When Twilight accepts the offer of a deity, she finds more than she bargained for.
A Dishonored/My Little Pony crossover.
The city of Dunwall, once the pride of the Isles, is on the brink of anarchy. As Emily Kaldwin, the child Empress, and her assassin-turned bodyguard, Corvo Attano, struggle to prevent the death of an Empire, a deal made with an Outsider sends Twilight Sparkle into the chaos.
Some credit for this goes to Urdeth, who helped pre-read my chapters.
Disclaimer: Dishonored was co-created by Bethesda Softworks and Arkane Studios. MLP:FiM is property of Hasbro. I have no affiliation with either.
“The "door to nowhere" has proven to be a safety hazard, but for me this project is an endless source of inspiration. With the proper application of energies, I believe I can transform the door frame into a window of sorts, one that will allow a traveler to cover the distance from my workshop to some distant, arbitrary point in a single step. Currently the step leads to a sheer drop, straight down into the courtyard, but in time it will bridge gaps that will boggle the mind. Such work is many years away, to be sure, but if I survive the plague I'm sure to succeed.”
–Piero, Natural Philosopher and Inventor.
****
“Things are bad. Could this city get any worse?”
“Indeed, I believe so.”
Corvo Attano, Lord Protector, ex-assassin, rubbed his temples as he listened to the bantering of the guards outside of the tactician’s room in Dunwall Tower. Ever since the coronation of Empress Emily Kaldwin and the restoration of the Kaldwin blood line, Dunwall had barely improved at all. The rat plague which had been responsible for the deaths of thousands of Dunwall’s citizens had been cured, but the carnivorous rats themselves still remained. The plague itself was cured only to be replaced by a famine- brought on when the neighboring Isles had instigated a blockade to see if the disease would eat the capital inside out.
Civil stability hadn't been helped by the assassination of Empress Jessamine, and the abduction of her only heir. Corvo later learned that the plague had been brought on by rats imported by the Royal Spymaster, who had intended to use the plague to 'thin out' the lower class citizens. When the Empress suspected this, he killed her and seized power merely to save his own worthless skin- allowing Corvo to take the fall for her death. Corvo later broke out of prison, and met 'The Loyalists': A group of nobles and men of standing who had their own grudges against the Spymaster- who had taken the title of Lord Regent. Corvo's hands ran red with the blood of those who tried to obscure the truth to save themselves.
Despite everything Corvo had done: all the intrigues, all the assassinations, all the unclean aristocratic blood he had spilled, the city was still on a downward slide into chaos. Everyone had held on to the delusion that having a ten year old girl on the throne would somehow make everything better, but it didn't. It seemed that the city was pursuing ever more creative means of self-destruction.
Shortly after the foppish aristocrats realized that they had ‘restored’ a ten year old girl to the throne, many suddenly pounced on the idea to seize power for themselves; banding together against the throne in the ruse of wanting to form a Republic.
Corvo himself hadn’t helped garner support for the throne. The Abbey of the Everyman: the dominant religion in the Isle of Gristol, and commanders of the religious militant faction known as 'The Overseers'. The Abbey quickly discovered that the restored Lord Protector bore the mark of the Outsider on the back of his hand: the Outsider, the deity whom the Abbey considered to be the unholiest of influences upon men. The Abbey demanded to have Corvo executed as a heretic. Needless to say, Emily refused them, and in doing so she lost her religious support.
Financial support for the Imperial cause was also unsteady. With the death of Treavor Pendleton, the mighty economic base that had once fueled The Loyalists was now in the hands of Celia Pendleton, who couldn't see the reason in spending money on anything but herself. Corvo had been forced to broker an arrangement with Slackjaw, the boss of the ‘Bottle Street Gang’: a disturbingly well-organised group of thugs that made a fortune from launching home invasions on rich bureaucrats and selling watered down whiskey at high prices. Slackjaw was a criminal, but he was honest in his own way, and he always kept his word.
It was a motley group that still supported the child Empress. A handful of the City Watch’s more prestigious units could still remember fighting for the first empress, and stood firm as a statement of honor. The others merely followed out of fear of the Lord Protector, who was widely known for, as Admiral Havelock used to put it, “Projecting lethal force in a controlled manner against previously inaccessible targets.”
Corvo sat back with an exhausted sigh, watching with mild disinterest as the strategists seated around the same table as him moved pieces around on a map of the city; determining how to best use a handful of soldiers to defend half a city against the other half- which have greater numbers, more funds, and more support. The ex-assassin leaned back in his chair, and stared into the soulless gaze of his old mask, sometimes he thought about donning it again, to help give the Imperial cause a fighting chance, but he knew that young Emily would be lost without him, so he refrained.
Corvo had an unwelcome flashback to his days as an assassin: The Boyle Mansion, a mask party where he mingled with the guests before he pretended to seduce, and then summarily abduct the hostess. He recalled a rather grim conversation between two of the guests.
“You should see this as an opportunity.”
“To… What? Learn a trade? Join the city watch?”
“Your house built its fortune in crises, you can do so again.”
“Land is worthless now. My buildings are full of corpses and rats. Where’s the fortune there?”
“If you want to be beaten, go right ahead. Let your family starve. Sell your wife into prostitution, I’m sure I could get you a good price.”
“You son of a bitch.”
“There’s the old Byron spirit. Things are changing too fast to give up just yet. First that nasty mess with the Empress. Now the High Overseer’s gone, Parliament is shifting. The whole city’s turning upside-down.”
“If we only had a good war to get into.”
“There you are. Although at this stage I don’t know who we could beat.”
“But don’t you see? We don’t need to win a war, only lose it. Everything’s revalued, and we let the conquerors worry about the problems…”
Corvo gave a humourless snort at the memory.
“Well, here’s your war.” He thought bitterly, “Now all of us are going to lose, and the rats and crows will be the conquerors.”
Celestia looked out at the sunset she had created, washing the land in a beautiful palette of orange and purple. It was the type of sunset that lingered, that made workers put down their tools and rest awhile, stopping to appreciate the joy of being alive. Celestia felt the slight tugging in the magical spectrum, letting her know that Luna was ready to take her shift for the night. Celestia relaxed, and went to her chambers to enjoy a good night’s sleep.
Well, at least she intended to get a good night’s sleep.
As soon as the alicorn dozed off, she felt her conscience being pulled at by something, tugging her dreaming conscience to somewhere else. It seemed to be some sort of invitation, she accepted. She opened her eyes, and found herself standing on a broken chunk of landmass, with several other chunks of flooring hovering in place all around her. She could see moments of history, frozen in time. The mane six binding Discord with the Elements of Harmony, her first meeting with Twilight Sparkle, the vanquishing of Queen Chrysalis, she could see them all, drifting snapshots of time.
“Do you like what I’ve done with the place?”
Celestia turned her attention to the being which brought her here: The Outsider.
She was familiar with the Outsider, as different immortal beings bearing deep reserves of magic tend to be. The Outsider was merely referred to that name by the fact that he was referred to as such by the mortals who knew him. He did have a true name, but he rarely chose to appear in the form associated with that title anymore.
He had chosen his bipedal form to appear before her. By human standards, his fair complexion and earth-brown buckled jacket which matched his brown hair would have made him seem quite plain- Except for the fact that he was floating about a metre above the ground, and his eyes were a pitch black colour. He had his arms crossed over his chest. He opened his mouth to continue.
“Perhaps you’d prefer that I choose something more familiar?”
He disappeared in a thin cloud of black smoke, and reappeared as an earth pony, with the same dull brown mane and coat. On his flank was his ‘mark’; an ambiguous, yet distinctive black sigil that adorned the area where his cutie mark should be. His eyes held the same darkness as before: not an empty darkness, like a pit, but darkness like the depths of an ocean, the type of darkness that suggests something lurking within. He took a slight bow, and motioned to a quaint tea set spread on the same island he was standing on. The white alicorn regarded him carefully, but she eventually jumped to the island where he was sitting, and took her seat opposite of the brown equine.
They spent the first few minutes in silence, until the Outsider caught Celestia gazing at the frozen moments in time.
“I collect the moments I find interesting.” He said mildly, “Well, at least interesting enough to remember. You’ve made Equestria so terribly boring these days.”
Celestia took another sip of tea, a subtle change coming over her demeanour.
“You’re more like him than you think.”
The brown stallion gave a ghost of a smile, and stirred a lump of sugar into his tea cup.
“I can only assume you are referring to the previous owner of The Void? Discord, Draconequus. Self-proclaimed god of chaos. It's ironic that he never changed from that title. He started every day, and ended every night, with the same intention; to spread chaos. How original.”
He took another sip from his teacup before continuing.
“No doubt you believe I owe you an apology, but Discord was weak and ignorant. The very fact that he tried to seek refuge in your world is my proof. Because under your careful guidance everything always ends in the same way: good over evil, nothing ever changing.”
Celestia responded in her same, musing tone.
“I don’t think I’ll ever understand what you see in them.”
The Outsider’s brow arched in amusement,
“Humans?” he asked with genuine pleasantry. “Quite simply, they fascinate me.”
The deep-eyed pony waved a hoof, and the décor depicting Equestrian history was suddenly replaced with scenes of humans. Celestia wasn’t impressed. She could see armed guards attacking innocents, a human standing atop a long-legged contraption, frozen in time as he poised a burning arrow at another wounded human. Celestia looked back at The Outsider.
“Look again.” He insisted.
Celestia took another glance at the drifting islands of time, trying to seek out anything that didn’t depict humans displaying their innate lack of conscience, and she was surprised at the things she had ignored. On one island a group of humans were sitting, raising glasses into the air with large grins on their faces. On another isle she saw a pair of humans deep in discussion, creating fantastic contraptions beyond her perception.
“Do you see?” The Outsider asked, “Humans are absolutely captivating, they are capable of such destruction, and yet just when you start losing faith in them, they surprise you with their compassion. Utterly unpredictable. Who knows, perhaps if you didn’t keep ‘your little ponies’ in complete ignorance, they may be more like humans than you think.”
“I don’t keep them ignorant.” Celestia stammered, her composure momentarily broken.
“Are you really so certain?” The Outsider chided, “Even now, your protégé stays awake, studying me. She seeks a way to contact me, and when she finally learns how, I will let her find me. I wonder, will you allow her to pursue this knowledge,” he cocked his head to one side and gave the white alicorn a quizzical smile, “or will you decide that ignorance is bliss?”
Celestia inhaled, and she was prepared to make dire threats against the Outsider if he so much as harmed a hair on her student’s mane. But the dream had already dissolved, and she was left yelling at the ceiling of her bedchamber.
Emily Kaldwin, Empress of The Isles, and ten year old girl, lay on the floor of her room, drawing with oil pastels. She was doodling things from her imagination, and things she had seen in books: whaling ships on the hunt, the Dunwall lighthouse, her favorite doll. There was still one corner of the page she hadn't used yet. She looked at her rack of pastels, performing the serious work of wondering what she should draw next. After a few minutes of careful deliberation, she was suddenly struck with inspiration: She would draw a pony. Her hands dragged the pastels across the paper with dexterity that surprised Emily herself, and within a minute she had drawn it, and leaned in to examine her work.
She had absolutely no idea why she had chosen purple, of all colours, to draw a pony. The isles didn't have many equine creatures, but ponies were brown, like dogs and cats, weren't they?
“Maybe ponies aren't purple, but what if…?”
In another flash of inspiration, she drew a narwhal horn onto the head of her pony. Something about it seemed… familiar, somehow. She decided to go see if she had seen it in a book somewhere.
She was still reading when Callista came in. Callista Curnow, the niece of Geoff Curnow, the captain of the city watch. She had cared for young Emily when her mother had been killed and usurped by the Royal Spymaster. Back when they still had to hide from the corrupt authorities. Back when Corvo was still slitting throats to meet the goals of The Loyalists.
“Bedtime, Emily.” Callista said to her in a quiet voice, “An empress needs her sleep.”
Emily sighed, “Okay, fine. Can I wish Corvo good night?”
“I’m not sure, he’s very busy…” Callista trailed off, it was pointless to try and contradict Emily, she could be very wilful at times.
“He’s probably bored sick, listening to the captains droning on about strategies.” Emily reasoned, “He’s a better soldier than an officer.”
Callista furrowed her brow. Emily seemed so innocent most of the time, and then the young empress would suddenly surprise her by saying something so mature and insightful. Callista agreed to let Emily find Corvo. The Watch Officers wearing steel plate masks outside of Emily’s room fell into step behind the empress as she made her way toward the tactician’s room, their boots thumping against the ceramic tiles in perfect unison. Emily could hear the strategists debating with each other as she approached.
“I still think we should make a push for Clavering Boulevard.”
“You know why we can’t do that, Captain Curnow, Holger’s Square is literally less than a block away; the Overseers will butcher anyone sent up there.”
“We have a unit of Tallboys-”
“-Stilt-Walkers-”
“-Of course, ‘stilt-walkers’, on Redmoor Road that can support any play we make for Clavering. Bottle Street runs pretty much directly under the boulevard, anyways. I’m sure Slackjaw’s boys-”
“Are you really considering placing the lives of your men in the hands of those inbred thugs and criminals?”
"They're tougher than they let on, Calhoun. A lot of those 'thugs and criminals' are ex-watchmen."
“Huh, that must be why I have such trouble telling you apart.”
There was the sound of a fist thumping against a table.
“I’d like to see you do better, you arrogant son of a-”
"Geoff!" This sudden call came from Corvo, who motioned to the entrance with a nod of his head.
The attention in the room moved to the open wall of the room, where Emily was standing off to one side. Geoff, who had sprung up from his chair during the argument, slowly eased himself back into his seat with a sheepish look on his face, as if to say ‘Oh, was I about to of punch the lights out of the rat-bastard across the table? Fancy that.’
The tension in the room was running high, but there was something about Emily. Standing pidgeon-toed, slightly off to one side of the entrance, in her white gown, rubbing the sleepiness out of one of her eyes, she was an epitome of innocence. The men assembled around the table were irritated, demoralised, and yet their hearts collectively melted on catching sight of her. Corvo glanced around at the faces of the other tacticians, many of them had daughters, sisters, sons of their own; people who they were fighting to protect. Corvo knew the look he saw in their eyes: the simple, yet non-negotiable knowledge that they would do everything in their power to preserve the young, fragile creature before them. Be it lay down their lives, or take the lives of any who threatened her.
One of the guards flanking the young empress cleared his throat.
“The Empress has requested a private audience with the Lord Protector.” He announced in an official tone.
Corvo smiled, and rose from his chair, glad to be away from the bickering officers.
***
There were many rumors flitting like bees among the officers and lower guardsmen of the watch, nothing could make a day interesting like a good, juicy rumor. The guardsmen had malicious, brutish lifestyles, and as such most of their rumors acted as such. Yet there was one speculation that broke away from the usual whispers, most of which were an implication, passed down from a scullery maid to a passing watchman who heard it from his cousin's brother. It was much more simpler than that.
Could it be, the guards pondered, that Corvo is Emily's father?
Corvo himself knew the answer to that, and he intended to take it to his grave. He had long since learned that secrets tend to be like the bottles of whale oil that had revolutionized technology in Dunwall: Harmless if you leave it alone, but you had best handle it with the utmost care, if at all, lest you cause it to explode.
Regardless of any connection by blood the Lord Protector had to the child Empress, he was about as close to a parent as she had left, and he intended to fill the role to the best of his abilities.
Outside the bastion of Dunwall Tower, atrocities were being committed. In some buildings, Weepers- advanced plague victims, were no doubt staggering about, the plague controlling their brains and directing them toward the healthy, with the intent of spreading the disease. Tallboys would be wading through the normally chest-high waters of the Flooded district, their stilts allowing them to move through the collapsed ruins and high waters with relative ease as they attempted to sight out the remnants of Daud's Whaler Assassins with their compound bows. But for now, for this one, serene moment, he could believe that there was peace in the world, as he tucked Emily in and read her a few pages from 'The Gaffer's Tale'. Eventually wishing her a good night before exiting. He nodded to the two elite watch officers standing on either side of the entrance wearing steel face-masks seamlessly fitting under their low-brimmed helmets, who snapped out a salute in unison. The Empress Emily would rest without disturbance tonight.
Without disturbance from any physical source, at least.
***
Emily felt herself waking up, but with that sort of warm fuzziness surrounding her that suggested she was dreaming. She looked about, to find herself sitting in her own room, which dropped away into nothingness a few feet away from the foot of her bed. She remembered this dream, it was no dream to her, but a nightmare.
She remembered it when Corvo had rescued her from where she was being held captive and delivered her to the safehosue of The Hound Pits Pub. Soon after, she had found an artifact half-buried in the mud near the river, a flat whalebone, with an interesting design cut into the surface of it. She had kept it under her pillow as she slept, and it had taken her to this same place where she was now. A wind blew through, and she shivered, she decided to crawl back into her bed, and wait until she woke up. Then he appeared again: The man in the brown jacket, as she had called him. When she had first seen him, he had merely stared at her with his deep black eyes. This time, to her horror, he spoke to her.
"Hello, Emily."
That wasn't so bad, Emily thought. Her imagination had devised all sorts of strange, scary and creepy voices that would fit this strange man, but his voice sounded relatively normal.
"You can trust me." The Outsider informed her, "Corvo knows me quite well, although I doubt he would pleased if he knew we spoke."
He leaned forward slightly, "I'll need you to do something for me, Emily."
Emily said nothing, she assumed that she didn't have much of a choice in the matter.
