Minutes later, Shaya was thankful for the climbing skills she had developed in The Blight. They came back to her quickly as she made her way up the wall, helping her pick out the optimal path of hand and footholds. Regardless, climbing was harder than she remembered and, as much as she wanted to, she couldn’t blame only Arctor’s corruption slamming her mind with every memory where she had slipped, fallen, or failed. Despite growing stronger in the past few years... she had also grown bigger in general; she no longer had the lean musculature of her youth and cursed inwardly as she felt herself drag the weight of every honey cake she had ever eaten up the wall with her.

The corruption picked up on the insecurities she held towards her own body and tormented her with them as well. Every time she was called big, ugly, mongrel, animal, cannibal; every time she was mistaken for a boy; every time her jealousy and envy flared for what others had. But she focused on the silver lining: the memories were mostly old, from her time in the blight; she was getting better, growing more comfortable, finding acceptance.

She was glad she left her gauntlets and greaves back at camp as well. The lichen-covered bricks were slippery and the vines that grew up through the gaps in the brickwork didn’t improve the handholds as much as she had hoped. Shaya found herself relying on her natural claws to dig into bricks at times, especially on smaller hand holds where she could only get two or three fingers worth of grip on them. Her leather boots were comfortable and tight-fitting, but lacked the pointed toe to dig into foot holds as much as she would have liked. This often left her with a precarious foundation to move up from and shifted even more of the effort to her arms.

A quarter hour or more had passed since she started the climb, but she was close enough to the top to make out conversations. Body burning from the exertion, her fingers especially, she took a moment to catch her breath while she had a (relatively) comfortable position and listened to the guards.

“I hate it here,” muttered a younger man’s voice, thankfully speaking the Imperial common tongue in a lilting accent, “I know we’ve been abused and cheated, but is this really the only way to get what we’re owed?”

“Don’t let the others hear your doubts,” growled another man’s voice, this one deep and raspy and annoyed, “or you’ll end up in the pits. Believe me when I say that you do not want to be part of their entertainment for the evening.”

“No, no, I believe in the cause, I do, just...” the young man continued, walking almost directly above Shaya now, “some of the things our Lady is forced to do. It has to be changing her, right? She just...doesn’t seem to be the same caring woman I remember.”

“You think power doesn’t have a price?” The older man snapped, annoyance flaring to anger, “That the bastards that stole our livelihoods, our way of life, our freedom even thought twice to make similar sacrifices?”

“I know that!” The younger man snapped back, “I just...”

“Better them than us,” the older man replied, “you’ve heard their screams and begging; just remember they’d do the same to you, if you were in their hands.”

The only reply to that was a huff a defeat.

I might be able to take advantage of that guy’s doubts, Shaya thought, reaching up for another handhold to peek over the edge of the worn-down crenellation, just need to see what he looks like.

With a good grip on the next handhold, she pushed off her foothold, but as she did so the mortar crumbled and the brick scraped out of its socket in the wall. Shaya scrabbled to catch herself, digging her claws into her handholds while her legs flailed below her. She brought her legs up as she swung, her knees slamming into the wall instead of her breastplate. Despite the pain that shot through her, she was pleased with the result, knowing that there was no way the guards would dismiss the sound of armour banging against stone.

A youthful face popped over the edge of the battlement a moment later: greasy, pockmarked, and afraid. The young man scanned the wall below, spear ready to stab down at infiltrators, watching as the loose brick landed on the ground far below with a muted thump. His eyes passed right through Shaya, who fought exhausted muscles to remain as still as possible. She barely had the wherewithal to look slightly away from him, not wanting him to get a sense of discomfort if their eyes ‘met’.

Go away, she willed, fingers and arms burning as they held her on the wall without the support of a foothold, I don’t want to pull you off that wall, but I’m going to have to...

An eternal second later, he turned away from the wall and mumbled an apology to his fellow guard.

“Stupid, jumpy kids,” the other grumbled, “of course this shit heap is falling apart.”

They moved on, giving Shaya the space she needed to get her foot on another brick, then pull herself onto the roof with slow, steady movements. Her arms demanded to be torn free from their abusive host body, but Shaya denied their request and stood up, surveying the immediate area.

The keep looked more decrepit up close. Most of the roof had collapsed, coating the floor immediately below in rubble, ruined furniture, and snapped supports. Though no one inhabited that level anymore, it looked like the new owners had made some effort to prevent further collapses, pulling up stones that threatened to crumble as well. These were piled haphazardly around the rooftop, some even piled high enough to break line of sight between groups of guards.

Given the rickety, treacherous nature of the roof, the three pairs of patrolling guards Shaya noticed paid more attention to where they were placing their feet than their surroundings. The static groups of three likewise didn’t seem to be paying too much attention, more interested in chatting. Each of them seemed tense, eyes flicking about on occasion, but not with intent or focus. Shaya frowned at them judgmentally, but knew she shouldn’t complain about their lax discipline.

‘Preparing to engage,’ Shaya reported to Basillo and Apricot through the link-pearl, ‘they appear to be veterans, but complacent. Based on their tension, likely affected by Arctor’s corruption as well.’

