“I see that you’ve been progressing my little Raven,” Noctis said from behind me as I awoke in the dreamscape.

“Damnit, I was hoping for dreams of unicorns and rainbows with sweet blackberry wine,” I muttered under my breath, as I realized that my wish for a good night’s rest was shattered.

“Sarcasm does not become you, or anyone for that matter. It does tend to annoy me,” the goddess of shadows said as she frowned at me when I turned around.

“I’m sorry Noctis, its been a long few days for me, trying to adjust to this new reality of mine. I’ve actually been wanting to meet you so that I can ask a question. Are the harbingers meant to be killed? As you probably know, I did meet the Harbinger of Chaos not too long ago and he gave me your amulet.”

“Is that so? Well, Chaos does work in mysterious ways as you should know. However, I cannot answer your question, since it is up for the players to come up with their own strategies in dealing with our Harbingers,” she answered without really answering my question.

“Ok, then, what I can I do for my goddess then?”

Noctis moved closer to me, her black eyes penetrating into mine, she was now close enough to me that I felt her chest brushing on mine, before the world of fog seeming to vanish as I fell into her gaze.

“All done!” Noctis shouted happily as I came back into the dreamworld. It felt like I had dozed out and I struggled to get the fuzziness out of my head. I shook my head, not understanding what was going on while I looked downwards, towards our feet which seemed to disappear in the fog. I looked at Noctis again, a question forming on my lips.

She gently placed her finger on my lips, her finger a mix between both ice cold and scalding hot. She moved closer to me, her lips almost touching mine. “It’s time to wake up. You have your mission, and I have mine. We’ll meet again.”

I felt rapture when her breath touched my lips. But then, the world of fog slip away from me, and felt myself falling as the world around me went black, a longing in my chest that I’ve only ever felt once before.

I suddenly woke up, out of breath. It felt as if I had just ran 5 miles, however, instead of my body aching, it was my heart that ached. Before I could contemplate what had happened when I was asleep, a group invite window flashed in front of my eyes. It must be evening in the real world, even though in this one the night had past and it was now early in the morning.

I grudgingly accepted the invite, as I silently wished that the Veil had the nectar of the gods, also known as coffee. But alas, it was not meant to be as I looked at the group window, now seeing the full window as it should have been when I originally logged in.

I was speechless and couldn’t move. I clearly saw both Darrius and his health, stamina, and mana levels. Moreover, I could see the amount of each he had left. He had 950 health and 910 stamina, but he obviously didn’t focus on mana since he only had 150.[Calculate out his health]

My own stats paled in comparison, the benefit of crafted gear apparent, as I only had 2,575 health, 1,625 stamina, and 2,350 mana. On the upside though, I knew that I had much more of a chance for my hits to have critical damage, a benefit of my class and attribute specializations.

Even though I wanted to crunch the numbers, I was still stunned that my group window was actually functioning, so much so that I missed out on a few messages in the group chat, which was only really used when other group members were out of vocal range, or if you didn’t want to make any noise. I read the messages out the messages before responding.

“Hey Raven, I’m back!”

“Raven?”

“Hellooooo…”

“I guess you’re AFK?”

“Lemme know when you’re back in game, we have about an hour in game time before the guy gets into town, and we’ll want to track him down and see where he goes.”

I sighed gleefully. Such a typical guy, impatient as any of them. I slightly concentrated on the glowing text window to reply. “I’m back. Where do you want to meet up at?

“Welcome back. Let’s meet at the entrance so we can follow him.”

“He should head to the trade house first to drop off some merchandise, then he usually looks around town before going towards the slums when night falls.”

“Last time I had some friends and we killed him just as he entered the slums, but for my quest I need to find Coira, [dwarf1][Dwarf 1’s name]’s sister.”

I read his messages before giving my agreement, and I walked out of my room to leave the inn. Before I could leave though, Merzen interrupted me.

“I hope your stay has been comfortable. Its a shame that I had to agree to rent that room for a meager 25s per week. It usually rents for 1 gold per week.”

I could hear the irritation in his voice, and I turned to him. “Yes, it is. I appreciate the discount, though I would be careful with your tone innkeeper.”

“Hmph.”

I sneered at the innkeeper before I left. He obviously didn’t like me for some reason. Outside, the town was busy as usual of the large cities. I made my way towards the gates leading towards the entrance of the city when I caught sight of people hiding in some alleyway shadows. Slowing my step, I veered in their direction, curious as to who they were. Despite being curious, I had my hands on my daggers, ready to fight if they decided to engage me.

