Royal Blood : Chapter 17

Chapter 17: Queens Row

We did, eventually, make it out of the docks.

What can I say, Nezza wanted to look over everything with her fancy new eyes. Didn’t do a good job of explaining it, either.

“It’s like seein’ a new layer of color that was always there, jus’ I never noticed it, you know?” Nezza shook her head. “Or—or maybe when ya smell somfin’ real good for the first time, yeah? And you’re like—”

“I think I get it.” I shook my head. “Or enough, at least. You have magic eye powers, and you can see things differently, well, more differently than before.”

Nezza nodded. “Yeah! Um, before I could only kinda see someone’s level. S’why I tried to swipe your food, you looked so weak.” She glanced over me, rubbing the back of her head. “Uh, no offense.”

I smiled at her. “It’s good to look meek and unremarkable. That way no one will suspect me of anything.”

She gave a nervous laugh before changing the subject. “So, anyway, we gonna go to that guy’s house now? Maybe take another look ‘round where he works in the docks?”

I rolled my eyes. “You just want another look at all the different ships.”

“Yep!” She nodded cheerfully. “So? Can we? Can we?”

I hummed, rubbing my chin. On one hand, I came here with—well, calling it a plan would be generous—an idea of what to do. I’d mostly cribbed it from old cops and robbers shows. Case the place of residence, move to work, see if I could pick out a routine, or something.

Yeah, it really wasn’t much of a plan.

Now, on the other hand, I also had a luck stat of 131, which was apparently high enough that a demon thought it was worth bargaining over. I wondered what he planned to do with the other two talismans I’d picked from.

The third sat in a pocket within my cloak. No idea what it did, but it was apparently lucky.

I was apparently lucky.

“Let’s just take a walk around first.” I shrugged. “See what comes our way.”

Nezza tilted her head at me.

“What?” I frowned up at her. “Don’t you wanna go look at more stuff?”

She brightened at that before skipping off down the street. I huffed, jogging after her. She was more than a bit taller than me now, but hopefully I’d catch up. Both of my parents had been pretty tall, though how much of that was genetics I’d never know.

I really needed to do some tests on what 1 point of Charisma did to a person, or 1 point of Intelligence, or Wisdom.

Unfortunately, I only had myself as a test subject, and nothing to measure with.

Nezza grabbed my wrist, and I let myself be pulled along as my thoughts drifted. This was my first mission, my first time truly out from under the Boss’s thumb. Oh sure, maybe he was watching me, but he had his own business to take care of. In Iduneth, I knew there were other watchers around, but we were in a new city almost twice the size of Iduneth.

It would be a waste if I ended up spending all of that time planning out the job, wouldn’t it?

I nodded, grinning to myself. “Hey, Nezz.” I pointed. “What do you think of that?”

“Hmm?” She followed my finger to a side street, where the colorful stalls of goods gave way to smithies and ironworks. “What’cha lookin’ at?”

“Think we could stand to pick up a few more knives?”

Nezza blinked, before her eyes went all watery. “M-more knives? Alex, I—I thought tha…”

I whacked her on the shoulder. “I’m talking about knives for your dumb ass.” I paused for a moment as she blinked the crocodile tears from her eyes. “Though a few disposable throwing knives wouldn’t hurt either.” I nudged her ribs. “I can’t exactly go throwing you around all the time.”

“Why would I need knives, though?”

“Remember what we did that first night? When I threw you and then you transformed back midair and stabbed the guy in the face?”

She looked at me again, before her eyes lit up in understanding. “Ooooooh!” She slapped her fist down into her open palm. “That’s why you had us doing those weird tricks.”

“Well, yeah.” I nodded. “That and they were useful for your jobs, weren’t they?” I grinned. “Who would suspect the thief turned into a knife and got herself thrown through a barred window?”

She hummed happily, nodding. “We jus’ haven’t had the chance to really fight anybody since then.”

“Right.” This time I was the one pulling Nezza along. “Part of keeping a low profile after we whacked a minor gang boss. But it’s never too late to start practicing!”

“You and yer practice.” Nezza huffed. “We don’ do that here.”

“Yes well, you figure out a way to get me quest EXP, and I’ll stop bugging you so much about practice.”

Nezza came to a stop, and for a second I thought she was mad at me before she said, “Oi, Aly, what about this one?”

I sighed. “I told you not to call me Aly in public.”

She looked at me, grinning with her sharp white teeth. “What, don’t you like my nickname, Aly?” She rolled the nickname across her tongue. “Isn’t it good for you?”

I stared up at her. “One day I’ll make you eat those words.”

“Hmm?” She blinked. “What’cha mean?”

I waved her off. “So anyway, the forge?” I looked up. There was a battered steel sign hanging above the door. “The…Devil’s Foundry?”

“Yeah!” Nezza grinned. “It’s perfect!”

I shrugged. I guess Devil was another word for Demon in this world as well. “Let’s take a look, then.”

I reached up to open the door, when it swung open itself. I had to scramble back as a man in magistrates’ robes brushed past us, barely sparing either of us a backwards glance. My eyes widened, and then I quickly looked at the ground as another, bigger man—probably the magistrate’s body guard—came out after him.

That was our mark.

“Actually, you go on, Nezz. I’m gonna get something to eat,” I said.

