The morning sun was bright and cheery overhead as the five adventurers put their heads together.

  “Today’s the day.” They all knew it, and they all nodded at Allana’s words. “Everyone knows where to go?”

  “Adeline and I are heading to the Warden's Office,” Oli said. The eclipsed squire was even more straight-laced than ever today, her cloth-of-steel tunic and travel cloak both immaculately cleaned. Her shield was polished, and Allana was sure that if she checked, Olivia’s runeblade would be honed to a razor’s edge. “They’re not big fans of us coming along on a patrol, but they won’t insult Adeline by saying no.”

  “I’m heading to Rillwillow Square,” Tenebres said. The boy was similarly dressed for a fight, a simple, dark cloak pulled over his usual tight leathers, and Allana could see the small bulge of his combat knife at one hips, and a roll of bandages on the other. “I’ll look for the black ‘x,’ present myself as Seo, and wait until I get the signal.”

  Caden grinned, clearly excited for the plan. The celestial had, once again, tucked his hair under a slouch-cap, not even a bit of blue showing. His usual quiver and hatchet were both missing, replaced by a pair of rough wooden clubs. “I went out and found a brawler gift to reflect already. I’ll make my way to the warehouse and keep an eye on it until Spider finds me.”

  “I’m starting to second guess how I leveled up,” Adeline observed with a smile of her own. “I didn’t do anything nearly this fun when I was your level.”

  Allana felt her lips stretch into a fierce grin at the joke. She hadn’t been sure how to feel about the knight when they had first met, expecting another stiff, formal warrior like Oli. Instead, Adeline had proven significantly more relaxed than her squire–and Allana had more than a little respect for the woman, who she had never landed a significant blow on in any of their practice duels.

  “Remember,” Adeline said, her voice more serious as she panned her gaze around the circle. “Don’t be afraid to retreat. Failing is acceptable, but losing any of you in exchange for success isn’t, got it?”

  Another round of nods, and Allana felt her guts stir a little bit. The last time she had executed a plan like this, wholly conceived by her, it had been the murder of Algus Hessen, the chandler Tenebres had helped her kill. They had barely gotten away that night, and then only because Geoffrey had shown up to help them.

  There would be no help, this time. Adeline was skilled, but she had her own role in the plan–if Tenebres, Allana, or Caden got in trouble, there would be no way for the experienced adventurer to get to them in time.

  But Allana had gotten them into this mess–and she was the one most at risk in the course of the plan. There was nothing else for it. She just had to hope it was all worth the risk. Absently, she toyed with the new bracelet tied around her wrist, a simple hoop of copper wire hung with a series of charms. A shard of silver scrap metal, polished to a bright sheen. A string of black, red, and white beads. A bright blue stone Allana had bored a hole through. A tassel of bright white rope.

  Her friends.

  “Alright,” Allana said. “Let’s go.”

  #

  When Allana had started robbing merchants in Correntry–a training exercise actually proposed by Adeline–she had never intended to draw the attention of the city’s wealthiest man, nor his attack dog. She had merely looked for the most aggressive, arrogant, elitist merchants, who were all but asking to have their profits stolen, and it just so happened that they had all been members of the Avery Consortium.

  Which, in Allana’s opinion, said plenty about the Consortium by itself.

  But today, she was very specifically attempting to get Shawe’s attention. As she wandered the Emberelm Market, she made little effort to hide herself, making her brilliant purple skin and hair as obvious as her focus on one particular stall–a peddler for Barret’s Fine Goods. Barret specialized in the sale of coffee, sugar, tobacco, and other difficult-to-cultivate crops primarily grown, at great expense, in the Tidal Wastes, and he had been a part of Avery’s organization for as long as it had existed. If anyone was likely to have Blackhawk guards, it was Barret.

  And sure enough, Allana soon noticed a little too much attention being paid to her, wary looks and squinting glances coming from the assortment of muscular mercenaries that lounged in the general vicinity of Barret’s employee. When a particularly large man came to talk to the nervous peddler, Allana got all the confirmation she needed–it was the man she had briefly fought the first day she met Shawe, the bruiser she had easily disabled.

  The man clearly took note of her, but he did little more than shoot a warning glare in her direction.

  That told Allana plenty. If the big man, likely one of Shawe’s lieutenants, wasn’t moving on her, it was for good reason.

  So when there was a scrape behind her, Allana was ready and moving.

  #

  Correntry had no less than ten major markets–and that was ignoring the temporary bazaars that would occasionally pop up. However, only four of these saw significant patrols from the wardens–the original four established by the city charter, rather than the privately-run ones that various merchants had set up on their own.