The scenery changed, and they were suddenly situated in the workshop of Piero Joplin. Emily had seen him around a bit when she was at The Hound Pits Pub, Corvo talked to him a lot. Since her coronation, Piero had been given his own workshop in Dunwall Tower. Not that he acted bitter, but the inventor tended to mind his own business, and Emily generally found that if someone liked being left alone, it was a good idea to just leave them alone. Besides, there was a permanent, acidic stench of whale oil permeating from his workshop at all hours of the day. Him and the Tyvian Philosopher, Anton Sokolov, had been responsible for creating the cure for the plague. She saw Piero, curled up a little ways from his desk, he had folded up his jacket into a makeshift pillow, and was sleeping on it, assumably so he wouldn't have to go far from his desk.
"Piero, the scholar," The Outsider gestured to the snoring inventor at his feet, "he seeks a way to unlock the secret of long-distance travel in the blink of an eye, to transcend the temporal and secular boundaries of existence."
The haze shifted slightly, to reveal Piero's "Door to Nowhere". His workshop in The Hound Pits Pub had a similar project. Piero had been looking into a way to achieve what he had called 'teleportation'. Emily hadn't seen the logic behind the bricked-off door, with the black circle painted into it. A similarly structured doorway was located in his new workshop, but now there was a panoply of machinery centred around it.
"He believes that through mathematics, he can turn the lifeless brick and stone into a bridge with the pull of a lever. And we are going to help him."
The Outsider paused, making sure Emily was listening.
"Tonight, you will sneak from your bedchambers, and enter Piero's workshop. Write my mark onto the stone, and activate Piero's machine. Your guardsmen will not notice you. All will become clear once you do this."
***
Emily woke up, and sat bolt upright. She took an unsteady breath, and had a soreness in the back of her head. She tried to tell herself it was just a bad dream, and tried to fluff out her pillow. She heard something crinkling inside of the pillowcase. Intrigued, she pulled off the pillowcase, and found a small piece of paper, written on it was that accursed insignia.
Emily gulped, trying to keep herself from screaming. It wouldn't do to have it known that the Empress suffered from night terrors- even if the guards believed her about the dream, it wouldn't do either to have it known that she was cursed by the Outsider. Instead, she went to her pastel rack, and gingerly plucked the black pastel from it's place. She went to her door, and timidly pushed it open. True to the Outsider's words, the guards were still standing vigilant, but they seemed not to notice, almost as if they were in a dreamlike state themselves. The young empress took one last glance at her bedchamber, and left for Piero's workshop.
Twilight Sparkle gulped nervously. In the basement of her library, she had assembled all the items before her that the dust-covered tome had told her to, but she was still having her doubts. In order to create an Outsider’s Rune, said the book, she’d need some charcoal, a bit of heat… and a bone from one dead whale. What disturbed Twilight the most was that the yellowed old tome actually had a sub-section on killing and ‘harvesting’ whales- and the several dozens of uses that each portion of the whale could serve. She had managed to avoid resorting to such disturbing measures by ‘borrowing’ a piece of a dismantled whale skeleton from the Ponyville Museum of Natural History: She had just asked for a piece, citing ‘research purposes’ and the curator had simply handed it over.
What Twilight had failed to mention to the pleasant, aged stallion in charge of the Museum was that she was going to use the whale bone to try and contact an ancient, omniscient being with power that may very well transcend Discord, and maybe even the princesses themselves. Yet the implications behind the possibility of such a being existing… she had to know, at any cost, she just had to.
Twilight rubbed her sleep-deprived eyes and followed the simple instructions written in the book:
The first and most important component of creating a whalebone rune is to ensure that the surface you are marking is clean. Generally a quick scrubbing with a wet piece of cloth will do the trick. Now, use the charcoal and inscribe the Outsider’s mark onto the whalebone slate.
Study the above image carefully. Ensure that none of the markings are off when you replicate it. The copy of the inscription does not need to be picture-perfect. However, extra markings or a lack thereof can bring calamity to one who attempts the next step. When you are certain that your charcoal sigil matches the symbol above, heat the charcoal markings using any means at your disposal.
And that’s all there was to it. With fidgeting hooves, Twilight copied the arcane symbol onto the flat surface of the whale’s shoulder bone. She tried to use a heat spell on the engravings, but she was too exhausted; her sleep deprived brain couldn’t concentrate enough to do it. The purple unicorn passed the whalebone to Spike, who had also had his sleep interrupted for the occasion. The juvenile dragon cocked an eyebrow at the grisly object in his hands, and looked back at Twilight.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“Just do it.” Twilight snapped, she was too tired, too close to a breakthrough, to allow a petty thing like doubt to hold her back now.
Spike merely shrugged, and blew a gout of green flame onto the charcoal markings. The first thing Spike noticed was that the charcoal markings were glowing, as if they were tapping into some other, internal source of heat. They ended up glowing brighter, and the slate became so hot that Spike dropped it to avoid burning his fingers. The markings simmered, and the glow faded, leaving the distinctive black engravings behind. The simmering noise seemed to stay, though, changing subtly to a quiet gurgling sort of noise. Twilight carefully plucked the whalebone rune off the floor, and held it in her hooves. It seemed as if the odd, constant noise increased as she brought it near.
It was almost as if it was calling to her.
If Spike hadn’t been sleep-deprived, he would’ve known to be worried at the covetous look in his adoptive sister’s eye as she ran a hoof over the surface of the rune. But he was too tired to notice.
“Can I go to sleep now?” He asked, rubbing one of his eyes.
“Yes, of course.” Twilight was barely paying attention to her assistant as she stared at the rune, her bloodshot eyes wide with wonder.
She was still gazing into the engraved chunk of whalebone after Spike went upstairs to get his rest. She had done it, there was definitely something arcane about the small artifact sitting before her. But what did this mean? What should she do with it?
The lavender mare was still wondering about this when she finally passed out from exhaustion, slumping over the whalebone rune. It’s calling echoing into her dreams.
****
Twilight woke up, the haze of torpor dissipating from her mind. She peered around, trying to recollect the events of yesterday. Her eyes widened when she remembered what she had done. The looked down, and to her renewed disgust, found that she had indeed mutilated the remains of a dead creature in the name of science. The rune was still making that distinctive rumbling noise, calling to her. Twilight backed away from it, disturbed by its siren’s song.
“Twilight!” Spike’s voice echoed from upstairs, a mixture of fear and urgency in his voice.
With another pang of guilt, Twilight remembered that she had implicated her assistant in this dark business. She moved towards the stairs, ready to assure him that she would find some way to undo what happened last night. Upon mentioning the rune Spike merely shook his head, waving away her apology.
“Forget that.” He interrupted her, “You need to see this!”
He jogged up to the ground floor, and she followed him, wondering what in Equestria could be so urgent. He ran to the door and wrenched it open. Twilight’s jaw dropped in shock. Ponyville had definitely changed.
For one thing, last time she checked, Twilight’s house hadn’t been floating in an endless abyss.
Twilight thought for a moment that Discord had returned, but something on this scale would have been inspired- even for him.
“What do we do?” Spike asked, the hysteria rising in his voice.
Twilight lowered her head until her eyes were level with her assistant’s.
“I know this is bad, but you need to stay calm.” She assured him, “We’re not going to get anywhere if we panic.”
The purple dragon took a deep breath and nodded, the fear still remaining in his eyes. Twilight nodded, and turned towards the door. It appeared that there was a grassy path, leading upwards out of view from the door. Twilight cautiously took a step beyond the threshold of her door, acting as if the path would fall away at any second. Eventually she stepped outside, and turned back to her assistant.
“No way to go but forwards, I guess.” She said.
Spike nodded, and timidly followed her. On floating islands all around them were random objects and buildings. Yet all of the drifting islands seemed to correlate to one another in some way, or hold some sort of significance to either Twilight or Spike. Spike suddenly stopped, and pointed to one of the islands.
“Wait, that’s me, isn’t it?”
On one of the islands, a fractured section of wood flooring carried Spike, holding out a large, heart-shaped gemstone to an ivory-white unicorn. Both Spike and Rarity were unmoving, seeming to be frozen in that one moment of time. Twilight spoke up.
“It’s official; I don’t think we’re in Equestria anymore.”
“Yeah,” Spike concurred with growing discomfort, “let’s keep moving.”
Eventually their path flattened out onto a large, circular area of stone tiles. As soon as Twilight and Spike stepped onto it, a figure sublimated in front of them. It was a brown stallion, he floated, although he had no wings. And he definitely had a large control over magic, although he had no horn. The most disturbing quality of him was his eyes- which seemed to be alive with darkness. His flank was adorned with the same eldritch marking that Twilight had etched onto the whalebone slate.
He regarded them evenly, with his forelegs crossed in front of his chest.
“Twilight Sparkle, and Spike.” The mysterious stallion addressed them.
“W-who are you?” Spike blurted out.
“I have been given many names over my existence,” The brown creature answered cryptically, before switching his gaze to Twilight.
“I think you already know who I am.”
Twilight stood there, still speechless. The brown stallion gave her an amused look.
“Is this what you intended? All those weeks of studying how to break the temporal boundaries, reading those old, forgotten books you had accumulated in the basement of your library?”
The purple mare finally found her voice,
“Y-you’re the Outsider.” she whispered reverently.
“Yes. I watched with great interest since the moment you found that old, centuries-forgotten tome from your attic. As you obtained the bone of a creature that had remained undisturbed for centuries past, and as you inscribed my mark into it.” He cocked his head to one side, a whimsical look crossing his features. “I wonder what your Princess Celestia would say, if she could see you now.”
Twilight’s gaze fell to the ground in shame, Spike stepped forward, a temper rising in him.
“You shouldn’t talk to Twilight like that. We never even asked you to come here, come to think of it, where are we?”
The Outsider uncrossed his forelegs and gestured around him. “This is the Void: My realm. It is a depository of all that has been, all that could have been, and all that will come to pass. It is the bridge by which time passes, and is remembered, and yet time itself is meaningless here; not seconds, nor centuries.”
Spike was starting to get seriously tired of all these half-answers.
“Wherever we are, can you at least send us back?”
The Outsider gave a slight bow.
“Of course, from here, I can return you with ease. But I would like to extend an offer to you.”
Twilight’s gaze suddenly shot up again, her eyes filled with curiosity.
“What ‘offer’?”
“You have come here with many questions, only a few of which have been answered. And I sense that there are many more questions that you have never found the answers for.”
He made a gesture with a hoof, and a spherical portal opened next to him.
“Accept my offer, and you will travel to a world inhabited by a species known as Humans. Although some amongst them waste this gift, many of them are born thinkers, and their world is in a constant state of intellectual advancement. Be warned: I can send you there with ease, but you may not return with the same ease.”
Spike’s trust for the enigmatic brown stallion had finally run out.
“No deal. Come on Twilight, let’s go home.” The dragon turned to make his way back down the path, and he tugged on Twilight’s tail, silently begging her to not trust the dark-eyed deity. Twilight turned to follow Spike, but slowly, gazing longingly into the sphere. The Outsider spoke up again.
“A shame.” He brooded, “Your Princess Celestia did her best to obscure all knowledge of me. Of course, she was merely acting with the best intentions.” He crossed his forelegs behind his back, and leaned forward, “But I wonder: what other secrets has she kept from you?”
Spike gave a groan, knowing that he couldn’t give any argument to top that.
“Just hold on a second, Twi.” Spike implored, “If you’re going through there, I’m coming with you, okay? I’m not going to let you do any of that ‘never-heard-from-again’ stuff. Got it?”
Twilight Sparkle agreed, and they both passed into the dimensional rift. The Outsider closed it behind them, returning to his original form with a smile.
Emily backed off to look at her handiwork. She had scrawled the symbol onto the bricked doorway, just like the Outsider had asked. She noticed she had a bit of pastel smudged on her fingertips. She wiped them off on her dress, creating a black smear on the white lace. She then went to find the instructions for turning on the contraption centred on the small doorway.
Being careful not to step on Piero’s sleeping form, Emily reached for the blueprints arranged neatly on his desk, sifting through them until she found the instructions. Using the blueprints, Emily found the lever for turning on the iron mechanism, and pulled.
A series of nozzles mounted on the machine fired a steady stream of chemically modified whale oil at the doorfram. Emily panicked when she saw the viscous fluid turning an orange colour, meaning that it was on the verge of explosion. However, the wall seemed to buckle, becoming fluid and collapsing inward. Emily stared, eyes wide, as two small creatures emerged from the shimmering rift, which faded back into brick as they came passed through it. Emily was sure she recognised one of the creatures that came through:
It was the pony she had sketched.
To be certain, Twilight and Spike had no idea what to expect when they passed through the Outsider’s rift. They gawked in wonder at the fantastic machines and metallic surroundings around them. It was a moment before they noticed the two creatures near the back of the room. Both of them were clothed from their necks to their feet in practical garments, with only their dexterous hands and heads showing. The older of the two seemed to have just been sleeping, and walked towards them whilst securing a pair of spectacles over his eyes. Twilight thought this would be a good time to introduce herself.
“Hi, I’m-”
The human brushed past her, seeming more interested in the partially melted brick wall that had once been the portal they came through.
“Fascinating.” He breathed to no one in particular. He turned back to the other human, who Twilight assumed was a filly- or, not exactly a filly. Whatever a young female human is called.
“Emily, I’m not sure what you did, but this…” he gestured to the wall, “Is... absolutely amazing. I was certain that if I tried it with these current calibrations, it would have caused a disaster. But I see that I should’ve been more confident.”
The tall, male human finally seemed to notice Twilight and Spike, he sank to one knee so he would be more level with them, adjusting his spectacles. He placed a hand against his chest.
“I am Piero Joplin. I believe my invention was responsible for bringing you here. Let me just say that it is an honor to be able to speak with you.”
Most would be surprised at the possibility of an outer-dimensional creature speaking the same language as themselves, but Piero was a Natural Philosopher: he had already calculated the probability of an other-dimensional species speaking the same language as them. Taking into account the inherent similarities their dimensions would need in order for such a bridge to even exist, the chances of a similar or even identical language was a definite probability.
“Hello,” the purple unicorn started again, “I’m Twilight Sparkle.”
“Charmed.” Piero motioned to the young female human, who had come closer now.
“May I introduce to you, Emily Kaldwin: Empress.”
Spike gave Emily a skeptical look.
“Really?”
A less mature girl in Emily’s position may have pouted, or said something petty. But Emily merely gave a small giggle, fully understanding the dragon’s disbelief.
“It’s a long story.” The young girl said light-heartedly. Then her face turned to a more curious expression, she addressed Twilight,
“You’re… a unicorn, right?”
Twilight nodded.
“And you’re a human?” the purple unicorn responded. Emily smiled and nodded.
Twilight noticed that her assistant was getting antsy. The dragon gave a small huff, frustrated at being ignored.
“Right, I nearly forgot. This is my assistant, Spike. He’s a dragon.”
Spike crossed his arms over his chest with an almost too-cheery smile. “Go on, say it.” He thought, “Tell me ‘You’re awfully small for a dragon.’ I dare you.”
To his immense surprise, Emily merely curtsied.
“It’s nice to meet you.” She said innocently. Spike began to take a liking to the empress.
A puzzled expression appeared on Piero’s face, he picked up a clockwork timepiece on his desk, which confirmed that this entire encounter was taking place in the dead of night. Despite the excitement of the situation, he disliked the fact that this was all taking place in his workshop. The inventor considered his workshop to be his own inner sanctum: It was the place where he organised his thoughts, where he could be alone to unlock the secrets of the universe. If people wanted to sit around and socialize, then they could use the Tower’s tea room. He spoke up.
“This is an unprecedented breakthrough, although I’m certain that there will be time for a proper introduction in the morning.” He said, accenting the last word, “I can only assume tomorrow will be an exciting day.”
Emily seemed thoughtful for a moment, rubbing her chin.
“They can stay with me.” She offered.
Twilight had no idea what she was getting in to, but she accepted anyways. As they made their way to the door Piero merely stretched out again, and curled up on his folded jacket again. As soon as they opened the door to exit, they encountered another human wearing a faded grey-blue overcoat, leaning on the banister. He turned toward them with an expression of surprise.
“Emily,” he said in surprise, “you’re up a bit late, aren’t you?”
“Corvo!” Emily exclaimed, normally she would be comforted by the calm, collected bodyguard. Yet she could imagine an awkward encounter trying to explain herself to Corvo.
‘Oh hey, these strange creatures just came out of a one of Piero’s machines. I’m not even sure why they’re here, or if they’re a threat, but I was wondering if they could spend the night in my room?’
Corvo must have seen something in her eyes, because he merely gave an understanding smile.
“I'm sure there’ll be time for explanations in the morning.” He said in an empathic tone.
Emily hadn’t known, but Corvo had been watching her since she left her room. The Outsider had calmly revealed his plan to the Lord Protector hours earlier, explaining in detail the part Emily would play. The ex-assassin knew better than to try and rebel against the plans of the deity who had given him the means of getting his old life back in the first place, and instead monitored her from afar, making sure she came to no harm. Besides, this purple equine and her reptilian assistant looked less than harmless. He merely escorted them back to Emily’s room, although many of the guards on night duty stared at the odd creatures following them.
Twilight thought of herself as being in a human version of Canterlot Palace, the calm and collected feel of the building’s ceramic tiles and high ceiling gave a regal feeling to the hallways. Yet everything had a more… practical feeling to it. The walls were made of finely carved wooden slats inlaid with metal, as opposed to marble slabs, and it seemed as if the hallways of the building weren’t made with the intention of impressing visitors- it simply did so with a refined, casual air. Rarity would have loved this place.
They stopped in front of a finely carved wooden door, inlaid with brass. Corvo opened it, and bowed. Twilight and Spike timidly stepped inside, and Emily paused as she passed her bodyguard.
“Thanks.” She said quietly.
Corvo merely closed his eyes and gave a respectful nod, allowing Emily to enter her room before closing the door behind her. Corvo turned to notice a pair of City Watch guards, discussing in hushed tones and repeatedly looking back at the door to the Empress’s chambers. They quickly went back to their patrol rounds as the Lord Protector approached, not wanting him to think that they weren't taking their duties seriously.
