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Chapter Text

“How does it feel, Corvo? To come so close to avenging Emily, only to fall before the very end?”

Corvo opened his eyes with a snarl, bloody hands instinctively grasping for his blade. The Outsider loomed above him, and beyond, the fragments of overgrown pillars stretching up into a blue ether. This wasn’t the same bleached, twisted world inside Delilah’s painting, nor was it truly the overgrown deluge of the throne room. He sat up and glanced around frantically, but there was no sign of the other Marked. Delilah was gone.

“Where’s Delilah?” he demanded, his voice rasping and harsh. Corvo had barely spoken to anyone after the final confrontation on the Dreadful Whale, and it showed.

“What happened? I remember our fight in the throne room…” he continued, and then he trailed off as the memories of the fight returned to him. He rose to his feet, pulling open the tatters of his coat to examine the wound he remembered there. Delilah had been extremely skilled with a blade on top of her magical superiority, much to Corvo’s displeasure.

There was a massive amount of blood soaked into the fabric of his coat and trousers, but the wound Delilah had inflicted was no more. Corvo saw and felt only smooth skin. 

“You were dying at her feet. Her ritual succeeded, and she tore open reality,” The Outsider said impassively, “ but it had results she did not intend, something not even I could predict.”

The black-eyed deity gestured to the Void around them, now the peaceful whale-oil blue of Corvo’s first venture from so many years ago. The frozen tableau of the ruined throne room stretched around them, but Emily’s statue was the only human figure present. 

Neither Delilah herself or the painting of the new world was anywhere to be seen; instead, the wall where the frame once hung depicted a painting of a familiar scene, one that made Corvo nearly choke on bitter rage. In the distance, the mournful cries of leviathans grew to a crescendo.

“You have a choice to make, Corvo,” The Outsider stated, running his hand over the painted image of Jessamine bleeding out on the floor of the pavilion. The ground started to shudder, and Corvo stumbled to his knees. “The Delilah you fought wanted the world, the seas around it, and the stars above. But fracturing reality has forced the Void and our timeline into disarray. Soon, this island, and both of us, will vanish.”

“What do you mean?” Corvo demanded, struggling to climb to his feet. The ground continued to tremble, and the whales’ mournful song in the distance suddenly died. Color faded from the Void around them, and the surrounding floating islands were dropping into the growing darkness. “What choice?”

“Mortals would undo the world just to have a second chance at life, Corvo. If you had a chance to start over, at the time where everything went wrong, what would you change?”

Corvo didn’t hesitate.

“Everything.”  

As soon as Corvo spoke, the entire throne room shook. The ominous crash of stone tore his attention away from Jessamine’s painting. Emily’s statue had cracked, and as he watched, bits of stone flaked away from her stone face and vanished into the Void. The Void tore at her features until she was little less than a vaguely humanoid column. The throne room started to break apart at the seams; as Corvo watched, the carpet shredded itself into threads and the floating pillars crashed to the ground. Corvo heard the Void keen, a metal-on-metal sound that grew louder and harsher by the second.

The shaking grew to a violent shudder, and Corvo was knocked off of his feet to land at the base of the painting. Said painting became larger and larger by the second, and Corvo swore he could see the boats in the background of the painting start to move. 

A sea breeze wafted through the Void, bringing the familiar Dunwall scent of whale oil and rust. He looked down to see the white marble stonework of the villa spread out under his fingertips. Corvo glanced back to see the Outsider hovering behind him. The black-eyed entity stoically gazed at him, even as the collapsing Void tore at his face and clothes.

“You may not have been the one who did the deed, but it is you who must pay the price in body, mind, and spirit. There will be consequences, some that even I cannot predict,” the Outsider observed, somehow still audible over the howling Void, “but I have no doubt that things will be far more interesting this time around, Corvo.”

The Outsider gave him one last appraising look before he vanished entirely. The ground bucked beneath his feet, and Corvo tumbled headfirst into the painting.

