Chapter 6- Business as Usual

Chapter 6- Business as Usual

Central square on Stalliongrad wasn't the most impressive sight, while other towns and cities hand grand fountains or statues, all Stalliongrad had was literally a square in the middle where the strobes were red rather than grey and several benches were bolted into the ground for Ponies to sit on.

The square wasn't exactly empty though, a decent amount of resident northern Equines trotted by to and fro, all keeping there heads down and avoiding eye contact with one another as was apparently the new culture of the once unforgiving society.

None of said passerby's noticed or commented on the lone cloaked figure on one of the benches, he sat there unmoving as if waiting for something or somepony, eventually out of nowhere he was joined by another suspicious character; another cloaked Pony, clad in dark black leather armour and straps rather than the dull brown of his counterpart, they two didn't seem to acknowledge each other at first before the one in black spoke up.

"So Golden actually came through? That's a first, even if he only sent one agent." It was a mares voice, no doubt about that and it lacked any sign of a Stalliongrad burr.

"I wouldn't be too thankful, I'm only here because Goldy thinks there's some profit to be made, I'm only going to help you because you happened to be here."

"I'll take what I can get, but if Golden thinks he can cut in on our portion of the profit he's got another thing coming, I already send in fifteen percent what more does he want?"

"Relax, I'm only to get an appraisal for a previously acquired item. I won't steal your marks."

"You'd better not, anyway I suppose you'll need to know what's going on huh?"

"That would be helpful, yes." The mare nodded.

"Names Rogue Wind by the way."

"Swift Hoof, pleasure."

"Likewise, now here's the situation: First off the entire town is being plagued by strange nightmares, often depicting their violent deaths. The nobility seem to be subjected to this the most, and every time somepony gets the nightmares they are found dead not soon after, always from a stab wound too. Now usually, I would give a buck right? But these nobles are my marks, my guilds marks and the less of them there are the less profit we can reap, I mean grave robbing can only get you so far yeah?" Swift nodded, absorbing the information and coming up with several explanations and scenarios.

"My immediate thought is some sort of magic-using serial killer, one that's knows how to manipulate dreams and has a agenda against the nobility, have you considered that?"

"I have, but something tells me that isn't the case, I mean only Princess Luna can manipulate dreams as far as we know, I don't know my gut says otherwise."

"True, but either way it's a problem and it needs to be fixed, do you have any leads?"

"One, it's a long shot but on the eastern side lives a rather well off stallion called Falling Star, he's sort of the head big head of Stalliongrad, and he's the only one who hasn't experienced any nightmares or at least he hasn't complained about any, and the times he's been seen in public he doesn't seem scared out of his fur like everypony else."

"Well... It's a lead and I might as well take it, I'll head over to the east side and check out this guys home, see what I can see." Swift Hoof made to move before he was stopped by Rogue putting her hoof on his tail and stopping him in his tracks.

"Not so fast Swifty, I'm coming with you."

"Ugh, I would rather do this alone."

"Really? So could you tell me where Falling Star's mansion is?"

"....."

"Or what it looks like?"

".....Uhhhh"

"That's what I thought, come on I'll show you the way." The mare let go of Swifts tail and sets of walking, leaving her new companion scrambling to catch up.

                                                                   ~~*~~

The Ruby Estate was average on the scale of high-price residence, being two floors, wide and very long. Although it did stand out because of the material choice of stone and marble over the mahogany wood that the rest of Trottingham utilized.

It also happened to have a lot of windows.

The cloaked figure stood on the roof of the nextdoor building, a perfect open window at eye level just ten metres away, however this wall still a problem as the infiltrator wasn't a Pegasus and thus didn't posses the ability to simply fly over, but the Unicorn did have his magic and that could solve any problem.

The infiltrator explored his options thoroughly, teleportation was an obvious choice but would create too much noise, however the infiltrator was more than familiar with the art of silent teleportation, it would just take a lot of effort.

