Chapter 45

Into the Night

“Amidst the stroking ashes he held her; amidst the dead and ruin of the world; her eyes now closed forever; as she lay in his shaking hands curled.”

Bard Collection, Vol. X

There was unexpected visitor waiting for Myrell as she made her way back to the inn after running some simple tasks the Master had assigned her; in front of the inn, appearing somewhat jittery, was a woman from the administrative office, gleaming in and out of the lodge, behaving eerily suspiciously.

Taking a deep breath, Myrell approached her slowly; she didn't have either Sash or her Master there to act as the support, but she knew she'd have to get accustomed to doing these things all on her own. It appeared as though Myrell’s footsteps gave her away since the woman turned around and faced her with a faint flinch.

She was getting better and better at reading people, Myrell mused, though was still miles away from her Master. Nonetheless, given how little time she had to pick up on everything, she felt rather proud of herself.

“… may I help you?” Myrell asked politely, with a smile, as she stepped in front of the woman.

“A-ah, yes,” the woman nodded. “In regards to your request, it has been put through.”

“Oh? That was rather quick.” Myrell was indeed surprised, as even her Master hadn’t expected anything to start until at least a couple of weeks later.

“It’s a rather serious issue,” My ass… Myrell barely held herself back from rolling her eyes. “And we simply cannot afford something like that to keep on happening.” Oh dear Light, stop it! You’re embarrassing even me!!

“That’s good to hear,” Myrell maintained her smile. “Would you like to share a drink and discuss it further?”

“Ah, no, I only wished to personally inform you,” Tsk, it wasn’t difficult to see the woman’s motives, but Myrell didn’t take it to heart to much. After all, she had no clue as to why her Master tasked with her pushing for the investigation. “I must return at once. Though… if… if possible… I’d be honored to apologize to your Master… directly…” There it is, Myrell sighed inwardly; the woman could have easily sent someone of lesser position to inform them, but she came here herself – it wasn’t difficult to see why. Perhaps in that duality, in that she feared the potential consequences, and that she wanted to bootlick her Master, she was no different than anyone else Myrell had met in her life.

“I am afraid my Master is not here,” Myrell maintained her smile. “As you may now, with the Bell ringing… he had become quite busy…” Well… technically it’s not a lie…

“Ah, yes, yes, of course,” Myrell’s words seemed to strike the hot iron once again; bit by bit, she began figuring it out – what her Master meant when he said he wanted to become an enigmatic, yet widely feared figure. And she’s also begun understanding how to help him achieve that. “Well then, I’ll be on my way.”

“Best of luck…”

“Likewise…”

Myrell watched the woman blend back in with the streaming crowds before dropping her smiling expression. Sighing aloud and shaking her head, she dipped back into the inn and to the slaves’ quarters to the back, where she found Sash struggling to read something. When she had some free time, she tried teaching him the letters, though the man was rather slow on the uptake.

“… what are you reading?” she asked, sitting next to him. Slaves’ quarters were, really, like stables for horses; an open-ended, barely-roofed room with strawed floor and stench that shouldn’t be allowed to exist. Along the corners, she saw several down-trodden figures asleep, some clearly sick, and a couple even dying if their appearances were to be believed.

“… hm? You’re back?” Sash looked away from the book and stretched, yawning. “I am trying to read the ‘Collection of Fables’. I figured since it was for kids, letters would be easy. I figured wrong. What about you? You done?”

“Hm,” she nodded, taking a sip of water from the gourd by Sash’s side. “I’ve marked all of the spots Master wanted me to. What do you think he’s planning?”

“If I was clever enough to know what the Master was planning,” Sash grinned. “Do you think I’d be sitting here?”

“… fair enough.” She smiled back, sighing. “Right, that woman from the office came here.”

“Hm? Why?”

“To inform us they’ve started looking into the guards…”

“… she came… personally?”

“Yup…”

“… even with the Kindled coming,” Sash sighed. “Master is still stirring the hot waters…”

“…” Myrell nodded, drifting into silence.

