Written in The Stars

The Second Scroll: Eugene

Eugene was used to spending the night outside and eating fried rats for lunch – he had often had to wander for the last five years. While he always tried to send his companions to flophouses, he himself had to go out into the night to get a couple of gold coins or something that could be sold to the nearest caravan. Yes, he stole and was not at all ashamed of it – he always did all this for the sake of Lydia's well-being. He was very young himself when their parents died and the house was treacherously taken away. He had to take responsibility for his little sister, and together with his best friend Marcel and the boy from the orphanage, Pete, they set off on a journey.

Eugene could have gone the right way. To learn and do something worthwhile. But stealing was much easier for him, and besides, because of that, he had much more. When he met the guys, Nestor was not thrilled with how they earned their living, but when he saw Lydia, he was so enamored with her that he forgot about everything in the world. Eugene understood him perfectly – he doted on his sister, although from the outside, perhaps, it was not always noticeable. He constantly left her with his strongest and bravest comrade, Marcel. That's why, when the girl wanted to go to the school of witchcraft on her own, the guy was seriously scared. He, Marcel, and Nestor had indeed taught her everything they knew, but even that didn't seem enough to Eugene. His sister was able to keep out of sight of others thanks to his lessons, but somehow it still didn't calm him down. He was unable to accept the inevitable – she had already grown up and no longer needed his protection.

Lyre never stole from ordinary hard workers. His choice always fell either on bandits and robbers – which was extremely dangerous and disapproved of by all his relatives – or on wealthy peasants who did not even notice the loss of another golden candlestick. Eugene was adept at picking locks of any complexity, and his footsteps were so silent that no one would have heard them even if they had stood right next to him. Someone might say that he has a real gift, but is it possible to call something like this a gift? Aren't gifts given to us to help others? Maybe it was a completely different case.

The guy set up a camp in the middle of the forest, which he usually did not do – with only a couple of small daggers in his armament, he would not be able to deal with the wild animals attacking him. And yet, right now, he cared much less about it than the treasures he could get his hands on. A couple of days before, lyre had found a small crumpled piece of parchment with a map drawn on it. It didn't say what awaited the lucky man who found the treasure, but Eugene hoped very much that it was something worthwhile. Anyway, the place marked on the map was already very close to him – in a small cave. He decided to rest and have a snack after a long road and only then make the last dash. Fortunately, he managed to catch a few small fish in the river nearby – these were the ones he was roasting on the campfire.

There was some scuffling in the trees nearby, which made the guy even manage to tense up, but it turned out to be just a harmless hare. Lyre even regretted that he had not tried to catch it and dine on it instead of fish. However, it was a happy moment for the hare. The wind whistled and ruffled the crowns of the trees, caressing Eugene's face as he hastily ate his food. He always tried to do everything as quickly as possible, if it wasn't about thefts – there he had to work calmly and unhurriedly. And he always succeeded with such overwhelming success that his friends kept egging him on, saying that he could run an entire gang.

Having assembled the tent and put out the fire, the guy went straight to the designated place – the rocky descent slightly hid the entrance to the cave, which is why Eugene had a hope in his head that no one had wandered there completely randomly and had not stolen his reward. He lit a torch and wandered along the only paved path that was there. Occasionally, he heard the sounds of rats scurrying back and forth and dripping water - somewhere not far above him, a river was just flowing. He walked confidently and stood firmly on his feet.