Chương 15: Chapter 14 - A Fresh Trail Yet Hidden

The town had grown quiet with the deepening night. Shops were shuttered, and the usual flow of townsfolk had dwindled to a few late-night wanderers and the distant, rhythmic steps of the watch patrol. It was a scene of profound peace, which felt like a lie after the violence at the tavern. The blue-black sky was brilliant with stars, and the two moons hung like twin lanterns, their light mingling with the warm, golden glow of the streetlamps lining the main avenues.

Lucid moved through the central district, a shadow among the grand, sleeping buildings. His destination was the hill that separated the bustling lower town from the secluded estates above, where the governor's mansion presided over everything. He stuck to the smaller alleyways, his senses on a knife's edge. A gnawing worry for Rebecca ate at him. He felt responsible, at least a little. Someone had been hurt, their life upended, because of his presence. He had to be quick. He had to be smart.

"Lucid, may I ask where you are going?" Alice's patient voice sounded in his mind.

"No idea," he said bluntly, the words a low mutter in the quiet alley. It wasn't entirely true. He had a direction. He needed to understand the threat, to track it to its source before it could strike again at the repaired tavern. As he moved further into the affluent center, the buildings changed. They grew taller, more sophisticated, crafted from pale stone and dark timber, with wrought-iron filigree and glass-paneled doors.

These were the homes of merchants and minor nobles, a world away from the rough-hewn comfort of the Golden Shine.

"Lucid," Alice's voice came again, a gentle prompt.

"Did you forget? You can use my power as much as you wish. The Chain of Heart trait has an attribute of Perception. It is weak, but it may let you trace and trail residual Fate Essence. Like a hound on a scent."

"Oh?" he exclaimed, his interest genuinely piqued. He had seen the attribute listed but hadn't considered its practical use. Indeed, as a former scout in the Rift trials back on Earth, Lucid preferred to rely on his own skills and keen senses. Tracking Fallen through chaotic dimensional tears had honed his eyes to notice disturbances, subtle signs of passage. This was no different. Instead of a demonic entity, he was tracking a group of humans.

Tracking in a crowded town was harder than in a wild Rift, people handled their daily lives, leaving a chaotic tapestry of traces. But it wasn't impossible. The immediate trail from the tavern had gone cold. The man in black had been too precise, too clean. But his accomplices, the ones who had shattered the windows from outside? They had been sloppier. They had moved with speed and aggression, not stealth.

In the soft earth of a flowerbed near the tavern's side, he found a deep, scuffed footprint from a boot with an unusual tread. On a splintered fence post, a few threads of coarse, dark grey wool were snagged. They weren't from Rebecca's fine linens or his own simple clothes. He began to ask questions, moving through the night like a ghost himself.

He approached a baker firing up his oven in the pre-dawn gloom, a prostitute roaming outside a brothel, a stable boy rubbing sleep from his eyes, a night watchman on his rounds, another guard who wasn't particularly keen on having a conversation and even a swaying drunk clinging to a lamppost. The responses varied from helpful to hostile to incoherent.

"Mhm, yes, I thought I caught something at the corner of my eye when I was about to unload a sack of wheat. Like a big shadow jumping."

"What the fuck is wrong with your face? Get away from me!"

"Mhh, now that you mention it... some hooded figures were jumping around the rooftops and running. But are you looking for some fun this evening, though?"

"Hold there! Spread your arms! A group of cloaked individuals? How did you know?! Detain him at once!" a jumpy guard had yelled.

"Oooohhhh, could you spare me a silver coin... I feeeel suuuuper aware... mhm, hooded group? Not that I remember... Blergh." A drunk had almost thrown up on his boots.

"Why don't you place a bet... then I will tell you! Wait! Wait, don't leave! Half! I'll say for half!" a lizard-like young man had called from a gambling den's doorway. Despite the wildly varying degrees of helpfulness, drunkenness, and hostility, the core of the response was the same: a group of hooded, cloaked figures had been moving across the rooftops, fast and furtive, heading away from the tavern district.

Lucid pieced their path together, a zigzagging route that avoided the main thoroughfares, until it all pointed toward one place: the town center, and the hill leading to the governor's estate. The trail grew colder the closer he got to the wealthy district, as if the figures had simply melted into the shadows of the grand houses.

"I must say I am impressed, Lucid," Alice's voice held a note of genuine admiration.

"You never fail to meet my expectations. You are efficient."

"Well, I fear it's over now," Lucid thought back, stopping at the edge of a manicured plaza.

"We're at a dead end." You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. Before him stood a high, wrought-iron gate, beautifully crafted but formidable, marking the entrance to the serpentine road that wound up the hill to the governor's mansion and the other noble estates. It was patrolled by two alert guards in polished breastplates, a world apart from Bjorn's practical leathers. The rooftop trail he had been following vanished utterly here.

It was as if the hooded figures had been granted wings, or special passage.

'Well, there are only a certain number of ways they could have gone,' he mused.

'One, through the gate with permission. Two, up and over the wall, which is high and smooth. Three...' He looked around the clean, cobbled street.

'Three, underground.'