“Stop right there missy, we have no business with the likes of you,” a human’s voice said as I reached the alley.

Maybe, maybe not. What’s going on,” I asked the human that called out to me from the left.

“Nothing to concern yourself with. This is Op’Elgin guild business.”

“Ah, I see now. The Op’Elgin guild was the thieves guild. They must either be looking for a mark or doing something else,” I thought to myself.

“Of course. If the Op’Elgin are in need of an assassin then, come find me. Us rogues need to stick together, you know?”

The voice responded with a hearty laugh, and he walked out from where he was hiding. “I might keep you in mind, if you were in the Order. You’re right though that us rogues need to stick together, but the guilds are family, and family comes first.”

I gave him a nod in acknowledgment before leaving the alley when he called out to me again, chuckling, “Some friendly advice, don’t wander in the alleys, even if it’s during the day. Someone might lift your purse of those sweet gold coins you have there.”

My hand immediately went to my coin purse that I had looped around my belt and checked it’s contents. I was rewarded in finding that I had 2 gold, 11 silver, 5 copper in it.

“Wait, what? SON OF A BITCH! He actually stole 5 silver from me! That asshole is good…” I thought angrily, my face darkening in both anger and embarrassment, as I made my way towards my original goal, the gates. Of course, it could be worse though, he could have stolen everything.

Lost in thoughts of revenge, blood, guts, stabbing eyeballs out, putting them back in, and then stabbing them out again, I made my way to the entrance.

Darrius called out to me now that I was in vocal range for him to hear me. “Hey Raven! Glad to seeee… oh, shit, it wasn’t my fault, okay? Brad would never forgive me if I made a girl as upset as you are. Can’t we all just get along? Please? For my sake?”

I looked at him, my frustration at having my precious silver stolen from me, vanishing. He was actually pretty amusing. I tried to give him a deadpan look, the same one that I gave to him in the tavern, though I knew I failed.

“No, you are not forgiven. You knew I was going to run into that band of thieves, you knew that they were going to steal my silver. I could have used that silver to buy… more… wine,”

Darrius looked at me as if I grew another head, nodding slowly. “Riight. Would you look at the time, crazy lady in aisle three.”

We both laughed at our antics as we waited for Aidelas and his guards to appear, which they did shortly after. His guards appeared to not be on guard duty, but on mule duty, since they were all carrying large bags. Typical of high elves to be stingy with their money. He couldn’t, or wouldn’t in this case, hire a wagon to carry his items.

We followed them from a distance away, always making sure that we could see them. True to Darrius’ intelligence, he first went to the traders and had one of his guards give the trader a number of cloth rolls of various types. The trader nodded at him and gave him some golden coins that glistened in the light. His gold would be my gold by the night’s end I thought, still thinking of the silver that was stolen from me.

Aidelas went from store to store the entire day, sometimes giving out, what looked like, a crystal vial in exchange for a gold coin. He must be selling the drugs that the agent told me about. There was nothing I could do about it now though, as we had to wait until he reached the slums. Guards didn’t usually enter the alleys or slums, thus criminal activity was usually overlooked. Including murderous activities.

Several hours later, as we still followed him, he finally made his way into the slums. This are of the city was still magnificent with its black obsidian stone architecture, however, some of the windows were visibly broken, and the stone looked like it was cracked and flaking in some areas. Compared to the human territory, the dark elf slums were luxurious. Still though, the dark elves that we could see had obviously fell on hard times, some of them skinny enough to be able to see their bones through their skin. The area smelled like stale trash and death, and I was ready to finish this quest and get back to the tavern.

It was surprising that Aidelas still held his head high, his posture saying that he felt that he was above everyone, either in the slums or not, as if he was someone to be worshiped. In my eyes, he was no Noctis. It must be a high elf thing.

As the hours slipped by, the group finally stopped in front of some massive doors that led into a large warehouse. It must be roughly midnight now, as the moon was overhead. I looked around to find a good hiding spot and spotted some crates that were piled up, but were still in visual range of the doors. I pointed towards the crates and Darrius nodded his agreement. We silently ran in a crouching form towards them and then took a knee, watching the Aidelas and his group.

Aidelas stepped towards the massive doors that had a chain that glowed red, sealing them shut. With a wave of his hand, the chains stopped glowing, and a guard grabbed the chain and pulled them from the large handles. Another guard pulled on door handles, the doors loudly screeching open. The group entered the building, the guard that opened the door going in last; after he scanned the area to see if they were being watched. As luck would have it, the guard didn’t spot Darrius or I, as hidden as we were.

