Thief of the Shadowfall

In the dead of night, a grizzled shop owner closed a heavy door behind him with a loud thud. He shuffled through his small collection of keys before selecting a thick antique looking key from the bunch. He made sure that the heavy door was locked securely before putting away the keys in his pocket. He looked around through the dimly lit streetways before pulling his leather coat tight around his shoulders and walked towards the residential area.

Unbeknownst to the shop keeper, a shadowy figure was watching every move the shopkeeper made. The shadow was so still and breathless as to be mistaken for a statue perched upon a ledge. Making sure that the shopkeeper had long left the area, the shadow grinned as it crept down from his ledge to drop down with a small puff of dust.

Carefully avoiding the moonlight despite the absence of any form of life, the shadow quickly reached the locked door and deftly pulled out a small nail and bent piece of wire. In only a short five breaths of time, all three locks were open and the heavy door shut silently as the shadow entered the shop.

Within the shop, the shadow quickly passed by the glass cases filled with various rings, gemstones, and other trinkets in all different shapes and sizes. Without too much space to store all these treasures, the shadow was quick in his actions to pluck out only the most valuable pieces of the several glass cases.

While the shadow was moving around the room he caught sight of another heavy locked door. Remembering this door from the time he had spent scouting out the place, he patted his pouch and nodded to himself as he had enough space for a couple more pieces.

Vaulting over one of the cases, the shadow arrived at the heavy door with a complicated padlock barring his way. Bringing out the iron nail once more, the large locked door put up a valiant challenge but was unable to prevent the shadow's entry. Looking over the selling floor once more and seeing nothing the shadow slipped inside the room.

Pausing, the shadow was surprised to see that the room was much smaller than anticipated. Scanning over the room, the shadow only saw a large cabinet in one corner and a wide desk across one wall with all manner of different jeweler's tools sprawled on the surface.

Finding little worth in the mess of tools, the shadow looked towards the cabinet to see the front covered in a multitude of square and rectangle shaped drawers. Most of the smaller squares at the top held cut gemstones that were going to be set soon or sold by itself. However; the items in the middle and lower drawers were slightly more valuable. A couple of the already set rings and necklaces would sell for a nice sum. The shadow snatched a couple of the most pristine pieces and dropping them to a hidden pouch strapped to his thigh.

Once again looked over the fairly normal looking desk, the shadow slowly tried to pull the desk away from the wall. When the desk wouldn't budge in the slightest, the shadow's curiosity peaked at the seemingly forgetful furniture. He pulled out the chair and begun to feel under the desk for any sort of switch or hidden seam that may hide an interesting secret or treasure.

Unable to find any common hiding locations the shadow was beginning to frown at the seemingly odd desk not actually having anything of worth. Just when he was about to give up, in the very back right corner of the desk, there was a small stone circle jutting out slightly. Unhesitantly pressing the stone circle, a soft grinding noise rang out.

A small cutout from the stone wall opened up with a click. Within the cutout was a small black chest. Adding to the oddity of this chest was the thick amount of chains and locks surrounding the chest. Stunned only for a moment the shadow makes quick work of the locks with its iron nail. Within the chest was a single crudely shaped black gem. Looking much like any rock that one might find in a river or under some soil, this piece made the shadow curious as to why someone would go through so much effort into hiding this unassuming piece.

Just as the shadow was about to pocket the curious gem, a large slamming was heard coming from the storefront.

"Who dares steal from MY store! Come out, thief! GUARDS! Guards, there's a thief in my store. Come quick!"

Scowling, the shadow picked up the small gem and with no time to secure it within his pouch tossed it into its mouth. Looking around within the room, the shadow spotted a small window that was just big enough to go through, except it was too high to reach from the floor. Seeing no alternative, the shadow tilted the cabinet over knowing that the loud noise would immediately alert the store owner of his location.

A large crash sounded as the cabinet hit the desk and drawers of all sizes crashed onto the floor. Having no time to waste the shadow booked it to the window and smashed through the small window with his arms braced in front of his face.

Unfortunately, the drop from the window was much higher than anticipated, and despite the shadow's attempts at softening the blow, a loud thump sounded out as he landed. With the sudden jarring stop, the shadow had accidentally swallowed the stone. Grunting through the pain of the drop as well as the few shards of glass that had managed to slice up his arm, the shadow picked himself up and quickly ran away from the shop.

Back inside the shop, the had owner picked up on the large crashing noise and rushed to the back room only to find the door unlocked. Going in he noticed the cabinet on the floor and all manner of drawers and jewels scattered across the floor. Seeing the smashed window, the owner ran back out of the store in a fury, missing out on the odd cutout and mysterious black case coupled with the other items on the floor.

Meeting up with the slightly drowsy guards outside the shop, the owner stomped on the ground in a fury pointing towards the direction the window led. "Catch the thief! He escaped outside the back of the store, he can't have gotten far! What are you dolts lazing around for? I know the captain of you morons and can easily get you all fired. NOW MOVE!"

Suddenly invigorated, the guards scrambled in the direction where the shadow had escaped to.

As the shadow was escaping from the shop as fast as it could, the guard's pursuit was gaining onto his position quickly. Seeing the river within view, the shadow threw himself into the water and gritted his teeth as the cold water drifted it slowly towards away from the scene.

Feverishly trying to think of the next step to get out of this situation despite the biting chill soaking into his clothes, the shadow groggily tried to push himself along faster as the cold river swept him away.

Within the body of the shadow, the black gem began to give off a beautiful glow. Very slowly the gem shimmered and began to heat up. What was once a sharp surface, became more fluid like and even started to melt. This warm liquid started to seep throughout his veins. These monumental changes were overlooked by the shadow since he was still occupied thinking of how to escape his current situation and with his senses being stifled by the cold.

Hitting a stone bank, the shadow used all of his meager strength left and dragged himself out of the water. With no strength to even sit up, the shadow coughed out a lungful of water and lied on the cold ground. The night cold seeped deep into his bones and the loss of blood made it incredibly difficult to move. The shadow grit his teeth in frustration. The sweet allure of rest clawed at his mind, knowing that if he closed his eyes that it would be the last time, he summoned all of his non-existent strength to try and crawl further up the bank to possibly alert the guards chasing him. Before he knew it, the shadow had collapsed onto the cold ground.

Had anyone been near to see the shadow's body, they would be shocked and unable to believe that the body had begun to change. It was a bit difficult to see in the dark, but it left no doubt that the shadow's body was slowly starting to fade away. Very slowly there was giving off an inky black smoke.

In a completely different world, a withered figure sat quietly on its desolate throne. With a body so thin and without so much as a shred of life within its form, suddenly opened its eyes to show a set of glistening black pupils.

-End of Chapter 1-

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Thanks everyone for reading! Hope you enjoyed it as this is something that I have been toying around with for a longish time. I have more chapters written up but still need to go over them and change them here or there to better bring out a better story for people to read. Hopefully it wasn't too terrible and I plan on slowly doing a chapter here and there when I have the free time. If you'd like to support me that would be fantastic. Till next time!