Gustaaf took a break from work for a few days. He had to mentally prepare for the upcoming job with Nova Emeral, and his cuts needed time to fade into scars.
He'd been sleeping at Evelien's still, though he'd been hiding in a closet to sleep rather than in the floor beside her bed after a close call with her parents.
Evelien was more than happy, ecstatic even, to host Gustaaf.
One other thing he had been taking a break for... The envelope.
He'd brushed it off the first few days, though thinking about opening it more than once, but for some reason, it felt like it would be losing a sort of battle to open it.
It had been the night of the sixth day after the farm got raided. Evelien returned home, opening up into her room to see Gustaaf doing sit-ups without a shirt on.
Not that it mattered, since his whole body was still smothered in worn out white bandage, but Evelien's face flushed red, and she couldn't bring herself to look directly at him besides glances.
"I went out and got you these." Evelien said casually, before passing Gustaaf a piece of looseleaf paper.
A contract. Nothing much, just a request to get rid of a rival business owner. No special details, a modest payment.
He let his neutral expression go slightly positive for a moment before remembering he was supposed to be resting.
"Hmm... I don't know..." Gustaaf said apprehensively.
"It'd give you something to do, at least- And before you start yapping about your cuts, you're obviously quite spry considering;" Evelien gestured around at him on the ground doing sit-ups.
Gustaaf didn't really dislike the idea enough to continue to argue, so he stood up and stretched his back, his arms up in the air. His bandages inched up, showing the edges of the long scars across his body.
"Get me the most beat up cloak you got, it's not too long till the sun fully sets."
Gustaaf didn't have his normal red eye covers to change his deep green eyes, but the ragged and worn cloak reaching d isown to his knees that Evelien had loaned him helped keep his style look like it usually did; wild and, as the name suggests, Ragged. He found some old black leather shoes, and threw a few knife holes in the top to complete the look. He strapped his knife to his side.
Evelien waited by her room's window to close it behind Gustaaf, as her parents were home and so the front door was an impossibility. She smiled at the sight his outfit,
"Looks like you're back in the swing of things, huh Gustaaf?"
Gustaaf shrugged, "Guess so."
Evelien slid open the window, Gustaaf stepped up to it, cloak billowing in the light breeze. Evelien stared at him for a moment, raising her eyebrow, like expecting something from Gustaaf.
Gustaaf looked at her briefly, giving her a blank stare, his emerald green eyes beaming into her light brown, then lightly smirked before hopping out the window.
Gustaaf checked the contract once more; Bramblehaven district, third street, fifteenth building down. He headed down main street down south for a while, then turned down what should have been the right street.
He kept in the shadows, making the sharp turn around the building. Gustaaf saw something white blur in his peripheral vision, but when he glanced over at the alleyway it had came from whatever it was disappeared.
Gustaaf paused for a moment to try and recall anything about the blur, then gave up and continued on to the victim's home.
A simple one-storied home with a small workshop attachment of the side.
He approached, dancing through shadows like a snake in ambush, up to a window on the workshop. To his surprise, a single large candle stood lit on a small tinkering table.
The candle illuminated a tall lanky man who was bent over the table, face black with soot from messing with some small device. The room was cluttered and slam full of metallic junk and machinery, some only shown by small glints of reflected light from the candle.
An inventor. A rarity in Emeral. The sort to get scoffed and laughed at.
Gustaaf saw that by it's reflective surface there was a small side door inside into the tiny workshop, so he decided to pick the lock to the front door.
As the door clicked open, Gustaaf suddenly felt he was being watched, whipping out his blade, and quickly scanning over the area behind him.
Nothing. But Gustaaf was sure someone was there, he trusted his instincts were telling the truth. He narrowed his eyes, and poked to fingers to his eyes, then out into the night, a message for 'I'm watching you.'.
He quietly entered the Inventor's home, picking his feet up high and setting them down soft.
The construction of the house was common for Bramblehaven, thick gray stone brick pillars cornering the walls with thinner brick walls with wooden planks laid over top between each.
A small guest bedroom, though really a glorified closet, was on the left side of the house, obscured by a larger master bedroom. The rest of the house was multipurpose, with the kitchen and foyer and living room in one large room.
Gas lamps hung in corners, off, and a wooden stove sat smoldering from dinner hours ago; Normal appliances for homes too poor to afford the pricey electric lights and gas stoves.
Gustaaf snuck past the stove, up to the door into the workshop. He slowly turned the knob to avoid any noise, and finding it was unlocked pushed it open gently...