Teleportation is a trick that most a Unicorns aspire to learn, despite it being one of the most difficult early spells one could learn. Dissipating yourself into base molecules and rearranging them correctly in another spot required massive amounts of concentration, the sound teleporting made came from the molecules smashing and reconnecting together, to online site silence this the castor had to simultaneously cast a muffle as their molecules came together again, it took skill.

But luckily the Unicorn possessed said skill.

Magic manifested around the infiltrators horn, swirling around and taking a silver colour that was trademark of the castor and he prepared his teleportation spell, the tendrils of magic swirled around his body kicking up a light breeze and all at once they closed down on him, breaking his body, cloths, and equipment into tiny molecules and carried the across the way and into the window, the molecules slowly began connecting together to form a horn, that horn glowed brighter as it cast a sound bubble, the barrier formed and the molecules were given free reign to smash into each other, inside the bubble one could hear the sounds of reconstruction, however the night was left undisturbed by the show of adept magic.

The Unicorn grinned to himself before continuing on, sneaking down the hallway. He knew from the information he had been given that the library was under the mansion itself, meaning that the rogue would have to move through the mansion and down several floors. In eyesight it would have been a better idea to enter through one of the lower windows, but the thief was always willing for an extra challenge.

The rogue ghosted down the hall until he came to a flight of stairs, luckily the wood wasn't too old and didn't creak under his weight, the stairs too a turn to the right and suddenly the rogue could hear voices echoing from the main floor.

"...So have you heard about the Masters expeditions in Zebrica?"

"Yeah I've heard to rumours too, the old cot is probably digging up more trinkets."

"You shouldn't talk like that, what if we're overheard? And they aren't trinkets, they're magical artifacts."

"By who? The dust? Besides, these trinkets that the nobility are collecting, they don't have real value or power, it's just a show. Who can get the most treasure the fastest, it's all petty social politics."

"....That's kinda deep for a mercenary."

"You'd bee surprised how often I get to think about stuff during jobs, especially guard jobs like this."

"...huh."

The Infiltrator peeked around the corner and spotted the two speakers, as stated they were mercenaries, clothed in rough, spiked, iron armour. One had a large battleaxe on his back and the other one sported a simple sword. Normally they would not present a challenge, the Unicorn could simply sneak past them, however to his luck the two Sell Swords were standing right in front of the door that lead to his mark.

After momentarily assessing the situation, the Infiltrator came up with a solution, said solution required magic. And even the arrogant Unicorn had to admit he wasn't the best at what he was planning to attempt, illusion magic being the specialty of a certain prostitute back home.

Never the less, it was the quietist to get the mercenaries out if the way. Concentrating on the one with the battleaxe the Infiltrator activated his magic and reached out an invisible tendril out to him, it wrapping around his body and entering his mind. To the mercenary, he heard the faint sound of demonic whispering in his ears, the Stallion looked around in confusion, his head feeling muddled and cloudy all of a sudden, looking around the Sell Sword saw movement out of the corner of his eye before it disappeared around a corner.

"What was that?" He said out loud, his companion jumping at the sudden breakage of the silence.

"What was what?" He asked.

"Over there! I saw movement, come on!" The larger Stallion took off around the corner, his companion struggling to catch up.

As they both disappeared around the corner, the Infiltrator came out from his hiding spot and swiftly crossed the floor to the door that had been previously guarded, he slipped inside and closed the door with nay a sound.

Once the door was closed, the Unicorn was left in complete darkness, he felt around for a moment and found that he was in a small room of some sort, no bigger than a closet. For an embarrassing moment the Unicorn thought he had wasted all that magical energy to sneak into a blasted closet, the Infiltrators embarrassment was unfounded as he quickly found was felt to be a lever in the darkness, without a second thought he pulled the lever.

The ground shuttered, and the Infiltrator felt movement underneath him and the sound of chains and gears creaking and groaning, the rogue barely had time to worry about the mercenaries hearing all the noise before light flooded the compartment, forcing the Infiltrator to shield his eyes.

