Dungeon Master (Karma System)

Midnight disliked the man across the street.

The black cat sat on the stone ledge outside Renn’s third floor window, apparently absorbed by an airship passing between Ironcloud’s upper docks. His ears followed the engine. His eyes followed the man reflected in the glass.

The stranger had arrived carrying a narrow tool case and wearing the gray coat used by heating contractors throughout the district. He stopped at the public notice board, read three postings, and continued toward the lower market. Nothing about the behavior should have interested a cat.

It was the third time Midnight had seen him.

The coat changed. The tool case did not.

Midnight slipped through the partly open window and landed beside Lana’s chair. She was reviewing a spell diagram with Renn, who had discovered that watching someone revise magical notation was almost as tedious as reviewing property records.

The familiar placed both front paws on Lana’s knee.

She stopped writing. "Again?"

Midnight showed her the man through their bond: first beside a tea stall that morning, later crossing an enclosed bridge, and now pausing across the street. None of the images showed him staring directly at the building. Together, they formed a pattern.

Lana closed the notebook. "Dirk."

The archer looked up from the window at the other end of the room. He had been restringing his bow, though the weapon had not needed it. Waiting inside protected lodging had left everyone searching for useful work.

"Our gray coated friend is back." Lana said.

Renn straightened. "Where?"

"Across the street, and you are not going to the window."

Dirk moved without approaching the glass. A door connected the sitting room to a narrow sleeping chamber whose window faced a neighboring roof. He disappeared through it, leaving his bow behind.

Rod entered from the corridor a minute later with Dain and Nessa. Their conversation ended when they saw Lana’s expression.

"Midnight found the watcher again." She said.

Rod looked toward Renn rather than the window. "Same man?"

"Same case. Different coat."

Renn reached instinctively toward the protected box beneath his shirt. The ring remained inside it whenever he slept and against his body whenever he was awake. After Helmar’s earlier attempts, no servant carried the box, and no rented safe held it beyond Renn’s reach.

"We should move." Renn said.

"That may be what he wants." Rod replied.

The lodging had been chosen because Ironcloud security knew who occupied it. Its public entrance remained watched, the service staff had been checked, and the inner rooms possessed wards maintained by the district rather than anyone connected to the Ruskells. Moving Renn would exchange known defenses for a route an observer could study.

"Then we take him." Renn said.

"For standing across a street?" Dain asked.

Renn frowned. "For following us."

"Midnight saw him three times." Lana said. "That proves enough for us to be careful. It does not prove enough for Ironcloud to imprison him."

Nessa began checking the room’s supplies. "We can change how we use the building without making it obvious."

Rod agreed. Renn would remain in the same rooms and follow the same visible routine. Dain would stop accompanying him to every meal so the watcher would not associate the dwarf’s safety with one particular guard. Lana and Nessa would alternate rooms. Dirk would examine the surrounding roofs and service approaches.

They did not explain any of the changes to the lodging staff.

Dirk returned half an hour later through the same sleeping chamber. "He left the coat in a public washroom and came out dressed as a freight clerk."

"You followed him?" Renn asked.

"Far enough to confirm he wanted to know whether anyone followed him. Then I stopped."

"Why?"

"Because a professional watcher expects a tail after showing himself repeatedly. If I kept following, he would learn which of us noticed him and how I work."

Rod nodded. "Did he meet anyone?"

"Not before I turned back. He used crowds well. He is either trained or wants us to think he is."

The distinction did not improve Renn’s mood.

***

Serrik returned to his rented room without confirming a tail. That did not mean no one had followed him. Archers had a reputation for moving quietly and this party had one, and the black cat appeared in two of Serrik’s observations without behaving like an ordinary animal.

He entered through the rear stairs, checked the thread placed across his door, and unlocked the room. Nothing had moved.

The maintenance identity Malrec supplied would become valid the following morning. Serrik had already watched the real contractor leave his workshop after receiving an urgent repair request in another district. The man would spend most of the day examining a boiler that had been deliberately damaged. By the time he realized someone had redirected his schedule, Serrik’s work would be finished.

He laid out the building plan.

The public entrance was useless. Guards recorded visitors and inspected carried objects. The rear service entrance admitted deliveries and maintenance workers after checking their papers against scheduled work. Serrik’s forged order instructed him to examine uneven heating on the third floor.

The papers would take him close to Renn. They would not place him inside the protected rooms.

For that, Serrik had prepared a colorless liquid that numbed the limbs without immediately stopping the heart. A drop on a servant’s skin would create weakness within minutes. A larger dose in food could incapacitate someone long enough for Serrik to enter, finish the target, and remove the ring. He did not need to poison the entire party. One person opening one door would be enough.

The following morning, he arrived at the service entrance shortly after breakfast.

The guard examined his work order, compared its seal with the schedule, and passed it across a verification plate. The runes brightened blue.

"Third floor." The guard said. "An attendant will take you."

Serrik allowed annoyance to show. "I know where the heating trunks run."

"Then you know how many private rooms they pass. You still get an attendant."

Arguing would create a memory. Serrik shrugged and followed a young dwarf carrying a ring of service keys.

They stopped at access panels on the first and second floors before continuing upward. Serrik tested each pipe, made minor adjustments, and marked measurements on a slate. He performed the work well enough that the attendant stopped watching his hands.

