"When criminals clash against one another, it is almost always a bloody, yet clandestine affair. They could not afford the attention of the officials on them, and thus rarely resorted to open violence.

Gang wars do still happen, typically amongst smaller groups, and in areas the officials did not care about. The larger, more organized criminal organizations however, often relied more on assassinations and quiet killings.

Remove the head of the snake, and devour the body, was how most such groups operated. More often than not, unless there was severe bad blood between groups, most of an opposing organization's members would be assimilated after the higher-ups are removed.

Of course, those who proved suspect were often removed as well, rather than be given a chance. After all, criminals do not play nice with each other." - From a lecture by Garth Wainwrought, Professor of Socioeconomics at the Levain Institute for Higher Learning, circa 662 FP.

The three years that followed were turbulent years for the underworld in the city of Zefirous. High-ranked people from criminal organizations would be found dead, and an investigation often pointed towards their enemies as the culprit.

Such things were not uncommon, but the frequency with which they happened in those three years were unnatural. The cases had started with small fries, people in charge of a group found dead. Most thought they were killed by their rivals in opposing groups, which was not unexpected.

Then it escalated. Within a year one of the lords of the smaller organizations was found dead, and his criminal empire crumbled as his underlings gobbled up parts of it for themselves. Nobody had suspected an old woman who had taken over the division that handled the child beggars or her blind helper.

A string of sudden deaths continued, and before the others realized, that same old woman had taken over nearly a quarter of the city's underworld. A bonafide rival for the remaining crime lords. Even so, they noticed that the assassinations also struck her men along with theirs, and had thought her merely an opportunist who took the opportunity to rise.

The remaining crime lords - the ascendant old woman included - had gathered and discussed the situation they faced. They worried that it was the nobles and officials who were behind the killings, which seemed mostly indiscriminate, and that it might be a ploy to remove them from the city.

Guards were doubled, and the crime lords never left their safehouses without considerable escort, yet the assassinations continued on. Slowly, however, two of the crime lords found a pattern, one that suggested that it was the third crime lord that had played them instead.

They had contacted the old woman and together their three organizations wiped out the offending crime lord's. Yet at the cusp of victory, when the old woman had already retreated after her people bore the brunt of the charge, an assassin took the life of one of the remaining crime lords.

His people heard his screams, and walked in to find the other crime lord looking flabbergasted with a bloody dagger in his hand. Their emotions already riled from the prior fighting, those men lynched the last crime lord on the spot.

Quite naturally, that crime lord's subordinates were in turn enraged at the perceived betrayal. The two organizations went to open war with each other, to the point that the city guards had to cull them down.

After the dust settled, the old woman named Varsha took in the remnants of the destroyed criminal organizations, and reigned as the sole queen of the city's underworld. She quickly greased palms left and right and gave assurances that such open fighting would not happen again, and was thus left alone by the guards.

That summer night, the new queen of the Zefirous underworld sat in her room, on the topmost floor of a five-story building that was the best brothel in the seedier parts of town. Reed, now fifteen, stood across from her, sipping a cup of warm milk like that night she killed for the first time five years ago.

"Take this," said Varsha as she tossed a ring to the blind girl. The girl snatched the ring from the air with ease regardless, and quickly looked into it. It turned out to be a storage ring, a typical one the size of a rucksack. Inside was a good amount of money, rations, clothes, weapons, and most conspicuously, a tag on a chain.

"What is this?" asked the girl as she brought out the tag and showed it to the old woman.

"It's a tag from the adventurer's guild. Valid as identification most everywhere but here," explained Varsha with a pleased voice. "It's not a counterfeit. Took some doing to get one, but it'd legitimately registered, under your new name."

"New name?" she asked again, with obvious confusion.

"The name your mother gave you was… too characteristic of this place. It might hinder you abroad. Besides, I doubt you'd want to keep going by Reed all the time, no?" elaborated the old woman. "Inside are rations and gear you'd need to get your skinny ass out of this shithole of a country. I remembered all those times you muttered about how you hate this place."

"There's a big world out there, girl. You're a free woman. Go out there and carve your own path," added Varsha. "Consider it as payment for all the dirty shit you've been doing for me these past years if you like."

Reed had been the very person behind the assassinations of the past three years. At first, she had abused her appearance, and pretended to be a harmless, blind girl who was lost, before she went for the kill.

