Wizardly Dude
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[TEA] (131) 3.30. Hide and Seek, Minus the Hide
🕑 Added 2025-10-06 16:00:07 +0000 UTCIn the end, Mile’s proposition was fairly straightforward. In exchange for his assistance with helping Asher find the Guild, Miles would receive ten thousand shards for each senior assassin discovered. In the event that Miles was able to find the Finger in charge of this city, Asher agreed to pay him fifty thousand shards instead.
Despite the fact that Miles was very clear regarding the fact that he wouldn’t so much as lift a finger to help Asher with any of the fighting, Asher was quite happy with the deal he’d struck. Each of his targets would have more than enough shards to make up for the amount Miles was requesting, and it wasn’t as if he had any method of tracking down the Guild on his own.
As soon as they finalized their agreement, they got to work.
Rather than heading out of the city and all the way down to where he’d been attacked that morning, he decided to start a bit closer. After bringing Miles over to the bath house, he explained what had happened, curious to see if the seeker could track the senior assassin back to wherever he’d come from, seeing as he’d traveled through the water.
Unfortunately, his hunch turned out to be correct.
“Water is a no go,” Miles explained, frowning as he peered at the entrance to the bath house as if hoping to spot an assassin walking out the front doors. “I won’t reveal my elements, but if you guys were fully submerged when you battled, that makes things nearly impossible. There won’t be enough evidence of the fight left for me to work my magic.”
“What if I had his corpse on me?” Asher asked, only just then remembering he’d shoved the shark-based assassin into a crate so as to not freak out Brian. “Would that help?”
“…you’re just holding onto the man’s corpse?” Miles asked, raising an eyebrow before seeming to think better of it. “You know what, forget I asked. Yeah, if you have his corpse, and we can find exactly where he entered the building, I can probably work with that.”
Motioning for Miles to follow him down one of the back alleyways, Asher pulled the crate out of his rift, barely managing to contain his laughter at Miles’ bulging eyes. Again, the seeker seemed to decide not asking for details was probably the smartest choice, as he simply shook his head and popped open the crate.
It was a testament to how used to seeing dead bodies Asher was at this point that he didn’t even blanch as the assassin’s water-logged corpse was revealed. Miles clearly had some experience as well, as other than the man’s nose wrinkling at the smell, he didn’t react.
Instead, his eyes went black.
Asher nearly yanked out a dagger by reflex as the seeker’s trick reminded him of Leighann’s strange, void eyes and the way she’d been able to see right past his defenses. It was only the fact that he realized the man’s pupils had merely dilated to the extreme, taking up nearly eighty percent of his entire eyes. A feat that was clearly impossible without magical assistance.
An Eye element? Or Vision? Asher pondered as Miles carefully swept his gaze over the corpse. He knew Thunder, the elite in charge of Draken’s manor, had the Sound element, so perhaps it was something akin to that. The Big Book of Elements: Edition Six had clearly stated that there were rare elements that matched each of the five senses, so that was most likely what he was seeing.
Miles continued staring at the corpse without so much as blinking for the next few minutes. Finally, he took a step back, his dilated eyes turning to stare at him instead.
“…What did you do to him?”
“What do you mean? I slashed him in the side,” Asher said, pointing to the giant slash on the corpse. “I kinda figured your fancy eyes could see that much.”
“I can see the slash,” Miles drawled, his eyes quickly turning back to normal as he frowned. “I can also see that you did something to the wound. I’ve been around the kingdom once or twice, and I’ve never seen anything like this. The closest I can think of is a stab wound I saw a Blood element user leave on someone that refused to be healed by normal means, but even that didn’t look quite so… permanent.”
“I don’t recall paying you to ask questions about my skills,” Asher reminded him. “Can you find the cell he came from or not?”
“Yeah, I can,” Miles nodded, hearing Asher’s unspoken refusal to answer his questions. “I’ve got a good sense of the guy now. Should be able to trace his steps back at the very least.”
Asher shoved shark-boy back into his Personal Rift, and the two of them did a quick look around the bath house. Near the back entrance, Miles suddenly stopped, his head snapping down as if he spotted something. Asher didn’t see a damn thing even with Identify and Secret Seeker, but Miles clearly did based on the way his eyes dilated again.
“This way,” he said, motioning for Asher to follow him as he began walking.
The next half an hour was a rather interesting one. While Miles somehow tracked the assassin via his own invisible footprints or something along those lines, Asher made sure nobody ran into him. Miles’ eyes were locked onto the ground as he walked, which made him incredibly vulnerable. Frankly, Asher had no idea how he’d survived as long as he had if he made a habit of going around doing this.
After apologizing yet again to someone Miles nearly ran straight into, Asher almost ran into the man’s back himself as he finally stopped. “This is it,” Miles said, finally looking up and nodding at a nearby warehouse that was on the smaller side. “He came from here before he attacked you.”
“I can’t believe it was that easy,” Asher muttered, peering at the warehouse as he lamented how long he and Kree had spent trying to track down the Guild back in Whikoga. After learning Rulfar was out of town, he really should have thought to try seeking out others like him instead of just trying to go it alone.
The warehouse Miles had led him to looked as though it was used to store raw ore from the fifth level based on the rusted over minecarts sitting out front and the miscellaneous pickaxe leaning against the front wall. Either Miles was wrong, or the Guild had put a lot of effort into camouflaging this cell.
