“Gd you e,” Emily says, pulling a pin bck cloak from her belt and throwing it over herself before fshing Podrick a small, mischievous grin, only visible by her eyes in the gap of her scarf. “Now, are you ready to sneak into a possibly hostile city?”

  “Yes!” he practically shouts in response, eagerly nodding his head.

  Emily turns away from him, her face falling bato ral as she suppresses her mana circution and s her heart with a cealing veil of maa. She sure-footedly climbs the steep dune, with Podrick scrambling up behind her, and stops as the city es into view. Her gaze quickly ss over the bustling slums before ing to rest on the rge metal wall shielding the inner city. It rises up about twenty metres, taller than the one around Eimdon but paling in parison to i’s, and from her raised vantage point Emily quickly locates all the guards stationed along it.

  She mentally marks all their positions, drawing a map in her mind and quickly spotting a few possible dead zones in their perception. Before Podrick even ask why she’s stopped, Emily moves again, stepping forward and dropping into a slide down the slope towards a scrap pile. She hits the ft ground below and smoothly tinues walking as Podrick hits the floor on his arse, scrambling to stand up and follow her.

  “Do I not need a cloak?” he asks with obvious disappoi as he awkwardly cmbers over the pile of junk a few steps behind her.

  Emily gnces back at him and scoffs, “It’s mostly to ceal my obviously magical armour and ons, but if you really want one, knock yourself out.”

  She pulls another bnk cloak from her belt and tosses it ba, returning her focus to sing the discarded materials around her. She grabs a few random scraps of metal as she passes, keeping those that could work and tossing away any that she deems too weak or misshapen to help. Halfway over the pile of junk, Emily starts produg tools and fastenings from her belt, weaving together a simple item without the help of her magic.

  “What’s that for?” Podrick asks as she nods with satisfa at the straem with multiple etal curving down from a tral metal der, like a gnarled metal tree.

  “You’ll see,” she answers dismissively, ging their dire to arallel to the wall, extending their stay in the piles of junk as her eyes s for the final piece of her puzzle.

  It’s not until they reach the edge of the junk piles, a quarter of the way around the city from where they started, that Emily locates something usable. Jutting out of the pile is a discarded winch, remi of the one used for pulling ba Calypso’s drone. She bends doces a palm against the winch before sending a spark of maa into it, quickly analysing its state.

  Just a little bit of rust, the cable should still hold.

  She pulls the winch out of the pile, barely impeded by the wood aal resting on top of it. After it’s exposed, Emily uhe rusted bolts holding the reel to the rest of the structure before she tinues walking. Podrick watches with i as she detaches the hook on the end of the thin cable and mounts her scrap traption to it.

  With her preparations finished, Emily tucks the junk under her cloak and leads Podrito the slums. He follows quietly as she winds betwees and dipidated buildings, stig close to her and trying to ighe people lying in the dirt in the shadows, some begging for scraps as they pass, but most not moving at all, leading him to question if they’re even still alive.

  Emily for her part pletely ighe slum-dwellers, her eyes locked onto the wall as they approach the dead zoween watches. The closer they get to the wall, the fewer tents they find, with more structured buildings taking their pce, all in a state of disrepair with rust and rot c the sorry excuse for streets a dirty brown shade. A dozeres away from the first dead zone she marked, they step onto a street with a straight run to the base of the wall.

  Emily instantly notices several shifty figures looming in the dark ers between the buildings lining the street, watg them closely as they approach.

  It looks like they’re guarding this se of the wall. Is it a known smuggling route? Ah well, not my problem.

  Emily gnces over her shoulder at Podriotig how unfortable the boy looks as he gnces around.

  “Don’t make too muoise,” she says, drawing his focus as she raises a fio the fabric against her lips. “No matter what happens.”

  Without another word, she turns and walks towards the wall. The shadowy figures tense as she approaches, and the moment she steps in lih the first, he steps out of the shadoulls a small knife from his pocket.

  “You should turn a-“ he starts in a deep, rough tone before cutting off as Emily’s arm shoots out, the bde of her Cw severing his head from his neck with ease.

  Emily keeps walking without sparing the corpse a gnce, hearing Podrick squeal in shock behind her before c his mouth as he follows.

  “HEY!” one of the ures watg cries as he sees his friend’s head fly, stepping out of the shadows to front the killer.

  An unseen flicker of irritation crosses Emily’s brow, and she rushes forward in a burst, burying her to the loud man’s throat. None of the people watg follow her movement and, the moment they see her dropping another body, they turn tail and run away, deeper into the alleys they lurk in.

  “Pathetic,” Emily mutters with disdain as they run, wiping the blood from her bde before turning to g Podrick.

  He’s standing beside the headless corpse, a hand over his mouth and his face pale as he gnces between Emily and her kills. Without a word, she gestures for him to follow before turning away and approag the wall.

  Looking up at the t metal above, Emily’s eyes s for purchase, quickly log a cluster of pipes jutting out he top. She pulls out her scrap traption and holds the cable firmly, spinning the head around to gain momentum before deftly flig it up, releasing it and sending it sailing up towards the pipes above as the spool of cable unwinds. The jagged metal head falls onto the pipes and catches, holding firm even when Emily gives it a few strong tugs.

  “That’s what it’s for,” she says, gng at Podrick beside her and finding his face has returo a healthy colour.

  “So, we’re climbing over the wall?” he asks with a slight quiver in his voice, still shaken. “Won’t the guards see us?”

