F-tier Assasin - Chapter 10

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I'm struggling a bit with writing this story lately because I'm super busy with editing and school, so the releases will be less frequent as a result. I'm also considering when I want to publish this story next year. I may end up investing more time into Loopshard and continue this in the background.

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Chapter 10

The Craft district wasn’t trying to be a quaint or charming place, and yet it was unintentionally the most interesting-looking district in the western half of Eventide. Every workshop was distinctly shaped to its purpose, but, the lack of cohesion or planning behind where each of them were placed, meant that every zigzagging street was like a walk through a bizarre gallery depicting individual expression.

There was a group of Seamsters who’d built a cottage-like two-storey out of red bricks and slapped a slanted thatch roof on top, for seemingly no other reason than the fact that they thought it would inspire their homely craft. Its neighbour was a Glassblower with a stocky and thick stone brick of a shop, from within which the assistants helping their master to construct elaborate shapes were visible through its barn door and the glow of a large furnace spilled out onto the street..

While Ashlan clung to the shadows to avoid being noticed, he passed by a simple one-storey seemingly run by a Fletcher, who had an outdoor area for shaving down sticks and tying feathers to the ends of them, as well as attaching arrowheads of various kinds. Next to it was a Carpenter, whose hand-cranked saws and various tools produced a lot of noise, despite the fact that it was all done within a closed-off workshop. Strangely, there was no Bowyer in sight, which would’ve made a lot of sense, but such lack of organisation was iconic of the Craft district.

Dad’s workshop should be around here somewhere.

Tanning leather was a foul-smelling process, but some ingenious Magical Artificer had in the past conjured a purifying Artefact, which allowed the Tanners to move their work into the city without stinking up entire districts. Ashlan would’ve loved to know how it worked, since his father hardly ever gave off the stink of his unfortunate Profession. However, all Tanners who worked for the large workshop utilising this Artefact were contracted to secrecy. From what he could piece together, the secrecy had little to do with it being dangerous and was more due to the fact that a lot of other nations had expressed interest in the Artefact. They even had their own little contingency of C-tier Bodyguards to defend the workshop.

No wonder, when they produce nearly all leather within Eventide.

Ashlan reached a roundabout with a family of statues in the centre and carriages, carts, and horses moving through it as though they had no fear of crashing into one another. There was a Jeweller opposite the road from him and in front of its metal-braced wooden door stood either a Brawler or a Protector.

Must be a Low-Ranked guy running it, he mused.

Despite the district’s name, not all crafting-based Professions resided in the Craft district. Jewellers of C-tier or higher usually set up in Goldentide district, along with Goldsmiths, since the members of the Goldentide Dynasty were fond of expensive accessories and always wanted more than what their contracted craftsmen could produce. Smiths, Armourers, Tinkerers, and Weaponsmiths generally went to the Anvil district north of Craft; Shipwrights and Sailmakers tended to work in White Coast or Oceanview; and Architects and Builders handled most of the city planning in the Architect district on the western fringe of Eventide.

Some crafting Professions, like Cook, Baker, and Magical Artificer were rarely confined to just one district, since people didn’t want to travel far to get food or bread, and Artificers were so rare and powerful that they always ended up within an influential family’s castle or mansion.

Ashlan pushed the thoughts from his mind, as he looked around at the three roads he could take from here.

System, which direction is the Moongazing Art workshop?

[Take the path to your left and then follow the second right turn. It is next to a fruit Merchant.]

You can tell me the direction to his workshop, but not to his actual location? Why? Isn’t that just making things unnecessarily difficult?

[I can only pinpoint the location of an Assignment who is currently undertaking a Contract. This target has rejected all System Contracts and has not accepted any Private Contracts either.]

Wait, I’m not just killing some guy who refuses to work, right?

[Mikkel Bramblethorn is still working, but he is taking all commissions outside of the System’s oversight. He is hiding his patrons for a reason that is deemed nefarious. This belief is further reinforced by his usage of an Unsanctioned Artefact.]

Outside the System’s oversight… So he’s imitating an Unassignable?

[In essence, yes. However, Unassignable are rarely deemed a threat.]

Ashlan put his hand to his mouth while thinking.

He’d heard of people undertaking work without going through the System for Contracts. It was deemed foolish, since there were no safeguards, but lack of protections was often the point. Since the System kept an eye on all Contracts, it would catch on to anything dangerous and often alert Sentinels or others to deal with it. For such a God-like entity, being kept in the dark was clearly a sign of maliciousness, but he wasn’t sure if that assessment was correct. After all, he’d operated in exactly the same way when helping Unassignable find work.

