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Before the Storm: Act 11, Chapter 16
🕑 Added 2025-09-08 02:23:47 +0000 UTCThis should be the one…
From atop a warehouse in the Re-Blumrushur’s harbour district, Liam peered down at a fluttering banner planted at the foot of a nearby pier. It was close to midnight, and between the half-moon and the intermittent clouds, it was difficult to make out the details of anything beyond the range of his Darkvision. He was probably in the right place. The sigils of noble houses were distinct enough to inform him that he wasn’t.
His eyes went to a patrol approaching from up the wharf. Weak shadows danced in their surroundings as the lamp held up between them bobbed and swayed with their steps. Liam sighed impatiently as they stopped to chat for a few minutes with an armsman guarding one of the warehouses along their route, then advanced fifty paces to repeat the process. Many claimed that incompetence was unpredictable. In reality, it was anything but.
He leaned forward over the edge of the roof when the patrol finally arrived at his building. Both armsmen wore surcoats bearing the sigil of House Monfort.
“You boys still at it?” One of them asked.
“We may as well get something out of this thankless work,” the warehouse guard answered. “Want a turn?”
“Nah, Goldenrod’s running our watch.”
“Ah, that hardass. He isn’t coming around personally, is he?”
“You’re seriously asking that? He’s probably on his fifth lamprey pie right now. All of his ‘discipline’ is for everyone but himself.”
“Then you should come on in!” The warehouse guard spread his arms out jovially. “If that fat bastard can’t be arsed to check on things himself, then you can tell him whatever you want when you report back to him.”
The armsman raised a hand in polite refusal before leaving with his partner. Liam stepped back, thinking through what he could do before the patrol came around again. Assuming they didn’t stop for a break from their strenuous duties, he had at least a half-hour to get things done.
He closed the vents of the building before dropping into the alley behind the warehouse. The cast-iron padlock securing the back door took all of five seconds to pick. After testing the door’s hinges for squeaking, he opened it just enough to examine the interior. His eyes watered as a potent cocktail of odours – including, but not solely consisting of, liquor, vomit, urine, sweat, sex, and at least three different narcotics – wafted past him to mix with the already unpleasant scents of the wharf.
A row of filled shelves blocked his vision from the doorway, so he cautiously padded into the room and closed the door behind him. Intoxicated discussion came from further within, punctuated by the steady snores of several men.
“Who d’you think they’ll bring in tomorrow?”
“That Tailor’s daughters, I bet. The one with the shop just off the main plaza. The way they dress, they’re asking for it anyway.”
“The tavern near the wall’s got some nice girls, too. Especially that snippy one with the black hair.”
“Are you crazy? Those bitches’ve probably had every man in the city and every Merchant’s crew from here to Re-Robel.”
“Hey, now. There’s no substitute for experience.”
The man’s defence was met with a chorus of derisive jeers.
“Forget that. Tell you what: the Merchant Guild just took on a set of new receptionists, all freshly flowered and ready to pluck.”
Liam shook his head. There was no accounting for the tastes of heretics.
He poked his head around the end of the shelving, a furrow forming on his brow as he took in what was going on. The warehouse’s inventory had been shoved aside to clear a space for its occupants and their activities. It resembled a cheap, ransacked brothel more than anything else.
Near the front entrance, a half dozen men were gambling with dice while another two watched from the side. A few more were scattered around the room, either sound asleep or lying in an intoxicated stupor.
The Baker’s wife and daughter weren’t the only ones who had been taken. As far as he could tell, one woman who looked to be in her mid-twenties and eleven girls around Liam’s age or younger were scattered about the room. The woman, whom he assumed to be the Baker’s wife, was bound naked to one of the warehouse’s wooden columns. The girls were left lying around in a similar state of undress.
“Fuck!”
One of the men playing dice rose from his gambling with a curse.
“Bad luck there, Paul.”
“Fuck you.”
