The Shady Adventures of Fabian

Preface

Hey there and thanks for checking out The Shady Adventures of Fabian.  This is my third book, but don't worry, you don't have to read the other two to enjoy this one as it is its own thing.  You can just jump right in and you'll be fine, unless you're completely confused by fantasy, in which case you might have a problem.

I try to read a lot of stuff in different genres, but I do enjoy a good fantasy story.  It's such a big genre that you would probably have to spend all your time reading nothing but fantasy to have a thorough knowledge of it, but I've hit a lot of the "big" ones over the years.  Back in the day I used to enjoy playing fantasy-based computer role playing games.  I even dabbled a little in Dungeons & Dragons with my super cool friends back when I was a kid.  It was pretty fun and nothing beats staying up all night eating tons of junk food and drinking gallons of soda when you're twelve years old or thereabouts.  Heck, it would probably still be fun to do that if I could find anyone my age who wanted to.  Adults are lame.  

Anyway, I always thought it was kind of weird and interesting that among the various classes of characters that are present in fantasy and role playing games, such as fighters and magic users and whatnot, it's widely accepted that you could be a thief.  Just openly out there, like "Hey everyone I'm a thief."  It's a legitimate job.  Obviously thieves are a real phenomenon that exists in our world, whereas wizards sadly are not.  There are thieves everywhere, but for the most part they kind of keep that on the down low.  But in the fantasy realm it seems to be okay to be a thief.  I suspect, like most fantasy tropes, that this kind of stems from Tolkien.  After all, the dwarfs in the Hobbit recruit Bilbo Baggins to be their burglar.  So there you go.  If Tolkien did it, it's pretty much legit, and thieves forever after have been a thing.  They're everywhere in fantasy literature and games.

I remember playing a really fun series of computer games back in the '90's called Quest for Glory.  You could play through the game as a fighter, magic user, or thief.  To win the games you had to do all sorts of noble deeds, like save kingdoms and defeat bad guys, and whatnot.  Generally speaking, you were a pretty good dude.  But if you played as the thief character you did all of these things, but you were also encouraged to do some pretty sketchy stuff, like break into people's houses and steal things.  It wasn't even always jerks that you stole from.  I seem to recall a sequence where you robbed a sweet little old lady blind.  Then you turned around and rescued a princess or stopped an evil mage.  It struck me that there was some kind of odd disconnect here.  

After all, what kind of person decides to just openly be a thief? Can a thief be a good person?  At the very least, aren't we looking at some sort of ethical grey area here?  Honestly, if you were a member of a party of adventurers, would you really trust the thief to stand watch?  I mean, here's somebody who openly advertises the fact that they're going to steal from you.  And yet, these thieves must have some inclinations for doing good or at least going on awesome adventures, because they join up with hero types to go on quests.  

I'll admit, I've always been kind of drawn towards the thief characters.  Not due to any desire to be one.  My criminal history pretty much begins and ends with the time I got caught shoplifting when I was fourteen years old.  That more or less scared me straight and put me on the straight and narrow.  But I do think thieves make an interesting psychological study.  And really, are they afforded the same amount of respect as fighters or mages?  Or is it kind of secretly shameful to be a thief?

These are the questions I was asking myself when I invented Fabian, who you will come to learn about in the following pages.  He would like to be thought of by others as a noble hero and adventurer, but the fact is he's a thief through and through.  As such, he's prone to doing many selfish and downright kind of not cool things.  It was an interesting challenge.  I don't think Fabian's a very good person.  In fact, I'm pretty sure he's a terrible human being.  He lies, cheats, and steals at pretty much every opportunity.  He puts his own interests above others at all times.  He's honestly kind of a dick.  I wondered if I could like this guy in spite of the horrible things he often does.  I'm not really sure, but I was pretty confident I could at least be entertained by his antics.  I hope you will be, too.