Bailing Out

I stealthily made my way towards the door, careful not to bump into anyone. I ducked out the front door after a couple entered the restaurant. I moved further away from the restaurant, ducking into an alley to release the skill. Now visible, I gave a sigh of relief at being able to escape that awkward situation. I turned around and immediately bumped into someone: a rather burly man with a stereotypical skull tattoo on his neck wearing somewhat ragged clothes carrying a large crate.

“Watch it bud! Valuable goods are in here! You break it you buy it!” he bellowed.

“Sorry,” I said, backing off. The man grumbled, heading onwards out of the alley, away from the storehouse he came from. Curious, I decided to test my new skill again, while also exploring the storehouse. Sure, it was probably illegal, but what hero hasn’t had to break into a suspicious building in his time?

Apparently the man forgot to lock the storehouse, so after casting Shade again, I entered the building, carefully closing the door behind me. I carefully tiptoed around, poking my head into different crates, peeking at the contents.

They had all sorts of stuff in them, mostly some of the things I had seen in the bazaar earlier. It seemed to be a perfectly normal storehouse. I didn’t find any secret passages or black market contraband or anything of the sort, just some jewelry. It was kinda disappointing to be honest. As I was looking, I overheard a conversation coming from the storehouse’s office.

“Supplier says we’ve got another shipment coming in soon,” said a man’s voice. “Make sure you let the boss know soon.”

“Gotcha,” said another man’s voice. Ugh. Booorrring. And here I thought I was gonna uncover some huge conspiracy just by sneaking around a bit. Oh well. I let out a deep sigh.

“Hey, you hear that?” Said the first voice.

“Yeah,” replied the second. “Hey! Who’s there!” I could hear the two men coming towards the office door. I decided to bail before my skill ended, hightailing it back outside to the alley. I ducked back out of the alley, canceling my invisibility.

“There you are!” Shouted an angry Sofia.

“Oh, hey guys,” I sighed, turning to my annoyed party. They were absolutely soaked. Looks like they had to do the dishes and the dishes didn’t agree with them.

“Don’t you ‘oh hey’ me!” Lucille yelled.

“You bailed on us!” Sofia complained.

“Yeah...sorry,” I said, bracing myself for a scolding.

“You should be ashamed!” Said Lucille.

“That was kinda uncool,” admitted Flora.

“I said I was sorry, alright. Gimme a break,” I said.

“...fine,” sighed Lucille. “I did get to level up from it. Doing your share of the dishes counted as a good deed. I learned Full Guard. It greatly increases my defenses for a short time.”

“See, it wasn’t all bad!” I said.

“I guess so. We did get to have some pretty good food for free in the end,” said Flora.

“Yeah, see!” I said.

“I guess I’ll forgive you too. Getting to spend some time with the girls was pretty fun,” said Sofia.

“Exactly,” I said. “Now let’s get to the inn. You guys look like you could probably do with getting dried off.”

“Very well,” said Lucille, leading the way to the inn.