53 Summer, 1034

Year 11

Aziza squeezed tightly through the narrow window, feet dangling precariously over the twenty foot drop down to the street. Her body twisted and writhed as she wormed her way through the opening, shoulder dislodged from where she had to pop it from its socket on the way in. It wasn't new to her, being in such a position, and her stomach no longer twisted and clenched as she glanced down to see there was nothing to catch her for a good twenty feet down the inside of the wall.

She thought wistfully of her bed back at the orphanage, of the hour of tutelage she had been given with the other children, and the cold but oh so filling stew she had been served before the sun had set. She longed to dodge back out the way that she came, to go back to its warm interior and the laughter of her friends, but she knew there was no path to her left but forward. It was her nightly jaunts with the men of the underside gangs that was, in no small part, keeping food on the table and the fire lit in the stove. And though for all appearances she was still not more than a little elven child, barely grown half a knuckle from when she first arrived on the steps, she felt the burden of the tiny lives within the familiar walls of her home on her shoulders even as wriggled ever forward.

Finally squeezing the last bits of her small hips through the frame, she twisted her body and rolled on her back to freefall down twenty feet. Though her right arm absorbed some of the impact, she found herself falling, as per usual, directly on the side of her face. Rolling her weight onto the flaccid socket of her left shoulder, she turned the rest of her body downward, slapping the ground with her right hand as her bones came to hit the granite floor of the building. It phased her, the impact. It wasn't something she suspected that she would ever be used to, but after a few moments of clearing her head she took her left arm in her right and twisted it back into its socket with a practiced slirp.

Gradually, she stood up, the hard part of her role here already complete. Cobwebs of the impact still clung to her mind as she moved toward the door of the bedroom, twisting the knob and pushing the oaken frame forward gently. She tapped forward silently, the thickly padded leather of the sole of her boot making barely a whisper across the rugs and the granite floors of the abode. She knew that no one was supposed to be home, that the place had been watched and vetted carefully by Undersiders before she had ever set foot on its roof or swung carefully down the wall by her calves to prop open the tiny window of her ingress. Still, Mad Morrison had taught her everything she knew about the underside crafts, and if there was one thing he had drilled into her above all others it was that 'there's always something.' And the burglar who assumes that things will go according to plan will never be a burglar for long.

Her heart leaped when she crossed from the hallway into the entryway, the tight, narrow walls expanding instantly into a large, grandiose chamber. A half-circle stairway wound up the side of the room and, for a moment, she allowed her aching ribs and arm to claim her thoughts, wishing that one of the windows had been left ajar on the far side of the house, where the fall would have been shortened at all by the second story floor that those stairs did promise. Nevertheless, the entry looked clear, much to the relief of the pounding in her chest, and she crept her way forward toward the locks around the doorway.

Before she had made it way across the room, her nose detected a twinge of warning. A faint taint of blood made its way through the air against the fetid backdrop odors of the sprawling city. Aziza stopped instantly, eyes darting around quickly, body frozen and tense as she frantically scanned for the source of the bleeding. It felt to her like forever, but would probably have been less than a minute by the counting of clockwork before her eyes alighted on the shadow by the door.

Fur blended into the shadows against the rug on the granite, matching the colors far, far too strictly in the dim gloom of the midnight hour. Aziza watched carefully, almost holding her breath, waiting for movement from the sprawled out beast. It was a long time, far too long again most probably, before she could say with certainty that there was no rise nor fall of the beast's chest. The body sprawled prone before her, unmoving, and the smell, she could then see, was not the fresh iron of new blood. Instead, it was old blood that she was smelling, and the color of the beast and the floor were uniform, not through some ingenious security feat of home decorating, but rather because both creature and rug were a deep, dark shade of crimson.

Creeping then further toward the doorway, stepping carefully through the dried coating of blood underfoot, she began carefully unlatching the locks on her side of the portal. First, and most importantly, she disengaged the massive bar latched in place over the oak frame, allowing it to quietly hinge up and to the side. Four other bolts and various chains were keeping the door from opening, but from this side of the entry, it took barely a thought to unlatch and unbar the entry.

Cracking the door not more than an inch, she let out a single, long hoot of the barn owl, echoing to the waiting thugs outside and calling them forward. She heard little more than the sound of her own massive breaths in the night's air but still kept the crack steady, waiting as she always had before.Thirteen breaths passed in the dark before the quiet thudding of footsteps approached, and she ushered the towering men inside the house, taking her place in the doorway. She nodded to each of them once, then tilted her head to the dog and threw out the gang's hand signal for safe, pressing her thumb and ring finger together in front of her nose.

