A Battle Royal V

"It's only been one week since my fight with Pennywise, but I have received word I have to fight an Assassin. I hate their damn guild. The sooner they stop trying to kill me, the sooner I will stop killing them." I muttered. "Oh well, one more won't hurt much."

Rondros grinned.

A message had been delivered to my public address. It detailed an opponent by the name of Eomer, an Assassin. I sent the message back with a time and date. Ohulan Cutash again; I was beginning to like the market there.

We agreed through the scrolls that the fight would start at a time, rather than any other form of non-covert signal. I knew he was an experienced operator. One of their Top Ten, I thought. Time was almost up; I slipped out of position and equipped myself with my recently re-enchanted daggers. This would be a quick fight, or a long fight, depending on who discovered the other first.

Eomer was the first to make a mistake - a barrel fell where there was no visible presence. I knew in that instant that he was behind it and began to slip towards his position. I heard the quiet padding of soft boots as Eomer made his escape. And then saw him exit boldly from a stall and begin to search through a pile of boxes in the market corner. I snaked my way towards him slowly and quietly. I leapt out and stabbed him neatly four times in the back and he screamed in agony, took a backhand swipe and ran to the opposing corner. I gave chase but he lost me amidst the market stalls and people. This fight was so covert the entire town was unaware of us battling it out in the shadows.

After some thirty minutes of trying covertly to locate Eomer, I saw him stumble out of his hiding location and begin to search around again. I could see he was weakened by the wounds in his back and he was being clumsy. I leapt out and stabbed him four more times in his back. He span around knocking me off my feet and quickly drank a healing vial as I recovered. I set my sights on him and would not let him evade me again; I switched to my Retribution and began to calculate where to strike the fatal blow. Eomer leapt at me, catching me off guard and began slashing his daggers into my Gappic armour. The armour was mostly absorbing his blows. What power Gapp had, I could only imagine. I gracefully dodged to one side, kicked him in the stomach and as he doubled over I brought my Retribution down on his head, spraying blood everywhere.

He was an assassin; I felt no loss by killing him. All the others in the competition I merely rendered unconcious, but he was an assassin. I looted some purple phials from his corpse before concealing it among some discarded bags and boxes. With no words, I left the market. Another victory, I thought, and one less Assassin I chuckled to myself.

Before I even arrived in Mad Stoat I could sense something was wrong. I never walked along the main trail and the people trailing me knew as well. I palmed a couple of flashbang capsules from a pouch, glanced around and rapidly threw them in all directions and covered my eyes. An eye blinding flash encircled me and I dived down a hidden tunnel.

I lay still for a while and listened to the angry conversation going on above my hiding place.

"Damnit, he's a sneaky bugger alright. No one has any idea?"

"Yes, he does seem to possess a rather good ability to evade trackers. Comb the area, I want him found within the hour."

"Yessir!"

I smiled and slipped quietly down the tunnel.

After a short time, the tunnel began to widen which ended with a sturdy metal door. I entered the correct code on the combination lock and slid through the door landing lightly.
The room had seven doors around it and a main tunnel leading off in one direction, all the doors were to tunnels, which in turn led to the surface above. I set off down the main tunnel until I reached a larger metal door. I took a small key and entered the code on another combination lock. I opened the door and stepped through.

"They're all over the place you know."

"Yeah yeah, damn assassins. Any of them get close to the tunnels?"

"Nope."

"Good good, for their own sake. Well, another fight won as you can see. The last two went very well."

"Excellent! Have a drink!"

"Aye, my fifth victory..." I grinned to myself.