“Come now, Corvo. Sign the confession. There’s no point in holding out; everyone in Dunwall knows you killed our beloved Empress, and you will face justice.”

Corvo squinted up at the sneering face of Thaddeus Campbell through his bruised eyes and turned his lips up in a snarl, remaining silent. Hiram Burrows, former Royal Spymaster, murder, and now Lord Regent paced impatiently behind Campbell. After a moment, Burrows gestured towards the lit brazier positioned next to Corvo’s chair, and one of the prison guards who had been silently and eagerly awaiting the command yanked the heated iron out of the fire and pressed it against Corvo’s right cheek. 

Corvo screamed, and his body jerked against the back of the chair in a futile attempt to pull away from the heat. The air stank of cooked flesh and burned hair as the iron was removed, and Corvo slumped forward. He groaned as the guard grabbed a fistful of his hair and forced his head back up to face his captors. Campbell leaned in close.

“We only have time here, Corvo,” Campbell muttered, seizing him by the chin. His gloved fingers dug into the burn maliciously, but Corvo stifled his pained gasp. “We’ll find out what your associates did with Lady Emily, and ensure that she ascends to her throne. Confess.” 

Campbell shook him violently, like a wolfhound with a rat, but even with the agonizing pain Corvo kept his mouth stubbornly shut. He ignored the bait for what it was; if anything, Campbell’s questions only reassured him that Emily was alive and whole. The usurpers of Dunwall needed her to maintain their new rule; Burrows had to convince her to validate his newly appointed position as Lord Regent or risk losing his hold over Dunwall and the noble families. No, Emily was alive, and Corvo held onto that as a beacon of light in the painful haze of his imprisonment.

“Confess, Corvo. No one is coming for you here,” Burrows finally spoke, stepping up to Campbell’s side. He nodded at the guard again, and the hot iron’s tip hovered over Corvo’s other cheek. “Spare us the heroics.”

Corvo was gathering a wad of saliva to spit in the bastard’s face when the world shuddered around him. The iron pulled away from Corvo’s cheek as the room trembled and buckled with an unseen force. The brazier toppled over with a loud crash, hot coals and embers scattering across the stone floor and setting the carpet alight. Campbell and Burrows exchanged alarmed glances, and Corvo grunted as Campbell released his face.

“What the-” Burrows spluttered, pulling away, “Put that fire out, quick! I want to know-”

Burrows didn’t finish. The ground trembled again and the air itself rippled. The entire room stretched away from Corvo, becoming a tight tunnel of color and sound. Corvo could hear far-off howling, like the cries of feral dogs that prowled the streets of Karnaca, and suddenly at the end of the tunnel he could see nothing .

The darkness before him was a patch of simple emptiness, a hole in the world itself that screamed Danger! in the back of Corvo’s brain. Was this the Void that the Abbey spoke of, the howling force that brought forth raving heretics and dragged away innocent souls? Corvo tried to think of the Abbey’s prayers-- think of anything-- but his thoughts were as sluggish as tar.

As he watched, the nothingness, the Void, surged forward like the ocean tide, heading inexorably in his direction. Corvo tried to struggle against the chair, but he found that he was paralyzed, unable to even blink or twitch as the Void came closer and closer.

His heart pounded lethargically in his chest; each beat stretched out over several seconds. When the wave of emptiness passed the frozen figures of Burrows and Campbell, it expanded out and swallowed the room until there was nothing but black space in front of Corvo.

Corvo was being watched; he could sense a foreign, dangerous presence at his back, but he couldn’t turn and look. A hand pressed on his shoulder, and Corvo tried to scream. The void passed over him, cold and oily, dragging over his skin and lips like wet feathers. Corvo couldn’t move and couldn’t breathe. As the chill seeped into his bones and lungs, he started to drown. 

He was powerless, just as he had been when Jessamine bled out in his arms. All his skills, training, and expertise was reduced to nothing in the span of one moment. Unshed tears burned in his eyes. He choked on salt water and smoke, blind and helpless. And then he heard a voice, cold and distant, both foreign and yet, strangely familiar.

