Most of the day was spent in reconnaissance. Rilien had left Aurora to talking with the other mages, mostly, because those were conversations that could be useful and it was more important that he get a precise sense of the layout of the Gallows. Heād been here before, of courseāhe could have walked right in as himself, and no one would have blinked. But to complete this assignment, he needed access to the place at night, including places he would not be able to access after the boats stopped running for the day.
This skulking about had allowed him access to two crucial pieces of information: Meredith was everywhere followed by two other Templars, which he figured would most likely translate to a guard outside her quarters at night, and her quarters themselves were located towards the back of the Templar barracks, a place that would be difficult to access at any time but the very dead of night, when most of the people in it were asleep and the guards could be dispatched quietly. Fortunately, heād guessed at that much, and was adequately prepared. A mere distraction would not do, for that ran the risk of awakening Meredith herself. This had to be done so quietly it wasnāt noticed until he and Aurora were long gone. Failing that, any smokescreen for their escape would need to happen after he had what he needed.
A plan coalescing in his mind, he returned to Aurora and the other mages, milling about the outdoor area as usual, under the watchful eye of the Templars. It was something heād seen dozens, if not hundreds, of times from the outside by this point, but it was quite different from the Orlesian Circle heād briefly resided in.
"H-hey Maria. Everything okay?ā It wasnāt such an unusual question to ask in a situation like this, but Rilien actually did intend to check and make sure she was holding up well. He might not get nervous himself, but it was not an inexplicable reaction to have for someone else.
"Yeah... I'm fine," she answered. Despite the words, she seemed down and lacked the usual enthusiasm she possessed. While it could've been mistaken for an act, and she did use it as such, Aurora actually felt somewhat depressed being in the Circle. It wasn't the feeling of being trapped, she trusted that Rilien would get them out when it was time, it was being faced with what the mages endured. She'd forgotten about the weight of the templar's gaze and the lack of control they had in the Circle. Unlike Rilien she'd never been in the Gallows. The only exposure she had was from other mages who had escaped and the fact that it loomed in the horizon across the port.
Still, they had come to do a job, and she would not let how she felt affect that. Readjusting her robes on her shoulder and turned toward him and shot him a smile. "Well Arron? Did you enjoy your little tour?"
He nodded a couple of times, though one corner of his mouth was pulled down into a grimace. "Sure? I mean, itās different than what weāre used to, but I think I know my way around now.ā
Night had fallen, and the two of them were shuttled away into dormitories according to the ranks on their paperwork, which fortunately were not too far away from one another. Rilien had told Aurora to wait for him to swing by where hers were, at which point heād explain things a little more clearly. There was only so much he could convey with the Templars around, and he was sure to wait until two hours after midnight before he moved, ensuring that as few people would be awake as possible.
Heād been listening for Templar boots outside his door all night, and had a fair sense that a patrol passed by his quarters about once every fifteen minutes. It was a bit of a tight fit, but it gave him enough time to do what he wanted if he didnāt hesitate, and so after one such patrol went by, he slipped out of the room after it, keeping himself close to the edge of the walls in the corridor, counting the doors down the hall until he came upon Auroraās. Tapping quietly on the door, he moved away from it to stand in one of the hallwayās long shadows, lit as they were only by the occasional dim magelight, out of deference for the hour.
A moment later, Aurora opened the door as quickly as she dared, and glanced down both ends of the hall. Satisfied that the templars were not in sight, she slipped out of the door and quietly shut it behind, turning and looking expectantly at Rilien.
"Follow me and donāt move without my signal.āRilienās voice was low, but not a whisper, because those tended to echo, and that was the last thing they wanted to do. "Weāre going to avoid what guards we can, but if we must engage, do so as quietly as possible. Prevent them from sounding the alarm at all costs.ā Ideally, they wouldnāt have to kill anyone, but if doing so became necessary in order to get them both out of this situation with what they needed, then he had no issues whatsoever doing so. But given his expertise and her training, he expected that as long as they planned their moves carefully, they could simply knock the guards out and hide them out of the way enough that their absence would not be immediately noted.
