Nina flattened her back against the nearby wall, counting on the long shadows of the setting sun to keep her hidden from the sight of the dozen of monks ahead. They stood at the foot of the old eight meters tall building on the roof of which stood the young thief that had so thoroughly ruined Nina's own attempted larceny earlier in the day.

After the mild panic from almost bumping right into a monk of Order had settled down she was quickly torn over deciding on her next course of action. Her first instinct was to nope the Calamities out of there as fast as her crippled self could take her, nothing good could ever come out of a gathering of Order monks. On the other hand she hadn't been seen yet. And even if she had been she was not particularly suspicious looking plus given that the monks seemed rather focused on the boy that was stuck up top she might even get to witness the rat getting his just desserts for having dared to interfere in her theft.

Yeah, that actually sounded like a pretty attractive prospect all things considered: just lay down and watch the cult of Order vindicate her without having to even lift a finger. She could even eat her dinner while she was at it! Suddenly her evening looked to be a lot better than the rest of her day had been.

It seemed as though the show would be delayed however as some shouting erupted from within the gathering of the red-robed thugs. Nina leaned a bit forward as she sat down and pulled the squashed remains of the food she'd stolen from the cramped space between her armpit and her crutch, squinting her nose in mild displeasure as she felt sugary lumps clinging to her skin and staying stuck there. She tried to ignore the slimy sensation and instead pay attention to the altercation that seemed to be starting. One monk actually seemed to be facepalming over his mask as he reprimanded another loud enough for Nina to hear.

"So let me recapitulate to make sure I properly understand the situation. You called an alarm, disrupting every single patrol in the District, because you were running after a single thief. A thief who is currently stuck on a roof and apparently has been for the last half hour, during which you did not think it wise to rescind said alarm. Is my assessment correct?" The other monk lowered their head, staying silent as they were being berated.

"IS IT CORRECT BROTHER?" The clergy member being reprimanded jumped at the sudden furious shout of his peer before quickly answering with a nervously stiff voice.

"Y-Yes brother superior!" Not his peer then, Nina mentally amended.

"So what is it exactly brother, that you found so alarming about this situation that you felt the need to call for reinforcement from the entire district? Can you tell me?" The other monk lowered his head once more and an anxious silence reigned over the small plaza for a few seconds.

"I see you have nothing to say, good, that is the correct answer. BECAUSE THERE IS ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOTHING ABOUT THIS ENTIRE FUCKING SITUATION THAT IS, IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM, FUCKING ALARMING!" While in the midst of dressing down his subordinate, the monk pulled out a flat circle a stone from a leather pouch that hung from his belt. It was about the size of a coin and shone faintly with the light of a glyph in the deepening darkness of the beginning of the night. He continued, almost shoving the stone disk in his subordinate's face.

"THIS is an alarm charm, a runic enchantment generously provided at cost to the Virtue and her servants by pious enchanters all over the empire. It is not a toy, it is not a gadget and it is NOT to be used frivolously. Am I making myself clear?" Sounds expensive, Nina thought to herself while lazily munching the slimy dessert in her mouth.

"Yes brother superior. It will never happen again brother superior." That seemed to have pacified the other man a bit, he put the enchanted stone back in his pouch as he continued in a tone of contained anger rather than one of unleashed fury.

"I certainly hope so. Now, your inconsiderate actions have thrown every single patrol route into chaos and disarray, as such you will be considered personally responsible should any of the dredges that live here take advantage of the situation to spread chaos. Am I understood?"

"Yes brother superior."

"Good. Let the resulting consequences be enough of a punishment to get through your head that when your superiors entrust you with a responsibility the least you can do is to be responsible with it." He glanced towards the top of the tall house that stood right next to him. "As for the rat up there that seems to be the origin for all of this. You and your team can stay here and encircle the building to ensure he doesn't sneak away. I'll send someone to the temple to ask for one of our brother or sister who can climb up there to fetch him. There's bound to be someone who can given the amount of rats who come to the Virtue to find worth in her service."

"Of course brother superior." The reprimanded monk kept his head bowed as he meekly answered the commands, drawing an exasperated sigh from the brother superior who then turned and loudly adressed the gathered members of the clergy.

"All right brothers and sisters, situation clear! Go back to your patrols!" And with that they all started to disperse in the numerous streets around the small plaza.

