The System had never taken its time before. Not as far as I could remember. Eventually, each letter having finally formed, the message hovered before me.
I almost let out a sigh of relief—only steeling myself at the last moment as I read through the message.
Name: Woldroff Thumas.
Race: Human.
User Information: The leader of the Dock Street gang.
Current Status: Nervous.
It was strange that the System registered him as nervous. He seemed to have everything together, his face a perfectly neutral appearance. Even his eyes remained steady. I was just about to dismiss the message when the letters blinked, some of them growing fuzzy, as if something else was trying to take their place.
The words blinked again.
Did I ignore it? Chalk it up to an issue with the System? That seemed unlikely, especially given the fact it had responded so slowly. But if I pushed, would I be able to get anything out of him?
“Something wrong?” Woldroff asked from beyond the window, making my decision for me. There was no way I could continue staring at him, trying to make sense of the blurry letters and whatever message they might be concealing.
“No,” I responded quickly. “Just waiting to make my grand escape.”
I offered him a wink, tucked the dagger into its sheath, and then hopped onto the edge of the window again.
“Oh you cannot be serious.”
I shot him another glance over my shoulder, the blurry words still hovering in my line of sight. "I expect to see those boys by Henrietta’s to clean things up by this evening.”
And with that I jumped out the window, using [Swift Strike] at the last possible moment to push myself up and to the right. I twisted in mid-air, aiming for another window’s ledge a little higher up. My fingers caught it, and I pressed the bottom of my feet against the stone, used [Swift Strike] a second time, and then shot up into the air and over the edge of the roof.
I landed in a crouch, almost stumbling and falling to my butt. The golden letters before me shimmered and then faded, replaced by new ones.
Side Quest Complete: Pier Pressure
You made a deal with the Dock Street gang. Will it pay off or come back to bite you?
Reward: 1500XP
Congratulations. You have reached Level 7.
+3 Attribute Points.
I let myself smile in satisfaction. It had been a reckless move, but the trip up the alley earlier had given me a bit more confidence in how I could control my body. Now I just needed to get back down to the street and over to Henrietta's.
The trek down the wall was easier than expected. Once I crossed back to the buildings I'd climbed up, I was able to retrace my steps down to the ground using the same ledges. It was much less difficult to use them to slow my fall than it had been to push my body up the wall, but I had still managed to break a sweat by the time I exited the alleyway and pushed into the throng of people in the street.
I followed the path back to Henrietta's, this time paying attention to anyone around me more closely. Woldroff had people watching me, which was cause for concern on its own. Add to that the fact that he was working for some mysterious benefactor, and his System response had been strange. I couldn't help but feel like I was staring a recipe for disaster in the face, and everyone was just waiting for me to toss in the next ingredient.
The last thing I needed to do was walk into another trap like I had back in the palace.
Nobody stood out on the trip back to Henrietta's shop. Once I arrived, I slipped in through the back door, passing through the room where Henrietta had served Irinda and I tea. I felt bad about not having checked on her yet, but that feeling faded when I slipped into the room where the old shop owner had placed Ophelia.
The young girl was laid out on the bed, the covers pulled tight around her. Her face was red, and Henrietta was looking down at her, a hand against Ophelia's forehead, and a frown etched across her mouth.
"How's she doing?" I asked, stepping up beside the older woman. I didn't need my [Basic Medical] skill to know that she wasn't looking good. In fact, I'd have said she was looking worse since we'd come into the city.
"Her fever has spiked," Henrietta explained. "We'll need to break through it somehow."
"Surely you have a tea or tonic for that, no?"
Henrietta's cold eyes met mine, disapproval or disappointment in her gaze. I couldn't tell which it was exactly. "If everything could be cured by a good tea, then there wouldn't be any sickness in the world, now would there?" She shook her head. "By any measure, I've already tried all of the things I have on hand. If we want to break through this, we're going to need something stronger. Something only the imperial healers can get their hands on."
I sighed and shook my head. "Of course it's something only the imperial healers could get their hands on." I grumbled. I'd hoped whatever it was she needed was something I could grab from the market. That had clearly been hoping for too much.
Henrietta cracked a smile. "It also gives you an opportunity to continue testing your skills."
I narrowed my gaze at her. "And what would you know about that?"
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She shrugged. "Enough. I trust you're at least a little cleaner with that blade than you are with your peeping."
"I wasn't peeping!" I exclaimed in return. "I was…" Well, actually it was peeping, wasn't it? In a way at least. I decided to concede the conversation by not saying another word about it. My mother would have been proud. Probably. Instead, I said, "What do you need to help her?"
"Indorian Singing Beans. They ship them in from the archipelagos in the Irindor Sea. The imperial clinics should have some. Grab a few and bring them back here. Then I can grind them into dust and apply them to her treatment. They've been known to have very potent healing qualities, especially when combined with certain other healing reagents."
"You want me to break into an imperial clinic and steal beans?" I asked. It was an almost laughable request. She couldn't be serious.
"It's either that or we let her body overheat until it turns her brain to mush." The way she said the words was almost detached. As if she were talking about a simple mathematics question and now the life of someone else. "It most likely won't come to that. But are you willing to take that chance, Aria? It is your choice, of course. Plus, these aren't just any beans. They can only be harvested every four years, and reports out of the east suggest the recent harvests have not been fruitful. So yes, I want you to break into an imperial clinic and steal some beans."
