The Token Beneath Depel
The gates of Depel.
Two guards were checking the papers of everyone entering the city. I knew a few coins slipped into the right palm would get even the undocumented through without a fuss, but there was no need. I simply produced my Academy student ID, and they waved me past without a second glance.
This was the closest city to the old guild hideout, a place I had leaned on more times than I could count. Even though I didn’t know a single face here now, there wasn’t a single alley or backstreet I couldn’t navigate blindfolded.
My destination, though, wasn’t inside the city walls. It was the guild hideout outside them. No matter how well-hidden the place was, walking up to it in broad daylight was out of the question. So I picked a decent-looking inn and took a room.
“Second floor, middle room. Meals aren’t included, so order what you want. You can eat out if you like, but you won’t find better than what we serve here.”
“I’ll let you know if I get hungry.”
I already knew the cooking here wasn’t anything special, but there was no point saying so. It wasn’t inedible, at least.
Key in hand, I climbed the stairs. The narrow room held a worn bed, a small table, and a single clothes rack—just enough to call it a room. Back in my assassin days I would have been grateful for even this much privacy. A few months at the Academy had ruined me for that kind of gratitude.
I tossed my light pack onto the table and dropped onto the bed. A familiar dusty smell hit my nose. No—just dust from the blanket. I fanned it away with my hand and sat up again.
Spending hours cooped up in this dingy corner sounded worse than going out. I left the inn. The owner’s voice chased after me, insisting their food was excellent. I pretended not to hear.
Depel’s streets felt both intimately familiar and strangely new. Only a few months had passed since I last walked them, yet some shops had vanished while others had expanded into something twice their former size.
I stopped by a weapons shop to have my sword cleaned, browsed a bookstore and put a novel back after hearing the price, then ducked into a café when my throat got dry. By the time I finished killing hours, the sun was already setting.
Time to head back and prepare for the real outing.
The innkeeper asked if I wanted dinner the moment I returned. It was the third time he’d asked. I surrendered to the persistence.
“Something you’re confident in, within three silver.”
“Oh, the young lady’s got a generous hand. And what about this?” He twisted his wrist twice in front of his face, the universal gesture for a drink.
I was old enough to drink, but with a visit to the hideout still ahead, alcohol was a bad idea.
“No need.”
“Got it. Wait just a bit. I’ll bring out my finest.”
He handed the counter to his wife, who had been clearing tables, and disappeared into the kitchen. A man that size cooking? I tried to picture it and failed.
Before long, a mouth-watering aroma drifted out of the kitchen, followed by several respectable-looking plates set before me. I’d wondered why he’d called three silver “generous.” Now I understood my sense of money had gotten a little warped.
At the Academy the cheapest dish cost one silver; the meals I usually shared with friends ran five. Even that single silver could buy a solid meal for a commoner. Ordering three silver’s worth alone as a young woman…
The innkeeper had clearly aimed for quality over quantity, yet the portions still looked like a lot for one person. One spoonful of soup, one forkful of potato, one bite of meat later, my opinion flipped completely.
In my memory this inn’s cooking had been merely passable. What I was eating now could slap a restaurant chef across the face three times and still leave him apologizing.
“Well? Glad you didn’t eat out, aren’t you?”
“A few months ago he kept saying the place would go under if he didn’t change something. He’s been living in that kitchen ever since, and this is what came out of it.”
A few months really wasn’t such a short time after all.
I knew better than to eat until I was full when I still had work to do, but I scraped every plate clean anyway.
Dressed in my assassin’s gear, I slipped out of the city.
Guards still stood at the gates even in the dead of night, but staying hidden was no trouble at all. I left the well-kept road behind and headed into the mountains.
The undergrowth had grown thicker, yet finding the guild hideout halfway up the slope was still easy. A single cabin sat in a blind spot no ordinary mountain path would ever reveal.
Other assassin groups ran businesses to stay under the radar. Ours looked like this. Assassination requests had already been scarce; if we’d at least had a side venture like the others, the finances might not have been so constantly desperate.
From the outside it looked like a hunter’s modest cabin, but the basement hidden beneath was surprisingly spacious. Remembering that every board and stone had been paid for with the blood and sweat of our members made it almost impressive that the place was still standing.
I kept my distance, climbed a tree, and surveyed the surroundings. No Deretia family soldiers stood watch the way they once had, but I kept my stealth up just in case and slipped inside.
No presence. The corpses of the guild members who had been left sprawled across the floor were gone; only occasional bloodstains remained.
Slowly, prepared to spend the entire night if necessary, I searched every corner of the hideout. Unless the Guild Master had kept a secret room only he knew about, I checked every place I remembered. Nothing useful turned up. Whether the guild had simply been too poor to own anything worth taking, or someone else had already stripped the place bare, almost everything of value was gone.
The one thing I did recover from a hidden space was a small token. A skull with a gold coin clenched in its teeth was engraved on it. That alone was worth taking. With this, I could enter the real Depel.
Still, before leaving I searched one last time for the scroll bearing my Master-Servant Imprint. As expected, it was nowhere to be found.
In the very center of Depel stood a building larger and more lavish than any other—larger even than the lord’s manor. Even in the middle of the night its lights blazed. The only mercy was the soundproofing magic that kept the noise from spilling into the streets.
Step inside and you entered the most glittering, most rotten place in the city.
A gambling hall where money no longer looked like money. It was technically legal, whatever the backroom deals that kept it that way, but my business wasn’t on the ground floor where the dice rolled. It was below.
I wound through the maze of corridors inside the building until I reached a door tucked into the farthest corner. Two men who looked like they knew their way around a blade stood guard with absolute focus.
The moment I approached they dropped hands to their sword hilts. I simply held up the token I’d taken from the hideout. Their hands fell away at once. They still took the token, turned it over, examined both sides thoroughly, and only then stepped aside.
They didn’t even open the door for me. I did it myself. Instead of a room, a staircase leading down appeared.
I had been here only once before, trailing after the Guild Master. Until that day I hadn’t even known a place like this existed under Depel, or that a token was required to enter.
Everything lived in the underground of this building—of Depel itself. Illegal gambling dens that dwarfed anything above. Auction houses where goods of murky origin changed hands. People sold as toys, reduced to something less than slaves. Brothels where a single night cost more than most earned in a month. All of it thrived down here.
Our assassin guild hadn’t been poor by accident. Depel’s nature meant we were far from the only killers in town. We never went so far as open warfare, but competition still pushed us down the ladder until we were left with nothing but the lowest-tier contracts.
That was why the request to assassinate Cielian had been a matter of life and death for the guild.
All of that was ancient history now.
I asked a nearby attendant for directions and headed for my destination.
The general store.
True to its name, it bought and sold everything under the sun. The owner asked no questions about illegal or dangerous goods, and if a customer wanted something, anything, it would be sold—people, objects, information, it made no difference.
A waiting clerk guided me to a short queue, then confirmed my turn and led me into the trading room. For an illegal marketplace the place looked almost ordinary, aside from the slightly dim lighting.
I stepped inside, looked at the sales clerk’s face, and froze without meaning to.
“Is something the matter, customer?”
It was the same elf who had been groping my thigh in the carriage earlier.
…Why the hell was an elf working in a place like this?