From his sleeve, he pulled a glass flask. "Wet your sleeve with this. If you cover someoneās nose and mouth with it, a few inhalations will be enough to cause unconsciousness.ā The hem of his own was already damp, and he briefly mimed bringing it around from behind someone and pressing it to their face. Once sheād had the time to apply part of the flask in whatever fashion she deemed appropriate, he started the two of them to the north.
The first major obstacle would be getting into the Templar quarters themselves. They were technically separated from the mage ones, but this way, the separation was only really a door. They dare not keep the Templars too far from their charges, after all, so it made sense that the two buildings were connected. The mage side of the connection of course contained a guard, in this case simply a pair of footsoldiers. The hall itself was wide, flanked by columns that threw shadows, and that would be of some advantage. Sneaking up on the Templars would be extremely difficult, however, because they were right in front of the door, meaning that anything coming at them would do so from the front.
Thinking quickly, Rilien turned to Aurora, pointing at the cold-fire torch lighting the left side of the hallway. He drew a finger across his throat, indicating that she should, so to speak, kill the light. It wasnāt the only one in the corridor, but total darkness wasnāt his intention.
Aurora followed the best that she could, but she was not suited to stealth. She found herself spending most of her time trying to not make any loud noises. When he stopped, so did she, and his pointing drew her eyes toward the magelight. Understanding his meaning, she reached out with her hand and and manipulated the fade around it, snuffing the light out. Once done, she withdrew her arm and pressed herself against the nearby wall.
The effect was almost immediate. āHuh?ā One of the Templars at the end of the hall squinted down the corridor. Both he and his counterpart wore no helmet, making his dark head of hair and young features readily obvious. āOne of the lights went out.ā
The second man looked a bit older, his hair a peppered sandy brown and lines of age or strain, it was hard to say, remaining permanently at the corners of his eyes. āHappens sometimes. Apprentices canāt always get the magic to work right.ā Still, his mouth thinned a bit, and he sighed. āBetter check it anyway. The Knight-Commanderās beenā¦ picky, since what happened to Grath.ā
āLike she wasnāt before?ā The other one sounded weary, but being the younger, took it upon himself to head down the hall to check the dead light. Rilien motioned for Aurora to deal with him while he took on the slightly more difficult task of trying to get a better angle on the older Templar. Given that both men had their eyes fixed on the spot the first approached, it wasnāt too hard to slip into the shadow of a column, moving in a sort of start and stop rhythm that was more like breathing than the steady tread forward of a normal personāit had moments of complete stillness, and even a couple instances of backtrack, but it was still automatic and free of doubt.
He knew he had to strike first, and so he did, melting out of the darkened side of the hall and immediately pressing his sleeve over the Templarās nose and mouth. A muffled cry was the only sound that escaped, but it was enough to get his partner to turn around, which should create an opportunity for Aurora to move around behind him. The older man went slack in his grip, and Rilien lowered him carefully to the floor, dragging him into the deeper dark of the corridor, so he wouldnāt be plainly visible. Heād be discovered on a sufficiently-close inspection, of course, but that wasnāt anything he could do anything about. They didnāt need all night, just a bit of time.
Aurora struck just as quickly, grabbing the wet spot on her sleeve with a hand and leaping from the shadows onto the templar's back. She wrapped her arms around the templar's face, pressing the chemicals on her sleeve into his mouth and nose. A muffled cry was the only thing he managed before he slipped into unconsciousness, and lowering Aurora back to the ground. She held him so that he didn't collapse into a pile at her feet and make a racket with his arm striking the stones.
She then dragged him only a short way to lean him up against a shadowed wall. She could not drag him any further without scrapping the stones with his armor, and she was not strong enough to heft an entire man and his armor, so it would have to do. Afterwards, she quickly returned to Rilien and gestured for him to continue. He knew what they were doing a lot better than she did.
The rest wasnāt so bad. The Templars felt no need to patrol their own quarters, at least, so the halls were empty except for the two guards near Meredithās door, and these were dispatched in a similar manner to the two before, though this time, the floor was padded with a carpet runner, and so between himself and Aurora, they were able to drag both into an adjacent room so they wouldnāt simply be laying there in the hallway.
