“You sure about this, Vern?” Allana asked.

  Telik’s thug looked much the same as he had the last time she saw him, on the night that she had first met Tenebres. He was still large, at least a foot taller than Allana, and she was far from short. He still had a gut that combined with his naturally broad shoulders to make him look even larger, and a mop of lank brown hair that hung down over his round face unflatteringly. He still looked like an oversized child more than the professional bruiser he was–but Allana had trained alongside him as they earned Telik’s favor, and she knew he was astoundingly strong, even without his gifts.

  Allana kept talking, trying to avoid the imminent fight. They didn’t have time for this! “I know I haven’t been around much lately, but the old man himself sent me to work with Geoffrey. I don’t think he’d like you starting things with me like this.”

  Vern chuckled, the sound deep and brutish. “I wouldn’t rely on that, wraith bitch. Who do you think sent me?”

  Allana’s eyes narrowed, and she immediately settled down into a fighting crouch. Her hands, each holding one of her daggers, came up to a ready position. “What are you saying? Why would Telik do that?”

  “Another behind us,” Tenebres whispered.

  Allana twitched her head in acknowledgement, trusting his word without looking for herself. That would be Porgit, Vern’s rat-faced friend. Another of the boys she had grown up beside.

  “You think you’re so smart…” Vern rumbled, oblivious to the quick exchange between the two assassins. “Telik caught on, though. He found out what you’re up to–and now I get to kill the both of you, while the boss kills that moony fop master of yours.”

  Allana and Tenebres had both pieced things together long before the bruiser finished his answer, and they were already quietly coordinating with each other.

  “I’ll take Vern,” she told him. “You’ll have to deal with Porg though.”

  “No problem,” Tenebres said confidently. Like her, he must’ve been thinking of how easily they beat these two last time things came to blows. But Allana knew it wouldn’t be so easy this time. The two thugs were ready for a fight, sober and in the mindset to kill, and on top of that, they had Telik’s permission and their wounded egos to motivate them. This would be a completely different fight than the last time they met.

  “I’m gonna enjoy this,” Vern continued, still rambling as much to himself as her or Tenebres. “Might just keep you alive for a bit, after I beat you senseless. Could come up with some good uses for you. Won’t even be able to see the bruises, after all.”

  Allana rolled her eyes. If the idiot was just going to keep rambling, she was more than happy to take the initiative for herself.

  Without a word, Allana lunged forward, both daggers flashing. Vern didn’t have the speed to react, and in his sadistic monologuing, she had caught him completely by surprise. Allana had practiced her killing blows thoroughly since her sloppy murder of Algus months before, and her hands moved smoothly, guiding one dagger unerringly at Vern’s ribs, where it would puncture a lung, while the other thrusted up at his chin to stab through his brain.

  Unfortunately, both attacks proved useless.

  Vern didn’t move, didn’t even try to dodge. He wasn’t even wearing armor, just a misshapen canvas tunic. He simply held his ground–and both of Allana’s daggers failed to cut into his exposed flesh. It was like his skin itself was as strong as steel, and her perfectly executed attacks did little more than dimple his skin, not even drawing blood.

  Allana’s eyes went wide, even as Vern drew back a fist. His brand, a coin overlaid with a fist, was marked in crude black lines on the back of his hand. His own ensouled item, a thick pair of brass knuckles, appeared around his fingers as he punched her, sending Allana flying across the road to slam into the stone wall of the building across from the alley Vern had emerged from. Her daggers went flying, each clanging once against the ground before vanishing.

  Vern chuckled darkly as he slowly moved towards her. “Told you, bitch. It’s useless. While you’ve been fooling around with your little boyfriend, the boss got me over the line to Initiate. That’s what we’ve been waiting for so long, but now it's all worth it. Your pathetic little attacks can’t do shit!”

  The thug’s words reminded her to look down the street, where Tenebres was fighting Porg. The two had engaged in ranged combat; Porg hurled globs of water at Tenebres to counter his force spells, the physical projectiles able to absorb the energy of Tenebres’s immaterial magic. With every exchange, Porg was pacing slowly towards his opponent, and Allana knew that once he was close enough, the ragged boy would be able to bring his gift of the rat into play. The only good news was that Porg clearly hadn’t leveled up the way his partner had, giving Tenebres a fighting chance–but it was still a fight between a Novice and an Apprentice.

