Pa 01 den of thieves, p.1
PA-01. Den Of Thieves, page 1
part #1 of Pantheon Online Series
DEN OF THIEVES
BOOK ONE OF PANTHEON ONLINE
S.A. KLOPFENSTEIN
BOOKS BY S.A. KLOPFENSTEIN
THE SHADOW WATCH SAGA
The Shadow Watch
The Rage of Saints
The Darkling Queen
The Well of Shadows
PANTHEON ONLINE
Den of Thieves
Rogue Assassin
Pantheon: Den of Thieves © 2022 by S.A. Klopfenstein
Published by Guardian Grey Publishing
Cover Illustration by Ömer Burak Önal
Edited by Tamara Blain
ISBN: 9798419446137
All Rights Reserved
First Edition
This one’s for the Forge
CONTENTS
I. Grid Eight
1. Welcome to Prison
2. Grid Eight
3. The Realms of Pantheon
4. Fast Travel
5. Red Cloaks
6. Captain of the Guard
7. Time to Work
II. City of Thieves
8. Respawn
9. The Mermaid
10. Pickpocket
11. Undercover
12. Crypt
13. Common Fulcra
14. Level 3
15. Loot
16. The Ceremony
17. Thunderstruck
18. Crypt Keeper
19. The Horde
20. Regime Change
III. Rogue in Training
21. Dark Soul of the Night
22. Ping
23. Wisdom and Endurance
24. The Mistress
25. Hel’s Oasis
26. Grinding
27. When Not to Punt a Dwarf
28. Recon
29. Nighthawks
30. Party Invitation
31. Old Friend
32. Drinks on the House
IV. Guild Trial
33. IRL
34. Fit for a Goddess
35. Ain’t No Murderhobo
36. Self-Defense
37. Man of the Mermaid
38. Art of Diplomacy
39. Servant
40. The Drop
41. Liars
42. Wine and Chocolate
V. The Real Game
43. Prison Break
44. Pandemonium
45. Call of the Wild
46. Assassin
47. The Leap
48. Break the Chains
49. Reward
50. Champion
Interlude
Gunnar’s Final Stat Sheet
Acknowledgments
Also by S.A. Klopfenstein
More LitRPG
About the Author
PART 1
GRID EIGHT
1
WELCOME TO PRISON
[2046 AD - Somewhere in Washington State]
Jake Darrow’s mind was shrouded in fog as the guards shoved him through a set of cold steel doors, then dragged him down a long white corridor. It was the sort of stark hallway that felt straight out of a horror movie set, the sort of hallway that never led to anything good.
But his body was exhausted and his eyes were heavy, and so he did not resist.
He couldn’t remember why he was here, or where the hell here was. It was as though his body had been dropped into the middle of a strange dream.
But his mental faculties were sharp enough to understand that he was in deep shit.
The guards hurried him along so fast he could barely keep his feet under him. Both men were dressed in black uniforms with no decorations save for a patch on the right breast—an emblem of an octagonal maze with a red circle at the center. Both were tall and muscular, one Hispanic and bald, the other a very pale redhead. Neither man so much as looked at him.
They gripped him tightly by the arms and led him through another series of corridors.
“Wha’s going on?” Jake slurred.
And immediately regretted it.
The redheaded guard slapped his face. “Shut up!”
Jake grimaced. Yep, very deep shit.
“Go easy, Connors,” said the other guard. His badge named him Officer Marco Reyes.
Connors glared, but complied.
The impact awakened Jake’s mind further, and he realized he must be coming out of some sort of sedation. Likely the reason his legs felt so wobbly and the guards gripped him so tight. A queasy feeling filled his gut, perhaps a side effect from whatever drug he’d been given.
But there was something more.
An image flashed in his mind. It was not entirely clear, but he vaguely made out the form of a young girl on the ground beside him. No older than his own twenty-three years. Blood poured from a gaping wound in her head, pooling on the concrete, covering his hands and clothes in her blood.
Terror gripped him. He blinked hard and glanced down at his hands.
They were clean.
But the sudden movement sent his head spinning. He dropped to his knees in the middle of the corridor and retched on the ground.
“Dammit!” Connors shouted.
“Forget it,” Reyes said. “The orderlies will clean it up.”
The two enormous men jerked Jake back to his feet.
“Lucky you missed my shoes, asshole,” Connors said. “Cost me two hundred credits. I’d’ve kicked the crap out of you.”
“Ain’t worth getting writ up over,” Reyes said.
“You make me wish they never banned the death penalty,” Connors muttered. “What you did to that girl. I would happily watch them kill thugs like you. Hell, I’d sign up to do it myself.”
