Tora Steals Things

FPS drifted Tora back through the kitchen, then placed him gently out in the hallway just outside the kitchen door. Tora slumped against the doorframe the minute FPS’s magics ceased. He could feel himself shaking, see it in the quiver of his hands. His near death registered through his nervous system before it reached his brain.

I dropped the knife. It was probably plummeting to the ground now. It didn’t matter anymore.

FPS was saying something, the fierce look in his eyes replaced with concern. Tora couldn’t hear him, could barely recognize he was speaking.

“—Bandi! Miss Bandi?” FPS tried.
“Huh?” The thief blinked, trying to get out of his head and back in his body. “Are you alright?! You’re shaking.”
The tree man reached for Tora, but the thief knocked his hand away.
“I’m fine,” he grumbled. “Fine. I’m fine. I’m… fine.” He said it too many times,

refused to look FPS in the eye as he stood back up. “No to the kitchen, right? Hoo what a scare.” Was that casual enough? Did he sound like he was fine? He wasn’t sure.

“Miss Bandi.” The tree still sounded worried.

“Thanks for that, mate,” Tora tried more forcibly. He finally looked at FPS, gave him a smile. “Let’s uh, try somewhere else, ya?”

Before FPS could agree, they were interrupted by a tiny electronic bark. The two looked back at the kitchen to find the little golem dog from earlier standing out in the middle of the missing kitchen floor. The lightning sword laid beside it, pulsing and generating a single electric floor tile beneath it.

The thief and elementalist stared at it in disbelief. The little golem barked again, then picked up the sword with its teeth and dragged it over the gaping hole towards them. Electric tiles pulsed into life wherever the sword was dragged, and dropped out of existence wherever it left. They watched in wide-eyed silence as the pup happily trotted its prize over, crossed the threshold, and plopped the sword before them.

No one moved.
The dog golem barked and nudged the sword towards Tora.
FPS leaned in, whispered helpfully, “I think she wants you to take it.”
“What? Why?! I—” Tora started, but then suddenly remembered a particular limb of

stone and sparks from earlier—a limb he’d thrown off down a hallway. He eyed the sparking metal sword before him. “Oh. Oh wow, uh. This is… not at all what I threw, little guy.”

‘Little guy’ did not understand. It waited patiently.
“I think she wants you to throw it again,” FPS whispered.

“Arrrgh! Fine!” Tora threw his hands up, frustrated. “I’ll throw a legendary fuckin’ sword away for some weird stone pup!” He hauled the sword off the floor, grateful for his resistant gloves keeping its sparks at bay. The dog golem leapt from FPS’s arms and followed.

“Damn what a waste of a sword,” he grumbled as he dragged it into the hallway proper. “Alright, ya weird pup,” he called to it and its tail spun in anticipation, “GO FETCH!”

The sword flew from his hands down the hall and the dog blinked out of existence. Neither he nor the elementalist stayed to see where the sword even landed.

*

To Tora’s relief, they didn’t see the dog golem again after that. Their search proceeded as before, running into the occasional golem doing an odd job, an assortment of misplaced magical items, no living staff, and a bunch of empty rooms.

Hours passed. It had to be somewhere just past noon, but it was hard to tell within the windowless halls of the lab. Neither of them had thought to bring food with them. They ended up raiding another kitchen, one that blissfully had a solid floor. FPS hadn’t liked it, but his stomach had made a stronger argument.

It didn’t feel like they were making any progress. At this rate, they were acting more like two hungry rats roaming around this rich asshole’s lab than a pair of would-be professional thieves. They hadn’t hit any real security besides the locked entrance door and the dog golems from earlier either. Tora was starting to wonder if that was all old boy Rakak had.

Then they found the door.

Bigger and more imposing than the other doors, and completing blocking off the end of the hall. More importantly, it was locked. A console alike to the one outside stood to the side of it.

Higher security was a promising sign, but also troubling—Tora hadn’t had much luck with the console outside. He winced, trying to recall how he’d gotten the password screen to appear last time.

