Given the early hour, it was little surprise that the Silken Web was mostly empty when Allana walked in, a couple days after Olivia had given her the warden reports. The Web failed to pass muster as a “tavern,” much less an “inn,” but the bar reminded Allana of Emeston. The shady, crooked wooden building looked suspicious from the outside and only got more intimidating on the inside–but Allana was an old hand at dealing with foreboding businesses and was unfazed by the atmosphere.

  This was the place Spider had taken her the day they first met, and it was one of the few sanctums left to the Thieves Guild. As such, while it was far from bustling in the daylight hours, the bar wasn’t quite empty. A girl only a couple years younger than Allana stood up as soon as she entered the Web, approaching her with wary eyes. Allana watched the girl’s movements carefully, spotting the cautious grace belying her gifts. “Who are you?”

  Allana cocked a grin at the girl. “Allana. Spider told me she’d get the word around that I’d be welcomed here.”

  A little bit of tension eased out of her posture, but she turned to a couple of the other boys lounging nearby, getting their attention with a harsh whistle. “Sweep her trail,” she ordered them.

  Allana arched an eyebrow, watching the two boys scramble out the door behind her. “I wasn’t followed.”

  “You’re being chased by Shawe,” the girl said. Allana frowned–that clearly demonstrated just how high this girl must’ve been in Spider’s trust. “There’s no such thing as too much caution with him.”

  Wasn’t that the truth? After a couple days reviewing the things in Shawe’s warden file, Allana probably knew that even better than the girl did.

  “Fair enough. Can you tell Spider I’m here to see them?”

  “Once we know it’s safe,” the girl insisted. Allana got the impression she was enjoying delaying her.

  “Okay…” Allana stretched the word out. “Can I have a drink then… girl?”

  “Ebba.”

  “Sure. Gloam whiskey, neat.”

  Ebba made a rude noise–but before she could say anything else, a voice as toneless and clear as polished glass spoke up.

  “Pour her a nip, Ebba.”

  The girl spun around. “B-boss! You shouldn’t be coming out until we know she wasn’t followed!”

  Spider emerged from a doorway behind the bar, waving a hand. “Allana figured out I was following her. If she says she wasn’t followed, I believe her.”

  Ebba’s face twisted like the words were a lemon rind, but she nodded curtly.

  Allana couldn’t help the little laugh that escaped her mouth, and she put a gentle hand on Ebba’s shoulder.

  The girl spun around with the air of a startled alley cat, but Allana only gave her a reassuring smile. “I appreciate the effort. I know I’m a stranger–but you can trust me.”

  “Sure I can,” the girl said with an eye roll, skulking off.

  Allana watched her go, thoughtful. She understood why Ebba was so defensive–this place was her home, the Guild her family. She couldn’t trust anyone who she felt might put that at risk, and Allana couldn’t really blame her for feeling that way. It wasn’t so long ago she had felt similarly.

  At least Spider had given the girl a place that actually was home. If nothing else, Allana could respect the aged Guildmaster for that.

  Once Allana had her drink, Spider led the way into a back office, a quiet and no-doubt magically-secured room hidden in the basement of the Silken Web.

  “What do you know about fetter?” Allana asked, once they were both sitting.

  The celestial blinked. “I know my people have nothing to do with it, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  Allana gave the older celestial a mirthless chuckle. “I suspected as much.”

  Even in Emeston, fetter had been contraband–although it was all too common, nonetheless. Unprocessed, it looked like pieces of some kind of black, papery bark, but when ground down to a powder and smoked, the drug caused a lasting sense of numbness and contentment–euphoric things to the downtrodden populations of Lowrun. Allana had no real problem with that part of the drug, at least on principle. Though she had little interest in it, she could understand how the effects would be appealing to those who needed an escape from their lives, and it didn’t decay the body the way that excessive alcohol or tobacco would.

  Unfortunately, what it did do, over prolonged exposure, was reduce its users into simple-minded complacency. Long-term fetterhearts lost all drive, all motivation, all personality, just stumbling through their lives until they died. To the lords of Emeston, legitimate and criminal alike, this was an ideal state for the people of Lowrun to be in. Despite that, the drug had remained a rarity even in Emeston, for reasons Allana had only understood after talking to Adeline.

  Now she knew the truth: fetter was a weapon of the Chained World, a corruptive substance created by hag magic.

  “We go out of our way to remove anyone trying to deal the shit,” Spider continued. “I refuse to have it in my neighborhoods.”

  Allana took note of the fierce, almost territorial, pride Spider had in the slums that they and their Guild tried to help.

  “But you can never quite stop it, right?” Allana asked.