“Fascinating.”

The world restarted. Color, movement, sound returned in a rush; Corvo had to close his eyes, dizzy, nauseous, and unable to comprehend what had happened. Had he finally snapped, his mind conjuring impossible, horrific scenarios in response to the torture and starvation? Was he hearing voices? Corvo sucked in deep breaths, rested his head on the tops of his knees, and tried to take in his bearings. 

His right hand felt frostbitten; he could feel an icy, numbing sensation that was so cold it burned, as if someone was pressing snow to the back of his hand. A painful vibration was crawling under Corvo’s skin, and he could hear a deafening buzzing, as if he was standing in the center of a bloodfly nest. He had never felt his injuries so keenly or vividly before. Something was wrong.

“-what’s happening. Double the patrols, I don’t want any inmates getting any ideas from this. I want a report on my desk within the hour.”

“Right away, Lord Regent.”

There was a loud clang as the door to the interrogation chambers opened. When Corvo opened his eyes again, the world swam back into focus. 

Campbell and Burrows had stepped away from him and conferred in harsh whispers in the corner of the room. The brazier had been righted next to a pile of smoking ashes and cinders, and everything stank of charcoal. Corvo’s right hand gave another painful twitch, and he muffled a curse between his teeth when he glanced down.

His hand looked like it had been dipped in ink. His fingertips were black, and as Corvo watched the rest of his fingers started to lose their healthy flush. He felt the chill sensation wrack his hand, and soon each of his fingers were corpse gray.

The strange black tint to his skin wasn’t the same color as the absolute emptiness from his vision, but Corvo had no doubt the two were connected. His nails looked withered and dry. As he watched in horror, a piece of his third knuckle cracked and peeled off, revealing harder, darker flesh underneath. 

He felt a pinprick of pain between his knuckles, and a short quill attached to a barb and feathered shaft emerged from the skin. Soon, a patch of short, dark feathers had sprouted across knuckles, and the skin from his fingertips to his wrist was dark gray and flaking away.

Corvo’s stomach rebelled and he retched, staining his pants with bile and scraps of food he had managed to keep down. As his two captors looked over at him, wearing dual expressions of disdain and disgust, Corvo balled his hand into a fist. If either Campbell or Burrows saw the disfigurements, he might as well sign their confession. 

Campbell was High Overseer, and there was nothing like visible heresy and signs of the Void to prove Corvo’s guilt in the eyes of the law. Corvo knew firsthand what the Overseers would do to him. 

He had seen the accused heretics strung up in Holger Square wither away for days, even weeks, and he wouldn’t give Campbell the satisfaction. Spite was all he had, right now. Corvo spat out the last of the vomit onto the floor, the taste of bile coating the back of his mouth, and he deliberately slumped over his affected hand. As Campbell and Burrows approached, the buzzing in his ears grew louder.

“We’ll stop for now, we’re not going to get anything out of him like this,” Burrows snapped, “Guards, escort him back to his cell. Let him reconsider his stubbornness for a few days.”

Corvo didn’t resist as two guards undid the shackles around his wrists and hauled him to his feet. He stumbled as he tried to hold himself up on unsteady feet and used the movement to tuck his right hand deeper into the sleeve of his ratty coat. The cold, painful sensation had spread from his hand to his forearm, and he winced as one of the guards touched the afflicted area.

The march back to Corvo’s cell was a blur of pain as his injuries made themselves known, heightened by spread of the affliction crawling up his forearm to his shoulder. He counted his blessings that the guards were too occupied with keeping him upright and taunting his weaknesses to notice the ongoing changes. 

By the time the guards unlocked the door to his cell and threw him in, parts of his shoulder and chest had succumbed. Corvo barely made it onto the stone slab that served as his bed before he convulsed, wracked by a sudden onset of pain. He barely heard the guards’ retreating footsteps before he fell to the ground and clawed at his chest and shoulders.

