Lynx
The last few days have been a surprisingly fulfilling experience for Lynx, it had been quite some time since he last had a student. Even if he viewed his disciple with the same emotionless nature that the faceless showed most things the act of teaching and creating an organization from the ground up was fulfilling indeed.
She hindered his ability to do his work in the capital quite significantly because he couldn’t just send her on a mission with her lackluster abilities, but it would be worth it in the future.
He shook off these useless thoughts and looked down the roof he was currently sitting on. The street beneath him was bustling with activity as the market district always did in this city but his attention was focused on a large bakery on the other side of the street.
Someone pulled himself up onto the roof with a huff, but Lynx didn’t react. He didn’t even move when the radiant soul stepped next to him and looked down to him.
“A curious meeting place, Lynx,” he remarked humorously. The young lord was, as always, accompanied by the silent woman, her eyes searching for the slightest sign of aggression from the faceless while her whole mannerism feigned boredom. She could probably trick most humans with her act but the senses of a faceless were too different.
“I would prefer to keep rumors about a masked stranger to a minimum,” Lynx answered without taking his gaze off the bakery.
“Oh, I am not complaining, but it showed me that I will have to practice climbing a little more,” Michael answered and followed the Lynx’s gaze toward the building on the opposite side of the street. “What are you looking at?”
Just as he did the door swung open hard and a small girl with short dirt-blond hair jumped through it followed by angry shouts and a few moments later a corpulent man with a bright red head and a rolling pin in hand. “COME BACK HERE, YOU THIEVING RAT!”
“Who is that,” Michael rightly caught on that the girl was the focus of Lynx’s attention.
“She might be my first student,” Lynx explained, and after the girl had rushed around a corner he turned toward his chosen master.
“A student? I always took you for the solitary type,” Michael said surprised, looking at him.
“A single man, no matter how fast, cannot be everywhere, an organization on the other hand can.”
“If you need anything just ask.”
“We are quite self-sufficient at the moment, but some funds would be advantageous in the future,” Lynx replied nonchalantly, but he knew that he wouldn’t be able to finance himself and multiple students by stealing from criminals for long without drawing too much attention.
“Stealing from an innocent baker, is that your self-sufficiency,” Michael questioned him with a raised eyebrow.
Lynx didn’t mind the question. “This bakery is a front for a criminal group, and I need to see if the girl is worth my attention. So, they are not innocent, and I am even doing this city a favor. My people have much different moral views than yours do but I am quite aware of them and will do my best to keep them in mind while it is practical.”
The young lord seemed surprised and a little bit awkward, “That is good. I hope it will work out with her.
Lynx nodded and turned to the subject why they were here in the first place. He took out the stack of letters that he had copied from the messenger on his way here and handed them to the radiant soul while standing up.
Michael took them with a frown and started skimming over the contents getting more serious with every letter.
“Where did you get these and who sent them to whom?”
“I copied them of a messenger coming from one of Baron Redric Plon’s estates. They were delivered to a man here in Lionsgate who brought them into the Palace. I can’t say who he delivered them to or who he is, but I have a sketch of him,” Lynx explained and handed Michael another piece of paper with a very detailed drawing of the man who had received the letters.
Michael looked at the sketch with a weird expression for a moment that Lynx couldn’t place but then shook his head. The man had a broad unassuming face as so many human males had but a small scar on his left cheek made him easier to identify.
“You are a good artist,” he remarked but Lynx didn’t react, so Michael just continued. “I don’t know the man, he is either one of Duke Wulfen’s men or the Archpriest, I presume. When did he deliver this?”
“He arrived three days ago, and the man entered the palace the same day,” Lynx answered shortly. He had wanted to simply leave a written report, but with his master staying in the den of the lion it would have been too risky. That didn’t mean that he enjoyed the conversation though, he never did.
“Three days? Hmm, I wonder why they didn’t use the letters in the meeting,” Michael said more to himself than Lynx, but he answered anyway. “I do not know but I can try to break in and investigate. The palace defenses are dangerous though even for me, they are from another era entirely.”
Michael shook his head, “No, there is no need for that. Keep doing what you have been doing, I will take care of this.”
Lynx nodded and after it was apparent that they had nothing left to talk Michael turned around and vanished together with his silent guard.
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Silvia
The streets of Lionsgate had been her home since her mother had died. People always said that it was hard surviving in the wilderness far away from other humans, but Silvia couldn’t believe that the lack of humans made things worse, the opposite was the case in her experience.
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Now again she was cowering in an abandoned alleyway peeking out from behind a mountain of trash, looking for her human pursuer.
“He gave up two alleys earlier,” a dark voice startled her from behind and she whirled around just to see the masked man standing behind her.
Silvia sighed in relief and leaned back against the wall.
“You wouldn’t have had to run if you didn’t let yourself get caught while stealing, girl,” he said but his tone didn’t change even a little.
“I am sorry.”
He didn’t acknowledge her apology and simply pulled out a small piece of paper and handed it to her. “I have acquired a base of operations for us. Find it with these hints.”
He turned to leave but Silvia quickly said, “I can’t read.”
The masked man stopped and turned toward her, “The first word is ‘Jason’, and the second line is ‘Green Path’.” With these words, he vanished and left Silvia alone in the alleyway.
“Wait,” Silvia called out, but he was already gone. “What am I supposed to do with that?”
She stood there in silence for a while, not quite sure what she was supposed to do but decided that first she would need to find the ‘Green Path’, it was probably some kind of street and a much better clue than ‘Jason’.
Looking left and right carefully, she snuck out of the alleyway and put some distance between herself and where she last saw the angry baker before she started asking around for the location.