But, it had been a second since he had a good kill. Gustaaf felt a jolt of energy through his body, up to his arm. He flung the door open, the door slamming into and knocking over some tall man sized piece of junk.
A crushing noise could be heard as the inventor accidentally broke the device in his hands between his fingers in surprise.
Gustaaf brandished his blade, the creamy yellow candlelight reflecting off the sharp metal surface. He approached slowly, trying to play up his menace.
"Who- how- why?!" The man said, neck twisted around to watch Gustaaf, struggling to stand up due to his chair scooter close into the table, practically trapping his long legs. His leg bumped the table, causing a drawer to fall out, spilling many fragile gadgets onto the floor; breaking and crackling on the ground.
Gustaaf noticed his voice was rich and somewhat exotic; he also remembered hearing the accent somewhere else... But he couldn't put his finger on who...
Gustaaf put on a calm smile, twirling the blade slowly around his fingers. He stepped closer, closer, to the man. He stood directly behind him now, just as the man backed out from under the table to stand up.
Gustaaf slid the blade under the Inventor's throat,
"I am the spirit of vengeance, roaming the halls of your conscience. You thought yourself invincible; but in this world, there is no hiding from death.". Gustaaf pushed his blade into the edge of the man's neck, crimson dripping out onto the tip of the knife.
"As my blade draws out your last ragged breath, know that your sins will be reckoned, and drowned in crimson."
Gustaaf drew the blade halfway across the Inventor's neck, blood began to gush out onto his hand.
'A job well done,' Gustaaf thought to himself, before his muscles seized up, and he fell backwards onto the floor. A small copper device had been stabbed into his thigh, and now sent a rhythmic sensation up through his muscles. His knife clattered onto the floor beside him.
The Inventor stood up holding his neck, crimson flowing through his fingers and over onto his chest. His eyes had their own intimidating look to them now,
"Such big words for a little boy such as you," The inventor walked over to the door, blood dripping onto the floor behind him. He dragged the man sized thing that had been knocked over by the door next to Gustaaf, who's eyes widened at a thought;
The thought wasn't of the machine, that clicked on sounding like an overworked horse, or the blood flowing freely onto his body from the man's neck, the Inventor having given up trying to hold the flow back.
Gustaaf recognized the accent from two different people, the first wasn't worrying; the Ame spy he had used the day he assassinated that aristocrat at the celebration. It wasn't surprising for him as the Ame people had always been the inventive sort, stories of vague technical advances sometimes reached Emeral.
The second was the eye-widener; that accent... Was his mentor's.
He cocked his head towards the machine. He could see it in greater detail now that it whirred and clicked in front of his face; it was the size of a coffin, but a perfectly snug fit for a person only slightly bigger for him.
The machine was pivoted open, dark lines ran around the inside of the machine, saw blades coursing across the lines.
Bare gears could be seen underneath the blades in the lines, and a few were on the outside. The Inventor picked up Gustaaf under his arms, and dragged him towards the machine.
"Such crude humanity..." The blades blew air by Gustaaf's ears as he was inched ever closer,
"Sadly, your sort will never find the light of finality. Just one near-loss to the next."
The blade was down by his leg.
Gustaaf's instincts only just seemed to realize the mortality of the situation. His brain raced with ways to escape...
His arm on the opposite of his affected thigh had some feeling left.
"So." The Inventor clicked some sort of strap around Gustaaf's waist. "I hope you find the place you deserve on the other side."
The device was on the front of his thigh. On his leg.
The blade would be circulating back up again now, near the device.
Though it'd skate by his limbs up to cut his torso in half by looking at the lines...
Sacrifices have to be made.
Gustaaf swung his arm down to his leg as the blade began to whir by it, cutting into the back of his thigh.
Gustaaf usually didn't vocalize his pain, to him he never saw the need behind it; he believed crying and screaming wouldn't help you fix your problems.
But the pain was unbearable, he went from choking and wretching his last meal out of his body, to a guttural scream.
He could feel as each tooth of the blade sliced through, their hook shapes snagging on each tendon and sinew of flesh. Nerves slicing and flaring in explosive pain even through the numbing sensation of the device on his leg.
It nicked his bone as it sliced through the side of his leg, and then hit the device.
First, it clicked off. This allowed Gustaaf to rip out of the restraints around his waist, which were hastily and sloppily put on due to rapid blood loss from the Inventor.
Next, it lodged inside of the saw blade, catching it and making a horrible mechanical whir as the powerful saw snagged onto the copper alloy of the device.
