June 1610 cloaked Surat in a velvet night, the stars above dimmed by the city's pulse and the sea's restless murmur. Jai Vora, nine years old but a titan of strategy, led his ten followers—Vikram, Ram, Shashi, Kali, Kofi, Amir, Sarita, Ravi, Manoj, and Annu—through the darkened lanes, their hooded forms blending into shadows like specters. Clad in Kofi's leather armor, faces masked, and armed with his finest blades and bows, they moved with lethal grace, driven by a singular purpose: reclaim the stolen recipes, spice mixes, and funds that threatened Vora Trading Company's heart. The Emperor System, Jai's secret AI-spirit guide, pulsed in his mind, its glowing tracker arrow pointing to a warehouse on Surat's fringes. "These thieves aren't your average cutpurses, Jai," it warned, its tone sharp.
Jai's jaw tightened, a thought gnawing like a splinter: If they took out my guards—handpicked for Strength and Endurance—they're no ordinary spies. His mind flashed to Keshav, the furtive worker who'd vanished the day before the heist. Was he the mastermind, a guild pawn, or—worse—an EIC agent? Jai's hatred for the East India Company, a silent ember from his past life as Vihaan Roy, flared, though no evidence yet tied the thieves to those foreign vipers.
The warehouse loomed, a squat silhouette against the moonlit dunes, its walls weathered but guarded with chilling precision. Jai crouched behind a cluster of palms, his team fanning out silently. He pulled a makeshift spyglass from his satchel—a crude but brilliant invention born of his 2025 knowledge. Telescopes, barely conceived in Europe the prior year, were unheard of in Surat, their lenses a distant dream. But Jai, with his understanding of optics, had spent weeks with Kofi shaping glass scraps into convex lenses, fitting them into a bamboo tube sealed with resin. The result was rough, its edges blurring the view, but it magnified enough to reveal details in the dark. "Kofi, you're a genius with tools," Jai had said during its crafting, as they polished glass by lamplight in the blacksmith workshop. "This'll give us eyes where others are blind."
Peering through the spyglass, Jai's breath caught. Eight guards patrolled the warehouse, moving in pairs with military discipline—no slacking, no gaps. Their steps were synchronized, their eyes scanning like hawks. The system pinged, overlaying stats in Jai's vision: Strength 20-30, Agility 22-30, some with Stealth 15-20. Four to five times stronger and faster than common folk, they were a league beyond Jai's fallen guards. "First time seeing rivals with stats like yours, kid," the system quipped. "These aren't guild grunts—they're elite. Plan tight."
Jai's mind spun, but his resolve hardened. He'd prepared for this. For a month, he and Kofi had tinkered in the blacksmith shop, blending his future knowledge with Kofi's craft. One invention stood out: the smoke arrow. Inspired by chemical tricks from Vihaan's era, Jai had mixed soot—fine carbon from charred wood—with ash and oils, creating a solid that burst into a thick, irritating cloud on impact. "Too much, and it chokes everyone; too little, it's useless," Jai had mused, testing pouches in a secluded plot. Kofi, his Blacksmithing skill a forge of precision, crafted arrowheads with thin clay casings to hold the mixture, shattering on contact to release a localized haze. The smoke stung eyes and lungs, incapacitating targets without killing, dissipating in minutes. "Enough to blind and cough, not to bury us," Jai had said, grinning as a test arrow left Kofi wheezing but unharmed.
Jai signaled his team, their hooded forms crouching low. "Aim for their shoulders—smoke arrows. Incapacitate, don't kill. We've got 20 minutes before their rotation." The guards patrolled in pairs, shifting every 20 minutes, leaving a window to strike silently. Jai divided his followers: Vikram, Ram, Shashi, and Kali took the north and east; Amir, Ravi, and Manoj the south; Sarita, Annu, and Kofi the west. Each carried Kofi's bows, strung tight, and quivers of smoke arrows.
The first strike was surgical. At the back entrance, two guards stood, their Agility betraying no weakness. Vikram and Shashi, their bows steady, loosed arrows. The clay tips shattered on the guards' shoulders, soot clouds erupting in a choking veil. Eyes streaming, lungs burning, the guards crumpled, clutching their faces, arrows lodged but non-lethal. "Down," Vikram whispered, his Strength a quiet promise. The team moved like shadows, striking each pair in turn. Sarita's Perception caught a guard's twitch; her arrow hit true, smoke blooming. Amir's Bladework steadied his aim, felling another pair. Within 15 minutes, all eight guards lay incapacitated, their groans muffled by the night.
Jai lowered his spyglass, heart pounding. The warehouse doors beckoned, the system's tracker pulsing brighter. "Clean work, Jai! Quest progress: Reclaim What Was Stolen, 50% complete. Those recipes and funds are inside—don't choke now." His followers regrouped, their masked faces resolute, weapons gleaming under the moon.