The ex-assassin leaned against the finely carved banister leading upstairs. He scratched the stubble of his cheeks with one hand, while thinking on what he had seen.
“Just watch,” He assured himself, “by tomorrow morning, there won’t be a single person in Dunwall Tower who hasn’t heard about this.”
***
Inside of the empress’s chambers, sleep was elusive to the pair of Equestrians. Emily had gazed, eyes wide, as Twilight had explained what a ‘sleepover’ was, and had agreed to set up the comforter between the wardrobe, the bed, and several other pieces of furniture , making a small tent in the spacious cream-coloured room. They were all exhausted, and Emily had already dozed off. Twilight and Spike were sitting in the darkness, pretending to be asleep.
“Hey.” Twilight whispered.
“What?” Spike whispered back.
“…Thanks, for coming with me.” Twilight whispered, she was glad to have her assistant in this strange place with her.
“Heh, you didn’t think I’d let you run off alone, did’ya?”
Spike couldn’t see it, but Twilight smiled in the darkness. Spike piped up again.
“So, what do you think of the humans? They seem nice enough.” He whispered.
“I don’t trust the bodyguard.” Twilight whispered.
“He’s just being protective.” Spike assured her.
Twilight fell silent. Spike hadn’t seen the mark Corvo bore on the back of his hand. What connection did the bodyguard have to the Outsider? She intended to find the mysterious human and ask him about it later. Spike took the silence as a cue to continue.
“By the way, when are we going home?” he whispered, “Not that I don’t like it here, but everyone back in Equestria is gonna worry about us.”
Twilight spent a moment to consider this.
“Apparently, we came through because of that big machine on this end.” Twilight recalled, “We should be able to go back through the same way.”
“Okay.” Spike turned over, apparently satisfied with the answer. Twilight stayed awake, still thinking about her friends back in Equestria. She eventually decided to push such thoughts to the back of her mind, and did her best to get some sleep. Tomorrow was going to be a busy day.
The Outsider waited patiently. So it had begun, the young unicorn was now over the hill, in a world destined to change her for better, or for worse. For her, things were quiet, but that would change in good time. He waited, knowing that the most interesting bits were worth being patient for.
The Outsider felt an influence, pushing at the corners of the Void. He could easily guess who it was, attempting to force its way through the walls of its own existence, and into his. He persevered that a good conversation would help pass the time until something worth watching happened in Gristol.
“Hello, Celestia.” He said calmly.
“Cut the greeting,” Celestia growled. The alicorn was furious.
“Very well.” The outsider remained in his human form, regarding her coolly with his arms crossed.
“Bring her back. Now.” Celestia demanded, “You had no right to take her from Equestria.”
“Oh, Celestia.” The Outsider sighed in a condescending tone, “Will you ever give up on trying to control your subjects’ lives? Even as your protégé has crossed into another world, you still attempt to keep your hold on her? She accepted my offer out of free will. Thus, she must return by her own decision.”
“Twilight has no idea what she’s getting into-”
“-and whose fault is that?” The Outsider asked, cocking his head at Celestia.
“We both know you’ve put her in the way of great danger, Outsider.” Celestia retorted, still glaring at him.
“We both know your words are not going to sway me, Celestia.” The Outsider said, “But perhaps they may sway her.”
He paused, ensuring the alicorn paid attention.
“Twilight’s assistant, Spike. He still acts as a conduit for your messages.” He informed Celestia. “Your Twilight Sparkle has been given free will, and she cherishes it greatly. If you can convince her to give up her venture, to return to you, then she may yet come back.”
Celestia’s glare only continued in intensity.
“There’s a catch. What is it?”
“Only the flow of time.” The Outsider said, nonchalantly, “I would attempt to contact her quickly, if I were you. The opportunity for her to return easily is fading in earnest. When that opportunity dissipates, she will be on her own. I have offered her a world of knowledge, Celestia. How will you persuade her to give it all up? I wonder how you'll answer.”
Celestia had made the mistake of lowering her guard whilst she listened to the Outsider’s words. In an unanticipated burst of magic, she felt herself being forced back into Equestria, cast out of the Void.
***
Callista made her way towards Emily’s room, busily organising today’s lesson schedule. Emily wasn’t much of a morning-glory when it came to starting her day, so Callista thought of starting the morning off with relevant studies: geography, and maybe history. Emily found those the least boring, anyways. She passed a hallway, and saw a hunched, broad shouldered City Watchman talking to one of the maids. The entire tower staff had been buzzing with the latest rumor. Callista generally didn’t enjoy the spreading of rumors, but she had become curious. The empress’s caregiver slowed down to listen.
“I heard something about the Empress, apparently she was seen with some new pets…?” the maid asked.
“My brother James told me about it, he works the night shift. Apparently there was this weird dog-sized horse following Empress Emily around, and some sort of weird lizard thing.” The guard leaned in, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial hush. His accented baritone still carried down both ends of the hallway, however.
“He said he heard 'em talkin’ to each other.”
“Are you sure he wasn’t drunk?” The maid cocked an eyebrow.
“Nah, James hasn’t touched a bottle in weeks. A lot of the other guards on night shift were talking about it, too… Well, at least I hope he wasn’t drunk. Who knows? I heard Piero was doing another one of his experiments last night, maybe some sort of nerve gas got out of his workshop and made everyone go crazy.”
“Sometimes it feels as if this whole city’s going crazy.” The maid said, shrugging.
“Tell me about it,” the broad-shouldered guard concurred, “first the plague, then the assassination, then the war, now this?”
“Well, whatever they are, I hope they don’t make a mess. I have enough animals to clean up after as it is.” She said, glaring pointedly at the watchman.
“Don’t look at me like that,” the watchman said defensively, “that little plague vermin was askin’ for it, you should be thanking me for having one less rat to worry about.”
“You stomped on it in the middle of the grand foyer.” The maid said angrily, “Do you realise how long it takes to get rat blood out of a Serkonan carpet?!”
Callista moved on, she had already heard what she wanted, and she wasn’t in any mood to stick around for the impending argument. She continued onward, the clicking of her simple black shoes against the floor only just drowning out the sound of raised voices behind her.
It seemed as if everywhere she went, people were chatting about the new rumor of the possibly-sentient animals that Emily had been seen with. Even the elite watchmen who normally stood vigilant at Emily’s door were discussing with each other, their steel masks muffling their voices at a distance. They had the good sense to snap to attention once they noticed her, though. The guardsmen seemed to have an expectant air to them as she approached, no doubt waiting for her to enter and discover if all the rumors had been true.
She knocked on the door to Emily’s room, and was surprised to hear the faint sound of laughter coming from within. It wasn’t that she didn’t want the Empress to be happy, but she wondered what the young girl could have found so entertaining. She turned the handle gently, slowly opening the door. Callista was shocked with what she found inside.
The first thing she noticed was that the room looked like it had been ransacked, the bed sheets were strewn all over the floor, and the once neatly-organised books were scattered about the room. The second thing she noticed was that Emily had been jumping on the bed, and had a pillow poised over head as if she meant to throw it. That was when the caregiver noticed the small pony and the small lizard, both carrying pillows of their own and staring at her wide-eyed. Eventually Emily broke the awkward silence, slowly setting the pillow back down onto her bed.
“I guess an introduction is in order,” the small girl said, sheepishly smoothing out the front of her clothing.
“Callista, this is Twilight Sparkle, and Spike. Twilight and Spike, this is Callista, my caregiver.”
Callista breathed a barely audible ‘hello’, her hand waving weakly whilst her brain still rebelled against the information her eyes and ears were telling her.
“Why was I not made aware of this?” she asked Emily, still keeping her eyes on the two odd creatures.
“Oh, it happened last night.” Emily responded, obviously missing her teacher’s stunned look. The young girl finally noticed Callista’s gaze, sweeping worriedly around her wrecked room.
“We should probably clean up.” She said to Twilight.
The purple unicorn nodded, and she used magic with a nonchalant air, setting the bed, and neatly arranging the books back on the shelf. She smiled at the two humans, only to notice that Emily now bore the same shocked expression as her caregiver. It suddenly dawned on the unicorn that magic didn’t seem anywhere near as common in this world as back home.
“Maybe I should explain.” Twilight said.
Callista listened intently as Twilight and Spike gave a partial explanation of how they arrived, carefully abridging the parts about the Outsider. When Callista asked ‘why’, Twilight sheepishly explained that she had merely wanted to learn things- anything she could. The slightly dazed caregiver seized this as a drowning survivor of a shipwreck seizes a piece of driftwood. Today’s lesson!
“That reminds me,” Callista mentioned, “Emily has a lesson this morning.”
Emily’s jaw dropped, her disbelief obvious.
“Are you kidding me?” she groaned.
The morning lesson went even more slowly than usual, but Twilight enjoyed the opportunity to learn what she could about the world she had come into. The purple unicorn listened intently as Emily and her teacher discussed geography and history, and occasionally asked questions about things she didn’t understand. Her enthusiasm began to diminish as they discussed ‘current politics’, however.
“Can you tell me the current political alignment of the Isles?” Callista asked.
“Tyvia has ceased direct contact with Gristol, and Morley has declared its independence from the Empire of Isles,” Emily dictated with a recited tone, “Serkonos has stated that they will not break trade with Gristol, but they have not pledged support to either side.”
“Can you tell me why?” Callista asked, attempting to stretch the young empress’s mind.
Emily seemed thoughtful for a moment.
“Serkonos relies on its trade with the other isles.” The child empress speculated, “Serkonan trade ships have always used Dunwall as a resting point before travelling to the other isles; the Serkonan king probably wants to make sure he’ll be on good terms with whoever wins the war. Same goes for Tyvia, I think.”
Twilight’s face reflected her confusion.
“What’re you talking about?” The small unicorn asked innocently, “I thought you said that all the isles were part of the Empire?”
Callista said that she’d let Emily explain the details as her lesson for the day, and would fill in the missing parts. Twilight’s eyes widened in disbelief when she heard that the city was currently locked in a civil war: she was stunned.
“But… why?” the purple mare asked, “Why would anypony think that killing solves anything?”
“People have been asking that for years,” Callista said knowingly, “nobody has found a clean answer yet.”
Emily shrugged, “Some people think that I’m not old enough to rule the Empire. They’re still looking for someone who can snap their fingers and solve all the city’s problems in a flash. Plus I think they’re a bit greedy.”
Twilight continued to gaze in disbelief, wondering why anyone would want to hurt the friendly, innocent girl sitting in front of her. Humans were strange indeed.
Twilight was getting restless. Not that she didn’t enjoy learning, but she got a sickening feeling in her gut as she listened to the Empress and her caregiver discuss loyalties and motives regarding such a bloody business as war.
“Sorry to interrupt,” she asked meekly, “can I go over and visit Piero? I’d like to take another look at that machine of his.”
Callista agreed, but insisted that Emily stay to finish her lesson, much to the Empress’s annoyance. Twilight beckoned for Spike to follow her, and tried to remember the way to the inventor's workshop. Spike was getting notably more anxious at the weird looks the guards made at them as they made their way down the halls of the tower. Finally they found the door to the workshop. Twilight tried at the handle.
Locked.
“Oh, well.” Spike said with poorly feigned disappointment, “We should head back, I’m sure that-”
He was silenced by a stern look from his surrogate sister.
“One of the guards could have the key,” she reasoned, “we could just ask one of them to let us in.”
“No way,” Spike said, fearfully, “I don’t like the way they’re staring at us.”
“It’ll be fine.” Twilight assured him. “Just let me do the talking.”
She trotted purposefully towards a thin, gaunt watchman in a faded blue cap, patrolling towards them. He started becoming visibly agitated as she approached, his gloved hands fidgeting at his collar nervously as she approached. He eventually just snapped to attention as she came near, or rather, tried to snap to attention. He just made an attempt to stand up straight and leave his arms at his sides; obviously not a natural posture for him.
“Hello.” She greeted him.
“Eh, agh…” The watchman said, still trying to comprehend the small purple horse. “ Umm. Hullo, miss.”
“Could you let us in to the workshop?” She asked politely.
“Well, I-I would. But Peiro’s asked not to be disturbed.” The guard informed her in his partly raspy, slightly nasal voice. Spike looked up, his eyes filling with hope.
“Piero knows me, I’m sure he’d make an exception.” Twilight reasoned. Spike slumped.
The guard guessed that she wouldn’t leave him alone until he complied. His eyes twitched back and forth, making sure nobody was passing the adjoining hallway.
“Fine.” He fumbled with his ring of keys and unlocked the door. “Promise you won’t tell anyone. I’d lose my stripes if the Captain heard about this.”
Still checking the hallway, the guard ushered them in to the workshop, and closed the door behind them, quickly returning to his patrol rounds. Twilight glanced around, only now fully appreciating how spacious the inventor’s working space was.
"Hello?" Twilight called, her voice echoing around the metal grate floors. There was the sound of footsteps echoing, and the Philosopher slid down a ladder from the maze of catwalks above.
"Ah, you're back." Piero said with genuine enthusiasm.
He set up a folding table, and offered them a pair of grease-spattered folding chairs. Within a few minutes of conversation Twilight and Piero both discovered that they had a similar trait: The pursuit of knowledge. Piero’s breakfast was delivered to the door while they talked, and he agreed to share a portion of his morning meal with the curious unicorn. A short period of examining Spike’s diet proved that he could digest Tyvian ore: a type of malleable stone filled with deposits of fractured precious stones.
"How does it work, anyway?" Twilight asked, motioning to the machine set up, pointed at the melted bricks in the side of the room.
"Ah, it's quite simple, really. Deceptively so." He began, "It runs on whale oil."
Twilight nodded, but her color drained slightly. She remembered the subsection in the rune-maker's guide. Oil extracted from whales could be refined into a highly-combustible substance. A single whale could make drums full of the combustible liquid, said the book. Piero continued to elaborate on the invention that helped bring her here.
"Through the dissolution of a few choice materials, I was able to chemically modify the oil to be extremely electrically conductive. I hypothesized that by saturating the surface with the modified oil, then sending an electrical current through it, it would open a rift to the beyond. I was having trouble fine-tuning the timing of the mechanism, however, one second off-"
"-and it would've exploded, wouldn't it?" Twilight finished.
"Exactly!" Piero exclaimed, "However, considering the overwhelming results from the first use, I guess I was being too cautious."
Spike took this moment to speak.
"Will you be able to send us back?" He realized he was sounding needy by now, but the Outsider's warning had been nagging him since he first came through here.
I can send you there with ease, but you may not return with the same ease.
Piero adjusted his spectacles, doing the calculations in his head.
"It will take some time for me to re-acquire the appropriate materials, but once done the machine should operate with the same efficiency as it did the first time. If I start now, I should be able to get the appropriate items in a day or two."
Spike relaxed, a day or two wasn't so bad. Nothing much could happen in Equestria during that time, could it?
A polite knocking could be heard at the door. Piero adjusted his glasses again, he judged that by the part of the door the knocking was coming from, it was a child. He guessed it was Emily, looking for her guests.
"I believe that is Empress Kaldwin, no doubt inquiring after you." Piero said, rising from his chair, "And now, I think I should return to my work. It was nice to meet you formally, Twilight Sparkle. And you, Spike." He gave a polite bow to both of them.
Spike had absolutely no idea how the philosopher knew the knocking was for them, but he opened the door. Like Piero had predicted, there stood Emily, smiling at him, with her arms crossed behind her back.
"Hi." she offered to the purple dragon, "I finished my lessons... and I was wondering if you and Twilight and wanted to have a tour of Dunwall Tower?"
"Thanks, I'd love to." Twilight accepted, drawing up behind Spike.
***
Their tour started with the courtyard, seeing as Twilight and Spike didn't have the pleasure of entering Dunwall Tower the conventional way. As soon as they exited the front doors, Twilight saw something entirely new to her.
Striding amongst the gardens outside was a human atop a massive, intimidating contraption. From a creative view, its giant double-jointed steel stilts with their claw-like feet made it akin to some sort of giant heron or an egret- stalking the gardens for prey.
Emily must have seen the way Twilight was staring at the stilt walker, because the young empress started off directly towards the towering stilts. Twilight briefly considered staying in the shadow of the tall marble doorway, but she followed anyways.
Emily ran up until she was directly next to one of the feet of the giant walker, and began jumping up and down, waving her arms over her head at the man up above on the stilts. The hulking figure atop the stilts noticed her, and craned his head around to see what she wanted. Emily cupped her hands around her mouth.
"Hello up there!" she called, by this time Twilight and Spike had caught up, and were sticking very close to the Empress, still fearful of the giant stilt-contraption. "How's the weather up there?"
Emily knew that the tallboys normally swallowed a chemical concoction before their patrols to make them devoid of pain or remorse whilst in combat. At the most, he’d just look at her funny, and move on. To her elation, the figure atop the stilts waved at her, and slung his compound bow over his shoulder.
“’Tis a fair wind up blowing in from Wrenhaven river, if a bit putrid in smell.” the armoured figure called down to her. “How does the wind treat to you down there, fair empress?”
“It’s much nicer down here.” Emily said, “The flowers probably see to that.”
“Perhaps I’ll come back through here on my own legs,” The Tallboy chortled, “after I’m done my patrol rounds.”
“Of course,” Emily said, straightening up in a mock salute, “As you were, guardsman.”
The Tallboy saluted, and continued onward in earth-shaking strides. Emily turned to Twilight and Spike.
“See?” She reasoned, “They’re a bit scary when you first see them, but they’re not so bad.”
