Chapter Eighteen: Don’t forget your shoe!

Darkdigger glared at me. We were in the post-honeymoon phase of the relationship. Over the last three days, we’d developed an understanding: he glares, and I respond with the goofiest grin I can muster. It was the way we expressed our love for each other.

I picked up another delivery slip from him. The job? Classic Point A to Point B. Point A was in the Green District, just south of the Capital District. Unlike the towering buildings in the city, this area was all sprawling mansions with massive yards separated by impeccably maintained green spaces. It even had a smaller wall, giving off major gated community vibes. It reminded me of the upscale neighborhoods I used to drive by in Denver, where the gates were tall, and the HOA rules were nothing short of draconian, and I don’t mean that sweetheart from the tailor shop.

At the back of a stately home, a weary-looking elf in a black robe layered with long, vestment-like drapery handed me the goods: a simple envelope. He then passed me a pouch of gold, a nice tip in advance.

The envelope was bound for the Commercial District, just north of the Entertainment District, where I met Titus. This was the last of the city’s significant areas I hadn’t fully explored yet. The Grand Bazaar was a sprawling hub of activity that occupied roughly half the area. Thousands of tiny stalls were arranged into mini neighborhoods, each specializing in something different: household goods, food, domestic and exotic animals, luxury items. You name it, they sold it. Scattered throughout were inns, taverns, brothels, and even sporting venues. Truth be told, the place scared the shit out of me, so I avoided going in until I absolutely had to.

Traffic around the Grand Bazaar was a constant mess and bled into the rest of the district. Carts and wagons jammed the streets. During the day, they flowed in; at night, they flowed out. It was chaos, but clearly, someone was keeping it organized.

Just south of the Grand Bazaar was Butcher Block Row, one of the city’s many boroughs. These were self-contained, walled-off neighborhoods segregated by race, trade, or class. Each borough had its own rules, and most were self-policed. When I tried to enter, I had to state my business to avoid getting turned away by the neighborhood watch.

Butcher Block Row was rough, to say the least. It specialized in meat, and its cutting and processing. While the butchers appeared to be upstanding citizens on the surface, I couldn’t help but suspect that some of the “waste products” shipped out of the district each night might include a few dismembered bodies. I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to investigate too closely.

The area was packed with crammed tenements, small courtyards, and narrow alleys hugging a smelly canal system. The canals moved slaughterhouse leftovers and conveniently dumped them into the city’s sewer system. Efficient, if not exactly savory.

“That’ll do.” The dwarven manager of the chop house said as I handed him the envelope. The place was a slaughterhouse filled with all the smells and sounds of dying animals. Not someplace I particularly enjoyed.

“It’s been a pleasure.”

I turned to leave the stinking office, getting the hells out as quickly as I could and thinking Morrissey might have been on to something.

“Inn’s ‘round the corner,” he said matter-of-factly.

“I’m sure it is,” I replied in kind.

“Best be settlin’ in fer the night.”

“Why is that?”

“We’ve blood, guts, and meat.” He said with a grim look on his face. “Attracts all kinds. Best be to stay indoors. An elf girl like yerself may encounter all kinds of trouble if she be out past sundown.”

“Thanks for the heads up,” I said, shutting the door. Not taking good advice was one of my new skills, so I walked a few doors down and then used my grappling hook spell to scale the side of the building.

Deep breath, Regan.

Taking a deep breath in Butcher Block Row was my first mistake on my way home. I coughed out the vile stench of the canals as I tried to refocus. Given my experience a few nights prior, I checked my map to ensure I had a clear shot out of this neighborhood via the rooftops. There was no way I was going to crash in Motel 8, wedged up to a blood and guts river. I didn’t want to get ripped apart by dagger-wielding pixies, either. Or, worse, ambushed by a swarm of grudge-holding bog sprites wearing spiked helmets or some ridiculous Murder World crap that might ooze out of that thing.

I focused on reaching the nearest hub street—sixteen blocks away—and started moving.

A scream stopped me in my tracks after I started my running leap across a narrow street to the next block. Screams weren’t exactly rare in the city. I mean, seriously? This place? But this one landed differently. It wasn’t distant or muffled. It was right below me, just three stories down in a small courtyard behind one of the tenements.

