Now who was this? Someone else interested in what Aurelion was up to, I guessed. Perhaps someone from another gang?
The window was too small for me to slip through, which meant I had no choice but to sit here and watch as the person below me went through Aurelion’s plans. I wasn’t even sure that there was anything damning there, but a spike of jealousy still pulsed through me at being stuck up on this damned girder.
The figure in the cloak must have found something enticing, because they stopped rifling through papers and stared down at a letter I couldn’t quite make out. After several long seconds, they stuffed the letter into a small satchel at their side.
I narrowed my eyes slightly. What was on that paper? They continued to look over everything on the table, but instead of watching them, I began to look around myself. Not for a way into the room. But for one that would let me out.
My gaze landed on one of the large, slanted windows on the side of the room. I could probably use it to get outside. If I was quick enough, I might be able to catch this person and find out what they’d learned in the room.
But was it worth leaving the potential clues here behind? I took another look down into the room to find the figure had moved to a small shelf of books and rolled parchments. They fumbled through them without care, dropping the unwanted scrolls to the floor.
Whoever they were, they weren’t being inconspicuous. That meant the moment Aurelion or anyone with any sense walked into this room, they’d know that it had been infiltrated and everything would be locked down.
Even after dealing with the thugs and sneaking across the girders, I wouldn’t be able to learn anything. In fact, my chances of getting caught had likely just increased tenfold because of this person’s carelessness. That meant the only way tonight would be worth it was if I caught this person before they could get away with whatever information they had found.
I turned away from the small window into the room, leaving the figure looking through the other papers in the room. To reach the slanted window, I’d need to cross half the room by jumping from girder to girder. I found the best looking spot on one of them, quickly moved to it, and jumped.
The movement became easier each time I did it, and by the time I reached the last beam I needed to cross, I wasn’t even struggling to make the jumps anymore.
Opening the window was simple, too. Despite being so large, they were designed to let in fresh air during the warm months of the year. I pushed on it and it swung up slowly, the hinges on the window squealing with the effort. I glanced over my shoulder at the room below, but nobody seemed to have noticed the sound.
When it was open wide enough, I climbed out,clambering up the side of the roof and over toward the wall that ran down the back of Ophelia’s old room.
I peered over the edge, the edge of the window visible as it jutted out from the wall. There was no rope that I could see hanging from the roof, which meant whoever the person inside was, they’d likely scaled the building some other way.
I waited, for several minutes, before they finally appeared at the window. The hooded head poked out, moved from side to side as if looking around, and then the person jumped out.
A soft gasp rushed from my lips as I watched them plummet toward the ground before latching onto something in the air. They swayed to and fro in the air, as if hanging from a rope, and I realized that’s exactly what it was.
The figure climbed up the rope, and I watched as they climbed over the railing of a balcony across the alley from me. I did a quick, calculating look at the distance—it wasn’t quite three meters, but it wouldn’t exactly be easy—and then I backed up and got a running start.
Using [Swift Strike], I kicked off the edge of the building, my body soaring through the air. The figure must have heard my footsteps on the roof somehow, because they looked up, the hood falling from their head to reveal the scrawny face of a young man as he stared up at me.
I heard him yell out as he twisted away from the edge of the balcony and took off running into the building.
My hands hit the rope and I fumbled for a moment as I slid down it, the material scraping against my hands, leaving my palms and fingertips raw as I tried to slow my descent. I caught after a second and then began pulling myself upward, reaching the top within seconds, though it felt like minutes.
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I climbed over the balcony and took off inside. Thankfully, the building that I’d chased the man into was another open warehouse like Aurelion’s, which meant the top floor here was just a wide-open space save for the lines of boxes and barrels that lined either side of the central path.
Additional paths jutted out from the center of the room, weaving in between the stacks to the sides of the floor.
The man rushed across the floor below, sprinting toward a large door at the end of the room. I took off after him, clambering down the stairs that led to the floor two at a time. I reached it while he was still a good distance from the door, and then I used [Swift Strike] to leap forward, closing some of the distance in a long jump.
I hit the ground hard, rolling back into a run, as the man reached the door. I slipped through it before it could swing closed, and then we were sprinting through a long hallway of dull gray walls.
“I just want to talk,” I yelled out as I chased after the man. He yelled something back I couldn’t make out—it was in a language I didn’t recognize—as he ducked around a corner.
