Every now and again, a thief stumbles upon the perfect mark: a player who's gone AFK, and either out of carelessness or haste, has left himself in an extremely unsafe position. Tonight I encountered "Back to Basics" in just this situation... Not once, but twice.
This spot just underneath the lamp has long been a favorite of mine for perpetrating all sorts of hijinks. It's noteworthy because it's just precisely far enough away from the healer and the inn that the NPCs inside can't see you commit a criminal act. It also offers a large and typically vacant space to the left, cutting down on the number of potential witnesses. In particular, you can stand here hidden and attack people who come past (they hardly ever call the guards; instead, they run around like headless chickens, trying to divine the source of the threat. But that's another story.).
Here stands Back to Basics, with a full load of regs and some gold to top it off. This, in and of itself, is remarkable because earlier in the evening I'd encountered Back to Basics at a different location:
I stole from him a few times where I'm standing in the blue shirt, but didn't document the process as it was just another mark at the time. Once again the spot is just far enough away from the surrounding NPCs (bankers and tinkers) so as to be out of their line of sight. It's almost like Back to Basics was choosing these places intentionally.
Anyway, back to to the second crime scene. First I went for his pearls, it took a few cycles but I managed to get all 200+ without being guardwhacked or attacked by passers-by. To bide my time waiting to turn blue, I popped all of his para pouches. He didn't flinch, so I figured I'd be able to get a few more yoinks in before he came back.
Now free from the burden of 200+ ginseng, his bag is starting to look much lighter. |
Hey, I used to have some gold in here! |
At this point I was actually getting a little annoyed that I'd managed to make 15 or so distinct steal-bank-repeat cycles and no one had batted an eye. I wondered if anyone was paying attention. People had walked by and seen me gray several times, but no one had done anything, so I decided to start a fight.
What's a nigga gotta do to get noto-PK'd around here? I brought two AFKers within inches of death using my 7.4 base / 0.0 real wrestling skill. I was flagged for a good 5 minutes doing this, and nobody cared.
Finally it was time to call it a night. All in all I'd spent more than an hour stealing from Back to Basics. I cleaned out all of his regs except for the garlic and silk (200+ of the others, and some of those) and I'd also made off with his 700 gold. The best loot, though, was Back to Basics' pride. I'm sure whenever he finally got back to the keyboard he would have loved to know where his regs, money, and health had gone.
