They slipped through the alleys of the block and stood looking at the left side of the three story inn. Lisa readjusted her grip on the heavy crate, looking the building up and down. She saw the frozen explosion covered just the front of the inn. Lisa sighed, she had almost been killed by the force of the spell, and yet beside a few flung corpses around the square. She scowled at slaver’s inn, mostly untouched, at least on the left side. Just to make everything a bit worse, Theo had cut off the bottom of one of her pant’s leg and wrapped it around her head.
Hearing the clank of crossbows, she looked toward the front of the building and noticed they weren’t using the second and third stories to fire, only the main floor and alley. She raised a brow, looking up at the pleasure of windows on the second and third story, each spaced out fifteen feet across and ten feet vertically.
Looking at Theo, she said, “Doesn’t seem like the blast did much to the slavers beside maybe a bit of scaring.” What a waste. She pressed her eyes closed, pushing away the image of the mages' last moments alive, in horrific pain, as his skin bubbled and burst.
Lisa swallowed looking at the three windows that rested on the left side of the building all toward the front. No more than a few paces from the front of the inn, and in plain sight of the slavers. Not that the windows were going to be much help, most of the windows probably lead to the main dining area where the slavers were most likely waiting.. She looked at Theo. “So what are we gonna do? Break a window and sneak in?”
Theo stood there silent, his hood slowly moving side to side, up and down. His arms moved from underneath his cloak, dagger in both hands. Lisa took a step back, looking at the flawless edges of the weapons. He spun them in his hands, blades pointed toward the ground then sprinted toward the wall of the inn, right at the center below a window on the second story.
Theo cleared fifteen feet and was on the other side of the small street in the blink of an eye. Crouching right before he ran face first into the wall, he leapt ten feet into the air, pushing up the wall like he was running along it. At the peak of his feat, he slammed the daggers into the wall. Lisa’s brows shot up and her mouth dropped.
He climbed the left side of the three story building, using the daggers to pull himself higher and higher.
The wind pulled his cloak to the side. She gawked at the ridiculous arsenal of daggers hidden under the blobby potato appearance that the cloak gave him. Daggers were secured on his legs, waist, bicep, back, and even within the cloak itself. A dozen rows lined the cloak. She saw he had a belt on with pouches of various sizes on his hip. “What’s in there? More daggers?” She murmured.
Reaching the roof, his cloak rustled as if he was reaching for something. He leaned over the edge and dropped a rope. He pointed to Lisa, making an orbiting motion with his hands. She shifted the box's weight and pointed a finger to herself. Theo shook his head and snapped his finger toward Lisa, but lower. She looked down and made an O with her mouth. She nodded and tied off the crate and watched him effortlessly pull it up at a constant pace. Not once did he jerk or even sway the box.
She raised her brow and found herself nodding, which she stopped immediately. There was no way she was going to let him think she was impressed. The last thing she needed was him getting a bigger ego than he already had.
Seconds passed and Lisa pressed herself up against the building hearing the shouting clearly from the slavers. Footsteps were loud and frantic from inside and she knew there were at least a dozen inside. Looking toward to front corner of the building, she waited for a slaver for whatever reason to come out, or one to slide open one of the main floor windows to run away. Then there would be that awkward moment, then yell for backup, and then death...or worse.
She shook her head and looked up, Theo peeked back over the roof. He waved her up, and Lisa flailed for him to lower the rope. They stared at each for several seconds, then he smiled. “Fucking dick,” she muttered checking the front corner.
Still clear. She watched him cast down the help rope. Lisa was bobbing on the balls of her feet waiting for the rope to finally reach her. It was just above her head and she jumped up and grabbed it. Lisa wrapped her arm around it and placed one foot on the wall and signalled with her other hand for him to start pulling. She wasn’t sure how to do this, but how hard could it be to just hold on.
Theo gave a thumbs up, then threw the rest of the rope down, landing in a circle around her.
Lisa slowly lowered her leg, slightly nodding her head. She looked at the rope in her hand then at the rest on the ground. “What—-” She started to scream before slamming her palm to her mouth. She dropped and scurried against the wall with her legs to her chest.
Frantically rubbing her index fingers against her thumps, she pressed her head against the wooden wall. What was she going to do now? He had fucked her good with this stunt. What was the purpose of this? Lisa bit her lip. She took a deep breath and whispered, “this is just another test. You have to prove you can do this on your own. One step at a time.”
Lisa looked back at the front corner, still clear. Creeping away from the walls, she moved toward the back to try and stay out of sight of the windows near the front. Her hand rested on Faith’s dagger and focused on one of Theo’s dagger holes, resting off to the side of a third story window. “Hmm,” How hard could being a rogue be? Just be small and as quiet as possible.