“I don’t have money.”
“Fuck off, you street rat, before I beat your ass.”
“I don’t have time for this.”
Silvia sat on the side of the street; it wasn’t a ‘bad’ neighborhood, but it wasn’t fancy either but a run-down girl like her would never be treated well no matter where she was. People never tended to treat those well that they saw beneath them, and Silvia had yet to find someone she was above.
“Hey you, girl,” an authoritative voice dragged her out of her self-pity. She looked up and saw a member of the city guard looking at her with an annoyed expression. “What are you doing? You know that your kind is not welcome here.”
“I’m sorry,” she answered quietly but then decided to try her luck. “Do you perhaps know where the Green Path is, I am supposed to find someone there.”
“Huh? Well, sure. The Green Path is a tavern in the traveler’s district close to the east gate,” the man answered probably wanting her to go there and out of his patrol area.
Silvia thanked him and quickly made her way there before the guard thought of motivating her to leave. It wouldn’t have been the first time that those like her had to be forced out of better districts by force.
The traveler’s district was a lower-class kind of area, mostly for adventurers and poor travelers, so crime and lowlifes were prevalent there. She would definitely fit in there better than here, but it was still one or two steps above the slums that she had called her home.
It didn’t take her long to find the tavern even if there were multiple even in this street alone. It was a rundown place, but as every tavern in this district, it was filled with people.
Silvia entered and was instantly assaulted by the stench of alcohol and vomit; she was used to the fragrance, so she didn’t care too much and made her way to the bar.
She had to dodge one or two drunk people and a hand that was grabbier than she liked but except for that she made it to the counter without problem.
“Excuse me,” she said, trying to overcome the ambient noise.
A tall and thin man behind the bar looked over to her and his expression instantly darkened, “There is no begging here.”
“I am not here to beg,” Silvia protested.
“There is also no prostitution here either.”
“That is also not what I am here for. I am looking for someone,” Silvia said.
“Don’t care. Either you buy something or get out,” the bartender said and grabbed one of the stone mugs threateningly.
“Please, I just ...”
“FRANK! Get this little rat out of here before she steals something,” the bartender yelled, and Silvia found herself on the ground outside of the tavern shortly after.
She scrambled back to her feet and looked back to the tavern where Frank told her to not come back or else, before he slammed the door in her face.
“Great, what now,” she murmured to herself and fell against the wall opposite of the tavern entrance. “No one ever helps me ... except for him.”
She sat there with tears running down her face for half an hour until a familiar voice spoke to her. “You gave up quickly, girl. Well, at least you found your way here.”
Silvia looked up and saw the masked man in front of her looking down with the empty eye sockets of his mask.
“How can I find out anything if no one talks to me because of who I am,” she complained and pulled her legs closer to her chest.
“Just stop being who you are,” he replied bluntly but then elaborated. “You didn’t put any effort in. There were many ways you could have found out, stealing some gold to pay someone off, asking some drunk who seemed like a talker, getting some better clothes to fit in.”
I disappointed him. Why can’t I ever do anything right, she thought quietly.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled.
“I don’t need you to be sorry. You just need to learn that the most important trait for someone in my line of work is to fit in anywhere without drawing attention. From your experience, I expect that you have seen why.”
Silvia nodded and then asked, “I never saw you without that cloak and mask, how do you fit in?”
“With the people I converse with a mask and hood are not uncommon,” he simply answered. “I walk different paths than you, but you have a wider field of access, girl.”
“My name is Silvia,” she corrected him, but he shook his head. “Your name and identity will be lost; you can’t leave behind any connection to your current life so your name must be lost to memory. You will receive a code name once you deserve it.”
It didn’t hit her as harshly as it should that she was going to lose her name because she was ready to leave behind everything anyway.
“How do I call you then?”
“You may call me, Lynx, and now follow me,” then he turned around and walked away in the direction of a close-by house.
Silvia struggled to keep up with him and he didn’t appear to care much if she followed but she did. Their destination was a small door in a side alley of an unassuming building leading into a similarly unassuming room. It was dusty as if no one had lived here for quite some time and the furniture was in complete disarray. There were two doors leading out of the room which must have been some kind of common room, but the doors were closed.
“What is this place,” Silvia asked while looking around.
“It was a safehouse for some criminal group that since has gone extinct. No one is using it so we will take possession for the time being,” the masked man answered shortly and walked straight for a corner where he picked up a broom and turned around to Silvia.
He handed her the broom and said, “Clean up here. I will be back in a few hours.”
Silvia nodded weakly and he was gone before she had even grabbed the broom. She blinked a couple of times into the empty room and then sighed before getting to work.
Cleaning wasn’t something she was used to, so she just did what she saw in taverns and started sweeping and cleaning the tables.
The masked man returned three hours later with a bag and a large barrel on his back.
“Welcome back, master,” Silvia greeted him, but he didn’t reply. Instead, he took a short stroll around the room and inspected it.
“Have you ever learned to clean,” he asked.
She shook her head and avoided his gaze.
“You will have to learn but for now come here.” she came over and he opened the barrel, it was filled with clean water, and she stared at him unbelievingly. She easily fit into it and this man had carried it in as if it was nothing.
“Take a bath, then I will cut your hair and we will get you presentable. There is soap and sponges here and in the bag are new clothes for you. If you need anything I am in the next room.” He then left through one of the doors which she knew led into a room filled with a table and a chair but not much else. The other door led into a hallway and into more rooms.
She stared at the many things that Lynx had brought her and smiled, she never had gotten a gift since her ring.