Sicarius watched over the warehouse with the patient stillness of a hunting spider.
High above Braxtown’s industrial district, perched on the rusted support beam of an old crane, the rogue blended into the shadows so thoroughly that even the pigeons didn’t notice her.
Her breath was quiet.
Her heartbeat steady.
Her knives, three visible, an untold number hidden, rested exactly where they belonged.
Her quarry finally stepped out of the main doors.
Emil Braxtown.
The eldest son of the Braxtown line.
Grandson of the town’s founder.
Disappointment to half the Guild’s administrative branches.
And, according to the brief she’d received, a man who had smuggled a defective concentrator out of its disposal cycle.
She tapped her wrist once, whispering to the thin silver bracelet wrapped around it.
“Target movement confirmed,” Sica murmured. “Beginning tail.”
A soft vibration against her skin signaled acknowledgement.
Observe and report.
No interference.
No contact.
No engagement unless formal escalation was authorized.
These were familiar restrictions when the job involved political families.
She shifted forward, letting gravity pull her off the beam.
She dropped three stories in silence, caught a well placed rope, swung once to bleed momentum, then landed softly in the alley behind the warehouse. She moved unnoticed as Emil paused to utilize a puddle to adjust a single rebellious strand of hair before continuing toward the merchant block.
Sica shadowed him at the edge of the crowd.
The brief had been… brief.
As they usually were on such short notice.
Target: Emil Braxtown
Age: Late twenties
Profession: Registered Earth Mage, Factory Tester
Notable incidents:
? Citation and discipline associated with a residential building collapse.
? Minor administrative violations
? Current instance of regulated magical equipment (concentrator) smuggling.
? Object status: unknown
That last couple lines were the reason she had been pulled off a perfectly good bounty gig and handed this assignment.
A stolen concentrator wasn’t just contraband.
It was Guild-regulated contraband.
If powered improperly, linked with something sentient, tampered with by an unlicensed mage, or countless other unsanctioned activities, it could blow a hole through half a district.
Or worse.
So…she followed him.
She watched him walk with the posture of a man carrying guilt in his right pocket and stress in his left.
He visibly winced at every loud noise. She watched the man frantically apologize as a woman bumped into him scrambling over himself and his words.
As he walked, he fidgeted with his clothing, hair, and anything he could get his shaking fingers on.
This was a man holding dangerous secrets.
Sica narrowed her eyes.
Part of her wanted to cut him open and see what spilled out.
But she was a professional.
And professionals followed rules, especially when dealing with the Braxtowns.
She kept ten paces back, far enough to be invisible, but close enough to strike if the order came.
Her wrist rune vibrated once.
A message played ever so softly in her ear.
“Status check, report.”
Sica touched a finger to the rune.
“Target leaving shift as expected,” she whispered. “Behavior, agitated. No contacts. No abnormal magical signature.”
She paused to make sure she her latest words were unheard before continuing.
“No sign of the missing concentrator.”
Another small vibration played to note acknowledgment.
Her orders remained unchanged.
Observe.
Report.
Do not kill the heir without permission.
She sighed internally.
She would have to hold her blade until she was able to report exactly what Emil Braxtown had stolen.
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She did personally wonder what would come from that information and what Emil’s father would authorize in response to any particularly bad news.
Sica continued to follow the anxious man down the street, boots silent on the cobblestone.
Her fingers brushed the hilt of her primary dagger. Recently her most favorite close range implement. The blackened steel felt cold as winter as it leached the life giving heat right out of the environment.
If this turned ugly, she could end him before he blinked.
Rogue assassin- lvl 14.
But for now?
For now, she watched.
Listened.
Waited.
And wondered—
Where was he keeping that device.
…
By the time Emil reached his apartment door, he felt watched.
Not “paranoid from lack of sleep” watched. More like “the hairs on his arms had heard that the queen was in town and wanted to get a better look.” watched.
He unlocked his door, stepped inside, and shut it quickly behind him.
“…Luna?” he whispered.
For a heavy second, there was silence.
Then…
“EMILLLLLL! GUESS WHO HIT LEVEL SEVENNNN!”
He jumped so hard his head smacked the low ceiling of his stairwell walk-up.
“Luna! Indoor voice! Indoor brain voice!”
“I CANNOT BE CONTAINED,” Luna announced proudly. “I HAVE EVOLVED BEYOND THE NEED FOR RESTRAINT!”
A soft chime hit his mind.
Race: Nothing
Class: Concentrator — Lv. 7
Mana: 0 / 70
Regen: 1.05 mana/sec (self)
Abilities:
? Draw (Passive)
? Output (Passive)
? Potent Product (+10% coin strength)
? Mana Efficiency (+50% self regen)
She even sported a new ability on her hitting level 7.