His flesh writhed under his clothes, rippling in constant, agonizing waves. Whatever Void-cursed thing he had been afflicted with was speeding up the changes in his body. What would he become?  

The Overseers preached stories of witches who could turn men into hideous beasts, of curses that would eat the flesh and soul, but Corvo had dismissed their words as religious zeal. His ignorance was just another drop of regret in the tide that was threatening to drown him.

There was a loud, wet tear, and warm fluid dripped down his back. His fingernails wriggled and came loose in their beds, dripping blood onto the floor as something sharper took their place. The feathers had fully overtaken his hand. Corvo averted his eyes; he didn’t want to see more. As the cold agony finally reached his neck, he sent a silent apology to Jessamine, to Emily, to the other lives cut short. I’m sorry. I failed. 

When the affliction reached his head, Corvo’s lips cracked and peeled away from his face in loose shreds of flesh. He couldn’t close his eyes; panic kept him from moving as clumps of black hair tumbled from his scalp and black feathers shot out from the skin in wet, painful bursts. His teeth dropped out of their sockets and became stones tumbling around in his mouth. Corvo spat them out, watching numbly as smoke, ash, and black, brackish blood poured from his mouth as the teeth clattered onto the stone floor.

Corvo tried to scream, but all that came out was loud, mournful whalesong.

Chapter Text

The crack of a gunshot from the execution yard echoed harshly across the walls of his cell and startled Corvo awake. Thin, watery daylight streamed through the small barred window. Every joint and nerve in his body burned when he sat up. His limbs felt uncomfortably stretched, as though he had spent several sessions on the torturer’s rack. His gums throbbed painfully in time with his heartbeat. He raised a hand to probe at his mouth and froze.

His forearm and wrist had changed. His arm looked thinner, longer, and it was covered in overlapping black scales instead of skin. Dumbfounded, Corvo flexed his hand and he could feel dense muscles contract beneath the deceivingly delicate-looking limb. He recognized his new hand as distinctly avian in nature, with each finger tipped off with viciously wicked claws designed to pierce and grip prey.

Corvo looked down at his other hand, which had a similarly monstrous appearance. His gaze trailed up his arms and he found a thick plumage of glossy, ink-black feathers covering his chest and shoulders. His coat, which he’d been wearing when the affliction overtook him, now dangled off of his body in shredded tatters to accommodate the unnatural changes.

Horrified, Corvo tried to sit up, but his new unwieldy limbs refused to cooperate. He was easily a foot taller and his limbs were longer and uncoordinated. Corvo tumbled off of the stone bed and landed on the hard floor with a small splash. Thick and unpleasantly-sticky liquid soaked into his backside. As Corvo scrambled to regain his footing and see what he landed in, he caught a glimpse of the new state of his cell and gagged.

The ragged blankets, the stone bed, and swatches of the wall were splattered with blood that had coagulated into thick, dark clumps. Shriveled strips of skin, bloody teeth, and strands of his long black hair had mixed with the filthy water puddled on the floor and formed a disgusting crimson slurry. The same slurry now dribbled off of Corvo’s new back feathers unpleasantly and soaked into the tattered remains of his pants.

Corvo hauled himself off the floor as fast as he could and backed away from the gory mess. He didn't stop moving until his back hit the bars of his cell, where the meager sea breeze ruffled his feathers and cleared away some of the horrific stench. He cupped his face in his taloned hands to block out the mess in front of him, only to flinch as he registered the bony curve of a beak protruding out of his face. 

He took several minutes to tremble and scream quietly into his palms, numbly mindful of the guard patrols. If anyone found him like this, he was dead. Screaming wasn’t uncommon in Coldridge, but even his voice hadn’t survived the affliction’s changes. His muffled screams resembled the shrieks of Dunwall’s seabirds rather than a human voice. Could he even speak any more? He no longer had human lips to shape the sounds he needed.

