Robin gnawed on his lower lip. It was three days later and he was wandering through Bordertown with Lantha at his side. Ora-Jean, Grathilde, and Fiamah trailed behind them, a separate group of three to minimise attention. Only a part of his mind was on what he was supposed to be doing; most of his attention was caught up in planning his next performance.

He really needed to pass this quest! There were spells just sitting there, right out of reach, waiting for him.

Lantha, disguised as a farmer, carried a large basket of produce with her. As they rounded a corner, the rogue tripped and dropped the basket, sending root vegetables scattering across the street.

That was his cue. Robin launched into the small scene they had planned, crying out in dismay and hurrying to pick up the scattered potatoes.

The potatoes had been his idea. They roll better than carrots or parsnips. They would take longer to track down and pick up, giving Robin and Lantha plenty of time to covertly observe their target: a bland-looking warehouse in the southwestern corner of Bordertown.

It was one of the places Basgar was hiding food supplies skimmed from the traders and townsfolk to supply his ambitions for conquest. As Robin ostensibly scurried after the potatoes, he studied the building carefully. It was constructed of blocky stone, with high, barred windows.

It also looked exactly as it had every other time they had scouted it.

‘I don’t think this is it,’ he murmured to Lantha as he piled dusty potatoes into the basket.

‘No,’ the rogue agreed. ‘I don’t see any sign of increased guard presence. On to the next one, then.’

The last of the potatoes gathered, Robin and Lantha continued their walk through the town. This was the third target they had assessed so far today. Two more remained on the list.

‘Grathilde thinks it will be the next one,’ Robin said as they walked.

‘Grathilde is never shy about sharing her opinions,’ Lantha replied. ‘Don’t make assumptions. It just makes things harder in the long run. People often surprise you.’

‘It does seem like the too-obvious choice.’ Might as well be diplomatic about things. Robin was somewhere between Grathilde and Lantha in his thinking. He wouldn’t be surprised to find that the agent provocateur was embedded with Cor’Leon’s people. But he wouldn’t be surprised if they weren’t either.

That was the point of today’s little exercise, to see if any of the seeds Lantha had planted at the secret meeting at the Bell and Boar had borne fruit. If they showed up to one of these locations and there was an increased guard presence, they’d know someone had talked. And because Lantha had given different targets to each and every one of the factions present, those extra guards would narrow down exactly who had blabbed. Either it took them right to the agent or it took them to a likely leak that needed to be plugged before the nascent resistance took any actual steps against Basgar.

‘Here we are,’ Lantha said as they neared the next target, a prominent blacksmith who, along with his several journeymen and apprentices, was responsible for outfitting Basgar’s growing army with arms and armour.

Robin was going to go out on a limb and say this was it. There were two guards stationed prominently at the door that had not been there last week, and a few more suspiciously bulky ‘workmen’ lounging around not doing any actual work. He shot a frank glance at Lantha.

She nodded in response and scratched her nose with her free hand. No potato spill here. This is definitely the place.

The two of them trudged on past, eliciting no response from the armed guards at the door, but the hackles on the back of Robin’s neck rose as he felt eyes on him. Probably one of the lazy ‘workmen’.

‘Grathilde is going to be insufferable after this, you know that, don’t you?’ He asked once they were three streets over.

‘At least no one was foolish enough to take her wager,’ Lantha said. ‘She’s even worse when she’s both been right and won money because of it.’

Robin agreed. Not mentioning that the only reason he hadn’t taken Grathilde’s offer of a ‘friendly wager’ was because he’d spent his small coin outfitting himself with new clothes and some other supplies, and still didn’t have a strong enough handle on the larger currency to know whether or not he was making an insane bet.

‘Lucky thing,’ he said instead.

***

Robin, Lantha, and the Sisters Sharp were gathered on a rooftop, looking across the street at the seedy tenement that housed Cor’Leon’s headquarters. It was part flophouse, part speakeasy, and part illegal drug- and gambling-den.

Hey, in small towns you gotta work hard on a lot of hustles to make a criminal empire.

‘Cor’Leon will be in his office alone right now. He will have two guards outside the door, but he’s counting the week’s take and he’s both greedy and paranoid about it.’ Lantha reviewed the plan to make sure everyone—especially Robin and Grathilde—was up to speed. ‘There are two guards posted on the roof, there, that we will have to take out swiftly and silently. Grathilde and Fiamah, you get us there swift and make sure things stay silent. Ora-Jean and I will take out the guards. Robin will keep a lookout and distract any unwanted attention we may draw. Everyone got it?’

Everyone nodded.

‘Good. Let’s move out.’

Lantha drew a heavy crossbow and two grappling bolts out of a bag at her side. Quickly and expertly, she slotted in the bolts, took aim, and drew. In short order, there were two lines strung across the gap between their building and Cor’Leon’s.

Grathilde stepped up as soon as those lines were secure. Drawing a hefty coil of rope from her bag, she brought it to life with chants and gestures. The rope, animated, slithered along the lines, weaving itself back and forth to form a very rudimentary bridge.

Robin’s stomach dropped. He knew what was coming next, and as much as he tried, he couldn’t get excited about it.

Grathilde continued chanting, flickers of sky-blue light glinting in her eyes as she drew upon her power and the power of the high, clear air of the mountains all around them. A translucent disc tinged with only the slightest tinge of blue appeared. It floated in midair, perhaps a metre or so across.