  Since they came to Correntry, Adeline and Olivia had been doing freelancer work for the Warden's Office, taking on contracts to kill monsters in the surrounding area in an effort to take some of the load off of the wardens themselves. With many of the field warden teams still off looking for the legion hag by Jellis, that work was more necessary than ever, and it earned decent income for the two knights on top of some good will from the normally-insular organization.

  That was how Adeline had managed to get the two of them attached to this warden patrol, supposedly giving Olivia a feel for how they went about checking the four main markets.

  Mostly, it had taught Olivia just how insufficient the Warden's Office was inside of Correntry. As the bulk of their personnel were typically outside of the city, patrolling the trade roads the Correntry depended on, law enforcement inside the city was a secondary concern. The wardens patrolled only the four largest markets, and even then they just did a sweep of each twice per day. Simple crimes, like robbery, the wardens would only pursue if they occurred directly in front of them, with their investigators limiting their involvement to severe incidents–murder, collusion, contraband, and the like.

  Still, Oli mused as they left Loamoak Market, the wardens were a skilled and capable force. Of the half-dozen officers in this patrol, only one was an Adept, with the Arbiter’s gift of the jailer. Two of the others were Initiates, each leveling their own Arbiter gifts, while the remaining three were Apprentices–two melee gifted and a caster, all of whom had enough training that Olivia would be reluctant to take on any of them. The wardens’ numbers may have been low compared to the population of the city, but they at least partially made up for it with the sheer quality of their members.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “That’s Rillwillow up ahead, right?” Adeline asked.

  Evan, the captain leading the patrol, nodded. “Rillwillow is where many of the independent artisans set up their stalls,” the middle-aged man explained. “We try to spend some additional time there each day, since they don’t have the same advantages as the merchant companies.”

  Adeline cast a brief look back at Olivia, and she nodded, reaching into her pocket.

  With eight battle-gifted moving and a crowd surrounding them no one heard the small crack of the contact tab when she broke it.

  #

  Tenebres lounged in the late-morning sun, enjoying the quiet dimness of the little attic the Thieves Guild had found for him. The sun came through the small window he was sitting under, which looked down on the bustling Rillwillow Market below.

  Despite his initial nerves over the plan, the boy found himself dozing–somehow, no matter how much he knew better, Allana had managed to get him to drink more than was wise the night before. At the very least, the resulting hangover had helped to smother his own anxiety about what he was about to do–and soon, he’d be able to drink the restoration potion Allana had stolen for him.

  Tenebres shook himself out of his reverie as he felt the small tablet in his hand suddenly crack in half. That was the signal that Oli and Adeline were close, and that the wardens would soon be arriving at Rillwater, which meant it was time for the boy to start some chaos.

  With a sigh, he stood up and looked out the small window. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the blazing sunlight, and then he started looking for good stalls worth dropping his fiends into.

  “Earthenware,” Tenebres mused, “shouldn’t be too breakable, right?”

  [Void Invocation] activated

  #

  The pair only had a couple pairs of contact tabs, so Caden’s first warning that things had started was when people started screaming.

  The celestial sat up straight, still fully hidden behind the crates he had cobbled together into a hiding space, and he listened more closely.

  [Soul Surge] activated

  Awareness attribute boosted

  There was panic in the shouts, terror and anger and concern, but a noticeable lack of screams of pain. That was good–Caden and Tenebres had both originally opposed Allana’s idea of how to use the boy’s fiends, but she and Tenebres had apparently managed to get his focus on the fiends to the point that he could keep them from killing people, so long as they had other kinds of destruction to focus on instead.

  Caden emerged from his hiding place with a sigh, and tried to get himself in character. It didn’t come easily–but that was fine. He had other options.

  [Soul Surge] activated

  Charm attribute boosted

  As the social knowledge of the charm Surge sunk into Caden’s mind, he smothered a smile. Instead, he slouched just right, widened his eyes, and took a few hyper-ventilating breaths–then he started running.

  “Monsters!” he shrieked, feigning a blind panic. “Monsters in the market!” Soon, his apparent fleeing carried him around a corner and into sight of a half dozen wary, suspicious guards.

  “Oh thank the Warrior!” Caden shouted at them. “There are some sort of monsters attacking in Rillwater! Please, the wardens are nowhere to be seen, you have to help those poor people!”

