Several hours later, under cover of darkness, Rin snuck into the assassins’ guild in mosquito form. Trixie stayed invisible, guiding him forward with subtle appearances of her ghostly forefinger that would appear and point the way before vanishing.
She was an expert guide, leading him to a third-floor window conveniently propped ajar. The open window seemed a glaring security flaw in a guild known for its vigilance. That is until Rin caught sight of several traps placed carefully along its sill. There was even a trap for insects, such as himself—a delicate spider’s web covering much of the opening. Rin spotted it just in time, barely avoiding an errant strand of silk from snaring his leg.
He buzzed forward, navigating through the keyhole of the locked door and along a dim corridor lit by magical lamps. According to Trixie, the building was several stories tall, most of which were hidden away underground. The residences of permanent guild members were on the deepest floor.
Rin flew down the stairs, hitching a ride on a junior assassin part of the way before Trixie guided him off to a side corridor. When they came to the appropriate room, Rin found its door was keyless, possessing some kind of mana-imbued slate rather than a mundane key for entry. Fortunately, there was a slim gap at the door’s base. Since he was a mosquito, he walked right on in.
Rin emerged from the other side and flew to a safe spot on the ceiling. Jaxon lay beneath him in a bed far too small for his weighty frame, snoring like a wild bear. It was so loud Rin could sense reverberations in the ceiling with his insect limbs. In the room’s corner, Rin spied his Monster Pack peeking from a pile of dirty laundry.
Here, they encountered the first problem with their plan: Jaxon still wore his storage ring, plain as day on his meaty fist. Even if Rin could remove it without the man noticing, he wouldn’t be able to view its contents. It was common knowledge that only a ring’s owner could access it because it was magically bound to a drop of their blood. The only surefire way to bypass that fact was to employ an expensive black-market mage or execute the ring’s owner. Truthfully, Rin knew nothing of how storage rings worked, only that the drop of blood was crucial. That was what inspired his harebrained idea in the first place.
Trixie’s head descended from the ceiling, glaring at him upside down. “I told you! He never takes the ring off. What are we going to do now?”
Rin appraised Jaxon with a cold gaze.
I could kill him. He probably deserves it. He’s an assassin, after all.
It was a dark thought, tantamount to murder in cold blood. An act he simply couldn’t bring himself to do, no matter how hard he tried. After several seconds of consideration, Rin gave up and sighed.
“We’ll have to improvise,” he said, sounding strangely tinny in mosquito form. “Go to plan B.”
“Ugh. This is never going to work.”
Rin descended to land on the man’s fist and plunged his proboscis into the skin beside his storage ring. Unfortunately, the assassin’s skin was so tough that the proboscis wouldn’t penetrate. The boy buzzed over to the fleshy webbing between the man’s fingers and tried again with no luck. Next, he tried puncturing the soft fold behind the man’s ear, finding it as tough as iron.
His strength attribute must be insane. It even affects his skin!
Desperate, Rin crept inside Jaxon’s ear, stepping carefully around creamy globs of wax until he was deep inside. Here, his proboscis broke through, and he filled up with the man’s blood, ignoring his gag reflex by sheer force of will.
This was a terrible idea.
His body swelled fat, and he staggered out of the ear canal like a bloated pig. He buzzed lazily to the man’s clenched fist and landed on the gleaming storage ring. Rin’s tiny body now contained far more of Jaxon’s blood than his own. He only hoped the ring saw it that way.
He expressed his intent, and a magical inventory appeared in his mind.
Gods above, it WORKED!
His spindly mosquito hands rubbed together in anticipation.
The storage ring contained thirty slots, and there at the end was Rin’s map. It was the first thing he selected, and it materialized beside the bed and rolled to the floor. His swatch book was absent from the inventory, so next he targeted Jaxon’s money, finding the man had a stack of 12 gold coins taking up a single slot.
He selected every last coin and was about to browse other items when the gold appeared on the bed in a haphazard pile. The coins slid to the floor with loud pings and clangs that woke Jaxon from his dead sleep.
The man leaped out of bed with a shout, conjuring his warhammer from his storage ring and accidentally flinging Rin across the room. Jaxon peered around groggily, finding the room empty but spotting the coins scattered on the floor. Bending down with a confused expression, he held up a single coin to the light, examining it closely. His frown deepened, and the man’s gaze grew distant.
He was searching his inventory.
Rin panicked. The boy flew behind the assassin’s back to the other side of the bed and transformed into the level 49 Shadow Weaver as quietly as possible. Raising up on his back four legs, he stretched the spider’s height to over eight feet tall. Rin was about to pounce when Jaxon noticed his moving shadow and spun around. The man reeled back in shock and opened his mouth to yell, but Rin shot steel webbing in his face, forcing his jaws shut and pinning his head to the bedroom wall. Rin sprayed a generous dose of webbing over the man, head to toe, until the assassin’s sight was blocked, and Rin’s transmutation skill was unlocked. Only when Jaxon was categorically immobilized did Rin turn human.
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
“You’re lucky, boy,” hissed Trixie.
Rin shushed her, afraid to speak in case Jaxon recognized his voice.
The man’s arm was jutting from the tangled mess of webbing, still holding the gold coin as he struggled with muffled shouts. Rin plucked the coin from his grasp, then swept up the rest of the gold and his map, depositing them all in his beloved Monster Pack. A cursory check of the bag’s interior revealed his undamaged swatch book still nestled safely inside.
Thank the gods.
However, at this point, Rin was stumped. When deciding on a plan, he’d somehow overlooked that escaping as a mosquito would never work. He had too much stuff.