  Suspicion creased the corners of Spider’s eyes. “Correct. It’s one of those things we can never quite seem to get rid of.”

  “Fetter’s rare even in Emeston, but for some reason, I’ve noticed that it’s all-too-common here,” Allana commented. “And I’m sure it would be even worse without you and your people curtailing its use.”

  “What’s your point?” Spider asked.

  “What if I told you that Jacob Avery, and his entire damned consortium, are built on the back of the fetter trade?”

  Spider’s eyes widened a hair–one of the most telling reactions Allana had seen from the normally placid celestial. Then their face tightened with thought. Allana stayed quiet and sipped her drink, letting the Guildmaster think it over. Spider’s mind was sharp, there was no doubt about that, and they wouldn’t need much help to see the truth.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  “Shawe,” Spider finally guessed.

  Allana nodded. “A friend helped me get my hands on the warden file for Shawe. A whole lot of petty crimes merited some suspicion, but over half of the investigations that approached him were following up on fetter dealers. Each time, his connections to Jacob Avery got the investigation delayed–and then evidence turned up pointing the wardens at the Thieves Guild instead.”

  “Bastards,” Spider muttered without much heat.

  Allana nodded her agreement. “So here’s the thing, Spider. I’m sick of this crap. I saw too many lives ruined by goldshits and their criminal hands in Emeston to let it go when I see it here too.”

  Spider scoffed. “Jacob Avery is one of the most powerful men in the city, girl. And Shawe is an Adept, and has been his left-hand for some time. You’re not even an Initiate. You really think you can do anything about this?”

  Allana replied with a grim smile. “By myself? No. But I’ve found myself lucky enough to be surrounded by a few very good friends who are willing to help me out. Maybe I can’t take down Avery himself, but I think with them, and your people, we might have a chance of bringing this whole thing crashing down on Shawe’s head, at the very least.”

  Spider eyed Allana in silence for a long minute, then another. Their stare was cool–but it lacked the sheer force of Geoffrey’s. Allana stayed calm, taking a sip of her whiskey in the meantime.

  “I’m not risking the Guild,” Spider finally said.

  “I’m not asking you to.”

  “Then what?”

  “You have two things I need, Spider. The first is information. I’m sure your people could do some fact-finding for me without any undue risk.”

  Spider nodded. “And the second?”

  “It’s possible an illusion or two, in the right place and at the right time, could make all the difference.”

  The edge of Spider’s mouth ticked a hair. On another person, it would’ve looked like a grimace, but on the perpetually still-faced Guildmaster, Allana recognized the smothered smile for what it was. “That shouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility.”

  Allana smiled. A plan had already begun forming in her head, and the involvement of the Thieves Guild was the last major thing she needed to make it work.

  “Alright,” Allana said. “Then the first bit of information I need is a list of Avery Consortium warehouses in the city.”

  #

  Patience, preparation, perception, and performance. Those were the four P’s of any successful assassination, as Geoffrey had taught Allana months before. However, the methodology extended far beyond the murder-for-hire Geoffrey had trained her for. The principles of his brand of killing, with as little evidence and conflict as possible, carried over into all sorts of clandestine endeavors, and Allana couldn’t help but frame her planning around them as she put together her scheme to bring Shawe’s fetter trade down on his head.

  And so, a few days later, Allana perched on a roof, looking down at a large, roomy warehouse with a noticeable lack of business. The Thieves Guild may not have been the power it was years ago, before the wardens began carving their way through its senior membership, but Spider’s band of urchins and orphans knew the streets of Correntry better than anyone else, and they had quickly produced a list of Avery warehouses, complete with some cursory notes.

  This was the third site Allana had checked out, and she was sure it was the one they were looking for. As Spider had reported, it had a significantly larger guard contingent than the others, and investigating it now, Allana was certain that the guards were Blackhawks, rather than direct employees on the Consortium's payroll–a cutout, Allana was certain, to ensure that Avery could wash his hands of the whole business if needed.

  For such a large building, with such a large variety of goods evidently stored inside–Ebba had accounted for wagons from three different companies dropping goods there–very little went out. Allana was certain there was some sort of hidden entrance–likely a tunnel from another nearby building, if she had to guess–that Shawe distributed the fetter itself through, with all of these other goods merely acting as a cover for the warehouse.

  Allana circled the rooftops around the warehouse with a certain amount of caution. Twilight was settling over Correntry, and while Allana didn’t have the gift of stealth to veil her reconnaissance anymore, the beautiful mix of purples and oranges in the sky provided a believable level of camouflage on its own, enough so that Allana didn’t feel the need to hide herself all that well.