She made her way over to the first group where she and her team were to rendezvous, paying careful attention to her every footfall to avoid disturbing any rubble. Being invisible was great, but it didn’t prevent her from making noise and being caught while moving, which the anxiety-inducing corruption reminded her without end. The enemies didn’t notice her, chuckling awkwardly over a shared joke. She squinted around them, wondering if she could see through her teammates’ invisibility, but having no luck.

With a shrug, she waited the minute and used the time to line up cleanly with the tallest of the three guards. She waited for the next patrol to pass by, the patrol in blue ignoring the group in grey that she lurked next to. Once they were a fair distance away, she slammed the butt of her axe into the back of the man’s head as hard as she could with a loud crack. Before his companions could react to the noise, they were dropped by similar blows to the head or neck.

Shaya and her team caught them before they crumpled to the ground, removing the first group without bloodshed and with nary a chain rattling. Without instruction, Sathaea, Lan and she dragged the unconscious group behind a pile of rubble, boots scraping quietly against the stone.

“Like clockwork,” Shaya whispered, remembering the intricate devices in the noble’s den before robbing him that fateful night, “let’s move counter-clockwise and handle the patrols head on, otherwise they’ll notice the missing groups.”

“You’re not bad,” Sathaea’s voice came from nowhere, “for a clumsy barbarian.”

“Focus,” Shaya replied, not intending to allow banter now that the clock was ticking.

Ignoring Sathaea’s agitated snort, Shaya started walking towards the next patrol. “Ren, Lan: move to the next static group and drop them if they notice us take down the patrol. Spare who you can, especially a pockmarked young patrolman. He’s two patrols away, but he’s full of doubt we can leverage.”

“Why bother sparing these scum?” Sathaea asked.

“Question later, follow orders now.”

The next patrol stiffened as if they noticed the blur of Shaya or Sathaea moving towards them. Without easy access to the back of their heads, and with iron protecting much of their body, Shaya was forced to chop her axe through the first one’s neck and Sathaea was equally merciless, dragging her knife through the other man’s throat. One of the watchmen noticed, but lost his head to Lan’s blade before he could raise the alarm. Blood spurted from the throats of the other two, bronze throwing knives appearing in them moments after leaving Ren’s possession.

Blood floated in the air, running from their invisible weapons. They wiped off what they could and kept going. Within a few minutes, only one patrol remained. With too much blood on them, they waited behind piles of rubble before springing their ambush. The older of the two wasn’t spared, more out of convenience than spite, but Shaya quickly pinned the younger man she had overheard to the ground, one giant hand clamping his mouth shout.

“Don’t make a noise and you get to live,” she began, a whispered threat coming from some floating blood splatter hovering above the man’s face, “you sound like you don’t like it here. Tell us what we want to know, and you get to live. Maybe even go free. Nod if you understand.”

The young man nodded fervently.

“Good, how many apostates are there?”

She put her axe blade to his throat, waiting for him to tense up at the sensation before loosening the grip on his jaw. His eyes flicked about in fear, but there was a manic intelligence there. Shaya could imagine what punishments awaited him if his masters discovered his betrayal, and that a clean death might have been preferable.

“I... I don’t know,” he mumbled, deciding to trust his fate to them instead of his mistress, “if you’re asking how many mages are here... I think it’s five. My Lady, three other nobles, and someone they refer to as ‘the Master’.”

“How many regular troops, like you, are there?”

“My Lady travelled with fifteen of us... I don’t know how many the others brought. Probably similar numbers?”

Upwards of eighty of them? Shit, it’s a good thing we didn’t just storm the place.

“How many Titan spawn are here?”

“Maybe a dozen?”

“Are you lying to me?”

“No!” He said, a little too loud for Shaya’s preference. He whimpered as she pressed her axe blade to his throat, drawing a bead of blood along it, “please, I have a younger brother.”

“So do I,” she said through gritted teeth, “and I bet some of your sacrifices did too, but that didn’t stop you from aiding in their horrible deaths – did it?”

“I... I was never part of those squads, I swear.”

“How many sacrifices are in the keep?” Shaya asked, focusing back on the task at hand. When he squirmed instead of answering, she pushed her knee harder into his chest, “How. Many?”

“Maybe a dozen are left.”

“Left?” Shaya growled, “How many were there initially?”

“I don’t know,” he whimpered and squirmed some more, tears rolling down his face, “three... three dozen?”

“Thank you for the information,” she said, clamping down on his mouth and watching panic fill his eyes.

Ren’s baton slammed into the side of his head, his brain rattling about while Shaya kept his skull still.

“What’s the plan?” Lan asked, slowly re-appearing as Sathaea dismissed her invisibility spell.

“We find these bastards and bring them to justice,” Shaya replied coldly, “taking ‘the Master’ alive is the highest priority. Try to keep the others alive, but don’t put yourselves at risk to do so. Ren and I are decent healers, I’m sure we can at least stabilize heavily wounded people at this point.”

“Sounds good to me,” Lan said, his voice even colder than usual as he wiped his blade clean on their captive's surcoat.

“With five enemy mages and gods know how many evolved spawn in there, I don’t think we can afford to go in without our espers,” Shaya continued, “buff up, we move in one minute.”

Shaya relayed their status and what they had learned through the tele-pearl, a grim smile coming to her lips when Basillo didn’t even voice any objections to continuing the mission.