Meredithās door was locked, of course, and it was surprisingly intricate for an ordinary door lock, which he attributed to the womanās growing paranoia. What actually succeeded in disturbing Rilien, however, was the sense he was getting from something in the room. It was familiar, somehow, but not exactly the same as anything he remembered. It felt like lyrium, butā¦ different. Tainted, somehow, and it was actually causing him to feel a degree of nausea. He didnāt know what it was, but it represented an unusual factor, one he had not known to account for, and that was a little bitā¦ unsettling, even for him.
It took him longer than it should have to open the door, and he had to take several pauses to breathe deeply, his head swimming in a strange way it had not for a very long time. When the lock finally gave way, he turned to Aurora. "Stay here. Iāll be back momentarily. If something happens to me, run.ā He didnāt foresee it, but it was certainly possible.
Slipping into the chamber, he was hit with a fresh wave of dizziness, and actually stumbled backwards into a wall, thankfully making little more than a rustle, considering his manner of dress. His stomach was protesting his proximity toā¦ whatever it was, and Rilien took an unusually ragged gulp of air, forcing himself to be steady, even though his limbs had started to quake.
It didnāt take too long to identify the source of the problemāMeredithās blade was propped up on the wall immediately beside her bed, letting off an ill reddish light. He dare not get any closer to it than he already had, and so he chose to approach from the opposite side, drawing a short knife and an inky-black feather from his left sleeve. The feather, he deposited on the bedside table, and with the knife, he approached the slumbering Knight-Commander.
She looked exceedingly human, divested of all the markers of her rank and power, as any other woman nearing her fifties might look. It struck him, not for the first time, that he could solve many problems by drawing this knife across her jugular vein. She would be dead before any healer had a hope of saving her. In doing so, he would be removing a thorn from Auroraās side, and Sparrowās, and in some way Lucienās, through Sophia, maybe. It would be extremely simple, well within his capabilities. How much work had he done, arranging things as well as he could so that their lives could be lived with as few interruptions and obstacles as possible? And here slept a very great obstacle indeed.
Rilien reached forward; the blade of the knife flashed in the dark.
When he closed the door behind him again, he was covered in a sheen of perspirationāthe effect of whatever strange lyrium comprised Meredithās longblade, but he was unscathedāfor now. He nodded to Aurora. Now was the time to get out.
Some hour and a half later, when Aurora headed back towards her own home, she had another envelope in her possession, one that read Golden thread, from a leader of men. It included, as indicated, a lock of hair about an inch thick and sunny-blonde in hue.
It left, by his count, one more task.
This skulking about had allowed him access to two crucial pieces of information: Meredith was everywhere followed by two other Templars, which he figured would most likely translate to a guard outside her quarters at night, and her quarters themselves were located towards the back of the Templar barracks, a place that would be difficult to access at any time but the very dead of night, when most of the people in it were asleep and the guards could be dispatched quietly. Fortunately, heād guessed at that much, and was adequately prepared. A mere distraction would not do, for that ran the risk of awakening Meredith herself. This had to be done so quietly it wasnāt noticed until he and Aurora were long gone. Failing that, any smokescreen for their escape would need to happen after he had what he needed.
A plan coalescing in his mind, he returned to Aurora and the other mages, milling about the outdoor area as usual, under the watchful eye of the Templars. It was something heād seen dozens, if not hundreds, of times from the outside by this point, but it was quite different from the Orlesian Circle heād briefly resided in.
"H-hey Maria. Everything okay?ā It wasnāt such an unusual question to ask in a situation like this, but Rilien actually did intend to check and make sure she was holding up well. He might not get nervous himself, but it was not an inexplicable reaction to have for someone else.
"Yeah... I'm fine," she answered. Despite the words, she seemed down and lacked the usual enthusiasm she possessed. While it could've been mistaken for an act, and she did use it as such, Aurora actually felt somewhat depressed being in the Circle. It wasn't the feeling of being trapped, she trusted that Rilien would get them out when it was time, it was being faced with what the mages endured. She'd forgotten about the weight of the templar's gaze and the lack of control they had in the Circle. Unlike Rilien she'd never been in the Gallows. The only exposure she had was from other mages who had escaped and the fact that it loomed in the horizon across the port.
Still, they had come to do a job, and she would not let how she felt affect that. Readjusting her robes on her shoulder and turned toward him and shot him a smile. "Well Arron? Did you enjoy your little tour?"
