The books: all that remained was finding an interested and well-funded collector. Verdigris-stained spines could be wiped clean, and with a little buffering, the leather covers could be restored back to their pre-Years of Peace glory.

Although the library was vast, its lack of occupancy was as if its towering double doors were seen by my eyes alone. But the volumes were just the beginning. Treasures hid in unlit rooms and behind cobweb draperies. A stout ladder would able me to chisel out ornate tiles covering the dome ceilings, and just a few of the paintings neglected in the great hall would feed a frugal mouth for years. In a mansion this size, the possibility of finding jewels, heirlooms garnished in guarded drawers, and glorious hidden vaults was worthy of a most thorough reconnaissance.

I hadn’t always posed as a butler. I’d been a rent-boy. I’d waded foulness itself having briefly been a grave robber. But, I was always meant to be a burglar. There are essentially two challenges in my current profession. The first: acquisition of a worthwhile target. Worthwhile doesn’t always mean the score.

I—

—wait, let me go at this from a slightly different angle.

Everybody squawks on about Do-Gooder’s Row—its monstrous white inhabitants and what have you. If you are weary of hearing about them, I assure you your weariness pales in comparison to my own. But perhaps for different reasons. It seems I’m of the select few to take notice, but doers like Zaderyn the Poor Swimmer are in desperate short supply when it comes to finding heroes of the people in this vile city. While the Zaderyns populated the first few columns, the deeds and doers diminish as an admirer heads east, ending at the feet of heroes like the vigilante citizen who reported his overly masturbating neighbor to the nearest Chapwyn temple.

I reckon if you’re around a Rehleian long enough you’ll hear a peasant’s calendar based off when this statue was being carved a necklace or that statue began showing its gauntlets. But perhaps I am no different—a Rehleian after all, and even a Nilghordian, though I admit that last part with the utmost reluctance. So you will have to pardon my provincial ways. It really is the best way moving forward, and, besides, not all of us were born and bred in Pelliul.

With this in mind, during a stint in the Rat’s Nest, I shared straw with a couple of thieves. The Do-Gooder statues were all chiseled down to the knees; three-quarters built if you were fortunate enough to study mathematics. We were talking about target acquisition, and those two told me a tale that had with it an unorthodox but long-lasting moral.