I only just activated the ability when they finally managed to force the door. Four heavily cloaked men streamed into my room, blades readied; and I was ready to greet them!

I had posed dramatically, knife lodged in my throat, body leaning against the wall, displayed for their viewing pleasure. 'ACTING!' was feeding me a steady stream of physiological changes to enhance my performance. It wasn’t having any difficulty with the novel disguise: that of my own corpse. I could feel my heart rate slowing, my skin begin to cool, and my muscles slacken.

"What," one muttered.

"Did the others go for the wrong target? I don't understand," said another.

"This wasn't our people. Besides, they're not supposed to hit for another quarter hour. This floor was cleared, just like the client said, guards are paid off. Maybe someone else took advantage?"

"Something fucking weird is going on. Check the body. Make sure," an authoritative voice ordered.

A pair of the assassins approached me, and ACTING! gave me one more change, something I very much didn't desire but was powerless against ACTING!'s insistence.

"Oh he's dead alright. Bowels just went. Knife straight through the throat, after they did some work in the struggle. Almost looks personal."

"He seemed to recognize them. Weirdest fucking thing. What do we do?"

"I'll tell you what we do," the boss-voice said, "we go collect the easiest fee of our lives is what we do."

They moved out of the room. I waited a minute, trying not to think about what had happened in my pants, giving them the time they needed to get some distance from me.

My disguise as my own corpse was still working wonders: I felt a little lethargic, but the flow of blood down my throat was nominal at best. But removing the knife would break the disguise, and I didn't think the ensuing hit to my vitality would leave me standing for long.

Weird wins again! Would a typical hero soil themselves to overcome a foe? I think not!

I didn't have much time to revel in victory: the assassins had been quite clear that there was another target, and I didn't think Hugh was on the chopping block.

Running in wet pants was right out, chafing was a slow and insidious killer. I stripped down, relying on my long sleeping shirt to provide modesty, and raced out with my newly acquired unrestrained stride.

As I sprinted through the hallways of the keep, I wondered what exactly my plan was. My 'fancy that, they're already dead' trick wasn't likely to work more than once. Particularly if Elskia was targeted by somewhat sharper killers. My own combat prowess was...lacklustre. If I was going to protect her I needed allies.

With that in mind, rather than heading straight for Elskia's rooms I made for the main hall. I could hear the sounds of revelry had continued into the night, surely among their number there would be some who weresober enough to come to their lady's aid. I burst into the hall, taking in the array of drunken nobles and men-at-arms lounging in various degrees of stupor in an instant—they'd have to do.

"Lady Elskia is attacked! To me! Defend our lady!" I shouted.

Or at least, I meant to shout. It came out as more of a "Argurgra!" and then a slop of blood onto the floor. It turns out knives through the throat are major barriers to speech.

There was another problem, one which I had hoped would not come up, or more accurately, would go down of its own accord.

When I'd first noticed my, umm, problem, ACTING! had filled me in. Just as the mudman disguise had given me insight into the mud, so corpse-me disguise was happily feeding a stream of trivia about the many ways it was accurately depicting a dead body, I suppose for want of anything better to do. All that is to say, I knew, in detail, the assumptions it had made about the exact nature of my 'death'.

The flow of insight went something like this:

“Why is that happening?”

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“You suffered a blow to the back of the head! It’s a common result of trauma to the cerebellum!”

“A blow to the head?”

“Well you didn’t have defensive wounds on your hands.”

“Explain.”

“If someone’s being stabbed, they usually defend themselves with their hands and arms, but you didn’t have any cuts!”

“So I’ve got this raging, y’know because..”

“There needs to be consistency!”

It was just my luck that the skill was method acting.

It didn't help that at about that time someone opened an exit and a gust of wind lifted my nightshirt.

"DEAD PERVERT!" Someone yelled, and as a corpse possessing a pointedly localized rigor mortis, I couldn't exactly argue the point.

I ran for Elskia's rooms, mother duck to a host of stumbling drunks.

Every sharp corner saw significant losses accumulate as my men misjudged their speed and the exact width of their turning radius, but those casualties helped cushion the landings of those that came after!

