Mystic heists part 2
Stretching her arms out, Emily managed to hook her hands over the top balcony, her legs slamming into the surface and the shock knocking her out of her void gaze. Somewhere below her, a guard called out with "Hey? Did you hear that? I think it was upstairs!"
Grimacing, she pulled herself over the ledge, collapsing on the landing in a daze. She shook her head and looked around, seeing she was next to what looked like a laboratory. Hearing loud (but fortunately unhurried) footsteps on the stairs beneath her, she quietly slipped into the room. The warm lights of the main house gave way to a cool, clinical blue inside the lab. Emily glanced over the table, not understanding the scientific instruments she saw, before focusing on the diary she saw laid open on the table.
Day 21:
My research on the rat plague's origins is moving forward steadily. When I pinpoint its origins I will deliver my findings to Anton Sokolov. On a side note, I discovered some potentially heretical artefacts while scouting for my...research material. I have stored them within my secret room for now, and will inform an Overseer when time allows.
Emily frowned in thought. Secret room… She opened her void gaze, and saw that the objects with the feel of the Outsider were inside a wall, behind a bookcase.
She cut the gaze and looked at the bookcase, seeing the scrape marks on the floor nearby, and, on closer inspection, saw that one book was far less dusty than the rest. She tried to pull it out, and with a rumble, the bookcase swung open. Grinning, she ran into the room, immediately looking over its contents. A dissected rat corpse (she couldn't help but wrinkle her nose at how fresh it seemed) another diary, a phial of a blue something (she took that out of curiosity) and beside it, what she was looking for. She scooped up the rune, annoyed at the limited pockets in her dress, and examined the other thing. It was whalebone, curved, with no apparent runes on its surface, but it seemed to vibrate more the closer it was to the rune, or, in fact, to her mark. She shrugged, pocketed it, and turned to leave.
"What's going on here then?" Emily spun around; arm coming up ready to pull her towards the ceiling, window, out of danger- then froze, and scowled. "Thomas! What are you doing?"
Her street-rat friend was bent over in front of her, shaking in fits of silent laughter. "You…you're face! Oh boy…"
Emily practically hissed. "You shouldn't be so loud! They could hear you!"
He shrugged. "Ah, relax. They'll be busy with the rats I let out downstairs. Oh and they may have seen me, so…"
"He went up here! Get him!"
Emily covered her eyes, saw a mass of glowing bodies climbing up the stairs, and practically squealed in exited terror. No longer trying to avoid making a noise (or a mess) she grappled a chair from the corner of the room, bracing and pulling it towards her. Using the leftover momentum, she hurled it through the window with a crash, flinching a little, then grabbed Thomas by the waist and grappled them both out through the new aperture. By the time the guards burst in, the pair was two roofs away.
._.
Panting, Emily deposited them in an alleyway. She sat back against the wall and watched, resisting the urge to giggle as Thomas vomited in the street in front of her.
"Look out! People might think you're a weeper." She noted.
He grimaced, pulling a vial of red something out of his rucksack (clunking from the volume of stolen goods within it) "Good point. How do you cope with that grapply thing? It felt like my insides went Outsider. Hehe, get it?"
She couldn't help but smile, before looking at the vial Thomas was drinking from. "What is that?"
He looked at her questioningly. "You've never had Sokolov's elixir?"
Emily's eyes widened. "Oh that. The rat plague's defence. Mother used to mix it into my food. Apparently it's less effective like that, but I was never really at risk. I thought it looked less... Murky."
Thomas chuckled. "Yup. This is bootleg elixir. The bottle street gang sells it at the distillery. A couple days after the plague started, they rounded up all the proper stuff in the poor areas, and sell a diluted version for coins or favours. None of the kids can afford it, and with their parents dead they've been dying fast. I try and help my mates, but I can barely get away with survival myself."
Emily pulled out the blue phial she took from the secret room and held it up. "What's this then?"
He eyed it carefully. "That's Pierro's remedy. Supposedly it works just as well as Sokolov's, meaning, not that well, but it's not as popular since people prefer the Royal physician to some nobody. You should drink it, you're not in Dunwall Tower anymore.
No... I'm not. Emily kept the thought to herself and took a sip.
"Huh. It helps my powers recharge. Like Granny Rags' broth."
"Ha! Anything Granny feeds you is more likely to give you the plague than prevent it. So where are you going now?"
Emily stood up. "You know that distillery you mentioned?"
"...oh great."
._.
Thomas peeked through the door's keyhole, crept through and looked around, before opening it fully and gesturing Emily through with a sarcastic "my lady". She entered, and Thomas pointed upwards, to where a wall mounted pipe led out over a courtyard. She nodded, grabbed him by the waist, and grappled them both to the vantage point. Landing balanced on the (thankfully wide) pipe, Thomas took a moment to steady himself (there was fortunately nothing left to throw up) and looked around until he spotted the contraption he was looking for, kneeling in front of some sort of launcher device. "Go on ahead! I've wanted to look at this for ages!" He whispered. Emily nodded slowly, a little worried at leaving him behind. Guards at a prestigious doctor's offices would likely be merciful upon meeting an immaculately dressed 10 year old, but this was a gang of criminals. However, a quick glance using her void gaze identified the artefacts she was here for further into the complex, and, steadying her will, she prepared another grapple.
Oooh! Emily has a new thingie? What does it do? Find out next time on dragon ball Z Anyway, please leave a review, and i will see y'all next week!