The tour went on for the better part of the day, with Twilight and Emily talking about everything and anything that came to mind. The purple unicorn noticed that Emily had a particular infatuation with stories- tales of adventure and battles on the high seas. Eventually Twilight asked for a notebook, and soon Spike was scribbling down every tidbit of information that was overheard. Between Emily introducing her new guests to every guard they passed, a lengthy lunch, and the tour, noon crept up with surprising alacrity. Twilight noticed that her tour was pointedly avoiding a small marble pavilion overlooking the nearby river.
“Could we see what’s up there?” The purple mare asked, pointing to the simple, yet elegant structure.
Emily appeared to have a moment of indecision, struggling with her thoughts. She finally agreed, but Twilight noticed that the Emily looked more and more worried as they approached. It seemed as they made their way up the cobbled path, that her face was losing its colour, making her quite pale. Finally the young empress stopped in her tracks.
“You go on ahead.” She suddenly blurted out, “I’ll stay here, if that’s alright with you.”
Twilight nodded, cautiously, and Spike followed her up the rest of the way, partially wondering what could scare the girl who stood up to the stilt walker.
The pavilion offered a beautiful view of the city, and was rather plain on the interior. Twilight ascended the short staircase to find Corvo, leaning on a carved guardrail and looking out over the vista. He turned his head slightly towards them, acknowledging their presence.
“I see Emily elected not to come up here?” He asked.
“Yes…” Twilight replied, deep in thought.
“Is there something wrong with this place?” Spike asked, “Emily looked afraid of something.”
“It’s the memories.” Corvo said, turning to face them. “Something terrible happened here, a long time ago. Some people still get chills coming through here.”
Twilight thought better than to ask what, but morbid curiosity got the better of her.
“What happened?”
Corvo’s eyes misted over as he recalled what happened on that cursed day. He let the memories play in front of his eyes like a recording, simply conveying what he remembered seeing.
***
Corvo’s eyes twitched about. A trio of assassins had attacked him, seeming to appear from the Void itself. Corvo had fulfilled his duty as Lord Protector admirably- their corpses had disappeared with the same subtlety as the mysterious assailants had entered. He turned back to Empress Jessamine Kaldwin, and her daughter, Emily, checking to make sure they were safe. Emily ran forward and hugged him, her breath ragged. Corvo returned the embrace, relieved that she was safe. Empress Jessamine merely nodded to him, and took a deep breath, regaining her composure.
“Corvo, thank you. If you hadn’t been here…” She started.
Another duo of assassins sublimated into existence, mere inches away this time. Corvo tried to draw his sword but one of the assassins simply raised a hand at him, and the bodyguard felt himself getting hoisted into the air, being held in place by an eldritch energy being projected from the masked killer. A second assassin, clothed in a dark red, stormed towards Jessamine. In an attempt to protect her daughter, the Empress tried to push the assassin, checking his advance only slightly. In response he slapped her, knocking her away with a strong backhand. He advanced towards her, and grasped her graceful neck, pushing her against the guardrail. Jessamine reached a hand toward her bodyguard, desperately hoping he could find some way to save her.
“Corvo-!”
The red-cloaking assassin plunged his blade into Jessamine’s gut, sinking it to the hilt before drawing it out in a spray of blood. The assassin changed his grip on the Empress’s neck, crudely tossing her body onto the cold marble floor. Emily screamed, the poor child had seen the bloody deed. The masked assailant who had been keeping Corvo immobilized changed his footing, using his free hand to snatch Emily as she tried to run. Gripping the squirming child, the assassin disappeared, letting Corvo fall to the ground with a dull thud. The killer in red glanced at Corvo, but merely turned away, vanishing along with his accomplice. Corvo remembered the feeling of blind panic as he rushed over to Jessamine’s side. His beloved Empress, once so graceful and composed, now lay in a growing pool of her own blood, unmoving as her wound created red blossoms on the white marble. He rolled the Empress onto her back, and held her in his arms. Jessamine's eyes fought to stay open, holding onto life by a thread.
“Corvo… it’s all… coming apart.” She sputtered in a mixture of pain and distress, “Find… find Emily.” Jessamine coughed, her mouth filling with blood, “Protect her. You’re the only one… you’ll know what to do. Won’t you…? Corvo…”
The Empress’s eyes flickered, and her body went limp in Corvo’s arms. The bodyguard sat petrified, cradling Jessamine in his arms while his pulse throbbed in his ears and his throat constricted as a feeling of helplessness washed over him. He heard footsteps; obviously the rest of the guards had finally shown up. The Royal Spymaster was with them.
“Ward us all, look at what he’s done!”
“Yes! He’s killed the Empress…! What did you do with young lady Emily, traitor?” The Spymaster declared with a suspiciously dramatized bravado.
“Her own bodyguard, ironic.”
“I’ll see you beheaded for this, Corvo! Take him.”
Corvo remembered one of the guards swinging the pommel of their sword at his face, and all went to dark.
***
Corvo sighed, running a hand through his coarse hair. All at once, he appeared to grow older, as if he had put on a few years in the time he spent to provide a small glimpse of his blood-steeped past.
“So what happened next?” Spike asked, “I mean, things are okay now, right?”
Corvo gave a small chuckle.
“For the given value of ‘okay’.” He replied, darkly. The bodyguard noticed that his shadow extended farther in front of him than it had before. “It’s getting late, you should probably be going inside.”
Once again, Twilight was lost deep in thought. She had newfound respect for the young empress. The purple mare was trying to imagine what it would be like losing anybody so close to her, let alone a parent. She couldn’t begin to imagine the emotional pain. And someone like Emily- she couldn’t be older than a decade. The Cutie Mark Crusaders were about that old themselves- how would one of them cope with losing their parents at that age?
She was shaken out of her thoughts as they caught sight of Emily, standing awkwardly near the path to the pavilion. She perked up slightly when she noticed them coming back down the walkway, ushered by her bodyguard.
“Did you like the view?” She asked meekly.
“It was nice.” Twilight responded. The mare wished there were some way she could reach out to the young girl. Some way to tell her that she doesn’t have to suffer alone, but Twilight had no idea what to say or do.
Spike promptly created the scroll with a burst of flame, and heard a metallic clinking noise behind him.
“Corvo.” Emily said with disapproval. The ex-assassin had produced his folding blade and had leveled it at the back of Spike’s head.
“Sorry.” The bodyguard said, seeming to remember himself. “Merely reflex.” He twirled the blade around in his hand, the blade retracting back into the handle as he put it away again.
Spike gulped, and handed the scroll to Twilight. The small group waited patiently as she read it.
“So, what does it say?” Spike asked.
“It’s from Princess Celestia.” Twilight said thoughtfully. “She wants me to come back to Equestria, she says everypony’s worried about me.”
“Princess Celestia?” Corvo asked skeptically.
“She’s the goddess of Equestria.” Twilight said matter-of-factly.
“Well, could you write her back?” Emily asked.
“I think so.” Twilight said.
“In any case, we should get inside.” Corvo mentioned, “Supper is in a few minutes, and the guards tend to get edgy around now.”
***
Most of the evening went by without much of a hitch. Twilight learned readily as Callista gave a lesson on sums. Twilight had completely forgotten about her intention to ask Corvo about his hand. By the time she remembered, he was nowhere to be seen, almost as if he had vanished.
Within what felt like no time they were back in Emily’s room. Twilight tried to write a reply to Celestia’s letter by candlelight. Three crumpled up drafts later, Twilight decided she’d put off on replying for now. What was she supposed to write? That she’d rather stay longer? The purple mare didn’t want to face the scorn of the Princess. She decided that she would merely return when she was able, and then she’d be able to go back to her old life in Equestria without too much conflict.
Twilight hopped down from the small cedar desk. By now Spike had already curled up, and was fast asleep. Emily, however, seemed deep in thought. The child empress sat on her bed, idly swinging her feet while her eyes seemed fixated on some distant point. Twilight could guess what the poor girl was thinking about. The unicorn hopped up onto the bed, and sat down beside Emily.
“Hey.” Twilight greeted quietly.
“Hi.” Emily said back.
Another moment passed in silence.
“I guess Corvo told you… about the pavilion?” Emily asked, her head turning slightly toward the small pony.
Twilight nodded. She reached out a hoof, rubbing it against Emily’s back in an attempt to comfort her. The young girl’s gaze returned to an empty space a foot away from the bed, her eyes misting over.
“Do you miss her?” Twilight asked. She immediately regretted asking that. Of course she missed her mother, who wouldn’t?
“Yes.” Emily responded, “Every day.” The young empress unclasped her hands from between her knees and started rubbing her upper arm.
“Sometimes I wish she were here.” Emily continued, “Mother always knew what to do.”
Twilight noticed the way Emily’s eyes started puffing up. Emily clenched her eyes, but a few tears escaped the confine of her eyes, rolling down her cheeks. The unicorn immediately sidled closer to the empress, and nuzzled her tenderly. Emily gave a faltering smile, and gave the purple unicorn a small hug, thankful for having a friend to lean on. Twilight returned the embrace, sitting in amiable silence with Emily.
Eventually the candle on the desk began to flicker, having burnt itself to the stump. Emily broke the embrace, lifting the palm of her hand to wipe away the tears. Her eyes were still puffy and red, but Twilight noticed a change in the young empress. It seemed that Emily had, at least momentarily, regained some innocence. Eventually Emily muttered a small ‘thanks’, and they crawled under the covers of the bed, a mercifully dreamless sleep coming over them.
City Guardsman Burke patrolled the defences bordering Wrenhaven River. He never liked getting patrol duty, not because of the fact that he didn’t like walking, but he hated the way the hair on the back of his neck stood up whenever he passed the arc pylons.
The arc pylons were a terrifying security measure devised by Anton Sokolov back when the plague was at its apex. With a tank of whale oil attached, the super-conductive electrical masts would electrocute anything within a few yards, leaving behind only a pile of ashes. The Watchmen managed to avoid being fried by touching the pylon’s charger unit at the start of their shifts.
Another thing Burke hated about the nightshift was Lower Watchman Motsfield, who never seemed to bathe, sit still, or stop asking him stupid questions.
“You wouldn’t be willing to share some of your food ration with me?”
“Blow off, choffer.” Burke grumbled, and strode onwards.
Burke muttured under his breath. He started becoming anxious when he saw the arc pylon at the end of the harbour. Just this last one, and he’d be able to hand his shift over to the next guy on duty. Like always, he prayed that the arc pylon wouldn’t spark and crackle at him when he approached. Something worse happened.
Burke heard a deep, bone shaking thump, and the arc pylon suddenly shut down, as if the power source had been removed. In fact, all of the arc pylons on his patrol route suddenly shut off, leaving the frugal assortment of emergency lights and steel-plated bunker checkpoints as the only illumination for the riverside street. An Officer called out in the darkness.
“What the Void just happened? Somebody get a Tech Officer down here, we need those arc pylons back on before the insurgents get any ideas!”
Burke’s eyes strained to see any detail in the darkness, he could hear men scrambling about in the darkness, trying to figure out what went wrong with the arc pylons, but he could almost have sworn he saw something moving on the water.
“Can I get a flare over here?” Burke called, his hoarse voice adding to the din. The City Watchman got fed up. He saw Motsfield try to slip past him, no doubt trying to shirk his duties. Burke stopped Motsfield, ripped the flaregun from his belt, and fired it over the river. The flare sailed into the air, bursting at the peak of its flight to leave a slow-burning red light, lazily drifting downward.
Burke’s eyes widened. In the blood-red light, several dozen rowboats and light craft were illuminated against the black waters of Wrenhaven River. They were lined with Overseers: The religious militants of the Abbey of the Everyman. One of the gold-masked fanatics stood up from where he had sat crouched aboard a longboat, tugging a pistol from his belt.
“Death to the heretics!”
Burke saw the flash of the pistol, and a bullet zipped past his ear, screaming like an angry bee. The watchman dropped below the low wall bordering the harbour, desperately attempting to free his sword from its sheath.
“To arms!” Burke yelled. The cry was taken up by nearby watchmen. The battle for Kaldwin’s Bridge had begun.
***
“Right.” …. “Of course, I’ll relay it immediately. Hold fast.” … “Yes, yes. Right away”
The orderly placed the audio telegraph back on its receiver, and turned to his commanding officer.
“What’s the news, soldier?” Geoff Curnow was getting agitated, the last news he had of the front was that the Overseers were trying to ford across Kaldwin’s bridge. The echoes of gunfire and the explosions could be heard from Dunwall Tower.
“They’ve crossed the river, sir. Chapman’s division is at half strength, and men are deserting to the secondary defence.” The auxiliary retained his sombre expression.
“Fine, give an order to fall back to the defences on Barwell Street, and tell them to fire up the watchtowers.”
“Yes sir.” The orderly returned to the communication booth, busily relaying Curnow’s orders to the soldiers in the field.
Geoff slumped in his chair at the tactician’s table, cradling his forehead in his hands. The Royal Marines had finally found a suitable harbour to land at, and Captain Calhoun had gone off to take personal command of them. This left Geoff alone in charge of the crumbling defences of the Imperial cause. Deep in his gut, Curnow knew that his demoralised City Watch wouldn’t be able to stave off the fanaticism of the Overseers.
He could imagine it now: The golden-masked Overseers in their navy-blue uniforms, charging up the streets, their war hounds running down and mauling the guardsmen as they ran. At this rate, they’d be battering down the front gate of the tower within the hour. Then it struck Geoff; what he would have to do. He rose from his seat, addressing the communication officer.
“Allow the divisions to fall back at their own discretion.” He ordered. The Watch Captain turned to an auxiliary standing at attention next to the exit, his face taking on a grim expression.
“Prepare a rail car. Find the Empress, Callista, and Piero. We need to get them to safety.” He almost turned back, but then looked back at the auxiliary, “and get the Lord Protector up here, I need to speak with him.”
“Already here.” Corvo entered the room, his steel assassin’s mask hanging at his side.
“Good.” Curnow threw himself into his chair, leaning back exhaustedly.
“So,” Corvo could already guess what the Captain was going to ask of him, “I take it you’re not planning on making it out of this one?”
Geoff gave a sad smile, and shook his head.
“-And I also take it you want me to keep your niece safe?”
Curnow nodded. Corvo gave a small chuckle, taking his own seat at the table.
“You know, she asked me to do the same for you, once.”
Geoff remembered. His ‘visit’ to the High Overseer seemed like such a long time ago. There had been a brawl between the City Watch and the Overseers in Treaver’s Alley. The High Overseer, Thaddeus Campbell, had invited him to the Abbey to apparently ‘get this business behind us’. Back then, the Lord Regent was still in office, and by rights both the City Watch and the Overseers were both state property. Campbell had tried to poison Curnow, but Corvo managed to save him. It was only later that Geoff found out that the masked assassin who had mysteriously taken great care to spare him from the Overseers had been asked to do so by Geoff’s own niece.
“I wonder how she’ll take this.” Corvo mused.
“She’ll probably beg me to save myself, to go with her.” Geoff responded with a forlorn tone in his voice, “Callista’s resourceful though, she’ll survive without me.”
The guard captain took a shaky breath, his sad gaze lowering to the map on the table.
“Which brings me to why I wanted to speak with you. The Royal Marines have chosen to land at the Hound Pits Pub, and that’s where I’ve chosen to send you. I assume you’re familiar with the place.”
“Yes.” The place where it all started. Poetic.
Geoff raised his head until he was making eye contact with Corvo, his sombre blue eyes boring into the bodyguard.
“That’s why I need you to go with them.” He informed the ex-assassin, “Callista, Emily, maybe even those things that came through Piero’s device. It’ll fall to you to keep them safe.”
“It doesn’t feel fair.” Corvo said with dark humor, “You get to go out in a blaze of glory, and I have to pick up the pieces.”
“Indeed. I’m a selfish bastard, aren’t I?” Geoff joked, allowing himself a small chuckle.
A minute passed. The cracks of pistol fire and the rumbling of explosions sounded like they were getting closer. Corvo stood up.
“Well, if this is really it, then…” The bodyguard held out his hand. Geoff grasped it, and gave his hand a firm shake.
“Kill a few Overseers for me, will you?” Corvo said.
“Not a doubt. Now get going,” Curnow urged, “I hate long goodbyes, and I don’t think the Overseers are going to take their time.”
Corvo nodded. He turned and left the room at a jog, running outdoors and vaulting off the ramparts of the tower, and vanishing from sight.
***
In Emily’s bedroom, everyone was wide awake. The distant sounds of combat had started over an hour ago, and Emily had been tossing and turning since. Twilight had asked why she was so worried about the noises. Emily had explained to the purple unicorn and her assistant that the noises meant a few miles away, somewhere in the city, people were murdering one another, and they hadn’t been able to sleep either. So they didn’t have to rouse themselves from slumber when the sharp knocking was heard at the door. “Come in.” Emily said.
The door opened to reveal a watch officer, out of breath.
“My empress, you are to be escorted to a rail car waiting outside.” He panted, “Dunwall Tower is about to come under siege, it won’t be safe here.”
Emily’s eyes went wide with shock. She was smart enough to know what that meant. The forces defending Wrenhaven River had been broken; the Imperial cause was coming apart at the seams. The guard called to her again, and she complied, her stunned brain working on automatic. Twilight and Spike followed her down the winding halls and staircases of the tower, out to a squat, angular steel-plated vehicle set on pair of rails outside. Callista and Piero were also there. Callista’s eyes were red and puffy as if she had been crying, and Piero was arguing with a watchman about being forced to leave his workshop behind. Emily suddenly stopped.
“Where’s Corvo?”
***
Near the bottom of the tower, a Lower Watch Guard helping make preparations of the defences felt a sudden flash of dizziness, and felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Are you alright, friend? You look ill.” Corvo informed him.
The guardsman could have sworn that nobody was anywhere near him a few seconds ago, but he merely shook off the nausea, and got back to work.