“Thanks Miles, I can take it from here,” he said, stepping forward. “I’ll meet you back at your office in a bit.” Miles needed no further encouragement to get out of there before the fighting began. His payment was entirely dependent on what was inside, of course, and he clearly wasn’t worried about Asher trying to run off without paying him what he was due.
The knowledge that he could track Asher down wherever he went probably helped with that.
As Miles ran off, Asher considered how to approach this. In theory, the senior assassin in charge of this cell was already dead. Though he didn’t actually know for sure the shark-man had been a senior assassin, he was basing that purely off the fact that the man had had at least two elements and a hefty number of shards on him.
In fact, Asher didn’t even know how many cells the Guild had in Dormaul. While some things would be constant across the different cities, such as each one having a Finger and a Knuckle overseeing the common assassins, how each Finger went about handling their cities was entirely up to them. For all he knew this city only had four cells, one for each level, minus the first level which he highly doubted the Guild had chosen to try and slip into.
“Only one way to find out,” he muttered, unable to hide his excited grin as he slipped into a nearby alleyway and out of sight of the thin crowd. This deep within the fourth level, most people running around knew to keep their heads down and not look too closely at anyone, but that didn’t mean he shouldn’t take basic precautions.
Pulling out two steel daggers, Asher slipped through the wall of the warehouse, pausing on the inside to look around. Unlike the last cell he’d been in, this one was a tad more active.
Two younger assassins were sparring in the center of the building, each skillfully attempting to cut the other without receiving any injuries of their own. A third was watching them carefully from the side, this one a good few years older based on the salt-and-pepper beard on his face. The man’s aura was like a raging bonfire, the deadly, invisible flames that had taken the lives of hundreds dancing around his limbs and threatening to hurt anyone who got too close to him.
Judgement - Lvl 11
“Less dancing, more fighting!” the older assassin barked, pointing at their feet and firing a small, insanely fast ball of white-hot fire from the tip of his finger. The projectile didn’t look all too dangerous, but based on how the younger assassins quickly moved to dodge out of the way, Asher had the suspicion it was anything but.
[Assassin] - 3/3 Elements
That guy has to be another senior assassin… That means either the shark-guy wasn’t, or Dormaul’s guild is run very different from Whikoga’s.
Activating his Ring of False Death, Asher stood there for a couple of minutes, still as a literal statue as he observed their training session from within the astral realm. Despite having learned that some people could detect him while he was in the astral, and some could even see him, he was rather confident those were rare exceptions to the norm. As he watched, two things became quite clear to him.
For one, the older assassin was clearly upset about something, and as far as he could tell, the man was unfairly taking his anger out on his two pupils. Even when they performed to his exact specifications, he would shout at them, and occasionally fire more of those flaming balls at their feet, forcing them to jump out of the way. The little balls melted holes into the stone floor, and Asher could only imagine what they would do to flesh and blood.
Other than that, he was about ninety-five percent certain one of the younger assassins knew he was there, or at least could tell something was watching them. They did a good job of trying to hide it, but Asher caught a couple of confused glances thrown in his general direction as the two assassins sparred. The assassin was around his own age, and only had a single element to his name. His aura was like a dark sponge, bending and flexing as the man moved. He’d definitely taken lives, but only a handful more than Asher had at this point if he was reading the weight of the sponge-like aura correctly. Judgement wasn’t really an exact science, and he was pretty confident a lot of what he saw was up to his own interpretation.
At first, Asher was curious why the assassin didn’t call him out. He wondered if this was a trap similar to the one Jennifer and the ice-assassin had led him into back in Whikoga. But the longer he watched, the more he came to realize what the young assassin’s true motives were.
He wanted Asher to kill the senior assassin yelling at them.
It made sense. There was clearly no love lost between any two Guild members, and if a senior assassin died, a younger assassin would have to be promoted to fill the role. From the daggers the two younger assassins were shooting the older one, Asher felt pretty safe in assuming that nothing would make them happier than if he popped out of the astral and stabbed the man in the head.
But where would be the fun in that?
Not only that, but killing the man before he even knew what hit him wouldn’t do Asher any good for leveling his skills. With their plans to bring the fighting straight to The Council of Death, and knowing that the Head was still throwing assassins at him, it was critical that Asher grow as powerful as he could, as fast as he could. Taking out a potential training aid so easily wouldn’t benefit him in the long run in that regard.
Asher bided his time, waiting until the senior assassin finally snapped at them to go practice somewhere else. As the two assassins bowed and left the building entirely, Asher decided he’d waited long enough.
Cancelling False Death and letting Astral Dip fade, he popped into the material realm, clearing his throat and causing the senior assassin to flinch and spin toward him.
“Hi there!” he said, grinning as he waved a gleaming dagger and took a step forward. “I’m here to kill you!”
Comments
InLucidReverie
That's because he doesn't really want to play assassin, he wants to play duellist. He is well aware he's taking unnecessary risks, but this is how he has fun. I thought that was pretty obvious, honestly?
vuduman78
He decides he needs shards. Then he finds someone who will presumably have a lot of shards and is identifiably a bad guy. Does he merc him and take the shards? No he announces himself. Despite the fact that he’s been surprised by his enemies capabilities basically every single time he’s fought anyone consequential he announces himself. It’s like he’s immune to learning from his mistakes.
