As a side-effect of one format I work with, even many of my smaller gratis-files have HYPERLINKED

BOOKMARKS included. In Adobe they are on the left side, nearly besides this text box, that's why I place it. In
LINUX you should see them left side or upper part of screen, mostly (Kpdf or Xpdf).

AGE 21+ advised!

Where Taffers tread – Surviving Garrett as neighbour
Some vulgar words &
© Andrè M. Pietroschek, all rights reserved sex/porn as violence
mentioned.

This short writing assumes to be based in the realm we found as background in

„Thief – Deadly Shadows“. I contribute it to the community, special thanks to
Daniel Todd and his www.thief-thecircle.com

This means that I keep my rights and it is strictly forbidden to steal my ideas, claim
that they are yours and even more, only I have the right to make money with my
ideas and everything based on them. This clarification is more for readers to know, I
don't expect to beat Harry Potter and Sacrilege sales curve with a handful of
pages...yet? Never ever.

Once more: As an author I am quite humorous. Maybe my skills don't always

suffice, maybe living as a pauper demands a tougher, blacker humour. My files have
neither criminal nor heretic or otherwise offending intent, usually. This file is
fantasy fan-fiction, intended harmless community style (or my lack of a same).

Oh and dear, most respected Americans: I am German on German ground and

therefore care a lot more about German law, lore and morals (or my lack of) then
about American law, because that is not my problem until you pay me? ☺ eats thy
§ ? It's about fictional thieves & taffers, not crushing your way of life.

This file is not my diary, that's why I clearly labeled it fantasy fan-fiction. This
means I don't care who is deluded to know all about me again. It's work to waste my
Sunday on “listening to the preachings of Hammerites and Pagans” and then
crafting a short file by my own whim.

This author often uses ☺ to signal humorous intent, sometimes I use hand-typed
smilies, like: :o) or ;o) and their brethren ;-) as :-)

Besides looking for „normal“ ways (among us taffers we call it jobs) which allow me
to earn money again, I intent to start production and sale of audio files as written
stuff in the winter of the year 2006. Or such.

I catched some cold / or similar virus and my head feels „blackjacked“ while I start
this file. The music channel running in the background has some oldie charts
running. I am sober, no alcohol and no drugs. Of course that is a horrible state to
write thievery stuff in.

As I wrote in „My Thief-Deadly Shadows experience“ playing a Thief named Garrett

does not mean or suggest committing real world crimes.

Something is wrong with my auto-correction once again... sorry that you have to
suffer my real lousy grammar or such.
Can I really be a complete coward after uploading that photo of me for all to see? ☺

Starting: Moaning in back-alleys

Some blood is running down the back of my skull once more. I must have been
dragged in this alley so that the guards won't find me.

Damn, if it does not happen on main streets, then the guards do not even consider
crimes to exist. Or so it seems to plenty of citizens.

I must be more lucky than I ever got aware of. This is given that I only have horrible
headaches. Shoving that corpse off my body, maybe the other fellows here weren't
that blessed?

Them looks like pirates or swashbucklers. No big surprise, the docks bring in a great
number of travellers, seafarers and loads of violent prone sabre-swingers each day
and night.

I didn't know they came in couples these days. Wow, her feminine roundings really
were something. If she wouldn't be dead, I would feel a well known, pulsating
pleasure know.

I do a short prayer for their souls. Of course it doesn't mean I could afford to leave
their corpses untouched. Looting, not necrophilia.

He he, I got a dagger and a single coin. Naturally whoever killed them and
blackjacked me took their pouches. Why did the killer leave the blade? One could
sell it or use it for self-defense. I will do precisely that.

By now the smell and atmosphere tell me that I must be in Stonemarket. Or for the
more cultivated, that I consider to have woken from knockout in the city district
called Stonemarket. That is where the great chapel-complex of the Hammerite
order is.

Yes, I remember. I was on my way to Audale. I need some herbal tincture to buy
from those pagans. Of course the apothecary would be nearly as helpful. It's just
that those pagan females have such a gorgeous way of looking good to me.

It's just fantasy though. I don't like the thought of how they handle their passions.
We were taught to share our bed with one woman and split up before the next
woman. They have this group sex and orgies attitude.

