Chương 72: (B2.8)

8) Stage Ellen The few who actually paid attention to Ellen when she pushed through the gathered crowd did double takes once they got a look at her. She wasn't surprised, since she was laying dead on the ground right now. Anyone would look twice at that.

"Excuse me! Excuse me! Please! I think that's my sister!" Her calls were able to get more attention on her, and the crowd shuffled aside to give her access. The pleas for their eyes on her were helped along by her new Perk and its rather apt name. She'd never heard of it, but that just made it more interesting.

All Eyes On Me Prerequisite: Perception 9+, Stage Face Perk, Any two Stealth-related Perks, Any Social Perk Effect: Instead of remaining unnoticed through stealth-related Perks and skill, the user may attempt to draw attention to themselves. Watchers will find their eyes drawn to the user, sometimes to the exclusion of anything else.

This is not a mental effect and is not guaranteed, it merely makes the user so noticeable that they will draw the eye, especially for any Perks aimed at detecting unusual surroundings or searching. Not every Perk listed its prerequisites, so it had not been clear until this one had showed up that the System was definitely counting Perks that other Ellens had chosen in selecting what to offer.

As far as Ellen could tell, the attribute minimum for each Perk had to be met by the Ellen who picked it, but any Perks other Ellens had chosen would count. It didn't seem impossible to get for an experienced Performer, but she had still never heard of it. Either it was too specific to have been ever mentioned to her, or there was some other hidden unlock condition that kept it from being selected often. Ellen wasn't sure which, and she would leave that to Bookkeeper Ellen.

She had a lot of things to cover for her own planned growth path, and couldn't distract herself with anything else. The last of the crowd parted before her, and Ellen saw what she'd expected to see. When last she remembered, she'd been picking up some shirts. Suddenly waking up to see someone stabbing a sister she'd never met was not how she'd imagined her next awakening. She'd been the one to smother him with the pillow, even.

Her body lay broken on the paving stones, and she was thankful that the city guard had already covered it. There were three guardsmen here, one with a rank insignia, and they were discussing matters amongst themselves. Ellen could see the officer held the bronze-colored Guild card in one hand, which was likely the point of confusion. A dead girl carrying around a Guild card that wasn't black would be strange. Why would a corpse have a card of an adventurer that wasn't dead?

It was a mystery that wasn't deep, but would certainly draw some raised eyebrows until it was answered. They likely wondered whose card it was, but none could pull the name from it. That required specialized Perks or enchantments. Of course the guards, trained to keep an eye out for anything unusual, immediately looked over toward Ellen. Aside from being identical to the corpse, her Perk was conceptual poison to the kinds of Perks they usually took for keeping an eye on things.

She would have been surprised if he hadn't noticed her.

"That's my sister!" Ellen repeated. She huffed as she reached the three men, although she wasn't really out of breath. She'd come up with a good story on the way, thankfully.

"I was going to go to the bath house, so I told her to take my stuff with her to my room, but then I heard there'd been an accident and just got a bad feeling so I came back here!" It was a flimsy story, but she doubted anyone would blame an upset, breathless girl for rambling a little and saying something that didn't work. Whisper Ellen had assured her of that. Now that she was near, Ellen could make out a fourth guard speaking quietly to a distraught cart owner off to the side.

If not for the timing, she would have thought it possible it was an accident… but she also knew she'd be too careful to end up the victim of a runaway cart unless something else happened. Since she didn't see any small children to have been shoved out of the way at the last second, she presumed foul play. The constable in charge looked Ellen over, then held up the card.

"Is this yours, then?" He wanted proof, obviously, so Ellen tapped the card with a finger, prompting it to reveal her name as proof of ownership over the card. Playing the part of an upset sister, Ellen didn't focus on the result. She kept stepping aside, as if trying to see the body.

Her Stage Face Perk let her project any emotion she could coax herself into feeling as looking more intense, so she just thought of how upset she was over dying again, and that someone had seen fit to assassinate her, to give herself the flushed and frantic look of a girl trying to see if her sister were really dead. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"Trisha? Is she okay? How badly is she hurt?!" Ellen started to ask, stepping forward only for one of the guards to grab her and keep her away, shaking his head. He was trying to say something, but Ellen felt her Perk carrying her away, and she had to blink her eyes free of sudden tears. It felt weird to cry for another Ellen now. She knew Ellen One had done so for Ellen Two, but she hadn't witnessed it, only remembered the signs of tears when Ellen One had returned to camp.

She'd felt sadness for others, but never driven to tears. That was something to think about later. For now, Ellen had a script to follow.