My parkour instincts fizzled mid-jump, and I rolled awkwardly across the rooftop I’d been aiming to use as a ramp. Sliding to a halt, I peered over the edge. Two men, definitely human, were dragging a small figure toward the alley. She was either an elf or a dwarf; it was hard to tell, but she couldn’t have been more than a child. Dark hair, dark skin, and a simple cotton dress. One of her shoes lay abandoned at the base of the tenement steps, like she had tried to run but didn’t make it.

The men weren’t armored, opting for dark tunics, pants, and red scarves tied across their faces beneath their hoods. I’d seen enough gang activity in the city to recognize the markers. Most gangs stuck to their own neighborhoods, wearing colors, patterns, or patches to show allegiance. But bigger, city-wide crews? They kept things more subtle, barely a whisper on the streets. These two seemed like neighborhood thugs, small-time predators who’d decided a rope might’ve been too much effort.

“We shoulda brought a rope or somethin’!” one of them complained, confirming my theory.

I froze, memories surging back to Twin Boulder Pass. The gang that had nearly killed me. The crack of bone and the feeling of my body being beaten to a pulp. I feared waking up in that cage, listening to their plans for me. These men, with their casual cruelty and unchecked violence, were no different. They preyed on the weak because it made them feel powerful.

My fists clenched. I wasn’t about to let them add this girl to their tally.

The men grunted and swore as they manhandled her. She tried screaming again, but her mouth was muffled, a makeshift cloth gag pressed into it.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

I summoned my grappling hook and anchored it around the chimney behind me. For one brief moment, I hesitated, giving myself a countdown from ten. Maybe this wasn’t what it looked like. Perhaps it was some bizarre intervention, or they were rescuing her from a cult. Doubt flickered until I hit three, then I shoved it aside. These men were clearly thugs, and their actions were undeniably nefarious. By two, I’d slipped on a pair of leather gloves, and at one, I leaped off the rooftop, sliding down the rope.

My boots smashed into the right thug’s shoulder with an audible crack, his scream tearing through the courtyard. Ninety pounds of force-driven elf isn’t much, but if it’s coming down from three stories up... He crumpled beneath me, but I was already spinning on the rope. Sick Stick materialized in my left hand, and I drove it hard into the back of the other thug’s neck. A flurry of notifications about sneak attacks, multipliers, and debuffs scrolled across the corner of my vision, but I’d long since learned to ignore them.

Left Thug was gone, his body collapsing into a heap. Right Thug writhed in the sand, his face buried in the dirt, groaning in pain. I stepped behind him and wrapped my right arm around his neck. I pulled it to my chest with my left; I could hear and feel his trachea collapsing as I choked off the air.

He struggled for a moment, but there was no escaping it after a certain point. I just pulled harder and harder until there wasn’t any movement left, just the usual twitching of a failing nervous system.

The notification of XP and lootable items confirmed it, and I let the meat bag drop to the ground. I could have stabbed him, but oops.

An eerie silence covered the courtyard as the girl looked up at me. I’m unsure if she was more terrified of me or the bad guys. And yes, she was tiny enough to be looking up at me.

I was breathing hard, my eyes wide, and I’m sure all crazy and shit.

“Do you need any help?” I asked her. I whispered without thinking about it, reluctant to break the quiet of the early evening.

“No,” she said, rising onto shaky feet. She was, in fact, a dwarf, probably in her early teens.

“Do you live here?”

She just nodded, pointing at the building.

“How about them,” I asked, nodding at the two would-be abductors. The girl shook her head no. So, they came into this neighborhood to steal away a girl. Charming. “You should probably go back inside.” The girl turned and ran back to the steps and hurried inside.

“Yo!” I yelled after her. “Don’t forget your shoe!” Priorities.

I did my own scurrying. I climbed up the side of the building on the rope and then dismissed it back into the magical ether from which it came.

I decided not to loot the bodies. I wanted to ensure there was plenty of evidence for CSI: Ironstone. I crossed the roof to the side, where the alley met the street, and there, parked and waiting, was a small carriage and driver. It looked like any cab a person would hire, except the driver had a hood and scarf matching the alley's assailants. Oh, Mother Lover…

I activated Stealth and kneeled, pulling out my bow. From up here, it would be an easy shot:

ASSASSIN JOB ADVANCED TO LEVEL 4

+1 DEXTERITY

+1 CHARISMA

Fuck parkour. Fuck avoiding the alleys and dark streets of Murder World. I didn’t even plot a course or pick a destination. I just ran.

