I’d decided to just recover the boulder and wait another eight seconds to become invisible once more. Fortunately, everyone had been too taken aback by my sudden appearance to actually do anything, so we were actually able to resume our walk to Corinn’s estate with no further difficulty. It was possible this might have consequences later though…

For now, we just needed to stay alert. The walk back took nearly an hour, so maintaining that alertness throughout proved taxing, even with Mental Clarity. But in the end, the assassins made no further moves, and we arrived at Corinn’s city dwelling without further difficulty.

The agent, I still didn’t know his name, held the door open for Ulindi and myself. I would need to clean off the blood from the recent fight at some point, but Corinn would probably want a report first. Merigar arrived to take stock of us as I deactivated my ring.

“Ulindi Vassil I presume. Prince Corinn will be available in a moment. He is eager to hear what you have to say.”

The information broker had been silently alert for the rest of our return trip, and was only now beginning to relax. The near-miss with the giant crossbow had shaken her. Yes, it had been fortunate for her that I was around. But she was able to muster up a reply.

“I am quite grateful for the assistance he has provided so far. It has been growing… difficult for me to operate lately. Perhaps now my luck can finally turn around?”

“The conference room is prepared for a full discussion. If you would follow me…”

Corinn entered the room shortly after we did, with Shira at his side. Refreshments had been placed on the table, and given the standard of quality here, I was quick to help myself to several. They were just as delicious as I’d expected.

The prince started the discussion as soon as he was seated: “Ulindi Vassil. I understand that you’ve had a difficult past few days. Perhaps you could start from the beginning?”

Her tiredness and relief were both readily apparent: she’d sank into her chair as soon as she entered the room. “If you wish. A central part of being an effective information broker is seeking out interesting details. Being the first person to a valuable piece of knowledge is where the biggest money is at. Unfortunately, that can also come with risks…” She sighed and continued.

“I started getting hints that the deaths of several bureaucrats might be related a bit over a week ago. That debate you’re trying to start about increasing army funding got me looking into where support for each side is coming from, and I noticed how several people trying to push for increased funding have ended up dead. That got me concerned, but I didn’t get to where I am without taking risks.”

“My contacts were able to get me the post-mortem reports for each of them, but nothing there was definitive. Some were apparent suicides, others involved organ failure that could be achieved using certain rare poisons. Out of curiosity, I paid one of my informants to search for any abnormalities in the distribution of deaths due to those failed organs. It was a longshot, one of many, but that one happened to work. I found a concentration of nearly a dozen such deaths over the past month in the same few adjacent neighborhoods. Many of them had a reputation for being curious… like me.”

“I don’t know what tipped them off. A few of my informants had being inquiring about unusual happenings with the residents, and then one of them disappeared. I called everyone off after that, but less than a day later, I found myself being tailed, and it quickly escalated from there. When I caught wind of you being targeted too, I figured contacting you as soon as possible was my best chance.”

“Your own people were there for the rest. We had the meeting, and I agreed to travel here with them, but use of an item prior to our departure revealed that over a dozen assassins were waiting in ambush, and they struck as soon as they were revealed. Your bodyguard saved our lives: she killed nine herself, I took down two, and the rest fled.”

“I still have a number of items I collected from their bodies; we can inspect them later. From that point, we hurried to the nearest thoroughfare, and made it with no further incident, only for me to let my guard down and nearly get killed by a giant crossbow firing from a distant balcony. Your bodyguard managed to block it again by retrieving a boulder from... extradimensional storage I presume, but had to… ahh… expose herself.”

Corinn put his head in his hands.

“I did resume being invisible before anyone could fully react,” I clarified. “I suppose that could still cause problems if I’m associated with you though…”

“…we’ll consider that later,” Corinn sighed. “Ulindi, I assume nothing else of import happened on the way here?”

“Correct, it seemed the crossbow was their last resort; they most likely started setting it up to cover our probable route as soon as their previous strike failed. They may be bold, but they don’t seem to act unless they can manage some preparation.”

“Good to know. This information does help, and I would be happy to offer you my protection. Now, the question remains as to what we do next?”

Before anyone could answer, a servant opened the conference room door. “Your highness, Steward Merigar says that Primarch Oquila Mirandur is here to see you. He is keeping an eye on her now.”

“The Primarch of Espionage,” Corinn informed me. Turning to Ulindi, he asked “I assume you have no problem being seen in the same room?”

“If she’s here, she already knows that much,” Ulindi replied.

