Three months had passed, and Darius was living quite well. He had rented in addition to his room storage room downstairs and had an alchemy lab up and running there. He had finally gotten the hidden items back from the sewer and managed to buy more alchemy tools. Now his whole potioneering was done with only alchemical tools. The main difference was that he could make around five boxes of potions per week, most minor healing potions but also a few medium potions. To this day, he has no access to extra magic books. These items seemed to be very rare indeed.

Despite lacking advances in magic, Darius was still happy about how his potioneering had solved his major money problems. Also, he had made few requests for mister Trader, and he had been paid relatively well. But these missions had left him with an empty feeling. The typical mission was about harming some local competitor businesses, ruining evidence, and blackmailing officials, with some arson on the side. The problem with this was the immense risk without enough payment for it. The risk also cumulated, so if he did these jobs for years, officials might take notice of it, jail him, and close his makeshift laboratory. The risk was not the biggest problem, but the returns could not justify it. It was one of those occasions when he was selling the potions and looking at items at mister Trader when he was given the new option.

“Thanks for the potions again Darius, I will raise your sell prices to 70% if you continue producing potions for me.”

“It is acceptable Mr. Trader if I can make it on my own time. Sometimes I cannot keep the set times.”

“I might have a solution for this, but it will cost you around 2000 gold coins. You see, we are also occasionally trading slaves, and I have just gotten the old alchemy experiment slave from the academia that nobody wanted to buy there. Since then, the price has been cut. I am afraid that this slave might not be able to survive long without constant alchemical care, but she could be an asset in alchemy production. What do you think Darius?”

“What experience she has?” Darius stalled and started thinking about how he could get extra 800 gold. He had made a fortune with medium-quality healing potions, and his earnings would rise, but it was months of saving to get to the 2000 golds.

“She is 63 years old, but she also is a rank two acolyte, and her contract is bound by curse magic that needs at least one acolyte to handle the contract. I have a contact who can reassign the ownership of the curses. She could live for several decades if she gets enough medical treatment, but she has at least a decade's worth of experience in alchemy labs and acolyte life.”

Shit. Darius had to take this chance, but by doing so, he would also reveal some of his cards. Albeit Mr. Trader seemed trustworthy, at least because he was making him considerable money. Darius thought for a while and answered hesitantly,

“That won’t be a problem. I can take her in, but I need some time to gather enough money.”

“Excellent, excellent. I figured that such potioneering talent would at least dabble on magic. I had assumed so since you were asking for magic books months ago.” But seeing Darius’s face, he continued hurriedly,

“But it is okay. Confidentiality still binds us. I would be run out of business decades ago if I didn’t hold my standards.”

“Glad to see you have decent standards.” Answered Darius while looking at Trader’s unreadable face. He felt that if he was at odds with Trader he might as well leave the town at this rate. But he didn’t have a plan to ruin his life, for that matter.

“I will contact you later when I have the money. Do you have any information requests or item retrievals?”

“Yes, I think we had several, one higher paying job in the nobility area. Would that be a problem?”

“No, I will take it.” Answered Darius with his plans.

“Good, this is the special mission, and I only give it. It would help if you procured the family seal of the Lumbert family or any copy of it. It is the wax seal ring, and here you can see the symbol of a lion on it inside of the square.”

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“Does it need to be done in a fancy way,” Asked Darius

“No, you can go all out. The cruder and messy, the better.”

“Olrait, I’ll remember it. See you later when it's done.” Darius answered and left.

While Darius was walking, he could barely notice people around him. He was too focused on the possibilities. He would be closer if he could get the mission done with 200 golds. But that wasn’t enough. He would have to also blunder the nobility family for all the money's worth. This mission wasn’t easy, even with all the other mission experience he had gained previously.

Next week was difficult and full of odd things to prepare himself for the task. Darius had made several different potions and gotten food oil, robes and other equipment for the task. After sightseeing one night and finding exact locations from the sewers, Darius had to get parts for the robe slinger. Everything had cost him several golds, but security was more important. The evening came, and Darius ate in his work room. He heard a knock on the door and almost dropped his spoon for the suspense. The door opened, and Edwin walked in.

“Hello Darius, I have been wondering if you would want also to rent the opposite room to this current room. I could make some extra money from it, lets say 15 silvers per month. Would it be good?”

“Yea, sure I need storage for my resources and such.”

“Thanks boy. Here is the key. The place needs a bit of cleaning but it is dry, and the room doesn’t have any windows.”

“That’s perfect. Thanks a lot Edwin.”

“Just making business when I can,” smirked Edwin. Darius saw that the innkeeper seemed very tired for some reason. It might be something to do with the hooded men group coming in occasionally and demanding money from Edwin for security. Darius didn’t know who they were, but he hadn’t asked.

Darius saw Edwin leave, and he looked at a new key in his hand. *Well, I have more important things to do now lets see the room tomorrow.*

Absentmindedly he left the key in one box of bottles and left the room to go upstairs. In his room, Darius found all the items underneath the blanket ready. It was time to leave and do the task again. After checking all the items and the condition of the weapons, Darius attached several pouches to his chest belts and pants belt. He stuffed them full of ordered daggers and other items he had bought from Trader to avoid messing up with the evidence. Darius would have to create a lot of mess during this task, and he wanted that nothing could be traced back to him. He left all the items that identified him in any slightest manner. Then Darius wore a new dark robe with a hood on it. Before walking out of the building, he hooded himself and went straight into the sewers.

He was at the location after many odd corners in the sewers in an hour. Darius had to spend some time mixing certain ingredients to create more potent fluids for rapid fire. After everything was done, Darius heaved himself up from the Sewers and opened a few barrels residing next to a street crossing. Next, he climbed onto the rooftops. The night was perfectly cloudy, leaving no openings for stars or moonlight. The whole day had been like that, and it was the biggest reason for Darius to be here.

Several streets later, Darius came into a narrower part where the roof was next to the Lumbert family mansions' outer wall. Darius listened for a while, and everything seemed quiet. Then he dipped a bolthead with some cloth into food oil and lit it on fire. Darius shot the bolt with a crossbow and lighted the second one. After shooting four bolts, of course, one had missed, Darius was ready. He launched the robe slinger and started moving on the mansion's yard wall. He had only about two minutes to do that. The timing was important because he had previously moved several food oil barrels next to the other side of the street at the corner of the building. After lighting three of the open barrels, the rest would also start to burn, and fire hazards would happen in a few minutes to distract the whole household.

The climbing on the robe was tedious at best, but Darius managed to get on the wall. Next, he loosened the hook away and continued down the wall into the garden. While hiding in an empty garden, Darius heard a roar of fire engulfing the nearby house. He climbed near the mansion wall with the hooks on one corner window without light. When Darius noticed it was presumably a food storage room, he broke his way in and started waiting inside while the fire grew in height.

After the first screams, guards rushed from every building, and servants carried water buckets everywhere onto the wall next to the fire. Darius could see everything and waited for the moment when the first water buckets were emptied into the flames. A sudden roar of flame intensified, and before anyone could stop the servants, they had downed even more water into the food oil fire. Now even the next building in a row was on fire, and the wall was starting to fill with servants and Lumbert family members. Darius chuckled quietly to his creations. He started moving with measured steps towards the inner parts of the mansion with a large empty travel sack as his only companion.