  Unfortunately, Allana didn’t have time to help Tenebres. She had her own enemy bearing down on her, still wildly shouting vile threats.

  “You’re not even paying attention, are you bitch?” Vern suddenly roared, realizing he was being ignored.

  Allana gave him a tired smile. “Of course not. What’s the point of listening to the moronic ravings of a dead man?”

  Vern let out a wordless shout of rage and suddenly barreled towards her–but Allana’s taunt had put the fight back on her terms. She knew Vern’s blessings just as well as he knew hers–the gift of the bandit and the gift of fortitude, the latter tied to his ensouled item. The gift of the bandit, even at Initiate level, gave him a couple simple special attacks and the strength and speed to use them, but the gift of fortitude was the real problem. Not only did it massively boost his resilience, it was obviously the source of the bruiser’s potent defenses. What neither of them did, however, was boost his coordination.

  So as the big man charged her, he lacked the balance and reflexes to adjust his momentum, which made it childs play for Allana to roll aside and dodge the brutal attack, dancing behind the crude manchild.

  Of course, even given that, she hadn’t anticipated exactly how powerful the attack ended up being. Rather than hit her, Vern’s attack slammed into the side of the building she had been thrown against, but the big man didn’t bounce off the way she had expected. Instead, his lowered shoulder and raised fists proved as just as invulnerable to the stone of the building as they had to her daggers, and he shattered through the front wall, leaving behind a massive, vaguely Vern-sized hole.

  Allana blinked, shocked at just how powerful Initiate level had made him. If she took even a glancing blow from one of his special attacks, she’d be lucky to survive, much less continue the fight. Of course, she hadn’t needed Geoffrey’s training to know that letting a larger, stronger enemy get his hands on her was a bad idea. It was basic self-defense–she was just working on a slimmer margin than usual.

  The key was that her strengths were still Vern’s weaknesses. He was fast and strong and difficult to injure, but just as she’d exploited his lack of coordination, she’d need to take advantage of his unboosted awareness and stamina. Before the bruiser could emerge from the wreckage of his charge, Allana wrapped a Veil around herself.

  [Obscuring Veil] - Active, Illusion - Manifest an illusion that partially masks you from conventional senses. Veil is most effective in darkness or other obscuring conditions. Minor focus cost recurs as long as the veil is active.

  The shadows of the night would help make the veil more effective, but Allana knew the tax that even the minor cost would take if she kept it going for too long. She needed to take advantage of every moment.

  By the time Vern emerged from the shattered building, his beady eyes scanning for her, Allana was nowhere to be seen.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “Where are you, bitch?” he rumbled, turning slowly, warily.

  Of course, Allana didn’t say anything. Who would respond to something like that? She was hiding, obviously. Instead of snarking back at him, she silently flicked her hands and reconjured her daggers.

  She kept the heavier cutting blade bare of poison, remembering how quickly she was disarmed after Vern’s first hit. Her poisons would be her most dangerous weapon in this fight, and she couldn’t afford to keep manifesting them everytime she lost her daggers. Her needle-thin brass dagger, however, she coated with her most potent poison.

  [Toxic Manifestation] - Active, Conjuration - Manifest a simple poison that causes ongoing resilience damage. Three potencies of poison can be created, with lesser, moderate, and major quintessence costs respectively.

  [Poisoned Conjuration] - Poison, Stealth - Passive, Conjuration - Ensouled items may be conjured already coated in the poison from toxic manifestation. Poisons conjured this way have their quintessence cost reduced by one stage.

  Vern’s lip lifted in a snarl as he reached the end of his patience. “Fine then, if you wanna hide, I’ll just go kill the other bitch!”

