"Judgment": A Dishonored Fanfic

Chapter 13

They set out just after eight, after they'd finished gearing up and Elaine had put her extra items on. She still felt slightly odd about all of this, but then, it did make a change from being cooped up inside the castle constantly.
They started at a casual walk across the castle's bridge, heading for the tall, iron gates, but when they got to within ten feet of them the two men began to blink up to the highest roof.
She stopped, and looked up; that was awfully high to her. They waved at her, and waited.
   "Come on," Daud whispered, "get your arse up here."
   "You're forgetting that this is the first time I've done this." Elaine said snippily. "Well...out here, anyway."
   "Just pick a way up." Corvo told her. "You'll get the hang of it."
   "On the job training." Daud agreed. "Best way."
   "Any advice?" She asked him.
   "...don't fall?"
She gave him a look, and he grinned at her.
Okay then, let's see where I can get to, she thought.
Eventually, she spotted a path and once that had been sorted out, blinking along that path was the easiest part.
   "Good." Daud nodded. "Three million years to go."
She swished at his head, and he ducked under it.
Corvo chuckled. "Come on, let's keep at it. Good practise. And keep an ear out for any runes while you're there."

Steadily, they made their way over the rooftops with silent feet, the men going first and Elaine following soon after. As long as she didn't linger her eyes on the ground below too much, she actually began to enjoy it again. It was different here, in the real world. There was the ever-present danger of falling.
However, there were also many more things to blink over, including the tops of billboard signs and the flat street lamps.
She wasn't quite feeling that brave just yet, though. She religiously stuck to rooftops, and it gave her mind a thorough workout after only a few minutes. Whole new possibilities opened up to her, seeing the areas around her as never before, and in spite of her nerves, she was smiling.

   "How's the trainee doin'?" Daud asked as she crept up behind them on top of a factory.
   "I'm really getting the hang of it now." She beamed. "It's quite fun, actually. I'm glad I came."
   "Heh. Eager pup, ei? I like that." He then looked at Corvo. "Ey grandpa, our pup's havin' a blast back here. What say we...uh, what are you lookin' at?"
Corvo's eyes were constantly welded onto the front of a two-storey house roughly a hundred yards or so away.
   "Can you hear that?" He asked them.
Elaine and Daud crept closer, drawing level with Corvo, and a faint, tinkling bell crept into their ears.
   "...oh baby," Daud grinned, "come to daddy."
   "Actually, the next couple are hers, remember?"
   "It's okay," Elaine twittered, "you take 'em if you want."
Daud shook his head. "Oh no, sweet, man's right. That little bird out there is yours. D'you hear it now?"
   "Yeah." She smiled. "Never forget that sound."
   "So, go get it. We'll follow you."
She looked out over the city, planning out a route inside her head, then kept herself low and started blinking towards that bell.
And was rather fast at it, as the two men observed.
Daud whistled. "Holy shit, she's flyin'. I'd say she's a natural, if that wasn't the daftest thing to say about it."
   "We'd better get moving. Don't want to lose her."
They soon caught her up, as she crouched to peer inside a half-open window on the top floor of the house. A balcony enclosed that window- which she then blinked to- and she carefully squeezed herself through the gap and into the dark room beyond.
She looked every inch a cat burglar, and that made them smile.
   "There's an advantage." Corvo said as he reached the window first. "We'll have to prise this over a bit."
   "Eaten one too many pies?" Elaine said from inside the room.
   "Cheeky bitch." Daud grinned. "You don't eat enough."
They shoved the window panel over by another few inches, then joined her in the eleven foot by twelve foot space.
Elaine was fiddling with a lamp, seeing if it would light up.
   "This shit pit's probably abandoned, y'know." Daud told her. "I wouldn't expect miracles out of that thing."
   "Still worth a turn." She insisted.
She then almost dropped it as it began to glow with a pale green light that grew brighter after a few seconds.
   "Careful." Corvo said. "Hang on, why is that green?"
   "Dunno, I didn't even turn anything." She stared at it for a while longer, then put it back on the table.
   "You must have flicked a switch or somethin'." Daud guessed. "God knows what's in that, but I guess it works."
   "Try to not breathe its fumes in too much." Corvo advised. "We'd better find that rune and leave as quick as we can."
They all agreed, and split up to begin the search.
   "I swear it was coming from in here." She said as she started looking through drawers.
   "Might be real close by." Daud agreed. "I'll check the next floor down to make sure."
   "I'll go too, there's nothing dangerous up here." Corvo followed Daud out of the room and down the stairs, leaving Elaine to search her current room alone. Where the fuck is it, she thought, they'd better not all be this tough to find.
A few minutes later, while she was crouched inside a musty old wardrobe and rummaging through clothes underneath a shelf, she heard a distant crash, then someone yelling.
She stood bolt upright...or would have done, if not for the infernal shelf that was a few inches above her head.
Elaine cursed, climbing out of the wardrobe and rubbing the top of her head, sucking in a sharp breath at the pain, then remembered the noises and dashed down the stairs.
   "Corvo?" She called as she went into the room on the left, then backed up and passed into the right one instead. "Daud?"
They were both standing over a body, in the back of the area.
   "Nothin' to worry about." Daud told her as his eyes floated over the dead weeper. "Take more than that to get the jump on us."
   "Sounded worse than that."
   "Just a surprise, that's all." Corvo said, turning around to face her. "He was behind- look out!"
She felt a violently-shaking hand on her right shoulder, and whipped round with a stumble to see another weeper, mouth agape and arms scrabbling to get hold of her.
She shrieked and shoved her hands in front of her as Corvo closed in, but a bright flash of green light blinded them in the next instant. Corvo and Daud stared from behind a hand as the weeper was thrown several feet away, covered in green flames.
The body was dead before it even hit the floor with a dull thud.