It would be impossible to enter the warehouse through the doors due to the noise it would cause. I looked over to Darrius, and his eyes told me that he knew the same.

“Let’s go to the back of the warehouse, there might be a way in,” I whispered.

We stood up and ran towards the side of the warehouse where there was a barely lit alley that led towards the back. As we neared the building, we could hear the muffled sounds of people talking inside of the warehouse. However, we were in too much of a rush to attempt to listen to what they were saying, and in too much of a rush to look in the shadows to see if we were being watched.

***

Entering into the dark alley, we made our way to the back of the warehouse. As we neared the middle of the alley, three dark figures appeared from what seemed like nowhere, as if they stepped out of the shadows that covered the alley.

“We meet again little lady, and I see you brought company,” a familiar voice said from behind me. You would think that as an assassin, even as low level as I was, that I would have more awareness of my surroundings.

“We’ll need for you kind folks to drop your weapons, gear, and hand over any coin that you have if you want to leave our domain intact,” the man’s voice informed us.

Darrius and I exchanged a look. We both knew that we were surrounded, and it wasn’t looking very good for either of us. I had an idea though, and maybe this could work in our benefit. I turned around and saw the thief that I saw earlier twirling a dagger in his hand, ready to throw it at any sign of hostility. There was also another beside him that was wearing a full leather suit, including a mask and a cloak which head the thief’s looks. From what I could see in the darkness though, the thief that I met earlier had an gleam of amusement to his hazel eyes. I could definitely make this work.

“As much as I know you’d like to see me naked, we are on a mission from the Order. I have a counter-proposal though if you’d like to hear it,” I said, while trying my hardest not have my nervousness come out through my voice.

The thief stopped twirling his dagger and now held it, with the blade and tip pointing towards the ground. “I’m listening.”

“First, I’m Raven, and my sidekick this evening is Darrius. We need a way into the warehouse without being seen, or heard. I can also make it worth your time to help us.”

“Hmph,” the thief replied. “I know what’s in your coin purse, and I can tell you know that it’s not enough to afford my skills with the lockpick. I do like that amulet that’s around your neck though.”

I shook my head slightly, “I can’t give you the amulet, but I can give you the gold, and a favor that would utilize my particular brand of skills. I might not be in the order, yet, but as I mentioned, I am on a quest for them. An initiation quest.”

The thief looked over at the other one as they shared a conversation in silence. The both nodded and looked back towards me. “You have a deal Raven… Darrius. By the way, my name’s Iain, and I’ll be your tour guide for the evening.” He reached out with his hand for a handshake, which I gladly accepted. For some reason, my gut instinct told me to trust the thief, even if he did steal a few silver from me earlier. A favor given, and a favor owed. At least Darrius and I would not only get out of the alley intact, but also inside of the warehouse. I had no doubts about that.

After shaking on our verbal contract, I reached into my coin purse to give the thief his gold, and I saw that it was missing. Looking back at the thief, he was twirling both coins in his hand. “Hmph.”

He laughed and told us to follow him, the other thieves silently disappearing back into the shadows. They must have extremely high amount of stealth since I wasn’t able to spot them at all.

We reached the back of the warehouse which had what looked like a wooden and stone landing area with a set of doors leading into the building. However, Iain didn’t try to pick the locks of the doors, instead, he looked up at a window that were over top a small ledge. He equipped what looked like a set of cat gloves and started climbing the bricks. Hanging from the ledge, he silently shimmied open the windows, making no sound when they opened. He crawled inside, and less than a minute later, a rope was dropped down to us. I suppose we had to climb.

“Ladies first,” Darrius said with a grin.

“Figures,” I mumbled under my breath, reaching out to the rope so that I could climb up to the opened window. I started climbing the rope, my feet on the wall as I tried to climb and walk up to the window. Halfway there, the muscles in my hands and arms started screaming at me, obviously not used to this type of exercise. I didn’t give them the relief that they so utterly screamed for though, and as I reached the window, I climbed inside as silent as possible.

The room was fairly dark, though I could see enough of the room due to the light that came in from the door. This room seemed like a storage room since there were unopened crates scattered around. As I was inspecting the room, I heard Darrius climb through the window into the room, attempting to be as silent as possible, but not as silent as either Iain or myself. It was too be expected since he wasn’t a rogue.

Iain walked closer to me and whispered in my ear before disappearing, “And know my job is done, I’ll keep an eye on you Raven, and I will collect my debt that you owe. We’ll be seeing each other.”

