Chapter 80: 10: Training Montage

Thus began my life as a thief. Each of the more expert members of the Slate Snakes would have their turn teaching me things. Whistle taught me how to get around without being seen, how to scope a place out, all that stuff. Despite his name and his own self-assigned reputation, he was actually a master of the craft, and I was starting to suspect he was getting seen while making his exit from a job on purpose.

Bassi would take up my mornings, having me do various random shit in an attempt to get my powers to manifest. We did have trouble getting me to go mist form as time went on, because I was starting to trust her, so a flying knife was like, yeah… whatever. Weird as that sounds. Eventually though, I was able to get into weird mist shadow form without a whole lot of effort. Okay, a lot of effort, but practice would fix that.

Jitters busted out a huge set of different locks and began to teach me how to tease them open. Don’t know why she had to get all sexual with her descriptions though. The way she spoke, it was like she was describing fingering a girl, not breaking and entering. I had to ask her if she was into girls after my first few days, because it was just getting too much. Nah, turns out she was a lock-sexual. That’s a joke, she told me she wasn’t interested in sex at all, although cuddling with someone, anyone really, wasn’t out of the question.

I hadn’t asked what the wider Anamoor opinion was on people who didn’t conform to uh… the normal way things are done. Basilisk was clearly interested in women, I think? Okay, so maybe not clearly, but still… crap. Jitters was asexual, I knew that much at least. I was also pretty sure that Lark was gay, because he’d seemed disappointed when I started wearing clothing that didn’t hide my body situation so much. It was all so confusing to navigate, even disregarding whatever the hell was up with me.

Speaking of Lark, the guy was an artist, and I didn’t just mean his skills with performance. No, he was an artist in the ways of distracting an audience, while his totally-definitely-not-lover called Swipe stole shit from their pockets. Their reticence to admit their relationship was more evidence that this society had some nasty ideas about gay people. Although maybe since lark’s reaction to me, it might not be anything.

Swipe’s lessons were especially fun. He was a young dude, about the same age as me, and way on the wild side. Like, if Bassi had called me a wildcat, then this guy was one of those tiny feral jungle cats with the insanely high KD. Dude was a master at pickpocketing, the only person in the slate snakes who could do it reliably. As he taught me his ways, he was also the first one to take me out into the streets to practice.

Practice by heading to the market and steal from anyone who looked rich. He took great pleasure in targeting the ones who acted like assholes too, and it was almost instantly infectious. There was nothing more satisfying than cutting the purse from a guy who’d been railing at some poor stall owner, only for his money to be missing when he tried to pay.

I was very quickly learning that the slate snakes had a bit of a code like that. They wouldn’t understand the reference, but I’d be well within my bounds to accuse them of being a band of merry men. Wait, merry people.

Two weeks passed this way, and while I still refused to define myself, the rest of my new family had made it a running joke to argue about what I was. Well, everyone except Bassi, who just quietly kept referring to me as a woman. I egged the rest of them on a bit though sometimes, dressing myself up to look as much like a man as I could one day, then in clothing that presented me as more womanly the next. It was kinda fun, if I was honest.

Morning of the first day in my third week here, and I was sitting at a table in the corner of the tavern and trying my best to sew a pouch onto my stealth armour. That at least was a useful skill I could carry over to this world.

“Doing the man thing today I see there Mist,” Jitters said, wandering over and planting herself down on a chair.

I looked down at myself for a second, having forgotten what I’d put on today. Right, black breeches and black doublet, hair tied up in a messy bun. Personally I’d consider this outfit some sort of artsy butch lesbian thing, but I guess they didn’t have that type of thing here. Yet.

“Oh, this is man clothing?” I asked innocently, glancing up at her while fighting a cheeky grin.

She sent a glare my way. “Don’t you try that confused innocence with me, young man.”

I did my best to hide the steadying breath I took as she called me that. For some reason I was starting to feel sort of weird when people referred to me as a man. I didn’t mind when people used the words he or him to describe me, or… no, I did, but I also didn’t. It was all very confusing right now, my relationship with gender was just incoherent screaming inside my head right now.

“I am neither man, nor woman,” I told her theatrically, putting my nose in the air with a sniff. “I am just a shadow.”

“Oh, by the goddess,” she groaned, placing a palm to her forehead for a moment. “You are something, that’s for sure.”

