I really should have slept in longer. Five hours really isn’t long enough, especially after a day of being molested by zombies and necromancers. But I was so excited to sell my shit that I was up at the buttcrack of dawn. Which for me is 9AM. I visited Jensine again and offloaded a bunch of stuff I’d collected in the dungeon — including that pointy statue thing, which was worth over a hundred gold! — some potions I’d made, and some stuff I’d found in crates out in front of her shop. I guess those items are free for the taking and aren’t considered stolen, which makes a whole lot of sense. Still, who am I to argue with free money?

This is unbelievable, diary, but I ended up with 2021 gold by the end of the transaction! That was enough to buy a house! Sure, I’d only have 21 gold left after all that, but who cares — I would no longer be homeless!

I ran as fast as I could with my sack full of gold to the Office of Imperial Commerce and plunked the whole pile on the counter. My excitement waned when Vinicia told me I’d have to buy the damn furnishings myself. Shit! I’d just spent my hard-earned coin on an empty shack! How lame is that? At least Vinicia told me where to buy the stuff: from some guy named Sergius Verus at Three Brothers Trade Goods. From the name of the store and the man, I’m guessing this isn’t the most heterosexual of shopping establishments. “Brothers.” Right. They’d better not try to drive up the prices just because I’m a woman. Maybe I should have Thoronir put in a good word for me.

But then I got a great idea. I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me before. Now that Agarmir was dead, I could loot his house with no fear of him walking in and making me a permanent feature of his death basement. Sadly, Agarmir owned very little of value, and those items that would fetch a price were still considered stolen goods by the local merchants. So here I was, with a pile of cloth, clothing, and a crystal ball, and it turned out I had to lug that shit to Bruma to sell it. God damn it.

Well, it might not be such a bad idea to check out this fence fellow in Bruma, even if it meant traveling the dangerous roads full of animals and assholes. But I still had one more bit of unfinished revenge…I mean business in the Imperial City. You might remember my seemingly offhand remark about paying a visit to Jensine’s shop after dark to, uh, liberate some of her valuables. Jesus, diary, that is not a euphemism. So I came up with a complex and impressive plan: Step 1: throw my extraneous shit on the floor of my house, causing it to look like a tornado hit. Step 2: Kill time until Jensine closes up shop and goes to sleep, suspecting nothing. Step 3: Steal whatever I can carry from her shitty shop, hopefully ruining her entire livelihood in the process. Step 4: Leave for Bruma in the morning. Step 5: Profit. Literally!

ENTERING STEALTH MODE

Since my vengeful night raid would involve sneaking, I decided to build up my skill around town by stalking people in the most creepy manner possible. Before I progressed very far with this not-at-all offputting activity, I was accosted by a balding older guy in a garish green outfit. He introduced himself as Jollring, and namedropped his master, Umbacano. I was less than impressed, never having heard of this Umbacano person. But he had apparently heard of me, and wanted me to “visit him” at his manor. Did he know all about my penchant for doing people’s dirty work for almost no pay? Or perhaps he had something he needed recapped. I really didn’t want to dwell on any of the less savory possibilities for the invitation.

A little fearfully, I asked Jollring if he had any idea what his master wanted. As it so happened, he did. Somehow, in the few hours since I sold the POONTY!Statue, Umbacano found out. Jensine must have blabbed. God, she is the worst. Anyway, it turns out that the POONTY!Statue is some sort of Ayleid artifact and Umbacano collects Ayleid artifacts. Was he going to give me shit for looting old ruins and selling ancient artifacts for less than full price? I so didn’t need that. After Jollring left, I went ahead and read the note.

Umbacano, unaware of the fact that I am a low level adventurer, wants me to collect some more statues for him. As soon as I am able, he wishes me to discuss the matter with him. He mentioned a “handsome renumeration” which I hope means gold. I filed the letter away, not entirely unwilling to hear his request. But I had more pressing issues at the moment, like prepping for my not-so-big heist.

I’m practically invisible.

Shit, I could not have picked a worse day to creep on random people around the city. It was storming like a motherfuck, which is the correct technical term for the type of weather I encountered. I managed to follow some dude in a brown tunic and ponytail until he intelligently left this shitty weather to go have a drink. It was all I could do not to follow his example. All afternoon, I continued to follow people while squat-walking, with varying levels of success. Even when I was caught blatantly staring at Homonymous Lex having a private conversation with another dude, I wasn’t thrown in jail or even called out as a weirdo or a fruit fly. Maybe they thought I was innocently taking a dump? Wait, I hope that’s not a normal thing.

The rain cleared up partway through the afternoon, so I could no longer bitch about that. As the afternoon passed into evening, I made my way to Jensine’s shop, where I’m sure I looked like a legitimate customer just strolling about outside. It turns out I picked one of the nights she keeps her shop open until the wee hours of the morning. Which was ridiculous, since she had exactly zero customers in all that time. The lack of customers might be the reason she only had 100 gold to spare for my earlier troubles, but that doesn’t excuse her behavior, since she chose not to be up front with me about it.

Just a totally innocent shopper! Nothing nefarious going on here!

Eventually, sometime after 1AM, she locked the shop door. Still in my very sneaky crouching position, I double-checked that I was the only suspicious person in the vicinity and then picked the average level lock. I am getting good at this, diary. I only lost one lockpick! Okay, okay, you don’t care about these boring details. I’ll skip ahead a bit to the dark basement filled with clutter. No wonder this lady never sells anything — she had no shop stock in her basement. Seriously, nothing of value. What a waste of my time. I moved on to the main level of the shop, where all the goods still sat out on the counter. This kind of laziness should be punished, I thought hypocritically. Although she had some valueless items amidst the pile, like shitty stoneware and a fucking pickax, I still took everything, leaving her counters completely bare. I wanted her to know she was robbed, although if she is a derpy Phoenix Wright type, she will probably need ten other characters to explain what happened.

Fuck yeah.

I broke into her upstairs bedroom as well, and while I was tempted to vandalize the place, I had to remain stealthy so Jensine wouldn’t wake up and order the guards to arrest me. I realize how incriminating it seems to nonconsensually enter a woman’s bedroom while she’s asleep, but just what kind of pervert do you take me for, diary? I’m a recapper, not a sex offender. I just talk about gross disturbing sexual shit, I don’t actually do it. My crimes are of the purely platonic variety. So I stole all her clothes out of the dresser — wait, no, it’s not what it looks like! — and the food off the tables. My revenge mission complete, I hurried back down the stairs and out the door. Whew!

In terms of profit, the only items worth mentioning are the three amulets from Jensine’s shop counter. Nothing else had much value, although with so little gold left to my name, I really shouldn’t complain. I headed back to my wooden palace, where I offloaded all the valueless crap that was taking up space in my sack and loaded up the rest of my stolen goods for my trek to Bruma which will start tomorrow…er, today. Shit! It’s already past 4AM! I am going to have to leave for Bruma in a few hours, on very little sleep for two nights in a row. Oh well, how bad can it be? Stay tuned for the answer to that question, diary.

Jeanne Recapiere
Heartfire 3
3E433
4:00 in the God damn morning