“Life is a fragile thing, do take care of yours… while you have it.” - Saying attributed to an infamous assassin only known as the “Old Man on the Mountain”.

Artesh Hassan Al-Khaleed, formerly of the Niśācāra order, was no stranger to missions from which one was not expected to return alive. He had undertaken three such missions in his youth when he was still part of the order, and his continued survival was testament to his skill and good fortune, for oftentimes such missions ended with both the target and executor dead.

It was not that they were throwing away their lives on purpose, but more that the missions they undertook were so perilous that it was wise to consider the very likely possibility that everyone who undertook the mission might not return at all. Although the warriors who went to such missions planned everything they could for their escape, the chances of them making it out remained extremely low.

In fact, Hassan had been personally part of the group that had slain the sultan whose death became the trigger for their current situation, and one of only two out of the twenty assassins who went that managed to escape after the deed. It was both his crowning achievement and his regret at the same time, as he often blamed himself for having escaped that day.

Had he stayed behind and traded his life for the rest of the royal family’s lives as well, maybe the order would still exist, undisturbed in their seclusion.

Even with such experiences under his belt, however, Hassan had to admit that the current mission was a first for him. It was the first time he felt a thrill in his soul at the prospect of success, regardless of whether he would be able to return or not. After all, it was not every day that an assassin could boast of managing to infiltrate the camp of an army nearly half a million strong and take their general’s head under their collective noses.

Regardless of whether his team made it out after the deed or not, if they succeeded that night, there was a good chance that their actions might actually earn a passage in the annals of history, which was a form of immortality in its own rights. The order already had their own passage with their last resistance, one that Hassan felt guilty for not having participated to the end in, and he had been looking for a suitable opportunity to make his amends since.

This mission was the perfect sort of situation to do that.

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Silent as the night itself, Hassan slipped through the opening of the largest and most opulent-looking of the tents. It was naturally dark, since it was already past midnight and encroaching on the morning hours, but his trained eyes allowed him to perceive the general shapes of objects even in the dark. After a moment of acclimatization, he noticed the layout of the tent, and also pinpointed the sleeping figure in the back.

The tent itself was separated into two areas, a front area that served as sort of an office, with a desk and a chair, as well as several cabinets filled with what appeared to be scrolls and other papers. Apparently the odd habit of favoring keeping their maps and other documents outside of their storage rings that the captain’s daughter mentioned was one that was prevalent amongst these foes.

As for the sleeping area, it was separated from the work area by a curtain, and Hassan silently parted the curtain to the ongoing soft snores of the person behind the curtain. He was unable to discern much details about the person in question, since it was too dark to do so, but he could tell that it was a woman, human, probably middle-aged or so, and completely unaware of his presence.

Which was to her detriment, as the experienced assassin wasted no time and plunged his curved dagger directly into the base of the sleeping woman’s skull, right around where the skull met with the spine. The blow severed the woman’s skull from her spine and likely killed her instantly, with the woman not even making any noise as her life faded away.

Hassan then finished decapitating the woman and stored her head for later identification before he rummaged through her body and found a couple of storage artifacts he similarly kept. Before he left the dead woman’s tent, he also ransacked the work area and took away every bit of paper he could find, in case they proved to be valuable.

His task done, he left the tent just as quietly as he entered and waited at the border between the central cluster of tents and the rest of the camp for his compatriots. One of them arrived and slipped under his shadowy veil after a few minutes, having taken longer since they needed to avoid patrols the old-fashioned way, not being blessed with magic that could manipulate the shadows like he did. Another arrived shortly after that.

Then they heard a commotion occurring not too far away, in the direction of the central cluster of tents. The three assassins knew what such a commotion meant, that their compatriots were likely discovered and that the mission was compromised. As one, they turned around and made their way back out from the enemy camp.

It was how they did things. If the mission was compromised, then everyone was to either attempt to finish their task or otherwise escape on their own. Since Hassan and the other two were already together, they chose to escape together, each having taken a head suspected to belong to an enemy general and having ransacked their belongings. As for the other two, their fates were in their own hands.

Halfway through their escape, however, a confused enemy soldier who was likely woken up by the commotion stumbled upon them bodily. While Hassan’s shadowy veil could hide them from sight, anyone who made direct contact would still notice them. The assassin that the soldier stumbled into took the soldier’s life, but not before the soldier in question shouted his surprise, which naturally caught the attention of others nearby.

With a grimace, the assassin removed his storage artifact and tossed it along with the other ones he acquired from his target to Hassan, who caught them in mid-air, before the man stepped out from the shadowy veil and ran towards a different direction, attracting the enemy soldiers towards himself.