***
As if on cue, the Corvo came forth from the gloom of the night. He ushered Emily and the others toward the rail car, and a Watch Officer with his helmet tucked under his arm and a well-kept white moustache held the door open as the small group of refugees piled in. He then got into the driver’s seat, with Corvo grabbing the shotgun seat. The rear seating was arranged with two upholstered benches facing each other. Another officer leaned in the front window to speak with the two men in the front seat. They both nodded, and the man ducked out.
As the rail car pulled away, Emily leaned peered out the window to catch one last glimpse of Dunwall Tower, watching her old life fade into the gloom.
The first few minutes were spent in silence. Everyone had lost something dear to them. Callista hadn’t even had been able to say goodbye to her uncle. Emily had once again lost the throne- her birthright. Piero had to look on hopelessly as months of his research were left behind in that doomed bastion. Twilight and Spike had lost their way home. The silence was deafening. Eventually Spike caved in under the pressure.
“Someone say something, I can’t take it anymore!”
Another moment passed in silence, and then Emily seized the situation.
“Twilight, you’ve asked about Dunwall a lot, but you’ve never told me where you come from. It seems nice.”
The purple unicorn was glad to have something to take her mind off the grim outset. Twilight gladly recalled her happier days in Equestria, she told Emily about her friends, about the day she got her cutie mark, all the fond memories she had of her peaceful home. The atmosphere in the cabin became lighter, Twilight’s stories seeming to help the time pass more easily.
***
Further up the rails, a squad of Overseers had paddled across the river in a rowboat, using the distraction a few miles away to set up a blockade on the rail tracks- a thick, waist-height, reinforced steel wall that would prevent anything from moving past it. One of the initiate Overseers in the squad shuffled nervously, they could still hear the distant sounds of combat.
“Restrict my errant mind, brother,” the initiate said generally, “but why are we waiting here, our hands idle? I yearn to join our brethren in combat.”
The squad sergeant was standing with his legs planted at shoulder width, staring down the track, with his arms crossed. He turned his head only slightly, his golden mask glinting in the moonlight.
“Our brothers are shedding heretic blood in the hopes of reclaiming Dunwall Tower.” He said in a raspy growl, “Much like the way rats will escape the sewers during a flood, the heretics will no doubt flee their bastion when they realise their doom is at hand.”
The initiate reached a hand under the bottom of his snarling golden mask, stroking his chin.
“Yes, I see now.” The initiate concluded, “Not one heretic shall escape this night.”
“Indeed, it is no simple task we have been appointed. Not even the Apostate Empress will escape the fires of the righteous.”
The sergeant’s gaze snapped back to the rails, eyeing a distant pair of headlights coming down the steel tracks.
“Now restrict your Wandering Gaze, gentlemen, for I believe our quarry is in sight.”
***
Laughter was coming from the passenger cabin of the rail car.
“So, Pinkie- and this is the best part- picks up the cake-” Twilight said, giggling.
“Pardon me.” The greying watch officer’s voice came from the driver’s compartment, “I think we’ve come across a bit of a problem.”
Twilight and Spike peered out of the small oval-shaped window giving a view of the street. A large steel barricade was mounted over the track. A strangely dressed human was standing next to it. He was wearing a dull bluish-grey uniform secured at his chest with a belt harness. The shirt of his uniform went to his wrists and knees, ending with a fine gold trim. His legs and hands were obscured with black gloves and knee-high black boots. His face was obscured with a golden mask, in the motif of a frightening snarl, with an odd crescent symbol emblazoned on the forehead. The rest of his head was covered with a black balaclava, leaving not one inch of his skin showing. As the rail car drew closer to the barricade, the headlights illuminated several more identically dressed humans, the light reflecting off their grimacing gold masks.
“Overseers?” The Watch Officer said in shock, “How in the Void..?”
“They were waiting for us.” Corvo said grimly. He turned to the small window of the passenger compartment.
“Stay hidden. When we distract them, run.” The bodyguard said sternly.
“Corvo-” Emily tried to object.
“Emily. Don’t worry about us. We’ll be fine, I promise.” Corvo said in an obvious lie. With this he closed the shutter to the driver’s compartment, blocking out her retort.
Corvo took a deep breath, trying to steel himself. He turned to the aging Watch Officer next to him, his eyes asking an unsaid question.
“I always thought that if one thing ended me, it would happen in service to the city.” The officer said acceptingly, “I’ve made my peace.”
“The boldest measures are the safest.” Corvo said, quoting the City Watch’s old slogan. Corvo secured his assassin’s mask over his face, his sad eyes being obscured by the dull blue glass circles of his mask.
“We can only hope.” The officer said eloquently, “Do you have a plan? Sure as the Void, I don’t.”
The Watch Officer slid his helmet over his white, receded hairline, and stepped out of the rail car, his wrinkled features assuming a studied blank expression. The ex-assassin remained near the vehicle while the Officer proceeded towards the Overseer sergeant.
“I don’t believe that the Overseers have state jurisdiction anymore.” The officer said casually.
“No.” The Overseer sergeant rasped, “We have never bent our knees before a heretic, and we never will.” Another gold-masked militant drew up beside the first.
“In any case, state law still allows us to purge heresy, wherever it is found. And I do believe that you are holding audience with one bearing the Outsider’s corruption.” At this he pointed towards Corvo, who was still standing close to the rail car, his silhouette outlined by the car’s headlights.
The Overseer sergeant turned to the Watch Officer.
“Stand aside, guardsman,” he snarled, spitting it like an insult, “and you may be granted mercy.”
The sergeant tried to brush past him, but the Officer shouldered him in a sharp movement, staggering the Overseer back a few paces. The Watchman placed a hand on the hilt of his sword, a defiant glint in his old eyes. The Overseer gave a small chuckle. In a blur of motion, the religious militant withdrew his pistol from its holster, and fired it into the aging guard’s leg, the shot ringing into the night with a loud crack. The old watchman gave a grunt of pain, and toppled over, clutching at his bleeding leg. He tried to free his own pistol from his holster, and succeeded only to have it kicked away by the Overseer, the malevolent gold mask still sneering down at him. The Overseer stomped on the old man’s hand for good measure, giving his boot a sharp twist on the broken bones before walking onwards, followed by the rest of his squad. One of the other Overseers dealt the injured officer a sharp kick in the stomach as he stepped over him, causing him to give another grunt and curl up in pain.
It was Corvo’s turn. The sergeant stopped in front of the bodyguard, leisurely touching his ears to his shoulders in a neck stretch, making a series of audible pops and cracks. In a slow, graceful gesture, the sergeant unsheathed a finely engraved golden-brass sabre, and leveled it at the bodyguard. Corvo looked around, seeing as more Overseers were illuminated in the headlights. It seemed like there were well over a dozen, along with an Overseer leading a trained wolfhound. The Overseer sergeant spoke.
“The same demand is given to you.” The Overseer growled, his hoarse voice echoing from his gold mask, “Surrender, and perhaps you will be granted a traitor’s death, instead of burning along with your Apostate Empress.”
A coal of rage had been building in Corvo’s chest as he saw the Overseers needlessly brutalize the aged officer, but the Overseer’s words caused his anger to flare into a scorching inferno: Nobody threatened Emily. A moment passed; the cool, condescending Overseer gazing out from his grimacing gold motif, and the livid bodyguard glaring out from the emotionless gray steel mask. Corvo remained motionless, his hands balled into fists at his sides.
The sigil on the back of Corvo’s hand started glowing, focusing with arcane energy. The Overseer noticed this too late, and the supernatural assassin lunged forward, releasing the arcane burst in a swatting gesture with his arm. The Overseer was flicked into the air in a sudden, concentrated hurricane-force gust of wind.
The other Overseers craned their necks to see their sergeant get sent flailing over their heads.
“AAAaaaauaah-”
The Overseer’s flight ended when his splayed form collided violently with a lamp post. The sound of his gold mask, still attached to his face, ramming into the steel post with enough force to bend the lamppost, rang out in a beautiful, lingering note in g-minor. The Overseers were still gawking at their sergeant in shock, as he fell to the hard cobbles with a dull thump, his foot twitching slightly.
Inside the cabin of the vehicle, Peiro saw this as their cue, and quickly threw open the door, the hinges complying in blissful silence. The refugees did their best to leave quietly, but Twilight’s hooves made a small thud as she hopped down onto the street. In the silence of the night, this small sound was enough to resume the Overseer’s attention, and suddenly the unicorn found herself being stared at by eighteen gold masks, and one growling dog.
The tension snapped like a cable. Corvo reached into his coat, and produced his folding blade, the intricate handle snapping the sixteen-inch razor edge into place as he rushed the nearest overseer. Despite the Lord Protector’s best efforts, the group of Overseers seemed to match his brilliant swordsmanship. A handful of the masked zealots broke off and ran towards the occupants of the rail car.
Piero darted into a small alleyway between the abandoned flat-fronted buildings, and the others followed him. He eventually settled on a door seemingly at random, and wrenched it open, the others spilling into the apartment after him. The raised voices of the Overseers could be heard just behind the last corner. The philosopher quickly rammed the door shut after everyone was inside, sliding a tumbler lock into place, and bracing a chair against the door handle for good measure. Seeking to gain more distance from their pursuers, they ascended a flight of stairs to the second floor. The humans and the Equestrians lingered in the cramped, gloomy landing, catching their breath.
***
“Take out his legs!”
Back on the main street, Corvo was still holding off the group of Overseers who had stayed to fight him. He parried a sabre, stepping inward and countering the attacker with a fist to the gut. Swerving out of the path of other strikes, Corvo transferred his momentum into his elbow, ramming it into the neck of another zealot standing behind him. The spectral assassin followed through with a sword strike, the razor edge of his blade carving through the Overseer’s uniform with ease, spattering the faded blue with scarlet red. The assassin turned to face the other fanatics, only to find the wolfhound leap onto him- the attack dog’s teeth digging into Corvo’s sword arm. One of the Overseers seized the opening in the assassin’s defense, and Corvo’s teeth gritted as he felt the cold edge of a blade slicing along his ribs.
The supernatural assassin knew he couldn’t keep this up much longer. Corvo finally dislodged the wolfhound from his arm, and kicked it away, the hound’s jaws still snapping at the air. The Overseers were between him and the alley that Emily had escaped through. The masked assassin forced his bleeding arm to react, fencing off the attackers while his free hand reached into his overcoat, finding the familiar shape of his crossbow. He pulled out the compact crossbow, and fired it at one of the zealots blocking his path. The bolt bounced off the Overseer’s gold mask harmlessly, but it distracted him enough for Corvo to rush him, body checking the religious fanatic and ripping his sword through the Overseer’s thigh for good measure. The spectral assassin made straight for the alleyway, sprinting at full speed.
As soon as he gained a few yards into the alley, Corvo turned, the mark on his hand glowing as he mustered his remaining magic into it. He saw a few of the Overseers reach the mouth of the backstreet, their silhouettes outlined by the streetlights as the starting running towards him. Corvo made an arcane gesture, focusing on the stretch of alleyway between him and his pursuers. Despite the gloom of the night, the ground became noticeably darker as a cluster of large inky-black splotches bled onto the cobblestones. A swarm of carnivorous plague rats emerged from the murk, the claustrophobic alleyway disappearing under a sea of muddy fur and teeth. The Overseers who had sprinted partway down the alley checked their advance, trying to retreat back into the street. One of the zealots had stumbled and fell when he tried to make the sudden about-face, and screamed as the fist-sized vermin leaped onto his prostrate body, their sharp teeth tearing away at his uniform.
Corvo knew that the rats would provide a distraction, but not for long. He ran further into the alley, using his injured arm to try and stem the blood from his chest wound. Ignoring the lancing pain from his injuries, he grimaced under his mask as he clambered over a stack of crates, lurching through the second-floor window of an adjacent building, and gracelessly tumbling onto the floor in a heap. He could already hear the thumping of boots as his pursuers passed by the street below him, having already overcome the rats.
***
The group of refugees camped in an abandoned apartment a few backstreets away heard the din of combat draw closer. Twilight poked her head out the window, curiosity succeeding over caution. In the dead-end alley, the rest of the Overseers caught up to the group originally pursuing them. “What are you doing here?” One of the Overseers growled to the newcomers, “Have you dealt with the heretic yet?”
“We were just chasing him down this way. The treacherous rat is elusive as the Outsider himself.” The Overseer leading the second group wheezed, “But we’ve wounded him deeply. I don’t think he could have gone far.”
Emily’s breath caught in her throat. Twilight felt a sympathetic wince for the Empress.
“Not that he would.” The first Overseer said, crossing his arms and turning to survey the alley again, “Did you see the refugees escaping the rail car? Restrict my Lying Tongue, it was the Empress herself. Mark my words, he will come back.”
“If he does, I’ll earn another promotion.” The second Overseer said offhandedly, “But what of your quarry? I see no Empress here.”
“She seems to have eluded us, too. Do you suppose Orthrus can find them?” The Overseer mused, motioning to the shaved wolfhound prowling up and down the alley.
The Overseer’s wolfhounds were trained more for their ability to maintain a scent, rather than pick up a smell, but while the Overseers talked, the hound had been vigilantly doing his best to separate the scent of the creatures that had left the car from the other lingering odours of the nearby gutter. His ears perked up- he had found a fresh trail. His head snapped upwards looking straight at the small purple unicorn staring down at him from the second floor window. Orthrus began barking, drawing the Overseers’ attention to the upper window.
Twilight tried to duck her head back, but it was too late- the zealots had seen her. Piero gave an aggravated groan as a loud thumping sounded downstairs, the gold-masked fanatics attempting to force the barricaded door. A shout could be heard from below.
“Stand clear. This’ll flush them out!”
A small, fist-sized, smooth metal sphere flew in through the window, landing on the flooring with a loud metallic clang. Callista’s pupils shrank in shock. Piero pulled Emily towards him, and started herding them up the stairs. Twilight and Spike, who were across from the strange, whirring object, looked to Piero for explanation.
“Get back-!” was all the explanation the inventor was able to provide.
The clockwork device exploded in a blinding flash and a deafening blast, and for a moment Twilight felt herself being thrown through the air, through the mouldy, aged wooden walls, and blacked out.
***
Corvo sat in the corner of a grimy bathroom, completing the last sutures on his chest wound. His head rolled back, the inside of Corvo’s jacket was sticky with blood, and he felt dizzy. With the bones in his body feeling like they were turning leaden, he fumbled inside of his jacket, and produced a vial of Sokolov’s Elixir. During the early days of the plague, Anton Sokolov, the Royal Physician, created the miraculous concoction to help stave off plague. It wasn’t very effective- the liquid needed to be imbibed regularly to stave off the plague, and it was expensive as well. Corvo, however, found that it was amazingly useful as a fast-acting medicinal agent. The spectral assassin pried the steel mask off his face, the interior soaked with sweat, and chugged the vial. Almost immediately, Corvo’s vision began focusing again, and the feeling started returning to his fingers.
“What now?” Corvo thought to himself.
The Lord Protector secured his mask back onto his face, the custom-fit velvet interior sliding into place over his weary features. He stood up, and walked out towards the window he had entered from, withdrawing the Heart from his jacket.
The Heart, a ghastly object granted to Corvo when he was first visited by the Outsider. ‘The heart of a living thing’ the Outsider had told him, cryptically. As it was, the Heart was capable of revealing secrets about places and people- an eye that could reveal any corruption. Later Corvo realised that the Heart contained the soul of Empress Jessamine- the woman he failed to protect. The bodyguard felt a twinge of guilt at using it, but he provided himself this reasoning: If the roles were reversed, and if he had died, but could remain to advise Jessamine and help keep Emily safe, then he’d be more than happy to serve that existence.
He held the beating heart tenderly, clasping it in front of him with both hands. One of his thumbs rubbed the glass porthole on the front, giving view to the intricate clockwork gears and pistons keeping the heart beating indefinitely, and listened as the heart whispered to him.
“…They hide in the abandoned apartments, the zealots close behind…” “…Their blood races in their veins, the thrill of the hunt renewing them…” “…Move quickly, after the collapse. Lest the Overseers find what they seek…”
Punctuating the whisper, an explosion sounded a few streets down. Corvo stored the heart back in its pocket, and sped off towards the echoes.
***
Out in the street, the aged City Watchman clutched his leg, merely trying to stem the bleeding. The officer’s name was Hutchins, and he cursed his old age. If he were a decade younger, maybe a half decade, even, he would’ve been able to crawl back to the car, to do something other than sprawl uselessly on the hard, uncomfortable cobble road, holding a bleeding leg with a broken hand.
Hutchins’ gaze lifted as he heard footsteps from the alleyway. He knew better than to hope that it was Emily and her entourage, and the officer sighed as he saw a group of Overseers emerge from the side street. “Secure the vehicle, if the apostates slip through our brethren, they will not escape this way.” One of the zealots declared.
Another Overseer noticed Hutchins, and approached until he was standing over the fallen watchman. A sadistic cackle echoed from the golden mask as the Overseer nudged Hutchins onto his back using a hobnailed boot. A shrill whistle caused his attention to shift from the wounded Officer.
A man in commoner’s clothing lounged against a street light, leisurely puffing a cigar. His thick neck, broad shoulders, and barrel chest gave him a silently intimidating look. A bowler hat shaded most of his face from the puddle of illumination cast by the lamppost, but the strong cut of his crudely chiselled features could still be seen. A brutal whaling machete and a bottle of liquor hung at his waist. The Overseer pointed a declarative finger at him.
“You are out after curfew. Return to your home.” The zealot demanded.
“Oh really?” The heavy-set brute replied in a thick distillery worker’s accent, walking towards the Overseer, “D’you own this street?”
Hutchins knew who this man was. He was a member of Slackjaw’s Bottle Street gang. The Watch Officer sighed, knowing that one way or another, the gutters of the street would run red with blood.
“You are disobeying martial law.” The Overseer snapped back, “Turn around, and walk away. Now.”
