*click*
*click*
*click*
A set of footsteps runs a across the rooftops, scaling uneven surfaces with mastery, leaving only slight clicks of old and loose roof tiles shifting under his weight, traversing with a master like grace.
The man, the one who's footsteps heard by 'no one' but himself, leaps across the buildings as if forgetting his human instincts to be afraid to fall.
Disappearing then reappearing on another surface only when gravity starts taking affect and pulling him to the ground.
Appearing on another roof, he looks down upon two thugs in familiar looking attire, drawing his recognition.
But in front of them is a boarded up door frame, a man's voice shouting and begging to the men in front of him.
"Let me out!! I'm fine! I just have a cold." He announces out in desperation.
"Are you sure? That's not what we heard. And you know we have to check you over."
One of the two gangsters spits out in mockery, a grin covering his face.
"And there's an inspection free, can you afford to pay, hmmm?"
"Hahahaha."
They mock the old man who starts patheticly sobbing to himself in despair.
Despair the quickly transforms into anger full hate, causing him to lash out and start a fight he can't win.
"To the Void with Bottle Street and to the Void with you! Let me out!"
"Hmmm? You mocking the bottle street you plague ridden rat? You wanna die?"
One of the two men starts falling for the Provocation, squaring up to the gaps in the wood and glaring at the old man.
Who promptly squeals quietly and back steps away, doing right by the insult given to him by the thug.
"Relax man, Who care what some guy says. His opinion doesn't matter. Besides, he will get what's coming to him sooner rather than later haha."
His buddy quickly calms him down though, causing the two of them to laugh ominously.
The man in the shadows silently watches, quickly gets bored of this back and forth exchange. So he does the smart thing available and vaults over the railing, straight of the high building he was standing on, and plungages to the ground all the while letting gravity take its due.
But within a blink of an eye, his body flickers and appears on the ground faster than the primordial force can drag him.
Though since he still picked up some momentum while falling, it carried over while him in his disappearance, causing his appearance to mark the ground with a cloud of dust and produce a loud noise that alerted the two men.
Almost with mechanical slowness, the two turn around and glare at the masked man in annoyance, but with an undertone of fear in their eyes.
"Huh? Who's this fucker then."
One of the duo voices out loud in an abnoxious way.
No reply comes from the masked man though, putting the two in alert, pulling out there swords and a bottle of alcohol, producing a smell that can felt meters away.
"Oi. This is bottle street territory, leave now or die."
But they are once more ignored by the man.
Though what happens next draws the ire of the two instantly and making a sprout of fear quickly blossom in their minds.
"Discusting void creature. Get away, or you'll face the entire bottle street gang, and even you won't survive the exchange."
The masked man produces a swirling mix of blue and orange cloud, makes it swirl and condense in his palm to forms a heart with various machanical parts fused into it with sickening precision.
It beats and vibrates in his hand, producing a meleody that can only be heard and understood by him, listening to it before deciding the answer to his next course of action .
In the next moment, As suddenly as the heart manifested, it crumbles back into smoke, fusing back into his body.
He slowly lifts his head, looking both at and through the two scared thugs, the tattoo on his hand lighting up briefly and ….
*poof*
… he disappears out of sight.
But in the instant of his disappearance a blur, that could only be chalked up to imagination from the speed crossed their eyes out from the corner of thier vision.
They subconsciously process it, following with their bodies, only to be met by a sword to the throat, a bolt to the head.
*thud* *thud*
Their bodies dropping lifelessly to the ground, dead.
____
Corvo currently stands before a large dumpster which he just used to throw away some… unwanted litter. Doing his part in keeping the streets clean and all that.
Though he did aquire some high Ethanol content liquor, which could be sold or used in differening ways….
Anyhow, corvo turns back, looking at the shouting old man locked behind a boarded up door.
"HELLLP!! IM TRAPPED!"
He shouts out to corvo desperately, spotting him taking out the trash through the gaps in the wood.
He walks up the boarded up doorframe, commanding the him in a harsh tone to get out of the way.
"Move."