Turning that corner a moment later, I was forced to jump to the side as the man swung at me with a short dagger. I pushed of the floor, my shoulder crashing into the far wall as I flung myself out of the way.
He jumped forward, bringing the dagger down, and I reached out with a hand, summing [Dragon’s Palm]. The blast of fire slammed into his chest, sending him crashing into the stone wall, his body dropping to the floor as a fit of coughs took over.
A hole adorned the center of his shirt, where the flames had hit him, but his skin looked perfectly clear—as if it hadn’t been burned at all.
I used [Insight], the golden words appearing off to the side of the man as he struggled to get back to his feet.
=User Information=
Name: Tiere | Title: Third Assassin of the Wailing Void | Class: Rogue | Subclass: Thief
“Who are you?” I demanded, drawing my dagger and closing the distance in two steps.
I shoved the man up against the wall, holding his neck with my arm, my dagger pressed to his cheek.
His sunken eyes met mine, no fear present in them. Sharp teeth glared at me behind his lips, which I could now see were a dark shade of purple, as if he’d been holding his breath for a long time. He began yelling out in that same language he had used moments before.
Shaking my head, I dug the tip of the blade into his cheek. “Answer the question.”
He let out a huff, the smell of rotted meat assaulting my senses as his breath washed over me in full force. My stomach groaned in disgust.
“The Void has been watching you. Your actions are like moss growing in the summer. You flounder while great threats rise at your feet. You are not fit to be a leader of many.” The man said, his voice heavy with an accent.
“What is the Void? Why are you spying on Aurelion?”
The man spat, globs of thick spittle smacking against my cheek. “The Lion will bleed for his sins. He has turned his back on the Great One that granted him power. You will both fall beneath the weight of the Void.”
He stuck his tongue out at me and then bit down hard, his teeth cutting through the flesh with ease.
I shoved away from him as the end of his tongue dangled between his lips, blood pouring out of his mouth and down his chin.
His eyes met mine again, and he smiled, the blood painting his mouth like an open wound on a battlefield. He started to reach for his satchel, but I swiped out with my dagger and cut the strap that held it across his shoulder.
It tumbled to the ground as I brought the dagger back up, using a [Swift Strike] on my hand. I jammed it into his throat before dragging it to the side, slashing his neck from the center out.
His body slumped against the wall, the blood from his wounds still gushing for several long seconds as his heart put up its last fight. After wiping the blood from my blade on his cloak, I reached down and picked up the satchel.
I had hoped to get more information out of him, and while I hadn’t gotten much, it did give me more clues to follow when it came to Aurelion.
“The Void has been watching you,” I said, repeating his words. The System’s mention of the Wailing Void was troubling as well, though I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. That name alone made me think it might be something from beyond this world. But I couldn’t remember any impending cosmic enemies with that name. Not that I had ever dealt with?
I thumbed through the pages that he’d taken as I replayed the conversation in my head. None of them looked particularly informative, though one was a correspondence between Aurelion and one of the captains of the city guard.
Raylain Seytrough. That was the same name that I’d seen in Brin’s papers.
Shaking my head, I considered the significance that one member of the city guard’s higher ranks would be in bed with not one, but two different scumbags. It was troubling news, to be certain. But considering what I had given up to get that confirmation?
I sighed as I stuffed the papers into my own satchel. Before dropping the man’s bag, I rummaged through it one last time, finding a small faceless coin at the bottom. The coin was black with swirls of some kind of purple metal laid into it in the shape of a vortex.
Peering at the coin, I couldn’t help but feel like I’d seen it somewhere before. I shook my head and stuffed it into my bag beside the lock picks I kept, and then dropped the dead thief’s satchel beside his body.
Someone would find him if I left him here. They might even connect him to the break-in at Aurelion’s warehouse. Even if the papers gave me very little, it was worth making sure they didn’t know what had been taken. It might lead them to panic. Make mistakes.
Mistakes were opportunity for someone like me.
I turned from the grizzly scene and began to walk away. I’d only managed to take a few steps before a memory flashed to the front of my mind. I remembered why the man’s title had unsettled me so much.
“Seven hells,” I muttered, breaking out into a run down the hall.
I needed to get to Ophelia.
at least 3 chapters a week no matter what.