A Fool In Morrowind, Day 5

Day 5 of RPS' Morrowind game diary. Behold!

The Diamond Job

The armed guard wasn’t the problem. The child was. I’d successfully lockpicked my way through the upstairs door, sneaking into this alchemist’s store from their unwatched balcony. The guard, I knew, was downstairs, watching the front door. If I stuck to the shadows, I should be able to get past him to the storeroom, where the jewel awaited. Easy. Straight in, straight out, cash reward, and if I was lucky a spare diamond for myself.

But the child almost ruined it.

There had been reports that Vvardenfell was once a sad, strange place with with nary a youth in sight, but these days children were all over the towns. One, a teenage boy, was inhabiting the upstairs bedroom of this shop. He spotted me the second I entered the room. Rather than shouting or running, he simply stood stock-still at the top of the stairs. I had no way down.

Unless… dark thoughts flickered across my self-interested mind, and I placed a hand on the hilt of my dagger. No. There had to be a better way around this than physically carving a thoroughfare through a faintly creepy Aryan child.

Instead, I skulked in the shadows, and waited. For hours, I waited. It was boring as all hell, but somehow it made me feel like a professional – just waiting for my chance to strike. I must have dozed off at some point, for when I came to around 4am, the child was gone. I didn’t know where. Was this his home? Was he a thief like me? Had I imagined him, even? No matter – the important thing was that this tyke-obstacle was now gone.

I crawled downstairs, coolly cast my Chameleon spell to sneak right past the guard’s eyeline, and swept everything in sight – including two diamonds. O frabjous day! – into my bags. Then I just walked right out. If the guard was surprised, he didn’t show it. He was a consummate professional – just like me.