Nina paused in her devouring of the mashed apple that had survived the abuse she'd submitted it to, mild panick surfacing for a moment when she realised this meant that some of them might pass through the alleyway she was currently sitting down in. She readied herself to get up and bolt but was quickly relieved when she saw that none of the dispersing groups seemed to be headed towards her.

She relaxed and finished what was left of her sugary dinner, mildly annoyed at the fact that she would have to wait in order to witness her vengance. Still rather hungry, she gathered the slimy lumps of sweet apple-y goodness that clung to her skin and dress on her palm before licking them off as she let her mind wander in anticipation.

They were pretty far from the temple, it would take at least an hour for a monk to reach it and another for whomever they sent for to get here. Nina wasn't sure she wanted to stick around for a whole hour just to witness Order monks beat down some random rat. Then again the payoff would surely be amazing! The monks were bound to be extra pissed too, what with the humiliation they'd just received from their boss brother and having had to wait at the foot of that small building for hours. They weren't going to stop at just hitting the kid with their sticks, nooo. They would break his... his...

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

The flow of Nina's thoughts stilled for a second while she gazed down at her stilt and shuddered subconciously.

His arms right! Or maybe his fingers! It would surely be pleasant to listen to him scream in pain until his... throat was... dry... so dry... so painfully dry...

Her thoughts slowed to a crawl once more, memories overwhelming her before she winced in a conscious effort to suppress them.

It... it was bound to be nice right? Right? His cries of pain would be sweet... probably? Music to her ears... right? Plus with the commotion the whole thing had caused they wouldn't be able to just cave his skull in and ditch the body in a dark alley. They'd have to bring him to the temple to burn him. Just imagining them holding his hands onto the coal, the pain slowly stinging him more and more, becoming agony as his flesh sizzled around the lump of pure white pain filled her with... filled her with...

Something wet dropped onto her lap, then another as once more the train of her thoughts was frozen in place. She quickly wiped away the tears that had come unbidden to her eyes before gazing up at the small square once more.

On second thought, she was going to leave, to go away far and do her best not to think about the abject suffering and the hoarse cries that would resonate through the streets when they would break his le...

Nevermind that, she was going to save this dumb boy! That's right, it would... er... she couldn't... that is... she couldn't let these monks steal her revenge from her! Yes... Yes that was it! She wasn't losing her nerve and trying to save a fellow rat from enduring the same horrible things she had. And she certainly wasn't doing this because she was terrified the nightmares would come back and make her wet her bed again. No! Absolutely not! Perish the thought! It simply wouldn't be... honourable... to ehm... let some stupid monks take revenge in her place! Plus it would also humiliate the monks even further. Double revenge, a two for one whammy of retribution! Bloody calamities she was a genius.

Now the question was, how in the world was she going to pull that off. The four monks were spread out around the plaza, each watching over a side of the old housing. That meant there was no going in or out without being seen. The kid was stuck in the first place because he hadn't paid attention while climbing and managed to get up on one of the few building of the district that wasn't one of the standardized housing complexes that the order of Growth had crammed the place with. As such it stood alone in the middle of the square, its roof a long way away from the nearest building which made the usual tactics of jumping from roof to roof to lose pursuers unfeasible. It was a considerably smaller building too which meant that it wasn't another roof you'd be jumping on but a clamities-damned wall. Best the rat could hope for was jump as far as he could and hope he fell through a window. And given the distance his chances of that manoeuver not ending up with him transforming into human-flavoured paste on the paved street below him were slim.

Yup, Nina thought, this was not going to be easy. But as she looked upon the face of the appartments around the plaza in the dying light of the day she smirked as she got an idea. And as she thought upon it and a plan started to form around that spark of inspiration her smirk only got wider and wider.

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She pulled hard on the two pieces of cloth, making sure for the umpteenth time that her makeshift rope made of the drying clothes she'd collected from the roof of the building was secure. She hadn't just spent the better part of an hour limping her way up and down five floors of horrendously dirty stone stairs only for her plan to fail at the very first step.

Once she'd ensured yet another time that her cloth-rope wouldn't spontaneously come apart she mentally ran a check of all the pieces of her flawless plan to save her stupid fellow rat from the vindicative clutches of the cult of Order so that he could fall into her own slightly less vindicative clutches.

