Everlast Online

Isaac Hal was not the best knight.

Having been a member of the capital city guards for more than 50 years he was burdened with a fairly high position among the knights despite being nothing more than slightly above average.

Within the guard there were  ranks:

• Recruit, the lowest rank and those who are still undergoing training
• Guard, the standard and most abundant rank of regular members
• Guard Squad Leader, being in charge of up to 9 other guards for a 10 man squad
• Guard Captain, being in charge of up to 5 squads
• Guard Commander, of which there are only 8, they report directly to the highest ranked member of the capital guard
• Chief of Security, the highest ranked official among the guards

Sir Hal was a guard commander and saddled with a lot of responsibility despite his actual talent not being above a guard captain.

It was through his... Connections, that he was able to make Commander. Namely his connection to Archduke Kilgard.

Isaac Hal spent 12 years as a guard captain, acting under the command of others; and to him, this was unacceptable. Isaac Hal was born as the 3rd son of the Noble 'Van Hal' Count family, he was a noble and felt it was beneath him to be taking orders from anyone.

So, when Archduke Kilgard reached out and offered to assist him in rising in the ranks, he accepted with glee. Who cared if he was unqualified or the Archduke asked him to do  certain... Unethical things, it was always done to some commoner, so why should he care?

Today, he received word of a potential break in, into the 'Heavenly Grail Trading Firm'. He was to station his men around the building, but still allow the thief inside, only to apprehend her after she had committed some kind of major crime.

I guess Kilgard wants someone gone... Isaac chuckled to himself as he prepared to breach the building.

Kilagard had been given certain information about the girl involved. Firstly, she was quite small, but exceptionally powerful given her level; she wore a mask so the duke could not see her face and she was supposedly responsible for the Grimian Gang Incident.

That bitch is the one who caused all that paperwork. Isaac muttered, becoming angrier as he thought about all the work he had to do. Years of turning a blind eye, wasted!

There was more information of course.

She was a summoner, specifically she seemed to be a summoner with a talent for summoning undead who had gained access to 2 powerful skills. Kilgard had mentioned something called [Summon - Guardian], allowing the girl to summon a large and powerful knight to protect her, Isaac didn't worry too much about that, what was of concern was the undisclosed life saving skill that could protect her from death.

Kilgard had very little information about this, but it seemed very formidable as it even stopped her from being beheaded.

Isaac looked over to his men and began prepping them, they already knew some of the information about the thief. They knew she was a summoner and had some kind of life-saving skill, they had a plan to deal with it, but Isaac chose to re-emphasise it.

"Okay, when she comes out, surround her. If she fights you, fight to kill. She is a dangerous criminal." Isaac shouted, "Surround her and attack one at a time, she cannot protect herself for too long with her skill. I will take care of the knight."

The knights under the direct command of Isaac were similarly in Kilgard's pocket, but a lot of the more 'disposable' knights were just regular guards; only there to pad out numbers and take down a criminal, even if it means sacrificing themselves to do so.

Most of the knights looked calm, ready for battle, but their trembling hands betrayed their calm facades.

Then, when the night seemed to be at its calmest, the front of the building burst forward. Rubble flew and smashed into a few knights, only the lowest levelled knights were killed, but that would increase as the dust settled.

What was standing before them was a giant bestial creature ripping knights apart. It was a terrifying sight of rotted flesh and razor sharp teeth, claws that cut through their armour like butter and a fearsome face that seemed both wolf-like, but also long like an alligator's.

Isaac was stunned for only a moment before he began shouting his orders.

The beast was strong, sure, but he was leading a force of organised soldiers. 

The knights surrounded the monster and began slowly whittling it down, sure it was stronger than the average guard, but nothing they couldn't handle well. The largest issue would be dealing with the clean up for the giant hole the monster created.

"If this is all she has, then this'll be an easy fight." Isaac scoffed, not even bothering to help as another guard was killed. He was definitely taking it easy, but his gaze was soon drawn to someone in a cloak fleeing the scene.

"Wait. WAIT!" He called out, "She's getting away!" Many of the knights turned to see the person in a cloak running down the street away from the fight, "As if you're getting away! AFTER HER!"

A majority of the guards began running after the criminal as she ran through the streets.

"She's heading into the back streets! Head her off!" One of Isaac's captains called and the group split off into a number of different streets.

Isaac followed right behind the woman, being the highest level and the most likely to actually catch her, he was the best one to follow her.

The back streets were not an ideal place for him to chase her however, as it was quite easy for her to jump around acrobatically and use the disorganised environment to her benefit. Like when 2 of Isaac's guard blocked her from the front, with Isaac following close behind, they figured capture was all but guaranteed; instead the woman threw a knife at one of the guards, it didn't have enough precision or power to do anything so they simply watched it fly by, but this was what she wanted. While distracted, the criminal propelled herself off a box and landed briefly on one of the distracted guard's shoulders, before pushing off and continuing to run.