Before his mark glows and in an instant corvo appears in the room with the man, planks exploding in all directions and corvo nursing a dislocated are while mutting under his breath.
"Fuck.. should of just threw a molatov at it. My fault for being stingy I guess."
Though it goes unheard by the old man, frozen in shock.
"Woahhh what in the void!"
The man shouts, but quickly shuts up upon noticing Corvos arrival.
"l owe you brother. I won't ask about the mask. I wouldn't want my face seen either, pulling a stunt like that.
You know what? I'll return the favor. Come by Griff's shop, that's my business.
…Well, it was, at one time, but now I'm reduced to scavenging things from here and there as the city dies, peddleing my wares out in the street. If you need anything; I wouldn't mind trading For a little money."
The man speaks to Corvo in gratitude, expressing his desire to repay the masked man, then going into a monologue about himself.
The man is broken out of that though and starts speaking again.
"Maybe someday the plague will blow over and everything will go back to normal. But until then it's scavenging For me."
He finishes, looking down in depression at the hard times plaguing the country along with the plague itself.
"Alright then, Griff. Show me you your wares."
Corvo speaks, curious about what the man could have from his times of scavaging.
Excitedly, the old man pulls corvo into the corner and shows him the stock he built up through hardship.
And corvo is a bit shocked, seeing anton sokolov recipe/ blueprint for the health elixir and another for a blueprint that could be used to upgrade the mask further.
'Wait, Why am I shocked? I should know this. I do know this, so why did I forget.'
Corvos heightened mood is brought down on the subject of not only ego death but also amnesia. To forget a great advantage over this world would be disastrous, Corvo doesn't know what he would do should that happen.
"How much for these two blueprints Griff?"
But he ignore it though untill it has to be addressed, deciding it better just to carry on.
"Hmmm. For the first is 250, you know why it would be a bit pricey. For the second 110."
He states as he turns serious like a flip switching as he gets into his element.
Checking his coin pouch and the money he scronged up, but comes short.
"… fuck. Alright I'll buy the first one for 150 but in exchange for paying more, I want you to keep hold of this for me and not selling it to anyone but myself, understand."
Corvo looks at the smiling griff menacingly while slightly threatening him. But griffs smile barely breaks for a second, only nodding in affirmation.
"Understood, sir."
Now, putting away his blueprint he has to look for some money, as he just spent all of his remaining coin. One place quickly comes to mind, which causes him to groan internally at getting further side tracked.
'Well… let's just think of it as a side quest.'
_____
Corvo looks down at the groups of gang members doing various things below him.
Currently he was balancing on pipe running through the bottle street gangs main base of operation…
…With the intention of going in and robbing them.
Although it sounds bad, times are rough. It's not like they are acquired through proper means anyway.
A good percentage of their wealth is either extorted, robbed or will be going into unethical business.
So it's not robbing them, more like relocating the funds to a more useful cause.
It's not like they will miss it anyway? Right?
Enough of the self justification. Corvo sneaks along the big pipes and in through the main entrance, evading the sights of the thugs nearby.
Looking around the corner into the building he can see just as many in the inside compared to the outside. Bringing him nothing but annoyance.
'Agh.. it's going to be difficult, but with blink I should be able to.'
And so, silently corvo disappears from his hiding spot and onto some metal framework hanging from the ceiling, positioning himself both to not fall and neither to make noise. A deceptively difficult manoeuvre.
Then blinking to the next one over. Again and again, only stopping briefly to down a spiritual potion and refill his mana, untill reaching the end of the room.
'Haaah, this is so tedious.'
He inwardly complains in annoyance, before proceeding onwards.
Blinking down to the ground silently, he walks straight through the door barely bothering to sneak anymore.
Finally out of sight.
So before going down and gabbing the goods from the bosses office, Corvo detects a bone charm nearby. To which he brings the heart out guiding him to a point above his head.
The powers of the bone charm being the following:
Swift shadow- noise produced by movent is subdued slightly.
'Noice.'
Corvo thinks to himself, quickly attaching the bone charm to his coat and testing its effects by hoping from feet to feet, barely producing any noise.