Paul stumbled away from the game, kicking aside a grungy blanket to snatch up the girl hiding under it. The girl squealed and cried in protest while the man molested her, but all that earned her was the back of the man’s hand. She let out a sob as she was thrown roughly over a barrel. The man fumbled with drunken fingers to undo the buckle of his belt.
Liam fished a glass phial from his bandolier. Even as intoxicated as they were, there were too many men present to confront directly and come out of the encounter unscathed. He unstoppered the phial and tossed it into the shadows near the gambling table. Next, he used a scroll of Silence, casting its effect over most of the warehouse’s interior. After counting to five, he held his breath. Assassins were supposed to be resistant to poison and immune to any that they were applying, but it wasn’t exactly the best time to test the boundaries of that bit of knowledge.
He stepped back around the shelving, emerging into the open area of the warehouse with a confused frown. As expected, the sleeping gas had knocked out the men gambling at the table. The girls on the floor lay still, and the men lying about continued to snore. The only thing off about the scene before him was that Paul was still trying to unbuckle his belt.
What the actual…
The concoction diffusing into the room should have been potent enough to affect anyone weaker than a Mithril-rank Adventurer. Paul was definitely not one of those. But how had he resisted it? People who had experienced combat sometimes claimed that it intensified one’s natural urges, but Liam had never heard anyone claim that engaging in one’s natural urges improved their effectiveness in combat situations.
Whatever the case may have been, it didn’t make Paul immune to being stabbed. Liam stepped in behind the man, severing his spine with a stroke of his dagger. After guiding the man to fall to the side, Liam grabbed a nearby sheet of fabric to cover the girl’s butt sticking out at him before dealing with the other men inside the warehouse. The man guarding the warehouse seemed completely unaware of what was going on. Liam went to yank him inside, shutting the door behind him.
The man’s muted surprise transformed into terror as his eyes caught Liam’s dagger glinting in the lamplight. That terror transformed into shock and agony as the dagger slid between his ribs and sliced open his heart. Liam held down his spasming body, an eye on the nearby entrance as he waited for the man to grow still.
I hope this next part works.
He barred the front door and left out of the back, leaving the latter wide open. From there, he went down the alley, unlocking the doors of every warehouse along the wharf. While they didn’t contain much in the way of food, the citizens were so desperate that they would take anything that might be traded for it if it was left unattended. The resulting chaos would serve as a useful distraction, assuming the authorities noticed.
Liam could only assume that they would. Whether it was catching the thieves in the act or discovering a bunch of empty warehouses in the morning, he wasn’t sure. What he could count on was the Nobles’ reaction to what had happened on their watch. While the results would be regrettable, they would also be limited. As callous as they were, the Nobles here would not pass up a chance at making a show of exercising their ‘legitimate’ authority for all and sundry to see. The rebels from Laval would arrive in less than a day, so the Nobles wouldn’t have much time to do so.
After unlocking the last of the warehouse doors, Liam returned to the rooftop to see how long it would take his efforts to bear fruit. It came faster than he expected, as the first sign of thieves was a pair of youths leaving one of the buildings he had left open earlier, hauling away bags bulging with their ill-gotten gains.
Satisfied that his first distraction was well underway, Liam left to exploit other opportunities. In all honesty, there weren’t many that required as little effort as the warehouse row due to the nature of the chaos he was trying to sow. The divisions one could find in any city made it so that things had already achieved an equilibrium of sorts that was difficult to disturb.
The Nobles maintained their authority with law wherever possible, and violence where it wasn’t. The Guilds prioritised the interests of their members, which in this case mostly meant keeping their heads down to avoid becoming a mark for the various Noble factions now ‘policing’ the city. The population of disassociated labourers had no rights or privileges and effectively had no protection by or from the law, and the miserable conditions they had suffered through the winter put them in a state where all their energy was dedicated to simply surviving.
As an Assassin, he had a variety of tools at his disposal to unravel the status quo. Oddly enough, it would probably be the first time on this mission that he would use them in a way that might be expected of one.