I looked over to Darrius and nodded, unsheathing my daggers so that I could engage at a moment’s notice. Activating Stealth, I stalked behind Darrius as he started walking towards the door. We could hear a man and woman arguing in a heated debate ahead of us.

The room exited to a walkway that overlooked the center of the warehouse. There were wooden steps that lead down to the main floor on our left, and the walkway dead ended to our right a few meters. There was another door that was closed near the end. Darrius crouched behind the handrails so that we could see what was going on so that we could make a plan to kill Aidelas and rescue Coira.

“I don’t give two shits what you’re excuse is Aidelas, you will sell my merchandise, or your daughter will die after I flay her skin off of her face,” a dwarven female said to Aidelas, who was at least 3 feet taller than the dwarf.

Aidelas looked sick as he tried to look away from the dwarf. “But I’ve been trying to push the drugs, even to those disgusting children here in the slums. My daughter has nothing to do with this, please Coira, let her go,” he pleaded.

Darrius and I shared a look, both of our eyes growing wide with surprise. It seemed that we didn’t need to rescue Coira after all. Instead, she was the one that was in charge of pushing the illegal drugs here in Kinderfell. Darrius made some movements with his hand, obviously looking at his quest and reading the update to it.

“What now Darrius,” I asked after deactivating Stealth while listening to Coira berating Aidelas for his incompetence.

“Looks like I need to get proof of her being the local drug lord and then take her to the guards,” he replied softly enough so that only I could hear him.

“Alright, let’s take them out first then. Kill the guards, then Aidelas. We’ll knock out Coira and tie her up with the rope that Iain left us. After that, we’ll look for the proof.”

Darrius nodded his acknowledgment of the plan and then we made our way down to the warehouse floor. We were still out of sight, which was good since we wanted to have Darrius aggro everyone at once.

I looked at the group and saw their health bars over their heads. It was so much better now that I knew what was what. I wasn’t sure how the UI was fixed, but I was extremely glad for it. Making my way so that I was behind Aidelas and his entourage of guards, but facing Coira, I messaged Darrius that I was ready. He responded that we would be engaging in 5 seconds.

I heard the running footsteps before I saw him, and everyone looked over. “A trap Aidelas,” Coira asked Aidelas.

“Of course not, ready your weapons,” he called out, taking out a set of daggers himself.

Darrius ran into the middle of them, landing a right hook at the jaw of one of the guards before kicking out at Aidelas, which he evaded.

“Aura of Fury!” he called out, his aura now glowing red with a small glowing circle that extended out 2 meters. I sighed, knowing what I had to do. Even though it was more like the game I knew before, I wasn’t looking forward to the feeling of guilt I had from before. Encasing my heart in stone, I stalked to the closest guard that was now attacking Darrius who was doing a pretty good job at parrying the blows and counter-attacking. Monks used gloved weapons, and his had small metal protrusions that came out of the knuckles that glimmered, obviously enchanted.

I saw that one of the unnamed guards was at 75% health, and I silently casted Assassin’s Mark on him. I sneaked up behind him and whispered “Assassinate,” into his ear before slicing his neck open. The familiar scent of iron was grew worse, as blood gushed from his wound, as his health bar reached 0. I saw the damage that I did in the combat log from the corner of my eye:

> You performed Advanced Assassinate on Unnamed Guard doing 6,170 damage.

> Unnamed Guard has been killed! You are rewarded with 15 experience.

“Not bad,” I thought to myself before turning towards another guard that was now at 45% health. I casted my Assassin’s Mark on him and performed an Eviscerate which did 1,842 damage according to the log, his health bar dropping to almost nothing. Another hit from Darrius and he died. I was awarded with another 15 experience from the guard.

Darrius was doing his job perfectly by keeping aggro on himself, though I was seeing his health dropping steadily. He was currently at 570/950 health, so about 60% of his health was remaining.[60% of player’s health, w/e that is]

We made quick work of the remaining guards, and when the last one fell, I silently casted my Assassin’s Mark on Aidelas, and followed it with a cast of Shadow Step.

I got a sick feeling in my stomach, as though I was falling. The world went black for less than a second, though it seemed much longer. The world came back into view and I was behind Aidelas who had 7,549 health remaining, which looked like around 75% health according to the text inside of his health bar. I whispered in his ear, as I have done multiple times now, “Assassinate.”

Just as I finished the word, I saw the aura that was surrounding Darrius flicker from sight. Shit.

> You performed Advanced Assassinate on Aidelas doing 5,557 damage.

> Aidelas is now poisoned!