I am quite politically. Pagans do lots of good stuff when they are not busy being
cruel and weird. They care for nature and animals. That is precisely what the
Hammerites neglect to ever consider worthy. Balance in all things, that is what most
citizens call normalcy. Losing my job didn't change that.
Neither Trickster nor the Builder give me a new job, henceforth I got to handle it
myself, like the adult man I am. Like the adult, poor and ugly taffer I am.

I found some use for that moss. It cleaned the back of my skull a bit. Need to make
it towards the gate. No big thing, citizens are allowed to wear daggers and that belt
and sheath don't look as if I just picked it from the corpse of a „sad she died for she
was sexy“ buccaneer-bitch.

Ambushed by physical law! It happens. When I bent forwards to pick up that moss,
white slime began to drip out of my nose. Drip? Burst would be better. Whatever
that virus was about, it was real smart to try getting me some medicine.

Ouch. I don't mind being ugly, but just because I am a pauper doesn't mean I want
slime on my face or my clothing. I can't afford a handkerchief. Rubbing snot on the
wrist of my woolen jacket is surely disgusting. Not pride, dignity as it is preached to
even us paupers.

Rubbing moss on my face in a desperate attempt to clean up the mess. Heartbeat

rises and my body struggling with the virus results in sweating. Yecch. I never liked
that. Ah, I take one of those flowers and rub it on me for then I don't smell that bad.

Paupers don't need to make mistakes, the world itself cares a lot of turning us into
dirty degenerates. As if this helps getting a new job. It hurts my feelings when I see
my girlfriend suffer through the same squalor and decrepitude. I wished I would
still have the power to be the man who takes her out of that rotten surroundings.

At least we still have a small room rented. Being urban homeless is not what I am
eager to become. I will kill, me as others, before I ever accept living that kind of ... I
can't call this life. That tough way of existence.

Oi! The guards have that tough look again. Did you ever get their trick? The look
fierce when they have no clue, hoping to make the less controlled criminals and
taffers freak out so they can score an arrest.

I am walking the old part of town now. The fever makes it a quite surreal
experience. No kidney punch ever hurt me more than this wicked virus. Oh beware,
what if it is one of those hag curses? Them hags are not all pleased with just
devouring children, did you know?

Maybe some hags are making a specialty of tormenting the poor? We had our
lessons, even the gutter-watch (city-guard in South Quarter) had to admit, after the
first murders.

I would like to hug my girlfriend now, but can't see her. She would get infected and
that wouldn't be nice of me. Even the cat was smart enough to flee from me. Smart
creature, I bet they are even smarter than hags.
Oh my, walking up that long stairway never felt so strenuous before. I cough some
blood and slime. I want this sweating to stop. Curse that fever. Why is the warm
summer rain never upon me when I want to? Because I am a pauper, not a weather
magician, maybe.

Inspector Drept's insignia I can make out on my fever-clouded horizon. Indeed, the
usual guard straight before that pub. Just be valiant, some more steps and you enter
pagan territory. Formally known as the park of the Audale district of our beloved
city. Ouch.

Shriek! Oh, just a pagan guard. Woah, there is an announcement posted at the wall.
Citizens read announcements, that's what we are supposed to do. As if any of us
really cared.

Damn, what fool I am. It was not an official announcement of the lord, just
Hammerite propaganda. Anti-Pagan stuff. Wonder why the pagans didn't dare to
rip it away.

„I feel like a beaten dog, suffer fever, cough blood and slime. Can you sell me a
herbal tincture to heal me up?“

While waiting for that shaman to consider my request, I wonder where did they
learn speaking. And what is this woodsea they are constantly quoting about? Must
be pagan stuff.

A taffers Lore on females: Stare at their feminine roundings. Otherwise they can't
catch you being the primitive, mindless creature they expect you to be. That's real
important. First, a woman somehow handles confidence differently than males.
Then, society trains them to fulfill other expectations. Third, just because I love my
girlfriend it doesn't mean other females wouldn't be sexy.

It's really just those short moments. I never was that type of man to cheat in
relationships. He he, quite easy when one is sick, poor and ugly.

Seems I collapsed. Anyway, lucky me again. First sight on waking from fevery
torpor is the gorgeous feminine roundings of a pagan woman. Naturally her only
interest in me is selling me that herbal pouch and making sure I won't die on their
turf.