"It doesn't matter," he whispered to himself. He needed to know. Closing his eyes, he focused inward. He reached for the connection, for the trickle of power that was the Chain of Heart. He willed it not toward healing, but toward the trait's other listed attribute: Perception. A faint, blue-green glow, different from the healing light, flickered around his hands and for a brief moment behind his eyes. His mind was suddenly flooded with information, almost too much to handle.

The outlines of the buildings grew sharper, the distance to the guards calculable, the textures of the stone wall discernible. But most importantly, he saw the air itself. Not the air, but the faint, drifting motes of residual Fate Essence that all living things shed, like a spiritual scent. Most were thin, diffuse, the background hum of the sleeping city. But there, near a storm drain at the edge of the plaza, was a concentration.

A trail of purplish-grey motes, their essence feeling cold, disciplined, and tampered with, unlike the natural warmth of the townsfolk. The trail didn't lead to the gate. It led to the drain, and descended.

'They used the sewage systems,' he realized, a plan clicking into place. Waiting for the guards to turn their backs on their patrol, he moved with a swift, silent grace Bjorn would have been proud of. He reached the heavy iron hatch set into the cobbles. It was locked, but the mechanism was old and rusted from within. Using a piece of scrap metal from a nearby rubbish pile as a lever, he applied pressure.

With a grinding shriek of protest that sounded deafening in the quiet night, the lock sheared, and the hatch popped open. He dropped down into the darkness, pulling the hatch mostly closed behind him. The fall was short, landing in shallow, sluggish water. The smell hit him like a physical blow a thick, foul miasma of decay and waste that made his eyes water and his stomach lurch. The sound of the hatch closing echoed down the dank, brick-lined tunnel.

"Why are you pinching your nose?" Alice asked, sounding genuinely puzzled.

"You will give yourself a nosebleed, Lucid."

"If I let go, I will actually die," he thought back, his mental voice strained as he fought the urge to gag.

"What is it? Is it something disturbing you?"

'Ah, ignorance must be bliss for the Divine Maiden,' he shot back with a grim internal laugh. He began to move, splashing as quietly as he could through the muck. The moonlight from the hatch dimmed to nothing within a dozen paces, leaving him in utter, consuming blackness. The only sounds were the drip of water and the occasional distant scuttle of unseen things.

"Lucid," Alice prompted.

"Try to put your hand forward." Confused but trusting, he stopped and held his right hand out, palm open, as if waiting to catch something. He focused on the idea of light, of illumination. He felt the familiar, slight tug on his spirit, the trickle of power being drawn. In his palm, a soft, white-gold light blossomed. It wasn't bright, no stronger than a single candle but it pushed back the absolute dark, revealing the arched brick ceiling and the murky water around his boots.

"Wow! You are full of surprises," Lucid said, his tone delighted.

"I'm flattered, but I cannot quite match your level of surprise, Lucid," he chuckled. Heartened by the small light, he pressed on. The tunnel eventually opened into a wider underground chamber, a forgotten grotto or cistern. Rusted iron chains hung from the ceiling, and the stubs of burnt-out torches were fixed in brackets on the walls. It felt like a place people came to not be seen. And there, on a dryish ledge, he found proof. A dagger, its plain leather-wrapped hilt slick with condensation. He picked it up.

The blade was clean, but the pommel was marked with a symbol: a simple circle with a stylized hat drawn inside it.

'Could it be theirs?' Further on, a rough ladder made of iron rungs set into the brick wall led up to another hatch. This one was newer, better maintained.

"Be careful, Lucid," Alice warned, her voice tense. Nodding, he extinguished his palm-light and climbed slowly, listening. He heard no sound from above. He pushed the hatch open a crack. Clean, cool night air washed over him, a relief so profound it was dizzying. He pushed it wider and hauled himself up and out, rolling onto the hard ground. He was in the estate's center. A lavish, moonlit plaza infront of a grand mansion slightly into the distance a marble fountain tinkled softly.

And all around him, strolling along gravel paths or standing in elegant groups, were people. Dozens of them. Men in finely tailored suits and women in shimmering dresses of silk and velvet. Demi-humans with fur groomed to a sheen and feathers artfully arranged alongside humans dripping with jewels. They held delicate crystal glasses, and the air was filled with the murmur of polite conversation and the soft strains of a string quartet playing somewhere nearby.

He had climbed out of the sewer into the middle of the center of governor's estate. He froze, kneeling on the grass, reeking of the underground, his clothes stained and damp. The contrast was so absurd it was paralyzing. A woman in a towering feathered headdress turned, her eyes widening.

"Who is that?" she gasped, her voice carrying. A man with the sleek ears of a fox squinted.

"Is that a new statue? A rather... rustic one."

"Where are the town guards?" another demanded, taking a step back in alarm. A elegantly dressed woman with scales dusted with gold cooed, "Aww, he looks like he could make a fine pet for my collection. So... authentically feral and that fogged mask too..." Before he could even think of moving, a semi-circle of bewildered, curious, and disdainful aristocracy had formed around him, cutting off any retreat to the hatch.

He was trapped, not by enemies with daggers, but by the glittering, perfumed scrutiny of the most powerful people in Tyriana. The man in the black coat, he was sure, was watching from somewhere in the crowd, a small, cold smile on his lips. The game had just changed entirely.