I will have a look for myself, he decided.

After following the directions he’d been given, he came to a tall one-storey building made from white-painted bricks and which had an old wooden fence running around its perimeter. Past the fence was a small garden with a single chair next to some flower bushes and a tiny pond. The garden continued around the entire workshop, but it looked quite sparse and minimalistic, with just a few plants, bushes, and trees.

The building was maybe six metres tall and the side facing the east had six tall windows, which were stacked three on the bottom and three on top. Its front door was a solid chunk of red-painted wood and there was a snaking series of stones from the fence gate to the doorway. The fence and gate were painted white like the building, though the colours were faded and worn-down by the sun’s light.

The neighbouring building was a Merchant with a small shop full of shelves of fruit, as well as two stands right outside the door. Ashlan went past the tall house with the fence and walked up to one of the stands, letting the sunlight wash over him as he grabbed a persimmon and entered the store. There weren’t any other customers around, so his sudden appearance out of nowhere went unnoticed.

“I’ll have this,” he said, putting the fruit down in front of a woman leant back in a chair behind a small table serving as the counter. The woman was reading a dog-eared book with a sun-bleached cover.

“I was just getting to a good part,” she muttered, before closing the book and looking at the persimmon. “Is this all you want?”

She looks fairly young, he thought to himself. Her dark-brown hair was cropped to just above her shoulders and she had a strong tan, as well as brown eyes. Her lips seemed naturally inclined into a smirk and she wore a blue blouse and dark shorts, both of which looked pricey, though they were threadbare and old.

Wearing hand-me-downs and only owns one book from the looks of it. She seems like a D-tier Merchant with a useful Skill for preserving the freshness of foodstuffs. After all, those stands outside are right in the sun, but there wasn’t a single overripe or rotten fruit.

“Just the persimmon, yep.”

“Eight silvers,” she stated with a sigh.

Maybe C-tier, actually. She runs this store alone and it can’t have been cheap. Makes me think she uses her Skill to help other Merchants like those in the Faraway Market, while kicking back and taking a cut. Plus, she’s got the trademark C-tier laziness about her and her fruit is expensive.

Ashlan suppressed a frown as he brought out a ten-silver coin. It felt a waste to pay that much for a single fruit.

“Do you know if the next-door workshop is the one called Moongazing Art?”

“That’s right,” she confirmed, before immediately adding, “You don’t look like Mikkel’s usual clients though.”

“Why not?” he wondered.

Her natural smirk widened, before she gestured to his clothes.

“You look like one of the bums from Northside.”

I am one of said bums…

But what about your own damn clothes!?

Ashlan nodded, only retorting to her comment in his mind.

Then she added, “And you’re too lanky and young. Plus, you’re here alone. Everyone who visits him always has a bodyguard.”

“My guy’s just waiting outside.”

The Merchant craned her neck to look around Ashlan.

“I don’t see him,” she replied, clearly sceptical of his lie.

“That’s kind of the point.”

“Uhuh.”

Ashlan snatched the persimmon and placed the coin down in front of her, before turning around and heading for the exit.

“What about your change?” the woman called.

“Don’t worry, I’m rich,” he retorted with a grin.

As soon as he was outside, he found a shadow and activated Lurk.

A moment later the Merchant came to the doorway and leaned out into the sunlight.

“What the hell,” she muttered, looking around and seeing no trace of him.

Meanwhile, he was standing only three metres away in the shadow of one of the stalls. She looked around for a few seconds longer, before muttering something under her breath and returning to her chair and book.

Ashlan crouched down and took a bite out of his fruit. It had been a good idea to visit the store first. He couldn’t tell if the System had specifically mentioned it as a hint or not, but he now at least had an idea of the kind of people who went to his target to commission art.

That in itself is nothing suspicious. Most people can’t afford art, but those who can probably wouldn’t traverse the city without some kind of escort.

But why come here to see a D-tier Painter?

That part makes no sense to me.

Ashlan sat down and decided to watch the door of Mikkel Bramblethorn’s workshop from the shadow behind the fruit stall.

Two hours later, a muscular man wearing a simple-but-expensive black shirt with a high collar, dark-grey dress pants, and polished black leather shoes, arrived in front of Moongazing Art on a brown horse with an understated red-brown saddle, bridle and reins.

