Deep in the forest a man wearing a large necklace of animal teeth is tracking his prey. These days of course he has taken to the hobby of hunting only prey that can fight back. As he passes through a clearing and stoops to check a footprint in the mud there’s a twanging sound. He dodges as an arrow the size of a siege weapons shot embeds itself in the tree above him. Evading a second he takes to the trees, dodging shot after shot from smaller bows, as he seeks out his mark. The hobs fire randomly hoping to take him down, but they aren’t his mark, the small fry are hardly worthy of noticing, let alone wetting his blades. Another sapling sized arrow helps him spot his target. A large silver haired bugbear, already lining up their next shot.

But now he has eyes on them it’s already too late, he dives bounding from tree to tree until with a satisfying resistance the knives he carries strike home. The bugbear drops, and he’s off, leaving the confused hobs thinking that maybe going after him may not be a good idea.

After about ten minutes of running a raven lands on a nearby tree, he eyes it for a moment, before taking the letter, carefully checking it for poison. Wolf hadn’t lived this long by not being cautious. Hmm a new mark, and a royal no less, one who had evaded Ed’s little tricks. This could prove interesting.

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The second Raven landed in the back garden of a young Count’s manor. After a few moments it was retrieved by a handsome servant. Who passed it through to a handmaid, and so on and so forth, until it eventually reached the hands of a stunning concubine. Madam Bodhi is the first concubine of the Count, But is just in the process of correcting that status, and with a wave of her hand that ensures the powder makes it into the makeup she is now the sole surviving wife. Ensuring the bloody battle to be the sole wife of Count Bodhi had quite the body count. (Not including the servants toll of course or the number of “accidents” would be so much higher.)

She checked the note with a smile, now this was a job that would require some careful planning. So much more fun, this little fight here had hardly been worthy of the name, a little powder in the right places, a few well placed words. Resulting in a few ruined reputations, and a few houses falling to ruin. Allowing for a minor coup within the back yards, displacing the third, and second concubine. A little hunting accident, carefully pinned on a suspicious butler. (His poking about had quickly started to become annoying, so she had personally seen to that one.) Then a few words tarnishing the first wife’s name, which led to a downgrade in her quarters, an exposed embezzlement. Leading to removal of her most trusted guards, then the simple matter of a bribed maid, and measures to ensure they don’t go blabbing. (She would of course have an accident after fleeing the scene of her crimes, or take her own life in remorse over her actions, or something along those lines, the madam had a dozen measures in place.) Childsplay really, she sincerely hoped this new target would present her with more of a challenge. Or at the very least prove entertaining to destroy.

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Ed was of course making his own plans for dealing with an inconvenient royal, but first step was to make sure all evidence of his previous attempts was gone. There was no way those bandits were waking up, the insidiosa would see to that, and if by some miracle (yes he had factored those into his planning as well, one never can be too careful where gods are involved,) they did awaken they wouldn’t be able to remember their own mothers ,much less the jobs they had taken on prior to poisoning. He had just finished taking care of Fred’s “retirement” and future accomodations (with some careful digging.) So that bit was handled. The tavern was now a smoking ruin, that was simple enough. That done he carefully extracted a small notebook from his pocket with a level of reverential respect one would usually expect to be reserved for a sacred tome.

Each page had a colour coded and labelled tag, he flipped through, until he reached the to do section, then carefully added an additional time slot labelled “kill princess.” The note of course vanished as quickly as it was written. (Ed had taken great pains to get a wizard to create this ink specifically for this purpose. As a dedicant of Ordurlee the God of accountants and bureaucrats his oaths required him to note everything down, but as an assassin of course leaving such evidence was not conducive to a long career. Vanishing ink that truly vanished was of course the obvious solution.) That done he pulled out a separate binder, from a dimensional pocket specifically keyed to his unique mana signature, flipping through until he got to C for contacts. then R for red, and eventually pulled out a minute contact crystal with a sigh. He did so hate informing a client of a delay, they always got so irate, and all that screaming and shouting was inefficient, messy, and delayed progress even further, but a contract was a contract, burned or otherwise, and Ed was a professional.

But as he pulled out the crystal he was interrupted, the crystal knocked from his hands by a fountain pen.

Ed turned to find himself surrounded by a large gathering of men in meticulously pressed suits. He couldn't help noticing that he had been unaware of their arrival. Each one with a small notepad much like his own. Other than that they looked quite unremarkable. But Ed still felt a shiver up his spine, as one drew from their pocket protector the scariest pen known to accountant. A Ledretter mk5 fountain pen, and carefully took down a note in his own folder. He couldn’t help noticing the sections K for kill, E for Edward in the to do section.

“Before you get to the tedious business of asking us our name you should know your request has been denied in advance. Your latest target has been assigned as beneficial to business interests.”

“I see” replied Ed making a bolt for it, but barely getting started before his escape was interrupted as he was pinned to a tree by an expertly thrown Ledretter MK5 fountain pen with red ink. Even assassins know once money is involved there is nothing scarier than an accountant.