Samaya stood in the shadows, her eyes trained on the noble's house. She had been watching it for a day, studying the comings and goings of the guards and the layout of the building. She knew that the treasure she sought was inside, but she also knew that it would not be an easy feat to steal it. It was somewhere in the middle of the house, protected by guards and talismans.

She had a threadbare plan and a vague idea of how to execute it. She was rarely this unprepared. But she had already made a deal and she’d be damned if she backed out.

She had sneaked in as a new serving maid with a couple of others earlier in the day. It thankfully gave her access to some important places as she was sent to serve the youngest lady of the house. It was a bit exhausting since the young lady insisted on playing with the black stray cat she had brought in from the streets. But soon enough, she tired herself out and Samaya was able to put her to sleep before sneaking out. She couldn’t roam around long enough because of the guards but she realized they were putting talismans all around the house, in every corridor inside the house, their numbers increasing as they went towards the center.

She had seen talismans in the black market. She was sure many of the ones she saw were lackluster, if not complete fakes. When she experimentally pressed one of them, she felt a faint buzzing from it. It was similar to what he felt from that man. She couldn’t explain it, but she knew it held some sort of power. Was it a sensor? Protector? Attacker? She can’t tell. Whatever it is, it should have done something by now. So either the talisman was faulty or it did not react to her.

She frowned, made a split-second decision, and then tore it off the wall. And then she waited. A few moments later, she heard footsteps thudding around the house. She let the torn talisman fall to the ground and slipped away from the place. She went back to the girl’s room and waited for the storm to pass, absently rubbing the back of the black cat that now claimed her lap as its throne. She heard snippets of a conversation.

“There’s no one!”

“Impossible! The talisman was torn off.”

“But there was no qi remnant in it. If anyone touched it, there should be some lingering qi! These talismans can even detect suppressed qi if it’s close enough!”

“Do you think I don’t know that?! How much do you think the Master spent on this?!”

“Quiet, you two. Do not disturb the young lady. The Master will have your heads.”

The conversation then trailed off and the footsteps faded. So, the talismans couldn’t detect her. It must be because she did not have this qi they spoke off. But something would go off if she tore them. So all she had to do was get to the treasure without tearing off the talismans.

What she didn’t know was if there were any talismans that detected movements and attacked the intruder set up closer to the treasure. She couldn’t figure it out in broad daylight. She would have to sneak in at night. But there would only be one chance for her. If she went in and got detected close to the treasure, the security would tighten.

Of course, she could wait a few more days to get their guards down. But that bastard did not give her a time limit, which made her nervous. She also left the little bun at the inn, knocking him out and locking all the doors and windows. She couldn’t keep doing that every day. She had told the innkeeper to not go into the room because “her son” was sick and sleeping. Hopefully, the child was safe. But she knew better than to bet on “hope”. Leaving the little guy alone there made her anxious, The sooner she finished this, the better. So she would just have to improvise.

As she looked up at the moonlit sky, she took a deep breath and assessed her plan. Knock out the guard at the small side entrance to the kitchen, get in, get to the treasure following the talismans, get the treasure as soon as she could, and get out. She had some precautions in place to distract them. Adapt as needed. It wasn’t the best plan, not even a good one. But she’d hung by the thread in worse situations before. She knew when to wait and when to take action.

Samaya slipped out of the shadows and began to make her way toward the house, her steps light and silent. Nimble as a cat, she moved along the walls of the manor, her body tense and ready to spring into action at a moment's notice. She came upon the side door through which she was planning to enter, peeking around the corner. Now all she had to do was knock out the guard…. Guards. Two guards. Damn. They must have tightened security already.

Nothing for it, then.

She pressed up against the wall and assessed her options. After a moment of careful thinking, she decided to do it the old-fashioned way. The reason she kept as quiet as a cat was because of the heightened senses of these people. Though she could tell they were on a level much lower than that bastard, they must have their qi doing their work for them. Though she had realized some time ago not everyone had the same level of ‘sensing’.

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She looked around and found a few pebbles. Perfect. She picked a large one. Using the wooden wall as leverage, she hopped onto the roof and then threw the pebble as hard as she could. It struck the wall opposite her, and immediately alerted the two guards. She could hear them whispering amongst themselves before one of them was sent by the other to check the situation. She smiled. This was almost always how these things went.