It was genius. The knife was thrown in a way that it posed no threat, but instead intentionally distracted the guards.

Had she thrown the knife to kill, the guards would have been more able to react due to regularly facing situations like this as their job. But instead she chose to force his focuse to change; had he been paying attention he would have been able to either move out of her foot's path or grab her, but now she was still on the run and had even managed to pick up her knife again.

Isaac could not even blame those idiots for failing to catch her as his attention had been divided by her confusing move.

The chase continued until the criminal turned a corner and they lost sight of her.

When Isaac rounded the corner he was met with 3 different streets, a disgusting beggar sitting on the left path and the criminal running quickly along the right path. It was a short road and she was about to round the corner so Isaac followed as quickly as he could.

Only to be met with a giant and empty intersection.

He had lost her.

"DAMMIT!"He yelled, kicking over some of the crates near his feet. Kilgard was not going to be happy about this.

A few minutes earlier

"I have a plan." Liz said, "But first you need to open up this safe."

Nina hesitated for a moment, it seemed the guards were a much more pressing matter, but still she opened up the safe. It was surprisingly easy, it seemed Jarrient thought the bookshelf was enough to hide it and skimped out on the lock.

"Okay, here's the plan." Nina didn't even get the chance to look inside before Smokey pulled her away and began explaining how they would get out of this.

And so, Nina stood waiting to begin her escape.

Smokey had summoned one of her beasts in and using those creepy floating hands she always had, cast multiple buffs on the monster. It grew massively and became even more terrifying before charging out into the encirclement of guards, ripping them to pieces before the dust and rubble had even been cleared.

Smokey explained that this needed to seem real, even though it was a multistage lie.

It needed to seem like a last stand so that Nina could pretend it was actually a cover for her to run away desperately.

Of course Nina would be running away desperately, but that was still just a cover for Liz who would be looking for anything of value in the safe.

So, when the guards had begun surrounding the summon and were successfully tackling the issue that the monster posed.

As such, Nina took the opportunity to run. She headed in a direction where she would be easily spotted and ran as fast as she could - and it worked, the captain began chasing her with a large amount of the knights.

There were a few who stayed behind, but she was sure Smokey could handle them.

Nina ran as fast as she could, but it was clear that the guards, or at least the high levelled on, would catch up to her; she needed to change the playing field. Find an environment that benefitted her.

So, Nina swerved straight into the backstreets. They were narrower and full of clutter, much better for her to make use of [Slippery Escape] and her high AGI stat, and likely bad for the guard's bulky armour and lower mobility.

It was clear the only reason 'Isaac Hal' was catching up was due to his higher level, not because of his great agility. 

So, the rules of the chase changed. Nina freely jumped over obstacles and weaved around the people who were trying to block her in. There was one time she thought she might have messed up and gotten caught, but luck shone down upon her.

2 guards had gotten the drop on her, completely blocked off her exit. She thought desperately about what to do, but time began running out so she did the only thing she could: Threw her knife.

It was a desperate attempt to kill or seriously injure one of the guards so she could pass them by, but it failed miserably. The knife flew between the gap between them, with nowhere near enough power to get through their armour.

But luck shone down on Nina as the guards completely looked away, allowing for her to take advantage in their lapse of focus and carry on running past them, jumping over the 2 guards.

The chase continued for a while before Nina found a place she recognised from Smokey's map. 

It was a very confusing set of paths which branched off into 3, where one path led to an intersection, where none of the paths intersected with the other 2 roads at the branched path, it was the perfect place to lose the guards.

She turned the corner and prepared to hide, but realised that just stealth wouldn't cut it.

So, she sent a clone from [Decoy] down the path to head to the intersection while using [Innocent Persona] in order to take on the form of a beggar.

To sell the act even further Nina used [Stealth] to slightly lower her presence so the guards would be less likely to take second glances at her rather crappy disguise. 

Nina was quite glad [Stealth] was passive as it allowed her to use it in many different ways, had it been active it would have just made her unnoticeable, which is oddly more noticeable than just having a lower presence with a regular appearance.

(A/N: What I mean is people don't really take second glances at people they expect to be in a place. Beggars in the backstreets are common since they are shoved off of the mainstreets. Combine that with having her presence lowered, it makes it much harder to notice the strange details of her lower quality illusion compared to the feeling [Stealth] creates against detection abilities)

So, the high level guard came rushing after Nina and briefly looked at her in her beggar form, before turning to see the decoy running down the path.

The guard follows quickly and Nina hears him shout some time after he turns the corner. 

She gets up and slowly meandred away, not acting in any manner that she thinks a beggar wouldn't.

Hehe. Mission accomplished. She thinks. Time for the meetup.

A few minutes ago

"I have a plan." Liz said, "But first you need to open up this safe."