The men quickly went about their business with Aziza standing on watch, ripping the furniture and ransacking the shelves for anything that might be of value. They worked quietly and professionally, as quietly as a bunch of six-foot men can be I should rather say, and in the space of fifteen minutes, they returned with bags hanging low with their newest acquisitions.

Aziza took the hand of the man at the head of the group, Tob, the thugs now collectively dressed in the most elegant purloined robes of the house's somewhat unlucky owner, and the two of them walked out hand in hand, looking for all the world like a gentlemen and his adopted daughter, out to run some late night errand with a gaggle of brothers and uncles in toe. For as the Undersiders had discovered, so many years ago, a group of five men walking down the street was a gang, but a gentleman with his daughter and brothers received zero suspicion at any time of the day.

They walked boldly along the streets of Northeastern Illmouth, through the mansions and shops now standing dark and quiet in the spiraling night, crossing subtly further and further to the west of the city with their heavy bags of loot. They even passed a guard on their way out of the district, who merely tipped his hat and smiled back as Aziza belted out a practiced, "Hi sir! A fine evening to ya!" Beaming at the assembled company, the guard continued on his way with a warmer heart, and not a whit of understanding.

A wave of images and meaning washed over the girl as he passed, as they sometimes did. It always reminded her of dreams, this sensation, of something buried deep in her mind. But, as always the feeling passed as suddenly as it had come with little to no effect on her surroundings. The group carried along for another hours time, their unhurried gait twisting the group away from the mansions and elegant architecture, into the city that was collectively built with more driftwood and twine then mortar and constructions. The shanties cropped up around them, as suddenly as if they had dived through the surface of a lake, and they had to stop not five minutes later to hide the elegant robes of the gentleman who had just been their mark.

No, such a display of opulence was no longer an asset but had become a liability somewhere in the space between breaths. And with a professional quickness, the robes disappeared into the load on the thug's backs as if they had never been worn at all. Tob turned to Aziza as she moved to dart off, her part in the larcenous comedy having already been played, and he grabbed her shoulder warmly as he spoke a few whispered words, "Walk with us for now. Mad Morrison would like a word."

The girl's eyes widened, body tensing as if to spring away for a moment upon hearing his words. But she looked into his eyes and, after a moment, she relaxed at what she found there. She nodded quickly, not saying a word, and dogged along quietly at Tob's heels the rest of the way to the warehouse.

. . .

In the cavern below the warehouse, Morrison sat regally in his chair against the far wall of the Underside. He regarded Aziza cooly as she held a deep, childlike curtsey below him. He allowed her to hold it for a moment longer than was strictly necessary, reminded of his daughter in the way the girl's curly locks strove to escape the old lace that tied them in place against her head. Finally, smiling, he waved his hand and spoke, his voice resonating warmly against the chill stone walls of the mockingly decorated throne room, "To think, girl, when we met I had a full head of hair," he drew a hand over the dome of his skull, which now reflected the torchlight as well as any other surface, "But you, young lady, have barely even aged a year to these old eyes of mine."

Smiling somewhat wistfully, Mad Morrison continued, "I fear someday I'll be dead and gone, and you will only just be another inch grown."

Aziza smirked up at the man, widening her eyes in a practiced fashion, "Oh Morrison, stop. You've many years left still. I don't expect to be free of you until the end of time, for how stubborn you are. How's the world below these summer days?"

Morrison nodded, shrugging to himself, "That's very kind of you to say." He paused, smirking in turn to himself as he studied the girl's expression, "Though you always were a little charmer. Exactly as I raised you to be, in fact," he guffawed. "Now tell me, how was your most recent project? No problems I hope?"

Aziza recognized he was making what passed for smalltalk down in the Underside, but was never one to let an opportunity drop to regale someone with the stories of her exploits, "Nothing crazy. There was a bit of a drop getting in. I might still be seeing a couple of stars. But it was like they said, the owners were out on some summer expedition, and the place was empty as the grave." She paused, images washing across her memory for a moment, and continued with a more thoughtful expression, "There was a dead pup in there though, over by the door. The locks were closed and barred in a way that would have required several keys at the least, so I don't think anyone beat us to the cache." Frowning, "I suppose the owner just didn't want to take the beast with them, and rather than hiring a sitter just slit the creature's throat on the way out the door." She pinched her lips as if tasting something foul, "Easer for someone like that to buy a new guard dog with the fall than to keep that one alive, I should suppose."