Later on, she grew bolder. She had quickly learned that most people were troubled greatly by the darkness. For her, however, darkness had been her world to begin with, as the way in which she sensed her surroundings had not relied on light.

She quickly made a habit of striking in the dark of night, and extinguishing torches and lanterns where she could. In the darkness, she was a predator, and they were the prey. As such, their lives were hers for the reaping.

While Varsha had never treated her badly over those years, she had still felt that something was off. The old woman was too good on her, showing consideration and kindness that she should not have to a mere tool of hers.

Reed had wondered why, and finally voiced the question that had bothered her all these years.

"Why?" she had asked. "Why are you so kind to me? I had honestly expected that you would have disposed of me now that my job is finished… not this."

"Sit down, child, and let this old woman tell you a story," said Varsha as she stuffed a smoking pipe with dried herbs and lit it. Reed did as she was told, pulled a chair, and sat down as she sipped the warm milk.

"Many years ago, there was a woman. An old assassin, who had grown tired of such a life. She had faked her death, moved to another town under a new identity, and tried to start a normal life anew," said Varsha, with some mockery in her voice. "She had even found a man she cared for, and had a child together with him. A pretty little girl, more precious to her than anything else in the world."

"And yet those happy times had not lasted long. When their daughter was five, her husband was conscripted for war, and he never returned. Even so, she raised her dear daughter as best she could. Even tried to get her better work, where she could enjoy a better life," she continued, now with some evident sorrow in her voice. "That also backfired on her. Her daughter was employed by the Count of the great city of the West, yet a mere year after, she came back home, disgraced and heavy with child."

"Even so, she welcomed her daughter back, hid her in the poorer part of town, but made sure that she would be undisturbed there. When the child was born, she would visit from time to time, but mostly contented herself with looking from afar," lamented the old woman some more as her voice slowly built up into a crescendo. "But even then, that was not enough."

"The bastard whoreson noble trash who had gotten her daughter pregnant had traced her into town, and on a day when the old assassin happened to be away, killed the daughter. They hurt the daughter's child too, which the old assassin was surprised to find delivered to her by a neighbor of her daughter's," added Varsha, hatred evident when she spoke of the noble, though her voice softened by the end. "You probably understand why now, do you not… Frida?"

When Reed heard the name, the very name her mother had given her, she almost choked on her milk. Yet her surprised mind quickly put the facts together even so.

"So you're… my grandmother?" she asked with a surprised voice.

"Just call me by my name. I don't deserve to be called a grandmother," scoffed the old woman. "I turned and used my own grandchild as an assassin, all because I didn't have it in me to take up the blade again myself."

"Even so…" the blind girl said. "You gave me strength. Strength to carve my own path in this cruel world… as well as a way to get out of it. Tell me honestly… Varsha… why did you raise yourself into the ruler of the underworld these past years?"

"It's hard to get stuff like that tag unless I go that far," admitted the old woman with a smile. "It's the least I can do… for my granddaughter. Let me be a doting grandmother for once."

"Thank you… for everything… grandma," said the girl as she embraced the old woman. They remained like that for a few moments, before they separated again at last.

"Oh right. You mentioned that you registered me under a new name. How do you say it? I can't exactly read what's on the tag," asked the girl after they parted. While her magical senses allowed her to feel things down to the details, it was pretty much useless for reading.

"Elfriede," replied Varsha. "It's a variation of the name your mother gave you in the dwarven lands to the south. It's also common enough to not be out of place elsewhere."

"Elfriede, huh?" said the girl as she pronounced the name. She noticed how it sounded rather similar to her nickname. She thought it fitted. She was no longer the naive, helpless child who depended on her mother, nor the dispenser of death for the queen of the underworld. A new name… for a new life.

******************************

Getting out of the Holy Kingdom was easier than she had thought. The guards by the border kept an eye for healthy adults, but she had pretended to be a lost, helpless blind girl. The way she stooped and showed obvious difficulty finding her way made them ignore her.

A blind girl getting lost in the jungle and never returning was not something they would have thought of as strange, so she did just that. The jungle itself was a bit of a challenge, but she walked out from it, in the neighboring Kingdom to the west, after some struggle.

There was no sign of the frail-looking, stooped, blind girl who tapped the ground with her stick and tried to feel her way ahead in lands she did not know. She emerged from the forest with her back straight, radiating confidence in herself, and walked with large steps towards the nearest town.

Towards a new life.