Chapter 395: The Palace

Kael had hoped the orange marker would lead somewhere relatively harmless. A warehouse, perhaps, or an abandoned building near the central district. Somewhere he could retrieve the Legendary object before returning to the considerably less pleasant business of killing his target.

After another fifteen minutes of crossing rooftops and slipping through narrow alleys, the map made it clear that he would not be so fortunate. Both markers occupied the same compound. The red assassination target waited inside the enormous building at the center of the city, while the orange marker hovered beneath it.

Kael crouched upon the roof of a darkened building and studied the final stretch of road. "Of course. Putting it somewhere convenient would have been too generous."

The palace dominated the district ahead, and there was no longer any reason to call it anything else. Tall walls enclosed gardens and several smaller structures around the main building. Towers occupied each corner, providing sentries with clear views across the surrounding streets, while the palace itself rose several floors above everything nearby.

Its architecture bothered him for reasons unrelated to the guards. Floor Eleven’s fortress had possessed a massive structure in almost this exact position, surrounded by a similar arrangement of defensive walls. That building had been dominated by the great domed chamber where the mage worked desperately to transport civilians away while goblins, orcs, and monsters assaulted the settlement.

Here, there was no transportation dome or desperate last defense. The same central position had been given to a royal palace.

"Definitely connected," Kael muttered.

They might have been different cities belonging to the same civilization, or different moments within the same history. The Tower had provided nothing useful enough to confirm either possibility, and Kael suspected that omission was deliberate. He could worry about it after finding a way past the people currently paid to keep him out.

There were two guards at the front gate, four moving along the internal wall, and at least three visible upon the upper balconies. Another patrol crossed the gardens. Kael watched their movements, counted the intervals, and waited for someone to become careless.

Nobody obliged him. No guard wandered away from his post, and no patrol disappeared around a corner long enough to leave the entire approach conveniently unattended. One sentry even stopped to examine a dark section beside the gate before returning to his position.

"These people are getting paid too well."

Apparently, goblins took palace security seriously. Kael would have appreciated one incompetent bastard sleeping against a wall, but the Tower seemed determined to make him work for this.

He checked his internal energy and found a little over two-thirds remaining. That was considerably better than expected after nearly an hour of moving through the city with Darkness and Presence active together for most of it. Before discovering their perfect synergy, maintaining both effects for that long would have left him searching desperately for somewhere to recover.

Kael brought them fully into effect again. Darkness spread through the Malachor-Weave Basilisk Coat, softening the black material until its edges dissolved into moving shadow. Presence followed, pressing against his reserves as his outline became less distinct.

The consumption was slightly stronger than before.

He remained still and watched the guards. None had seen him, and nobody was looking directly toward the rooftop, yet Presence continued drawing more internal energy than it had in the civilian districts.

"Security," he murmured after several seconds.

Presence did not simply make him invisible. It encouraged observers to dismiss whatever they noticed, and that became more difficult when those observers were specifically trained to notice things that did not belong. The Rune was effectively telling him how much scrutiny the area was under.

Useful information, although Kael would have preferred learning it somewhere less inconvenient. From here onward, a mistake would cost him more than a few moments of embarrassment.

He descended from the roof and crossed the street during the gap between two patrols. The palace wall stood perhaps five meters high. Kael looked up, crouched, and jumped, catching the upper edge with both hands. A single pull carried him over before he dropped into the garden beyond.

He landed behind a thick row of shrubs and lowered himself immediately. Three armored goblins passed less than twenty meters away, carrying short spears and maintaining a disciplined formation. Kael waited until they disappeared before looking properly at his surroundings.

The garden was beautiful. Small red blossoms grew along the walls, larger pale flowers filled circular beds, and narrow decorative trees lined the stone paths. Someone had spent considerable time making the place pleasant.

Kael took three steps before something glinted near his boot.

He stopped and followed the thin metal wire beneath a cluster of flowers. A toothed mechanism waited partially buried under the leaves, close enough to a bear trap that he had no interest in testing the differences.

"Who puts traps in a flower garden?" he whispered, then looked toward the goblin palace. "Right. Stupid question."

