Board Thread:Roleplaying/@comment-5824038-20140928191343/@comment-5583506-20141001185215

(Get ready for a long pie!)

The bandit leader ran for his life through the seedy underbelly of Brightwall, searching blindly for a safe haven. His last hideout had been compromised and his gang had been all but eradicated from the face of the world.

''What the hell is going?! ''he thought. ''Where did we go wrong? Our last heist didn't leave a single clue! Someone must have ratted us out, there can be no other explanation! I bet it was Philias! I haven't seen that sneaky little prick for a week since the heist!''

His hands trembled as he struggled to force open the security lock of the backdoor to the Hanged Man's Inn. He slammed the door shut behind him and ran up the stairs and to the attic. He was a good friend of the proprietor of the inn, a man who had been kind enough the lend him his top floor as a base of operations.

Little did he notice the shape behind him, sitting crouched on a beam under the ceiling. "You appear to be in distress, Vernac", said a voice calmly and without a single trace of emotion.

He turned around to face the intruder with his flintlock pistol, firing a shot towards the shape. But the person on the beam disapparated into a black smoke when the bullet pierced right through it. Vernac looked in dismay, first at the non-existing person and then at his gun, as if it was disfunctional. Then he remembered 'the lucky shot', a bullet he had been keeping in his vest since the last heist. He was lucky that he had remembered to bring the vest with him from the massacre at the hideout.

"There is nothing wrong with your aim, Vernac", said the voice again, this time from behind him causing him to drop 'the lucky shot' on the floor. "If you had saved that shot for the real me instead of a simple illusion trap, you might have gotten away."

He sighed and turned around to face a black dressed figure sitting in a chair in the darkest corner of the room. "It's you, isn't it?" he muttered. "I have heard of you. You are some kind of sick freak who get her kicks from killing guys like me, right?"

"I find no pleasure in killing", replied the figure. "I find pleasure in solving a case, that is all. The killing part is just to appease the client's request."

"The client, huh?" said Vernac cynically. "Let me guess? It was Philias, right? He sold us out?"

"In a matter of speaking", said the voice and tossed something at Vernac's feet. "It was actually Philias who led me straight to you. Little did he know that he was also on my client's list."

Vernac fell to the floor with a frightened grunt when he recognised Philias severed head lying in front of him. "Y-you... you killed him?!"

"As I said: clien't request", the figure responded.

"B-but... how?! We made sure not to leave a single trace after our last heist! How did you find us?!"

The voice from the dark corner sighed. "For a starter, there had been fifteen break-ins, all during the same timespan and all within the Slum district, which granted me some hints that this bandit gang was neither particulary wealthy enough to afford tools to break into the more complex locks of the Richmen Quarters just a few blocks away, or respected enough to dare to break into the guilds of the local crime syndicates. Just the fact that none of the crime syndicates even seemed to acknowledge these events as being the work of someone within their own groups, furthered pointed my suspicions to a gang with no claim to fame and with no guts to take on a crime syndicate, yet with more cunning and skills than your common street thug gang."

Vernac backed away slowly from the head of Philias. He was apparently offended by her choice of wording that his crew lacked bravery. "B-but the heist... it went perfect!"

"It would have", said the figure. "But your own choice of location revealed your own identity. For the last month you had been breaking into shops and homes selectively around the slums in a circle. I could predict your actions by simply walking the streets in the line of these events. I imagined myself as a bandit, taking a stroll from my hiding place to go on the lookout for potential places to break into. As I walked the streets to each and every location you had been breaking into I began to see a pattern, involving buildings surrounding your very own hideout. That, and that you would never break into buildings in the territories of the syndicates helped me to trim down the search area for potential hideouts. Eventually, I found myself present during your last heist. I did not intervene though as that would have been too dangerous for me. Instead, when you were done and ready to split up, I took down one of your gang. Philias here, helped more than you can imagine, even after his death."

He growled at her and secretly loaded his flintlock pistol discreetly behind his back with 'the lucky shot'. "What did that bastard tell you?!"

The figure snickered. "Don't worry. He was loyal to your cause to the very end. But the contents on his body told me alot. The reason why I managed to find this place for example is thanks to him." The figure held out a bottle with the etiquette for the Hanged Man's Inn. "Imagine what just a little bottle from a drunken bandit can tell me. It told me that you were probably regulars at a local inn as well as where you would gather to either celebrate or hide from the masses. And that's all there is to it."

"Jokes on you, bitch!" sneered Vernac and pulled out his reloaded flintlock pistol against the figure. "You may be smart and all that, but it counts for nothing against raw firepower!"

"I wouldn't do that if I were you", said the figure calmly.

"Oh, fuck you!" snarled Vernac and fired his gun at the silhoutte.

And that was the last words he ever spoke. His flintlock pistol erupted and exploded in front of his face, killing him instantly as it backfired. Debris and shrapnels buried itself deep into his face.

The figure rose from the chair and marched steadily over to the dead bandit's corpse and shut his eyes for good. "Because I prepared the bullet while your vest was still at your dead gang's place It wasn't wise of Philias in his last moments to threaten me that you would come and put that 'lucky shot' of yours into my heart once you found me, you know?"

She adjusted her slouch hat and headed out from the attic. She really needed to find herself a new hobby...

(I kind of imagine her as a darker, more cynical, female version of Sherlock Holmes. She is intelligent and perceptive as f***, but kind of unscrupulous.)