For being what the Hammerites call children of a false god, they can be quite
helpful. I wouldn't like a city where one extreme escalates. Horrible enough that
poverty became the dominating force in my life.

Often women forget that when one is in love with a female, then one should only
treat that one woman as special. It's one of those mutual truths. I bet my girlfriend
is in the Docks, at that pagan tribal music event. In truth she just likes to stare at
those long-haired pagan males with anything as a worthy excuse.
She is my mate. She even understood that shaving my head means I won't waste
money on that infernal cult of creatures calling themselves hair-cutters. I would
nearly bet that them are all hag-minions!

Poor peoples solidarity. It took me a while to attune my temper and pride to that
quite honorable tradition. Ha, I know this from the past. The fever triggers random
memories while my body struggles with the virus.

I am in bad shape and now it's time to get home and rest. The trick is that one
always stays on the main streets and smart it is to walk along with a guards patrol
route. That way those violent prone seafarers are less eager to get ones blood on
their sabres.

I had my share of knuckle-sandwiches in the past. I gave some to others, too. It's
just that I care about solving my problems and being a street-fighter or skilled
blade-user does not get me paid. That is not what makes you become a city guard or
else. It just makes one a criminal in a weird way of getting oneself killed, sooner or
later but for sure.

House-Guard I have been. Well, assistant house guard. But it helped. Our house
hired a guard and when he wants to see the latrine or when he just needs a break,
an ale or a woman of that certain business, then he pays me fine coin to make his
job for a while.

And I can read and write. Well, like a taffer, not as cultivated as a monk or nun. But
it helps. Sometimes I get paid to do copies or make notes or announcements for
scribes and traders. I even made a gratis painting for Ernesto!

Yes, I painted that slice of bakery with cheese and salami upon it! I knew that the
rogues won't feel too disturbed when I paste it close to their red hand logo. I mean,
it's the simple truth. Ernesto made his pizza shop open straight between the most
honorable fence of the South Quarter and the special demands store two houses
apart from it. Just don't ever tell this to the guards.

I like pizza very much. It's one of the best foods poor people can ever afford. The
cheap version banishes hunger and if you have earned some coin, then you can even
get pizza with lots of vegetables, or fish or meat! Double-cheese deluxe?

See, it is damn simple. Maybe Ernesto belongs to a very violent prone ultra-criminal
secret society. Maybe not. If I am there to buy pizza, then all that matters is Ernesto
being a real good pizza baker and me having enough coin to pay for it. He is
arrogant, insulting and likes to beat up his wife in public. He is, too, the only one
who always survived attempts to stop him from continuing this.

Never get enrolled (buy what you can't pay) and moan about shattered knees later.
That people Ernesto makes business with have a very simple codex. If you are not
one of them, DON'T MEDDLE! That's it. Just don't ever meddle (interfere or be
witness) into their affairs. And remember, whatever they do as no matter what the
law says; they appreciate when it is respectfully called business.
If someone meets a monster and the monster gives an easy way out (called
survival), then only suicidal freaks beg for a more painful to themselves solution?

People call me stupid. If I am stupid, they are even worse. Just because someone is
a real lethal opponent it doesn't mean he or she is after you. So if someone who
really is superior to you grants you the chance to remain unscathed, why then
provoke them into a course of action which they worked so hard to avoid?

Like with the gypsies. Whatever makes them different from the pagans, the rogues
or whatever they ship down in the docks, who cares? When I met them, they never
attacked me. They never raped me or else. They don't need to like me, it's not their
fault that they were born on the same planet as I am.

I dislike people who accuse to hide their own vice, failures and prejudices. Life can
still be fun, even among us poor people. It's those mentally disturbed freaks who
always have nice excuse but who are never nice. They are enemies to all we call
normalcy.

Pedophiles, well-poisoners and tax-collectors. Rapists, slave-traders and erratic

serial killers. Those often haunt our existence for real. Not them foreigners. See, it's
not their skin-colour or culture which is hostile. It's some individuals deeds. Being a
sea-side town, how can one be oblivious to how great those foreigners are for the
pubs, motels and brothels as many other legitimate businesses?

If the evil hags do it to us, can't the good hags do it to those vile freaks? I saw a
guard, pale and shocked, one night. When I walked towards him to offer help, I saw
the corpse. Skinned alive as it seemed. Our fear of hags is not irrational.