As his eyes adjusted the rogue took in the scene before him, the 'closet' was revealed to be some sort of lift that was probably operated by a series of chains, through the opening the Infiltrator could see a vase chamber with an almost impossibly high ceiling, throughout the chamber rows upon rows of bookshelves that even from a distance were obviously stuffed tight with literature.

The lift came to a stop and the Unicorn stepped out, looking around in slight awe, but also with worry. His own logic told him that not everything in here could be what he was looking for, but the question was; where in Equestria was it?

It was then that the Infiltrator noticed something at the back of the library, a pedestal, placed in the middle of a beam of moonlight that streamed from a window in the ceiling. Placed perfectly on the pedestal was a single ornate scroll.

"Well that's rather obvious..." The Unicorn said to himself, approaching the scroll. He reached his hoof out, marvelling at how easy it was to just grab it.

Too easy.

Silver Lock halted his hoof mere centimetres from the scroll, retracting his appendage the rogue took a closer look at the pedestal itself, he noticed how their appeared to be an additional platform on top of the pedestal itself, as an Infiltrator, Silver Lock was quite familiar with traps and alarm systems and this was one if he ever saw one.

After studying the scroll for another minute Silver Lock reached into his saddle bag and pulled out a cherry bomb, the small explosive had some weight to it, usually he would use it for distracting guards but it would suffice for this purpose.

Gripping both the cherry bomb and the scroll, Silver Lock slipped the scroll off of the pedestal and slipped the bomb on immediately afterwords, the rogue tensed afterwords, expecting the ground to collapse under him for some reason, but no, the ground heck firm and nothing dramatic happened.

Silently congratulating himself, the Unicorn stored the scroll away and looked up at the skylight, wondering if he could teleport out of there.

His thoughts and heart froze though, as the creaking of chains could be heard and the sound of the elevator hitting the ground could be heard.

Silver Lock turned and saw the two mercenaries from before stepping out of the lift, their eyes immediately locked on him, Silver Lock, clad in his leather armour and cloak, standing in a bloody spotlight.

Both parties reacted at the same time.

The one with the battleaxe drew his weapon and charged the rogue with a wild yell, his companion reached for him crossbow. Silver Lock grabbed his own weapon with his magic, the implement illuminated with a silver light and came out of its custom holster, the crossbows limps unfolded and he string was pulled taunt by the gear action, the auto feeder built into the weapon paused a bolt into the string, prepping the crossbow to fire.

Silver quickly aimed and fired, the bolt was launched from with all the power of the taunt string and buried itself in the neck of the charging warrior, the mercenary died choking on his own blood and the bolt. As he fell his killer dived behind one of the many bookshelves as a bolt stroke the stones where he had been standing only a moment ago, Silver peered around the corner and saw that the archer hand disappeared, telling him that he had probably done the same as he had.

Ducking back behind cover, a Silver gripped the small lever on the side of his crossbow and cranked it back, the intricate gear system pulled back the string with little effort and fed in another bolt, Silver smiled at the advanced weapon.

"Secret Script you brilliant bastard." The whispered before steading his breathing, he closed his eyes. Mentally mapping out the entire library and estimating the place where the archer had taking cover, opening his eyes again Silver turned the corner.

Time slowed down like only adrenaline could perform, Silver saw the archer breaking cover at the same time, in the exact place where the rogue had guessed he would be, simultaneously the released their bolts.

The missiles came within centimetres of each other, they ruffle each other's tail feathers on the way to their target, Silvers bolt sped on and embedded itself in the mercenaries right eye and into his brain while his own bolt grazed his targets cheek, opening a shallow cut.

Silver Lock watched the merc fall to the ground, his crossbow clattering to the ground. Silver allowed himself to breath normally and his heart to resume beating as he folded up his crossbow and stored it away, grinning slightly the Infiltrator activated his magic and teleported away in a flash of silver.