“Tess. Kill that Butler.”

  The order does invoke a happy response from her depths. Before meeting this man, Tess had always worked for herself first and foremost. Since meeting him, she had gotten to experience a steady stream of camaraderie and pleasure, often at the same time. The assassination of a divine puppet would be a simple repayment.

  “Open the way.” Tess rose to her feet, her outfit manifesting from darkness and feathers. Her curves were covered in a tight and weightless material. All that remained visible were her attractive face, hands, and cleavage. The mantle of raven feathers that settled over her shoulders covered even most of that.

  Rykard, her Master, her king, and whatever other title she felt appropriate, walked along the wall. One hand brushed over the expensive pster and paint. His eyes were turned inwards. Other senses were active inside that brilliant mind. He was every bit as talented as he was debauched - a wonderful combination as far as Tess was concerned.

  “The lock is regenerative,” he warned her. “Once I bst it open, you will only have a brief moment to get out. You won’t be able to get back in unless we coordinate this perfectly.”

  Tess reached into her mantle. Feathers parted and allowed her access to the vast storage of trinkets and personal items she kept there. Two time pieces surfaced with her hand from the depths of that space. After testing that they still ran properly, she put both to thirty minutes. “I’ll be back by this time.”

  Asking no further questions, Rykard took it and nodded. The pale, emerald eyed man then put his hand on the doorknob. “Ready yourself.”

  Tess crouched down. Hands on the floor, feet against the bottom of a bookshelf, she was as ready as she could be. Magic within her mixed with the divine boons of the Bond Crow. Excited little caws surfaced from the many souls within her mantle.

  The air changed. Rykard ripped open the door. Something shattered. Tess could not see what. Her world was a blur of motion, a tunnel of colours around the gap that had been opened. On wings and talons, she burst out of the door. She felt the air behind her stagnate again. Her lungs, however, drew in the fresh scents of the outside.

  She was in the hallway.

  Tess remained crouched, changing the direction of her magic from elevating her strength to suppressing her presence. Her mantle closed in front of her, pulling in shadows to cloak her fully. Like that, she advanced, hidden from anyone that the other Contestants may have sent out.

  It turned out to be an unnecessary degree of caution.

  As if someone was banging pots and pans together, a knight in full armour cttered their way out of another door on the opposite end of the hallway. He (presumably, given the stature of the person covered by pte), smmed hard against the wall. Whatever method Benhuldran had used to get his minion out of the dimensional lock had been considerably more violent.

  To his credit, the knight began to move again almost immediately. Move like a big, clumsy oaf, stomping and grumbling while making his way towards the singur staircase that connected the two levels. He did not even notice when he walked past Tess.

  ‘I suppose his idiocy allows me mercy.’ Tess reached into her arsenal of weapons and pulled out a thin, poison-drenched stiletto. With it in hand, she advanced carefully. The knight continued to curse to himself.

  “The things we do to win wars,” he (definitely he) compined. “The grey sun must shine over this nd if we want to beat that monster, I get it… still doesn’t feel great to go assassinate that But- Ow!”

  The knight turned around. His eyes failed to linger on Tess, who had retreated a step to the side, into the deep shadows of the moonless night. He rubbed the bend of his left arm, where a necessary gap in the armour exposed the gambeson. Sturdy still, but not sturdy enough to stop a needle.

  “Did I get bedbugs or somethi-”

  That was as far as he got before the poison did its due. Knees gave in. Consciousness faded. The knight tilted forwards and nded in Tess’ arms. ‘Lucky him,’ the thief thought, as the pted back of the man touched her breasts. A privilege usually reserved for her Master and fellow haremettes. An exception could be made, he would understand, for men that she needed to drag into a hiding spot. The other Contestants could have sent out their own agents at any moment.

  For the time being, Tess was confident she was alone. She had not gotten this far without developing sharp senses that she could rely on.

  ‘He should be out for three hours. More than enough time to be the first to get the news back to Rykard,’ Tess thought. ‘As long as he learns first, all should be fine.’ She fixed her gaze on the doorway that led to the dining room. ‘I am sure killing that Butler will be just as easy. The gods have a very normal sense of humour.’

