Cipher

In the fallen city of bandits, Dolos, the 300 Rogues run wild and free.
Race onward, fleet-footed Thief Star Cifera, Chrysos Heir of the "Trickery" Coreflame. May your web of lies spread with the breeze throughout all lands.
—"Tryna trick me? Not a chance!"

"At the end of the Month of Weaving, bread, a bag of dried fruit, and numerous candles were stolen from the temple.
Though the value of the items may be trivial, sacrilege and disorder both merit severe punishment.
The suspect is gray-haired, cat-eared, slight build. Considered agile and cunning. Exercise caution.
A bounty is set: 5,000 for leads. 10,000 if captured alive."

—A wanted poster in Dolos

"Catch her, catch her!"
The square was lined with cells, reeking of raw sewage and echoing with whips and wails.
A girl in tattered rags sprinted through the crowded streets, trailing golden blood in her wake.

She raced past the platform, where a potbellied priest was delivering a sermon to the city's gathered faithful.
"By Kephale's grace, let us praise and give thanks for this beautiful world..."

"Integrity, honesty, mercy..."
"—Let us water our souls with virtue, and use love to temper tragedy..."
Just as the girl glanced back, the snarling hounds pursuing her lunged, carving three fresh gashes on her face.

"Treasure and wealth mean naught to Titans, yet they prove your devotion..."
Amid cheers, silks, delicacies, and jewels rained onto the platform, forming a small mountain.

"Shun the Chrysos Heirs' raving lies. Have faith in Kephale. So long as we pray earnestly, the god shall deliver salvation..."
She pushed her way through the crowd, losing the bread in her hand somewhere along the way.
Desperately, she looked around, only to find condescending faces staring down at her, surging toward her like a restless tide.

Her knees went weak as mocking glances and threatening smiles blurred before her eyes.
But the distant voices had already burrowed into her ears, and she couldn't stop.
"Thief!"
"Criminal!"
"Wretch!"

Closing her eyes, she plunged from that three-hundred-meter-high wall.
"So... hungry..."
Icy waters swallowed her consciousness.
And so, she claimed her first pyrrhic victory in a race with her life on the line.

Exiled to the holy city of dawn, she witnessed how the legends of the Chrysos Heirs surged through the streets. Yet when she saw its squalid alleys and filthy, cramped corners, she found the place no different from Dolos.

"Hmph! What Flame-Chase? What heroes? If my experience isn't wrong, I smell shady schemes afoot!"
Deeming the Chrysos Heirs glory-hungry frauds, she targeted a certain golden weaving workshop.
"Honey brew? A chessboard... and a weird lyre? These have got to be stolen..."
She guzzled the honey brew, devoured the dolmadakia, and toyed with the crystal chess pieces.
"Heh, even the floor's spinning..."

When she awoke from her drunken stupor, she found a perfumed letter in her hand.
Hair standing on end, she threw off the blanket and fled to her shadowy den.

"Little Glutton:
Did you enjoy your fun? You treated the weaving hall like your personal playground.
You tasted the honey brew, but couldn't handle it. The chessboard's a complete mess, and you didn't even spare the old lyre.

But remember this: Always drink honey brew to the last drop, and no situation in this world is beyond salvation.
I know you possess great skill, so fix the lyre you damaged. You're lucky a certain knight commander wasn't there, or she surely would've pinned your tail to the floor with her sword."

Clutching the confidential letter, the girl felt a vague, indescribable emotion rising within her for the first time.
"Big city folks... they sure got a lot of tricks, huh?"

The stray cat waited day after day for a harsh reckoning, yet she wasn't held to account.
So, she would whistle, tossing a coin in the air, and time and time again "accidentally" stop in front of the weaving workshop.
"Ciphy, if there's anything you want to eat, just tell us!" The red-haired girls would always have a heap of food at the ready.
While following the weaver at work, she often heard the stories of those heroes.

"For those with golden blood, losses are a constant on the Flame-Chase journey... and even life itself holds little value."
The weavers spoke of the violin's final wail, the chess pieces that fell in a doomed game, the shattered pathways splitting into a thousand fragments...
"...And what's that have to do with me? I just want a full belly."
She muttered, curling her fingers. A tiny bead of golden blood welled up from her pricked fingertip.