Corvo shook his head violently as he tried to shake the negative thought away like a hound shedding water. No, he couldn’t think about that right now. Breathe. He needed to escape before the guards came back. Another breath. That’s all Corvo needed to focus. He needed to focus on his escape and nothing else.

The first few deep breaths Corvo took after he stopped screaming were shaky; the panicking animal part of his brain wouldn’t shut off, and his heartbeat refused to slow down from its frantic pounding. 

Hours passed. The orange light of the setting sun painted the walls and floor of the cell when Corvo finally lifted his head out of his hands. For once, he thanked Burrows’ penchant for cruelty; the guards were often ordered to withhold his meals and keep him isolated from the other prisoners in order to weaken Corvo’s resolve. The guards’ absence was likely the only reason his transformation had not been noticed yet. 

As Corvo pulled away from the window bars, he avoided looking down at his body. He was taller, his limbs and body strangely stretched, altered, and covered in a mixture of dark feathers and fur. If he focused on how the affliction changed him, he would panic again, and he would take far longer than a few hours to piece the broken fragments of his sanity back together. Corvo would break, but only after he escaped.

He sighed, and a thin stream of smoke and ash trickled out of his mouth. Corvo immediately closed his jaws with a snap. His newly-sharpened teeth clicked together loudly as the trickle of smoke and ash cut off, and he took another minute to pause and take deep breaths. He had to escape first. Breathe.

Night was soon falling. The guards, even under the Lord Regent’s orders to isolate him, still sent occasional patrols through Corvo’s cellblock. He likely had little time to prepare. 

Casting around the cell, Corvo found his shabby Lord Protector coat lying near the door of the cell, miraculously untouched by the bloody mess. He bundled it under his arm; ill-fitting and ruined as the coat was now, the official marks of the Lord Protector could offer proof of his identity, if only circumstantial.. 

Corvo paused. What did the topic of identity matter when he looked like a Void-cursed monster from the Scriptures of the Abbey? Who would believe he was the former Lord Protector?

His transformation notwithstanding, was there anyone he could turn to once he escaped? Jessamine was dead, Emily was missing, and none of the nobles in the Empress’s court would shelter a presumed traitor and former Karnacan street rat. 

There was Curnow, who had once accompanied him on the journey around the Isles. He was an honest man, but he was also a loyal captain of the City Watch. The City Watch answered directly to the Lord Regent. Corvo would be at risk approaching any populated center: with the ongoing threat of the plague, the City Watch had doubled down on patrols and installed Sokolov devices on every street corner.

The faint sounds of guards changing patrols out in the execution yard echoed through the cell, so Corvo pushed aside his worries. He could deal with Sokolov devices, allies, and the City Watch after he successfully escaped from Coldridge. 

The walkways positioned around the prison were going to pose the most challenge: there were constant patrols overhead that would spot any attempts to sneak past. If he could take out the guards there, he could buy some time before the next patrol passed through. The execution yard outside would likely be his best bet, as the main gates were sealed and the drawbridge was raised throughout the night. From there, the Wrenhaven, and the sewers.

Corvo made his way back to the small barred window and peered through the bars. His cell overlooked the execution yard and its large wooden platform: in the falling dusk, the area was well-illuminated by bright white spotlights placed along the prison sidewall. The harsh lights of the prison ruined any sort of night vision; if he stuck to the dark areas, the guards would have a harder time seeing him (and, more importantly, shooting him) . 

Besides a few distant guards stationed across the perimeter, the execution yard was empty at present. The wall farthest from him overlooked a steep drop into the river, partially blocked off by slabs of stone and razor wire. As dangerous as the execution yard was, the route was safer than trying to lower Coldridge’s massive drawbridge and exit through the main prison doors. 

As Corvo waited for the cover of darkness, he set about cleaning up the worst of the mess in his cell. The Lord Regent would have the guards toss search the cell as soon he learned Corvo was missing, and Corvo would prefer that the cell didn’t look like someone was murdered in it. If the guards suspected witchcraft or heresy, they would call down the Overseers from the Abbey, and Corvo didn’t need to deal with religious zealots on top of the Guard.