She skulked over to a window and pressed her face up against the glass. Tables, chairs, crates, and parts of the second floor laid scattered around what used to be a dining area. The encased explosion consumed the inn's front wall, reaching several feet into the building. The right side has been partly blown out leaving a huge hole covered with scorched wood frosted over with a sheen of ice. Water dripped from the front right corner where the frozen explosion ended back to the wall where the dining room ended. A smile grew on her face spotting the stairs across the room, in between the far wall’s massive hole and center desk in the back. Her face twisted seeing slavers on the other side of the opening, running back and forth in the alley. Slavers pulled their injured from the front with arrows just off target from being instantly fatal. Lisa’s fingertips pressed against the glass hoping it would be a slow death for them.
You ain’t got a choice, if they kill the adventurers the supplies are lost, and with them goes our tiny chance of surviving. For Ma and Pa. Lisa inched up and saw the window’s lock and was unlatched. Seeing a crack run down the center of the solid pane of glass, she carefully pressed her hands on the glass and started sliding the bottom part of the window up. A small clink came from the window, Lisa’s neck tightened, crack!
Her hands went through the glass and streams of red poured from her wrists. She bit her lip at the shooting pain, then held a scream in her throat at the tearing sensation of ripping her hands back through the glass. She fell to the ground, her back against the wall. Inhale, exhale, she rocked back and forth like a child, pressing her throbbing wrists tightly against her chest. The longer she sat there the more it burned. The warm ooze soaked through her shirt and she felt it starting to run. Looking down, she saw several light cuts no longer than her fingernail, and two long gashes spewing blood.
“Fuck,” she wimpered, seeing her hands quiver. She tapped the back of her head lightly against the wall and that sent a wave of dull pain across her head. Her teeth felt cold at their roots, then her mouth dropped. She snatched out Ma’s dagger, staring at it.“Applying pressure to an open wound is almost always a good place to start. Solves the problem most of the time, if it ain't too bad.” Is what Ma told her when she had to help bandage Pa up after he cut himself with a saw in his haphazard attempt to build a shelf.
Pulling the bandage off her head, Lisa gritted her teeth as it felt like she was ripping her head wound open again. It was covered in dry blood and strands of hair, but it would do. She cut the bandage in half and fumbled wrapping the heavy cotton straps around her wrists. Using her teeth to hold one end, she yanked at the otherside pulling it tight.
Now that she hopefully wasn’t going to bleed out on the way up. She pushed herself onto her knees and looked down to see her off white top, now a vibrant red. Lisa gripped the blood coated window ledge and stood up just enough to see inside the inn. Still no one, She took her free hand and pushed on the wooden frame, now free of glass.
She wiped the glass laying on the ledge outside the inn. The eyes darted around the empty inn to the sounds of glass shattering against the stone alleyway. She gulped, and prayed as she threw herself on the ledge resting on her forearms. She jostled and scooted her torso up, then paused when she tried to bring her knees up. The window wasn’t big enough nor was she flexible enough. “Come on,” She squirmed further inside, well on the edge of the ledge. All she needed was to squeeze her foot inside then she was good.
She tottered, then slammed against the floor of the inn, cracking the back of her head against the wet wood. Lisa saw stairs, and her head was swimming but she heard the rustle of footsteps across the inn ten paces away. She hissed, fisted clenched at the pounding in her head and searing in her hands with each step as she staggered behind an overturned table.
She sat for a moment, caught her breath, and wiped a trickle of blood from the wound on her head from earlier. The adventurers must have made a move as the screams, the clanking of crossbows intensified the longer she listened.
“Bolts are almost out. Hope you boys are ready to become men. When we are out, we charge. Maybe then, we can capture a few to make up for this shit show. Ou better be glad he ain’t that point, cause Havel would have his ass for this blunder.” Lisa heard a woman say
Lisa grimmanced hearing the name, and inched closer to the edge of the table.
A man called out, “I hope they are hiding another mage, I promised lil Ila her own bedroom this year. By the way, I will need some time off after this job.”
The woman snapped back, “Really!? Now you want to request days off?”
A third man yelled, “Thats just like Garrot!” Several men chuckled.
“Quit joking and keep—”
“Kenny. Kenny!” Garrot screamed.
“Garrot get down!” The woman commanded
Lisa peeked around the corner, seven paces to stairs and no slavers in sight. Happy at their misfortune and hoping for many more, she got on her hands and knees and crawled as fast as she could toward the back of the room. For a moment, only a second, she was exposed, right in view of the hole. She saw a man, no older than her, laying face down on the ground with a bolt in his head. Was that who they were talking about? Fuck ‘em. She ducked behind a fallen pillar and bear crawled her way to the end of the pillar.