Liam stopped on a rooftop well inside the Beaumont Faction’s jurisdiction, reaching into one of his belt pouches for a Message Scroll. A wisp of azure flame dissipated into the air as he scanned the starry skies over the city.
『Hey, it’s me.』
『…wasn’t a country destroyed like that a long time ago?』
『Isn’t that just a stupid story? Sounds like a stupid story to me. Anyway, I’ve started doing my thing. Just wanted to go over this next part with you.』
『Sure. What have you done so far?』
『I went and unlocked all the back doors of the warehouses on the wharf. People are already running off with stuff. The Nobles haven’t noticed yet. Oh, and I killed some guys who deserved it.』
『Hmm, alright. What are you planning to do with that?』
『Busywork for the Nobles. Hopefully, what they do will help piss the people off. Hopefully, it’ll also draw men to the wharf from other parts of the city so I can do my thing easier.』
『What are you going to do?』
『Kill more people. They’re going to start finding dead armsmen in the morning.』
『I see. Guess that’s one way to mess up their shifts. But won’t that cause the Nobles to lash out against the people?』
『I’m not sure if they would, but it works in our favour either way.』
While Nobles like Baron Verdeau thought they could lord over the city like they did their fiefs, Lord Reginald and the other High Nobles were likely aware enough about their situation. Trying to arbitrarily carry out punitive actions against the citizens while suffering from visibly depleted manpower tempted a stupid outcome. All they had to do was wait for their rural reinforcements to arrive before doing what they wished.
『Are the rebels still arriving tomorrow night?』
『Maybe late in the evening. Reed convinced them that they could walk ahead of their supply wagons.』
『Is that a good idea?』
『It should be fine. The Eight Fingers control all of the bandit groups in the countryside, and all the Knights around here seem to do is react to what they hear about. With everything you’re doing in the city, they won’t be able to sortie anyway.』
『What about threats from outside of the city?』
『I doubt anyone out in the March outside of Laval County even knows what’s going on. The only messenger we’ve noticed leaving Re-Blumrushur was a guy going west to where House Blumrush is mustering additional men. We’ll reach the city before them.』
『Alright. I’ll be ready to let you guys in at the southern gate when you get here.』
『I was actually thinking the west gate.』
『Huh? But we don’t control that one.』
『I know. The problem is that if we try to get into the city through the southern gate without being noticed, it’s going to add two or three days to our march. Maybe more.』
It was a good point. Because of where the city sat in the valley, a sentry on the walls enjoyed an expansive view of both slopes. A large group of people moving around would be easily spotted. Their best bet to avoid notice was to use the winding ways of the lower valley as cover to get close enough to make a rush for the western gate.
『Can you do it?』
『I’m not sure. It depends on how the Laval Faction reorganises its people after tonight.』
『Well, let me know how things are by noon. If there are still too many men to handle, we can figure out how to make it work.』
Liam let out a sigh after the Message ended. If it came down to it, he could have his Shadow Demon help out a bit, but he always considered it a last resort option. There was little opportunity for growth in doing so and Shadow Demons always seemed to go out of their way to incorporate all sorts of theatrics into their work. The last thing he wanted was for the residents of Re-Blumrushur to join forces with the nobility because a Demon was flying around killing people.
Speaking of which, I should start doing some of that myself.
The Nobles’ forces were stretched thin, but there were still a lot of them. Initially, he figured he could kill a few here and there to sow some fear and doubt, but now he had to make them incapable of responding to the rebels arriving at the western gate. To make matters worse, that part of the city was being overseen by House Laval and its allies, which was one of the wealthier, more capable factions in the March.
Liam considered his options as he made his way across the rooftops. Even a powerful Noble faction had its weaknesses, of course. The gods knew he had seen enough of that in Roble. Which combination of exploited weaknesses would produce the desired reactions was the question at hand.