By now the other Overseers had drawn up next to the first. The thug kept on walking towards them with a slow confidence. As he passed a sewer grate, it shifted, and two similarly built gangsters emerged from the manhole. Another shrill whistle sounded from behind them, and the Overseers found themselves surrounded as more and more heavily-built service workers emerged from the night. The thug with the cigar walked straight up to the zealot with his boot planted on Hutchins’ chest, and the gold-masked fanatic started backing away. The thug kept on walking, glowering down at the zealot as he tried to get enough distance to draw his sabre.
“This is Bottle Street territory, and you’ll play by our rules.” The thug growled, taking the whiskey bottle from his belt. The Bottle Street gangster took a swig from the bottle, but he didn’t swallow.
The Overseer grabbed a pistol, and tried to bring it to bear. The thug’s spade-like hand slapped the pistol barrel to the side, causing it to fire uselessly into the street.
“Bad move, jackass.” The thug snarled.
The thug grabbed plucked his cigar from his mouth, held it in front of his lips, and spewed the mouthful of whiskey over the ember of the cigar. The zealot was enveloped in a wall of fire, and the other Bottle Street gangsters surged forward, crossing their heavy machetes with the Overseer’s sabres.
***
The purple mare began regaining consciousness, Twilight had no idea how long she was out for. Her nose was overpowered with the scent of mould, plaster, and something else she couldn’t describe. She opened her eyes, and felt a moment of hysteria to see only darkness. Marshaling herself, she focused a light spell on her horn, and was relieved to see the benevolent purple light manifest itself at the tip of her horn, illuminating her surroundings. The panic returned when she saw Spike- sprawled over the ground. Fearing the worst, Twilight turned her assistant on to his back, and was relieved to see that he was still breathing, at least- his small tummy rising and falling steadily. Gently, she picked up his unconscious form, and placed him on her back. She then turned to make a more thorough assessment of her surroundings.
The unicorn assumed that she was still in the abandoned apartment. Looking behind her, she saw a mass of crumbled wood planks and cotton insulation from where the building had no doubt collapsed from the explosion. Twilight gulped, hoping that Emily and the others were safe. Turning in front of her, she noticed she was in a claustrophobically narrow hallway, made worse by the fact that her horn’s light seemed to be swallowed up in the oppressive darkness. On both sides, the hallway was lined with uniform brown-red wood doors. The light from her horn didn’t illuminate much, but it was enough for to make a positive and spirit-lifting message, scrawled down the length of the hallway:
BLOOD FROM THE EYES
The purple unicorn very nearly had a mental breakdown right then and there. Who in their right mind would write something like that? Twilight shook her head, and closed her eyes, trying to calm her heart pounding anxiously in her chest. Gathering her courage, she continued onward, the light of her horn fighting to keep away the darkness.
By counting the numbers on the doors, Twilight hadn’t gone very far, but she felt like the hallway extended forever. Eventually she came across a smashed door, giving way to a sharply angled staircase. Her fear threatened to overwhelm her, and Twilight’s shivering legs felt like they were about to freeze, but she forced herself to approach the top of the staircase. She heard voices, and saw a pair of figures outlined by a deep yellow light at the bottom of the stairwell. Twilight snuffed the light of her horn, being cautious. Her suspicions were gratified.
“It was a good throw, I’ll give him that.” One of the voices said.
“It was brash and foolish,” a second voice grated, “what if the grenade missed, and fell back into the alley? What if the building had collapsed into the street? Now we don’t even know if we’re supposed to be searching for escaped refugees or mangled corpses.” Twilight’s heart sank. It was those humans in the gold masks.
“Indeed.” The first voice fell silent for a moment, before continuing on a different note, “Do you think the sergeant was speaking the truth?”
“Truth about what, brother?” Replied the other voice.
“When he said the Empress would be burned.” The first voice replied, “Would the Abbey really put the Kaldwin girl to the stake?”
“You are tempting the Lying Tongue, brother.” The second voice rasped, the light drawing closer to the stairwell, “Such matters are for the High Overseer to decide, not myself.”
“Still.” The first voice insisted, “My parents sent me to the Overseers to purge heretics, not kill young girls.”
“Personally? I don’t think she even rules the imperialists.”
“Humour me, brother. What do you mean by that?”
“I think that Corvo has corrupted her with his black magic- there are accounts of dabblers in the black arts being able to manipulate those who do not pay enough heed to the Strictures. At her age, he would be able to control her with ease.”
“That sounds more probable than some speculations I’ve heard.” The first voice mused.
“In any case, we should restrict our Errant Minds.” The second voice concluded, “What we do know is this- we’ll subdue Emily and her collaborators, kill Corvo, and the High Overseer will deal with the trivial details.”
Twilight was so concentrated with eavesdropping that she didn’t think to hide herself until she saw one of the humans mount the first steps of the staircase. She scrabbled back, drawing the attention of the human coming up the stairs.
“If anyone is there, show yourself!” The voice snarled. Twilight continued running back down the hallway. She chose one of the apartment rooms at random and quickly opened the door with her magic, making even more noise. She ran inside, and slammed the door behind her.
Her pulse pounded in her ears like a kettle drum, she was sure that the Overseers would find her. A growing sense of dread overwhelmed her as she saw the yellow light of the Overseer’s lantern creep under the door, accompanied by the sound of hobnailed boots.
“Let my hands not be restless. Reveal yourself!” the Overseer demanded to the dusty air.
To Twilight’s immense relief, the light passed the doorway, and continued onward. The unicorn turned, and what greeted her sent her adrenaline racing again.
Along the side of a room, a human was curled up on a dirty mattress. Part of the purple mare’s conscience was horrified at the idea of him being dead- a handful of flies lazily circling the body. Yet another part of her was relieved that this disheveled-looking body posed no threat to her. A trio of dark maroon smears of dried blood tracked from his eyes and mouth down his contorted face. His tattered, stitched shirt was discolored with blood and other bodily fluids- a grim concoction of death and disease. On the wall above the corpse were scrawled the words ‘THE OUTSIDER WALKS AMONG US’.
The words were bathed in an eerie purple glow, not coming from Twilight’s horn. Her gaze tracked the light to its source in the far corner of the room. A small ensemble of electric lights giving off a purple glow was assembled near a makeshift shrine. A stool stood as a pedestal, with a series of wooden planks driven into it, and adorned with fishing line and drapes. Placed on the middle of the pedestal, centred like some sort of treasured relic, an Outsider’s Rune sat upright, gurgling at her. The massive pedestal, the purple lights, and the body combined to give the entire room a repellently eldritch effect. Yet there was something about the rune, its soothing gurgle seemed to call out to Twilight, compelling her to draw near the shrine. Just as she came in front of it, the Outsider materialized, hovering in human form above the engraved bone, regarding her with the black abyss of his eyes.
“To every light there is the shadow it casts, and cities, like all living things, have their dark and forgotten secrets.” He said, “It is in such places, like this one, that my influence remains. The people of this world openly worshiped me, centuries ago. Now they turn themselves to hating me. However much they try to eradicate me, I will remain, in such dark places. Everything casts a shadow, including them, and it is in such places that I will always exist.”
“What do you want from me?” Twilight said fearfully, backing up.
“I should ask the same to you. After all, it was you who came before this shrine- this lonely vestige made in my name.” The Outsider said, spreading his arms in gesture to the room around him. “You are welcome to this lonely shadow, but know that nothing can hide forever. I’d prefer if you didn’t learn this the hard way.” The Outsider crossed his arms again, and nodded to the corpse with a small tilt of his head.
Twilight had wanted to ask him about the body.
“What did you do to him?” she asked, dreading the answer.
“By now, I’m sure you know exactly what my runes are- conduits of magical energies, siphoned directly from the void- raw power, given shape and form. Power, it’s fascinating how such a simple thing can change people. I watched as this man was driven insane from the simple, unyielding rune, as he locked himself indoors, and forwent food and water as his thirst for power drove away his mortal needs. Even as the plague spread and this building was abandoned, even as the disease spread to him in turn, even as blood trickled from his eyes and his tortured mind was laid to waste.”
The Outsider shook his head, crossing his arms behind his back.
“What they never seem to understand is that no amount of prayers or horrific rituals can oblige me to divulge my secrets to them. Not all mysteries are meant to be solved.” His black gaze turned back to Twilight.
“That’s… terrible.” Twilight whispered, “You created the runes just to drive people crazy?”
The Outsider surprised her by giving a faint smile.
“There are a unique few who can unlock the power stored within the runes.” He assured her, “Those who I have chosen to bear my mark, and who I have deemed to be interesting enough to watch.”
“Yes.” The Outsider said, finding the spark of realization in Twilight’s eyes, “Corvo is one bearing such a mark. From the moment the black sigil was imprinted on his hand, he has constantly been the centre of my attention. You have only seen him acting quiet and reserved, but his hands have been stained with the blood of countless men.”
With this, the Outsider fell silent, his answer given. Twilight sat back on her haunches, gently laying Spike out onto the ground. Mulling over the information she had been given before asking another question.
“Who are they?” She asked, motioning towards the door of the room, and the gold-masked zealot beyond it, “What do they want with Emily?”
“The Overseers.” The Outsider said, musingly, “A mighty and zealous cult devoted to hating me, and any they suspect of opposing them. Like many, they believe that I am directly responsible for this.” He pointed at the hollow corpse on the mattress, before continuing.
“The Overseers act as if they were superior to common men. As if their Seven Strictures- their closely followed disciplines of the mind and body- will make them immune to my influence, and make them pure.” He paused for a moment, then continued.
“I won’t lie, Twilight, I thoroughly enjoy having a hand in the more interesting affairs of this world. But I will tell you that I am not the cruelty dwelling in the hearts of the Overseers.” The Outsider’s face showed no sign of sarcasm or humor.
Spike began stirring in the corner, groaning loudly from his headache.
“Aha! I thought I heard something!” Declared the Overseer in the hallway.
Twilight looked at the door of the grimy room, panic welling up in her throat.
“Help us.” She pleaded to the Outsider. She heard the human trying at the door handle, straining against the lock. “Please.”
“We will see.” The Outsider said.
Twilight’s concentration was broken when she heard a loud crash as the Overseer threw his weight against the door, the wood frame of the door groaning as the rotted timber gave away from his force. She looked back to the shrine, and found the Outsider had disappeared. With no time to be frustrated, Twilight glanced about- trying to find a hiding spot, but it was too late. The Overseer rammed the door again with his shoulder, and the rust-covered hinges snapped away from the moulded door frame. Twilight found herself staring into the grimacing mask of the zealot.
The Overseer’s gaze swept the room, taking in the decayed corpse, the shrine of the Outsider, and the odd animal cowering before him. Twilight readied her magic, not knowing what she could do to the towering human. The Overseer was confused about the odd dog-sized animal in front of him, but he recognized witchcraft when he saw it. Without speaking, he stepped forward, poising his sabre over his head. Twilight fired a burst of magic, and it struck the zealot in the shoulder, knocking him back and sending the sabre away to lodge itself in the wall. The purple unicorn took a defensive stance, trying to anticipate his next move. Before she could react, she was staring down the barrel of a pistol, and saw the burst of light as the cartridge detonated, sending the bullet straight at her head.
Corvo dropped his hand, the sigil on his hand fading to black as the time-bending spell took effect. He staggered into the room, slumping against the doorframe. His wounds had reopened from the journey into the apartments, and his blood felt leaden in his veins. The spectral assassin took a moment to examine the interior of the room. Twilight’s fearful expression was still illuminated by the flash from the pistol. Corvo flexed his hands, knowing he only had enough strength for one more spell.
The Lord Protector raised his hand at the Overseer, the Outsider’s mark lighting up once again. Corvo opened his new eyes, having possessed the gold-masked zealot. He could feel the confusion of his host- the Overseer not understanding why his body was acting of its own accord. Corvo was weak before having possessed the Overseer, and the effort of forcing the sluggish host to obey him was a titanic effort in itself. The assassin persevered, knowing that time was literally running out, and managed to force the Overseer to stand directly in front of the purple mare- in the path of his own bullet.
Corvo felt himself melting away, his overworked magical reserves unable to maintain his spells. The bodyguard’s body melted from the Overseer, and Corvo’s knees buckled under him. Time returned to normal, and the Overseer let out a sharp yell as the bullet pierced through his back. Twilight stared in shock. All the lavender unicorn saw was an abrupt blur, but she understood what had happened. Both Twilight and the Overseer looked at the front of his uniform, as a deepening splotch of red leeched outward from the middle of his chest. The Overseer’s mask turned back toward her, and for a moment, the purple light illuminated his sad, brown eyes, staring at her from inside of his golden motif, but then he toppled back. Twilight didn’t think as she ran over to his side, trying to accumulate healing magic in her horn. She had asked the Outsider for help- but she hadn’t wanted to kill him!
As soon as Twilight started casting the spell, the zealot’s hand flew up, sweeping her legs from beneath her. The religious fanatic rose to his knees, and casually swatted Spike as he tried to help his sister. The Overseer pinned the unicorn’s neck to the flooring, using his other hand to free his sabre from where it was lodged in the wall.
“Restrict… the Restless Hands…” The Overseer sputtered, slowly raising the sabre. “…which quickly become the workmates… of the Outsider…”
The Overseer coughed, blood seeping from the mouthpiece of his mask and spattering on Twilight’s face.
“Unfettered by honest work… they rush to sordid gain, vain pursuits…” The zealot’s sword reached its apex.
“-and acts of violence.” Corvo growled, reaching his arm under the Overseer’s left arm and around his neck, and using the other to immobilise the zealot’s sword arm.
Twilight scrambled back, and the masked assassin persisted with his head lock, keeping the Overseer immobilized as the bullet lodged in his back steadily sapped away the last of his strength. After a moment that seemed to go on forever, the Overseer’s body relaxed, and the sabre fell from his limp hand. The spectral assassin released the body, and the Overseer’s lifeless form flopped over, his head making a dull thump as it struck the ground.
The spectral assassin slumped back against the wall, the last of his strength expended. Every laboured beat of his heart caused another lance of pain to pierce through the numbness of his senses. The unicorn and the dragon sat opposite, merely staring at him with wide eyes.
“Who are you?” he heard Jessamine’s voice echo in his head, “To them, you are just another murderer; deeds of violence obscured by a mask.”
With numb fingers, Corvo fumbled the buckles of his mask, and pried it away to reveal his face, struggling to ward off the blackness leeching into the corners of his vision. It was Spike who recognised him first.
“C-Corvo?” The small dragon asked fearfully, taking a small step toward the spectral assassin.
The bodyguard was hardly recognisable. His face was a sickly pallor, and his hair was matted to his face and scalp with glistening sweat. His partially glazed eyes stared out from deep in their sockets, too weak to even plead for help. Spike’s gaze drifted down to the gouge in Corvo’s jacket, which was stained with a deep maroon.
The dragon didn’t think twice before running over to Corvo, desperately trying to find some way to stem the oozing blood. He turned back to Twilight, begging her to help. But the purple mare could only stand in shock. All the violence and death had momentarily robbed her of functioning.
Corvo was on the verge of passing out. Even as he mustered the last of his strength to fight away the creeping darkness, the arcane assassin could feel himself slipping, his consciousness steadily submerging like an exhausted swimmer- struggling to stay afloat, but drowning all the same. The last of his nerves slipped away into nothingness, and he felt the darkness swarm over his vision.
The Lord Protector’s eyes flickered open, and Corvo found himself in the Void, sitting on a fractured chunk of smooth marble tile while an all too familiar deity floated before him. Corvo returned the Outsider’s gaze, waiting. The assassin knew it was useless to speak to the Outsider- the omniscient deity tended to reveal things at his own leisure. “Is this really the way it all ends?” The Outsider mused, “Corvo Attano, Lord Protector, and avenging shadow- bleeding to death in a long abandoned apartment? It’s been a long a storied journey to accompany you on, Corvo. Are you going to exit the stage, just as things start picking up?”
The black-eyed deity regarded him for a moment, allowing the silence to permeate fully before pressing onward.
“What will Emily do now that you can no longer guide her, I wonder? If you are truly finished, that is.” The Outsider leaned in, staring at Corvo intently.
The mention of Emily’s name lit a spark in Corvo, igniting his fury, and coursing through him in a raging inferno of defiance. The Outsider saw this in his eyes, and smiled.
“The Void takes everyone, eventually, and time moves on, and as of now there are a few, solitary threads still connecting you to life. Can you grasp these threads, and return to play your part? Or is it really your time to go- to take a bow and let your memory fade as the years pass? It’s time to see what you’re made of.” The Outsider concluded, his chasm-like eyes still gazing intently at Corvo.
The spectral assassin broke eye contact with the Outsider, and concentrated. He could still feel a slight tugging, the slight pain from his wounds. He focused, his essence dissolving itself through the Void, like waking up from a dream. He envisioned Emily, and it renewed his strength, his soul burning with purpose, with the will to return from the Void, to reject death as inconvenient, and grasp onto the remaining strings of life. His sight blurred, and the Void started fading melting away like a dream until only darkness persevered.
***
Twilight focused another wave of healing magic onto Corvo’s body. Spike had managed to shake the purple unicorn out of her stupor long enough to help Corvo. The purple unicorn’s resolve was failing, however. She had sometimes helped Fluttershy treat bruised animals with magic, but she had never dealt with an open wound- let alone the gruesome slice gaping on the human’s chest. Her magic had sealed the wound, albeit with a violent scar. However, Corvo’s condition didn’t seem to improve. His eyes were fully glazed over, and he didn’t seem to perceive the unicorn next to him, instead his eyes were fixed on some distant point- unmoving. Twilight focused one last burst of healing magic onto the human, and slumped back.
“Well, did it work?” Spike asked.