My fear of the walking dead is extreme. Great lesson that I saw one on that guided
walk through the Hammerite compound. Caged and with guards and priests
protecting us, something about it really gave me the creeps.

Sensed it? Without them Hammerites we wouldn't be protected from undead at all.
Even though I am not sure that it is really all the pagans fault. That's mostly because
whenever the Hammerites can't explain something they claim precisely that: It's all
the Pagans fault!

It's not always easy. I saw the tears in their eyes and believed to sense the shaking of
their souls when the Hammerites had to „lay to rest“ a zombie who was a former
Hammerite, too. All factions do some beneficial, all factions make some mistakes.
Let's not just hope, but strive for the best?

Sometimes being a pauper is about perspective. As someone so down, you are not
involved. Therefore you perceive what certain factions seem to be blind for. I admit
that skill comes with experience and you must not be a pauper to learn it.

This cruel world makes it easy to fall from grace, literally as symbolically. Hey, my
next door neighbour was a real noble-lady just some years and one intrigue
against her ago!
 Bedroom encounters – Garrett the trouble-magnet ☺

Well, first let me admit: That neighbour up the stairs is not a bad soul. And he is not
as ungrateful as I had feared.

Once there came that bunch from Ernesto. They were mistaken, yet telling them
would have meant me seeing the fishes or worse. They were convinced that I had to
pay that super-pizza, spicy noodles, salad and two bottles of wine. I did. Well, as a
pauper that kind of order really was far out of my league and as salad told (as in
telltale signs), it was either about someone dating a woman or homosexuals. Both
were not my truths though.

I was without food for seven days. So I took that cheap scrolls and wrote a note to
my neighbours. A simple statement of fact that I didn't appreciate to pay for stuff
they had ordered or that I didn't bother them with my criminal acquaintances
either.

When I came home the next night a pouch full of coins was on my petty desk and a
small, anonymous note besides it. Kind of sorry for the mess. That's ok. If a
neighbour didn't mean it and re-compensates, well, who of us could do more?

With enough repetition, one gets nearly attuned to it. City-guards bashing the door
in, claiming that little pauper would be a great master-thief. As if any thieves guild
would ever take me serious, not to think of me being their „master“. That damn
guards needed a month to get me a new door. It was bearable by the mercy of the
house-owner, who gave me a thick woolen blanket to cover the entry. Nonetheless I
caught a splinter. It's often the minor moments...

As if any fat, crippled skinhead wouldn't match the description of a nimble, stealthy
villain. Bless life that the war is long over. My woolen jacket is brown and my pants
or a dirty beige, another hint that I just must be that mysterious rogue in black
leather. Leather! As if i could afford softened leather!

It wasn't always that easy. One night someone broke in to challenge (again that
formulation) the master-thief. When I calmly stated that I do not even belong to the
thieves, he gave me that I can't leave witnesses alive approach. He he, I am a
citizen. I have the right to defend my self, home and property, even as a pauper.

Therefor I gave him the I was in the militia and my spiked club has rusty nails
hungry for your flesh reply. A quite bloody non-verbal communication. Nice, the
house-guard helped me drag the corpse out, later. The club was damaged beyond
repair though. Damn, one more table leg I would have to find in the streets...
I am no real hero or fighter. One of the scars will never really heal. Good move that I
nearly managed to deflect it downwards, sliced my abdomen instead of slashing
through my guts. Dear diary, in case I ever forget, please remind me that I don't
appreciate being mistaken for the master-thief or else.

I always liked good tales, some down and dirty, others spooky or about hags. Of
course being drunk does not protect me from still getting nightmares when the
walking dead are mentioned. Hey, slow zombies. As if all who ever encounter such
preternatural evil would have the great luck of meeting the creation of a weak
newbie-necromancer.

In the streets I saw trained combat hounds who were slower than those walking
dead. Them zombies give me the creeps and I can't help it. Weird spookies.

Then came the night that made me gain a new definition of headaches and mourn a
real honorable taffers death. It took me a while to figure out what I now write in
quite simple words.

Telepathic super-assassins with magical sickles! (The author makes his fictional
pauper mention the keeper-enforcers)

Personally I know the lords won't listen. But speaking into a persons head really
should be forbidden by the law! Damn, it makes me look so ungrateful. I had so
much luck again. But them killed our valiant house-guard! He always paid me.