Guess we’re doing this the hard way.
Rin transformed into the level 25 Dungeon Digger. With a deft touch of his claws, he pried loose several flagstones on the floor.
And started to dig.
***
Mortia Frix, Grandmistress of the Assassin’s Guild, pinched the bridge of her nose. The years of stress had etched a permanent scowl on her features, and the current situation certainly wasn’t helping.
“Tell it to me one more time.”
“The spider spoke!” said Jaxon. “I swears it by me ole man. I ‘eard it plain as day. It called me a lucky boy!”
The grandmistress palmed her face. She could almost feel another hair turning gray. “But where did it come from?”
“Tha’s the thing—I dunno.” The man scratched his head. “Coulda teleported or somefink. All I knows is, one second, me room is empty. Next, a massive shadow weaver is bearin’ down on me! So big, is’ head brushed the ceilin’!”
Mortia glared at him. She stood beside her assistant in the man’s bedroom while several of the guild’s senior members analyzed its every nook and crevice. Jaxon might be one of their lower-level recruits, but he had a promising future. There was no denying the steel webbing they’d found encasing the man. It was steel type, Grade E at least, and frankly, was the only thing propping up his outlandish tale.
But its presence changed everything. It meant he hadn’t been the one to dig the tunnel inside their base. It was an outsider. His bedroom door had been locked all night, its seal unbroken, with no signs of tampering. Someone had dug into the room and pasted him to the wall before disappearing down the same tunnel.
It made no sense.
“There was one other fing, Grandmistr’ss.” Jaxon appeared sheepish, doing his absolute best to avoid her hawkish gaze. “I dunno ‘ow this is possible, but some’ow, tha spider got inta me storage ring.”
Mortia’s glare intensified. “Impossible.”
The man held up placating hands, visibly cowering as beads of sweat erupted on his brow.
“I knows it sounds that way, but some’ow it got inta me storage ring and stole 12 gold. And a map as well! I swears it!”
Mortia’s assistant waved her wand over the man’s head, casting a truth spell before her lips curled into a frown. “I can hardly believe it, but … he’s actually telling the truth.”
“Were you drinking last night?” asked Mortia. “Any hallucinogenic magic?”
“No ma’am. Not at all.” The man shook his head emphatically. He even gave a pointed look at her assistant, practically begging the woman to verify his words.
“Alright, I believe you. What’s this about a map? What kind was it?”
“A special one.” Jaxon nodded at Markus who was hovering at the side of the room.
“Ahem,” said the leaner assassin. “It was a map of every dungeon in Hask. Epic rated.”
Mortia shook her head, deep in thought.
No one would do all this for 12 measly gold and a dungeon map. Even an epic-rated one.
“You’re sure it was only 12 gold?” She swung her gaze back to Jaxon who merely shrugged. “Let me see your storage ring,” she barked.
When Jaxon handed it over, it was clear the item was unremarkable, one of the smaller, less sophisticated rings available on the open market. What was remarkable is that it was undamaged. Ring crackers were highly specialized enchanters. You could always discern a cracked ring because its storage ability was impaired and no longer securely bound to its user. Yet when Mortia attempted to access this one, it denied her access. It was still bound to Jaxon.
Impossible.
She handed it back, creases forming in her brow as she turned to the deep earthen hole. It was six feet wide and dropped twelve feet deep before angling off to the side.
The guild’s highest-level tracker climbed from the hole with an audible groan, smacking her hands against her pants to knock off the dirt. “One thing’s for sure,” she said. “No earthen mage made that.”
“What?” said Mortia. “Explain.”
“Claw marks, big as my arm, all along its length. Some kind of burrowing monster. Too orderly to be a Dungeon Digger. Maybe a Delta Worm or a Cascadian Warmonger.” The tracker shook her head, staring distantly at the hole. “It doesn’t make any sense. Burrowing monsters avoid cities like the plague. I’ve only seen holes like this in the Far Reaches.”
Mortia went back to pinching the bridge of her nose.
I don’t need this.
“Any theories?” asked the tracker.
Mortia took a deep breath. “You won’t believe it, but … a necromancer.”
Jaxon’s breath caught in his throat.
“With respect, ma’am, controlling monsters as high as a level 49 Shadow Weaver? You’re aware those are untamable, right? Highly resistant to death magic too. Then there’s this burrowing … thing.” She waved her arm vaguely at the tunnel. “Our wards are tripped by the smallest hint of magic, even underground. Yet last night our wards were silent. Unbroken.” The tracker folded her arms. “This intrusion was one hundred percent physical. A necromancer would need extraordinary abilities to pull that off.”
“I’m well aware, thank you. But let’s consider the evidence.” She counted off her points by extending her fingers. “Masterful control over monsters. Ones that can talk, no less. The ability to crack a storage ring without consequence. And finally, they can slip by our wards undetected.” She raised her shoulders and thrust out her chin. “Necromancer. Level 150 or higher. That’s what I’m thinking.”
Silence.
Mortia let the gravity of the situation sink in, then pointed at the tracker. “Take a full drop team, A rankers, level 70 and above. Find out where the tunnel ends, then get right back here. If you’re attacked, do not engage. You run for your life, you hear me?”
The tracker nodded with an ashen face.
Mortia turned to her assistant. “Spread the word: No new contracts until we figure this out. We’ve obviously pissed off someone, and that someone is sending us a message.”
She turned back to the room filled with assassins, her hands on her hips.
“I only pray we’re not too late.”