At least conceptually, Re-Estize’s aristocratic factions functioned the same way that Roble’s did. Minor Nobles rallied around the local High Noble and collaborated to pursue their shared interests. Since the vast majority of Re-Estize’s nobility was poor and powerless, however, most could not afford to do everything that Nobles were supposed to do.
Laval’s faction was no exception to this. Dozens of minor Nobles counted themselves among its members, but the lot of them combined couldn’t put together a regiment even half as large as Count Laval’s. Add to that the decline of martial tradition that plagued most of Re-Estize’s aristocratic establishment and the moral decay that the Kingdom had suffered for decades, and it made for a force that wasn’t suited for anything more than bullying peaceful subjects and collecting taxes. Even the collecting taxes part was dubious.
A metallic clatter broke the stillness of the night as a sentry on the nearby wall restocked his iron brazier. The man dusted the splinters off his gloves and yawned widely before leaning on his spear to stare dully into the darkened countryside.
Liam scanned the length of the wall to either side. The sentry was alone, and the next brazier with its sentry was over fifty metres away. Going by his surcoat, the man in front of him was a retainer of one of House Laval’s allies.
Killing him and slipping away without notice would have been easy enough, but it wasn’t a good idea. What he had come for was to see how they had organised their security.
It didn’t take long before a pair of patrolmen from House Laval appeared. Unlike the armsmen from House Monfort, they didn’t stop to chat with the sentry, simply offering a silent nod as they walked past. As expected of the stern Count, his armsmen were kept disciplined enough to make it difficult for Liam to do whatever he pleased.
He withdrew from the wall, reviewing what he knew of the High Noble and his retainers. Count Laval did carry himself in a stern, generally competent manner that was something like an evil version of a Noble from the Holy Kingdom, but his followers fell far short of their lord’s example. With that in mind, he scanned the streets below for a chink in House Laval’s armour. There were limits to how much a lord could impose his will, and the realisation of that limit usually lay right where their followers believed they could get away with their indiscretions.
Sure enough, he found what he was looking for next to a tavern just off the city’s high street. Three men in Laval livery spoke in low voices while nursing unmarked glass bottles. There was little chance they merely contained water. Nearby, light filtered out of the tavern’s windows, occasionally joined by a peal of raucous laughter. It was far too late at night for it to still be open. Laval’s men had probably forced the establishment to serve as a ‘base’ for the armsmen on duty.
Liam leapt over a gap in the rooftops created by a narrow alley. If his hunches continued to prove correct, there would be at least a few men taking advantage of the tavern’s other ‘services’.
It feels like it, at least.
A rhythmic thumping under the soles of his feet guided him to a spot above a room where a woman’s moans leaked out of a shuttered window. From there, he went to the next room over, checking to see if it was occupied.
It was. In a narrow bed near the window, a man snored lightly, oblivious to the activity next door. Liam examined the room’s contents, eventually identifying a tabard bearing Laval colours thrown haphazardly over a wooden chair at a small table. The odour of alcohol washed over him as he silently hopped off the windowsill to land at the head of the man’s bed.
Rather than stab him in his sleep, Liam picked up an iron-rimmed tankard lying empty on the floor and clubbed the man in the head. The man didn’t even twitch as death took him. Next, Liam dragged him out of the bed, pausing to frown as the man’s bedsheet fell away to expose his naked lower half.
Well, whatever.
His pants weren’t needed for Liam’s plans. After draping the corpse over the windowsill, he climbed back to the rooftop and reached down to pull it up after him. He took a moment to consider what he would do with the thing before deciding to just leave it where it was. There was a chance that someone might discover his handiwork prematurely, so it was best to leave the last part undone until it was closer to dawn.
The next target revealed himself by puking behind the tavern. Liam poked his head over the edge of the rooftop to find a man emptying however many drinks he had drunk onto the already-filthy soil of the alley. He didn’t rise from being doubled over, as Liam quickly scaled down the wall to dispatch him and drag his corpse away.
