Well terrible week is done so, let the killing commence!

Chapter 9

Holding my hand out I blinked right under the glass case, my ass burning against the red carpet as I did so. Lying on my stomach I looked around, switching to Dark Vision, there were three boxes separated the glass case I was hiding under from another. A guard stood watch in front of the other case, facing toward an open area where the staircase led up to the second floor. In another room, next to the wall portraits, was another guard who had just started his rounds inside the closed room.

If I don't move now, I won't be able to move for the next ten minutes or so. The last thing I needed was cramped muscles and impatience. The guard by the other glass case began to move to the open area, hearing the chittering of a few rats. The guard nearest me was still looking at the paintings with keen interest.

Taking the chance I slid out easily, making sure my body wasn't touching any of the objects around me I blinked into the other open room, a dark storage room.

Switching back to Dark Vision I hid underneath the sink to the far corner of the room, all three guards still at their posts. To the right of the room was another doorway, where a guard was locked away at his own post.

Corvo, do you want to see what your Medical God has done so far in his newest project? The Outsider whispered into my head. Just open the door. Not just the one to the right. But the one after it.

"I could care less about this damned experiments." I whispered harshly to him.

Now, now Corvo. If I know one thing about emotions it is curiosity. He chided me. It's like a disease, infecting the mind until the body compels. Do it, Corvo. See the Medical God for who he is.

I did feel curious now that The Outsider mentioned it, there were many things I wanted to know about the doctor, many things Jessamine knew but refused to tell me.

"To save my warrior innocence." She once said, when I told her I didn't understand she simply laughed at my confusion.

I watched the guard in the other room for a moment longer, he stepped out into the room with the glass cases and paintings. Taking the chance I went through the door at the right and left it slightly ajar, to my left was another door, the door The Outsider must have been speaking of. There was a table blocking the bolted gray door. On the table I saw a clipboard with a peice of paper attached to it.

Feeding Log

4th Day, Mo. Of Wind - Assorted human remains. Strong appetite.

10th Day, Mo. Of Wind - 1 bag, Tyvian Pears (bruised, rotted). Rats uninterested.

11th Day, Mo. Of Wind - 1 tin, potted whale meat. Eaten.

It went down the list for a few days up until the 20th Day, Mo. Of Wind, beside it read "incident with previous maidservant. Will withhold feeding until 1st Day, Mo. Of Darkness.

Narrowing my gaze my action-fixed mind tried to piece together what was going on behind the door. He's been feeding something, yes. But what? There were two keys beside the door, I took it and found one of them fit the lock. Just as I was studying the key the door started to open, not the one to the right but the one further down the hall, a guard was coming back in for his rounds. Jamming the key into the lock I pushed it open and jumped inside, rolling onto my shoulder and shutting the door with a kick of my legs.

The shrieks of a dozen rats made me jump up in surprise. Last I heard the rats who carried the plague scurried in swarms, even feasting on live people in the dead of the night. But the sounds were outside of the room, a few of them stuck inside the room with me.

"He was keeping rats in here." I said, climbing up onto a storage cabinet as the rats tried to latch onto me. I took out my bow gun for good measure and caught each one under an arrow, once they were all dead I cleaned the arrows and placed them back in their slots. Just as I began to open the door I heard the screams of the guards as the released rats attacked them.

Do you see what he was doing now, Corvo? The Outsider asked.

"More or less of it." I answered, "He was feeding rats, experimenting with the plague."

Look under the table. He was unsatisfied with my calm composure.

Obediently, I opened the door and stepped back to look under the table. On a silver platter was an arm, sleeve and jewelry still attached. My eyes got wide at the sight of it.

Incident with previous maidservant. I remembered the Feeding Log. The limb was a few days old, not yet showing signs of decay but certainly emitting a smell of death.

"Outsider, it is the 20th day of Wind, is it not?" I asked aloud, stepping over the table and quickly striding back into the room I came from. With Dark Vision back on sight I saw the yellow, heated outline of the dozens of rats, gnawing on the three bodies of the guards. Going through another unopened door I found myself at the bottom of the staircase, looking up I saw a female and male figure.

Walking low with my blade in hand and the power of Blink in the other I walked steadily up the stairs, the Dark Vision proved to use too much energy and I switched back to my average, trained vision. But, minute by minute it was getting easier to hold onto these powers without draining myself.

"Wait, did you touch the door handle to Doctor Galvani's Lab?" The woman asked, a maid probably.

"Yeah...I think so." A brute voice that could only belong to another of those guards responded to the maid.

"Then you have to scrub. The rats get their vital essences everywhere. The doctor said." She snapped with sudden urgency. I peered above the steps and saw glass doors leading to a lavish room to the right. Looking closely I realized it just the Doctor's living quarters, if anything I'd need to get to the upper floor.

I believe it is time for you to learn more of your powers. The Outsider appeared before me, everything around me stopping in time. He held out his arms, symbols of all sorts appeared from one palm to the other. By some amount of imprinted information in my mind I knew exactly what they stood for. The two that glowed were the two powers I have already obtained. The blue, glowing arrow meant Blink and the cracked, sideways eye was Dark Vision.

