Bricks In The Wall

The first thing I did was search the various cells and pits, finding all of them either empty or filled with corpses in various states of decomposition. Not exactly surprising, all told; for all they were secure and unlikely to be searched by outsiders, prison cells were unpleasantly risky places to store things when the prison was in use. I made sure to actually enter each cell on the off chance there was some sort of hidden compartment, then I searched each wall by hand just in case there was something my Paranoia couldn’t see. I found nothing except new and interestingly colourful breeds of mold and lichen, which I’m sure would have been interesting were I an alchemist or whatever but as is it just made me feel itchy looking at it.

While part of me speculated that my inability to find something didn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t there, I decided to search elsewhere before I started literally tearing the place apart brick by brick.

I grimaced, glaring at the mouldering brick and woodwork around me as if it had personally offended me. I knew I didn't have long before the fires raging outside reached this building and consumed any evidence of anything that might be hidden here; I didn't know exactly how long that would take, but I knew I needed to work fast to see if there was anything worth finding.

Short as I am and tall as people insisted on making their ceilings, I was forced to actually physically go upstairs to see what was up there. I was somewhat tempted to toss the guard’s body into one of the cells before I headed up, in an effort to delay him getting found when or if someone searched the place later but considering the building was about to be a smoking ruin, I figured it would be better to leave him for the flames than to put him somewhere they might not reach him. When I reached the top of the stairs, I was slightly impressed that the bastard had actually locked the heavy iron door; I wasn’t expecting that level of basic competence from such a clearly disposable mook.

Not that it stopped or even really delayed me, but I still appreciated the sentiment.

Using Ninja Vanish with only my Paranoia to guide me was a little odd; while Paranoia made me aware of everything in its range, it wasn't quite the same as actually seeing it and some part of my instincts still screamed I was technically teleporting blind. Still, I had no trouble teleporting past the door, arriving in what looked like a fairly standard, if seemingly abandoned, residential building. The place was a dump, dust everywhere, webs in every corner, and all the boards warped and rotten. Part of me suspected that was a deliberate choice to make the place look like it wasn't a gang prison, but I couldn't entirely deny the possibility that the place simply was just that neglected; street gangs are not renowned for their sterling diligence, after all.

Staring at a rubbish strewn hall lined with peeling doors, I began to wonder if there was actually anything at all worth finding; it is possible that whoever was running this gang just felt the need to keep a single guard for an unused building… in Burnpike territory. I dismissed the thought, the place is far too suspicious to not at least give it a once over even if there isn’t necessarily anything to find; better to spend time making sure, than risk losing out forever if there actually is something worth finding.

Of course, the thought did enter my mind that the very idea that the place might not be worth searching may have been deliberately planted, if not outright by magic then by the image the place presented. A dilapidated shithole like this place, filled with roaches skittering between shadows and paint peeling off rotten walls, looks exactly like the kind of place most would take one look at and dismiss; the idea that that could be entirely deliberate kept swirling around behind my eyes as I glared at the unassuming building. Sure, hiding in mundanity and obscurity isn’t uncommon, but then why post a seemingly unnecessary guard in a secret prison with no prisoners? Having someone always around would only increase the odds of attracting attention and could defeat the whole point of making the place look abandoned.

I shook my head, the distant sound of a building collapsing reminding me that I didn’t have time for navel gazing. Even reminded of the necessity for haste, I couldn’t bring myself to fully abandon stealth despite the guard’s muttered gripes about working alone; lessons I’d drilled into myself over the years forced me to treat every door as a potential ambush point. I crept up to each one quickly but quietly, keeping my senses focused and paying full attention to my Paranoia as I carefully kept myself from being directly exposed to as many potential lines of sight as I could avoid.

The first room appeared to be some sort of long abandoned office or small bedroom, a thick layer of dust covered what little ragged furniture there was. I was beginning to get the feeling I had chased an illusory lead here, but even so I searched the room with the same efficient thoroughness I had the cells before. Each subsequent room was similar, each abandoned and dust covered whether they be lounges or kitchens or storage. It was only when I got to the very last room I hadn't yet searched, the only one outside of the hallway and cells to show even minuscule signs of habitation and disturbed dust (I had thought it was somewhat odd they would go to the extent of keeping the place rundown and dusty but allowed such obvious signs of recent activity to remain, but I decided it was probably just the guard not caring enough to do his job right), that I found something noteworthy.