Morrison's eyes clouded, disturbed perhaps by the calm, rational tone of the seemingly little girl in front of him as she described the scene. After a few moments he stopped her, his mood already fouled, knowing too profoundly just how precarious innocence must be in the shanty town above. "Well, all's well that ends well, little luv. I'm glad you made it back in one peace after all." Clearing his throat, he continued, deliberately changing the tone of the conversation, "I wanted to talk to you again about adoption? I'd be happy to arrange a nice house for you to stay in. With parents who could better care for you than that old matron of yours." He shook his head, "There is absolutely no reason for a star asset of ours to be living in that squalor of yours, giving away gold like it's water out a well to whatever grubby hands will take it."

Aziza merely shook her head, looking back up at him with a sad yet knowing set to her eye, "No, Sir, but I thank you. It's those grubby hands that I think of when I'm falling through those windows. And it's the far too thin bones of the digits under that grubbiness that brings me back every night to tempt my fate."

The warm smile returned to Morrison's eyes as Aziza spoke, her stern, far too sober earnestness washing away his earlier unease. He nodded to himself, knowing that the question had been asked a hundred times before, and hoping only for the opportunity to ask it a hundred times again to the strangely compassionate cat burglar. His warm voice carried through the stone chamber, "Yes yes, I know. I can't say I understand it, but I can respect your decision. You let me know if you change your mind now though, there are some families that owe me favors all across the city. And you are already like a daughter to me at times."

Aziza stood quietly, knowing and yet somehow dreading the question that would come next. The conversation played out again like it always had before, and yet still she had no better answer to give.

"And how goes your Awakening, my girl? Surely one of the last couple jobs would have done it?" His eyes narrowed, watching closely the twitches of her expression like an owl watches the fieldmouse. "Anything at all as of yet?"

Aziza shook her head robotically, no. "As always, I have flashes. As if the world is trying to convey to me some meaning. But nothing intelligible. Nothing I can ever understand."

Morrison's face, as always, deepened with lines of his worry, "My girl, you're already twice as effective as my men who passed the first Circle." His voice was rising, passionately, "And four times as effective, even, as those who progressed to the second. Hah!" He laughed to himself at his own blatently exaggerated math."How it hasn't happened for you yet is beyond me, truly." He looked Aziza up and down, head to feet, "Perhaps you just haven't been challenging yourself enough. Though I can't imagine how that would be, as a kid doing work alongside my Awakened here without skipping a step.

"Still, that is the only thing it could be, really." His eyes took on a sheen of worry even as he tried to keep their conversation light, "Haven't been holding out on me there have you? Is there more that you can do, do you think?"

The girl shrugged, looking up into his eyes with a practiced, mocking innocence, "Oh no, wise one. Surely I look to your wisdom only for guidance. A little thing such as me..." she put her hand against her face for emphasis, looking for all the world like a lost little pup.

As much as he knew she was putting on a show to get a rib in at him, Morrison could not help but be moved by the overinflated parody on display in front of him. The eternal youth of the elfin girl echoing through his heart in ways that should have been impossible to a grizzled veteran such as he. He merely waved his hand as the conversation had come to an end, "Go then. And remember, think bigger. Dream wider. And let paranoia always be your stanchest guide." The ceremonial words of dismissal were falling past his lips now by rote.

Aziza curtsied, bobbing her head intentionally to let the curls of her hair bounce and sway, and found her way out to the wicked world above the Underside.

Chapter 2 Afterword

That morning, as she snuck back inside her room and collapsed into her bed, she finally managed to drift into sleep with the rising of the sun. In her dreams Aziza, as always, rode through the valleys and streams of an untouched world of nature. Squeezing her legs tightly against the firm back of her companion, she held her fingers loosely through Toby's mane as they wove along at impossible speeds together.

She did not notice the words, half-seen and half-heard, that appeared against the brilliant twilight sky of her dreamland. Too focused was she on the ride, of the absolute freedom of the pair's endless run through the edges of the world and back. But ever still there appeared, as always, a dancing log from the day's events. Words hitherto buried too profoundly within her mind for her to hear.

Damage taken from source: Self

Lifeforce reduced by 2%

Damage taken from source: Ground

Lifeforce reduced by 32%

Chrasima score increased +1

Initiating rest. Lifeforced restored: 0.5% per hour...