Dressed to Kill 12 (Patreon)

The town — my house — was a flurry of activity. People were yelling and shouting in the hall.

“Gwen!” Terry shouted, throwing the door open to our room. “The noble.” She said.

“What?” I asked, still waking up. It was noon. Or afternoon. I wasn’t kidding about sleeping in.

“It’s — there’s a meeting.”

“A council meeting?” I asked with a stretch. Then I rose to peek out the window.

There were people running down the street.

“What’s going on?” I asked, spinning.

“Someone’s clearing the dungeon!”

“What? Right now?”

“No! But the town stopped decaying. So someone has to be…” Terry wrung her hands.

Shit, did we get found out this fast? I basically sprinted out of my room before turning around to get pants. My heart was racing. Clearing the dungeon always came with some complications, like the very small issue of it being technically illegal and property theft, since the contents of the dungeon belonged to the Noble.

“Is mom out at the meeting?” I asked.

“He gave the whole town a summons! Everyone whose able is there.” Terry replied.

We shuffled out the door to find the noble in the town center, surrounded by dozens of people. Parents held fidgeting children still. The mayor held his face in his hands, pinching his nose and sitting on a barrel. The wagons had moved farther from the center of the town.

Council members shouted on either side of him. One of his two unlanded nobles looked like he was about to doze off leaning against the wagon behind him.

I approached the meeting slowly, eyes jumping around. Strangely enough, Sandy’s dad was quiet, his face stuck in a frown. Sandy stood behind him. Mom stared at Sandy with a frown.

“—clearly the consequence of YOUR daughter,” The winemaker spat at my mom. She continued to stare at Sandy. “Well, aren’t you going to say something? She has bastard’s blood.”

Mom moved in a flash, slapping him across the face. The winemaker stumbled back, looking up at her.

“That’s enough.” Valjean said, stepping forward off his crate and rubbing his head like he had a headache.

“It’s probably just a one off freak accident.” Henri suddenly interjected.

“The shrinking of the town—this has to have been going on for a week.” Valjean replied.

I stepped up behind mom, who was rubbing her hand. She reached out and threw an arm around me.

“The only thing my daughter has done is work late to finish our work orders. Valjean can attest.” She said.

He looked down at me. I nodded.

“If there is any noble in the town,” Valjean stepped forward, eyes sweeping the crowd. “Let me reiterate once more that you are obligate to report your status. Our nation needs you.”

I caught Gerald standing behind his dad. He was pale, and when he met my eyes, they were full of fear. I smiled at him. It would be fine. Everything would be okay.

“We have a few more days before Foundry’s dungeon must be cleared again. Until then I’ll be here. We will investigate the dungeon.” Valjean said. “All of you, go home. The council will meet again today.”

Barely anyone left the crowd, only the oldest members wandering away. There was an instant change in atmosphere as dozens of conversations stirring in the crowd. The paranoia of being stared at chilled my spine.

I stepped through the crowd to Sandy.

“Hey.” I said, looking between Sandy and her dad.

“Lunch?” She asked.

We walked back to her workshop in silence, stepping from there into her house, packed a basket of food, and then rushed away from the town into the woods where Sandy measured the towns decay.

We ate in silence — the bread was fresh from the city, with chunks of fruit in it. We didn’t grow any fruit in our town, which meant for half the month the fruit would be weeks old.

“They caught on so fucking fast.” Sandy said, finally breaking the silence that hung over us.

“How did they even…” I trailed off, staring out at the lightly shimmering air at the border of the Wild.

“Cobblestones. Gotta be. Mayor was probably watching the towns decay too. I miss the old mayor. He didn’t give a shit either way. Valjean is… so invested in the town collapsing.”

“What now?”

“We just keep clearing the dungeon. The mayor cant stay at the town forever.” Sandy made a tsking noise. “He won’t even dedicate the time to clear the dungeon himself. You think he has the time to sit here and guard it? No. Same plan as always.”

“Then we just have to wait for him to leave.”

“No!” Sandy said. “No. We can’t do that. It’ll push back our progress.”

“You think we’re going to be able to go in at night?” I asked.

“We have to.”

We fiddled away the daylight hours in Sandy’s workshop. I still had more materials to work on, though I saved all of my mana, finishing another piece of Sandy’s set.

[+2 XP]

[Gwendolyn Tailor][Human, Lv6][Seamstress]

[Health: 10/10][Mana: 1/10][XP: 6/10]

[ATTRIBUTES]

►SPD: 10 ►WIL: 5

►STR: 5 ►DEX: 22

►CON: 5 ►PER: 16

[SKILLS]

►Crafting I ►Running Stitch I

►Hand Spinning I ►Thread Mastery I

►Warddrobe II ►Quick Change I

[PATTERNS]

►[Hunter Pattern]

[RESISTANCES]

►Shadow: 5

[TEMPORARY SKILLS]

►[Bow Profiency I] ►[Shadow Cloak I]

I threw the finished pants to her bed where they landed in a pile. The sun was only just falling. Sandy’s wolf fur cloak was hanging beside the door. I kept working, starting on the shirt. Sandy had more butcher work to do. After a few hours, she looked up and out the warped window panes to outside.

