Anton woke to the smells of breakfast.
“Wakey wakey, eggs and bacey!” Kelsey called out. She’d brought food up to their rooms. There wasn’t any bacon, but there were eggs, turned into an omelette and wrapped around some kind of vegetables that Anton wasn’t familiar with. The food had been very strange since they’d arrived in the Elitran Empire, but Anton hadn’t been raised to be a picky eater. Kelsey was delighted by all the new things to try.
“This tahini is to die for,” she said, waving a piece of flatbread at him. He wasn’t sure if tahini was the sauce or the bread itself.
“Did someone die for this?” Zaphar asked, stumbling out of his room.
“Of course not,” Kelsey scoffed. “Breakfast is included in the cost of our rooms.”
Anton elected not to say anything. Aris was the last to join them. Now that she didn’t have to get up before dawn every day, she made a point of luxuriating in a late rise any chance she got. Not to the extent of missing breakfast though.
She scowled at the food that Kelsey had brought up. “Bread isn’t supposed to be spicy,” she declared. She sat down and started to eat anyway.
“It’s flatbread, it’s different,” Kelsey said brightly. “It’d probably do well as a pizza base, and they’ve got tomatoes here…”
“What are we doing today?” Anton asked, mostly to save the cooks downstairs from being bullied into making one of Kelsey’s ideas.
“Well,” Kelsey started, as she took a spoonful of the sauce and started spreading it on the bread. “Zaphar, here, is going to attend the auction, take note of who’s buying and get a closer look at their security from the inside.”
“Is that all?” Aris asked. “Shouldn’t he be sneaking in somewhere to set them free?”
“That would be suicide,” Zaphar told her.
“Weeeellll,” Kelsey said. “Truth be told, I’m hoping that either Zaphar’s class or his patron will give him a nudge toward some sort of scam or heist that he can pull off. You can’t count on someone’s whims like that, though. Anyway, we’re not ready to take in a bunch of freed slaves. That’s what we’ll be doing, getting that warehouse habitable.”
“I won’t have backup?” Zaphar exclaimed at the same time as Aris burst out with, “We’re not coming with them?”
Kelsey tutted at them both, but Aris would not be denied.
“How is he going to know who Chiea is? He’s never met her?”
“She looks like you, doesn’t she?” Kelsey asked. “I think he’ll figure it out. More to the point, you look like her, so what do you imagine the slavers will think if they see an older version of their captive wandering around the grounds?”
Aris stubbornly didn’t answer, but Kelsey just stared inquiringly until Aris gave in.
“They’d think that I was here to rescue her,” she admitted.
“Yeah,” Kelsey agreed. “Let’s not make the slavers right about anything, is my motto.”
“Still,” Anton said. “We can’t just leave him to go in alone. What if something goes wrong?”
Zaphar nodded in furious agreement. Kelsey rolled her eyes.
“Fine,” she said. “We can wait outside, just in case. We can use the time to test how far we can separate now.”
----------------------------------------
It turned out that the distance was quite far. There was a spike of fear, a big one, whenever Kelsey went out of sight but after that. Anton couldn’t tell how far she was, and hence how much he should be panicking.
He was trying to judge how long he could keep this up when he heard the gunshot. His anxiety instantly spiked, but it was a different kind of fear. The only other person who could make that sound was standing right beside him, so Anton’s immediate thought was, who has Kelsey shot?
It was ironic he thought as he started running, that being tied to Kelsey had made her less of a danger to others. Now his freedom had resulted in someone’s death and Anton could only hope that it was justified. He could hear shouts and the sound of people running, but he didn’t see anyone as they ran around to the back of the compound.
When the pair of them rounded the corner, he saw Kelsey, helping someone down from the compound wall. Not Chiea, he saw immediately. This was… an elf? What was a scantily clad elf maiden doing in Elitra? It took a moment for him to realise that he had a way of getting some information.