He nodded a couple of times, though one corner of his mouth was pulled down into a grimace. "Sure? I mean, itās different than what weāre used to, but I think I know my way around now.ā
Night had fallen, and the two of them were shuttled away into dormitories according to the ranks on their paperwork, which fortunately were not too far away from one another. Rilien had told Aurora to wait for him to swing by where hers were, at which point heād explain things a little more clearly. There was only so much he could convey with the Templars around, and he was sure to wait until two hours after midnight before he moved, ensuring that as few people would be awake as possible.
Heād been listening for Templar boots outside his door all night, and had a fair sense that a patrol passed by his quarters about once every fifteen minutes. It was a bit of a tight fit, but it gave him enough time to do what he wanted if he didnāt hesitate, and so after one such patrol went by, he slipped out of the room after it, keeping himself close to the edge of the walls in the corridor, counting the doors down the hall until he came upon Auroraās. Tapping quietly on the door, he moved away from it to stand in one of the hallwayās long shadows, lit as they were only by the occasional dim magelight, out of deference for the hour.
A moment later, Aurora opened the door as quickly as she dared, and glanced down both ends of the hall. Satisfied that the templars were not in sight, she slipped out of the door and quietly shut it behind, turning and looking expectantly at Rilien.
"Follow me and donāt move without my signal.āRilienās voice was low, but not a whisper, because those tended to echo, and that was the last thing they wanted to do. "Weāre going to avoid what guards we can, but if we must engage, do so as quietly as possible. Prevent them from sounding the alarm at all costs.ā Ideally, they wouldnāt have to kill anyone, but if doing so became necessary in order to get them both out of this situation with what they needed, then he had no issues whatsoever doing so. But given his expertise and her training, he expected that as long as they planned their moves carefully, they could simply knock the guards out and hide them out of the way enough that their absence would not be immediately noted.
From his sleeve, he pulled a glass flask. "Wet your sleeve with this. If you cover someoneās nose and mouth with it, a few inhalations will be enough to cause unconsciousness.ā The hem of his own was already damp, and he briefly mimed bringing it around from behind someone and pressing it to their face. Once sheād had the time to apply part of the flask in whatever fashion she deemed appropriate, he started the two of them to the north.
The first major obstacle would be getting into the Templar quarters themselves. They were technically separated from the mage ones, but this way, the separation was only really a door. They dare not keep the Templars too far from their charges, after all, so it made sense that the two buildings were connected. The mage side of the connection of course contained a guard, in this case simply a pair of footsoldiers. The hall itself was wide, flanked by columns that threw shadows, and that would be of some advantage. Sneaking up on the Templars would be extremely difficult, however, because they were right in front of the door, meaning that anything coming at them would do so from the front.
Thinking quickly, Rilien turned to Aurora, pointing at the cold-fire torch lighting the left side of the hallway. He drew a finger across his throat, indicating that she should, so to speak, kill the light. It wasnāt the only one in the corridor, but total darkness wasnāt his intention.
Aurora followed the best that she could, but she was not suited to stealth. She found herself spending most of her time trying to not make any loud noises. When he stopped, so did she, and his pointing drew her eyes toward the magelight. Understanding his meaning, she reached out with her hand and and manipulated the fade around it, snuffing the light out. Once done, she withdrew her arm and pressed herself against the nearby wall.
The effect was almost immediate. āHuh?ā One of the Templars at the end of the hall squinted down the corridor. Both he and his counterpart wore no helmet, making his dark head of hair and young features readily obvious. āOne of the lights went out.ā
The second man looked a bit older, his hair a peppered sandy brown and lines of age or strain, it was hard to say, remaining permanently at the corners of his eyes. āHappens sometimes. Apprentices canāt always get the magic to work right.ā Still, his mouth thinned a bit, and he sighed. āBetter check it anyway. The Knight-Commanderās beenā¦ picky, since what happened to Grath.ā
āLike she wasnāt before?ā The other one sounded weary, but being the younger, took it upon himself to head down the hall to check the dead light. Rilien motioned for Aurora to deal with him while he took on the slightly more difficult task of trying to get a better angle on the older Templar. Given that both men had their eyes fixed on the spot the first approached, it wasnāt too hard to slip into the shadow of a column, moving in a sort of start and stop rhythm that was more like breathing than the steady tread forward of a normal personāit had moments of complete stillness, and even a couple instances of backtrack, but it was still automatic and free of doubt.