And I was the idiot who opened the door and dared to check what those sounds of
battle were about. Damn, I envy them for their super-cool outfit. I bet selling such
magic sickles would make me rich? Let's be honest, I survived were many citizens
were not allowed to continue their existence.

A voice-equivalent invaded my head brutally. Some question about a brothel of

betrayal ( brother and betrayer is meant), sad I couldn't help them. That telepathic
super-assassins may not even have meant it to harm me. It did, like a war-club
smashing my head.

While I collapsed I perceived how blood splashed out of my eyes and how my brain
and spine felt as if kicked by a horse again. With the pressure in my ears I had no
sense of balance left. I kissed the ground in a quite hurtful moment of fainting.

Yet I was saved by a valiant soul who was not even afraid to confront them
telepathic super-assassins and make them flee. My cat! Or some such?
When I regained my senses a lot of pain happily blessed me with being there,
exclusively for me. But through the red fog which poisoned my soul I heard the
heroic, comforting meow of the cat. I knew instantly that I was saved.

Clearly the assassins fled when their petty powers where opposed by the sacred soul
of cat-kind. Or maybe I really had hit the ground, head first? Life continued, looking
for an income, as doing mutual arrangements with girlfriend and cat.

This file ends here. The intent is not just to make me known as an author. If all in
the community write some pages from their own perspective, we make up quite
some atmosphere about a world and product we liked to purchase?

A little adaptation done by me:

My idea was that if there are such arrows in Garrett's world, then bolts would surely
be possible, too. Truth is, many years ago I had a girlfriend named Miriam, we had a
vacation in Turkey and did a bow-shooting course. I am damn bad doing it and it
really is much more difficult, then it seemed to me. Lazy as I am, I would choose a
crossbow, given pseudo-medieval thief-stuff as the task to contemplate.

This file I kept short for I re-read my “Poison what you can't conquer.pdf” and still
found it was no bad writing, for another product line though.
 The machismo beats reason PATCH

Some people (depending on country, culture and religion) may find that the note on
21+ aged readers only which I placed is too high for that file. Others would think
“on the contrary”. For the softer or more moralist readers, the following lines would
be ... unwelcome. Please stop reading here, if stupid, hollow quotes about sex I
never had disturb your wellbeing? ☺ It's fiction, or to quote from a song I heard:
“It's just porn”.

● I always considered the mass in Hammerite cathedrals to be the dumbest way

to waste ones life. Then this novice, church crazed slut right next to me got
wet & willing during mass. If she is that willing ever again, I could soon
understand the deep, spiritual truth that visiting the Hammerites has for my
erected soul. Butt-fucking a sexy woman is a way of mass which I really could
get used to.
● My hay fever and allergies surely make it a burden. And yet, what kind of a
man would I be to make this block me from a pagan woman who sucks cock
as if she was born for it? Come on, be honest to your self at least. If a woman
really goes for making you feel like the only man on the planet, her religious
views are surely not prime-priority obstacle too soon?
● The thief felt smart when stealing her purse already? I felt better than ever in
my life, not for her embarrassment or such. Just that being in this woman
feels more worthy than her entire weight in gold coins ever could?
● My girlfriend needed a while to understand why her sexual pseudo-taboos
were harming our relationship. When she realized that it was all about having
no need for other women, she quickly accepted a mutual deal to become as
much pleasure source to me, as I could be to her. When you can trust in your
woman, sexual endeavours finally start to get meaning. That's what not any
generic harlots could offer for a handful of coins?
● All the difference lies in the unspoken truth. When she said my petty, vulgar
ways are not within social boundaries, she spoke truth. Just that most seem
to miss the fact that precisely that made her want me even more?

You have my permission to display this file on any legal website of your choice, as long
as it is unmodified, my ideas get not stolen and my rights remain respected with no
cheating at all. Making money with my stories, ideas or other mental property of me
remains forbidden, until you bargain for a license from me/ pay me.

“Some moments in real life are like knife fighting: Knowledge is meaningless without
competence. And in this literally example damn good reflexes, clear senses and
fighting techniques.” A quote of me concerning academic hubris.

www.e-stories.org/ or www.esnips.com for more from this author, still gratis.