Dreamland

I reached the other side of town in just five minutes on foot. The streets widened here, and beautiful residences lined both sides. The street itself had two paved paths, each separated from the road by a row of trees. Some of the houses had iron fences surrounding them, set atop small stone walls. Peering through the metal bars decorated with iron leaves, I could see the idyllic gardens beyond.

In just a couple more minutes, I passed by the Hollybrun residence. It was a grand two-story building constructed in the Baroque style at the center of a park with wide avenues, green pastures, bushes, and old trees, all enclosed by a four-meter-high wall. You could only glimpse the interior by walking past the iron gates, but that wasn't where I intended to enter.

I walked further and waited for the guards to look away before running towards the wall and leaping up to grab hold of the top. Scaling the wall was an easy exercise for me as a skilled assassin. I had already noted the line of spikes on the fence and made sure to avoid them, not wanting to appear as a low-level petty thief.

I pushed myself up and looked into the courtyard, then cast the <> spell to study the garden in peace. Since I saw no dogs or guards inside, I made sure no one was watching me before stepping over the wall and sneaking into the garden.

Once inside, I paused and observed my surroundings, then darted quickly and silently through the garden to reach the castle wall. It only took a few seconds.

I paused again, taking in my surroundings, and then began scaling the wall, hiding in a corner exactly as planned.

The logistical preparations were excellent; the guild had some skilled people in this town.

The decorations on the wall seemed almost custom-made for me to climb them. I could have managed without them, but they made it much easier. I reached the second floor and entered a room through an open window. I didn't even need to break in as I had anticipated.

Karma or maybe just bad luck brought a poor housekeeper into the room. She dropped the curtains from her hand upon seeing me and tried to scream.

Before she could make a sound, I plunged my dagger into her heart and covered her mouth with my other hand. She fell like a log, making almost no noise aside from a ragged gasp as I caught her in the air to cushion her fall. I did it not for her sake but to muffle the sound...

Our eyes met as I held her in my arms.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Despite having seen this a hundred, if not a thousand, times before, it wasn't something easy to digest. She wasn't guilty of anything, just having a bad day and being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Could I do something about it?

As she lay on the floor, I uncorked a healing potion and let a drop fall onto the wound. Just one drop was enough. It wasn't too late, as evidenced by the shudder that passed through her body as I removed the dagger.

I looked mesmerized at the little colored drop: what an incredible value! A drop equals a life! For a more minor wound, I would need the whole bottle! Is my life more valuable? What is the price of a life? Low-level girl versus a high-level girl?

I took the other dagger I had prepared with the paralyzing venom and stabbed her at a non-lethal point. I watched her twitch, then remain immobile. She will survive and stay put until I finish my job.

I shook my head. What's going on today with all these thoughts?

What's wrong with me?

I stayed another second to think. No, there is nothing wrong; she is just a poor servant from one of the villages working to earn an honest silver. What am I to end her life like this? Let her have another chance.

I dragged her into a corner and hid her under the draperies she had brought. I checked the new wound to ensure she would not lose too much blood. Even if she now could not see me, I had the feeling her eyes were following me.

I had to shake my head again to clear my thoughts.

Concentrate, Cala, on your work, concentrate!

I put fresh paralyzing venom on both daggers. That should work now.

I heard voices, so I navigated slowly, cautiously entering the next room. This room was empty; the discussion could be heard from another room, with the door ajar between them. I walked with easy steps, not a sound, not a creak to be heard <>.

I slipped carefully behind that door and spied through the crack.

The information I received was confirmed again: this was the apartment where the daughter lived, and one of the voices belonged to her.

Oh, what a naughty, arrogant bitch we had there!

She was yelling at one girl who did something, not to her liking. The girl was crying, and the bitch was screaming. There was another girl in the room and one guard.

I was starting to feel uncomfortable, waiting for the carpet delivery as I did not kill and hid the housemaid properly. Now she was kind of a ticking time bomb. Should I go, kill the two and run with my prize through the window? A bit tricky to deliver her like that.

Better wait, but where is my delivery?

Another woman entered the room with Thiara. I heard yelling again. Oh, dear!

Now the crying housemaid came my way with the other in tow. Or maybe escorting her? They entered the room but did not see me hidden behind the door and went to the other room with the 'sleeping' housekeeper. Oh fuck. If they find her, I'll have the whole residence looking for me.

The woman who had entered the room a short time before went out the other door, and a man with a carpet entered.

OK, this is my delivery!

I watched carefully through the crack: only three persons were in the room Thiara, her bodyguard, and the carpet deliverer.

The man was just unrolling the carpet whilst the young lady Thiara and the guardsman were looking at him.

I heard a very angry Thiara:

“What's this insult of a carpet?!”

Being the daughter of the region's highest lord, she was used to receiving presents. Expensive presents.

I entered the room silently. A shadow entered the room. The guardsman was down, the carpet delivery man was down, and she was in my hands before any of them even realized what had struck them.

<> stab, stab, knock and catch. As simple as that. Even though the speed spell had been overkill, there had been no need for super speed here.

The delivery required her to sleep, so I decided to do it now. It would be easier for transport too. I made her smell a pre-prepared handkerchief. As I held her in my hands, I had to watch her.