  Vern turned towards Tenebres, and Allana silently cursed. The androgynous mage had recovered from his rough start against Porg, landing some hits with force missiles from unexpected angles, but the other boy had responded with a floating disk of water, which moved quickly to easily absorb the immaterial projectiles. Tenebres’s spells lacked the punch to harm Vern in any meaningful way, and the slender boy wouldn’t be able to dodge the thug’s special attacks the way Allana had.

  Her hand forced, Allana dashed in at Vern. The immature thug had clearly expected the move, however, and whirled even as Allana, still hidden in her veil, approached. A pair of potent punches swept through the space directly behind him–which is why Allana had come in from his left side. Even the boy’s most brilliant gambit was fairly simple-minded compared to the exercises Geoffrey had been putting Allana through for the past couple months. Vern trying to out-think her had only put the fight more in Allana’s favor.

  Just as she struck, the attack shredding her veil, Allana triggered her only special attack.

  [Sneak Attack] - Active, Attack - Make a special attack with potency increased by two tiers. Can only be used on targets unaware of your location. Lesser stamina cost.

  Whatever defensive ability Vern was using, it had to have its limits. At Initiate, there was no way he could just keep up a passive third tier defense, not without draining his focus rapidly, and Allana refused to believe Vern could have a very large focus attribute to pull from. If his defense had tier two potency, then her special attack would equal things out. The results would be the same as if neither of them had any magic.

  Allana’s unpoisoned iron dagger swept up, leaving a long, bloody slash along his upper arm, while her poisoned stiletto slipped between his ribs, its entire length plunging into his side smoothly.

  It worked!

  Allana didn’t wait around to see him react, reversing her momentum and leaping backwards a fraction of a second before his flailing counter-attack swept through the space she had been. She left the slender dagger buried in Vern’s side, where its coating of viscous poison would continue soaking into the bruiser’s flesh.

  The oversized brute reached down to the protruding handle of the dagger, but even the slightest tug at it made his face go pale. Allana grinned at that discomfort. Resilience was fine and well, but it didn’t just turn his body’s pain off. He couldn’t heal until he pulled the dagger out, and as long as it was in there, her poison would only get worse. Telik had no doubt told his enforcer about her gift’s poison–it was a resilience-based toxin. The longer Vern was exposed, the harder it would be for him to heal himself, and once the attribute was dragged low enough, the poison would start actively killing him.

  Allana saw the look of resolve on the thug’s rounded, immature face when he decided to pull the dagger free anyways–and the moment he winced, she was moving, another veil pulled up around herself. Knowing he’d be waiting for her this time, she kept her distance, watching as he jerked the dagger free and threw it away. Immediately, blood began pouring out of the wound in his side, mixed with the rotten off-green shade of her poison. Vern’s face screwed up in concentration, and the wound quickly closed. Yet another ability from his gift of fortitude–he had to be burning through his stamina and focus at this point.

  Still, she didn’t move in to attack. Even a quick self-heal like that wouldn’t be enough to cure her strongest poison, so this fight was on a clock, whether the oversized idiot knew it or not.

  He glanced around for her futilely, but Allana knew she couldn’t play him like this for too long. Eventually he’d just start going for Tenebres again, and she couldn’t let him force her hand. So, just before his patience ran out, the assassin slipped one of the numerous bracelets off of her wrist and gently tossed it.

  The copper accessory landed with a soft rattle to Vern’s side, and the bruiser immediately lashed out with another punch, mistaking the sound for Allana’s presence.

  Idiot. Allana grinned to herself as she flashed across the distance between them, Sneak Attack enhancing her attack again now that he had lost her. This time, her iron dagger left a long, bloody furrow across Vern’s back.

  The man shouted at the sudden pain and whirled around, but Allana was already dancing away, disappearing under another veil. And so it went, Allana using her own coordination and intelligence to play her powerful foe in circles, keeping him from landing even a glancing hit on her. Every attack came from an unexpected direction, and was followed by her making space and disappearing under another veil. Her head was soon throbbing from the focus cost of so many veils, but fortunately, the ability was built for long term use. Her rapid, flickering use of the illusion was enough to confuse her opponent while minimizing the cost.

