The Blade of the Craft Guild realized his mission would be much more difficult than he expected when less than twenty steps into the Wretched Quarter a man in a torn and dirty black robe confronted him. The Blade was covered in filth, had on a dirty and torn yellow tunic, and should have looked like any other wretched Craft Guild citizen returning from across the river. Yet the man made a beeline to him.

"Name your guild," the man asked.

"I am a Custodian. I clean the floors in the Warehouse District." The Blade couldn't quite believe he was seeing a man in black. Maybe there was some roving gang that liked to pretend they were the heir of Pietro or something. He dropped his hand to the stiletto sheathed against his leg.

"Where do you live?"

The Blade nodded in some vague direction. "Over that way."

"Which street?"

The man in black was not backing down. The Blade couldn't quite figure out what was going on, but he didn't want to raise any alarms either. "Who wants to know?" The Blade hoped that moving to an aggressive approach might do the trick. The gang member was probably used to people cowering in front of him.

To the Blade's shock, the man in black didn't even ask another question. He reached out and grabbed the Blade by the arm. "You're coming with me." The man's grip was like iron, and the Blade was yanked nearly off his feet.

Looking around, he was surrounded by quite a few people, but not enough to stop his escape, which was good as he had very few options. He couldn't follow the man—he had no idea what this gang had in mind. Did this criminal element rule the Wretched Quarter? And how did the man know that the Blade was not a resident?

With a fluid motion, the Blade pulled his stiletto, sliced it across the back of the man's hand, and as he let go, the Blade sprinted off to the Great Bridge. There were no knights in white on this side. It was lawless, and the Blade used that to his advantage, darting in and out among the sad faces that were leaving or heading to their jobs in Ness proper.

By the time he walked into the Lower Quarter, the Blade realized that his mission to find and kill Ralan had just become much more difficult, and it had been difficult to start with. Something about him tipped off the roving gangs in that lawless sad excuse for a city, so he would have to head back in the shadows, avoiding people and looking for Ralan without revealing his presence.

The Blade shook his head. He had hated the Wretched Quarter before, but now that he knew that it was even more violent and full of chaos than even he had thought, he hated it even more. Like his guildmaster, he wanted it burned to the ground.