The room looked much the same as any other sitting room in the building, the only notable difference being what appeared to be a bricked up chimney and a small table and chair covered in marginally less dust than everywhere else set in a corner; a half empty bottle of what I could smell was some sort of gin sat on the small table, dangerously close to an ashtray stuffed full of half smoked cigarettes still softly smouldering. A bottle of backwash and a tray full of ash were far from the prize I was hoping to find (though I didn't really know what I was hoping for exactly), but my eyes were drawn to the former chimney; no one spends the time and effort to brick up a chimney unless they either don't want anything coming in from outside or they don't want anyone looking in the smokestack itself. Other than the prison itself, that chimney was the only thing of note I’d seen in my admittedly rather brisk search.

As I approached the sealed up smokestack, I could feel the air getting hotter, hear the inferno outside beginning to lick at the walls and scratch at the windows. The moment the chimney was within range of my Paranoia as I stood at its base, I knew I had found something worth finding; there, seven feet above my head and on the other side of a crude brick barrier, was a small bundle of what appeared to be a collection of odd clothes wrapped around a small stack of what looked like golden dog tags.

Teleporting to the other side of the bricks, it was simple to scramble up the rough and uneven artificial stone to reach the small bundle. I found myself staring at the crumpled ball of clothes in wary curiosity, noting how the gold highlights on the nearly shimmering white clothes seemed to almost glow even beneath a thin layer of what seemed to be soot. Being the cautious sort I am, I observed the bundle before I actually reached out and touched it, unwilling to risk contact poisons or mystical traps.

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Tricadacil Worm Silk Shirt: A shirt made of highly durable and fireproof silk that glows with an illusory light.

My face twisted into something halfway between a grimace and a sneer, decidedly displeased to learn the pretty light I had been intrigued by was apparently some sort of mental fuckery. While it was entirely possible the faint glow was just an innocent trick of the eye, the very idea that it might be some sort of mental magic terrified and subsequently infuriated me. Fear and loathing are not so far apart in one’s mind, but any temptation I felt to destroy the source of a potential mental attack was suppressed by the knowledge that the simple fact someone had taken the time and effort to hide this stuff to this extent meant it was probably of some sort of value, if not financial then political.

Clearly someone hadn’t wanted this found, and I was never one to waste an opportunity to ruin an enemy’s day.

Feeling the walls around me starting to get notably warmer I hurriedly grabbed the bundle, deciding to inspect the cards I sensed inside it somewhere that wasn’t likely to be on fire in the near future. The material felt like no silk I’d ever handled, its texture so smooth and soft it was closer to liquid than any cloth has any right to be. I smirked at my prize, feeling better about the time I’d spent here with the knowledge that the stuff will probably be valuable even if it doesn’t get leverage over someone somewhere.

For a moment I internally debated whether I should do a second sweep of the building to be sure I hadn’t missed something important, but the sound of a window shattering and a rush of hot air seeping through the cracks in the wall beneath me helped me decide it was well and truly time to go. Gripping the roughly packed silks with my teeth, I all but flew up the chimney, the ease of which forcing me to grudgingly admit to myself that Rokharth’s brutal training was actually coming in handy as I effortlessly scaled the rough brick channel.

Covered in soot and dust, I burst from the chimney’s mouth like a mole from a tunnel and found myself in the midst of an ocean of fire for the second time this month. I cast a beady-eyed glare out at the scene around me, realizing that I may have wasted more time than I thought searching this shithole as I found myself surrounded on all sides by burning roofing. All around me shingles were curling in on themselves as they turned to ash, the exposed beams and bed of the roof beneath them groaning loudly as the excited water within them expanded and the surface charred.

I released a long sigh through my nose, more exasperated than alarmed despite how dire the situation had become; I was paying the price for my mistakes and my lack of due haste, but I had a potential solution on hand. I drew my blade one handed, firmly planting my legs and offhand as I bashed the bricks around me with the pommel one by one until I found one loose enough to be visibly moved by the impact. I struck the brick a few more times to see how loose it was before thrusting my blade into the sections my Paranoia told me had more mortar than the rest. After a few jabs, I managed to break the last connections the brick had, enabling me to tear it from the wall easily enough.