Just like Sash, she had no means of knowing what her Master was planning. Though he often shared his intentions with them, they were just bits and pieces, chunks of the much larger whole. By the appearances, their Master was ‘merely’ a Royal Dacent. While a favorable and enviable position, it hardly entailed traveling around, making up entirely new concepts with Crowns, and tasking his slaves with finding more slaves – to say nothing of donning the mantle of a merchant and using it as a guise on his travels.

From the outside looking in, his behavior appeared erratic – even mad. Yet, she knew that was not the case. There was a method in all of it; in her thoughts, she believed her Master was doing all of this the way he was with a purpose – exactly to make his behavior strange while maintaining complete secrecy. She also knew why he chose to use slaves instead of the Royal Aides.

Slaves are invisible, forgettable. Even Sash, a Yosshir, would never be recognized as, to everyone, all Yosshir look exactly the same. Aides, on the other hand, have names, sometimes even family names. They are recognizable. With them in tow, Master would never be able to do what he’s doing right now. With slaves, however, it is entirely possible; chances are, that even that woman wouldn’t be able to recognize either Sash or Myrell within a few weeks of them having left the fort.

She felt she knew quite a lot, yet so little at the same time. The net her Master was casting was too wide, not only for her but for seemingly everyone else to truly comprehend.

**

When he was visiting Claire, Noah noted all the weaknesses in the defenses of the Myrsells’ mansion. Right now, he was exploiting what he had learned to sneak in during the dead of the night, not making a sound.

The opening he found was toward the eastern edge, where a single tower stood erect. It was permanently settled, but he didn’t care for it, sort to say, but the blind spot beyond it. It was a corner that was patrolled only every half an hour, at best, and the guard in the tower itself didn’t have a good view of the spot.

Scaling the wall itself turned out to be less of a challenge than he thought; by using the Dark, he was able to firmly entangle his fingers into the stone, almost as though it was dough, using the heavy shadow cast by the opposing building to hide himself.

By the end, he vaulted over and, like a leaf, fell toward the other side, landing gently amidst the shrubbery. It’s been a while since I’ve gotten that nervous… he mused as she slowly made his way through the wide and decorated compound. He wasn’t aiming toward where Claire was living, but rather her Mother, and the head of the Myrsell House – Sylene. Myrsell.

As for why, it had a dual purpose – the first was establishing a new identity he wanted to set out into the world, and the second was actually pushing along with the plan to bring Claire back to Elucido. Rather than trying to do it through the regular channels, which could take weeks if not months, he saw this as the best opportunity – albeit a very risky one.

He didn’t know whether there were any anti-assassination measures – rather, he knew there were, just not what kind – and whether his newfound magic would be enough to keep him hidden for long enough. The plan was simple, although slightly insane-sounding – sneak into the Duchess' room, and leave a sealed letter on her nightstand. In the letter, he wrote down an idea that he wanted to sell to her – in the end, he decided not to focus on the ships as he simply knew far too little about it, and settle onto something he at least knew something about – gunpowder.

He didn't actually make any, which is why he felt it was necessary to actually sneak into her room, rather than just leave it somewhere else. As for how she would take it… he hardly knew as he had absolutely no idea what her actual personality was like. For all he knew, she could go insane due to fear and incite a fort-wide lockdown and search for the figure who snuck into her room. He had to gamble, however.

In addition to the idea about the gunpowder he wrote down vaguely enough that she would have no hope of actually figuring it out herself, he also noted down instructions on what she ought to do if she’s interested in collaborating with him. The most important piece in the letter, however, was the new identity he made up – all of the names he’d used so far were subpar and made up on the spot, so this time he gave it some thought and decided to call himself Skyler. It was like music to his ears, as he always prided himself on coming up with some pretty cool and fancy names back when he went undercover on Earth: Ryder, Snyder, Fyrder, Lyller, Kyver, Ayder… the list goes on. He he, he mused sheepishly as he reached the main mansion, hiding in the nearby shrubs, looking for a way past the guards. My naming legend will begin once again…