'Yeah. Definitely will be usefull, now…'
He brings himself back to focus, ready to do some good old robbing.
—-
He reaches the bosses room quickly, sliding under a hatch besides the locked metal door.
The room consists of a large distillery unit in the corner that taps of a faucet only here to make sure none of the supplie is stolen.
'Unfortunately they met me, or not haha.'
Corvo jokes stupidly to himself as he picks up fresh bottles and fills them up with red liquid , stuffing them in his pockets untill satisfied.
He fills up about ten before his potion pocket starts to get a little to full, only taking one more before hitting the road.
'Alright let's go them.'
As he starts getting ready to leave, this time taking a different exit that brings him to the front door, Corvo spots a glimmer of light hitting off a draw if the desk.
Curiosity begs him for a closer look and he obeys, opening up and finding it stuffed with gold coins.
'Jackpot.'
Greed glimmers brightly in his eyes hidden by the mask.
Untill his emotions Omar's cooled down by facts and logic.
'I can't carry this much and escape from here silently. What I can do though….'
——
Corvo walks out of the bottle street gangs territory with a pouch filled with coins, and having hid a fortune in a place no one will find.
'Haha… now fun times are over. Let's get the blueprint and finally go neutralise my target.'
Corvos thoughts spiral as he remembers his mission and finally stops messing around.
He quickly finds griff hanging about by the place he was locked up in.
"Griff, will you take 8 bottles of sokolovs elixir in exchange for the blueprint."
The first thing out Corvos mouth is a propersistion, making griffs eyes shines and rubs his hands together like the sneaky rat he was.
"Of course of course, good sir."
And with the blueprint finally collected, grabbing the bone charm he forgot to collect and finding it corrupt, he blinks up the building to the Main Street, ready to try the wall of light.
___
Coming face to face with the wall of light impeding his way forward, Corvo is faced with a choice.
Go down in the street and deposed the wall of light by taking the tank of whale oil from its power centre. I'm this scenario he risks earning the attention of the guards, then having to either flee or face the horde of them that will come upon him.
Of course it's not that difficult to get in silently and deposed it. But it will be quickly noticed and an alarm will be sounded drawing more guards.
So, well that only really leaves him with one choice.
Try to make it over the building.
This too is possible with blink, but only after upgrading it, or unlocking a new ability.
'Sigh I was going to save it to get bend time, but oh well I'll need this sooner anyway.'
So corvo grabs the three runes out of the storage bag attached to his coat and holds them in his hand.
One by one going through the same process as he did inside the void, causing them to crumble away, their foreign power stored by flowing along his veins.
But after absorbing the second rune, the presence of the ability for his current needs becomes available inside his mark, but he absorbed the third anyway as it just stays stagnant in his bodie.
So, after sitting down, corvo starts to focus his attention inside his tattoo and draw the power of the runes to condense inside his body.
*shine* *shine*
His mark briefly glowing with a charged light and sending power surging back all across over his body.
With the power comes a feeling of strength, of lightness, as if he could jump and just fly away.
But of course that is just an exaggeration
Now fully motivated by the rush of dopamine brought along with the power, Corvo backs up to give himself a running start.
Getting into position, he launches of with such strength, he leaves a slight dent in the pipe and runs at a speed like never before, then leaps of at the zenith of his momentum.
His jump brings him to soar above the building the pipe was connected to and almost make it to the top, even without blink.
Key word here being almost.
Gravity quickly claims its hold on corvo with a vegence, dragging his body as soon as he reaches the peak.
But he once more ignore it with his rule bending abilities.
'Blink.'
With a thought he is instantly standing on the roof, a view of two streets before his eyes.
One leading to his destination, the other too the golden cat where his daughter Emily us being held.
'No, I can't go there yet. Going now would cause too many questions I can't handle and it's not safe yet. Soon.'
Steeling his resolve, Corvo plucks the though from his mind and faces his direction.
'That way.'
With another running jump, Corvo leaps to the next roof, this time close enough to get there with his now enhanced 'agility' alone
With agility you are granted enhanced running speed, enhanced jumping power as well as a naturally dispering harmful kenetic energy from falls of large heights, lessening fall damage.
