As Within

Chapter One

Dunwall felt...unfamiliar.

Once, Daud could have walked these streets with his eyes closed, but now the roads were nothing short of confusing to navigate, and the buildings looked...off. It was as though the entire city has changed, becoming something entirely unknown, and, well, unfamiliar.

Somewhere, deep down inside, he knew that it was him that had changed, not Dunwall.

The last time he was here, he was on his way to kill the Empress. It felt like only yesterday that his sword had tasted Jessamine's blood, only yesterday that he had unknowingly thrown Dunwall into chaos, and had spent months trying to fix it. Not that his attempts had mattered, in the long run. Delilah had escaped, and had wreaked havoc on the city, and now Dunwall was suffering another tragedy.

The Outsider had been dead for eleven months, and already the Isles were starting to fall apart. The whales had disappeared, and a famine had swept over Gristol. Crops refused to grow in what had once been fertile soil, and that which did grow seemed to go off at a much faster rate. He had tried to speak with Empress Emily when the famine had been nothing but rumours, but when he tried to voice his concerns, the Royal Protector had told him that the Empress' schedule was too full to allow her to have a meeting with him. He had a sneaking suspicion that it was not Emily who did not want to see Daud.

Daud couldn't help but snort as he thought about Corvo Attano, as grim, and as grave as he had been seventeen years ago. He still tried so hard to protect his daughter, despite having celebrated his fifty sixth birthday just last month. Although, to be fair, Daud was months away from his sixtieth, and was as fit as ever. They were getting far too old for this, he thought to himself. Even Elizabeth, the youngest of the three of them, was fifty. Where had the time gone? Or perhaps, without the Void's magic, the years were finally starting to catch up with him.

Corvo had...not taken kindly to his return. He had only spared Daud because Elizabeth had appeared as the Lord Protector had held a knife to the Knife of Dunwall's throat, with a warning that she would have to kill Corvo if he did anything. He had hesitated then, and Elizabeth had used that as an opportunity to remind him that killing Daud would have made him the kind of person Jessamine used to speak up against. It was only after promising never to return to Dunwall that Corvo had let them go. Suffice to say, Emily explaining to him that Daud and Elizabeth had saved her life while in Tyvia went over... poorly. It had taken nearly six guards just restrain the Royal Protector, and had he still possessed the Outsider's Mark, Daud knew that Corvo would have had his head on a spike.

But that had been months ago.

He had not warmed up to Daud in any way, shape, or form since then, but he had permitted—as though Emily had to ask for his permission—Daud and Elizabeth to both stay in Dunwall Tower, with Zenaida taking up residence down on Clavering.

Daud rarely saw much of Elizabeth lately. She had been appointed Captain of the Guard, her experience with the sword helping her surpass any of the other candidates. Even the silver mines that had been taken from her from the Lord Regent had been given back to her by command of the Empress. The Bushford manor was not in any good shape, having fallen into disrepair after seventeen years, but the Watch had cleared it of squatters, and was not trying to renovate it into a new base of operations.

Such, Daud was left to wander the streets alone, occasionally visiting Zenaida and Billie in their apartment, even if he left with a headache every time. Today, however... Today was different. Today was the second of the Month of Rains, and Emily Kaldwin was twenty seven. They were to be hosting a gala at the Tower tonight, despite the famine, and Elizabeth was going out of her mind with stress. Riots had been breaking out in the streets ever since they had implemented a strict rationing program two months ago in an attempt to combat the famine, and even Corvo was starting to become worried that perhaps a party was not the best idea. Security was at an all-time high, but even then, this was risky business.