  If Caden hadn’t timed his appearance just right, if the screams of panic hadn’t been noticeable, if he didn't have his charm boost helping him play up his fear just right, maybe it wouldn’t have worked–but somehow, it did, and there were soon half a dozen mercenary guards fleeing towards the market square, weapons in hand–leaving only two of their compatriots behind with Caden.

  “Don’t worry,” one said. “You stay here–we’ll keep you safe.”

  “Oh will you, please?” Caden asked, still playing up his fear, casting worried looks back in the direction of the market, and keeping the guards looking in the same direction–so they never noticed the two youths approach from behind and deliver a blow to each of their heads. Backed by an obvious special attack, the blows were enough for both guards to sag in place and collapse to the ground.

  Caden grinned at them. “Spider’s people, I take it?”

  One nodded. The other said, “The boss is ensuring things go right in Rillwillow, then they’ll be over.”

  Caden nodded easily, then looked down at the unconscious guards. “So… did you happen to bring some rope?”

  #

  Allana danced across the rooftops, her speed, coordination, and well-honed skill alike all on display as she kept ahead of Shawe. The Adept may have had higher attributes, but he couldn’t use them the way Allana did. He hadn’t spent a lifetime ducking through allies, running over rooftops, scrambling to survive in a city that made Correntry look soft and cheery by comparison. On top of that, fast as he was, especially when propelled by his gift of wind, Shawe still had to cross the space between two points. With Trick Step, Allana simply didn’t.

  His knife hummed by, and Allana threw down a cloud of Poison Gas to mask herself. She could only barely see the mercenary moving through the concealment, but it was just clear enough for her to make out his shape spinning around, clearly expecting Allana to Trick Step away from the gas. Instead, she turned and kept running in the same direction as before, buying herself a precious few moments before Shawe figured out the trick and started after her again.

  Allana took the chance to throw back a focus potion, and continued to flee. For nearly twenty minutes now, she had kept up this dance, focusing solely on evasion to allow her to stay ahead of her Adept adversary, and with each passing moment, the mercenary grew more and more frustrated. Allana had just started to wonder if something had gone wrong when she finally saw what she had been looking for.

  She jumped to another rooftop, landing in a roll, and by the time she came to her feet, Shawe had crashed down behind her, accompanied by a wave of wind. But this time, she didn’t run.

  “Where are you going, street rat?” Shawe’s voice was a breathless snarl, the chase intense enough to have apparently pushed his stamina. “Trying to lead me into another ambush?”

  “Of course not,” Allana said simply. Then she flashed towards him, daggers in hand.

  The fight was even more intense than the last time they had clashed, each fighting with boosted dexterity and reflexes, short blades flashing as they bobbed and weaved, each trying to keep the other from landing a potentially crippling blow. Allana pushed him hard, as if she was desperate to get her poison working on him, forcing him to focus on evasion, keeping him from countering–at least, until he snarled and suddenly stabbed forward. Allana’s poisoned blade sank into the meat of his shoulder, but in her surprise, she had no chance to dodge before his knife sank into her ribs.

  The pain forced a breathless gasp out of Allana, and for a moment she feared the man had punctured a lung–but then she managed to suck in a lungful of air. It hurt, horribly, as the breath forced her pierced muscles to flex, but at least she could still breath.

  Not that it would do her much good. The wraith fell to the ground, her boosted resilience keeping her standing through the painful wound–but only just.

  Shawe, meanwhile, took the time to drink a potion of his own, his glare dark and promising violence. “That was a good one, girl,” he told her. “But after last time, I made sure to buy an antitoxin. It was expensive–but I think it just might’ve been worth it.”

  Allana’s mouth twitched with the ghost of a grin. “Speaking of ‘worth,’” she told him, her voice a pained growl, “you should turn around.”

  Shawe rolled his eyes. “That’s a lazy one, even for you. We both know that if you had any help with you, they would’ve come running after I stabbed you.”

  Allana snorted a harsh laugh. “Not help,” she told him. It hurt to talk, and she could only manage a few words at a time “You asked me why. Trying to tell you.”

  Shawe snorted derisively,but he cast a lazy look over one shoulder–and froze. There was no missing the plume of black smooth rising from elsewhere in the city. From a point not far from Rillwillow, in fact–a location Shawe would recognize as the warehouse they had last fought near.

  Allana coughed, and was alarmed to taste a little blood in her mouth. Still, fears aside, she was pretty sure it made her shaky grin that much more intimidating. “Gotcha.”

  Shawe cursed and, in a burst of wind, leapt away, leaving Allana behind to bleed out onto the rooftop.