1. The Mechanical Arts

Thief for Hire

She wandered through the open-air market of an impoverished Earth kingdom city, buying food and a few "fancy" clothes local craftsman generated in hopes of keeping their families fed. She loved the open-air markets and bazaars for their nostalgic value and for the fact that she could buy what she needed without a guilty conscious. Still, it was getting hard to do even that, all she had left were seven silver pieces, 2 copper pieces, and 1 gold piece. "I guess it's about time I got a new job." She sighed, looking over a cart of cabbages. Her last job had been a nightmare: her former boss, a noble from a good sized costal city, was a complete pig. Making her clean overtime with no pay, making her wear demeaning outfits, attempting unsavory designs on the young woman secretly robbing him; the job only lasted two months, but it felt like twenty years to her. Her next job would be a real treat though, it was personal after all.

"Excuse me sir," she asked the old shopkeeper, "how far away am I from Gaoling?"

"Oh, no more than a few miles as the crow flies, practically within a day's walk."

"Thank you," out of the corner of her eye she noticed a young boy, no older than five, snatch a cabbage off the cart and sprint off. Without making a huge fuss, she pulled out three silver pieces and handed them to the old man, "here, for your troubles."

"Oh, thank you young lady. You wouldn't believe all the horrible events befalling me and my cabbages!" she turned away from the cart and followed the little boy into a back alley, where he was tearing into the cabbage at lightning speed. He looked up briefly be for stopping all together and shying against the wall, the young woman was looming over him with a harsh glare. She made note of his filthy and torn clothes and retrieved her last gold piece, dropping it at his shoeless feet, "Next time you want a cabbage, ask him if you can be his apprentice."

Just outside of Gaoling she found it, brand new and bearing the coat of her bastard Noble in the corner.

**Wanted:**

Shadow Bandit

Details mostly unknown

Travels underground, thought to reside in the woods

Reward: 5,000 gold pieces.

"Wow, I pissed him off that much?" she thought, ripping down the poster and looking it over. At least the artist depiction was mostly wrong: the hair was pure black instead of white, the eyes were green instead of extremely light blue, and of course there's the fact that the drawing on the poster was that of a man, not a woman. Well, accurate or not, she didn't need bounty hunters scouring Gaoling for her during her most triumphant heists; she ripped up the wanted poster and let the wind scatter the pieces.

Right underneath the wanted poster sat a poster she didn't expect to find: a help wanted ad from her specific targets:

**Governess Wanted:**

Apply at the Bei-Fong estate

Must have experience with caring for girls, and be willing to work with the blind

Males need not apply

Five silver pieces an hour per services.

"Perfect." She hummed, rolling up the poster and stuffing it under her arm, "I don't think I could find a better job if it hit me with a hammer.


	2. Wrought Iron

A Shady New Babysitter

She tentatively loped though the path towards the estate that ruined her family and forced her into the life she must lead, smiling cynically at the irony of her revenge. The front door of the mansion was embellished with a large winged-boar knocker made of iron and covered with fine gold leaf. "Fine craftsmanship," She noted, bringing the ring of the knocker to eye-level and sneering at it, "I bet it's local. Not factory in the world could make something this intracite." She delicately knocked only loud enough that someone within twenty feet of the door could hear, letting her features soften while letting a placid grin cover her face. A burly servant answered the door

"H-hello sir, I-I've come to apply for the job offering- the governess position." She muttered gently, with a tremor of fear. The guard replied by looking upward with a 'ye spirits, not again' before turning towards the main hallway, "right this way, ma'am."

"So, miss . . ."

"Shu. Just Shu." The Albino bowed before the richest man in the Southern Earth Kingdom: Lao Bei Fong.

"Miss Shu," his wife, Poppy Bei Fong continued, "Do you have any relevance with childcare?"

"Oh yes my lady," Shu replied sweetly, "I had five younger sisters growing up, and mother had me help with all of them." That of course was a lie. She had two older brothers, both taken and slaughtered in the war. But now was not the time to rage at the past.

"And were any of them 'disabled'? Blind, deaf, barren . . ." Lao began listing symptoms.

"Well, my youngest sister walked with a limp for her entire life, but that never stopped us from playing in the garden or her from becoming a good masseuse."

"And why do you think the role as our governess suits you, Miss Shu?"

"I've always loved spending time with young children, and I don't think anything in the world would make me happier than spending time with a future heiress to the largest company in the Earth Kingdom." Shu sheepishly grinned at her future employers.