“Huh, you sure?” Nezz tilted her head. “This was yer idea.”

“Yeah, in fact, here.” With a quick glance around, I pulled out a small pouch of money and shoved it into her hands. “Get something nice, yeah? Be back later!”

She started to say something, but I was already jogging down the street. It was fine, I’d always be able to find her later.

I broke out onto the main street almost too late. I caught a glimpse of a blue robe from back towards the docks, and I took off after it. For a moment, I was worried that I’d followed the wrong person, but then I caught a glimpse of the bodyguard.

His boots had steel plates sewn into them, jet black. I grinned.

Now that was lucky.

For capitalizing on a moment of extraordinary happenstance, you have gained +1 Luck

+2048 Experience.

What? I blinked. No one got stat ups from Luck. That was the whole reason I’d started dumping points into that skill. Heck, every book I’d ever read agreed on that.

I shook my head, focusing back on the task at hand. I’d be able to worry about the implications of this discovery later. For now, I had a mark to follow.

After confirming that I was following the right pair, and not just a man who had suspiciously similar boots, I let myself fall a bit farther behind in the crowd. I had a general idea of where they were going, and I darted up every few seconds, getting ahead of them for a bit, before letting myself fall behind.

In that, I wasn’t alone. As always, there were a lot of kids running around Port Royal. Street rats, cabin boys, message runners, apprentices, thieves, and more. Just like back in Iduneth, we all used our small size to our advantage.

I saw a girl that had to be younger than me dart between a grown man’s legs to steal a coin purse from his friend. The two men fell over in a heap as the little girl slipped away into a nearby alley.

I grinned. The more things change, huh?

In any case, even when we made it to the docks, it was easy enough to follow my target. Magistrate Scionus was an upright man, but apparently not a very suspicious one.

His bodyguard, which I had not been told about, seemed leery enough for both of them. He also looked more concerned with physical attacks on his charge, instead of the child assassin tailing them from about half a block back.

I giggled a little at that. I was a child assassin, huh? For real now. I was a generic cutout MC from an anime.

Well, hopefully a bit better than that. After all, how many generic cardboard cutout MCs had a knife waifu?

Don’t answer that, it would just depress me.

Eventually, the Magistrate came to a warehouse deeper into the port proper. I made sure to loiter a bit farther away, looking through boxes of fruit that hadn’t yet been put through inspections. Even though we were quickly burning through our funds, I bought a pear from a sailor looking to make a quick buck before import taxes, and then settled down to wait.

Scionus, the Magistrate, met with a few other men and women. The woman looked to be the captain of the ship, and from the way she crossed her arms, she wasn’t happy with the man who was about to inspect her goods. There was nothing for it, though. The might of the Imperial Bureaucracy was like a hydraulic press, pushing downward with a constant, unyielding force, until everything had been stamped into neat little disks.

Or else shattered.

Scionus took a wax tablet, probably the manifest, then went into the warehouse with one of the Captain’s men guiding him.

I finished my pear, licking the juice from my fingers. After a moment, I had an idea. Maybe not a good idea, but still, an idea.

Reaching down, I grabbed a bit of sand and dirt from the worn cobblestones. I smeared it over my hands and cheeks before tugging up the ratty hood of my cloak and meandering over. There were a few other kids loitering by the door of the warehouse. I scared off the oldest looking one with a flash of steel, and the rest followed suit.

A few minutes later, my plan spun into action. Magistrate Scionus stormed out of the warehouse, a look of disdain on his face. The Captain’s face was more informative. She looked angry, but not surprised, before she schooled her expression into one of earnest confusion.

I caught a word or three as Scionus tapped the wax tablet angrily with a stylus.

“Unreported…goods that.”

“no idea…could have.”

“…Unlikely that…”

After a few moments, Scionus had had enough. With a wave of his hand, he called over a few of the port guards, seizing the weapons of the captain and her crewman. There was a resigned expression on her face now.

Playing my part, I drifted a bit farther away from the conflict, as if I was hiding from it. Meanwhile, Scionus took a scrap of parchment from his robes and wrote a message on it, handing it to his man. Then he went back to berating the captain.

That was when I made my move.

I jogged over as the bodyguard walked away, before holding out my hand. “Message from milor’?”

The bodyguard, a big man with a sharp nose and thick eyebrows, nodded. “Take it to the port office. And be quick about it.” He held out the missive. I took it, and then in a move as old as time, held out my other hand.

“One silver,” he said. “For the Magistrate’s business.”

“Fer two I be twice as quick, ye?”

“Brat.” He cuffed me. I ducked with the blow. “I’ll not waste time with you.”

I just grinned, dancing a step back. “‘S a seller’s market hereabouts.” I held out my hand again. “I dun see anyone else lookin’ to take the ‘Magistrate’s business’.”

The man glared at me, but a quick glance showed that my trick of scaring off the other runners had worked. With a huff, he reached into his purse again. “A silver and a slug.”

“Deal!” I swiped the coins from his hand gleefully almost before he had them out, then dashed away. Just another messenger at the docks. Now, let's go see how lucky I really was

I glanced back over my shoulder, and good thing I did. I caught the magistrate looking after me, expression blank as stone.

But he was talking to his man and pointing in my direction.

Well, shit.

In the tradition of runners everywhere, I ducked around a corner before he could see any more.