The Sword Slave
an excerpt

"The northern district of Bahsvel is not where the real wealth of the city is to be found," stated Martrios quietly, "that is more in the hands of the Tradelords in the east of the city. However, in the north is where much of the old money resides."

The rest of the group, with the possible exception of Zoon who still hadn't raised his head from his hands, smiled. 'Old money' was practically synonymous with 'poorly guarded' in their line of business. In any event, crossing the Tradelords was usually more trouble than it was worth. They valued their money above all things, including their pride and dignity. As such they would not cover up an embarrassing robbery the way a member of the nobility might, but would hire all manner of unpleasant types to track and punish the offenders. Not to say that Martrios and his troupe had never hit such men before. But a job such as that generally required a great deal more care and planning. By and large nobody in the group was displeased to hear that this time the target was not a Tradelord.

"Now one of the Bloodlords of this fine city is a man by the name of Alberh Trosh. As you might guess from the fact he is a Bloodlord, the Trosh family has a long and illustrious history within the city. They list among their ancestors some of Bahsvel's founding fathers, a great many of her generals and other leaders, and on one brief but remarkable occasion, one of her Overlords."

"Now, the current Bloodlord Trosh, has amongst other things a bit of a penchant for magical knick knacks. Although the Trosh family has no Talent and has never produced a mage in all of their long history, our Bloodlord fancies himself a bit of a dabbler in the arcane. Obviously he can't learn to shape the arcane himself, so he collects enchanted artifacts that let him mimic such abilities. We are being paid to remove one of said artifacts from his collection and deliver it to a certain gentleman."