He used the ratty blanket from his stone bed to scoop up the scattered teeth, then he pushed them down the latrine bowl. He couldn’t turn his eyes away as one by one the bloody bones tumbled down into the sludge-ridden pipes. It was surreal to think those had been in his mouth only a few hours ago. Once all of the teeth vanished down into the latrine, Corvo gingerly used the blanket to pick up the worst of the skin and hair clumps from the floor and pushed them out between the bars. The rats and seabirds would hopefully take care of the evidence before the guards found it.

Corvo continued the clean-up job until he heard the familiar scuffle of boots echo down the hallway outside his cell. When the footsteps drew closer to his cell, Corvo readied himself by the cell bars. His monstrous arms, long and thin as they were, could now easily slip through the gaps in the cell door. As soon as the guard in question came into view, Corvo reached through the bars and struck. 

The man had no time to react before sharp claws hooked into his uniform and yanked him sideways and off-balance. Corvo cut off the guard’s alarmed cry as he rammed the man into the cell bars, wincing internally as the man’s head connected with the metal bars with a sickening thud. 

With the guard disoriented, Corvo flipped him around into a chokehold easily. The man’s pulse beat frantically under Corvo’s hand as he struggled futilely. If Corvo just added a little more pressure, the guard’s neck would snap like a twig. The man’s hands and boots beat against the bars in a desperate rhythm as Corvo hauled him several inches off of the ground.

When the guard finally fell limp, Corvo had to force himself to unclench his hand and remove it from the man’s neck. His hands were locked in place and trembling with unspent adrenaline, so it took more effort than he was willing to admit. The unconscious guard toppled to the ground as soon as Corvo let go. Step one of his escape had succeeded. Now, to escape his cell.

Each of the guards kept keys to the cell blocks they patrolled on their person. After a minute of attempting to open the pouch at the guard’s waist with talons not meant for fine manipulation, Corvo gave up and just tore at the fabric until the pouch gave way. He winced as coins clattered and rolled across the stone floor and the cell keys landed with a noticeable clang. He paused, his ears straining, but when he didn’t hear raised voices or approaching footsteps, he snatched up the key and turned in the lock.

Corvo stepped out into the hallway and checked around the cell block, but the whole hallway was empty and silent. The guard’s struggle and the falling items appeared to have gone unnoticed by the rest of the prison. He carefully crouched down next to the guard and, mindful of his talons, pressed a finger to check the guard’s pulse. 

The man was still breathing, but the skin on his neck was an angry red, and Corvo could hear a slight wheeze with every exhale. The guard would have a nasty bruise and a sore neck when he woke up, but he would live. 

Corvo rose to his feet as the tension dropped from his shoulders. He grabbed the unconscious guard by the shoulders and dragged the man into the cell. Corvo ripped up his grimy blanket into long strips and bound the guard’s hands to the sewage pipe. The ratty, worn fabric wouldn’t hold up against a prolonged struggle, but the bindings would buy Corvo time when the guard inevitably came around. He used the last piece of cloth to gag the man before he scooped up his battered coat under his arm, exited the cell, and re-locked the door behind him. 

Corvo kept low to the ground as he started down the cellblock. Although the harsh lights were on overhead, the bulbs were spaced apart and provided deep pools of shadow that he could use for cover. Security in this part of the prison was noticeably lax. It was almost too easy to avoid some of the patrols passing through, as they barely looked anywhere but straight forward. For reasons he didn’t want to examine just yet, Corvo found he could move rather well scuttling across the ground on all fours, and as long as he kept quiet, the guards seemed to overlook him entirely.

