Shivers ran up my neck like fireworks, and my stomach plunged so hard I thought I might piss myself.
As you can imagine, I fell.
I had pledged to myself not to look down, but instinct decided otherwise, and when I saw the pink and red florals rushing up to greet me, I knew I was in for it.
I balled up and my feet hit first, thrusting into the soil. Next to follow was my left thigh and buttocks, which weren’t as fortunate. An array of clay bricks lined the flowerbed, and I crunched into them, flopping awkwardly onto my side and jabbing my shoulder into the coarse dirt outside the flowerbed.
Fuuuu—
I maintained enough sense to not yell out, but gritting my teeth and taking the hit was excruciating. I prayed to God — not the Deities in this world, but my ‘default’ God — thanking him for bringing me to this world in a young body. Like a child falling off the trampoline, I managed to ‘bounce’ a bit, leaving me with a serious bruise on my hip, but no broken bones.
The Navigator buzzed.
{Iron Ankles : Level Up! Current Level: 1}
{Armored Body : Level Up! Current Level: 1}
Thanks. Not my priority right now, and would’ve been handy earlier, but thanks.
I hauled myself to my feet and limped off at a snail's pace. I threw a cautionary glance behind me, accepting the fact that hot on my heels would be a person looking for an explanation or vengeance, but there was nothing.
I paused.
The face was still at the window.
Still looking at the porch.
It’s a blasted, bluddy, mannequin.
It almost pissed me off more that it wasn’t a fiend with a butcher’s knife chasing me down — I’d taken the fall for nothing.
I scampered back to the porch, head hung low, burning up with embarrassment. The climb was easy this time, and I hauled myself up to the porch, hitting my bruise on the railing as I went over.
I sneered at the mannequin with its stupid red lips and vibrant orange tongue.
Punk-ass beeatch. I’d send you out the window if I didn’t have to be inconspicuous.
The glass door was unlocked, and I slipped through with only the tiny creak that glass makes when it moves on a hinge. The bedroom was big, a four-poster bed with purple lace curtains draped around it like a wedding veil. Identical vases sat on each bedside table, and a few books sat open on the one nearest the door. Turning right from where I barged in, behind the malignant mannequin, stood two dressers. Clothes were piled on the ground beneath the door, and a bra hung by its strap on the handle.
Touché, Granton.
I eased open the bedside table, sliding it out to the sound of scraping wood. A quick dig revealed nothing — criminal evidence did not often nest in bundles of socks and underwear.
So, second floor. Rogue butler on the loose, staircase whereabouts unknown.
I stood with my ear to the bedroom door and strained. [Keen Hearing] was a passive ability, and only a 5% buff at that, which didn’t lend me much support.
I could stand here for a few hours, and it might level up?
Not gunna happen. I’d have to take a dive.
The doorknob turned easily, but the door grated open with a tremor that I felt resonating through the floorboards.
So did the butler.
“Sir Roolever?” He called. “Is that you?”
I opened my mouth in an ‘O’, exasperated with my poor luck. I wished [Calm Mind] would apply to fear in general, because my heart thumped so hard, I would've assumed a heart attack was coming back in the old days.
Abandoning stealth for now, I pushed open the door a little farther and darted out, bolting through the hall for anything resembling a staircase. The butler had called from downstairs, so I had about two shakes of a little lamb’s tail before he made his way up the stairwell to check on the wayward master of the manor.
The stairs greeted me with open arms, and I rushed up, grabbing onto a pommel-like piece at the corner of the railing as it twisted 180 degrees before spitting me out on the third floor.
I was in partially mapped out territory.
I kicked open the laboratory door — as good of a distraction as I could formulate in my scattered mind — then crept to the study, keeping to the edges of the floorboards where they wouldn’t creak.
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Damn you Haverbark and your addiction to floorboards. Get some tiles or something, losers.
The study door had a peephole on it which might be of use later, but for now I rushed in, twisting the handle all the way to avoid the deadly click!
For now, I was just concerned with my safety and the retrieval of my breath.
I dove into the storage alcove and buried myself amongst the boxes. Spiders and dust mites were the least of my concerns, and the near darkness gave me a sense of protection, like hiding in the closet when playing hide-and-seek.
To make the most of my time, I swiveled around some boxes to check their contents. Some were labelled, which lightened the load, but two or three were just brown cardboard tubs with stacks of paper and other goodies.
The butler roamed the third floor, but for now he was spending most of his time in the laboratory. My harebrained moment of inspiration had worked. I could hear him calling, though he sounded uneasy, like dealing with thieves was above his pay grade.
A found a few items of interest in Box #1. Bank statements from ‘Month Eight, Year 6007’ and ‘Month Two, Year 6009’. It was tough to read the specifics in the low light, so I stuffed them in my satchel and continued.
It would’ve been easier if Granton had blessed me with an ordered financial history, but this was a good start — it could potentially prove a pattern over multiple years, which was why I encouraged my old clients to maintain a healthy handful of bank accounts with banks all over the world.
