Again, and for the third time in the same night, I found myself standing nervously in front of a door. This time though, it wasn't me that was going to knock on it, that honour went to captain Dunn who was standing in front of me. He had on a hooded black cloak that hid his uniform underneath it.

It wasn't only the two of us there, Lambert and Mrs Sam were there too, Mrs Sam because, by her own words, she wasn't going to miss such an entertaining occasion, and Lambert because he was in this since the beginning. He seemed to still be a bit wary about captain Dunn, but not as much as before, it seemed as if he had accepted for now that captain Dunn was really just trying me.

Knock! Knock!

Captain Dunn slammed the door loudly without caring that it was night and that people were asleep inside. Well, considering who the owner of this house was, the thing we needed to worry about wasn't if he was asleep or not, but if he was unconscious after a night of drinking.

Captain Dunn knocked on the door for three more times, each time louder than the previous one before we finally got a response. The sound of things being kicked and curses being mumbled could be heard as someone made his way toward us.

"Who the fuck is it at this ungodly hour?!" He grumbled as he opened the door and looked at us with angry half-drunk eyes.

Instead of an answer though, he got pushed by captain Dunn into his house while he covered his mouth, we followed him in as was planned. Mrs Sam, who was last, closed the door behind us. I moved hurriedly to the side and tried to find a candle or a lantern of some kind to light the dark room. I soon found a lantern and using the flint and metal I always had on me I lit it and put it on a close-by table.

With the help of the light, I turned my eyes to captain Dunn and the man he was handling. The man's eyes had lost all tipsiness and they were looking at us with a panicked and fearful expression.

"Rodney, I am going to remove my hand," I heard captain Dunn say as he brought his face closer to Rodney's, the man we came there for, "and if you make even the slightest of sound I'm going to gut you like a fish."

As I looked at the sight in front of me and heard what was being said, my heart couldn't help but beat faster as I gulped forcefully and tried my best to control my shaking hands. Neither I nor Dorian was used to this kind of approach to dealing with people, all of this was way out of our league, it felt so weird and unbelievable to be there in the middle of such an event. The lantern's dancing light gave such a dreamy and shocking atmosphere to all of it.

It almost seemed as if the captain Dunn who was threatening a man in the middle of his house was someone else and not the man Dorian knew. I guess it might have just been that captain Dunn rarely got to act on his own, and never got the reason to act like this before, the stacks were never this high.

As the man, Rodney, nodded his head hurriedly at what captain Dunn said, the captain finally removed his hand from his mouth then he pulled his hood down and showed his face to the fear-stricken man.

"Ca- captain Dunn?" Rodney stuttered as his face lost colour and he took a step back, tripping over a chair and falling down.

"Rodney, I heard that you have been keeping a few things a secret from me," Captain Dunn slowly said as he stepped toward him, "That's not true, right? We have a deal between us, right? You tell us about all the things that are happening in this town's dark corners, and we don't make things hard for you, you remember that, don't you?"

Rodney nodded his head so fast that it seemed as if it would disconnect from his neck.

I didn't know much about Rodney as I was never assigned to him or those like him in the town, but I knew enough to understand why we were there and what captain Dunn wanted to accomplish from this. Rodney was a thief, an old hand and a well connected one at that too. He liked to boast that he knew all that was happening in the town's illegal arena and that he would be able to answer your questions as long as you were able to pay the price. Not going to jail was a price that few other offers could match.

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As one of the town guards' informants, Rodney did his job very well, and the few times we needed his help showed that his boasting wasn't for nothing, he truly was able to get us some intel that no other informant was able to get. So when captain Dunn heard my not so promising plan, he wondered why they didn't hear anything about this from Rodney, and that led us here. We were going to try and get as much as we could from him, and it seemed that captain Dunn was going to take a more forceful stance with the man.

"You do remember then," he knelt next to Rodney and raised an eyebrow as he asked, "so why did I hear that the Dark Blades smuggled something into town? Something extremely dangerous, something that I should have heard about as soon as possible..."

"I don't know what you are talking about," even though Rodney was half drunk and the way we came at him put him into a messy state, he was still someone who survived long enough amidst criminals to know that denying things that would incriminate him was always the right thing to do.

"Listen here Rodney, I don't know that you truly understand what's happening here," captain Dunn's words suddenly turned chilly as the same golden sword from before materialised in his hands again, "what I heard is too risky to leave anything for chance, so you either tell me what you know willingly, or I make you sing."

"That- that's madness!" Rodney half-shouted in panic and tried to retreat before captain Dunn's expression and sword made him stay put, "you can't do this to me! I told you I know nothing, what will you do when you get nothing from me even after torturing me!"

"As I said, the situation is too risky and dangerous to leave anything to chance, I'm sure people will understand."

Captain Dunn's mannerisms and expression made me take a step back and look at Lambert in panic. What happened to me before made me understand that captain Dunn was someone who took drastic measures if he felt that the conclusion was worth it, I didn't know if his words would go past the realm of just threatening and move to real action, or if this situation was just a face down between his bluffing against Rodney's courage, and I was afraid of finding out.

Lambert too was just standing there with his hands clenched as he turned his head to the side, seeming as if he was keeping watch while captain Dunn was doing his thing.

"Don't worry sweety," Mrs Sam suddenly spoke up as she too took small graceful steps towards Rodney, the light makeup she had on made her seem ethereal in the dim-lit room, "I'll make sure that you won't die, you have my word."

The smile she had as she said that was so sweet yet I could swear that I saw Rodney shiver as she looked at him, and remembering how she froze me with one touch not even an hour ago, I did too.

"So, are you speaking? Or do we need to start working on you?" Captain Dunn took hold of the conversation again and made Rodney look at him with shaking eyes as he regarded the sword in his hand from time to time. His mouth opened and closed for a while as his face went through a few changes in expression. He finally shouted as he saw captain Dunn move his sword:

"OKAY! Okay, I'll talk," as captain Dunn lowered his sword and nodded at him to continue, he took a deep breath and said, "I really don't know what the Dark Blades have smuggled to the town, I just know that they did bring in something under extreme secrecy, I don't think anyone but the higher-ups of the gang know what was brought in, they even released a rumour in the streets that the thing they had was a stolen Inheritance of some kind, trying to mislead those who noticed what they did, but it was clear that they were feeding it to the public on purpose."

At the end of his words, Rodney couldn't help but let a bit of disdain fill his voice, as if he was ridiculing them for thinking that using such means to confuse him would work.

"So why didn't you come and tell us about this then?"

Rodney showed an anxious expression before he sighed and said:

"I- I was approached by the Dark Blades... Who paid me well and asked me not to..."

The room fell into silence as everyone thought about what all of this meant.

"Well, it seems that the Dark Blades really have something to hide," it was Lambert who finally broke the silence as he moved his hand through his messy hair, "it seems that we need to go to the Dark Blades headquarter to see what it is ourselves."

"No," said Rodney who had fallen into silence after captain Dunn was done with him, he had an expression as if he was trying to win us to his side with some intel, "you might think that they are keeping that thing that they smuggled in their headquarter, but they are not..."

With a small pause to make sure that we all were looking at him, he continued:

"They are keeping it in master Bruce's personal manor."

"Well, fuck."

~~~

Hope you read the author note at the bottom, it's kinda important~,