“Very well. She’s remained diligently impartial on political matters, and the possibility of foreign-backed assassination might be enough to obtain her help… Have her brought here.”

The servant rushed back out, and it seemed less than two minutes before a tall, grey-haired woman entered the room, wearing a trenchcoat and pants made from some silvery material. Clearly enchanted. Merigar followed behind her, and closed the door.

She raised an eyebrow at my lack of clothing, but soon looked down to retrieve a complicated clockwork device from a pocket that looked far too small to hold it. She began turning several dials, analyzing the results. Corinn did not appear to object. After half a minute, she seemed satisfied and put it away, taking a seat opposite the prince.

“Primarch Illorum. It is good to see you are well after facing… is it two assassination attempts now? Did you manage to uncover more evidence from the more recent of the two?” She exuded calm confidence. Annoying. She clearly knew things we did not, and was holding it over us! Had she come here just to make us beg? I wanted to… no, I should wait and hear her out before reaching conclusions. Maybe her position was actually weaker and she was projecting false confidence? I shouldn’t discard a potential opportunity.

Corinn considered his words. “You know more than I now about the evidence from the first. As for the aborted second attempt, the assassins were careful to leave nothing behind. However, it seems they have been less successful at keeping their central operations hidden. A quick strike in the area where they operate could uncover more information before they can clear everything out.”

Stolen novel; please report.

“Interesting…” She paused, her face becoming impassive. “How much area would need to be covered?”

It was Ulindi who answered. “Two neighborhoods east of the trading district, along the Grey Zephyr street. Some preliminary scouting could likely narrow it down further: they had to remove several prying eyes over the past several weeks. The scouts would have to be careful: I’ve already lost one informant.”

“Worth consideration. I can dispatch agents if you would give me a moment. She stepped outside the door and withdrew a glowing orb, which she placed against her head and waited silently. Corinn seemed a bit put off by her abruptness, but made no move to stop her. She was being so rude! Corinn had mentioned having a politically weak position, and this woman was using it to walk all over him! I was going to show her up somehow! I would…

…Arg! This was hard! I didn’t specialize in finding information, Corinn didn’t seem to have anyone good enough to suffice here, and it didn’t sound like Ulindi did either! The only way to get anything from them would be to bait them into striking at us, and what did we have to prompt such an action? Now that Ulindi was here, they had no way of knowing how far her knowledge had spread. Right now, their effort was probably focused on relocating as quickly as they could.

Perhaps we could take advantage of that? No, they would be relying on trusted sources. And monitoring the streets for large deliveries wouldn’t help when they seemed to have access to lots of extradimensional storage. Unless… well, might as well ask.

I turned to Ulindi. “Is there any way to track the presence of extradimensional storage?”

Oquila noted my remark as she returned to the room, and was the first to speak. “There are ways. Enchanted storage is easier to track than that granted by Abilities, and larger sizes are much easier. Determining the contents is far more difficult. I take it you have evidence of the assassins using such means?”

“They brought large boxes of explosives through a passageway considerably too small to fit them,” answered Corinn. “Extradimensional storage is the most likely explanation.”

“Ah, yes, which indicates that they will also be using such capabilities to hasten their relocation,” she reflected, nodding to me before turning back to the prince. “Your taste in companions is… interesting, but evidently not without merit.”

Interesting! I was a whole lot more than that! But… it was a start. Meanwhile, she had already walked back out, probably to give more instructions via the orb she was still holding. Was she just going to handle this herself? I wanted to kill some more assassins! And… since the government system here rewarded accomplishments, this would let her hog most of the reward! Was Corinn just going to stand for this?

Right now, he was looking a bit resigned, but also… hopeful? Why would he be feeling hopeful? This woman had just walked into his house and started moving to take credit for all of our work! Well, not having to deal with assassins might be something he’d appreciate. They were something to fight, but getting ambushed wasn’t how I liked to start a battle. Also, he did seem to actually care about how the Yrmanni Imperium was doing. Hard to see why, since it seemed like the government was just causing him more problems, but he seemed to care anyway. Well, of course he couldn’t be perfect. I naturally had to be better.

Unfortunately, I didn’t really have any way to contest this “Oquila Mirandur” right now. She had the means to track down the assassins and we did not. But I wasn’t just going to sit and let someone else resolve this after all the trouble they’d caused me! No, eventually, their base of operations would be found, and would need to be attacked. And when it was… I was going to be there. No matter what, I would be there, and I would make those assassins into an example that would make anyone else thinking about messing with me recoil in terror! Yes, the secret to living a happy life was making sure your opponents were too terrified to mess with you!