Tyla of the Padascar Tribe, Level 6, Elf, Doxy, Padascar Hunter (Broken)/ Doxy, S: 10 T: 6 A: 6 D: 11 P: 13 W: 7 C: 7
Anton focussed on the (Broken)/Doxy part. So another slave then? Escaping? What—
“What’s going on,” he said, shoving his thoughts aside. “Who got shot?”
“He’s on the other side of the wall,” Kelsey said. “He seemed bad, so…”
“He was bad,” the elf agreed. “I need to run—can you hide me?”
“Of course we can!” Kelsey agreed. “Aris, can you take her to our inn?”
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Before Aris could reply, Kelsey looked at Tyla critically. “Here,” she said, pulling a long piece of cloth out of nowhere. “Wear this,”
“Can’t I stay here for Cheia?” Aris asked.
Tyla wrapped the cloth around her like a cloak. That wasn’t how the people here wore it, Anton knew, but it did cover her up. She made sure to drape it over her head, covering her pointy ears.
“Sorry,” Kelsey said, “But we need to get this girl out of here, and I need to stay. Zaphar’s gotten into trouble.”
“How do you know?” Anton asked.
Kelsey grinned and pointed. From somewhere in the compound, a thick plume of smoke was rising up, high enough to be seen over the wall. The shouting, Anton now realised wasn’t as far away as he thought. It was just muffled by the high wall.
“Trouble’s there,” Kelsey said. “If Zaphar’s not in the middle of it, he may have to hand in his class.”
“Cheia…” Aris said softly, looking at the smoke.
“You look like her,” Tyla said suddenly. “Are you her sister?”
Aris looked at the elf, surprised. Then at Kelsey, who was making shooing motions.
“We can talk about it at the inn,” Aris said. “This way.”
“We should get moving too,” Kelsey said. “Let’s head around to the front entrance, see if they’re evacuating.”
----------------------------------------
There was a crowd of people leaving the estate. They were milling around uncertainly, but there was no sign of panic.
“Probably not sure if the auction’s been called off or not,” Kelsey mused. “Oooh, check out that one. The big courl with the blue sash.”
Anton did what she said.
Salim Al-Kadir, Level ??, Courl, Champion of Denasti, Scion/Duellist/Champion/Champion of Denasti, S: ?? T: ?? A: ?? D: ?? P: ?? W: ?? C: ??
There was a salty iron taste in his mouth. “I can’t see his level,” he admitted.
“Forty,” Kelsey said idly, as if it were nothing. “Pulling off a heist with him in the room must have netted Zaphar some very tasty experience.”
“We’re not going after him though… right?” Anton asked uneasily. They were a fair distance away, but he worried that the courl might be able to hear them.
“Not directly,” Kelsey agreed. “Not unless he ends up buying Cheia. But if we fail badly enough, he’ll come after us.”
Anton resolved that whatever happened, they had better not fail that badly.
“So what now?” he asked.
“I’m taking notes,” Kelsey told him. “These guys are important people, but most of them are merchants or officials. There’s some third Tiers, but they don’t seem like people we need to worry about.”
Anton nodded. “But where’s Zaphar?” he asked.
“Good question,” Kelsey answered. “They’re not evacuating the servants and slaves, so the fire can’t be too bad.”
She frowned. “Unless it is, and they don’t care… but I don’t see any of the family out here either.”
“So what’s going on? And why didn’t they send anyone to investigate the gunshot?”
Kelsey chuckled. “They don’t know what it is, still. And that dead guard fell down inside the compound, so that’s where they're looking for the killer. I wonder if they’re blaming the missing girl?”
As they watched from a distance a pair of guards came out of the front gate. They escorted a richly dressed courl with auburn fur, who came out to talk with the guests individually. The first person he went up to was the Tier Four Champion, Al-Kadir. He had no reaction at all to the exaggerated bows and gestures of respect. Once he had heard her out, he turned and left.