Beside the two were eight other symbols. There was a hand opened downwards, possession. Of rats at first, then people once I trained enough. A time turner, the power to bend time for a short period. The head of a rat, the power to summon a pack of rats. The abstract drawing of a tornado, windblast, I would have the power to send out gusts of wind, with training it could become deadly. A man raising his hands to the sky, vitality, raising my stamina for injury and pain. Closed, sharp teeth stood for something called Blood Thirsty, a boost of adrenaline would speed my attacks to become even more brutal. A man leaping, powerful jumps. A skull deteriorating in smoke, Shadow Kill, enemies I sneak up on turn to dust.

"I don't think I need to explain this," The Outsider said, "Choose one and I will take those bone charms off your hands. Although for some of them I'm going to need a certain amount...to be fair."

"Give me the time turner." I held out my bone charms.

For a moment The Outsider turned his head to the side, narrowing black eyes at me. I nodded toward the bone charms and held out an empty hand.

"So be it." He finally said and took the time turner charm, flipping my hand over and pressing the symbol into the tattoo on my hand. A burning pain lashed through my arm, I gave a gasp and collapsed back onto the floor. By the time I looked back up, the Outsider was gone and the maid and the guard were continuing their conversation.

Looking at my palm I clenched it into a tight fist, around me the world began to slow. The maid's voice become low and words elongated. Wasting no time I bolted up the stairs, swinging myself past the view of the guard. I landed on the highest floor, it had the same layout as the floor below it. Instead there was the lab and no other guards. I released my hand and time began to stir in its original pattern.

Clever Corvo. The Outsider noted.

"Military thought." I responded and went toward the lab doors, I found it to be locked. Taking out my folding blade I jammed the tip of the steel into the lock, breaking it effectively but making a loud banging noise all the while. I heard the guard shout in surprise and tell the maid to stay where she was. I slipped through the door and locked it behind me, or at least made it look locked. I ran past the lit tables, all of them holding some type of strange tubes filled with even stranger liquids, and ran straight for the bathroom.

"Who's there?" The guard shouted, he was up on the third floor, finding nothing but silence to answer his call.

Switching to Dark Vision I saw his yellow, outlined shape look around and reach out his hand toward the brass knob. But he remembered the maid's words and stepped away from the lab door, muttering about mutant rats as he walked down the stairs. Once his head left my Dark Vision sight I slid out from the bathroom.

There was more lab equipment on the far side of the room, this part closed off to the view of the glass doors. Across from the lab equipment was Dr. Galvani's main desk, an audio recorder taking up most of the space on the wooden desk. Narrowing my gaze I hit the play button, watching the thick, holed paper be sucked into the machine and slowly spat back out as the audio played.

"Obviously the plague rat is distinct from the ordinary rat, but in what respect? It's size and the coarseness of its fur. And I believe, in intelligence," His facts were scientifically based, through what sick experiments I couldn't tell, "Although the experiments there are not complete. Coriander's zoological survey describes only the ordinary rat. Which means plague rats have only be here for...five or seven years at most."

I switched the Dark Vision for a moment, hearing the information and keeping watching for the guard. Both the maid and guard had began to make their rounds on the second floor. In no time they would be greeted with the mess downstairs.

"This was not a gradual migration. Could they have been introduced on purpose? Or perhaps...a foreign power?" With a click the audio ended.

"A foreign power? Who would want Dunwall to fall?" I looked at the audiotape, as if it would give me the answers, "The fall of Dunwall would mean the fall of every piece of land Jessamine owns..."

There are many other lands your past queen had yet to visit, Corvo. The Outsider spoke once more, his previous displeasure gone. But many of them have seen the queen.

"You say foreign men from unheard lands have plagued our lands?" I said, thinking of every man I had passed by in the street, as if that would help, "This rat plague couldn't have been created by man...not even a sick minded man would do such a thing to...thousands of people."

Corvo you will be surprised at the amount of men who have abused my power...the world is more interesting with such 'sick' minded people. Don't you think? Oh and be a dear, you're burning daylight. Go read the red book at the bookshelf. The Outsider left me with that.

I looked out the window and saw the sun high in the sky, by nightfall I'll need to have killed the Overseer. Taking the Outsider's advice I strode toward the bookshelf and took out the red book, but it slipped out of my hand, hanging by a lever. The whole wall started to rumble, wheels began to turn and the whole bookshelf moved out of the way like an old catacomb door, giving way to the smell of death poorly hidden by cleaning salts. There in the middle of the dreaded room was a rat, dead and pinned open with its insides thriving with maggots.

Before stepping in I took a test tube and tweezers from the table behind me, pulling the front of my jacket over the nose part of my mask I stepped in and quickly stuffed the tube with as much blood and guts as it could hold. Wrapping the ugly concoction in a towel and closing it with a rubber stopper I stepped out of the room, releasing the suffocating hold around my mask and breathed in deep.

Just then the maid downstairs screamed in pure terror. Switching to Dark Vision I saw her outlined shape running around the first floor, trying to escape the rats and not step in the bodies. The guard was downstairs as well, shooting pointlessly with his gun.

Well I certainly can't go down there now. I thought and spotted a door next to Galvani's desk.

"I'll be sure not to tell Emily about this part," I shook my head as I opened the door, slipping the test tube into my jacket pocket, "Maybe I'll make her a story of a worm crawling into a lion's den, escaping with the help of a crow."

Now you've just gone mad, Mr. Attano. The Outsider chuckled.

"Power does that to a man." I said with an even tone, stepping out into open air.