When Corvo was brought out for interrogation, the patrols had been more vigorous and he had been under tight guard. Perhaps the heightened security had been a result of the constant visits from the Lord Regent, who supplied their precious coin and elixir. As Corvo watched a guard sloppily take a leak from the upper catwalks that overlooked the inner prison yard from his cover behind a thick stone pillar, he doubted that the Regent was currently at Coldridge.

Reaching the upper catwalks in question was far easier than Corvo had anticipated. The door to the catwalk stairs was helpfully labeled, and when he quietly stepped out onto the catwalk landing, one of the guards was even leaning over the upper railing, a bottle of whiskey in his hand and his back turned to the door. He barely made a sound as Corvo’s arms locked around his neck and dragged him backwards, but as the man thrashed in Corvo’s grip, the bottle of whiskey fell from his hand and shattered on the floor below.

Corvo froze. He could hear footsteps rapidly approaching, and as he spotted one of the guards below looking up, he quickly dragged the unconscious body back through the doorway. As the door swung shut, Corvo propped the guard against the adjacent wall. If someone barged in, the door would conceal the body. 

He cast around for his own hiding spot and spotted pipes overhead. A normal human wouldn’t be able to reach them, but Corvo wasn’t a normal human anymore. He reached and pulled himself upwards, just barely managing to squeeze himself into the space between the pipes and the ceiling just as the footsteps stopped just outside the door.

“Someone’s supposed to be on duty over here,” The guard called out, and Corvo heard a second set of footsteps approach. 

“Kinley’s fucked off again, hasn’t he?” The other voice said, exasperated.

“He probably scampered off so he doesn’t get written up for being drunk on duty again,” the first guard snorted, “Captain Hannon already reduced his ration of elixir after last week.”

“What happened last week?” The other guard asked, and Corvo slowly let the tension seep out of his body. He remained where he was precariously perched and waited for the two to return to their routines. If his luck held, he could-

The door swung open beneath him, and he saw the guard’s helmet appear as he stuck his head into the room.

“The idiot accidentally glassed one of the maintenance crew, and the choffer raised a huge fuss with the captain,” The guard said, giving a cursory glance over the darkened room before turning back to his companion. “He’s not here. Come on, I know where his secret stash is. Let’s check there before he gets too shitfaced to walk again.”

The door slammed shut, and Corvo slowly dropped down from the pipes as the two guards’ footsteps slowly faded away. He pressed a hand to his chest to calm his racing heart before he eased the door open once again.

The men in the yard below had turned their attention back to their patrol, but Corvo still plastered himself against the catwalk floor as he crawled closer to observe their patterns. They followed a simple loop around the yard, though they often paused for conversation. There were also open hound kennels, thankfully empty, scattered around the edge of the open yard.

Corvo pulled back from the edge and instead looked to his left to see the hallway that led to the spotlight control room, which was blocked by a barred door. He saw a flash of movement down the hallway, but when no guard appeared after a few seconds of tense waiting, Corvo moved forward. Kinley’s key opened the gate without issue, and Corvo silently eased it shut behind him as he passed through.

There was no means of concealment in the hallway beyond the gate, so Corvo plastered himself to the wall and made his way as quietly as possible to the corridor’s corner. He poked his beak around the corner and cursed silently. The guard was facing away from Corvo, but the man had just reached the end of his patrol circuit at the back of the hallway and began to turn. The guard was partially facing away from him as the man reached the end of his patrol circuit at the back of the hallway. Sacrificing stealth for speed, Corvo sprinted forward, his claws clicking noisily against the wooden flooring. He cleared the length of the hallway just as the guard fully turned to face him.

“What the-” The man started to shout, but he was cut off as Corvo’s clawed hand clamped down over his mouth and muffled his scream. As soon as the guard got a good look at Corvo’s face, his eyes widened and he started to thrash like a trapped, desperate animal. His flailing arm smacked into Corvo’s eye, and Corvo grunted as the guard’s boots began kicking him in sensitive places. 

