A Ballad of Fire and Steel (Cancelled)

Prologue: Assassination

Note: I have been using a Voice to Text thingy to write this. If there are any spelling, grammar, or just any unclear issues please send me a message. Thank you. -Demon-

Daniel Hunt scaled a particular building in the Noble's District of Berkhansted. These days the Noble's District housed considerably less Nobles and considerably more well-to-do merchants. Nonetheless, the stone building with it's fancy veneers and other decorative bits was quite easy to climb, with the exception of the overhang. Red clay tile just wasn't the optimum material for sneaking around on roofs in the middle of the night. A silver moon shone brightly over the Iron Hold sky. Giving Daniel plenty of light for which to see his target's home. After a few tentative steps on one rooftop, Daniel launched himself over an alley onto another. After a quick check to verify that he had not been heard, he unshouldered his rifle and pulled a vial out of his belt pouch.

Leaning against the wall Daniel slowly coated the gun with the magical silencing oil. He pushed himself against the wall. Only a one foot wide, slightly angled overhang, separated him from standing on top of a roof, and falling two stories to the cobblestone streets below. He slowly shuffled his way across the window, carefully and quietly Daniel open the shutters and got himself turned around. There down the hall, was the open door to the bedroom of his target, and in the bed, a single lump.

Of all the information Daniel had managed to gather prior to this little assassination trip. One of which was the fact that Magister Narkarth had a 10 year old wife. As the person whose job was to assassinate the Magister, Daniel didn't think he had the right to judge. Still, it was nice to see that some of the more vulgar rumors about the Magister were completely unfounded.

Daniel eased himself onto the windowsill, pulling his rifle out and pointing it down the hallway towards his target. In the dim moonlight, he could make out the head of the Magister. He adjusted his footing, praying to the gods that the clay tiles beneath his feet didn't crack and fall to the cobblestone streets below. Daniel aimed... Held his breath... And seemingly just as he pulled the trigger, the tile beneath his feet slipped. The magically silenced rifle made a dull "thump" as it fired. Much louder was the sound of the lead projectile burying itself into the headboard of the magisters bed, as well as the red clay tile that shattered against the cobblestone road two stories below. Magister Narkarth, being mere inches from the bullet's impact and showered with shrapnel from the headboard, woke with a start.

With one arm clamped around the windowsill, Daniel managed to regain his footing, wrench open the breach of his rifle, shove another paper cartridge in, and look up; his eyes locking with the Magister's. Daniel's heart seemed to leap out of his chest. He tumbled through the window and into the hallway, bring up his gun just as magister Narkarth, having thrown away his covers, and grabbed his axe, was charging. The Magister was a mountain of a man with pitch black flesh, which caused his teeth and the whites of his eyes as well as the red irises to stand out in stark contrast against his dark skin. Daniel fired another shot. If the bullet had hit its mark, the large black man with an equally large black axe didn't show it.

"Oh Shit!" Daniel swore as he leaped out of the way, his rifle sliding across the floor as the dark-colored magma-forged axe crashed into the wood flooring where Daniel had stood a moment previously. In a nearly fluid motion Daniel put a foot against the wall and redirected his momentum towards the back of the black skinned Mountain as the Magister tried to pull his axe out of the floor. One arm wrapped around the Magister's throat as the other pulled his belt knife and jam the steel blade into the base of the giant man's neck. Narkarth let out a primal roar and launched himself backwards, slamming Daniel into the wall. The assassin stabbed furiously at the Magister's neck, ignoring the pain of being crushed into the second story wall. Finally the giant black man fell to the floor, blood pooling around his nude body.

Daniel tried to take a moment to catch his breath, but the noise of a door opening caught his attention. He instinctively went for his gun, flip it around, opened the breach, and shoved in yet another paper cartridge. Daniel wasn't thinking in that moment, only reacting. When the figure walked around the corner he put a clean hole center mass of the chest. The rifle made a considerably louder bang this time as the magical silencing oil was wearing off. A ten-year-old pale-skinned girl, whose skin color was the complete opposite of the Magister's, crumpled to the floor and a heap. Daniel gritted teeth. That one was going to weigh on his conscience.

A feminine scream resounded from further in the house. Daniel let out a long sigh as he moved towards the staircase, shoving another paper cartridge into his rifle. The servant girl had already made it out the front door by the time Daniel made it to the lower level. Fortunately as he walked outside, said lady was running in a straight line. Daniel lifted his rifle, aimed, and fired. This time the ringing retort of the rifle was unmistakable. Lights in the windows of nearby buildings started to flicker into existence even as the servant girl fell face-first into the cobblestone street.

Daniel moved himself back into the foyer of the building and locked the front door. He made his way back up the stairs, gingerly stepping over the fair-skinned young girl whose white nightgown was soaking up considerable amounts of blood. Daniel wrapped both hands around the Magister's axe. "Good gods this thing is heavy." He groaned to himself as he lined up a strike. The magma-forged axe cut through bone and skin as though it were kindling and butter. After a single clean strike, Daniel opened up a relatively unassuming small bag, dropped the giant axe into it, his rifle, the dagger he had used to stab the Magister in the neck, as well as the Magister's head. "Kareath-ahka." Daniel mumbled. The bag glowed for brief moment before fading. He verified that he couldn't open the bag. It would be about six hours before the bag unlocked itself, plenty of time to get it into somebody else's hands.

The world around him was starting to come alive as Daniel made it out of the window and across another roof. Once he made it to ground level he ducked into an alleyway. There he tugged on a headband that had been keeping his hair out of his face during the mission. The headband morphed itself into a tricorn hat. Daniel's face shifted, turning older, more gaunt, paler. He pulled another set of clothes out of a sack and proceeded to dress himself up as a new person. Into an alley walked an Assassin. Out of an alley walked just another curious merchant in his night clothes.