On the third floor, the main corridor divided around a central stair. Renn occupied rooms behind the eastern security door. Serrik’s assigned heating panel stood on the western side.

He opened it and frowned at the pipes. "This branch is warm. The fault is farther along."

The attendant checked the work order. "Those rooms are restricted."

"Then they can remain cold." Serrik began closing the panel. "Write that access was refused."

The attendant imagined explaining that decision to his supervisor. Serrik watched it happen in the movement of his eyes.

"Wait here."

The young dwarf crossed to the security door and spoke with the guard beyond it. Serrik removed a cloth from his case and wiped nonexistent grime from his fingers. A small amount of numbing liquid waited along one folded edge.

The attendant returned. "You can inspect the corridor trunk. You do not enter any occupied room."

Serrik offered him the cloth. "Hold this."

The attendant accepted it without thought.

They passed through the security door together. The guard examined Serrik’s tool case, then remained at the entrance while the attendant unlocked the heating panel. Serrik knelt and began working.

He heard movement inside the nearest room. Two sets of boots crossed the floor. A chair scraped. Somewhere farther down the corridor, a woman laughed once and stopped.

The attendant flexed his fingers.

Serrik deliberately dropped a narrow wrench behind the open panel. "Light."

The attendant crouched to angle his lamp into the opening. His arm trembled.

"Are you ill?" Serrik asked.

"No. My hand—"

The lamp slipped.

Serrik caught it before it struck the floor. The attendant tried to stand and found that one leg would not support him.

The guard left the security door.

"What happened?"

"I don’t know." Serrik said. "He started shaking."

The guard bent beside the attendant. Serrik shifted behind him and reached for the narrow blade concealed inside his sleeve.

The door at the end of the corridor opened.

Nessa stepped out carrying a folded blanket. She looked first at the fallen attendant, then at Serrik’s empty hand resting too close to the guard’s neck.

"Move away from him." She said.

Serrik released the blade into his palm.

Nessa dropped the blanket and raised both hands. Light gathered around her fingers, but she did not attack. Violence inside Ironcloud’s lodging would bring security. Serrik needed only seconds before that happened.

He drove the blade toward the guard.

Dain’s shield struck Serrik from the side.

The impact threw him into the open heating panel. Pipes bent beneath his shoulder, releasing a burst of hot water and steam. Serrik rolled beneath Dain’s follow up strike and slashed at the fighter’s knee.

Dain withdrew the leg, placing his shield between Serrik and the occupied rooms.

"Renn, stay inside." Rod called from beyond the doorway.

Serrik abandoned the target. The contract required withdrawal if the approach failed. He kicked the lamp into Nessa’s path, vaulted the collapsed attendant, and ran toward the security door.

The guard had recovered enough to draw his weapon.

Serrik struck him in the wrist and passed before the blade cleared its sheath. He reached the central stairs as an alarm began sounding below.

Dirk stood on the landing.

He carried no bow. A short blade filled one hand, and his other remained open.

Serrik threw his concealed knife.

Dirk vanished.

The knife crossed the space where he had stood. Serrik heard a foot strike stone behind him and turned too late. Dirk’s blade cut the strap holding Serrik’s tool case, while his shoulder drove the assassin against the stair rail.

Serrik dropped over it.

He caught the lower rail, swung beneath the stairs, and landed on the second floor. Two building guards were already entering from below. Serrik ran west, smashed a window with his elbow, and stepped onto the exterior ledge.

Ironcloud fell away beneath him in bridges, roofs, and distant airship docks. The neighboring building stood twelve feet across an enclosed gap. Serrik jumped.

His fingers caught the opposite ledge. He began pulling himself upward.

Midnight landed on his hand.

The cat’s claws drove between his fingers. Serrik jerked, lost his grip, and fell.

A hanging cargo net caught him one floor below. He drew a second knife and began cutting, but the net shifted under his weight. By the time he reached its edge, Dirk was waiting on the adjoining platform.

Serrik attacked because surrender offered no protection.

Dirk avoided the first thrust. Dain arrived behind him and blocked the second. Rod came down through the building rather than attempting the jump, while Lana froze the platform’s only outer ladder.

Four opponents surrounded Serrik. Ironcloud guards filled the windows above them.

He reversed his knife toward his own throat.

Rod caught his wrist in both hands. Dain struck the assassin behind the knee, and Dirk tore the weapon free. Serrik continued fighting until Rod drove him face first against the platform and locked both arms behind his back.

Nessa arrived after ensuring the poisoned attendant would survive. She examined Serrik without sympathy.

"Nice, we caught him alive." Rod said.

"Unfortunately for him." Dirk replied.

Ironcloud security bound Serrik with runed restraints and searched every seam of his clothing. They found blades, poison, wire, lock tools, and three false identities. None mentioned Helmar Ruskell or the Black Cord.

Renn watched from behind the third floor window as the guards carried Serrik away.

"He came for the ring." Renn said.

Rod stood beside him. "Probably."

"We still cannot prove who sent him."

"Not yet."

Across the city, a messenger delivered news of Serrik’s capture to Malrec.

Malrec read it twice, burned the paper, and understood that the audit was no longer his greatest problem.

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