  Allana carefully avoided any further use of her poison abilities, nursing her remaining quintessence for the next fight to come. She trusted that, even given Vern’s seemingly superhuman resilience, her first poisoned strike was doing its job, and when she saw his wounds no longer healing, she knew that trust was well-placed. Telik’s top enforcer had been run ragged, and now it was time to end this.

  Allana lunged forward, not bothering with Sneak Attack anymore, her twin daggers flashing through lightning-fast combo after combo. Vern’s passive defense was running out of whatever it used for fuel, and increasingly, her attacks left more and more cuts on the big man. Still, he didn’t go down, and Allana was forced to dance back yet again before the resilient manchild had the chance to hit back.

  A cry drew her attention. Tenebres had distracted Porg, making the ragged boy use his rat gift to defend himself against one of Tenebres’s imps–the green one with the big claws. Distracted as he was, Porg’s defense was sloppy when Tenebres sent another attack at him. Rather than another immaterial force missile, this time Tenebres had used his evocation to propel the little dagger Allana had bought him for self-defense. The same sheet of water that had easily diffused Tenebres’s force missiles was insufficient to stop the point of a dagger moving as fast as a shot arrow, and Tenebres’s weapon passed through the feeble aqueous shield.

  Porg spinning to the ground, a dagger buried in his neck, marked the turning point of the fight. With Tenebres and his imp joining the battle against Vern, Allana’s poison proved its efficacy. In the end, it was Tenebres who ended things, darting in even as Allana dodged a clumsy swing of the large boy’s fist. His hand glowed with dark power as he struck Vern in the chest with an open-palmed strike–and the enforcer froze in place. His eyes went wide, his lips pulling down even as his neck muscles tensed in a horrifying rictus.

  Without a word, Telik’s chief enforcer fell, dead, to the cobblestones.

  Feat Accomplished

  [Gift of Poison]: Defeat a higher level enemy through use of poison

  Reward: 20% Experience

  [Gift of Poison] can only receive 11% experience before leveling up

  Excess experience is lost

  “What?” Allana’s eyes went wide as she saw the message appear in her vision, phantom letters that somehow failed to obstruct her surroundings. Between her shoulder blades, she felt an odd itching, as power flowed through the dagger-and-droplet shape of her gift brands.

  “Allana?” Tenebres asked. “Are you okay?”

  [Gift of Poison] has leveled up!

  [Gift of Poison]

  Level: Initiate

  Experience: -

  Receive and level a third gift to progress to Adept

  Ability Progression: [Toxic Manifestation] - Active, Conjuration - Create a variety of magical poisons, targeting any single attribute. Three potencies of poison can be created, with lesser, moderate, and major quintessence costs respectively.

  Ability Progression: [Poison Immunity] - Passive, Triggered, Healing - Quintessence is consumed automatically to negate poisons affecting you. Cost is relative to potency and volume of the poison. Mundane or tier one potency poisons are negated at no cost.

  Boon Progression: [Master of Poison] - Boon - Major boost to coordination and resilience.

  “Allana?”

  Tenebres shook her arm, and Allana blinked, suddenly conscious of how many times he had repeated her name, trying to get her attention.

  She shook her head out. “I’m fine. Apparently Vern managed to be good for something after all.”

  Tenebres arched an eyebrow, but Allana held up a hand. “No time. It doesn’t matter. We need to get to Geoffrey’s, now.”

  The boy’s eyes went wide as he realized what she had already figured out. “Right.”

  Allana spared one last glance at the bodies of the two thugs. In death, she was still unable to consider them men. They were boys, immature and weak-willed and selfish. But Allana had also known them longer than anyone else in her life, and they were in many ways just as much victims of Telik as she was.

  That didn’t change the necessity of what she had to do to them. They, like her, had grown up in the shadowed reaches of the city, and in Emeston, ruthlessness was a way of life. This was, simply, how it had to be. For a time, she had begun to leave that way of thinking behind. Tenebres had given her the ability to hope that her life could be more. But when it came down to it… killing them had simply been the easiest way.

  Allana shook her head a final time, and ran off after Tenebres. She knew they were already too late. She once again knew better than to hope. But she ran nevertheless, and Tenebres ran alongside her.