That night, she silently slipped out of the weaving shop once again.
"It's okay. Run, Cifera.
Only you know where your path ends..."
Under the moonlight, her figure vanished from sight, leaving nothing in the room but the weaver's murmured words.

"Zagreus, god of trickery of old:

Stealing treasures, sowing discord among the gods, stirring up conflict...
Your stale ploys weary us.
This next Spirit Day, the 300 Rogues will stage their most spectacular performance in Amphoreus yet.

The world will be ours, craven god!
Watch us turn it upside down!"
A proclamation adorned with a cat's paw prints, scattered across the city-states of Amphoreus.

"North from Okhema, across the snow-covered mountains, lies Aenionus.
There, I secretly changed two characters on the Granite Code, winning a rogue's indenture in a trial of life and death.
In bays of the south, I snuck aboard a moored ship and dueled a rogue in the middle of a storm, and I hate water most of all!
Then guess what? In a stroke of genius, I whipped out my Pulleroo and took his sword away!
And there's more — under the blazing desert sun, I competed with outlaws to see who could last the longest without water, and in the dense jungle, I raced against hunters... until all 300 Rogues were in place..."

The girl in golden boots spoke animatedly about her journey.
"Next, it's time for every tyrant, parasite, and slaver in all of Amphoreus to witness the power of the so-called wretches they despise!"

She recalled how the moment the Coin of Whimsy fell, three hundred Thief Stars streaked across the sky, descending upon the lands of Amphoreus.
Lofty tyrants tumbled from their thrones, whip-wielding slavers fled in disgrace, torrents of gold vanished into thin air, only to rain down from the heavens upon the starving and the shivering...

During that grand spectacle, Zagreus could not resist the temptation and revealed themselves, falling right into the Chrysos Heirs' ambush.
The blazing Coreflame, at last, fell silent within the vortex's core.
In the city of Okhema, whispers began to spread of a demigod swift as a shadow, a guardian of vagrants, a scourge to the wicked —

"All I can do, is run!"

"To all priests, high priests, and acolytes of the city-states, to the faithful beneath the radiance of the Throne of Worlds, and to all sentient beings:

Since the passing of our High Priest, the Gem of All Worlds has gone missing.
Upon investigation, no signs of forced entry or damage were found at the scene. After its theft, multiple reports claim to have seen the gem enter the black market, where it was exchanged for a vast sum of Balance Coins.
Anyone providing useful information will receive a reward of 5,000 Balance Coins. The one who captures the culprit will receive a reward of 100,000 Balance Coins."

— A faded, yellowing proclamation from the Council of Elders.
"Wow, all this time, and this thing's still up...?"

She remembered the day the bounty was posted, the moment she had no choice but to say goodbye.
She couldn't meet the weaver's eyes and could only turn away, hastily turning tail and fleeing Okhema.

Centuries later, new heroes flocked here from across Amphoreus. Her hood drawn low, she gazed at the old marketplace from afar, but few familiar faces remained.
"A new flavor of pickled candies?"
Crumpling the wrapper, she casually flicked it toward the flowerbed.
"Glass marbles! Haven't played with these in ages!"
She weighed one in her hand, aiming as she mimed tossing it into the water.
...
Moments later, figures dressed as assassins tumbled down one after another from the flowerbed, the water, the trees—
And yet farther ahead, the young hero stood bathed in light, returning in triumph.

She watched from the shadows until the golden thread beside her trembled.
"Seamstress, all these years, and your golden threads are sharp as ever. If I don't wanna get caught, I'd better get going!"

She stretched lazily, crouching slightly as the wind swept past, heavy with the scent of the wilds.

Once more, a golden streak of lightning tore from Okhema toward the eternal night.
In the howling wind, she felt as if she had returned to her childhood, to those countless races where her life itself was on the line.
"Run, Cifera...
Only you know where your path ends...
And one day, you'll be able to sprint into that splendid future..."

In the instant the lightning split the night, it was as if she had already illuminated the entire world.