Aidelas turned towards me, hate in his eyes, as I drew aggro from him. Darrius called out from behind him, still dancing with Coira, purposefully doing a low amount of damage to her.

“Two minutes for Aura to come back up, let’s kill off him and lower your DPS against Coira,” Darrius calmly said to me, as if this was some sort of game. To him, it was. To me, it was a lesson in pain, which I figured I would be learning a bit more of now.

“Penetrating Slash,” Aidelas said aloud, his daggers stabbing into my chest, close together, before slashing to my sides and outwards. I screamed in pain as the knives sliced open my stomach, which would have disemboweled me if this wasn’t a game’s avatar.

> Aidelas performs Penetrating Slash, causing you 1,854 damage.

> You are now bleeding!

“Eviscerate,” I screamed, unsure if it could be understood. However, I performed the move expertly, my right dagger slicing into Aidelas. He tried to slash at me with his dagger, which I followed it up with Riposte, his dagger sliding against mine as I spun around and stabbed him in the neck with my left dagger. My sight was now turning red as my health fell below 25% from the bleeding damage. I now had 592 health left, and was taking 50 points of damage due to the bleeding from his Penetrating Slash.

He attacked me again, but this time I got lucky and I dodged the attack. I was now in a position to to get behind him, which my body seemed to do by instinct. Instead of whispering, I yelled in a mix of pain and anger, “Assassinate!”

> You dodged an attack from Aidelas!

> You performed Advanced Assassinate on Aidelas doing 5,367 damage.

> Aidelas has been killed! You are rewarded with 50 experience.

I was out of breath, my vision red and blurry with tears. I could feel the stickiness of blood that now ran down my face, neck, hands, stomach and legs, even through the armor. It felt disgusting, and we weren’t even done. My entire body was shaking involuntarily, as what seemed like my adrenalin rush, or rage, started to settle now that Aidelas was dead. However, we were still not done.

Seeing me looking at Coira, my knives shaking, Darrius looked shocked. He wasn’t even bothering with Coira anymore, his health still dropping, but not as rapidly. A health potion appeared in his hand.

“Raven. Drink this and sit down. I’ll take it from here,” he commanded.

I looked at him and nodded, after which he tossed the health potion to me. It was a moderate level potion, and it healed me instantly for 2,500 health, the pain immediately disappearing. I was still shaking, the combat still getting to me, and I sat down as I was told. I usually didn’t take explicit instructions like this, but I was in no mood to argue, even agreeing with Darrius’ assessment.

I sat down with my knees to my chest, holding my arms around them together and watched Darrius as he performed normal attacks against Coira, her health dropping until it reached 10%. She jumped back and raised her hands in the air.

“No more, I don’t want to die like these fools,” she exclaimed. Even though she didn’t die, we were both awarded with another 50 experience which gained me another level.

“Good, get on your knees and put your hands behind your back,” Darrius commanded. I took out the rope and handed it to Darrius when he walked over to me. He gently told me that we needed to talk, and I silently nodded, my tears now dry.

He tied Coira’s hands behind her back and asked her where her ledger was that would show that Coira was behind the local drug ring which she provided, which she provided. It was actually behind her on a crate, out in the open. Obviously this was meant to be an easy quest since it was an initiation quest, though it was hardly easy for me now that I could feel everything that happened.

I stood up and followed Darrius and Coira as we made our way to the local guard station outside of the slums. I stood outside and let my mind wander, trying to remind myself of the happier times in the game that would lift the burden of tonight’s painful memories, and the shadow of pain that followed them.

After he was finished explaining to the guards that Coira was the local mastermind behind the illegal drug ring in Kinderfell, he stepped out of the guard shack and walked up to me.

“So, what happened back there Raven, are you okay? I’ve never seen anyone react like that.”

I wanted to tell him the truth, I really did, but all I could give him was a sad smile and a half-truth.

“Its this new equipment I just got. It’s making the Veil quite a bit more realistic than my old gear. I guess it just got to me.”

He looked at me, trying to see the truth behind my eyes. Maybe you should head back to the inn, log out, and take a break for awhile. I heard it can be pretty stressful with the new gear that came out since everything is more lifelike. I just need to turn in this quest, then I’m going to head out myself too.”

“Yea, I think I do need a break. Let’s drop the group and I’ll head out. Thanks for the run Darrius.”

He smiled at me and nodded, as he dropped from the group, disbanding it. I walked to the inn, even though I couldn’t do as he asked and log out, I could at least relax in the bath before I went to the tavern and talked to the agent from the Order.