“Let’s go.” She said.

This time, we approached the center of the town more quietly. We crept around the back of houses, staying in the shadows of alleys and backyards and under the trees full of falling leaves that crunched under our step.

Without a word, we circled far around, approaching the entrance. We stopped dozens of feet away, staring at where one of the Unlanded Nobles sat outside the dungeon, arms crossed and awake. A campfire set into the center of the cobble road burned brightly.

“Shit.” Sandy whispered.

We backed away, heading out.

“He can’t stay there all night, right? He’s gotta sleep.” I said. “We just need to wait more.”

Sandy bit a nail. I had never seen her so nervous.

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. As long as he moves before the dungeon resets.”

We moved farther away, out of peoples yards but in view of the man through a gap between the houses, and waited in the dark. The ground was wet, fall approaching fast, and silence and tension hovered between us.

“Even if he comes once a month, it wont be enough to set back our dungeon clear.” I said.

“He could start rotating families out of the town until the dungeon stops being cleared.” Sandy said. “He could hire a guard just to sit outside the dungeon. And the more floors we clear, the worse the dungeon will decay when it goes a day without being emptied.” Sandy replied.

We really had to do this. Every day. Forever.

“Let’s give it another hour,” I said, stepping away and turning back towards Sandy’s house.

She followed me after throwing a last look over her shoulder. We took a direct path to the workshop, creeping inside.

“The hell?” Sandy asked as she stepped in. “Dad.”

The door to the house was thrown open, the chair that had been used as a makeshift barricade tipped over on the floor.

“What happened?” I asked, scanning around the room. There was little else out of place.

“He probably wanted to yell at me again.” Sandy tsked, throwing her door shut.

“He took the cloak.” I said, looking at the bare wall that the door had revealed.

“What?” Sandy spat. “That son of a…”

Sandy slapped the wall before turning away from it in a huff.

“Do you think he knows?” I asked Sandy.

“He has no reason to guess you’re killing monsters. He definitely knows you’re crafting things now.” Sandy said, leaning over her table. “Shit. I don’t — we can’t stay here. Let’s go back.”

I just nodded.

We watched the town square through a crack between the houses, waiting patiently. Sandy tore apart the grass below her, rolling it in her fingers.

There was finally movement in the town square, but it dashed every hope we had. The second unlanded noble joined the first before he left. They sat and talked for a moment before they changed shifts without leaving the dungeon open.

Sandy said nothing.

“We have to clear it.” I said. 

Sandy nodded. Without a word, she dug in her bag, holding out the tiny lantern she held. I grabbed it.

Then I activated [Shadow Cloak], feeling the darkness creep up around me.

My boots didn’t make a noise as I stomped through the dried fall leaves, blackness sticking to me like tar. The closer I got to the campfire, the more I felt the skill strain, as if it couldn’t find enough shadow to conceal me. I crept around the outer periphery of it. The guards eyes flew up to where I was a moment ago. In a panic, I froze.

He slowly looked back  away into the night, huffing and rubbing his arms. I kept creeping around the side until I was pressed against the dungeon entrance. Sliding behind him, I slipped into the dungeon. The embrace of shadows felt much safer here where the campfire’s light could hardly reach. I crept up to the dungeon slowly and carefully. I was alone this time.

[Shadow Cloak] dropped from my shoulders silently as I lit Sandy’s lantern. I held it in my left hand and my sewing needle in my right.

[Running Stitch I] [Mana: 8/10] [Cancel]

The first of four wolves fell without a struggle. I looped through the den. The buzzing in the air pressed against my skin; it was warmer than yesterday, the air humid in the cave, rich with the scent of earth and iron from the blood clinging to my needle.

The second wolf I killed made my hair stand on end like the room was full of static electricity. Killing them was routine. Easy. The third died. The fourth crept out of the shadows as if it knew its death was inevitable.

It wasn’t wrong.

[Running Stitch I] [Mana: 5/10] [Cancel]

When its body hit the floor there was a thrum of mana, a pulse roaring through the floor like a heartbeat. I staggered backwards when it hit me, stabbing my sewing needle down to recover my footing. A second pulse came a moment later, the beating heart of a living dungeon. Then the floor deformed and broke; a twisted archway of stone grew from a wound in the floor. Mana sparked and crackled between in it like it was unstable, the rippling image of a jungle hovering on the other side.

Of course the second floor to the dungeon opened now that I was alone.