Corvo’s eyes shot open, and he gasped, inhaling deeply.
“Corvo!” Twilight hugged his arm. “You’re back!”
“I’ll live.” Corvo said evenly, running a hand under his jacket and noticing that his wound had been replaced by a jagged scar.
Twilight noticed the confused look on the bodyguard’s face.
“It wasn’t my best work.” The purple mare admitted meekly, “I-I couldn’t concentrate, there was so much blood-”
“You saved my life.” Corvo concluded, “Thank you.” The tone in his voice indicated that no more needed to be said.
The Lord Protector eased himself back onto his feet, collecting his thoughts. The general attention to the room seemed to focus on the motionless body of the Overseer, laying face-down in the middle of the room. Corvo gave a small huff and went to the door, leaning out into the hallway to make sure that no other surprises were coming their way. Twilight fell back into her previous state of horrified silence. She had never seen death before; the concept of a living thing being, and then being snuffed all at once. She heard Corvo speak.
“The Overseers aren’t known for mercy. I wouldn’t spare much pity on him, if I were you.” The bodyguard said in a monotone.
“What?” Spike said incredulously, “How can you say that? You just... you just killed somepony!”
“No,” Corvo replied, “he fired the bullet. I only moved him into its path.”
Twilight was at a loss for words. The human had indeed saved her life, but at the expense of another’s. How could Twilight claim that her life was more valuable than that of another? The Lord Protector continued speaking, addressing more important matters.
“Where’s Emily?” Corvo asked, “I thought you two were with her?”
“We… we were separated.” Twilight said with a crestfallen expression.
“I need to find her,” Corvo said in an urgent tone, “you can come with me, or stay here, but Emily is in danger, and she needs me.”
Twilight briefly analyzed her options, Corvo frightened her, but he was their best chance for getting out of this mess alive. Twilight shuddered as she thought the words- she had never seriously considered her life to be in danger before. Corvo placed his skull-like mask back over his face, and completed his survey of the adjoining hallway. He motioned to a small alcove in which they could hide and wait for him. As they left, he turned to the altar in the corner of the room. Deftly moving to it, the blue lenses of his mask surveyed the makeshift tribunal for a single moment. In a single movement, Corvo removed the engraved whalebone from its spot, and stashed it inside of his coat. The mauve lights surrounding the altar sputtered out in unison, as if their power source had been disconnected all at once. The supernatural assassin lingered in the dark for a moment more before he left to rejoin Twilight and Spike- the sounds of his footsteps being swallowed up in the darkness.
Spike winced as he stubbed one of his toes in the darkness. The small dragon and his surrogate sister had been trying to keep pace with Corvo’s quiet, nimble steps. The small dragon couldn’t fathom how Corvo, being at least twice his size, could so quickly traverse the treacherous flooring while making only the faintest sound, and yet every floorboard seemed to groan and creak as he and Twilight stumbled blindly over the rotting and splintered floors in the dark.
“I can’t see a thing, where are we going?” Spike asked in frustration.
“Not much farther now.” Corvo muttered in reply, failing to answer the purple dragon’s question.
Corvo turned towards one of the doors, seemingly at random, and knocked on it. Twilight observed the bodyguard inquisitively as there was no answer.
“Emily?” Corvo said in a hushed tone, “It’s me, Corvo, you’re safe now.”
Twilight was surprised to hear the sound of a chain-lock being undone, and the door creaked open, almost cautiously.
“C-Corvo?” a voice asked from the gloom.
“Corvo!”
Emily emerged from dark room, almost at a sprint. Corvo sank to one knee and opened his arms. Emily nearly jumped into his embrace, her childish arms hugging his neck. For a moment, time seemed to hold still, almost as if the universe itself was coming back into alignment. Emily was safe, and the world could make sense again. The embrace steadily loosened, bit by bit, until they were making eye contact, with Emily’s small hands clasped in Corvo’s.
“Corvo, don’t scare me like that!” She said, her voice suddenly scornful, “You had me worried sick about you, I didn’t know where you were I thought that the Overseers… that you were…” The young girl trailed off, suddenly young and fragile again.
“Just… don’t scare me like that again.” She mumbled, her glassy eyes staring into the lenses of her bodyguard’s mask.
“As you wish, my Empress.” Corvo said softly. At that moment he would’ve agreed to fight every Overseer in Dunwall, if she had asked.
“A touching reunion,” Piero concluded, igniting an oil lantern stashed in the back of the room, “but I’m not sure if the Overseers will agree.”
“Right.” Emily took a deep breath, trying to regain her composure. “Corvo, do you know the way out?”
“Yes.” The Lord Protector rose to his feet, “Stay close.”
***
To hear someone describe him, Slackjaw doesn’t seem to fill the part of a notorious crime boss; in fact, Slackjaw’s cream yellow shirt and pink plaid pants secured by a pair of suspender straps makes him out to sound almost clownish. But there was a certain way about how the sinewy crime boss carried himself that commanded respect, and radiated confidence. He had several rings glinting on each hand, and his face was adorned with a pair of neatly trimmed mutton-chops: a pair of well-kempt sideburns arching to join with his moustache. The scrutinous scowl fixed to his features as well as the spatters of blood on his clothing even gave him an intimidating presence. The crime boss was examining a silver-plated lighter, admiring how it twinkled and reflected the light cast by a street lamppost. He decided he’d be able to appraise the lighter better if he polished away the blood left on it from its previous owner.
“Hey, boss.” Slackjaw heard a member of his gang attempting to get his attention. The crime boss rose to his feet, tucking the lighter into a pocket.
“What is it, Morton?”
“I see something moving in the alley.” The gangster called back.
“Do you, now?” Slackjaw said in a grim tone, “Let’s show these puffed up knobs who owns this city.”
There was a general growl of approval, and the sound of whaling machetes being drawn from their scabbards. Slackjaw strode toward the darkened gap of the alley, expecting to see the gold mask of an Overseer emerge from the side street, but the gang boss was surprised and pleased to see an old friend, instead. Slackjaw immediately called out to him.
“Corvo, you old villain! I should’ve figured you’d be here!” the crime boss walked towards him, gesturing with his arms to the detritus and bodies left behind by the skirmish with the Overseers, “ain’t nobody else ‘round here can stir up a good street brawl like you.”
“Slackjaw,” Corvo said, smiling with genuine pleasure under his mask as he shook the hand of the gang boss, “I guess this makes us even.”
“Hah, very true. It seems that fortune favours the bold, eh?”
Most of the Bottle Street thugs, satisfied that they faced no threat from Corvo, busily and studiously went back to searching the dead Overseers sprawled around the blockade. By street rules, anything taken from a dead man belonged to whoever found it, and the thugs busily immersed themselves in the pockets of the dead. All of one thug glanced up at the Empress and her entourage as they made their way back to the rail car. He made a double-take upon seeing Twilight and Spike, but only caught a glimpse of a purple tail before it disappeared behind the closing door of the car.
“I need to ease up on the whiskeys.” The gangster grumbled, and quickly dismissed his self-doubt as he discovered a finely crafted pocket watch on the corpse of a dead Overseer.
“We found your man here,” Slackjaw said to Corvo, motioning to the aged Watch Officer, who had been moved toward the car and was sitting in the driver’s compartment, someone had helped to bandage his leg, but Hutchins’ aged body wasn’t wearing the injuries well. The Officer’s breath was ragged, and he was obviously in pain.
“Will you be able to make it back to the Hound Pits?” Corvo asked with concern.
“I’ll be fine,” Hutchins lied. In the attempt to make light of the situation, he motioned towards his broken hand. “It looks like I’ll be retiring early.” He said with a small chuckle.
“Well you’ve definitely earned it,” Corvo said evenly, “Slackjaw, help me move him over to the shotgun seat, I’ll drive.”
With care, they eased the aged officer over to the side seat, and Corvo traversed back to the other side of the rail car and entered the driver’s seat, but he left the door open to say a final farewell to the gang boss.
“Well, watch yourself out there, Corvo.” Slackjaw said.
“Indeed,” Corvo concurred, “you too. What’re you going to do next?”
“Once we’re done with these cadavers?” Slackjaw asked, casually pointing to the sprawled corpses behind him with a thumb, “We move on to th’ next group of those bastards. The Overseers’ve tried to blockade all the major roads leading away from Dunwall Tower, I’ll have none of it. Funny, y’know, out on the streets we used to say that the City Watch weren’t worth their weight in spit, but now? We need each other to survive.” Slackjaw gave a cynical chuckle.
“One last thing,” Corvo said, “how did you know we’d be out here? And that we’d need help?”
“You underestimate my resourcefulness, Corvo.” The gang boss said cryptically, “But you’re right. I was tipped off by a… shall we say, silent partner? Now, I’d tell you… but you’ll find out on yer own soon enough. Besides, why ruin the surprise?” Slackjaw gave another huff of laughter. “Now get going. And give all my best to those lazy bastards down at the Hound Pits.”
Slackjaw watched as the rail car pulled away into the dark, briefly becoming illuminated by each lamppost before it finally disappeared from view.
“Er, boss?” One of the gangsters piped up, having finished with the corpse he was searching, “Are we really gonna have t’ clear out the other roadblocks? I thought the other bosses were s’posed to take care of ‘em?”
“Well, they’re at a disadvantage. They’re relying on the City Watch to pull their weight.” Slackjaw replied sardonically, he then turned back to the rest of his gang, raising his voice.
“So get yourselves together, you fat louts, we’ve got a lot more pigs t’ slit before the night’s through!”
Corporal Tilley, member of the Royal Dunwall Marines, stood at attention, gazing blankly down the road leading from the Hound Pits Pub. Like many others in the Marines, Tilley learned that the best way to put up with guard duty was to notice the little things in life: The smells, the sounds, things that are generally overlooked in the daily bustle of life. To Corporal Tilley, the cobblestones of the street were exquisite testaments to civilization. The aged and empty buildings ranging down the street, paint peeling and dulled, were aged tapestries; if only those once-prestigious business firms and homes could talk of the people who once dwelled in them! The night was calm. Tilley could hear the lapping of Wrenhaven River, as the wind brushed the waves against the docks of the Hound Pits like the stroke of an artist’s paintbrush. He could smell the aromas of civilization as they wafted in from the canal, Tilley inhaled it deeply. To most, the mixed stench of excrement and decay that blew in from the river on some days was unbearable, but Tilley had served aboard an Ironclad during the Morley Insurrection. The smell of War: of sweat, blood, and death mingling with the metallic scent of whale oil, made anything else seem like a perfume in comparison.
Tilley’s mood was interrupted by a bottle cap colliding with the base of his neck. Up until this point he had been able to ignore the thug who had been sitting curled up under a streetlight with a book. Corporal Tilley didn’t really understand why the Imperialists openly associated with Dunwall’s criminals. Apparently a gang boss was in residence, and whoever it was, their input was valuable enough that the marines were ordered to tolerate the boorish ruffians in their midst. Tilley was trained to follow orders, though, not to question them. His eyes swivelled to glare at the insolent brute who threw the bottle cap, and the gangster merely let out a bout of laughter before returning to his novel. Tilley knew that many of the lower-class citizens were illiterate, and concluded that the burly gangster was trying to teach himself to read. The marine wondered whether or not he should mention that the thug would have an easier time discerning the letters if he wasn’t holding the book upside-down. The sound of a rail car approaching demanded the marine’s attention, and he had to make do with giving an irritated sigh in the gangster’s direction before straightening his posture to receive the oncoming vehicle.
As the rail car slid to a halt, Tilley saw the driver very nearly kick his door open, and extract himself from the compartment with haste. Tilley became suspicious.
“Who goes there?” He called to the unknown man.
“The Lord Protector,” the man snarled back, as he threw open the door on the other side of the vehicle, “now one of you get over here and help me!”
Tilley was still wary of the man; the blood smears on the self-proclaimed ‘Lord Protector’s’ jacket didn’t help garner the Royal Marine’s trust. The thug immediately ran over to help him when he saw the injured Watch Officer, though. The other doors of the rail car opened, and Tilley’s eyes widened when he recognized a young girl in a white dress as she hopped down from the steel-plated vehicle.
“Are you done gawking?” the gangster yelled to the marine, “Or are you just going to sit there with your thumb up your-”
The thug was silenced by a sudden glare from Corvo. The Lord Protector wasn’t going to suffer to hear profanities in front of the Empress. Surprisingly, it was Emily who spoke next.
“Umm, maybe you should get a stretcher.” She suggested, her voice was quiet, but clear, “It would be good if you could let people know we’re here.”
Tilley complied; he was more comfortable when he had orders to follow. He snapped out a salute and a quick “Yes, your majesty.” before he rushed off in the direction of the pub.
With the marine hurrying off down the road and the thug busily helping Corvo, Twilight and Spike hopped down from the rail car. Like the others, they were both tired and not looking forward to introducing themselves to the entire compound’s worth of humans.
“Do you think we can skip the greetings and just get some rest?” Twilight asked exhaustedly.
Emily tapped her chin, seeming thoughtful for a moment.
“Do you see that tower?” the child empress asked, pointing to a lonely structure, standing apart from the silhouette of the Hound Pits pub. It looked like it was once part of some larger, grand structure, but the tower was the only part left standing- the last testament to an age long since passed. Twilight could see it.
“I used to have a room up there when… the last time I stayed here.” Emily said, seeming to hide something in her words.
“Oh, no problem.” Twilight said with relief. Her horn shone momentarily, and in a blink of light she and Spike disappeared, and a similar blink of light could be seen in the windows of the single room at the tower’s top.
“I think,” Callista sighed, “that I am never going to get used to that.”
To Corporal Tilley’s credit, the medics from the Royal Marines arrived punctually, helping to get Hutchins onto a stretcher before running off in the direction of the yard, and the maze of tents pitched there. The gangster who had been helping Corvo dusted his hands.
“The boss’ll probably want t’ see you. That prick leading the marines’ll probably want to talk to you, too.” The thug said to Corvo. The Lord Protector was about to cite his duty to his Empress, but Emily pre-empted him.
“Callista will help me settle in,” she cut in, “you go on.”
Corvo sulked as Emily and Callista moved off towards the Tower. Piero excused himself to check if his old workshop was still in good condition. By this time a few red-coated marines jogged by to dismantle the rail car and clear up the road.
“Alright,” Corvo sighed, turning to the thug, “but first things first. I just fought through a swarm of Overseers, I’m tired, and I need a drink.”
The gangster gave a knowing laugh.
“The most important need of ‘em all, that one.” He joked, “Well, the pub is still stocked. They pack a good whiskey, of course it ain’t got spit on the Distillery, but it’s still worth the coin.”
The corporal from earlier jogged up to them.
“Captain Calhoun will probably want to see you straight away.” Tilley started.
“Hey,” the thug replied, “this man,” he said, clapping Corvo on the back with a hand, “just fought through a horde of Overseers, no thanks t’ your guys. We’re going into the pub for a round of whiskeys. And if memory serves me right, Corvo had to come out here all the way from Dunwall Tower. If your boss can’t be bothered to haul his fat ass out of wherever he’s stuffed himself for the walk over, I’m sure it can wait.”
Corvo was beginning to respect the burly gangster. The marine seemed taken aback. His eyes flicked to Corvo, awaiting his input.
“Well, you heard the man.” Corvo said, “Tell the Captain we’ll be at the bar.”
Tilley saluted with a wretched expression on his face, and jogged back towards the docks. Corvo made towards the pub, but turned back towards the gangster.
“Wait, the Distillery? You’re from the Bottle Street gang?”
“Guilty as charged,” the gangster held up his hands with a chuckle, “Slackjaw wanted me out here so I could keep him in the loop about the local gangs. Th’ bosses have started working together now, what with the Overseers busily cleaning up their end of the city.” The thug itched at his jaw with a heavy hand, seeming to consider something, “Th’ name’s Baxter, I think we’ve met before.” Baxter held out his hand. Corvo grasped the outstretched palm.
“Corvo.” The Bodyguard identified himself, “I think you’ll have to refresh my memory.”
“A few swigs of whiskey’ll help with that.” Baxter said, “C’mon, let’s get indoors.”
The bar of the Hound Pits pub was in a large ‘L’ shape, with booths lining the outer edge and the bar wrapped around the inner edge. It was a later hour than Corvo anticipated- the pub was empty. Baxter simply vaulted the counter and Corvo could hear the sound of glass clinking as he rummaged around under the counter for the bottled malt beverages. Baxter poked up with a pair of the bottles clutched in one hand, and the other rummaging in a pocket. To the bodyguard’s immense surprise, the thug produced a handful of coins and left them on the bar. Baxter noticed the strange look Corvo was giving him.
“What?” He asked, “The way I figure it, once Emily gets back on the throne laws’ll get a lot tighter around here. I might as well polish up my act now… Well, if it makes you feel any better, I stole that coin during a heist job, so it ain’t like I’m paying with my own money, anyway.”
With their partially illicit liquor in hand, Corvo and Baxter seated themselves at one of the round tables in the middle of the pub. Corvo poured some of his whiskey into a tumbler glass, while Baxter just took swigs straight from his bottle.
“So, humour me,” Corvo started, “where should I remember you from?”
“The Dunwall sewers, if I remember it right.” Baxter said, “If I recall, Slackjaw was leadin’ us after that pack of rats that swarmed the Distillery.”
“I remember now,” Corvo said, incredulously, “you got torn up pretty bad. I’ll be honest, I thought the rats had gotten to you by the time I came back.”
“Hah, it’ll take more than a few rodents to put down someone like me.” Baxter said with a chuckle, “Of course, it was a lot more than just a few rats... Still, I managed to survive. People like us always do.”
“Hmph, I’ll drink to that.” Corvo concurred, clinking his tumbler glass against the gangster’s whiskey bottle.
