The beggar woman stopped me from running out to protect my dog but I needn’t have bothered anyway. Miranda, still hiding under the cabbage cart, was casting a spell. One that I really wish I’d never seen.

A garden bed full of brightly colored flowers began to shake. The soil pushed up in a mound displacing the flowers and scattering dirt across the street. The mound burst open and the mangled corpse of a cat appeared. The thing leaped to the ground, its decomposing body glowing a bright pink. Part of the creature was decayed to the bone while other parts were still covered by rotting flesh and small tuffs of orange fur.

My stomach heaved at the sight of it. Miranda’s magic wasn’t so bad when it was a freshly dead beast or only the skeleton of something that once lived. This, however, was the definition of horrific. And that’s without me even mentioning the stench of the thing.

Poor kitty.

There is one good thing about a brilliantly lit decaying corpse suddenly doing a jig in the street though, it made the townsfolk freak out. They screamed and ran leaving a relieved Stella alone. The dead cat continued to dance in the street until all the townsfolk had left and loud jarring bells were clanging all around us.

I gestured to get Miranda’s attention, waving my hand from side to side over my neck. She saw me and cut her magic. The cat stopped glowing and crumpled to the street. I whistled. Stella came charging toward me. Miranda followed her. All four of us clustered in the tight darkened place.

“Who’s that?” Miranda asked.

“She’s a friend. Can you transform your dress to look like beggar's clothes?”

“Ah, sure, I guess.”

Using the effect of the Robe of Transformation she went from simple peasant girl to beggar in a matter of seconds. I bend and rubbed my finger on the filthy street, coating my cheeks with the stuff before wrapping an old tattered, and disgustingly stained blanket that was laying on the ground around me. I tried desperately not to think about the smell and what could have made the battered fabric hold such a stench. I didn’t need to know. No one needed to know.

Our disguises donned I grabbed Miranda and dragged her back out onto the street. We settled on a covered stoop. I hurriedly removed Stella’s armored vest and shoved the thing in my bum bag. The guards outside the gate might not have cared much about an animal but the way the townsfolk had reacted to her had worried me. We still had a long way to go and I didn’t want to be caught by something as stupid as an outfit.

The guards came pouring in like a wave of water let loose from a dam; chaotic and quick. They blocked off the only two exits as they fanned out across the street to look for the danger. In this part of town, the buildings were so close together and all multistorey making the street a thin and awkward place.

One of the guards approached us. I held out my cupped hands with my head tilted toward the ground and emulated what the beggar woman had said to me.

“Please, can you spare a coin?”

“Rotten filth,” the guard barked, spitting on me before tramping past.

My hands shook but I managed not to curl them into fists as I lowered them. One swing of my swords and I could have taken that bastard's head off. Miranda reached out and squeezed my arm. I took a shuddering breath and focused on being invisible.

The guards patrolled the street and discovered the corpse of the cat. They all talked over each in an awful drone that morphed the words into an indecipherable hum. I waited impatiently as they dispersed, tramping along a set path as they returned to their allocated locations.

“That was scary,” Miranda said.

“Come on, we still have a long way to go.” I stood to leave but turned to the beggar woman before I did. “Will you come with us? We could use your help.”

The beggar woman shook her head. “It’s time for me to move on. I have passed on my knowledge. That was my assignment. Observe and report.”

I frowned. “And what, you just assumed I was the one to tell it all to?”

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She smiled and winked at me. “Kendrick sends his regards.”

With that her body shimmered and changed color, blending in with our surroundings like she was some sort of chameleon. I could still follow her movement by the occasional shadow cast on the ground but otherwise, she was silent and ghostly as she left.

“Kendrick?” Miranda asked.

“Just another friend, come on, let’s get a move on.”

We walked in silence for a long time, using our disguises to turn away anyone who got too interested in us. Occasionally, especially when there were guards around, we would follow the set paths of the NPCs, trying to blend in. Something told me the guards were a little more than the townsfolk. Maybe even spies for the Count. Or, more likely, I was just horribly paranoid.

Every time the townsfolk or guards started paying us a little too much attention Miranda would hide in an out-of-the-way place and cast her magic. It was surprising to me just how many dead things there were in the town. I didn’t know if that was a normal thing or if this place was just one giant cemetery all these people were forced to live in. Every time Miranda made some dead creature dance it would go just like it had the first time. The people would scream and run away, bells would toll all over the city and guards would come charging toward us before losing interest and returning to where they had come from.

Well, that’s how it went until we reached the merchant district anyway. Everything changed there. The townsfolk here were much fancier and less restricted in their movement than the NPCs in the pits. Walking through the streets here was rough as everyone that went by shouting something awful at us or worse started spitting just like the guard had earlier.

Miranda tried her trick again but this time, instead of being horrified, the townsfolk started laughing and clapping a beat as the dead creature danced. They seemed to think this was some sort of street performance instead of the awful display it actually was.

The odd reactions of the NPCs forced us to be more stealthy than we had been in the pits. We stuck to dark alleyways and sparkly hiding places as we made our way slowly upward toward the castle. Hours passed as we weaved through the streets.

I couldn’t help but eye all the shops as we made our way past them. There was a shop for just about everything and the things they didn’t hold seemed to be sold at makeshift stalls in the street or by hawkers traipsing up and down the thoroughfare. I itched to spend some of my gold here but that would out us as players and not just less desirable NPCs.

Miranda tugged me onward when I stopped at the darkened window of a shop selling spelled trinkets. There was a pair of glasses that let you read other players’ stats so long as they were a lower level, a tankard of endless wine, and most tantalizing of all, a pouch that gave an extra hundred inventory spots.

“That’s not what we’re here for, Joe,” Miranda hissed, putting her weight into dragging me away.

“Fine,” I grumbled.

We moved on toward a large decorative arch that separated the merchant district from the upper heights. The closer we got to the thing the fancier the shops and even the people seemed to get. I guess it was fairly simple to guess what kind of NPCs lived at the foot of the Count’s castle; aristocrats.

We were just about to walk through the arch when a pair of guards wielding wicked-looking halberds blocked our way.

“Your kind is not welcome here,” one of them barked.

“Away with your filth!” snapped the other.

Stella growled, her paws starting to glow as she charged her attack. I bent to stroke her head, calming her down before we walked away. It was time to take a page out of Kendrick’s book and find a way to get through without using the door. It was a shame we couldn’t simply squeeze ourselves into some barrels as we had before.

We found a place to sit relatively comfortably as I took notes on the comings and goings of the people who went through the archway. Miranda and Stella dozed off as I observed as much as I could, even jotting down interesting conversations that I overheard.

Lord Pellington is having an affair with a washerwoman from the pits.

The High Priest has visited the castle three times this week.

Lady Ellery walks through the archway IIII IIII

Rats are using a hole in the wall to pass through. Too small.

The Count is having a masked ball tomorrow night. Need to find an invitation.

One of the guards is called Tim.

After all that, I still wasn’t sure how we were going to sneak in. That’s what we would have to do after all unless we wanted to waste time going back through the merchant district to find an entryway in the religious sector.

I hesitated, not sure what our best play here was. I eyed some of the buildings by the wall that separated the merchant district and the upper heights. A lot of them looked very climbable. If we couldn’t go through the arch we could certainly go over it.

Or, would it be smarter to go find the High Priest? If he had visited the castle so much lately he might have some valuable information or even an easy way into the place.

Either way, we had to get to the castle by nightfall tomorrow. We couldn’t pass up the chance to use the masked ball as a cover.