Jake said nothing, but the sinking feeling in his gut only worsened, and it took everything inside him not to vomit again. That girl had been real. A memory. Him on the concrete beside her.
Oh god! I killed her?
His breathing grew frantic and shallow.
Who had she been? Had he known her?
The image was still hazy in his mind. She had blonde hair, when it wasn’t covered in blood, but he couldn’t quite picture her face. His memory was consumed by the gaping wound and the blood. He knew it made him a coward, but if he was honest, he didn’t want to picture it. His heart thundered in his chest.
This can’t be real!
Jake didn’t bother asking the guards about her, for fear he would only get slapped again. The pair led him through a final set of steel doors, which opened into a smaller hallway. A tall black man with a mustache stood in front of a solitary door.
The man wore the same dark uniform as the other two guards.
It was only then that Jake realized how strange it was that he wasn’t wearing any handcuffs. But then again, Jake was short and scrawny, and all three of these guys looked like they lifted all day. He was no match for any of them.
And where the hell would he go anyway?
The man gestured to Connors and Reyes. “I’ll take him from here, boys.”
The two released their grip and backed away.
The steel doors opened into another corridor, this one made of stone, lit by dim yellow lamps. A rush of cold air shot into Jake’s face, jolting him fully out of his haze. He glanced back. The two guards were already gone.
“Let’s go, kid,” the third guard said. According to his badge, he was Officer Shad Matthews. He walked through the doors.
“You just expect me to follow you?” Jake asked.
The man laughed, a deep-throated cackle that shook his whole body. “If we were worried about your resistance, you’d be cuffed, boy. Besides, where else do you think you’re gonna go?”
Jake glanced back again and realized that another set of doors had closed silently behind him. Apparently, he’d been standing in some sort of holding cell.
With no options and no answers, he obeyed. The ground was made of concrete, but the corridor went on and on and made Jake think of a tour he had gone on once during a family vacation to Mammoth Cave, when he was in high school. Their guide had been a cute college girl, and Jake hadn’t paid very much attention to the cave. His mother had been really upset at him. She was the nature-loving type.
He felt a sharp pang of guilt at the thought of his family. Did they know what had happened? Would he ever see them again?
With the level of surveillance technology in use, the jury trial system had been abandoned before Jake fully understood what it had ever been like. The evidence spoke for itself now.
Which meant there was no doubt about whatever it was he’d done. The government had footage. The girl’s bloody face entered his mind again and tried to stick, but he pushed it back.
The cavernous corridor continued for some time. Shad kept a quick pace ahead of him, saying nothing. Jake guessed it was ten minutes or more before they reached a gigantic vault door. Shad punched a code into the keypad to the right, and the door shot up and another rush of cold air struck Jake in the face.
The room beyond was empty and stark white. There was a stainless steel table at the center, and two steel chairs. Upon the table was a single plate set with a juicy rib eye steak, mashed potatoes, and buttery green beans. Beside the plate, there was a bright red can of Coke.
It was a silly thought all things considered, but he was relieved it wasn’t Pepsi.
Shad gestured to the seat.
Jake stared at the food stupidly.
“Your favorite meal, isn’t it?” Shad asked.
“Y-yeah, but how did you know?”
Shad shrugge
“What the hell is this?” he asked, pointing at the food.
“Back when I was a boy, I had an uncle. Ran with a rough crowd and got himself into all kinds of trouble. One night, my mama got a call in the middle of the night. My uncle had killed a man. Swore up and down it was self-defense, but there was no way to prove it. That was back before the satellite cams were built. Back when they’d kill a man for that sort of shit. Well, on the day they executed him, he got a meal. For the last meal, they’d cook up something real special. Whatever you wanted. Same as we got here for you.”
Jake started trembling. “M-my last meal? But they don’t—”
“Nah, they don’t execute folks no more. But from now on, you’re going to be eating a bit differently.”
“What do you mean?”
Shad took a seat in the chair on the other side of the table. “You better eat before that steak gets cold.”
Jake was starving, now that he thought about it. He tore into the steak, cutting off large chunks and dipping them in the creamy potatoes. He guzzled it down with a large swig of Coke.
“Why’s this the last meal? Because the prison food is so terrible?”
Shad smiled, and Jake thought it might actually be genuine, if a little patronizing. “Your head still feels a bit hazy, don’t it?”
Jake paused his eating and nodded. “How did you know?”
“You all come down like that. You got a headache too?”
Come to think of it, he did. It wasn’t the blazing pain of a migraine, it was more like a strong, constant pressure at the base of his cranium, where the neck met his skull.