She waited until the guard turned the corner and, as he looked around, she jumped down. Before he could even gather what was happening, she was behind him and her right arm had wrapped around his neck in a death grip while her left hand locked both her wrists together. The man couldn’t breathe and he was struggling far more than he should be able to in that position since she was pressing on his windpipe and nerves. Samaya twisted her locked wrists as fast as she could - too fast - and the man slumped against her. For a moment, she was afraid she’d killed the man. But the steady thudding of veins under her arm told her otherwise. Good. She didn’t need the unnecessary trouble killing someone would bring.

Samaya let the body drop, with the head visible around the corner. The other guard clearly saw it and she heard his footsteps approaching. Once again, she pressed against the wall and waited for the man. Once he was in her line of sight - he was carefully approaching the body, probably to see if he was dead - she struck the back of his neck, also knocking him out.

She didn’t waste any time and slipped into the house through the entrance. She should be safe for a while. The kitchen side entrance is full of smell and soot and no one other than the kitchen staff used it. Most of the kitchen staff were now asleep. So no one would think to check it, especially after they had taken precautions to guard it.

She walked across the halls, following the talismans. They seemed to glow faintly in the dark. Maybe it has something to do with the qi thing everyone kept talking about. The hallways were empty. Did they think that having the talismans was all that was needed? Well, if they acted like sensors, then that might make sense. They just were incapable of sensing her. She followed the trail of increasingly frequent talismans, all the while thinking about how to deal with any talisman she might have to tear off.

“Meow!”

The sound made her halt. She spun around and found two green eyes glowing in the darkness. The black cat tilted its head, as if in askance, before it prowled forward, its steps silent as the grave. As it stopped in front of her and looked up, an idea took root in her mind. She leaned down a bit and extended her hands. It stared at her for a long moment, during which she ran through other alternatives in case this half-assed plan didn’t work out, before it jumped at her, She caught it effortlessly.

“Help me, okay?” She whispered before she continued onwards. Soon enough, she could see a pair of doors coming up, where the talismans on both sides coalesced. And no one was guarding them. Good.

She opened the door and stepped inside. Nothing in the room except a pedestal in the middle and a box on it, covered with talismans. She heaved a sigh. It seemed her intuition was right. She looked around the room. Nothing but wooden walls, pillars, tiled ceilings, and rafters holding it up.

Perfect.

She walked forward and sat the cat down on the pedestal, on the side of the box that clearly had the doors (or were they flaps?), and then took one of its paws. She used it to slash all the talismans. Immediately she heard a click behind her and the faint buzzing in those talismans grew stronger. It almost sounded like the buzzing of open wire. No doubt the doors were now locked and if she tried to get out, she would be severely injured or killed outright.

She left the cat on the pedestal and quickly climbed up the pillars onto the rafters. They were big enough for her to sit in a stable position and wait while hiding in the shadows.

After a few moments, another click was heard from the door and the buzzing stopped altogether. The door opened and three men walked inside in a hurry. They looked around in a panic before all of them were startled into a pause by the black cat staring at them eerily from within the darkness.

One of the men growled. “It’s the damn cat!”

“How did it get in here?”

“Who knows? This cat has been sneaking in everywhere!”

Huh.

“It’s been a menace since the moment it was brought in. I bet it was the one to tear off that talisman today.”

“We should just throw it out.”

“No,” the one who seemed a bit older spoke. “The young lady will throw a tantrum again and the entire house will be in an uproar. It’s not worth it.”

“So what do we do now?”

“I’ll take the cat,” the man said, “and you two go wake the Lord and ask for more talismans for the door and the box.”

They shuffled to follow instructions and soon all of them filed out, closing the door behind them. Not once did they look up. Amateurs.

She jumped down from her place. “Thank you, blackie,” she whispered, and then pried the box open. And there it lay, a beautiful jade statue of a woman sitting on a rock and playing the flute in her hands. It glowed and had that same buzzing of power, a good bit more intense than the talismans.

She reached out and carefully wrapped her hand around it. She waited for a moment. And then lifted it before waiting for another moment. When nothing happened, she grinned and put the jade statue inside the satchel she had borrowed. She then tucked it into the simple robes she was still wearing and walked out of the room. She was a bit anxious about encountering someone so when she slipped out of the manor without any hindrance, she grinned, unable to believe how lucky she had been to have had such a smooth mission.

It seemed she wouldn’t have to worry about money for a while.