"And I'm saying it can't be done!" The current object of my attentions snapped. Not at me, thankfully. I was sitting at a table in a tavern with a pair of bickering women. The one sitting in my lap was the only one who really held my interest. I'd lost her name somewhere at the bottom of the first bottle of plum brandy, but that didn't bother me. What was important to me right at that moment was that she had the most amazing tits. I was a simple man, then. Nice tits, nice ass, pretty smile, red gold in my pocket and good wine. That was all it took to make me happy. And let me tell you, that night, I was really happy. I had plenty of the last two, thanks to a very profitable heist back in Tarsis. But things had gotten a little too warm for me back in my home town, so I decided to come to Arraki for a spell. For my health, you understand. Which was how I found myself in a tavern in the Thieves Quarter that night. With her.

Now that I look back on it, I honestly don't remember just where she came from. It was like she was just... there, cooing over the tales of my recent exploits and paying me just the right kind of attention. She was a short, buxom blonde with gorgeous blue eyes, and she'd giggled when I'd first pulled her into my lap and told her that she was conveniently pocket-sized. After the first night with her, I wondered if all the whores in Arraki were that pretty and that pliable. After the second night, I stopped wondering about anyone else—female or male—entirely.

"What can't be done, Darlin'?" I asked, tightening my arm around her waist and glancing over at the woman across from us at the table. That one was dark, and she had a hard, rangy look that told me that she was in my line of work. She was young, though. No older than seventeen, I guessed. Old enough to know how to survive on the streets, but too young to have made her name.

"Lace is going to try to break into Kai's Temple," my lovely companion told me. "And it cannot be done!"

Now, telling me that someplace can't be broken into was like telling a devotee of the God of Lust that a woman was virtuous. All that does is give us something that needs to be proven wrong. I picked up my glass and took another sip of plum brandy. "And Kai is...?"

"Kai the Formless," the lady in my lap answered. "The Arraki patron God of Thieves. The Temple is sealed to everyone. I've heard that there is supposed to be a cloistered priestess, but no one knows for sure, because no one ever goes in there."

"I've also heard that the mosaics on the interior walls are made with gemstones, and everything in there is...

Fools Rush In