  The building was well secured. There were only two normal doors, each covered by two guards that rotated every hour, and no windows. Another handful of guards patrolled the area in pairs, their routes designed to ensure two guards were always nearby even as they tried to hide that their interest lay in the warehouse specifically. There was a large loading door, but it seemed to be securely chained from the inside, and there would be no stealthy way to open the heavy gate.

  At a glance, Allana wasn’t sure how she’d go about breaking in, or if it was even possible without enough power to just kill all the guards. But that was fine, since Allana had no reason to actually try to get into the warehouse. She just needed to–

  A whistle was the only warning she got, and even prepared for it, she was still nearly taken by surprise when Shawe struck. She dodged his grab only by throwing herself to one side, then using Trick Step to move behind the black-clothed mercenary as he turned on her, giving her the time to get up.

  Compared to the dark alley they met in and the rooftop chase that had ensued, this was Allana’s first real chance to see the man she was dealing with. He had a strong-boned face that bordered on handsome, but it had been aged and weathered, like a statue left outside for too long, giving him an air of something once of worth that had been wasted away.

  Then the mercenary threw his knife at Allana’s head, and she had no more time to study her enemy.

  Spider had been right when she called Shawe an Adept, there was no doubt about that, but his higher-leveled attributes were the only advantage he had against Allana. Her skill went at least some way to even the gap between them–but it still wasn’t enough. Within minutes, Allana could tell that things were starting to swing against her, her stamina dropping too fast, her blows getting slower and weaker as Shawe somehow weakened her even faster than her poison could cripple him.

  Desperate, Allana threw up a Compelling Pattern and dodged backwards, trying to recover from the brutal exchange. “You’re better than I thought, Shawe,” she told him, purposefully tipping her hand a little by using his name.

  The man’s dark eyes glared at her. “And you’re not as good as you think you are,” he replied, voice sharp. “Did you really think my men wouldn’t spot you and your clumsy attempts at breaking in? That they wouldn’t get me over here to deal with you?”

  Allana wondered if the mercenary was aware of what he had just told her–that, likely after her defeat of his other thug in their last encounter, the rest of Shawe’s band didn’t have the courage to take her on.

  “Maybe,” Allana said. “Maybe not.”

  The mercenary may not have been as good as Allana was, but he still had the reflexes of an Adept with the gift of wind, and his movement was too fast for Allana to even make out as he avoided the arrow that suddenly shot at him. Reflexively, he threw that damned throwing knife, but Allana didn’t even move, and the circular plane of force in front of her briefly lit up as it deflected the attack.

  “Or maybe your men saw what I wanted them to see,” Allana taunted him, as Tenebres slid out from behind a nearby chimney and Caden simply appeared next to her. The celestial had hidden his hair under a dirty cap, and otherwise dirtied himself up. As a result, he didn’t look so different from Spider’s young thieves.

  “So how about it, Shaw?,” Allana asked. “You seemed pretty confident when it was just me–how do you feel about me evening the odds a little bit?”

  The man grimaced, his glare heating up. “You forget how many men I hear nearby,” he reminded her. “One shout is all it would take for me to have some back up.”

  Allana let her smile creep past taunting, through wicked, and into downright sinister. “Then do it.”

  The sellsword opened his mouth–then paused, seeing what Allana wanted him to see. “I get it now. I pull my men off the warehouse, your other friends get the chance to break in right?”

  “Friends?” Allana asked innocently. “Cade, Seo, do I have some friends I’m not aware of?”

  “You’re lucky to even have us,” Tenebres commented, a smirk dancing across his own mouth.

  Allana shot him a look–that wasn’t in the script!--and turned back to Shawe. “Only one way to find out, I guess,” Allana told him. “So either call your goons, or let us go.”

  The black-clothed man looked from Allana to the warehouse below, and a cautious, furtive look crossed his face. Just as Allana thought–he couldn’t risk anyone finding out what the warehouse actually held.

  “Get out of here,” Shawe finally spat at her. “All of you. The next time I see you around here, I don't care what A–what my client asked for. I’ll kill you. Understand?”

  “Sure,” Allana said, still smirking. She waved a hand, and Tenebres began creeping away, backing his way towards the downspout he had climbed up in the first place. Only once he was gone did Caden confirm, “He’s clear,” before Trick Stepping away as well.

  Allana gave Shawe one last wink, just to keep him thinking, and then she was gone, too.

  tomorrow, Saturday 4/12, will be the initial release date of my new work, Primevus: Adventurer Academia! Every follow, rating, and comment I can get will be CRITICAL in the first days of this work going up, so please, take a little time and come follow Dani on her JRPG-inspired, isekai, magic academy, dungeon crawling experience!