  She was being sarcastic, of course.

  Step for quiet step, she moved towards the dining room. Her awareness was split between the path before her and the threats that could pop up behind her. Nothing ever did. Then, it turned out that her sarcasm was, partly, unwarranted.

  The Butler was distracted - utterly distracted. Humming happily to himself, the divine puppet polished the various ptes that had been produced by the final meal he had cooked. He appeared so human that it almost made Tess feel bad to contempte the best way to kill him. Almost. In the end, he was a golem created to serve and die and she was a champion thriving on stealth and wrapping her bck lips around her Master’s hard cock.

  ‘What one does to be called a good girl,’ she half-joked to herself and drew another weapon from her arsenal. This was one of her favourites, a dagger that she had taken off some dead nobleman on a battlefield she had plundered. It had been magic when she found it and only grown with her as her chosen, blessed armament. Granted, it was still only her third most effective weapon.

  Tess remained in the shadows for one more minute. She wanted to make sure that the Butler was genuinely distracted. Once she was convinced of it, she struck without hesitation.

  “Haa—” The quiet, groaning, life-ending sound of being stabbed in the back left the Butler’s lips. Air was driven from his lungs by the impact of the dagger. To keep him quiet and to end this swiftly, Tess drew the weapon back and stabbed a second time. The first one had impaired his lungs, the second would cut into his heart.

  The order of stabs was wisely chosen. Plunging, then stopping, the dagger failed to penetrate the heart of the divine puppet. Something about the muscle was warded by magic.

  Tess clicked her tongue, her opportunity for a clean kill passed. Jumping back, she avoided the swinging elbow of the Butler. His entire torso rotated by 180 degrees, leaving top and bottom grotesquely mismatched for a moment. “The gods did- did- did…” the Butler shuddered, incapable of finishing the sentence. Whatever Tess had cut was not a pair of lungs, but evidently it had been vital to some functions. “Testing protocol engaged!”

  Bdes shout out from the wrists of the Butler, ripping apart his white gloves in the process. Revealed was a holy fusion of flesh and machine, golden runes etched into metal harmoniously embedded into alchemically grown tissue. It was all rather elegant - and dangerous.

  “That’s about what I anticipated,” Tess drawled.

  An inhuman jitter was all the warning Tess got for what was about to happen. In a fsh of holy light, the Butler teleported across the distance. The bde-extensions of his arms swung with deadly precision.

  Tess, admittedly, had not gone through worse.

  She was, also, just that good.

  Side-stepping each of the rapid swings of the Butler, she backed away from the dining room and its many obstacles. Stabs and sshes kept missing her precisely by the margin she wanted. It would have been easier to make the Butler slice at the furniture. If possible, she wanted to avoid leaving such marks of battle. The knight could have gotten knocked out by divine machinations, as far as the others knew. Signs of actual combat were a different matter.

  Her victory would assure them the first pce in this Divine Game. Her fwless victory would let Rykard pick who got the lower pcements. Anything below perfection was unworthy of New Eden - plus the others could probably be made to pay a pretty penny for the prestige. Who did not want their own consteltion in the sky?

  Tess. Tess did not want that. She would rather have a bathtub filled with coins.

  The Butler followed her goading into the rge living room. Couches and other pieces of furniture stood far enough apart that one could have built a fighting pit in the gap, which was exactly what Tess needed. The automaton lunged, an excess of aggression that she, suddenly, countered.

  A storm of feathers and hair, Tess weaved under the slice, then brought her dagger up into the chest of the Butler. It rammed through with ease, connecting with the first hole she had cut into him. Smoothly, she moved forwards, escaping the descending elbow of her victim. In the same motion, her dagger cut through the gap between his ribs. They were like rails, guiding the incredibly sharp instrument as it sliced through fibres, cords and nerves.

