The sweet blanket of sleep covered the Senchor siblings as the weather outside worsened, a thick soup-like fog flowed down the city's streets like an omen of what could the Live Giver do if angered. Despite the foreboding weather, shadows could be seen moving in the fog. Across Vitas, a city might have halted completely if its streets were flooded with such thick fog in fear of the creatures which liked to hunt under the grey veil. But in Oriripol, such nonsense didn't fly. The price paid to stop the metropolis was seen by the mages to outway the lives of the commoners lost on the off chance the fog would harbour frogmen. Even if the Oriri mages would have found a scrap of empathy for the magicless masses they lord over, no amount of empathy could have made the Sophists lift their iron grip away from the city's neck, given the delicate situation in the city.

The thief lightly sleeping near the shrine opened an eye to the grey and colourless world as he heard someone scream. He turned around trying to go back to sleep and saw the restless cleric who had a habit of kicking in her sleep, looking completely serene.

What Alexandre assumed was a gang disciplining a whore on their territory had become natural for the two to an extent where their younger selves would be staring horrified at their indifference. The grim reality was that if the two woke up every time something like this happened in earshot, both of them would have dropped dead due to sleeplessness

Alexandre grunted as the frantic screams of the woman got louder and strangely enough more familiar. Before his mind could fully process what was happening the sound of people bursting through the flimsy door rose both of the fallen nobles awake.

"Get everything worth anything out of here," A man demanded, his magically amplified voice causing a waterfall of dust to be freed from between the timber. "I'm going to teach you, kaffar the meaning of fear."

The two siblings looked at each other, hands covering their ears before letting go as the man's voice returned to normal. Out of morbid curiosity, Alexandre crawled toward a certain section of the floor on his stomach, the nails once holding the floor together had rusted away a long time ago allowing him to peak into the room below.

Armed men were going back and forth carrying everything they could out of the building while their stepmother lay on her knees her purple hands holding a fur scarf over her face. Standing in the centre of the room like a hawk was a man with a long dark blue robe with white trim and an equally vibrant turban with small mite-size gems which caused the top of his head to resemble the night sky, as the gems twinkled in the soft light.

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"How much do you estimate we recovered?" The mage snapped at one of the armed men.

"Not much Magus, I would be surprised if we could sell everything for a single golden coin."

"What about the property?" The mage's words caused Magdallen to jerk, causing her to lower her guard. Alexandre found it difficult to believe that the bruised and bloody mess was once his father's wife, although her face seemed rather untouched.

"Given the locale? Two gold at most." Upon hearing the words, the magus pulled a wand out of his robe, and in a flash, static energy travelled in a host of white-blue pillars between his robes and the tip of the metal wand.

"I had stayed out of the conclave for you slag, and what do I get? Nothing! You had begged me to perform this telling me that you're as noble as they get. What sort of bitches must have been your parents to dilute such a noble bloodline, huh care to explain or are you going to whine and cry more?" Alexandre wasn't sure if Magdallen registered any of the words said as her bloodshot eyes stared widely at the wand in front of her. "Instead of an elixir which would make me THE Magus of the order I wasted recourses and face because of you. Imagine, an elixir of true rejuvenation, something which hadn't been seen in years. How much money it could have made for us."

"S-so-sorry."

"Shhhh, I'm debating how to kill you for your lies."

"N-no, you c-can't." In the stepmother's eyes, disbelief weld up into tears as she stared at the Magus, powerless to do anything.

"I absolutely can. You're a simple tool to be used and discarded by us. This is not the West, your dubious bloodline didn't save you from whoring yourself out and it wouldn't stop me from ending you

I know you have something I can use to recoup my losses and you're the sort of woman who likes to hide shiny do-das. Give them to me and I might spare you."

From above, the Senchor could see the muscles on Magdallen tense up as she fought off the urge to look behind herself. Toward a loose brick near which he had seen this pompous woman lay on her stomach looking rather paranoid about the secrecy of what she was doing.

"I do, but promise me to spare me." She said grasping onto the mage's cloak.

"Whatever you say."

"I'm the guardian of two noble kids upstairs... from a different better family than mine. I got them after their father died on the trail." A strange smile flowered on Magdallen's face as the joy of escaping death seemed to overwhelm her.

"Such a..." Before Alexandre could finish his course he stood up and grabbed his sister, yanking her off the floor.

"You do have them."

"The girl is a mage! Please let me go now." Their supposed-to-be stepmother shouted causing a fury of footsteps to head toward the top floor.

"We need to run." The thieving Senchor told his sister.

"But where?"

"Through the window," He said carrying the cleric. "Jump first, if something happens heal yourself and run I will be short behind you."

Without much hesitation the supposed-to-be noble daughter climbed out of the window and jumped down, landing on the muddy ground.

"Stop!" A soldier shouted as he barged into the room with a wooden truncheon.

"Claire run!" Alexandre shouted as he climbed out of the window. He watched as his sister sprinted toward the fog before soldiers caught her, throwing her onto the ground with a great splash.

"Got you." He felt someone's hand on his shoulder pulling him inside before the world went black accompanied by a loud thump inside his skull.