Rope somewhat securely tied to a sizeable bit of chipped pavement for easy throwing across the street? Check. Said rope's opposite end tied to the staircase's stone handrail? Check. Stupid heavy half of an unhinged door set up as a makeshift bridge between the staircase of the adjacent building and this one? Also check, and may Morality forgive her for the torrent of profanity she'd unleashed while dragging that thing over a couple dozen meters.

She'd had to set her crutch aside to do it and her leg still hurt like Chaos herself had bludgeoned it from her having had to put weight on it throughout the whole ordeal. Though it certainly said something about the districts that not even the people who lived in the appartment the dusty piece of wood had been set next to had questionned the fact that a ten-ish years old girl with a broken leg had very slowly and arduously dragged their busted door away while loudly groaning in atrocious pain. Sliding it below the exterior railing and across the empty gap over the small alley between buildings had been easy in comparison, she'd only had to sit on her end of the door in between every grueling push forward.

Well, the lingering crippling pain aside it seemed as though she wouldn't ever be more ready. She couldn't delay any longer anyhow, however far the nearest temple was it wouldn't be far enough that a monk who could actually go nab the boy wouldn't arrive any minute from now. So she grabbed her rope and walked to the window that opened over the plaza and she shouted as loud as her lungs allowed.

"HEY! YOU DUMB STUPID IDIOT! YES YOU THERE ON THE ROOF! COME CLOSER AND CATCH THIS THING IF YOU WANT TO GET OUT OF HERE!" All five of the people present in the small square turned their heads to look at the third floor window she'd shouted from. She threw the piece of stone she'd been holding in her hand with all her strength across the distance between the building at the edge of the small square where she was and the slightly higher roof of the central building upon which stood an utterly flabergasted young boy. He was not, however, surprised enough to stand there and stupidly watch as the rope and the bit of pavement it was tied to rolled down the tiles and he moved with surprising speed and agility across the tiled roof to catch it in time before it fell down in the streets.

"TIE IT AROUND THE CHIMNEY AND CROSS OVER! QUICK!" At that the monks on the ground finally realised what was going on and after a loud imprecation from the apparent leader of the small squad they started bolting for the building that Nina was currently in.

At the sight of all four of them hurrying towards her position Nina felt a sardonic smirk crawl its way onto her features. She'd expected them to leave at least on or two of their number to watch the central building but they seemed intent on making this easy on her. She waited until she heard the door at the base of her building being slammed open to adress the boy across from her a lot quieter this time. Just loudly enough for him to hear.

"Hey! Get down before they catch on and meet me at the Hera Bridge later tonight! You owe me one so you have to be there okay?" To his credit, he'd caught on and had already let the makeshift rope go. Taking the opportunity to get down from the building he'd been trapped on top of all evening as he started climbing down as fast as he could. Nina didn't stick around for an answer or even to see if he was going to make it down okay. As the loud noise of the monks' sandals pummeling the dirty stone stairs grew louder and nearer she looked intently at the piece of wood she'd set up as a bridge over the narrow alley between this building and the closest one... and simply clopped away from the staircase and headed towards the inside of the third floor instead.

She heard the monks reach the third floor just as she entered a different doorless appartment from the one she'd sourced her 'bridge' from and simply laid down on a currently unoccupied bottom bunk bed out of the dozen that cramped the room. None of the two people currently inside the room gave her so much as a second glance, it wasn't their bed so why should they care? If she had no reason to be here and was still there when the bed's usual occupant came in she'd get beaten black and blue and thrown out of the place anyways. And if she stole well it wouldn't be from them since they were here to watch over their stuff so it wouldn't matter to them.

Nina returned their indifference in kind and settled down to listen to the monks' cries of impotent fury as they realised they'd been fooled. She allowed herself a chuckle when she heard one of them shout "Look here! The one that threw the rope went across!". She winced when the small shaking it occasioned reminded her of the abject pain that coursed through her leg but it still wasn't enough to wipe the widening grin off her lips. It grew even wider when she heard what seemed to be, according to the few of their shouts that were loud enough for her to hear, their clumsy attempts at going across themselves. Who in the world would be crazy enough to think that that would be a good idea? And as she intently listened to the despairing cries of four people as they slowly realised that they truly were 'in it deep' as Doros used to say. She thought to herself that in the end she'd been right earlier.

Revenge really was a sweet music to the ears.