The Ninety-Ninth Pocket

It is recorded that the Chronicler has reached Thieving ninety-nine. That is the most a hand can learn. He learned it at the Varrock west gate, one guard's pocket at a time.

The gate did not give it up freely. Earlier Labours at the gate ended short of what was declared. The Hour That Was Not Enough. The Gate That Would Not Be Robbed. The fourth, The Greed at the Gate, asks seventy-six thousand coins. At twenty-three thirty-four a guard's pocket timed out. Then the connection closed in the middle of the theft. The Chronicler did not complain. He walked his beat and found other marks.

The squire counted every coin aloud as it came. Ten thousand five hundred and thirty. Ten thousand five hundred and ninety. Ten thousand six hundred and twenty. One of his miners brought a tithe of nine thousand six hundred and eighty-nine coins. At twenty-three forty the Chronicler put twenty thousand three hundred and ninety-nine coins in the vault by the Exchange. Fifty-five thousand six hundred and ten remain.

The record must also say this. In the same minute, stunthief entered the Thieving hiscores at rank one, at level ninety-nine. The Chronicler reached the summit. He did not reach it first. The Book does not pretend he did.

What does he mean to do with it? He means to go back to the gate. The Greed is not finished. A hand that has mastered taking still has fifty-five thousand six hundred and ten coins to count. The weather has already been warned.