"Miss, come over here while we figure out what happened," one of the guards was saying as he guided her to the side… away from the corpse. Ellen winced internally. If they were being this careful even with the body covered, it was in bad shape. She focused on how upset that made her, instead of angry. Her sister-selves could handle the anger. She just had to keep the attention on herself and trust that the other two followed through on their part. Tam Of all the rotten luck.

It was hard to ignore the crying girl, but Tam had seen enough. He'd seen her touch the card and that the card was still bronze. Their orders had been to eliminate the girl matching that description, but nobody had mentioned they had a twin sister! Now there was no way to know if they'd killed the right one. He hated to admit that Bren was right, but making it look like an accident had been the right call.

If they'd done it his way of "luring her into an alley and stabbing her," the sister currently bawling might have been much more spooked or even left town. This entire job had gotten weirder from the moment they'd taken it, and he had a bad feeling about messing it up. Bren managed to maneuver himself up next to Tam, whispering softly, "What are we going to do now?" Tam just grunted.

"We do the original plan with her then. Get her alone and stab her." Eventually the guards would have figured out that the cart incident could have possibly been something other than an accident, but by then it would have been almost impossible to trace it back to Tam and Bren. The "stab until they stop moving" plan was riskier that way, but they didn't have a lot of time for elaborate plans. He knew Cale wouldn't approve, but Tam just really liked to stab things. Cale didn't get that.

A shame, because he knew Cale was really good at stabbing. Also slashing, but stabbing was just more fun, for so many reasons. Much more satisfying, for one. Tam didn't consider himself violent. Just a man with simple needs. His attention was quickly drawn back to the bawling redhead. Poor girl. It was a pity she'd have to be killed. He didn't have anything against her personally, but he did wonder about the lack of information. Did whomever hired them not know they were twins?

Or had this loud and easily-seen one dominated their attention so much that nobody had noticed the quiet one they'd actually killed? He shrugged. Wouldn't be a problem soon enough. Killing wasn't a typical contract for him… there were better killers around, but a real Assassin usually needed more than a day's lead time to get in touch with, and he knew their client had been in a hurry. More silver for him and his crew.

Doing this might even qualify him to shift to the Assassin Class path once he hit Level 21, but Tam wasn't interested in that. Tam liked stabbing, but making a profession out of killing people for rich jerks didn't sit well with him. A man had to have standards. The girl had started to move, wiping her eyes and walking down the street. Tam nudged Bren, but he didn't move until one of his Perks told him that nobody's eyes were on them.

That was enough to get him to quietly tail the girl, walking across the street from her but keeping an eye on her. It was hard not to glance her way, with the scene she was making from rubbing her eyes and sniffling, but at least that meant everyone else was, too. If she saw Tam looking at her, it would be pretty normal. Occasionally, Tam got that tickling sensation of people looking his way more intently than a casual look should, but they were now well away from the crowd.

It wasn't a particularly alarming amount of attention, and right now he and Bren weren't doing anything but walking. He normally ignored the signals in these situations.

"Huh, what luck," Bren muttered, just as Tam was thinking the same thing. The sniffling girl had paused and rubbed her eyes clear, then looked around and sighed, coming to some kind of decision. That decision had her take a few more steps forward, before turning into an alley.

"Go," he whispered to Bren, who took off running. The girl was moving at a pretty slow pace, and Bren knew these streets. He could cut her off at the other end of the alley if he ran. That would block off her escape if he pursued. The wary part of Tam told him this was far too convenient, but by this point it had only been an hour since the girl's sister had died. It wasn't like she could set up a trap, run to the scene of the crime, cry at the guards, then lead him here. That was implausible beyond belief.

That's why he didn't hesitate more than a moment before dashing across the street, then pausing for a moment so he could feel the tingle of being watched fade, before turning the corner into the alleyway. Two guardsmen were waiting for him.

"I suspect it was him," the girl said, suddenly composed. Her eyes were puffy, as she had clearly been crying real tears, but now her voice was even and without a quaver. She pointed directly at Tam from where she stood between the two city guards.

"Thank you, miss," one of them said, as the other started forward. Tam briefly thought about making a run for it, in the hope that Bren would see this and escape. The tickling at his spine told him that a fourth pair of eyes was on him, aside from the three currently facing him. He dared a quick glance over his shoulder and saw a figure across the street, smiling his way.

The redhead, identical to the one that he'd killed an hour ago, lifted a finger to her lips, winked, and pulled her hood up before turning to walk away and leave him to his fate.