>
Corvo quickly descales the building half way, then jumps to the metal building built by the city watch as offices beside him , landing on the roof.
Not feeling like spilling blood everywhere with guards all around, Corvo drops down the hatch and takes the what he can only assume to be a captain out non-lethally, before swiping the rune on the other end, carrying the guard on his shoulder and blinking to the door, finally leading to the high overseers office.
Though only as he makes it to the door does corvo remember that there wasn't only two was to get around.
Looking back past the metal building he sees the street that hooks around the wall of light that would have been easier to cross.
"By the void, am I an idiot… sighhhh."
Now with almost sulky steps, he proceeds.
—-
Upon entering the new district corvo is met with an even bigger silence, different to the one back in the distillery district.
While the latter was dreary, depressing and full of grief. This one is strict full of a fanatical tyranny of order, of discipline.
… this one seemingly more eeiry.
Corvo is brought out of his observation of this place by a science in front of him
"Hello, Martin. I hear the second day is when the skin really starts to come all the way off, is that true? Or is it the itching that really gets you? Or the rats."
A man in a weird looking yellowish gold mask with a runic pattern engraved on the forehead mocks the man in front of him. A man chained up with metal stocks, only holding his head and arms but with chains attached to keep him on his knees.
Though the two of them share a similar modified military outfit coloured in a black tone with gold aspects in patterns all over it
'Oh yeah, havelock told me to save a overseer who was helping our 'cause' and was found out. Guess he's Martian.'
Corvo thinks, recognises him from the description.
"Jasper, isn't it? It's not so bad in here, except I miss your wife" 'Martian' says provoking the overseer in front of him by implying he was sleeping with his wife.
Though the insult seems to fall on deaf ears.
"Ha! You don't scare easy, I'll give you that. But that'll change."
The overseer continues just standing there watching martain, seemingly holding a grudge or something of the sort again the imprisoned man and taking pleasure in his suffering.
Seeing the man leave himself open to his blind spot, Corvo unsheathe his crossbow, loading a tranquilising dart and shooting tbe man in the neck, who swiftly passes out onto the ground below him.
With the enemy neutralised, Corvo throws the other passed out man roughly onto the floor besides the other unconscious guy before walking over to the lever next to martain.
"Pssst! Corvo, it's me. Overseer martain."
He whisper uselessly in a place barren by guards. Though there are guards by the dossen I'm out in the gate in front of them, as long as they don't shout it would be fine.
Martain seems to recognise this as an embarrass look briefly crosses his face before continuing on with what he was going to say.
"What a sight you are in that mask. I know who you are and what you're here to do.
And I can help!
Unlock me and I'll buy you a drink in a couple of days. By the Void, I'll buy you a hundred drinks."
Ignoring his words, Corvo pulls the lever, releasing martain and making him fall to the ground face first.
The sight makes corvo chuckle a bit in amusement before giving the pitiful man a hand up.
"Haha, thank you corvo, feels good standing up straight again."
He says taking Corvos hand to stand up and stretching out his back.
Though the light atmosphere is quickly broken when Overseer martain starts giving corvo advise.
"What you're here to do tonight is of the highest importance. We've got to find Emily, so kill Campbell and make it quick.
Once it's done, search his body for the journal, his notorious black book, and get out of there.
Campbell is meeting with a guard named Curnow, and word From my informant is that campbell aims to poison him. Maybe you can use that to your advantage."
Corvo nods to useless infomation that he already knows, but doesn't see a need to be rude to the freshly escaped man.
"Alright I won't be of any help here, so I'll make my own way back to the Hound Pits Pub. If I see Samuel the Boatman, I'll tell him to pick you up in the backyard. Behind the office to tbe high overseer.
May all the spirits guide you, and may our enemy's head hit the floor without you taking a scratch."
——
Word count: 3,488
*Was meaning to make this chapter dedicated to taking out campbell but I just kept about things I kept rembering.
So next chapter I will take him out.
Let me know if this writing style is alright or if it is one big yap fest. - Author *