Garrot’s voice was stern and full of malice, “Guys… lets catch them all. Sell them all, we have a lot of widows to help. These assholes are gonna wish we killed them! Wonder how much they would sell for to The Network?”
Sell the adventurers!? Good luck with that. Lisa rolled her eyes at the sheer arrogance. She knew from attending her masters at sales that selling adventurers only happened in the deepest, darkest, most out of the way auction. They were extremely high escape risks, a safety hazard, and if the adventurers guild found out, it was over. She knew that even in the Black Market somethings were not for sale, and adventurers were on that very short list.
Lisa peeked around the burnt wood pillar and saw a bolt hit against a slaver’s crossbow and fly off into the dining area. She gritted her teeth at the lucky bastard. Holding her breath, she looked around for the best way to get the nearest overturned table that would put her four paces from the stairwell and about six paces from the opening to the alley filled with slavers.
She saw an opening and took her chance with the slavers not paying attention in plain view of her taking aim down range. Lisa pushed herself off the ground and dashed as silently as possible. Her heart thumped twice seeing one of the slavers fire his crossbow and turn back toward her. She slid down in place and prayed to The Mortal Soul holding her breath. Please, please, please, she fumbled pulling out the dagger.
Seconds crawled and she didn’t hear footsteps racing toward her nor shouts of an intruder. Lisa took a deep breath in through her nose and out through her mouth, with each breath she felt more like moving wouldn’t instantly get her killed. Lisa started to lean around the edge, when a thought crossed her mind. What if he is aiming at me? The vivid image of a bolt striking into her head flashed in her mind. She found her finger rubbing her forehead where she imagined the bolt would be.
Another deep breath and she leaned out, and saw five slavers upfront hundled behind a series of person high crates launching bolts down range. After each volley, the person on the far right would point to each of them in a random order then the first person would stand, fire, crouch. Within a few seconds the next person would do the same till all five fired, then they would mix up the order.
Lisa glanced back at the front of the building and felt sick seeing that the icy explosion wasn’t even halfway across the room from her yet. This was taking too long, she saw several slavers rushing back and forth, a different face each time, carrying bolts up to the people in the front. There had to be at least twenty slavers in total. She waited for them to reload, and one of the slaver runners to pace, then moved to the next piece of rubble.
She moved from cover to cover quietly as she could. She thought of a mouse, silently squeaking from hole to hole in the wall, whilst the cats skulked around.
Lisa felt like she had been sneaking around for hours, but the slavers had only done two volleys since she started moving again. She stared at an overturned barrel a pace away, then one more pace past that to the stairs. She peered out from the second story floor that had collapsed in after the explosion.
Come on and reload already! She pushed herself up on her hands, knees, and toes, barely off the ground. By the Mortal Soul, her wrists were on fire. She felt a little light headed, knowing that she was right in full view of the five crossbowmen. All they had to do was turn away from battle, and there she would be. Hunched over, dashing toward an overturned barrel, an easy target. Her fingers were shaking under the weight of her body, but the slavers were looking at the woman taking her shot, the supply man was out of sight, it was time. Lisa pushed herself off the ground, her eyes glued on her target.
The man who had just fired, looked away toward his crossbow, appearly with an issue, and their eyes locked. She wished she had been a ghost in this moment, invisible to everyone. Lisa sprinted full tilt past the barrel, partially missed the turn slamming into the stairwell, and scrambled up.
Halfway up the steps she heard from behind, “Hey! We got a sneak!”
The woman called out, “Well get them!”
“Shit, shit, shit,” She said, her heart thumping in her throat, that was so tight it felt like she was being strangled. She lost her balance on the top step and threw her weight forward. She fell forward and caught herself on her hands. A stinging pain shot up her arms, and she collapsed onto her face and shoulder. It was like she had forgotten how to walk, flailing on the floor like a newborn.
A flurry of hurried steps banged out from behind her, the frantic call of death. Her feet found the floor and she threw herself up. Ten doors in total, five on each side of the five foot wide hall, even spaced. Sweat streamed down her forehead and stinging her eyes. Her eyes darted from door to door, her feet danced a step toward one then to the other. The steps grew louder, as she stammered forward down the hallway unable to pick a door, running circles around picking a locked door.
She froze remembering Theos dagger hole on the left side of the building, beside a window in the center. She stumbled halfway down the hallway, when the frantic steps stopped and she heard the whining of a spring.
Lisa turned, her chest heaved like a rabbit, frantic. The slaver stood at the top of the steps with a loaded crossbow aimed at her. “Pl-please don’t…” Lisa mumbled, tears running down her face.
The world slowed and the distance between them became infinitely long, with the clank of the latch sending the bolt flying at her.
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