He knew he had to strike first, and so he did, melting out of the darkened side of the hall and immediately pressing his sleeve over the Templarās nose and mouth. A muffled cry was the only sound that escaped, but it was enough to get his partner to turn around, which should create an opportunity for Aurora to move around behind him. The older man went slack in his grip, and Rilien lowered him carefully to the floor, dragging him into the deeper dark of the corridor, so he wouldnāt be plainly visible. Heād be discovered on a sufficiently-close inspection, of course, but that wasnāt anything he could do anything about. They didnāt need all night, just a bit of time.
Aurora struck just as quickly, grabbing the wet spot on her sleeve with a hand and leaping from the shadows onto the templar's back. She wrapped her arms around the templar's face, pressing the chemicals on her sleeve into his mouth and nose. A muffled cry was the only thing he managed before he slipped into unconsciousness, and lowering Aurora back to the ground. She held him so that he didn't collapse into a pile at her feet and make a racket with his arm striking the stones.
She then dragged him only a short way to lean him up against a shadowed wall. She could not drag him any further without scrapping the stones with his armor, and she was not strong enough to heft an entire man and his armor, so it would have to do. Afterwards, she quickly returned to Rilien and gestured for him to continue. He knew what they were doing a lot better than she did.
The rest wasnāt so bad. The Templars felt no need to patrol their own quarters, at least, so the halls were empty except for the two guards near Meredithās door, and these were dispatched in a similar manner to the two before, though this time, the floor was padded with a carpet runner, and so between himself and Aurora, they were able to drag both into an adjacent room so they wouldnāt simply be laying there in the hallway.
Meredithās door was locked, of course, and it was surprisingly intricate for an ordinary door lock, which he attributed to the womanās growing paranoia. What actually succeeded in disturbing Rilien, however, was the sense he was getting from something in the room. It was familiar, somehow, but not exactly the same as anything he remembered. It felt like lyrium, butā¦ different. Tainted, somehow, and it was actually causing him to feel a degree of nausea. He didnāt know what it was, but it represented an unusual factor, one he had not known to account for, and that was a little bitā¦ unsettling, even for him.
It took him longer than it should have to open the door, and he had to take several pauses to breathe deeply, his head swimming in a strange way it had not for a very long time. When the lock finally gave way, he turned to Aurora. "Stay here. Iāll be back momentarily. If something happens to me, run.ā He didnāt foresee it, but it was certainly possible.
Slipping into the chamber, he was hit with a fresh wave of dizziness, and actually stumbled backwards into a wall, thankfully making little more than a rustle, considering his manner of dress. His stomach was protesting his proximity toā¦ whatever it was, and Rilien took an unusually ragged gulp of air, forcing himself to be steady, even though his limbs had started to quake.
It didnāt take too long to identify the source of the problemāMeredithās blade was propped up on the wall immediately beside her bed, letting off an ill reddish light. He dare not get any closer to it than he already had, and so he chose to approach from the opposite side, drawing a short knife and an inky-black feather from his left sleeve. The feather, he deposited on the bedside table, and with the knife, he approached the slumbering Knight-Commander.
She looked exceedingly human, divested of all the markers of her rank and power, as any other woman nearing her fifties might look. It struck him, not for the first time, that he could solve many problems by drawing this knife across her jugular vein. She would be dead before any healer had a hope of saving her. In doing so, he would be removing a thorn from Auroraās side, and Sparrowās, and in some way Lucienās, through Sophia, maybe. It would be extremely simple, well within his capabilities. How much work had he done, arranging things as well as he could so that their lives could be lived with as few interruptions and obstacles as possible? And here slept a very great obstacle indeed.
Rilien reached forward; the blade of the knife flashed in the dark.
When he closed the door behind him again, he was covered in a sheen of perspirationāthe effect of whatever strange lyrium comprised Meredithās longblade, but he was unscathedāfor now. He nodded to Aurora. Now was the time to get out.
Some hour and a half later, when Aurora headed back towards her own home, she had another envelope in her possession, one that read Golden thread, from a leader of men. It included, as indicated, a lock of hair about an inch thick and sunny-blonde in hue.
It left, by his count, one more task.