BW PDF - Midnight Campaign

Chapter TWOBasic GameplayLaid out before him was a long leather band, strapped to whichwere nearly two dozen fine metal instruments. Drawing severalout of their places, the career thief turned half of his focus to thecomplicated mechanism in front of him, and half of it to theapprentice at his side. He spoke so softly as to almost whisper.“The trick with these kinds of mechanical traps,” he said, “is totake it very slowly. We’ll start by disabling the most lethal actions,and then move on to the alarm gears. This particular model is fairlyold, so it shouldn’t take much to get to the second stage. We’lljust concentrate, so we don’t make mistakes, and we’ll be into thevault reasonably quickly.”The apprentice nodded, paying minimal attention, and glancednervously over his own shoulder. The master thief cringedinwardly, but did his best to smile and exude supreme confidence.Sometimes, working the right charm and social control was asimportant to this job as was the fine tinkering. This was doublytrue when dealing with apprentices. He had just gotten to the firstof the alarm mechanisms when the apprentice finally spoke, aharsh whisper that wasn’t quiet at all. “How much longer?”His hand slipped at the distraction. A pin snapped, and gearsstarted spinning, gathering speed. The master grit his teeth witha quiet curse and very calmly rolled his tools together, tucking themaway. He started rising just as the alarm gear began to shriek,metal tearing at metal in an extremely irritating noise.He couldn’t hear the footfalls of the street guards, but he knewthey were coming. “What do we do now!?” the apprentice said,shouting to be heard. The master thief cringed at his lack of tact. Hedrew a heavy knife from one side of his belt and stabbed it intothe mechanism he had been working with, jamming the gears andtaking out more than a little of his frustration on the now-uselessclockwork. The shrieking stopped.He smiled at the apprentice, although he felt like stabbing himtoo. “Now, we practice our getaway.”