"When the man in front of you falls, pick up his gun and shoot twice as much!" I gurgled at my platoon, not that they could make it out. I realized that I was growing manic, but was increasingly confident that was actually a good thing.

We were on the final stretch to Elskia's rooms, and I could see her door was cracked open. They were already here.

"Raaargggh!" I shouted, actually meaning to this time, and bless them if my pursuers didn't join in as well.

I burst into the anteroom, one black cloaked figure was crouched by the door leading further into her apartments.

I looked at him.

He looked at me.

I lifted my shirt.

He began to look nervous.

I advanced.

He backpeddled, unprepared for the amour on offer, but he was a professional and still prepared his blade.

That's when I sprayed a mouthful of blood into his face and slipped past him. My drunken idiots barged in as I moved into the main rooms. I sent a lingering, seductive glance the way of my fallen lover, blood dripping down my chin.

"Argrha," I said, but I think he knew I meant, "Fuck you."

I heard shouts from the anteroom as I left, cries of "Nightblade!" and "To Elskia! Defend the Lady!", as if I hadn't already been very clear.

I had achieved the critical objective of bringing a large group of armed men to Elskia's aid. I knew that in my current state I wouldn't be of much use, a state largely attributable to my partial nudity and blood loss.

I decided the better part of valour was to avoid being targeted by anyone in the upcoming scrimmage, so I found a very nice corner to play dead in. I thought Hugh would be proud.

The rabble flooded into the room shortly afterwards, but their whole demeanour had changed. The sops I'd led on a merry chase had been replaced by a set of grim faced and wrathful killers, if still a little unsteady. Small groups splintered off to check the other rooms, all maintaining strict silence as they willed themselves sober.

I heard a shout from Elskia's bedroom and bodies surged to the noise. But the expected sound of ringing steel never materialized, instead angry voices approached, and then a shuffle of retreating guards backed into the room. A group of a dozen assassins followed them, and the farthest back one held Elskia with a knife to her throat.

No one said a word, just the haggard breath of men and women barely containing their bloodlust.

"Passage to the limits of Stonetown, mounts, and we'll release her once we're sure no one has followed," said the man holding Elskia.

"Release her now, and you'll get quick deaths," one of the guards spat out.

"Ah ah ah," the knife holder tutted, "now that's no bargaining position is it? If I release her I die, and if I don't, I die? I could grant myself a swift death, so your offer is worthless to me. Stop!" He drew the blade tight against her throat as a guard tried to move around to the side. "That's another way to wrap this up very quickly. Go on, back." The guard was pulled back by their brethren, looking sullen.

"You have to understand, I am not ideological. I am here because I have been paid. I was offered a good price and I accepted the work, but it isn't worth my life."

"You'll just kill her the moment you're out of sight, we'll at least have justice with you dead!" A guard growled.

"A business man's reputation rests on his word. I am offering a deal. How is this not registering with you people?"

And the thing was, I genuinely believed him. I really really did. It wasn't worth it to him to kill her. It was a losing strategy to kill her after he'd been freed, maybe not now, but the next time he took a hostage he'd already be labelled 'hostage killer'. So he would keep his word, like a fucking professional. I would have done exactly the same thing, I actually admired the principle, hell, I found myself genuinely liking the guy.

But there was one problem with his proposition. He was assuming that everyone in front of him wanted Elskia alive. And I knew that you don't get an entire floors worth of guards to abandon their posts without having some people on the inside.

I could see how it would go. Someone would lose their cool and the stalemate would break, the rest of the guards would rush the assassins in the hopes of saving Elskia, and the knife-man would cut her throat in an instant, because that was also the professional thing to do. The guard that set things off would get a nice promotion from Roderick to show how loyalty is rewarded, and then another contract would go out for that same guard to tie up the loose end. Probably even the same assassin company, it had a nice symmetry.

So I stood up as quietly as I could, and a corpse could be very quiet, and I crept up behind the group of assassins, who were all politely facing where all the guys with the swords were. They were still arguing about what was going to happen, but some of the guards kept escalating, and the leader was beginning to realize what I already knew.

I drew the knife from my throat and in one fluid motion slammed it into the neck of the man holding Elskia.

My disguise failed, and as a consequence my body remembered exactly how much blood it had lost.