I searched Box #2, finding a few documents from more recent years. This time, I got three months of bank records all in a row. I didn’t have time to flick through them now, but once I returned to the GTA — if I made it — I would pore over them until I knew Granton’s financial situation better than he did.
Box #3 was a write-off — I lifted it off the stack and the bottom fell through, dropping a splosh of moldy, wet documents onto my shoes. The box handles disintegrated in my hands, leaving a paste of gooey cardboard under my nails.
The butler had to have heard the commotion, so I slogged my way through the mess and ran on tiptoes to the peephole. Sure enough, he stood outside the door, fire poker in hand.
“Sir Roolever?”
I had to try the ol’ mimic trick.
“yeS, vEry SiCk, leAve me alONe.”
Awful job. Not even remotely similar.
The butler immediately knew I wasn’t his boss, and before I’d finished the sentence, he flinched away and sprinted to the lab once again.
I heard him rustling around and jingling a key.
Next came the baying of hounds.
Oh shit.
I ran to the desk, sprawling over it and yanking open the drawers, debris flying everywhere. I knocked over an inkwell — so last millennia — desperately looking for any final piece of evidence before I tried my escape.
A folder lay on the desk, titled ‘Haver-Home Legal’.
Mine.
Another sheath of papers — this one with the ‘Ripping Warriors’ name.
Also mine.
The baying was loud now, and unnatural. Claws scraped the floorboards so manically it sounded like the boards were being torn up. The butler shouted over the din to no effect, and I dreaded looking through the peephole.
In the end, I did.
I shouldn’t have.
The butler held onto three monsters. They were not dogs; they did not even come close. He struggled to control them, basically getting pulled along by them the same way a Great Dane pulls along its owner.
Their fur was congealed together in a strange mess of semi-liquid goop, like they’d been half-way through being pickled before the butler let them out. A haze emanated from them like cartoon stink-lines — something I’d seen vestiges of on the reptilian bodies from the dungeon. The first beast zeroed in on me through the peephole, some unbelievably acute vision, and tore at its tether, finally breaking free of the butler’s grasp.
Once the genie left the bottle, there was no way to stuff him back in. I wouldn’t get my three wishes; I would get minced into monster chowder.
The butler lost hold of the other two and they slammed into the door, knocking me backwards as the door fell on me. My satchel fell from my shoulder and skittered over to the window. A monster tore at my shoe.
The door served as an effective shield for all of two seconds before the monsters started chewing through it. A big lump of wood near my hip disintegrated into splinters between crushing jaws, and a ghastly face poked through the gap that had formed.
I flung the door off and backpedaled on all fours. The butler looked sorry for me, as though he had meant only to frighten off the intruder, not condemn me to this grisly fate.
The monsters gave me a moment of respite — a playful head start — before they leapt.
I tried my only trump card.
[Venta!]
The room erupted, and the monsters yelped, their greasy fur taking off in the ultra-hot flames. I scampered back further, bumping into something.
The satchel. Under the window.
The monsters were already recovering, shaking free of the fire that I caused.
The intruder.
The target.
Fresh meat.
I knew my time was up, my job here was done. The window slid up under my fingers, and I sent it as high as it could go, then climbed on the ledge. This was the start of a sick joke.
A man walks out on a ledge. He has a deathly fear of heights.
To my left lay my best option — the roof of the porch I’d so eagerly climbed in here on. I heard the first monster crash into the wall, steadying itself to jump on the window ledge and snap at my ankles.
I jumped.
Please, [Iron Ankles]. Please.
I crashed onto the porch roof, and [Iron Ankles] most definitely did not activate.
All my valuable oxygen left my lungs with an oough, and my descent paused briefly as I teetered. The butler had managed to restrain the beasts, and now he stood with his head out the window, his mouth moving, though I had no idea what he was saying.
I fell again, dazed, and landed in a lump next to the flowerbed. I would've killed for some Regeneration skills at that moment, because I was ruined.
[Armored Body] might’ve activated, or maybe the human body was just more resilient than I thought, because I was able to get to my feet and hobble away from the mansion, backtracking to my original hiding spot where I collapsed.
Am I gunna die? The Navigator kept telling me that my Regeneration couldn’t go any lower...
[Bird’s Eye View]
The butler and the dogs were still at the window, looking out into the slim light brought by dawn.
Knowing I was out of danger brought some relief, and I pulled my satchel under my chin so I could check the contents. A few things had been roughed up in the melee, but the fruits of my labor were all there.
###
I took the long route back to Haverbark, arcing out west so that I didn’t have to cross over Halten Road. It took me away from the GTA, but at such an early hour, the only people outdoors weren’t exactly looking for a chat.
Still coming to terms with my night of adventure, I stood next to a brazier in a marketplace, warming my hands and rubbing them together. I wasn’t particularly cold, just in shock.
A shrill bird call woke me up from my daydreaming, and I hurried away, finally angling myself to the GTA where Chair-Bed — don’t judge me for naming it — was beckoning me.
The hike up the hill almost killed me, but I made it back to the office. I dumped the satchel on Adam’s desk then crumpled and fell asleep.
No dip in the executive spa.
Work in three hours.