As I crossed north to the next Hub boulevard, I flew from roof to roof. I moved as quickly as possible, leaping, falling, and even missing the occasional hand or foothold, but I always managed to keep from colliding with the ground. I moved dangerously, throwing myself across the alleys and narrow streets. Notifications rolled down my vision like the end credits of a movie, but I ignored them.

When I finally reached the Hub, I slipped down a drainpipe, losing my grip three-quarters of the way down.

I landed with a thud on the cobblestones. I looked at my hands. They were bruised and scraped from playing Bat Girl on the city's rooftops, but there wasn’t a trace of bad guy blood on them.

I activated Face in the Crowd and went to work picking pockets as I went. I moved fast, my hands a blur as I scooped up item after item from almost anybody unlucky enough to bump into me. I tried to get my heart rate up, to feel some adrenaline. I jogged and ran, and when my EP was almost exhausted, I stopped stealing and slowed down.

I felt nothing. Even when I banged my shins on a window ledge, scraped the skin of my hands on the rough stone building roof, or grabbed a dagger out of the sheath of a wealthy-looking stranger, there was just…nothing.

The killing didn’t make me feel anything. It was the same as it was all the other times. I squeezed life out of the asshole. Just like I slammed a cultist’s face into the floor of Pridehelm Keep. These weren’t quick, easy kills either; these mother fuckers hurt. They took time, and I didn’t seem to give a shit. And Nya kept just making it easier and easier by advancing my fucking Assassin Job.

It seemed like I just ran out of street. I found a pub and staggered in. It had a ridiculous sign, something with a dog holding a toothbrush on it. The place was only about half full, and I found a corner table and planted myself there. I sat and stared ahead, giving the wench a nod when she asked what I wanted. A mug of something appeared a few moments later, and I placed a silver on the table. I didn’t ask for change.

I finished my drink and headed to the bar. I quietly inquired about a room and was handed a key. It was small and hot, and the bed looked like it was pulled out of a landfill somewhere, but I collapsed into it all the same. Why was it easy? I mulled over it a bit in my mind. What was it about this world that made me like this?

I willed myself to sleep, and for a glorious three seconds, I thought it would happen. But not right now. Peace wasn’t going to come. Not that I felt like I deserved it anyway.

I wandered back down to the pub. A young dwarf was sitting at the bar, minding his own business. He looked like a young adult, probably just out on his own, and had just gotten off whatever job he had in this city.

“Hey,” I said, walking up to him.

“Yeah?” he replied, looking up at me; his face was fresh, with a short beard that just jutted past his chin. He had dark brown hair and a broad, dwarven chest. He was just about my height but was rocking the ultra-strong dwarf physique. He turned me on. Just enough.

“Wanna fuck an elf?”

“Um, sure?” He looked nervous. Maybe my crazy eyes were a turn-off, but if it weren’t him, it would be the next asshole down that bar, which was a human who was certainly paying attention.

“Come on then,” I said, tossing a copper on the counter. He was just young enough to get excited about any sex, I suppose, and enthusiastically followed me upstairs when he realized this was just gonna happen for him.

Back in the room, I didn’t even wait for him to undress before I got on my knees in front of him, yanking his britches down. He fumbled with the rest of his clothes while I took him in my mouth. After he was good and excited, I unequipped my clothes and moved to the bed. It was messy, mostly unsatisfactory, and I just really didn’t give a shit. I forced two orgasms out of him. Ninety minutes later, I pushed him into the hall with his clothes in a bundle.

Not my best day. But dirty sex was something that allowed me to release the pressure cooker inside my head.

I let sleep in. I thought about the goddess of the night that Eric had told me to pray to. I don’t pray. Not really. I think it’s too hypocritical for a person like me.

I wish I had a cell phone. This was yet another night where Leoleth was on her own. I didn’t tell her where I’d gone. She might be worried. Was there something like a phone here? You would think there was. I mean, they have flushing toilets…one would think…

I had dreams again, but just a rolling blue ocean. It reminded me of the time I took a cruise with my family—lazy, white-capped waves like a screen saver inside my brain.