I'm sure Rokharth is going to beat me with my own bones when I come back from such a simple mission with a dulled blade; well, if the whole “starting a wildfire” thing doesn’t fill up his beating quota anyway.

Hooking the lip of the chimney under my left shoulder, I gripped the now free brick and began carefully scratching away at it. My hand was preternaturally steady as I methodically carved a wavy sigil I hadn’t let myself forget… or think too hard about. Just before I finished carving, I turned the brick away from myself, unleashing a torrent of water as I slashed the final line into place.

The jet of water was… rather less impressive than I had hoped, more akin to a particularly strong hose than the extraordinary geyser it produced when carved into a human skull; still, it got the job done well enough. It wasn’t too long before I managed to soak a large enough portion of the roof for me to feel relatively comfortable climbing down. Before I hopped down, I smashed the side of my ad hoc firehose into the chimney’s corner. I intended to bash it over and over until it chipped and cracked enough to damage the rune on its face, but it displayed a bizarre fragility and crumbled into fragments with a single sharp blow.

While I was decidedly curious as to exactly why my impromptu water spout fell apart so easily, the steam coming off the edges of the section of roof I had just soaked was of far bigger concern. I quickly lifted myself over the lip of the chimney, digging my foot claws into the slick and charred rooftop before I could even risk slipping and falling to my death. I took each step carefully, once more ruefully noting that compared to Rokharth’s relentless tort- training, walking across wet and weak boards over a burning pit was almost relaxingly simple; I still had to take each step with extreme caution, make extra sure the scorched wood could bear my notably rather low weight, and take the very real and very deadly stakes very seriously, but at least the roof wasn’t spinning around and shaking violently while a maniac laughed at me!

I sighed, nodding commiseratingly to the concerned flies that flowed out with my breath; I may be going mad, but at least I’m alive, eh?

While it was primally horrifying to stand on the edge of a burning roof and I could have sworn I heard my father’s voice yelling straight out of my childhood for me to be careful as I nearly lost my balance in an attempt to peer over the ledge, I managed not to fall to my death (though, at my size I wasn’t actually sure what a deadly height looked like) as I carefully but quickly lowered myself down from the roof such that I was hanging from the gutter. The walls had been uneven before fire got involved and the intense heat and carbonization had certainly not done it any favours; fortunately, fixing this shit was not my problem so all this meant for me was that I had plenty of handholds.

The brick was uncomfortably hot as I climbed down, but it was nowhere near the molten agony I had felt climbing out of that purple bastard’s shitpit of horrors; it wasn’t even hot enough to earn a level of Heat Resistance, though it was enough to make my already hurried pace just that little bit faster. When I got within jumping distance of the ground I all but threw myself off the wall and hit the ground running, eager to get away from the fiery price of my mistakes and back to something approaching safety.

Despite my (somewhat) successful search, I did have one niggling little question squirming around with the maggots in the back of my mind, one that was entirely unrelated to the nearly abandoned prison blazing behind me; why did that brick building earlier collapse from a fire? The only reason I even found that dusty dungeon in the first palace was that damn building coming down on top of me, but with the adrenaline of the moment come and gone it had occurred to me that the fire alone wouldn’t explain what was going on there. Brick isn't flammable and while it's true that nothing is truly fire proof when things get hot enough, that building didn't just turn to slag, it fell over. The only possibilities that came to mind were that it might have had vital internal structural supports made of wood, which wouldn't be too surprising, all told. Of course, the other possibility was that something unrelated to the fire was occurring there, something likely connected to that suspiciously high ranking Eight Points gangster lurking around outside a random seeming building inside what I'm pretty sure is Burnpike territory.

Of course, even if my suspicions were true, there wasn't really much I could do about it. Hell, I couldn't even really confirm anything either way, given the building was rubble and ash now. Still, something about that unexpectedly high ranking thug waiting in some grimy alley and killing anyone who came by struck me as decidedly abnormal. Unless that guy made a habit of killing random people, something I couldn't entirely dismiss out of hand, he was probably there on "official" gang business.

And as my sadistic mentor would say, the enemy's business is my business.

I'll make sure to mention it in my after action report, presuming this band of thugs is organized enough to have such a thing.