“Come tomorrow morning, you guys are done,” Kelsey said. “I don’t need anything more from you, so you can just hang out here until then. That’s also how long the rooms are paid for, so after that, you’re on your own.”

Kusec glared down at the pale girl. “You were the ones who hit the Administrative Compound,” he said slowly. “Everyone’s talking about it.”

“I couldn’t possibly comment, but I’ll remind you that talking about your suspicions is forbidden, under penalty of pain, for another twenty-four hours.”

Grimacing at the memory, Kusec shook his head. “You won’t get away with this,” he stated. “That ship is big and fast, but the Navy’s ships are faster. They’ll catch you.”

“Thanks for the concern,” Kelsey said, grinning. “I’ll take it under advisement.”

Turning on her heel, she strode out of the room, Anton at her side. Entering her room across the hall, they almost ran into Aris, packing up the rest of their gear.

“Got everything? Then, let's go,” Kelsey said.

“This room is a lot more comfortable than the other place is going to be,” Aris said mournfully.

“Don’t worry, we won’t be staying there for long,” Kelsey assured her. “But we’re wanted criminals now, we can’t be too easy to find.”

“I thought you said the authorities wouldn’t know who did it?” Anton asked.

“The authorities no, but Rashaq must have a few ideas,” Kelsey said.

The city was as bustling as ever, the only sign of the attack last night was the presence of additional guards, scowling suspiciously at the passers-by.

“This isn’t the way back to the other— the safehouse,” Aris said.

“No, we’ve got a few errands to run,” Kelsey said. “We need to pick up some supplies, and we need to chase up those other merchants.”

Anton frowned. “Rashaq was there when we got those addresses,” he said. “We should probably stay away from them if we want to avoid Rashaq.”

Kelsey grinned a tight little smile. “I never said we were avoiding Rashaq.”

The first address went without incident. Posing as an interested buyer, Kelsey managed to get the city where the merchant (and her wares) could be found. The second shop was also proceeding to plan when Anton, keeping watch outside, noticed something concerning.

“Mistress,” he said. Both he and Aris were posing as slaves, wearing recycled slave collars from the outpost. He hadn’t thought it would work, as both of them were not dressed in anything like a slave. Kelsey had said though, that as long as the collars were visible, no one would see anything else.

Now she looked to see what he was pointing at. Two large courls had stopped outside. They were barely visible from inside, but the flow of traffic had given them a wide berth, attracting Anton’s attention. Kelsey just smirked and finished up with the merchant’s clerk.

“You can take those off now,” she said as they stepped outside. Anton and Aris pulled their collars off with some relief. They looked solid, but Kelsey had rigged them to come apart with a firm pull. They got a few stares from the crowd and concerned frowns from the thugs that had stepped in their way, but Kelsey ignored the looks, and Anton followed her lead.

The thug’s face twitched, trying to hold two thoughts in his head at the same time. He wanted to ask about the collars, but that wasn’t why he’d been sent. It only took a second for duty to win out over curiosity.

“Boss wants to see you,” he finally said.

“That would be Rashaq, I take it?” Kelsey said easily. When they nodded, she smiled. “Let’s go then, we wouldn’t want to keep him waiting.”

One of the thugs led the way, the other fell in behind the group, keeping watch. Anton thought to use Delver’s Discernment on the two of them.

Yusuf Kaya, Level 14, Cudgeler, Brawler/Cudgeler

Emre Efe, Level 18, Warrior/Enforcer/Bonecracker

He was slightly out-leveled, but they weren’t great classes. Anton thought he could probably beat them on most Abilities, except for Agility, which the Courl were famous for. It would help if he had a weapon, but Kelsey was holding on to it for now.

He held on to Aris’s hand, for reassurance. She gave him a nervous smile in return.

Kelsey was looking at everything except their guards. She was looking in all directions, even spinning around and walking backwards for a few steps. It made the thugs nervous, but she didn’t try to hare off, so they slowly relaxed.

Anton knew better than to ask what she thought she was doing.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Then they were back at the casino. Since it was still early in the day, the place was deserted except for Rashaq’s staff. They were led inside without any fuss and directed to sit in a booth. One of the thugs stayed to watch them while the other went to get the boss. They weren’t kept waiting for long.

“Emre, why is this one still carrying her weapons?” was the first thing he asked. Emre shrugged.

“They’re just those weird club-daggers, boss,” he said. “Didn’t seem worth it.”

Rashaq scowled. “What weapons were the others carrying?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Emre stated confidently. “Well, just the knives.”

Rashaq stared at the man. “We know she can make money appear out of nowhere,” he said. “You think she can’t do that with weapons?”

Emre shrugged again. “I don’t know what you want me to do about that,” he complained. “Besides, isn’t that why you’ve got all—” he waved at the dangerous-looking people around the room, “—that?”

“What’s all this talk of weapons?” Kelsey asked innocently. “Surely you don’t suspect us of perpetrating violence?”

Anton was glad they hadn’t been served drinks. He would have choked on his.

Rashaq glared at her. “I know you hit the Compound.”

“Wow,” Kelsey said. “That would be pretty impressive if it was just little old me. I heard it was a squad of mages.”

That had, in fact, been one of the wilder rumours that they’d heard on the streets. Another was that the Tiatian Navy had shown up and the attack was from their siege weapons, fired over the island. Rumour was getting pretty wild.