***
Emily and Callista weaved their way through the maze of tents toward the back entrance to the Hound Pits’ main building. As part of the way the tower had been designed, it could only be accessed by a bridge of corrugated steel sheets and wooden planks that extended from a room in the Pub’s attic. Incidentally, the attic room was also Corvo’s living quarters, meaning that anyone wanting to access the Empresses’ quarters would have to go through the room of her own bodyguard. It had made Emily feel safe, but now, with her eyes drooping from exhaustion, the idea of mounting the three flights of stairs to the attic combined with the long trek across the makeshift bridge was daunting to the young Empress.
Callista looked around her. She had heard that soldiers were rowdy and uninhibited, but to her surprise everything had an eerily organised look to it. Almost every tent was occupied by a soldier, and the only ones who were awake seemed to be busy, or patrolling to make sure everyone else was resting properly. The only other signs of life were the occasional heavy-built thug, enjoying a quiet cigarette.
“I leave Dunwall Tower for one day, and look what happens.” Called an irritatingly familiar voice.
Captain Calhoun stood in front of them, no doubt believing it necessary to extend a proper greeting to the Empress. He looked much more comfortable in his Royal Marine uniform- a red felt jacket with a neat row of brass buttons up the middle, and a pair of white sashes crossing over the chest. The jacket ended just below the belt, where they gave way to a pair of black pants tucked into white half-chaps with even more buttons lining the sides. As an officer, Calhoun’s uniform differed from the others only by a few lengths of gold braid looping from a pocket on one side of his uniform back over his left shoulder, and by a trio of iron diamonds in place of where his chevrons would be. Lower-ranking marines wore red flat-topped caps with an anchor insignia stitched into them, but Calhoun was an officer, and his modest black bicorne was tucked under an arm.
Callista wasn’t impressed in the least with the captain’s uniform. Especially not with the way he was set on tarnishing her uncle’s name. Calhoun blundered on, addressing Emily.
“I see that one again Curnow has displayed his overwhelming incompetence.” He said with a self-entitled air, not noticing Callista’s rising anger.
“Well at least there’s an upside to this: we can say that Curnow’s failure to defend Dunwall’s greatest bastion will be the last mistake he ever makes-”
“Not another word out of you!” Callista spat in fury, storming towards the captain. If she weren’t tired, grieving, and angry, she would have never dreamed of stepping so far beyond her station- but she was.
“My uncle was a great man. Don’t you dare say otherwise. He and his men gave their lives to protect us.” She snarled, the captain opened his mouth to reply, but Callista cut him off again.
“Did you know we were attacked on the way here? If the Bottle Street gang hadn’t helped us, we would be dead right now. The people of Dunwall have bled for us, which is more than can be said for you.”
Calhoun sharply raised his free hand, obviously intending to strike the insolent governess. Luckily, he had the good sense to stop himself before his hand raised past his shoulder. Everyone in the yard was staring at him- including young Emily. Instead, Calhoun brushed off the front of his uniform, and adjusted his gold braid, as if that was what he had intended to do all along.
“I would watch my tongue, if I were you.” He hissed in a barely guarded tone, “You’re giving the Empress the wrong ideas about how one should treat those above their station.”
“On the contrary, I believe her actions were entirely justified.” Emily chimed in, before walking past him and towards the main building of the Hound Pits.
“Let’s go, Callista.”
Callista quickly followed the Empress indoors, leaving the captain standing awkwardly by himself. Corporal Tilley came jogging up.
“Sir.”
“What is it?” Calhoun sighed.
“The Empress and her entourage have-”
“I. Know. That.” Calhoun forced out, the last drops of his civility being tested.
“The Lord Protector is in the bar, sir.” Tilley seemed to be getting antsy.
“I’m sure Corvo can settle himself in.” Calhoun said dismissively.
“I thought you’d want to speak with him, sir. You said you didn’t want to get shown by-”
“Yes, I get it, fine.” Calhoun said, turning toward the Pub. “Oh, and corporal?”
“Yessir?”
“Could I ask you to show a little more discretion when speaking about such matters?”
“Yessir.”
***
“So what’s the word on the local gang?” Corvo asked.
“Yeah, I recognize a few of the guys around here.” Baxter said, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “They’re from Black Sally’s old gang.”
“The name rings a bell. I can’t say I remember where, though.”
“Never heard of Black Sally? She led the biggest outfit in Dunwall up until a while back. I mean, some of the gangs were tough, but they still had to remind everyone of it every now and then. Shit, until the plague wiped out the other gangs even us up at Bottle Street had to fight for our territory. Black Sally, though? Pssht. You’d have to be dumb as a hagfish to try and put the moves on her operation. Her gang had coin rollin’ in from every scene in Dunwall: robbery, slavery, shipping, you name it. If one of the bosses tried to pick a fight with her gang, his own gang would get bribed to shank him to death, and then the rest of his gang would probably all end up dead from convenient ‘accidents’.”
“You’re speaking in the past tense.” Corvo noted, “What happened?”
“The Watch finally got their shit together.” Baxter said with a shrug, “Smoked the gang out of their hideout and threw these great big fishing nets down from the rooftops before stabbing and gunning them all to death. Poor bastards never stood a chance. Of course, they didn’t get all of ‘em, because during the plague they bought lots of bootleg elixir from us. Slackjaw gave ‘em a discount in memory of their leader, considering she was practically the whole reason the Bottle Street gang got so powerful in the first place. ”
“Has it occurred to you that Black Sally may have been one of the escapees?” Corvo suggested.
“Maybe, she was a slippery one…” Baxter agreed.
Their attention was caught by the sound of the door opening. Corvo noted that Captain Calhoun had a somewhat deflated look to him as he strode over.
“Ah, I see you’ve elected to grace us with your presence, Captain.” The Lord Protector jibed.
“Yeah, it ain’t like we were waiting for you or nothin’.” Baxter added in.
“I’m honored that you believe I have the ability to come running like a lapdog the moment I’m called.” Calhoun shot back, “At least I’m here, which is more than I can say for your employer, Baxter.”
“My employer?” The gangster replied, pointing a finger at his own chest, “Slackjaw’s busy making sure the Overseers don’t come sneaking up here to shiv you in your sleep. But I know you were talkin’ about the local boss, so I’ll let it slide.”
“Who is the local boss, anyway?” Corvo cut in, hoping to defuse an argument.
“The party in question has elected to remain incognito.” The Marine Captain informed the table, “Very cloak-and-dagger for people who apparently claim to be our allies. Wouldn’t you agree, Corvo?”
“I’m on your side with this one.” Baxter said ominously, “I’ve asked about who’s running this outfit, anyone I ask just threatens to dump me in the river.”
“Well I do hope the ringleader of this mob shows up.” Calhoun sighed, “I hoped she would have realised that this is well beyond ‘fashionably late’.”
“Hold on a minute,” Baxter cut in, “She? You don’t mean-?”
“Aye,” Said a female voice from behind them, “you heard it right.”
All three heads swivelled towards the newcomer. Corvo noted with a mixture of apprehension and admiration that he didn’t hear the woman enter.
“Ah, yes.” Calhoun said indifferently, “May I introduce Sorcha Moray, melodramatic, like always.”
The first thing that was immediately noticeable about Sorcha was her stature. Not necessarily in her shape- although an hourglass figure has a timeless distinctiveness, too- but more the way she carried herself. Her movements had a calculated grace to them, giving an impression not unlike that of some sort of venomous snake. This image was reinforced by her piercing green eyes, which had an unsettling depravity more suited to a weasel or a coyote, and stood out against her almost cadaverously pale skin. Her hair, to say the least, was black- almost unnaturally so. Corvo noticed that it almost seemed to have a darkness of its own- only barely reflecting any light caught in the curls. She was wearing a close-fitting leather fencing vest with a high collar, polished to a gleaming black. Her arms were covered by a pair of white sleeves made from a lacy material, ending at the wrists. A belt at the woman’s waist had an assortment of wicked-looking daggers of varying shapes and sizes complemented by a pistol. Contrasting with her elegant vest and shirt, she was wearing a pair of simple worker’s pants tucked into a pair of worn leather boots at the knee.
“Sorcha…?” Baxter uttered with a mixture of reverence and fear, “Wait, Black Sally? You’re the Black Sally?!”
“Ah, that’s just m’ street name. Or it was, before I was supposedly killed.” She said coyly. Corvo noticed she had a distinctive Morley accent- her tongue trilling the ‘r’s and her voice seeming to dance over the vowels.
“Corvo,” Sally continued, “I see you got ‘ere in one piece. I hope Slackjaw found ‘ye alright?”
“Ah, yes.” Corvo said in a pleasant tone, “I can safely say I’m not sure I’d be here if he hadn’t shown up.”
“Good. Mind if I join you gents?” Sally asked, seating herself at the table before waiting for an answer.
“I’m glad Slackjaw finally took my advice for once.” Black Sally continued, helping herself to a sip from Corvo’s whiskey bottle, “The lad’s got a good head for this business, but ‘e can be awful high-strung at times.”
“Slackjaw knows you?” Baxter blurted out, his confusion obviously mounting.
“Aye, that he does. So you don’t have to worry about whether or not you’ll get out ‘a here with your tongue still in your mouth.” Sally assured him.
The gang boss produced a tarot deck from a pouch on her belt.
“Any of you gents up for a game of Nancy?”
***
“Getting comfortable, Twilight?” Asked the Outsider.
“What do you want?” The purple mare muttered sullenly. She had been asleep for less than a minute, and the Outsider had already drawn her into the Void.
“Do I hear hostility?” The Outsider mused, “Shame, perhaps? Regret? Are the secrets you have learned not what you wanted?”
The purple unicorn didn’t humor him with a reply. She merely sat with her head tucked close to her body.
“Or perhaps it’s not what you have done, but what you didn’t do?”
A black mist rose from the ground, and when it dissipated Twilight was standing in the interior of the room of the apartment. The corpse of the Overseer still laid face-down on the ground, his uniform covered in blood.
“Why are you showing me this?” Twilight choked out.
“Because this was not your fault, though you may believe so.” The Outsider consoled her.
“How?!” Twilight suddenly burst out, “He’s dead! I could’ve stopped it; I could’ve done something but now… now…”
Twilight trailed off. She was afraid that she would start crying if she said anymore, and she knew that if the tears started, they wouldn’t stop.
“You may think your actions cost a life, though I doubt others would agree with you. What of Corvo? Wounded and dying from wounds dealt from curved sabres and dogs’ teeth?”
The edges of the floor began crawling with smoke again, bleeding outwards to reveal more of the room, and Corvo’s emaciated form.
“Indeed, if you had not been there, the Overseer may still be alive, but Corvo would be dead.”
The Outsider’s words didn’t make Twilight feel much better. Either way the scenario went, a death would be on her conscience. Now she wasn’t sure which version of events she preferred: The idea that she could have done something, that a death was avoidable, or that she shouldn’t care too much, because there would have been a death either way.
“Knowledge is destructive in its very application.” The Outsider declared, “And what terrifying power it must be, to decide who lives and who dies. But time is forgetful, and such weapons fade in time, along with the wounds they’ve caused. The Lord Protector lives, because of your actions, but a time will come again when he is in grave danger. Will you be there if he lies once again, broken and bleeding? Or will you trade his life for someone else, like the Overseer’s was traded for his?”
Twilight began panicking as her dream started to dissolve.
“W-Wait!” She yelled desperately, “What’s going to happen to him? What do I have to do?”
“Go to the bar of the pub. Listen, and learn.”
Twilight snapped awake in a cold sweat. Her eyes swivelled to take in the room. Twilight desperately, selfishly wished that the Outsider hadn’t told her about what was going to happen- she wished that the choice wasn’t in her hooves. The purple unicorn tried to close her eyes again, but she couldn’t fall asleep, and she knew that if she didn’t act tonight, her moral conscience would never let her sleep well again. Making sure not to make a sound, she slipped from the room on the tower, stealing across the rough bridge toward the main building of the Hound Pits.
To Twilight’s immense surprise, she descended the winding, empty staircase to find the Empress at the bottom of the stairwell, already eavesdropping on the meeting in the bar. Emily almost jumped when she thought she had been discovered, but relaxed when she saw Twilight. After a moment they both sat in the bottom of the stairwell, looking out into the bar where the adults were deep in discussion over a game of cards.
***
“So, Sorcha,” Corvo wondered as the green eyed crime boss deftly passed everyone the next hand of cards, “you said you ‘died’? That must’ve been quite an experience.”
“Aye, you’d know about coming back from the dead, wouldn’t you?” Sally joked, leaning back to examine her cards, “The Watch made a wonderful account of it: ‘The Eradication of Black Sally’, by Jules Roebin. Bloody shame someone knifed him before he could see it published.” She gave an unsettling giggle at this.
Before she could go on, a commotion began rising outside. The door opened, and a private from the Royal Marines poked his head in.
“Sir, I think you’ll want to see this.”
“Very well, then.” Calhoun said, casually placing his cards onto the table and moving to follow the Marine. In a unanimous agreement the rest of the card players got up to follow him. Emily and Twilight moved to the window, peeking outside to see what the newest development was.
As they got closer to the docks, Corvo could clearly see that there was a raft with a corpse in it, slowly bumping against the concrete dock as the tide carried it. The body seemed to have been a member of one of the gangs. A letter was pinned to a nail driven squarely between the man’s shoulder blades, and a small pool of blood had collected in the bottom of the wooden craft.
“One of yours, I presume?” Calhoun offered, turning to Sally.
“Aye, that it would be.” The gang boss sauntered over, ignoring the looks she was attracting from the marines on duty at that hour, either speculating on who she was, or merely staring at her body.
The gang boss crouched to one knee to remove the spike from the corpse, casually retrieving the spattered envelope and reading the fine calligraphy on the front. In a swift motion, she selected one of the knives from her belt and slit the envelope open, placing the dagger back in her belt. The double-folded letter fell into her waiting hand, and she nonchalantly snapped it open with a flick of her wrist. Corvo noticed that there was no visible change to her features as her eyes looked over the red-stained letter.
“Well?” Baxter asked, “What’s it say?”
“I think we ought to head back inside.” Sally said flatly.
“Well, yes, but what about…?” Calhoun started, looking at the corpse.
“What about him?” Sally said, “I’m sure someone’ll clean up the mess.”
There was certain anticipation to the air as everyone filtered back inside and took their seats.
“Alright, I think you’ve kept us waiting long enough.” The Marine Captain decreed, “Let’s hear it.”
The gang boss cleared her throat before reciting the small piece of paper aloud.
To you, Queen of Criminals.
We do not know how you discovered our possession of the Royal Physician, but know that you cannot prise him from us with such ease. If your cause wishes to bear audience with us, send us one with the Mark of Leviathan. Send them alone, and we will listen, if we deem them worthy. Do not insult us by sending such lowly men to die for you. Ego homin… homi..? homini..?
“That’s probably ‘Ego Homini Lupus’, right?” Corvo cut in.
“Aye, that’s the ticket.” Sally said, grateful for being spared needing to stumble over the ambiguous words, “So what’s it mean?”
“Well, in modern speech it translates to ‘I am wolf to man’.” Corvo said, “As for what it means… that was Daud’s motto.”
“So this came from the Whalers, then.” Sorcha speculated, examining the letter.
“I’m sorry, this is a bit over my head.” Calhoun admitted, “Who, pray tell, is Daud? What do whalers have anything to do with this?”
“Daud was… he was the assassin who killed the Empress.” Corvo couldn’t hide the shame in his voice, “The Whalers are the name given to the group of murderers who followed him.”
“Wait, you mean the man who killed the Empress is still at large?” The captain exclaimed.
“Despite your belief that you are the only competent man in the world,” Corvo retorted, “no. Daud paid for his crimes in full.”
“But his gang’s still alive and kicking.” Sally finished.
“And what’s this business with the ‘Mark of the Leviathan’? It sounded like they were trying to make their letter sound a load of rubbish on purpose…”
“Well, that one’s simple.” Corvo said, “I have it right here.”
The Lord Protector held up his left hand, with the palm facing inwards, displaying the black insignia on his backhand for everyone to see.
“Well then,” the Captain said uncomfortably, “moving along, there was mention of the Royal Physician, correct?”
“Anton Sokolov.” Corvo said, “He insisted on staying at his safehouse on Kaldwin’s Bridge. I haven’t heard a word from him since the attack on Dunwall Tower. Personally, I thought the Overseers got him.”
“Sounds like the Whalers want something to bargain with.” The gang boss decided, throwing another card onto the pile and winning the trick, “Trust me, people get awfully good at listenin’ when you’re about to slit someone’s ricker.”
“Well, I guess it’s settled then.” Calhoun said, deciding he had lost his last handful of coins, “It seems you’re the right man for the job, Corvo. Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ve had quite enough excitement for one night.”
There was a moment of silence as Calhoun left.
“I don’t blame him; he just paid for our drinks.” Baxter joked.
“Should we start again?” Sally inquired.
After a unanimous agreement, she gathered everyone’s cards.
“It sounds like the Whalers have a score to settle.” Sally observed, riffle shuffling the deck before passing it to Baxter, “But you’re not too keen on goin, are you?”
“It’s not my call to make.” Corvo stated.
“Aye, the Kaldwin lass. She’ll make the right choice, you can bet on it.” Sally said knowingly.
“Well, whatever happens tomorrow, I need to get some rest.” Corvo waved away the protest of the other two.
“I’ll stay to the end of this game, but any longer and I think I’ll end up falling asleep right here.”
The young Empress and the purple unicorn decided that they had learned all they could, and quietly ascended the stairs before Corvo came up and found them. Twilight mulled over what she had heard.
“ Emily?” Twilight asked.
“Yes?”
“Are you going to let Corvo go meet with the Whalers? If you don’t mind me asking?”
Emily’s reply was a strange one, something Twilight had never expected to hear from the clear-headed young girl.