‘Everyone on,’ Grathilde ordered. ‘We depart in the next six seconds.’

The four of them carefully sat back to back in the disc, legs dangling over the edge. The disc floated high enough that Robin’s feet were just barely too high to trail on the wood beneath him.

Meanwhile, Grathilde had cast [Lesser Fly] on herself. It was more levitation than anything else. Hardly soaring bird-like or even superhero-style flight, but it would get the job done. Grathilde floated across the gap between buildings, towing the disc of force behind her. The ropes were there to give the magic of the force-disc something to push against so it didn’t just plummet to the ground. Fortunately, it didn’t need much. Just the suggestion that there was a surface beneath it.

Fiamah muttered to herself as they went, clutching her holy symbol of Serenya to her chest as she did so. As soon as she finished her quiet chant, [Silence] fell all around them. Robin barely noticed. He was busy using [Visual Phantasm] to camouflage them as wisps of cloud or fog.

The [Silence] was oppressive. Not only because it pressed on him, this strange lack of sensory detail, but because it deprived him of his most reliable weapon, [Cutting Words]. You can’t assault someone with magical insults if they can’t hear the insults!

The party made it to the other side unnoticed. With Fiamah’s spell in place, even Grathilde’s heavy tread went unnoticed. Ora-Jean and Lantha made short work of the two guards, clubbing them senseless.

They bound the guards hand and foot, gagged them, and slipped into the building.

So far, so good.

Lantha extracted a set of keys from a downed guard and led the way inside. The top levels of the tenement were used as Cor’Leon’s private quarters. This world’s equivalent of a grotty penthouse in a decaying city. There was a lot of expensive-looking trash, or really cheap-and-gaudy-looking antiques, Robin couldn’t quite decide which.

Fiamah’s [Silence] expired not long after they made it inside. Lantha motioned for the rest of the party to wait in a small room that smelled of dust and disuse while she went to locate Cor’Leon. That was the worst part of the whole evening so far. The waiting wore at Robin’s nerves like a power cable against a tree trunk, abrasive and electric.

When Lantha finally returned, she signalled Fiamah, and the cleric cast another [Silence] spell around them. They were quickly exhausting the cleric’s energies, which they might regret if it came to needing healing, but Lantha was banking that the element of surprise would save them more bloodshed in the long run and be a better use of Fiamah’s talents.

Then they moved out, following Lantha’s lithe figure through the halls and rooms to the sturdiest door in the place. A slim line of golden light gleamed around the edges where the wood didn’t quite fit perfectly into the frame.

Fiamah stopped several feet back from the door. Too close and the [Silence] might overlap with Cor’Leon’s location and tip him off. Lantha pulled out a set of lock picks and went to work on the door, the edge of Fiamah’s spell ensuring no noise escaped through the keyhole to warn their target.

Robin saw rather than heard the moment the latch clicked. He saw it in the way Lantha’s body held tense for a moment and then relaxed. The rogue gestured.

Ora-Jean braced herself to sprint through the door. Grathilde and Robin flanked the door, ready to provide cover or attack with the odd spell as opportunity permitted. Fiamah gestured. Her spell was nearly spent. Lantha threw the door open and they charged in as silently as they could.

Cor’Leon’s study was a mess. There was paper strewn everywhere, furniture askew, and a sizeable pile of money in the process of being sorted into a large carry-bag. Probably one with extra-dimensional storage capacity.

Lantha threw a dagger. Cor’Leon was fast on his feet, however. The crime lordling spun behind his desk as soon as the party burst into the room. He wasted no time in counterattacking.

Cor’Leon pulled a slim wand from behind his back and sent unerring darts of blue-white magical energy darting toward Lantha and Ora-Jean. The bolts slammed home with a sizzle.

Grathilde responded with a [Minor Levinbolt], catching the crime boss in the face. He hissed in pain and ducked back down behind his desk.

‘Come out where I can hit you!’ the dwarf yelled.

‘I’m afraid I’m reluctant to acquiesce to your request, my dear,’ Cor’Leon called from behind the desk. ‘But to show you my abject remorse, have a gift!’

Something small and angular arced up and over Cor’Leon’s makeshift barricade toward them. It slammed into the floor and released a titanic peal of thunder.

Robin clapped his hands over his ears. Too late. They were already ringing like a school bell on the last day before summer.

‘You call that a gift? If it were a horse, I’d shoot it before coming anywhere near close enough to look it in the mouth!’ Robin lashed out with [Cutting Words].

A shout of rage answered Robin’s insult, and Cor’Leon popped out of hiding long enough to fling a dagger at Robin. The man’s aim was inexplicably terrible. The knife sailed wide of its mark and clattered against the wall before hitting the floor.

Ora-Jean circled around one side while Lantha took the other. Grathilde attempted to pepper him with sparks to distract him, but Cor’ Leon had donned some kind of brooch, and the thing glowed as it ate up Grathilde’s cantrips.

‘Give up Cor’Leon,’ Lantha said with quiet intensity. ‘You’re outnumbered and outmatched. You can’t hope to beat us.’

The crime lordling had the audacity to laugh in Lantha’s face at that. Robin’s stomach dropped. Something was wrong. This was not going to plan.

‘I don’t have to win. I just have to stall you long enough for my crew to get here.’ Cor’Leon grinned wickedly.

Robin cursed.

The bastard wasn’t wrong.