Gustaaf saw the Inventor's face, dumbstruck and delirious as he collapsed backwards into his table. This knocked over and destroyed more junk, and then the man-sized device began to smoke.
Smoke soon turned into fire, Gustaaf noticing this struggled through the searing pain in his leg, grabbed his knife, and out to the workshop door. He turned around at the doorframe as he exited, to shut the door behind him.
He saw as the Inventor's face, eyelids wavering and clothes bloody, get lit up. He saw the machine blow up in a fiery inferno.
Then he was thrown back against the floor by a shockwave of explosions of every flammable piece of junk in the tiny workshop crammed together, each insignificant by themselves but horribly strong together. The once dark workshop, lit only by a candle, was now going to be brighter than the sun for the remainder of its time in that place.
Next thing Gustaaf remembered was limping through the front door, as the building burned bright behind him. Soon only the stone pillars and piles of rubble would be all that remained.
A crowd began to gather.
Gustaaf stood up, favoring his good leg. He pulled out his knife once more.
"Touch me and you die, do you understand me?!" He growled at the crowd, turning around in a circle to gesture at them all with his blade.
A man stepped forward. He wore plate armor on his legs and arms, and a bit on his torso, but mostly wore discreet chainmail.
"As night guard Pier Aderdonk, I must tell you to stand down. It is clear to me that you have set this fire, and potentially murdered the man inside." The crowd collectively gasped at 'murder', as if it wasn't practically a daily occurrence in the city. Pier pulled out his sword, which was tucked into a leather sheath blending into the rest of his outfit.
Gustaaf stood his ground. He glared into Pier's eyes, beckoning him on.
Pier approached, walking with bravado only barely muted by his dark clothes made to be discreet in the night. "If you will not stand down for arrest, I will have to end you here."
Gustaaf readied his blade, watching Pier's advance, waiting...
20 feet,
12 feet,
6 feet...
He slashed out with his blade-
A white blur appeared out of the alleys, snatching Gustaaf up and then back into another alley. Gustaaf only saw stone roadway blur and the man's sprinting feet as they raced away from the crowd, all shouting and hollering after them.
After a few minutes of running down countless alleyways, Gustaaf was dumped unceremoniously onto the ground, his leg reminding him with pain worse than a flaming hot rod of his screw-up while killing the inventor.
The man who had stole him away from the crowd began to snicker, turning into a full laugh.
He spoke, "No, no, no, Gustaaf; I always told you to be more clean and quick with your targets." The man spoke... His accent rich, and a little bit exotic.
Gustaaf groaned on the ground, barely able to even look up at the man.
Not even because of the pain from his leg, though that was a factor, mostly it was because of his hatred for the man. He forced his head to turn upwards, and took in the reality of the white featureless mask, and body so cloaked in robes he could be thin as a twig or buff as a bull.
His mentor, the Muted Blade.
Gustaaf could imagine that behind the mask, he was smiling down at him, enjoying seeing his faults, critiquing every last part of his body and technique.
"No words for your mentor. I did practically raise you, you know." The Muted Blade said, leaning against a wall of the alley away from Gustaaf.
"Ah, yes. Poor little baby Gustaaf. Left all alone and passed around a dozen different doorsteps." His mentor pulled out his blade, slightly curved and nigh-dramatically shiny. He gazed down at it, running his finger down it.
"Not too different from how you are now, Ah? Sleeping in a different house every few weeks, restless nights only taken up by the blood of the innocent you slay." His flicked his blade up in the air, then caught it back in his hand.
"I didn't ask for you to take me in! You could have left me to die instead, it would-" Gustaaf started, but was cut off by the Muted Blade kneeling down next to Gustaaf, and getting unsettlingly close to his face.
"That's what I'm here to do, ask you." He stood back up, and backed away.
"If you had read my letter, you'd have noticed that I have decided to forgive your trespass against me, for leaving and forsaking everything I taught you in egregious rebellion..." The Muted Blade took a breath,
"And extend my hand in invitation, back into my house. You will be safe there to recover, and to train to be a true killer."
Gustaaf didn't even blink before answering.
"No. I'd rather die." He said simply.
The Muted Blade twisted his head towards his shoulder, "Ah, you won't die, Gustaaf. Much worse things are to come. I could have protected you from it all, saved you the suffrage... But it is obvious to me you will never listen, not until this whole kingdom burns." The Muted Blade walked up to Gustaaf once more, "Don't worry, I won't let you die till you see your mistake."
And after that he kicked Gustaaf hard in the temples, knocking him unconscious.
-_-_-_-