Once he knew what to search for, the garden became considerably less inviting. Another wire stretched between two bushes. A pressure plate lay disguised beneath a decorative stone, and disturbed soil farther ahead concealed what appeared to be a cluster of spikes.

The goblins had apparently decided that anyone coming over the wall deserved whatever happened to his feet afterward.

Kael stepped over the first wire, skirted the pressure plate, and slipped between two flower beds. The Basilisk eyes helped tremendously. Moonlight revealed faint reflections along the metal, while small differences in the soil showed where mechanisms had been buried. Without the enhanced vision, he probably would have discovered the traps by standing on one.

He reached the palace without disturbing anything and examined the front entrance. Two guards stood directly outside, with more almost certainly waiting beyond them. Kael looked upward instead and found a second-floor window standing slightly open.

His master would have been proud of how quickly he found the handholds. That thought irritated him enough to make the climb feel less satisfying.

The decorative ridges and seams provided more than enough purchase. Kael placed one foot against the wall, pulled himself upward, and continued toward the window.

"I’m becoming a fucking monkey," he muttered as he reached the sill.

He listened before pushing the window wider. Nothing moved inside, and the hinges produced almost no sound. Even the maintenance was excellent. Kael was beginning to resent whoever managed this place.

He pulled himself into what appeared to be a study. Shelves covered two walls, holding hundreds of books and scrolls. Several parchments lay neatly arranged upon a low desk, and Kael had to duck beneath a hanging fixture before straightening.

The unfamiliar script caught his attention immediately. There might be histories here explaining the connection between this city and Floor Eleven.

He looked from the books to the two markers on his map.

"Later," he whispered. "Assuming I get a later."

At the door, he opened a narrow gap and examined the corridor beyond. Small magical orbs embedded high along the walls produced pale yellow light at long intervals. It was enough for the residents to navigate and more than enough for his eyes.

Footsteps approached before he could leave. Kael closed the door, waited for the patrol to pass, and checked again before entering the corridor.

The palace shared the frustrating proportions of the rest of the city. Door handles sat too low, tables barely reached his thighs, and decorations hung at heights that required him to keep watching where he put his head. Nothing was impossibly small, but very little had been designed with someone his size in mind.

He followed the red marker toward the eastern side of the upper floor. No servants moved through the corridors. There were no attendants, cooks, or maids carrying out late duties, only guards passing along regular routes every few minutes.

Kael began memorizing the intervals. Forty-three seconds separated the eastern intersection from the main stairwell, while the patrol on the second floor took a little over a minute to circle back. Two stationary guards occupied a stretch of corridor that nobody else lingered near.

The red marker hovered beyond the door between them.

Kael crouched at the far end of the passage and studied the pair. Both wore full armor and stood with their weapons ready. Neither talked, and neither appeared tired.

He could probably reach them under Presence and strike before either understood what had happened. One blow each, aimed carefully enough, and there would be no opportunity to raise an alarm.

He shifted forward, then noticed the orange marker pulsing at the edge of his map.

"Right. Nearly forgot you."

Killing the target might trigger immediate completion, teleportation, or some other condition the Tower had neglected to explain. If it decided the challenge was finished, the Legendary object could disappear with the Floor.

Kael backed away from the corridor. He had learned enough about Tower rewards to know that leaving something orange behind was an excellent way to spend the next month hating himself.

"Stay alive another ten minutes," he murmured toward the target’s door.

The orange marker sat almost directly beneath him, two levels down. One level would take him to the ground floor, placing the object underground. A basement, dungeon, or vault seemed likely.

Finding the entrance proved less straightforward.

Kael followed the stairs down and searched the visible passages. Every corridor remained level. He checked storage rooms, a dining chamber, an office, and another study, but found no staircase leading below the palace. There was no trapdoor or obvious basement entrance either.

The map continued insisting that something valuable waited beneath his feet.

As he moved along the ground floor, a thin line appeared upon the interface. At first, he mistook it for another wall. The outline changed when he approached, revealing a narrow passage behind the stone.

A painting hung directly in front of it.