The other guests were mostly more receptive. A few were angry, but most seemed to be accepting of the apologies.
“Let’s get a little closer,” Kelsey suggested, “I might be able to hear what they’re saying.”
Since Al-Kadir was gone, Anton felt a little safer about approaching. They moved forward, trying to seem like a natural part of the crowd. As a dark-skinned Zamarran and a pale northerner though, they did stand out. When people started giving them confused looks, Kelsey shuffled them to the side a bit, closer to where the servants of the guests were patiently waiting for their masters to be done.
“What it looks like, basically,” Kelsey murmured as they sidled away from the arrogant gazes. Apologies for the disruption, promises of a new auction next week. Nothing about who was responsible though.”
“Do you think they captured him?”
Kelsey hummed with thought. “A few of these people are officials. Some might be judges. I don’t think the Malik family is authorised to take justice into their own hands. I might be wrong, but if they captured Zaphar, they’d have to hand him over to the authorities. And with the authorities right there, they’d do it immediately.”
“So…”
Kelsey hummed again. “Aris isn’t going to panic if we take a while getting back, is she?”
Anton thought about it. “She’ll want to talk to Tyla about Cheia for a while. If she gets worried, she’ll leave the elf hidden at the inn and come looking for us.”
Kelsey nodded. “If we can keep a lookout, we can intercept her before she does anything silly.”
Anton gave her a look. It wasn’t Aris who had shot a guard for no reason at all. Kelsey ignored him.
“Here, take this,” she said, handing Anton a gun.
He took it. “It’s smaller than Aris’s,” was all he said.
“Don’t worry, it doesn’t make you less of a man,” Kelsey said. “It’s a simpler design, with only two shots. I know you’d rather use your sword, but if you use that, I’ll know you’re in trouble. Just fire it in the air if you have to.”
Anton nodded. “Got it. Fire it if I need you.”
“I mean if either of us sees Zaphar, or gets a clue as to what’s going on, we should find the other one,” Kelsey clarified. “But you know how it goes. Emergencies happen.”
With the crowd dispersed, it wasn’t as easy to hang around the compound unnoticed. Kelsey took the front, tucking herself into a small corner where a gatehouse jutted out from the wall of the property across the street. It concealed her from half of the road, and some ornamental shrubbery did a decent job of hiding her from the rest.
Anton found something similar around the back, but he needed to climb to reach his spot. An accident of construction where a tower rose up behind a wall, had left a small ledge fifteen feet up where he could perch. He was quite visible if anyone looked at him, but lines of sight were blocked from most directions, and people rarely looked up.
From here he could see into the compound, at least a bit. There were a fair number of people running around, but the fire appeared to have been put out. Eventually, the excitement seemed to die down.
Kelsey had warned him that they might have to wait until after dark for Zaphar to show himself. There was still no sign that the Malik family had caught anyone, so he was still hopeful.
Nonetheless, it was a relief when he saw a dark figure pop up on the roof of one of the large buildings, about an hour after sunset. He couldn’t make out the details, but the lone figure moved with the easy grace that Zaphar did when he was on a job.
Anton could have sworn he was invisible in the darkness, but the figure seemed to catch sight of him, and headed his way, jumping lightly from one roof to another.
Anton jumped down from his perch, as the figure approached the wall. Coming closer, he could see that the figure was, indeed, Zaphar. He looked exhausted.
“Nice work,” Anton said. “Let’s collect Kelsey and get back to the inn.”
Zaphar nodded silently and let Anton lead him around to the front. He waved to Kelsey from a distance and she came trotting up.
“You made it!” she said brightly. “Was it fun?”
Zaphar stared at her. “No. It wasn’t.” He pulled out a ring of iron keys from his shirt and tossed them to Kelsey.
“What happened?” Anton asked. Zaphar tried to glare at him, but he seemed too exhausted to muster the energy.
“I hate my life,” he said. “I hate this class. I hate this city and I hate my patron.”