Greed God chapter 105

February 10th 2016 Gemworld 4:00 PM EDT

We  circled around the side of the fortress before entering. I'd been  leaning towards the back, but Cherry had set me straight. "First rule of  being a thief is avoid any obvious entrances. People have this weird  certainty that they're safe as long as they protect the designated  points of entry to their house. The bias makes sneaking in through  alternate routes much easier. They'll set guards on the front and back  entrances, but there's no way to set guards on every single window. It's  the same reason people put in security doors but don't reinforce their  walls."

I hadn't really considered that before, but she  was right. People had this kind of implicit surety that walls and houses  would protect them. You could see it in shootouts in movies. Everyone  acted like the drywall was some sort of magic shield against bullets  even after they had seen it get shot through. They steered clear of  doors and windows during gunfights but it was impossible to avoid walls  so they just acted like the lack of visibility made them safe. It worked  most of the time too. Any idiot with thermal goggles and a shot gun  could cap someone through a wall, but for some reason almost no one ever  did it.

My best guess was that it was one of those  generally accepted things everyone grew up thinking and just took for  granted. Houses made you safe right? Still, it did leave an opening, so  we slipped around the side of the building and then scaled the fortress  to slip in through the window. Well, I scaled, Cherry just kind of  floated up, which was kind of unfair but hey, she had the ability so why  not use it. I however, shifted to my lifestorm wyrmkin form and used my  claws to climb the stone. Luckily the blocks were black, so the gaps  weren't really visible after my passing.

Once we got up to  the window I had Cherry slip in soundlessly to look around a bit. With  her ghost powers she was able to go unnoticed easily (she floated up  near the ceiling, no one ever looks up in an enclosed hallway) and  quickly came back to let me know we were in the clear. I pulled myself  up through the window (which was actually pretty fucking difficult  because the damn things were so thin I had to shift back and suck in to  be able to get through one. Admittedly that made sense given the  medieval design but still, not fun.

Cherry, who had a much  easier time getting in being about five inches shorter than me and much  slimmer of frame, watched me squirm through the gap with an amused  smirk, and I glared at her for a second before realizing it was  pointless and rolling my eyes. Lowering my voice I asked her for a more  in depth report. "Ok. So, what have you seen around here? Can your magic  sight pick up anything through the interior walls? They're much thinner  than the outside set."

She lowered herself down to touch  the ground as she looked both ways, presumably out of habit since she  knew we were clear. "Ok. This hallway leads in a few directions. I was  able to check one of them. If you go that way." She pointed down a  corridor that led further into the building. "You end up overlooking a  really big feast room type place. It seems like it's full of people  right now, I imagine eating dinner since it's like four PM. Medieval  societies tend to wake with the sun or close to it, so the meals run a  bit earlier."

That I had actually known, mostly because  I'd been around farmers a lot recently. "Ok, that's good news. Even if  we can't capture or kill them we can still rob them blind. If you saw  their people what were you able to figure out about their strength? You  remember what I told you about the different levels of intensity and how  they relate to ranks?" I'd given her a crash course on the ranks of  different items and objects by having Zee use the spell on both of us so  I could show her different ranks of things, because of the practice,  she had a pretty decent idea of what was what.

My psycho  had a pretty sharp memory. "Of course daddy. Most of them are around  what you called H rank. There were about a dozen that fit into the G  rank category, and the leader was F rank, like us. I think we can take  them, but I also think it's a better idea to case the place before we  commit to anything. There could be more of them hidden around the upper  floors. I can see through the walls a little, but only the ones I'm  right next to. We should still check for things on the other side of the  rooms in the immediate vicinity."

Seeing no reason to  question the expert I gestured for her to lead the way and she drifted  up off the ground again, skimming over the stone as I did my best to  move silently behind her. As we went she filled me in on what was in  each room. A few sleeping forms (H ranked enemies mostly, with one or  two G's) and lots of empty rooms, until we finally reached the end of  the hallway we started in. We'd passed the turnoff that was headed  toward the overhanging balcony since we wanted to avoid the bulk of  their force until we were done casing the place.

When we  hit the end of the hallways though, we emerged into a slightly larger  stone room with a much larger pair of double doors blocking the way.  Cherry slipped up to the doors and stared for a bit before turning to me  with a grin. "The doors are too magical to see through, but the walls  aren't. I think this is their treasury. Lots of piles of random magical  things and what looks like possibly magical gold coins? Want to go in  and look around? There are more than a few defensive spells but they  seem to triggered by forcing the door."