“Don’t play me for a fool,” Rashaq spat. “The prisoners you came for are gone, and nothing else is. I don’t know how you managed it, but unless you pay up, you’re going straight to the Bey as a goodwill gift.”

“Gosh, I thought we had a better relationship than that,” Kelsey said. “Didn’t we pay you all that money?”

“I made some money from you,” Rashaq allowed. “But when you start to disrupt the city, you make yourself more trouble than your gold is worth.”

“So you don’t want my gold?”

“Let’s see just how much of it you have,” Rashaq growled. “If you want to get out of here unharmed.”

“Well, that is very intimidating,” Kelsey said agreeably. “I think I’ve got something here to satisfy all of your concerns, though,”

She held up one hand, and a small, round, object appeared in it. Not entirely round, there was some kind of… lid, perhaps? Held in place with a pin attached to a ring?

“What is that?” Rashaq asked suspiciously, echoing Anton’s thoughts.

“In the words of my people, it would be described as: duck under the table when I throw,” Kelsey said, switching to Tiatian as she pulled the pin out.

Either Rashaq spoke Tiatian, or he reacted to the sudden looks of alarm on Anton and Aris’s faces. He stepped back with a shout. It didn’t do him any good, though, Kelsey had already thrown the object.

Her enhanced strength meant that even though she was just using her wrist, it was a good throw. Not a fast, flat throw meant to hit someone hard. She lobbed it, as high as the ceiling allowed, over the heads of everyone gathered around the table.

Anton couldn’t see where it went, since he had ducked down, but he was pretty sure it landed behind the bar. He became absolutely certain of that a second later, when the bar exploded.

If the smoke, fire and noise of the explosion weren’t enough, the weapon turned half of the bar into flying splinters that shot out at everyone in the room. For most, they were an annoyance. Some unlucky few were injured. All of them, though, were instantly, completely distracted.

Kelsey shot up from her seat. Using one leg, she kicked the booth’s table at Rashaq. One hand dropped Chainbreaker in Anton’s lap.

“Time to grind out some XP!” she shouted.

Rashaq gave out a cry of pain as the table hit him, but he didn’t go down. The table dropped down, revealing his bloody, angry face.

“Get—” he yelled before he was interrupted by Aris’s gunshot. He twisted out of the way when he saw her aim at him, and the shot took him in the shoulder.

Anton rushed out of the booth, Chainbreaker in his hand. He needed to establish a front line, allowing Aris to fire freely. Emre was the closest, already bringing up two batons to block his strike.

Kelsey cackled and threw another of her… things toward the entrance. This one didn’t explode but started spewing out a thick, black smoke.

Emre managed to block Anton’s strike but got an alarmed look on his face when he saw how deeply Chainbreaker cut into his weapons. Batons were supposed to be a good defence against swords, but everything was relative. A Tier One or Two wouldn’t be good for long against the Tier Three sword.

Aris fired again, forcing the thugs to hold back. Rashaq wasn’t down, but he had pulled back. Anton could hear him shouting for medical attention, for crossbowmen, and for everyone to just kill them already.

Kelsey threw another smoke weapon to the opposite corner of the large room. Now everyone was being hemmed in by two walls of slowly advancing, choking smoke. Anton felt a chill. It looked like Kelsey had a plan, which was much more frightening than her acting up randomly.

The thugs were pressing forward more desperately, encouraged by the smoke and Rashaq’s shouting. That just made them better targets for Aris to pick off, as they tried to get past Anton.

He was fighting two of them now, but Emre had reached the limit of his weapon’s durability. This time, when he blocked Anton, the sword cleaved through the baton and sliced through the bone of his arm. Emre screamed and fell back, freeing up space for another grim-faced enforcer.

Anton was hard-pressed, but his opponents so far hadn’t been very skilled. He was able to keep them at bay without using any traits. Stuck where he was, guarding the approach to Aris, he couldn’t use his favourite trick, Leaping Attack, but between his armour and Stone Skin, the thug's blunt weapons were having trouble damaging him.

That changed when his latest opponent dived under his guard, in what looked like a suicidal move. Just before the man hit the ground his twin dagger blurred, changing to an upward trajectory, headed right for Anton’s stomach.

Uncanny Dodge, Anton thought desperately, triggering the Trait. His body performed its own unnatural gyration, twisting out of the way of the daggers— and right into the club swing of his other opponent.

Anton gasped in pain at the blow, but it didn’t feel like anything was broken. The man with the daggers had collapsed on the ground, his chance lost. Anton brought up his sword for a return blow at the cudgeler and stomped on the face of the dagger-man. Another shot from Aris dropped a man trying to flank him.

Then the smoke was almost upon them. Anton’s opponents started coughing and fell back. It put them deeper in the smoke but out of range of his attacks. Before Anton could start choking, Kelsey stepped up next to him.

“Here, put this on your face,” she said, her voice muffled through the mask she was wearing. An identical mask was being held up in front of him.

Kelsey guided the mask on and then deftly fastened it. He looked over to see that Aris was already wearing her mask.

“What now?” he asked.

He couldn’t see Kelsey’s face, but he knew she was grinning that wide crazy grin.

“Now?” she said, “Now we teach these low lives the meaning of regret.”