Liz had noticed some weird scratch marks along the floor and used them to discover that the leader of this building had hidden a safe behind a bookshelf.

Just like in the movies! Liz thought. No. Nina's right. This is serious.

So, Liz explained the entire plan to Nina in only a few seconds as she opened the safe.

Nina was much faster than Liz and so would take the more difficult job as the 2nd distraction. The first distraction would be her doing. Liz summoned one of the undead beasts she had posted throughout the city to her position and began using [Puppet Hand] to massively buff it with [Undead Enhance]. The mana cost was extreme but it was a necessary expense.

When the beast caused enough chaos Nina would run out and take a number of the guards with her; Nina would then escape capture by using her AGi and the illusion abilities she had gotten; all while Liz worked secretly to get any useful info out of the safe in the office.

The plan was perfect.

Nina fled as Liz had instructed and she rushed up to the office. Liz had dismissed a large number of my undead, some still remained spread out in the city, ready to take the fall for her when any fighting began.

Liz pulled out stacks of documents from the safe and tried to find the ones that were related to the information she wanted.

Jarrien seemed to be a very avid blackmarket seller as every single document had something to do with some kind of contraband.

There was both selling and growing drugs, Jarrien sold monsters without the correct licences, he organised tons of scams, he almost never paid what he owed in taxes. In simple terms, he was a crook.

But what Liz was interested in was his slave trading, as well as all the list of people with whom he often worked with, including one Archduke Kilgard.

The slave trading was well documented and the most common buyer was always Kilgard. Using alias' or names from the list acting as proxies as they provided money that Liz believed lower nobles couldn't provide. Kilgard needed slaves!

The list was a series of nobles, but unfortunately it didn't mention any actual illegal trading, as such trying to argue that Kilgard colluded in illegal trading was pointless as he could just point out that the list didn't actually indicate he had taken part in illegal trading.

The entire matter would be put to rest by Kilgard publicly denouncing the trading firm.

What was interesting was that the list of nobles was almost exclusively made up of members of the noble faction.

The accomplices. Liz smiled, before feeling something swipe through her neck.

It was meaningless but as she turned she saw 2 guards attacking her, the first one still looked confident after his attack, but the other was in the middle of attacking; Liz quickly put all the pieces into place and ducked, the sword still cutting into her, but no longer a fatal injury.

They know about my skill. Liz thought. Or at least what I've shown to others...

Liz launched a [leach Bolt], gaining parts of her health back and sending the second guard backwards as he was already off balance due to his attack.

The first guard again came forward to attack, but was instead met with a skeleton soldier. He pressed on, clearly superior in strength, but was quickly killed as Liz launched a bone spear through his face. 

The skeleton turned to the other guard who was killed just as quickly as Liz brought out another skeleton to assist.

The entire fight lasted maybe 20 seconds and no sounds were heard besides the thudding of the guards hitting the floor and the clashes between swords; still more soldiers came running up the stairs to figure out what happened.

Liz the 2 pieces of information, as well as another couple she had not checked, downed her last chameleon potion and hid in an obscure position near the door.

When the guards came in, there were 5 of them. They took special interest in their colleagues being dead, Liz had hoped to get away, but the guards were smarter than she gave credit for.

"There's more than one person!" The guard that seemed to be in charge yelled out, before being stabbed through the stomach by one of Liz's skeletons.

I guess I was right then. Liz had figured the guards only knew about one person robbing the place.

The way so many had run after Nina it was clear that those who remained were just a clean up crew, nothing more.

Liz dispatched the guards as quickly as possible and began looking over the last couple pieces of information she had gotten. There was still no system message so she was wondering whether she was heading in the right direction.

[Multitask] and [Puppet Hand] increased slightly to 59% and level 9 respectively as Liz fought and looked over the remaining documents; and thanks to her potion no one ever even found Liz as she was attacking them.

Liz even reached level 69 fighting against the guards, even if they were stragglers they were worth quite a bit of XP.

The only documents that Liz hadn't checked that was of any use was a letter Kilgard:

Jarrien -

I have acquired the product needed for the plan.

Yet without those to use it on it is useless. The amount you have sourced will not produce the chaos I require

I hope, that in your next correspondence, you will have acquired the amount of cattle I desire.

Make connections with bandits if you have to, I do not care. Get it done.

- Darlig.K

Liz figured quickly gathered Kilgard's plan, and with it a series of system messages rang out:

(A/N: This is worth more in terms of the quest since she has figured out a major part of the plan)

Liz let out a large smile as she distanced herself from the trading firm.

She received a message from Nina that everything had gone well on her end and they should get to the meeting points.

Mission accomplished. Liz thought with a giant grin.

Liz was happy but knew that this last heist came with great risk; trying to enter Kilgard's mansion may be too risky as it was clear he was already waiting for them here.

What to do? 

Liz walked in silence, taking care to not be spotted near the scene of the crime.