How many more would he need? Barring a lucky find, it took him around fifteen to thirty minutes to locate, kill, and move each target. He only had a few hours to work with, so there was no way he could directly deplete Laval’s forces so severely that they would be incapable of responding to the arrival of the rebel forces. In other words, what he did had to be deterrent enough to achieve close to the same effect.
Liam crossed the Laval faction’s jurisdiction, stopping over the street that led into the Eight Fingers’ pleasure district. Between the departure of the Mercenaries and the various Noble factions having free rein over their respective parts of the city, the pleasure district was pretty much dead. All House Laval saw fit to post at the small gate leading to it was a single, bored-looking armsman, which made for a fine addition to Liam’s collection.
His next two kills were an exercise in patience. In one of the city’s smaller plazas, two sentries were chatting over a bottle of liquor, seemingly without regard for the sleeping citizens nearby.
“You think they’ll let us go home once Lord Albert arrives with his men?”
“Still worried about your wife?”
“And my daughter! You should’ve seen them staring at that damned journeyman in the smithy.”
“Them and every other girl and woman in the manor.”
“I-Is it that bad? Gods, I need to get back. What if he’s already done something to them?”
“Eh, I wouldn’t make a fuss about that. It’s not as if they’d be anywhere near the front of the line.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Anyway, even if they don’t need us here anymore, Laval still needs taking care of. I don't think the Count will let anyone go home until that’s settled.”
“…do you think we’ll have to fight Demons?”
“What’s the chance there’s another? Even if there is, Sir Terrence will take care of it just like he did the first one.”
Liam stifled a yawn as the two armsmen kept on chatting. It would be nice if they talked about something useful, but that turned out to be too much to hope for. Eventually, one of them went to relieve himself in an alley. Liam dropped down lightly behind the man and punched him in the back of the head. He dragged the body deeper into the alley before picking up an empty old crate and lightly tossing it against a wall. The armsman in the plaza frowned and came closer.
“Vincent?” He said as he raised his torch, “You alright?”
The man remained still for several moments before entering the alley. Liam held his breath as the armsman walked past him, then emerged from the pile of refuse he was hiding behind to whack him with a piece of splintered wood.
As he hid the new bodies, Liam pondered the ease with which he was killing his targets. The Azerlisian Marches were rife with organised crime. Ironically, the ‘alliance’ that much of its nobility maintained with the Eight Fingers made it so that they were woefully inexperienced at dealing with opponents who operated by similar means. They were even oblivious to simple tricks that most commonfolk who had been raised in a town or city would have been wary of.
Liam got two more corpses before he figured he had run out of time. The grey of dawn had not yet begun to outline the towering ranges to the east, but many workshops would begin preparing for their day before then. He crossed his arms as he considered how to use what he had gathered to best effect.
Seven dead armsmen wouldn’t be shrugged off by House Laval, but it wasn’t exactly a crippling loss either. A message needed to be sent: one potent enough to suppress the faction’s activities to the degree that he could render them impotent when the time to act came. For the life of him, however, he couldn’t come up with anything.
“I need to use these bodies to scare the crap out of Laval’s men,” Liam said. “Got any good ideas?”
A glowing yellow gash split the darkness at his feet as his Shadow Demon broke into a smile.
Comments
Vinka
Good catch, I thought the author had simply forgotten that they had this conversation recently, but I really like that it is their password
Zarik0
"Hey, it’s me.』 『…wasn’t a country destroyed like that a long time ago?』 『Isn’t that just a stupid story? Sounds like a stupid story to me. Anyway" I found it strange last time that they dont use passcode in their communication, was feeling a bit off with their professional education and dedication they have for their job, but seeing this exact same exchange again, lololo author, this exchange IS their password to check the identity for message com, sneaky author lol. Shadow demon will share his past experience on how to 'scare' people with 'potent' devised refined method, the human totem pole :) Wonder how Raul is doing with 'leading' and commanding this mass of living people, im sure that quite the headache and 'interesting' experience for him :) who will make him grow too
Aluminum Brain
Good to see molesters getting what they deserve.
