and two people exited the tavern. One was an inquisitive-looking youth, the other a slim, dark-skinned woman in leather armor and cloak. The boy admitted to not knowing where anything was, and the woman offered to take him to the marketplace.

The knight stood as they began to walk away and went after them. He approached them before offering a greeting.

"Good day. My name is Callad, a knight of Hyrule. Allow me to accompany you," Callad said, walking abreast of the two. "I can help catch one petty thief."