“I’m glad you agree,” I laughed, wiggling my eyebrows at her. “You can stick to one thing if you want, you know.”

“Yeah, but I don't want to pick the wrong one!” she exclaimed, throwing her wobbly hands in the air.

“Would you believe me if I said that I don’t know?” I murmured, my recently acquired self confidence waning for a moment.

“How do you not know?” she frowned, leaning forward with sympathy in her eyes.

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I shrugged, unable to give her an answer she’d actually believe. How do I explain that I used to be a man, and now I was running around in a woman’s body? How did I explain the sheer confusion that brought on me? Did I have to tell everyone I was a woman now? Just accept it?

Then there were my friends and classmates, what would they think when I finally found them? A bunch of computer nerds? I had very little doubt about the reaction many of my previous peers would have to my sudden change in gender.

That was fast becoming my biggest concern as far as my problem was concerned. It seemed like the thieves would accept whatever, it was just my quirk, as Jitters had said that first night. But as much as I was growing to really like these people, the goddess’ mission still hung in the back of my mind.

That, and I just really wanted to have people from Earth to relate to, to point at all the shit around us and shake our heads in disgust. Because sure, twenty first century Earth had its problems, but this place made it look like a fucking utopia.

“You’re a complicated person,” she murmured finally, giving me a sideways smile. “Or shadow, if that’s really what you want to be referred to as. Goddess, I wish I had that ability. Might handy.”

“I definitely not,” I smiled, picking up my needle and thread again. “I was just joking, I’m not that edgy.”

That confused her. “Edgy?”

“Uh… slang. Someone who thinks they are way more dangerous than they actually are. It’s hard to explain, a lot of cultural and social cues that don’t match up to even begin explaining the full meaning,” I told her, silently wishing that Leon or even Joan had been here to get the joke. Shit, I’d take a simple stare on understanding from Victoria at this point.

“You are the strangest wastelander I have ever met,” she mumbled, then slapped her hands down on the table. “When you’re done with that, come meet me. Bassi is busy this morning with wider guild business, said to trade training times. We’re going to go and test your skills on some of the locks around here. No stealing, mind you. The poor folk of this neighbourhood could do without our boot on their necks too.”

“Cool,” I nodded wholeheartedly. “Doing our part to overthrow the bourgeois.”

“Uh, what?” she blinked, staring at me like I’d flashed her.

“Nothing,” I sighed. “Let’s go.”

My trip out lockpicking went well, but that was to be expected. People below the poverty line didn’t exactly have money to buy the best locks. The city was honestly pretty scary, and if I hadn’t had a good safe place like the hideout, I would have been terrified.

The temple of the goddess mostly kept to its own devices, except where religion and proper social conduct were concerned. Then they sent their temple soldiers and inquisitors to an area, where they would… well do about what you’d expect of assholes like that. I saw one burning from a distance, and it had given me nightmares for two days afterwards. The screaming…

The rest of society and the city was ruled by the merchant council, a set of oligarchs that were what was left of the old nobility class from before the war. As people fled with their wealth to the last safe place on the planet, they set up shop and installed themselves as the new rulers of this place. They were constantly bickering amongst themselves, plotting and scheming, as well as making damned sure the rest of the population knew its place.

Guards patrolled all the major roads, both on the hill and down in the slate plains, but the further from the center you got, the more… ambiguous the law became. In the back streets and districts of the slate plains, it was the pathfinders that kept order.

The pathfinders were odd, with a whole host of different tasks falling to them by default. They had originally started as a band of mercenaries that had made it to Anamoor, but since there was no one to fight a war against anymore, they had started taking random odd jobs.

Nowadays they were basically your stereotypical adventurer’s guild, taking payment to do anything from guard someone’s store, to investigating a murder. Or, they went down into the depths of the great temple, searching for treasure and powerful magical artifacts. The bravest were how their guild had gotten their name though. They went out into the wasteland and found a path back for any lost souls they might encounter, looting anything of value along the way, including parts of the monsters.

Apparently you used their brains and guts and other gross stuff to enchant things. I was going to stay out of that though. My hands were too pretty to stain with monster guts.

All in all, this world would have been hella exciting if it was a video game, but it wasn’t. It was reality, no game menus, no special inventory screen or stats. None of that isekai shit, just reality and magic. Oh and gods and goddesses and fairies and whatever the hell else wild shit was out there.

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