Lucky penny- every 100 coins produced, trigger a chance to upgrade the next coin you create by one coin level. Ex: Stone mana coin→iron mana coin.
Emil stared dumbly.
“You already hit your fourth spike, within two days.”
“Mm-hmm! All by myself!”
A pause.
“Well, with a sizeable startup investment from my extremely handsome and surely divine smelling mana battery. Welcome home!.”
Emil pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I was gone for eight hours.”
“And I used them all to get stronger.”
Luna sounded smug.
“Your absence was noted. Productivity dropped by forty percent. Emotional devastation ensued, but I prevailed.”
Emil set his satchel down, massaging the tension in his shoulder.
“Alright. How close are you to switching from xp to funding our budget?”
“Well….” Luna mused. “I’m about a quarter of the way to level eight, but really the next huge spike won’t be until level 10 so we might as well get started on the piggy bank.
….
“Hold up one second,” Emil said as he settled down into his writing chair. ”We need to make sure we are doing this the most optimally”
“So you are a quarter of the way to level 8” Emil repeated jotting down notes into a notebook. “Quarter-ish,” Luna said breezily. “That new lucky penny ability makes me feel like I’m probably closer than what my xp gauge actually says.”
A soft chiming popped in his mind notifying Emil, on cue, that Luna’s new skill had activated, upgrading her most recently produced stone coin into an iron coin. With her 10% potent product modifier, her xp counter jumped up by 11 before his eyes.
“See what I mean?” Luna said through a metaphysically full mouth.
Emil scratched the back of his head. “Okay. So theoretically… if you printed coins all day and I stayed home to give you mana…” Before Emil was done with his cast off comment, Luna's voice exploded in his mind.
“YES.” Luna sounded downright evangelical. “YES, Emil. Join me in glorious unemployment.”
“Luna, I can’t just quit.”
He stood and began pacing.
“Suspicious activity gets reviewed. People talk. My father checks the company logs. If I suddenly stop showing up…”
Luna groaned. “Ugh. Guilds. Rules. Jobs. Rent. The shackles of a fleshy mortal existence.”
“Speaking of,” Emil said, “we need to calculate a budget.”
“Gross.”
“Rent is due at the end of the week,” Emil continued, ignoring her. “And food costs—”
“FOOD,” Luna repeated, offended. “Food?! We could be reinvesting that mana into the business!”
“I need to eat.”
“Do you really though?” She questioned with mock seriousness. “It used to be that humans could last about 3 weeks without food, much longer with minimal meals of bread or restaurant dumpster scraps.”
“I’m not doing that Luna.”
“Oh my god, Emil,” Luna said, exasperated. “You are dragging down our rocketship to success.”
“…what is a rocketship?”
“It’s our ticket out of here!” she exclaimed. “And it goes very fast and does not stop for breakfast.”
Emil rubbed his temples. “Luna, if I stay home every day, someone will notice. Foreman Kell will notice. My dad will notice. And he already… well. Suspects something.” Emil still felt watched, even in the thickly curtained second floor of the tavern.
“What’s the worst that can happen?” Luna asked lightly.
Emil didn’t answer.
He didn’t have to.
Because the worst case scenario wasn’t being fired, fined, or reprimanded.
It was that the Guild, or worse, his father, decided that whatever Emil had done was dangerous enough to warrant swift and decisive intervention.”
Emil, and along with him, Luna would not survive the proceedings.
Luna sensed the shift in his thoughts and quieted.
“…Okay,” she said softer. “So you keep going to work like a good and not suspicious employee. Boooooo, but I get it...”
Emil let out a long breath of relief.
“And I stay home printing money either to hit level 8 or stop now at level 7 to focus on growing our freedom fund.” Luna decided. “Did you get the optimal numbers yet? You’re so distractible.”
Emil turned back to his notebook and continued the family budget, including meals.
…
While the two figured out their next moves, neither had noticed the faintest flicker of shadow move across the small gap between fabric and living room window frame.
Outside, two buildings over, perched on a chimney an assassin playing private eye loomed.
Sica remained statue still as she took in the scene before her. Not that anyone below level 20 would be able to see through her abilities anyway, but she wasn’t about to neglect her physical stealth training without a good reason.
She inched her runes wrist band towards her face over the course of the next minute:
“Target home. Unaccompanied. Continued erratic behavior”
A pause.
The rune vibrated softly, sending the neutral words “Continue surveillance.”
Sica’s eyes narrowed with interest, easily observing the man through the curtained windows and even the thinner walls of his apartment, using her activated sensory enhancing abilities.
She almost shook her head at the outline of the crazed man gesturing and discussing… utility bills? with the inanimate object sat on a table next to him.
