He needed a weapon and some armor, there was no denying that anymore. He had managed to get by so far without having either of those things, but he knew it wouldn’t last. For the last few weeks, he had been searching around town for a good armor and weapon shop. He had found a few promising ones, but nothing that really screamed out to him, ‘Pick me!’. He just couldn’t really see himself using them, or the quality was less than what they were asking for. Cheaper wasn’t always the way to go, most knew that, and it was especially true where armor and weapons were concerned.

Through his searches he kept hearing one name in particular, Godfrey. If the rumors were to be believed, this man was the real deal. It didn’t take Mikajia too long to locate Godfrey and his shop, and once he had entered the place, he knew the rumors were to be believed. Even to his untrained eye, Mikajia could tell Godfrey had some real talent. Yes, the pieces were all a bit more on the pricier side, but with armor and weapons, you really do get what you pay for.

He had been in the shop for just over thirty minutes, trying to decide between two different daggers when he heard a commotion nearby. Mikajia looked around and quickly spotted a man running out the door with a set of greaves. “Dammit! You there!”

Mikajia turned to look at the man with an arched brow, “Yeah?” He asked.

“I can’t believe that idiot was stupid enough to steal from me. But unfortunately I can’t leave this shop unattended. You seem to be a capable fellow. Are you a mage?” He asked, his face contorted with barely controlled anger.

“I am.”

“Look, I’ll reward you handsomely if you can capture that man quickly, and bring him back here to me,” He told Mikajia, piquing his interest, “Alive.” He added, after seeing the look on Mikajia’s face. “I’ll have questions for the man. He can’t very well answer if he’s dead, now can he?” Mikajia just shrugged in response.

“Hurry now, before he get’s too far away.” Mikajia gave a simple nod before darting out the door after the man. Thankfully he’d at least gotten one good look at the man’s clothes before he had run out the door. Plus, a man carrying some armor should be fairly obvious as well.

As soon as he got outside, he started looking all around him. The street this shop was on went on for a good quarter mile in either direction before giving way to any other streets or alleyways. That meant his target would still definitely be visible, so long as he didn’t have any crazy speed.

He was right. No more than ten seconds later, he spotted the same dark shirt on a man roughly two hundred feet away. He looked closer and could see that the man seemed to be carrying a couple of rather sizeable objects. As he closed in on the man, he glimpsed a piece of the greaves while the man ran, verifying his target.

A couple seconds later the man looked behind him. They briefly made eye contact before realization dawned on him. Another second later the man started sprinting as fast as he could, but it wouldn’t matter. Mikajia upped it to full throttle, sprinting as fast as he could as well, but he was much faster. Within four seconds he was directly behind the man. Mikajia then sprung up into the air, arcing over the man’s head. The man, startled to see this, faltered in his running and watched Mikajia land in front of him before spinning around and landing a heavy hit directly in his gut.

The force was strong enough to knock the man clean off his feet and send flying back several feet. He landed flat on his back and gasping for air, the greaves sent skidding across the sidewalk beside him. Mikajia walked over and picked up the stolen items while people all around were panicking and running away. He tucked the greaves under one arm as he approached the gasping man. He ignored the man’s pleas, instead opting to kneel down next to him and land a clean strike at the base of his neck, just above his shoulder, knocking him out.

The man was pretty skinny, so he had no problem grabbing the back collar of his shirt and dragging him with his free hand. They were barely over two hundred feet from the shop so it didn’t take too long for Mikajia to drag the man’s unconscious body back to Godfrey.

Mikajia quickly put the man’s worries to rest when he entered the shop, telling him the guy was just unconscious. He figured it would be much easier to bring him back if he wasn’t struggling the whole time, to which Godfrey agreed and was very impressed with his quick and efficient work. He was also pleased to see that Mikajia made sure to bring the greaves back with him as well.

What occurred over the next couple hours was some very painful, gruesome and impressive torture methods, much dealing with a hammer. Godfrey was apparently a man that took theft from his store extremely personal. He wanted to make sure the man would never forget the time he had been foolish enough to steal from him.

Having dealt with this kind of world for some time now, Mikajia didn’t even so much as bat an eye during the entire process, something Godfrey took note of. Once the deed was done, Godfrey approached Mikajia once more, thanking him for his assistance, as well as apologizing about losing his composure. Apparently he prided himself on always keeping his cool, never letting his true colors be seen, even by his little brother.

Mikajia simply shrugged off the apology, telling him it wasn’t necessary and that he could understand. He also told him that if the man ever needed assistance in the future to not hesitate to call upon him. Godfrey nodded before handing over a good sum of jewels to Mikajia. He figured the man would be busy cleaning up and decided he’d come back another time to get his gear.

WC = 1048/1000