  “Khrhrhrkkhrrrrhhhhh,” the Butler’s voice was just an assembly of distorted clicking sounds now. One of his eyes was rolling around, the pupils diting and narrowing without rhyme or reason. Another jitter announced its teleportation. Divine light fshed.

  Tess twisted around on the spot. Combat instincts guided her leg. Crows cawed like an appuding audience when her reinforced boot smmed into the side of the Butler. He was sent flying to the side. An oily liquid spurted from the wide gash on the left half of his ribcage. A mild annoyance to her pn of leaving little to no signs of combat. Without context, she trusted that it would just look like he had stumbled about while bleeding out.

  The bded arms were another issue to address.

  ‘All of that after he stops moving,’ Tess reminded herself. The machine was damaged and struggled to remain upright, but still it was upright. ‘One more hit should do it,’ she thought and focused on the throat.

  Tess took two steps back.

  The Butler took one step forwards.

  She smirked and reached for her concord. For a brief moment, the mantle on her shoulders fused with her shoulders. Horns began to sprout from her bck hair. Fur and feathers covered skin in pce of clothing. The form of a profane harpy, as her bounties had described it. Halfway to that form, in any case.

  Enough to give her a burst of speed exceeding what the Butler was prepared for.

  The dagger cut through the air, then the side of the divine puppet’s neck. It had tilted to the side swiftly enough to avoid the immediate stab. That, too, was according to Tess’ calcutions. Putting all of her strength behind it, she dragged her chosen instrument through the flesh of the automaton. So sharp was that dagger that the resulting gash was as clean as the belly of a gutted fish.

  A final series of noises passed the Butler’s lips. Almost casually, Tess kicked away one of the feet. The dead puppet fell hard on the ground. Oily blood oozed from the cut, joining the sptter created when she had kicked it earlier. New blood covered up old blood, removing the rgest of the few signs of a prolonged struggle.

  ‘The second rgest,’ Tess thought to herself and looked at the sleek, straight bdes that extended from the puppet’s wrists. She hummed. She scanned the environment. She listened for anyone who had left the apartments over the course of combat. She checked her timepiece. ‘I got plenty of time.’

  The dagger wandered back into storage, to be cleaned in another environment. Out of her mantle came a leather étui. She had taken it off a royal heiress that had used it to sort and transport her manicure instruments. When she unfolded it, the revealed contents were a variety of thieving tools. Advanced thieving tools, the kind that could remove the energy core out of a still active golem.

  The core, Tess did not have enough time for. It would involve too much gouging and searching anyhow. The bdes, however, appeared very possible. Inspecting the runes on the flesh and weapons, she quickly worked out what kind of enchantment had been used to conceal and attach these swords. After that, it was as simple as following a set of standard steps in an unorthodox order.

  ‘Crow, I know why you chose me,’ Tess thought, smugly, when she had her prize not three minutes ter. Both of the bdes had been cleanly removed, leaving only empty slots behind. Cryo would, perhaps, be able to work out what had been there originally. Everyone else would be none the wiser.

  The bdes disappeared into her mantle, to be joined with fittingly crafted handles another time. Divine steel was difficult to come by, so Tess was certain she would find some use for them. Dispy pieces, at worst, within the private hoard of shiny things that she would establish in the Estate in due time.

  It was time to get back to the room. Slinking back into the shadows, Tess moved as quietly as she had come, checking on and removing what remaining evidence of an altercation she came across. It wasn’t the perfect crime, but it would be confusing enough.

  After spending over twenty minutes alone in the hallway, Tess burst in through the door that opened for just two seconds. The other haremettes watched her nd quietly, then rise with all of her elegance. “He put up a bit of a fight,” Tess said and pulled out of her oil-covered dagger, “but the deed is done.” ‘Say it!’ she demanded in her brain, coolly fixating her gaze on Rykard.

  He smirked. That smarmy, sexy bastard knew exactly what kind of power he had over her and they both loved it. Deep and dominant, his suave voice formed the two words she held dearest. “Good girl.”

  ‘Yup, I am a lovestruck fool,’ Tess thought and leaned in for the kiss.