All he could remember was smashing the keyboard.
“Fuck it,” Tora grunted. He smashed his hand into the keys.
The password screen popped up.
“That really should not have worked.” Tora frowned.
The password screen blinked expectantly with four blank spots.
“Oh a password! What could it be?” FPS spoke with the cadence of an excited child

evidence of an escaped ‘experiment’ like the kind you read about in adventure books. Maybe one of the mesmers got loose, came out of their experiments with unrivalled power, and exacted revenge or something? Or maybe his imagination was getting the better of him—the containers before him showed no evidence of any kind of escape. They were all fully occupied.

Occupied and strung up with wires like puppets. His eyes followed the wires up and out of the containers, across the ceiling and over to a far corner of the room out of sight. He followed it cautiously as FPS continued to report his findings.

“There’s blueprints here,” FPS called from another table. “Looks like golem work?”

“So what, like, time golems then?” Tora called back as he weaved his way around a cluster of peculiar glowing metal towers.

“It appears so. I’m only seeing design work here though.”
“Right.”
“Do you think any of this has to do with your sister’s work?”
“My sister…?” Tora blinked, stopping before a frozen scientist forever stuck working

on one of the glowing towers. For a moment he thought of his real sister, Hayle, and blanked trying to recall his other ‘sister.’ Then it came back to him. “Oh right, Bolli, uh, hm.” The frozen scientist was blocking his way, he swerved back, tried another route. “Ya think Rakak wanted her amulet for this time shit?”

“Didn’t that nice lady, Mrs Rhin—”
“Rhin was a guy.”
“Oh right. Mr Rhin then. Didn’t he mention something about Rakak showing

interest in Bolli’s work on energy filtering?”
“Energy filtering, yeah, “ Tora agreed, as he made his way around another tower.

Bright purple light grew stronger the closer he got to the source of the wires. “Energy filtering through, uh, mortals? Mortal bodies. Wait.”

Tora stopped, looked back up at the wires he’d been following.
“Oh fuck me,” he said under his breathe.
“I suppose magic is a type of energy, isn’t it?” FPS mused loudly.
“Fuck me.” Tora scrambled around a stack of boxes, packed with golem limbs and

pieces.
“And there was that other thing Mr Rhin said Bolli worked on—wasn’t that time

magic related?”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” The thief was moving faster, leaping over and around strange

equipment and frozen workers. He made one last swerve around a shelf of tools and found himself nearly blinded by purple light. With cautious steps, he positioned himself

”This doesn’t bode well, Miss Bandi,” FPS stated, watching with deep concern as Tora paced up and down the hall. They were outside the frozen lab room now, having seen far more of it than either cared for.

“Yeah? No shit!” Tora shot back. Panic and frustration was making an ugly cocktail in his guts. “This obsessive rat’s been workin’ on time freezin’ battle golems this whole time! Shit, this is probably been old boy’s life’s work! He’s been tinkerin’ at this shit fer years!”

“Using Bolli’s research.”

“No,” Tora stopped. “Failin’ without her research. I mean, this is it, ain’t it? This is the result of what his own work got, ya?” He gestured at the abandoned halls around them. “A fucked up lab stuck in time, a hall of rooms hastily emptied and locked away, and not a damn livin’ soul left t’work fer em cause he can’t get any help willin’ t’risk this shit!”

“Right,” FPS nodded, thinking. “The Inquest from earlier—they said they wouldn’t give him more krewe.”

“Fuck I shoulda known when we saw Inquest. Course they’d be keen t’get their hands on a time warpin’ golem! If they get one that works…” The thief returned to pacing.

“Perhaps they’d use it against the dragons?” The elementalist offered. He didn’t sound confident.

“And then use it ‘gainst everyone else.”

FPS didn’t argue—they both knew enough about Inquest to know they had nothing but ill intentions when it came to other races. Subjugating the rest of the world was exactly the kind of thing they’d use a weapon like this for.

Tora stopped at the end of the hall, peering through the doorway leading out.

“And now old boy’s had Bolli’s amulet fer days. If that thing has her research, we got bigger problems than just stealin’ it back. Damn, now I’m really wishin’ he only wanted a new coaster.”

He sensed FPS beside him, peering out into the next hallway along with him.

“Miss Bandi, I fear this is too big a job for a humble dog walker,” he said. “I’ll need to contact Headquarters—”

“Headquarters?”
“…I’ve said too much.”
“Right. Ya think ya got time fer that?”
“No.”
“Didn’t think so.” Tora walked out into the next hall. There wasn’t any use standing