What part is that again? The occipital bone!
His Intro to Anatomy professor would have been proud. Jake reached back to the source of the discomfort, then jerked his hand away in horror.
There was something metal embedded in the back of his spine.
2
GRID EIGHT
Jake pushed himself away from the table, seizing the steak knife from his plate and backing against the wall. With his free hand, he felt at the protruding metal.
Shad remained seated, not seeming overly alarmed about the knife in his ward’s hands.
“What the hell is this?” Jake shouted.
Shad just nodded casually. “Check the ones on your arms too.”
Jake frantically pulled up one of the sleeves of his navy jumper. Three more metal disks were embedded in his forearm. It was the same with the other arm. Each disk was circular, maybe an inch in diameter, with fine ridges spanning from the center, where there was a small divot.
His fingers shook, barely able to keep hold of the knife. “W-what did you people do to me?”
“Now, see here, boy. You best get a few things straight real quick. First, we didn’t do nothing to you. That was the folks upstairs. The Suits and Ties. Second, you don’t get to question how anyone treats you. You’re a damn felon. You’re scum. You killed an innocent young lady.”
“B-but I—”
“Shut your mouth, boy,” Shad said, rising to his feet. He crossed over to where Jake was standing. “Third, even if you could take me with that knife, it wouldn’t do you any good.” Shad reached for him, and to Jake’s amazement, the man’s hand passed right through him.
“What is going on?” Jake asked.
Shad laughed. “A hologram, boy. If you really think anyone would be stupid enough to give a knife to a convicted murderer while he was alone with one guard, then you won’t last a day down here.”
Jake paused, taking in the information. All the holograms he’d ever heard of had to be projected from something. He glanced up at the ceiling. No drones. No flashing lights in the ceiling. No obvious source at all.
“Where the hell am I?”
“Sure you don’t want to finish your meal first?”
Jake eyed the steak and potatoes. There were still a few bites left, but he had lost his appetite. “I want to know where I am. And I want to know why. What happened to that girl?”
“You sure about that?”
Jake pictured the blonde girl one more time, and this time he let the image linger. She’d had flush cheeks and deep brown eyes that made him shudder as he pictured the life fading from them. “I need to know.”
Shad leveled his gaze at Jake, not hiding a hint of disdain. “You were at a party, Jake. You were drunk out of your mind, and you drove. She was crossing the street, coming home from a late shift at a restaurant downtown. I’m guessing you never even saw her, you were so blitzed.”
Jake definitely did not want to eat anything else. A new image filled his mind—of blonde hair flying through the air, her head smacking the concrete. He pictured himself stumbling out of the car, the hood splattered in blood. Dripping hands as he slipped in the crimson pool on the road and realized with horror what he’d done, as those beautiful brown eyes settled on him, as he watched her chest rise and fall for the last time.
Was it a memory? Had the truth jerked him out of his mental fog? Or was he just imagining it, his mind filling in the blanks to help make sense of the unfathomable?
He just could not believe he had done something like that. Sure, he had never been one to shy away from a few drinks, but it just wasn’t like him to drive. And the one time he did…
“What was her name?” Jake asked, unsure why it mattered. But somehow, he felt he owed her that much.
“Alex Keynes,” Shad said evenly. “Pretty girl. Wrong place, wrong time. All on surveillance. Open-and-shut case. You got offered a deal for a shorter sentence in exchange for coming to this particular prison. And here you are.”
“A deal?”
Shad chuckled. “That sedative really does a number, don’t it?”
The airlock doors behind Shad’s hologram shifted open with a whooshing sound, and the sight outside the holding cell took Jake’s breath away.
Beyond the doors, a broad window looked out over a massive underground dome that must have stretched for a couple of miles at least. Enormous pipes jutted from the ground into the stony ceiling hundreds of feet above. Wires and thick cables stretched above short buildings, and all around there were huge turbines and power stations. A mechanical droning sound filled his ears.
“Welcome to Grid Eight. Powering the world above, one prisoner at a time.”
For a minute, Jake said nothing. He merely stared out through the window at the strange expanse.
“Get used to that view, kid. This is your future. Well, the real one anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
“This is where you will work, sleep, eat, take a dump. Call it the mercy of the great state of Washington. You did the crime, now we take your time and make it worth something.”
The holographic guard made his way down the hall, but Jake didn’t follow.
Surely this couldn’t be real. A labor camp? That has to be illegal.
Shad reached another door and turned back.
A shock surged down Jake’s spine, and he fell back against the window. He grabbed onto the small sill, barely managing to avoid falling on his ass.
Shad smiled in a satisfied manner.