The “Primarch of Espionage” returned to the room once more, closing the door and taking a seat. This time she deigned to start the conversation. “Given your involvement, I might as well share relevant details about this group. Evidence of their existence began cropping up nearly six years ago, in the form of varied businesses across the entire South gradually getting bought up by shell companies. It’s hard to say which purchases they were actually behind, but the sheer volume increase in such transactions indicated something unusual was occurring.”

“It was less than four years ago when some of these businesses started getting special exemptions from oversight groups: different nations have different approaches to oversight, so the exemptions differed as well, but the general approach was the same throughout. At that point, it was looking very probable that a single organization was behind this. Of course, these exemptions weren’t public, it took analysis of oversight behavior and significant investigation to find proof.”

“Investigation of the establishments themselves had to be conducted more carefully. Given that the group evidently had a large source of external funding, we expected them to have defenses that only our best agents could evade. Sometimes they found nothing. But in other cases: large cash stockpiles, rare poisons, restricted alchemical enhancements, enchanted armaments, and explosives. Needless to say, none of those establishments should have possessed such inventory.”

“Meanwhile, the disappearance of one of our agents on such an assignment indicated that this group was even more dangerous than we’d considered. Between that and the unusual pattern of deaths over the past few years, it was enough to qualify the organization, which we had codenamed the “Gilded Hand”, as the most dangerous domestic threat the Imperium was currently facing. We opted to restrict knowledge of their existence to avoid forcing them to further conceal their operations; it has been difficult enough to track them as-is. However, it seems we will now have to adopt stronger measures in order to seize this opportunity before it slips away.”

“Using dimensional tracking, it is likely that we can find wherever they choose to relocate. From there, it becomes a matter of striking quickly enough to take captives alive, and recover their resources before they can be destroyed. Any documentation would be heavily encrypted, and therefore not a priority. Given that this operation is a need-to-know affair, it would be helpful if you could spare some of your best guards, provided they can remain discrete.”

Was that a jab at me? I could absolutely remain discrete! Blocking that projectile had been the optimal decision at the time! And nobody else had spotted me during the entire venture! Well… except for that guy at the docks, but nothing had came of that!

Corinn’s response was confident. “Let me know when the time comes. My guards will be ready to assist.”

She retrieved another orb. “You will be contacted when we have a plan to strike,” she said, placing it on the table. “Most likely, it will be at some point tonight. Your guards will meet us at a provided rendezvous point, where they will be provided with stealth equipment for the initial strike. If you have high grade weapons enchanted for damage or subduing targets, they would be highly recommended for use. Be ready.”

With that, she nodded and left. Well, she certainly left no time for anything beyond her objectives! It would be a challenge to outperform someone like her. She had resources, established power, and worst, she appeared to be rather smart. But I would have do it: I would have to outshine her, and everyone else like her! I would not just accept becoming a pawn in someone else’s game!

For now though, I needed to focus on beating the assassins. They had attacked me on several occasions, and since they hadn’t stopped yet, that showed I still needed to teach people why messing with me was a bad idea. And well I was at it, I should probably teach them that messing with people useful to me was a bad idea too. I’d hate to lose Corinn after all the effort I’d put into developing a positive relationship. His mansion was nice too…

It sounded like the strike against them would involve working with some of Corinn’s guards and a bunch of fighters that Oquila brought in. I didn’t like the thought of coordinating with people who didn’t even have to follow my instructions, but without coordination, some of the assassins could slip away! I couldn’t just start following orders like an ordinary soldier though, no one would take me seriously after that! So how to approach this?

Hang on, what was Oquila expecting to achieve by bringing in someone else’s personnel? Yes, her resources in the capitol would be finite, and she was clearly determined for this operation to succeed, but none of Corinn’s other bodyguards seemed to have stealth training. She would have to be relying on her own forces to intercept anyone who fled; our guards were almost certainly intended to be part of a direct assault.

Yes, that made sense. Her own agents could be trusted with securing valuables inside and catching those who fled, while our guards could perhaps be combined with reliable mercenaries to keep the assassins occupied. It allowed her to considerably scale up the amount of manpower available on such short notice…

So, how to use that knowledge to my advantage? I wanted to operate without having to follow orders, and show that Oquila just how much she had underestimated me! Hmm… oh yes. That could work…