This guy screams money.

He left his horse in front of the fence, while walking up to the red door of the white building, holding a flat square box of stone that was wrapped with a simple bit of rope to make it easy to carry.

After knocking on the door twice, pausing, and then knocking three more times, it opened and a pale face was briefly visible to Ashlan, before Mister Black entered the workshop. The door slammed shut behind him.

Alright, maybe the System is actually on to something…

As the afternoon wore on and the shadows lengthened, Ashlan took another persimmon from the stand he leant up against, while watching the Painter’s workshop. His vantage point wasn’t amazing, since he was on the western side of the building and could see only its wall and part of the entrance.

This Merchant really is unmotivated, he thought absentmindedly, while biting into the fruit. She hadn’t once gone outside to check her wares and he felt sure that his visit wouldn’t be the first time fruit was stolen.

But damn, the taste is great. What a waste of talent…

The sun was preparing the final leg of its journey across the sky. Within the hour it’d sink down behind the city wall and cast Eventide in darkness.

Mister Black’s horse was waiting diligently by the fence, seemingly unphased by standing around for hours without food and water.

Then it suddenly began to stir and Ashlan’s eyes instinctively shot to the red door, which opened and let out the black-clad man. The pale face appeared in the doorway again, watching as his guest left the fenced-off garden, before the door was slammed shut.

He didn’t bring anything with him from the workshop. I wonder why. Maybe he’s just visiting to have his portrait made? But what’s with the weird box?

Anyway, now that his visitor is gone, it’s time for me to find a way inside his shop to figure out how I’ll do this.

Ashlan waited for Mister Black to ride off, before quickly grabbing a pear and an apple from the stand. He put the fruits into his belt bag and rearranged the ones on the stall to hide that anything had been stolen.

Instead of going through the gate, Ashlan hopped over the old wooden fence and moved through the small garden to the tall white house.

How should I go about entering? he wondered, while moving around the building and sticking to the shadows cast by the walls and plants.

If I knock on the door like Mister Black, that will definitely raise suspicion and might not even provide me a good opening to enter.

But what if I make a small distraction in the garden?

Ashlan continued around the building. The garden wasn’t anything spectacular, but it seemed like the perfect place for someone perpetually cooped-up inside to take a quick stroll through whenever they got restless. As he reached the eastern side of the building and saw the large windows set into the wall, he noticed how it overlooked the little pond, bushes, and chair.

Through the windows, Ashlan could see a large wooden easel with a big canvas on it. In front of it was the Painter, Mikkel Bramblethorn. The ancestors of the Bramblethorn family hailed from Witchfell, where people were pale of skin and seemingly-incapable of developing a tan. That lineage had long been diluted through the family marrying off its children to people from Eventide. However, it was on proud display in the Painter’s appearance.

He was as pale as the paint of his house and his lips were a weak red that looked almost beige. His eyes were like two pieces of coal and his hair was black, except for the tips which were amber-brown. Unlike his previous visitor, Mikkel was barefoot and wore shabby clothes, the original colour of which were obscured behind paint spatters that must’ve built up over many years.

Ashlan didn’t know any Painters, but he thought for sure they were more refined than this man. But one thing was immediately clear to him: Mikkel Bramblethorn lived only for his craft. The way his black eyes were locked onto the canvas, while his arm moved with deft strokes of his brush, was like an obsessed madman. His body, which was frail and thin, moved with passion and enthusiasm as he worked.

Maybe I won’t be able to get him to open the door for me, Ashlan considered.

Then he had a realisation.

He called his workshop Moongazing Art for a reason. After all, the windows are pointing towards where the sun will rise. But the moon also rises in the east. And this garden and the chair, I think it all serves the purpose of watching the moon at night.

Ashlan immediately went over and laid the chair down on its side.

Even if he’s too focused now, he will notice this when he inevitably stops to stare at the moon. I’m sure the sight will drive him to leave his house.

And when he comes to fix it, I can kill him.

Or well…

That is a strategy.

I think I will continue to observe.

It’s no doubt best to find the Unsanctioned Artefact first, if he has it hidden away somewhere I can’t find it.

And how I’ll kill him remains up in the air for now. If I just stab him in the neck with my dagger, it’ll be impossible to claim the additional reward of making it look like an accident. Not to mention, I might bring the wrath of his family down on me.