I thought about saying something else, but was interrupted by the System spitting out a new quest notification.
Side Quest Detected: Don't Spill The Beans
Quest Objective: Break into one of the imperial clinics situated around the city and acquire at least 3 Irindorian Singing Beans. Return the beans to Henrietta.
Accept quest?
I accepted it, naturally. But I didn't have to be happy that I was doing it. It didn't matter how ridiculous the request was, I wasn't about to let Ophelia die to whatever imposter me had done to her. I did give Henrietta a huff as I left, though. Sil was outside, waiting in the hall, his back pressed against the wall opposite of the bedroom.
He nodded as our eyes met and I said, "Walk with me."
He fell into step beside me. "Is she recovering?"
Shaking my head, I responded, "Not quickly. Henrietta says she's getting worse actually. Needs some magical beans to make her better. I'm going to break into an imperial clinic. You want to help?"
He did a double take, glancing behind us at the door where Ophelia was being treated. "Did you… uhh, sure. I suppose after breaking into the palace, a clinic should be easy."
"My thoughts exactly." I said, flashing him a grin.
We left the shop behind, moving through the streets together, talking quietly as we walked.
"I've been thinking," Sil started after we'd turned off the street Henrietta's shop was on. "We haven't really talked about what you're trying to do."
I raised an eyebrow at him, not immediately responding.
"Or how I fit into all of that," he continued. "I guess, I'm just feeling a little useless right now." His blue eyes met mine and then he glanced away.
"It's difficult to explain what I'm trying to accomplish. But the short of it is I want to change how things work." I chose my words carefully, especially since we were outside in the street.
We wove through a thick part of the crowd, Sil and I having to walk one behind the other to get through. When we were safely on the other side, with a bit more space around us, I continued.
"We met the way we did because I needed information. And while I didn't believe that information at first, the things we saw at the camp, and the things that Lilan told us seem to line up with everything that I learned. So it has me worried. Not just about my future, but the future of my people altogether."
Sil watched me as I spoke, his eyes widening slightly at the mention of 'my people.' It seemed he hadn't quite put two and two together, which meant his System wasn't feeding him information about me. Or he was really good at hiding it. Maybe he was the scout. It was a passing thought. More fleeting than anything. But it did give me a slight pause, a stumble in my step.
"Everything okay?" Sil asked as he caught my arm, keeping me from sprawling into the street.
Nodding, I pulled my arm away gently. "Just a misstep," I explained. It wasn't possible Sil was a scout for this A person, was it? That would be… ridiculously bad luck. Something I'd actually seemed to have an enormous amount of lately, when I really stopped to think about it.
I really needed to know what his System information said. Could Henrietta teach me more about how to use it? I'd have to ask her after I got her these stupid beans. I refocused my thoughts.
"I guess what I'm trying to ask is how am I supposed to fit into all of this?" Sil asked, bringing the conversation back around. The way he said the words, it seemed like it was something that he'd been thinking about a lot.
"That's a good question. One I don't wholly have the answer to right this moment. But, I can promise that you'll have a purpose working with me. And that purpose is one worth fighting for."
I wasn't sure if the words were enough to placate him, but he did let the conversation die. Which was good, as we left the crowded streets of Merchant's Row behind and moved into the Western Quarter, a more lavish part of town than even the areas directly around the palace. This was where the populace with overstuffed coin purses liked to call home.
I took in the sculpted statues on the tops of buildings, and the way that the bleached white stone shone with the sunlight. It was almost blinding in a way, especially coming from the more grounded designs of the rest of the city. Knowing what I knew about my empire now, it was hard not to feel anger at the people inside those houses. The way they hoarded their own treasures, letting the weak be trampled underfoot. I knew it was merely something they had learned from us, or perhaps it had been engrained in them from the beginning.
But seeing it for myself was different than knowing that it was happening. I also knew that I'd claim everything they had in a breath if I could. I thought about coming back that night, about breaking into one of the houses and seeing what I could make off with.
But I knew that I'd just add whatever I took to my own hoard and never look back. So, perhaps I wasn't any better than them. I, at least, had a better reason for wanting it than they could. I wanted to protect all of the people that called this world home. Not just myself.
"There's what we're looking for," I told Sil pushing him toward the edge of an alleyway that sat nestled across from a large building of black stone. The structure stood out amongst the white stones of the buildings surrounding it, and there were at least four guards visible in front of the building..
I watched for a long moment, taking in the way the guards moved. Given the number, it was likely there were even more inside and even around the back of the structure. Not that it was a very viable way inside, either.
One side of the clinic was locked against another building, the two connected, while the other had a small alley—roughly wide enough for a single person to walk down it at one time.
The hope that I'd allowed to build up in my chest dwindled with every second that I watched. We'd come to this part of town specifically because I assumed it would be the least guarded. Clearly the growing unrest throughout the empire had changed that, though. Sil and I watched as two of the guards broke off, one heading down the alley toward the back, and the other continuing down the road a little ways before he turned around and walked back to the clinic.
An idea sparked in my head. I glanced over my shoulder at Sil, a huge smile on my face, as I was clearly proud I'd thought of it. "How long does it take your mimicry ability to work?"
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