There was no  problem there. I'd had the foresight to merge Cherry with the Hand of  Glory for just such an occasion. I gestured to the massive barrier.  "Well, don't be shy. Move that cute little ass and get that thing open  for us so we can rob the shit out of these people." I gave her a swat on  the ass, earning a cute little squeak as she skimmed across the ground  without touching it, coming to a stop right in front of the double  doors. She stopped and stared with a serious expression for a minute,  clearly looking at...something.

One of the side effects we  were still figuring out from her transition to a phantom lady was the  ability to see wards and protection spells on places she was robbing.  Part of the magic of the Hand of Glory allowed her to see magical  protections so she could disarm them. The Hand itself was made for the  task so that only made sense. She slowly lifted her hands and her  fingers caught fire, just like they had back at the castle when she  opened that door. She closed her eyes and focused.

Like  the last time the flames started to flicker out one at a time like a  countdown, but before many had a chance to snuff there was a loud click.  The bolts on the door started to slide open one at a time, until  finally with on last clang, the doors slowly drifted open. Cherry swayed  a little, but I crossed the distance between us and caught her easily  enough. I swung her around to ride on my back. "Good job. Just hang out  back there for a while. We can look around and pick out something pretty  for you as a reward." That got me a tired smile and a peck on the  cheek.

I wasn't sure why this door had been so much more  tiring for her, but I suspected it was because the castle had focused  mostly on external defenses. That one small door hadn't been a priority,  hell Doctor Gotham probably hadn't even warded it himself. He seemed  like the type to delegate boring bullshit like setting up internal  defenses after he put up the big shields. Regardless, this treasury door  was pretty seriously warded judging by Cherry's current state. I'd give  her a few minutes to get back on her feet and if she couldn't I'd just  face fuck her to top her up.

In the meantime I stepped  into the treasury and looked around in glee. I was so low on points at  the moment. Thirteen thousand plus and barely that, even with the random  bullshit I'd been collecting from the forest. But all the stuff in here  would pad my count a ton. That should be more than enough to get the  village finished and still have plenty left over, maybe even enough to  merge a powerful artifact to combine with the whole town to try to speed  the process up. I just didn't have any intention of staying here long  term. I wanted to get back to see what kind of cool abilities my kids  got.

There was only one  problem...how the fuck were we supposed to carry all this? I didn't  bring a whole team of people with me to lug this shit around. I didn't  even have a backpack. This had been a pretty blatant fuck up on my part.  It was fine though, that was what the system was for. I had over ten  thousand points and was about to get a lot more. I could afford to rig  something small up. I turned to look around behind us just in case  before setting Cherry down on a gold pile I was sure wasn't going to  explode or some shit.

I swept the whole room for anything useful until I finally found something.

[Appraisal  function activated.Treasure detected. Hydra leather belt pouch-H rank. A  durable and sturdy pouch for storing goods on the users belt in a  stylish way. Magic insulation properties keep spells from degrading  inside the pouch, excellent for storing ingredients.]

The  thing was on an actual belt, which was fine, because I still had on  suit pants (after this I was gearing everyone with leather armor or some  shit, our formalwear was too attention grabbing, even if it was sturdy  and stylish) and I had belt loops. To that end I found and emptied out  the biggest chest I could find, which turned out to be an I rank box, so  I emptied out another and merged them to make a bigger one, then  finally merged that with the belt pouch bringing me down to twelve  thousand and leaving me with this.

[Appraisal  function activated. Treasure detected. Maw of the man headed Hydra- G  rank. A sturdy pouch that contains as many as ten spaces inside of it  that measure roughly one hundred square feet. Each time the pouch is  opened access is granted to a different space. The spaces can only be  accessed in order, and if the pouch is destroyed the contents will be  lost forever. The weight of the pouch is not affected by its contents.]

I  grinned. That was exactly what I'd been hoping for. Hell it was better  than I'd been hoping for. Granted one big space would have probably been  more useful, but a thousand square feet of storage space. That was  about half the size of a fucking house in suburban neighborhood. I  strolled up to Cherry, slipping the belt pouch on. "OK, you feeling any  better?" She groaned and tried to get up but couldn't manage it. I  looked down at my new pouch and shrugged. Oh well, my fly was open  anyway. "Fine, come here then, I have something that'll perk you up."  Sometimes have magic energy cum was such a burden....not usually though.