  “There should be a gap in their watch directly above here. It’s why I didn’t want anyone making enough o grab the guards' attention.”

  “So, you killed those men to keep them quiet?”

  “The sed one, yes. The first pulled a knife on me and seemed like he’d cause trouble,” she expins, meeting the nervous boy’s eyes. “Don’t feel pity for them Pod, they’re not worth the effort.”

  Emily reaches up the cable and pulls herself off the ground, ping the cable between her feet to reach up further.

  “Wait until I signal for you, then grab on,” she says before she rises up past the rooftops of the surrounding buildings.

  Within a few seds, she arrives at the pipes holding up the cable and climbs over them. After untg the hook, she kicks off the pipes, clearing the short distao the top of the wall and smoothly rising to stand on it. She gowards the nearby guards, firming their line of sight to her is obstructed before reag out auring for Podrick to grab the cable.

  The moment his hands csp on, Emily begins reeling him in, quickly pulling the boy up the wall. As he cmbers up to join her, she raises a fio her lips aures towards the nearby guards. He nods in uanding, his nerves o be seen as excitement lights up his eyes.

  Emily leads him across the wall to the inside edge and gnces over. Below them is a group of four, rough-looking men gathered in a narrow, otherwise empty alley between the wall and a rge warehouse. They’re zily hanging around, two of them sitting oeps to the warehouse’s back door, and the other two standing oher side of them, smoking from pipes as they talk quietly.

  Looks like this is a smuggling route after all. If that doesn’t scream crime, I don’t know what does.

  Podrick watches from the side as Emily reaches into the belt at her waist and pulls out four simple knives. She takes all of them in her right hand and snaps her arm forward with four precise flicks of her wrist, burying the knives in the skulls of the men below. All four of them go limp and hit the floor at the same time, barely a fra of a sed between their deaths.

  Nodding with satisfa and ign the mixed look of fear and awe from the boy beside her, Emily hooks her climbing tool into a small gap between two panels of metal, lodging it firmly into pce before l the reel quietly to the floor below.

  “Follow me,” she whispers, grabbing the cable and swinging herself down to hang on it.

  She slides down smoothly, her feet hitting the floor below with barely a sound. She steps out of the odrids with a thud. Emily grabs the cable after the graceless boy moves out of the way, giving it a quick flid sending up a burst of maa. The hook above unbinds itself from the metal panels with a crackle of electricity before falling into her waiting, outstretched hand.

  “Are people not going to find their corpses?” Podrick asks quietly, nodding towards the four dead men.

  “Probably not,” Emily responds, walking over to try opening the door beside them. “But we’ll hide them anyway.”

  She finds the door locked shut. Unphased, she crouches down beside the corpses oeps and starts patting down their pockets, searg for the keys. Podrick grimaces but moves to help, doing the same to one of the men slumped away from the door.

  Emily finds several kucked into the first man’s clothes but no keys, but on the sed she finds a keyring hooked to the back of his belt. Trying the keys from it, she opens the door after a few attempts and looks into the warehouse. Inside is full of loud, metalw maery, with several people moviween them with purpose, some carrying clockwork rifles.

  Ign the obvious criminal activity, Emily looks around, quickly spotting a tall, metal scrap bin a short distance from the door with a veyor belt dropping offcuts into it. She turns back to Podrick, gesturing for him to quietly move back as she slings two corpses over her shoulders before dug into the warehouse.

  She stalks forward, dug behind a few maes as she moves to stay out of sight, and quickly approaches the metal bin. As a worker walks past the bin, Emily tucks herself between a wall and a rge industrial metal cutter to hide from him, watg calmly as he takes a few readings from a few gauges at the base of the mae she’s pressed against before moving on.

  The moment the worker’s back is turned, Emily silently steps out of her hiding spot and throws both bodies up and into the scrap bin, eading with a light thunk. Gng around and making sure no one saw her; Emily returns to the door and brings iher two corpses to do the same.

  After disposing of the evidence, Emily meets Podrick outside again, log the door behind herself before clipping the keys to her belt for now, just in case.

  “Right,” Emily says as she walks past Podrick, patting him on the shoulder. “Let’s go do our shopping a out of here.”

  They quickly walk away from the wall through the narrow alleys of the industrial district, heading towards the ercial tre of the city.

  “Did Anton give you enough moo buy everything you need?” Emily asks a few minutes after they join a more crowded street with wealthy-looking people milling about.

  “Yes, I should have enough io pay for everything on my list,” he responds, tapping the pouch at his waist.

  “Good. Also, don’t make it obvious that that’s a spatial pouch. Best to take out and put away things when you’re out of the public eye. We want to draw as little attention to ourselves as possible.”

  “Okay!”

  They tinue walking in sileil they rea open street with several stalls lining the edges, everything from expensive fabrics to rich spices. Gng around at the nearby shops and noting their wares, Emily nods to herself in satisfa.

  “You should find everything on your list here. Meet me back here once you’re done shopping,” she says, her eyes flig to a few people dug into the side alleys of the market street. “I’m going to go dig for some information and do my own shopping. If you’re not back here in an hour, I’ll assume you’ve run into trouble.”

  Podriods and goes to respond, but as he turns his head to look at her, Emily vanishes into the crowd, disappearing from his view.

  “Okay,” he says quietly to himself with a hint of disappoi in his voiervously bringing a hand to grasp his spatial pouch as he sets off to plete his tasks.

  KeroKeron