She was sweet-looking. She must have some elf blood in her veins; her pointy ears were cutting through her green mane on the sides, not like your typical elf's vertical ears but horizontal, which made her even cuter. Her eyes were also green, a deep green mixed with almost golden striations. Her small hands were trying to grasp mine away. Her bosom repeatedly lifted and dropped as she breathed panic-stricken, her legs erupted from under her robe as she tried desperately to run, and then she fell soft in my hands. Only a couple of seconds of struggle.

I let her slip to the ground. It is crucial now that I do not clean my nose with this handkerchief. I chuckled at the idea. I can be stupid sometimes.

I let a drop of healing potion on the guard's wound and the carpet delivery guy's, rolled the young lady inside the carpet, and dressed the trousers and jacket of the carpet deliverer over mine. A balloon inflated in seconds made me have a big belly.

Five minutes later, I was ready. Any moment somebody might come in, or the other girl may be discovered. Then all hell breaks loose.

All I had to do now was slap a beard on my face to look like the carpet deliverer when the door opened.

It was again the same woman that was inside before. I was just showing her my posterior, faking that I was working with the carpet, pushing the beard with the pre-prepared mask over my face as fast as I could. It was a low-quality mask, but it should do if adequately strapped.

“What are you doing here? Where is lady Thiara?”

Good that I've pulled the guardsman and the carpet delivery guy into a corner.

I turned and spoke with the head low:

“Lady Thiara did not like the carpet; I must bring it back from where it came.”

She chuckled:

“Oh, good. Follow me!”

I lifted the carpet, and she escorted me out of the palace. She just glanced towards the other door, where she supposed lady Thiara was. If she had checked behind the curtains in the book area, she would have found the guard and the carpet deliverer, but that was obviously above her paygrade… and would have meant her probable death sentence. Ahm, potential paralysis, as I was somehow unwilling to kill today.

I did not run but kept a steady pace outside the residence. As I went behind the first corner of the street, a dark carriage was waiting for me.

I felt a kind of gleeful satisfaction. That pesky self-important asshole beauty was now nothing more but a package to be delivered. 'Sic transit gloria mundi': yesterday wearing the noble shoes that would step on the carpet, now just kind of a dirt fleck on that same carpet.

I looked at the wagon master.

“Delivery for Mrs. Kron?”

He turned and looked at me as I spoke, and a shiver ran down my spine. He was looking like some kind of mummified pseudo-zombie.

OK, that looks tempered my smug smile a bit.

His eyes darted from me to the carpet and back to me as he spoke coldly but politely:

“Oh yes. Please be so kind as to put it inside the trunk.”

A very polite mummified pseudo-zombie. I raised my brows.

“I expect payment.”

He entered the coach, and I followed. He nodded, continuing to speak low voice with his nonchalant, neutral, almost mockingly polite tone:

“But of course, miss, of course. Payment is inside that black sachet over there! Please help yourself.”

He had no trouble recognizing that I was a girl under that disguise. That was a bit disappointing; I thought I was better at masquerading as the fat delivery man. He pointed towards a sachet on the only sitting bank inside the coach.

I put the carpet on the side with the trunk, then I grasped my package and checked it.

“Do you want to unfold it?” I wondered as he took the end of the carpet.

He did just that, and she came rolling out, hitting the trunk, still sleeping.

He nodded.

“Wonderful. Thank you very much, missy, for your delivery!”

He opened a kind of coffin under the bench, where he pushed her relatively unceremoniously. OK, she was behaving like an arrogant bitch before, but this was a bit of extreme punishment for that. I hope she will survive without brain damage in that vampire-quality casket. Can you say karma? Oh well, for me, it was a job. My gleeful satisfaction from before was now downgraded to the satisfaction of a completed job when even that.

The sachet contained a small black wood figurine of a cat. He had received it from the guild when he put up the money for the reward to be used as acknowledgment I delivered.

I undressed the trousers and jacket of the carpet deliverer rapidly, and he threw them in the same trunk before closing it. There was some magic fueled there, as the chest closed too perfectly for the eye to see it even existed. He rolled the carpet back whilst I removed my beard and mask and put them in my inventory box.

In the next moment, I was out of the coach with the black sachet in my hand when the alarm horns were blasted at full power at the residence behind the corner.

Another moment later, the coach was already disappearing from my sight.

I walked towards the assassins' headquarters to get my reward. I wonder who could have been the mysterious quest giver?

Interesting; usually, I feel good after completing an action that is executed almost flawlessly. True, this was not a very difficult action; however, I did my part almost perfectly. I also had luck on my side, yet I was not as satisfied as I used to be. As I should be.

I let the guild receptionist count the money. It was a situation of confidence between the guild and me.

The guild kept ten percent for their expenses, but they deserved their share: the logistics had been flawless. The description of the poor bloke delivering the carpet was also spot on, and the mask was good enough. The reception for my 'package' was there waiting for delivery. Four hundred fifty gold easily won in one hour, fifty gold for the guild.

Once finished, I went to the market to meet Alice. There was a commotion in the market. A woman was crying desperately on her knees on the cold square stones that paved the square.

She seemed to be someone from nobility…

Just a glance was enough to give me the heebie-jeebies: she had the same hair color, the same cheeky ears, and the same facial features but a more mature face.

I'll be damn if this is not Thiara's mother. How did she already learn about her disappearance?

Suddenly, the four hundred and fifty gold pieces weighed heavily on me. A shudder shook my body as if trying to shake the feeling away from me. I breathed deeply. I take this game too seriously.