Yeah… Observing is the best option for now.

After coming up with his plan, Ashlan sat down in the shadow of a small tree and its canopy. From here, he could watch the pond and chair, as well as the window into the workshop.

This will take a while, he realised.

He pulled out the pear he’d stolen and took a bite.

Afternoon became evening, which then became night, before the moon’s light peeked above the distant walls of Eventide, setting a silver tint to every part of the city that wasn’t lit up with torches. This particular part of the Craft district was left fairly-dark, with hardly any light from any of the nearby buildings.

Opposite where the Merchant had a fruit shop and past the fence near where Ashlan lurked, was a Wainwright. The workshop had been closed all day and even at night there was no one inside the simple one-storey building. On the other side of the street to the south was a large Furrier’s workshop and though there was a warm glow coming out through its small windows, it was not enough to overpower the moon. Lastly, on its northern side lay a Brewery, which was a two-storey dark block of stone, with just a smoking chimney to show that there was activity within. Basically, the area was perfect for someone who liked to let the moon’s light wash over them.

I wonder if that’s something the System would mark as troubling.

Most people compared the System with the light of the sun, as it had pulled humans out of the darkness of the past, figuratively and literally, if the stories were to be believed. Nations and cities had earnt their names during this Dark Age, or so the myths explained. It was why Eventide was such an ill-fitting name for the city and nation he lived in, and why so many of the old families had evil-sounding and sinister names.

To people, who believed that the System was the saviour of all mankind and that its bestowal of Assignments was bringing light to their lives, it meant that the moon naturally became associated with the darkness of the past. To those who listened to the sermons of the Chaplains, the comparison of the moon and evil was an obvious thing. It was often said that it shone with a false light as though to tempt people into sin.

System, is the moon a symbol of evil?

[To some, it is perceived as a dark guide.]

Was this Painter made a target because he enjoys moonlight?

[No.]

Suddenly the sound of a door caught Ashlan’s ear. His eyes flicked to the large windows and he saw that Mikkel Bramblethorn had abandoned his easel.

With hurried steps, the Painter came around the building, walking barefoot through the grass.

“Why are you lying down?” he muttered, as he came over to the chair Ashlan had knocked over.

Mikkel looked around with a crazed and frantic gaze. As it passed over where he was lurking, Ashlan let out a small sigh of relief. He was only a few metres away and utterly invisible to the man, which made his work much easier going forward.

After setting the chair back upright, the Painter sat down and fixed his stare on the moon.

“You’ve come to visit me again, my muse?”

Alright, this guy is clearly not all there…

Ashlan slinked out of the tree’s shadow and into the one created by the northern wall. But as he moved briefly through the moonlight, he realised that it did not dispel his Lurk like sunlight would.

Convenient, he thought, finding himself unable to suppress a grin.

The more he learnt about his Skill, the less worried he was about his F-tier Assignment. After all, it seemed to work against almost anyone, so long as they didn’t have spotting Skills like those of a Hunter, Archer, or Tracker.

Ashlan quickly hurried to the door of the workshop. He slowly depressed the metal door handle, worried that it might not have been left unlocked if the Painter was paranoid. But those worries were washed away when it opened for him. Without releasing the handle, he pulled the door open just enough to squeeze inside, then gripped the handle on the other side and used it to close the door, before carefully releasing the pressure on it.

Phew…

Ashlan noticed a stink.

What is that smell?

He snuck through the interior lit only by small candles, before entering the main room, which was six metres from floor to ceiling. Within, easels of varying sizes filled every available bit of floor and dozens of paintings were in the middle of being made, with the large easel in the back showing a massive canvas.

A powerful sense of dread gripped Ashlan as he beheld what it was depicting. Then he looked out through the windows and saw that the chair by the pond was empty.

The sound of the door opening sent him scrambling for somewhere dark to hide. After a few frantic seconds, he ended up in an unlit corner of the tall room as Mikkel Bramblethorn entered. The Painter shambled towards his large canvas and picked up his brush to continue adding details to it.

Upon the frame was the most horrific sight Ashlan had ever seen. Most disturbing was the fact that parts of it were moving and screaming silently.

[This is the work of an Unsanctioned Artefact.]

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I'm struggling a bit with writing this story lately because I'm super busy with editing and school, so the releases will be less frequent as a result. I'm also considering when I want to publish this story next year. I may end up investing more time into Loopshard and continue this in the background.

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---Next chapter----