"Miss Shu, we'll need a moment to discuss this," Poppy turned to her husband before moving towards a room across the hall, "We'll be back shortly."

Shu waited until they closed the door behind them before silently creeping over to it and gently placing her cupped ear on the wood:

"I don't know, Poppy. There's something strange about this one; she's so wispy and frail-looking, almost like a ghost!"

"Honey, we've been through this before: if you turn away every applicant for the position for minor concerns the position will never be filled. We've already turned away fifteen girls for strange premonitions you've had of them."

"I know, I know. But when I look at her, I try not to show it to her, I am consumed with fear; it's almost as if she is a vengeful spirit that has finally come to do me harm."

Shu had to cover her mouth and nose with her free hand to hold back a laugh.

"Oh come now dear, this girl may be the sweetest applicant we've had thus far. She could not harm you even if she wanted to. Besides, the fact that she's so frail might give her and Toph something to bond over. We may never find an applicant this well-suited for her."

"Well, if you really feel this confident about her then I will trust your judgment." Shu carefully moved back to the center of the room and pretended to stare at an ancient wall scroll.

"We've decided: You'll start today, Miss Shu."

"O thank you my lord, you will not regret this." '_You will regret this'_

"You will find Toph in the Northern most room of the estate, please keep in mind her blindness and accommodate your practices accordingly." Lao explained, preparing his and his wife's belongings for a two-hour long journey to oversee the opening of a new factory in Omashu, "I wish you the best of luck."

"Thank you, my lord." Shu watched as their eel hound sped away to the Northwest, knowing that they would be back before sunset. At first she had contemplated making her first robbery during their absence, but there were too many guards, too many servants who would easily catch her and rat her out. No, the best course of action was to find their money vault, pretend to not know where she's going if questioned, and then go play with the blind brat. So she started wandering around the estate, locating several other important locals along the way: the master bedroom in the southeast corner of the mansion, the kitchen and dining hall in the center, the east wing, where the servant's quarters were located, and several bathrooms, before finally reaching the vault in the western-most wing of the mansion. It had a huge dead-bolt lock on it, but otherwise sat unguarded. "They put a lot of faith in their technology, don't they?" Shu whispered, checking the lock for how easy it would be to pick, if it came to that. Indeed, it was more complex than the average lock as far as picking it goes, but with years of practice she was certain that it could be picked in less than a minute's time.

Satisfied that this would be easy, she made her way north towards where Toph was said to be. When she got there, she was more than surprised to see two well-armed guards outside the door plus an even more intricate lock covering the door.

"Who goes there?" asked the guard on the left, blocking the door.

"Sorry for intruding, but I'm the new governess," Shu bowed calmly, "I was told that I could find the young lady in this room."

"Oh, it's no trouble," the second guard shrugged, "to be honest, we we're waiting for you to show up so we could take a break."

"Toph shouldn't be any trouble," the first guard added, handing Shu the key to the lock, "she's been awful quiet lately, she might be taking a nap so try not to be too loud when you go in."

"I'm sure I'll be able to handle it. Enjoy your time off!" Shu unlocked the door only after the guards were gone, wondering to herself why someone with so much money would position his guards to his daughter's door and not the door to his vault. Perhaps there were more treasures to this place than previously expected, and the sneaky old man hid them n the most innocuous of places. Only after thinking of such treasures her focus returned to Toph's room, with nobody inside it save herself.

Many thoughts began running though Shu's head when she realized the only explanation was that Toph ran away from home. To paraphrase them:

'_'tbad,eventhougheveverythingyou',youcanstillfixthisyouonlyhave . . .let'ssee . . .', STAYCALM!'_ . After taking her own advice, she looked around the room for clues to where Toph might be. The window over her bed was open (Which made her wonder why a blind girl would NEED a window.) and it looked like several nearby objects were stacked up against the stone wall that surrounded the estate. Shu locked the door to Toph's room and pushed her bed against it for good measure before climbing out the window and following the path Toph had presumably taken. The stack of boxes atop a large barrel may have suited Toph well, but for Shu it forced everything above her hips over the wall. Beyond the wall, the city of Gaoling ended, and endless hills blotted out the horizon, blanketed in tall grass and dotted with only enough trees to loosely be called a forest. Shu took a deep breath in before climbing fully over the wall, "Dammit, she could be anywhere out here," Shu hissed before glancing back towards the Estate, "The things I have to do for money and revenge!"


End file.