He seized the man’s neck and forced the man down to the ground. Corvo then knelt on the man’s legs and forced them still, all the while maintaining a steady grip on the man’s throat. The guard’s eyes rolled up into their sockets, but Corvo waited until he finally went limp and slumped back against the floor.

Once the guard was bound, gagged, and safely concealed behind the light panel, Corvo kept a careful watch on the two doors leading out of the control room. He had gotten extremely lucky this time, but as the night wore on, he was going to have a harder time staying undetected if he left a trail of bodies behind him. As for the guard’s reaction, Corvo tucked the memory away with the mounting panic in his breast. That was something to be revisited later when he was out of Coldridge. 

After a minute passed and there was no reaction from the yard patrols below, Corvo slipped through the far door on the other side of the control room. The hallway there led down a rusting set of metal stairs and opened out into a large room. The interrogation room door loomed to his left, stained reddish brown with rust and old splatters of blood. A second door leading to the prison yard was on his right.

  Corvo’s eyes kept slipping to the ominous door as he crept over to the prison yard door. While he tested the door’s lock, he threw glances over his shoulder to the interrogation room, as if Campbell, Burrows, and his torturers were going to open the door at any second. Maybe his imagination was running wild, but he swore he saw the same Void-dark shadow lingering in the crack under the door, just waiting to be unleashed.

Much to his dismay, the route to the prison yard was locked, and the key Corvo had taken from his cell guard didn’t work. Without any kind of lockpicking tools, Corvo was trapped. He turned back to the interrogation room door with a sour taste in his mouth. 

The interrogation door handle was icy to the touch, but it was also unlocked. It swung open with a harsh groan. Despite Corvo’s trepidation, the room beyond was empty. No Void or inky darkness was there to greet him, only the bitter memories of his numerous torture sessions under the care of Coldridge’s experts. The brazier holding the branding irons was unlit and the ashes cold. His blood had been scrubbed from the stone floor. Corvo traced his talons over the arm of the torture chair, scratching deep furrows into the metal manacles. These bindings would no longer hold him. Not anymore.

Besides the empty chair and brazier, there was little else. A massive portrait of the Lord Regent hung on the back wall above a wooden podium. Corvo scowled up at it as he prowled around the room. He found a small door in the back left corner of area, but the small room was filled with nothing but empty bottles, torture implements, and an unused audiograph card. There was nothing that could help him get into the yard. When Corvo returned to the door, he felt tension building in his shoulders and neck.

Every passing minute risked the unconscious guards regaining their senses or being found. There was no means of telling time, but the patrols rotated out frequently to keep the guards sharp and aware at all hours. Corvo doubted the guards wouldn’t try to kill him, looking as he did now. Who would think that the birdlike monster was actually the former Lord Protector?  Grimacing, Corvo knelt and pressed his eye to the door’s keyhole. One of the guards would have to leave the yard eventually. If Corvo was fast enough, he could ambush the man and take his keys.

Minutes passed like small eternities. Corvo resisted the urge to fidget. When he heard a guard approaching, Corvo locked his hand around the door handle. He watched through the keyhole as the yard door creaked open. The guard tucked the key back into his pouch, yawned, and peered around the open area before he slowly made his way over to the interrogation room. He stopped before he reached the door, and Corvo let out a silent sigh of relief. When the guard finally turned around, Corvo eased open the door as silently as he could before he darted forward. 

The poor man barely had a chance to react before Corvo slapped a palm over the man’s mouth and dragged him backwards into the interrogation room. It took only a few moments to choke his victim unconscious. Corvo wryly thought that he was getting better after so many targets to practice on. He dragged the body into the small back room and lashed the man to one of the shelving units there.

Traversing the prison yard was fairly simple without a sentry watching from the catwalk light booth. Corvo used the ample cover in the yard and easily crept from pillar to kennel to the base of the stairs. The three remaining guards were also content to face away from him, huddled as they were in a bored semicircle. Their soft banter continued unabated as Corvo crawled slowly up the stairs. His confidence in his escape plan rose as he reached the deserted upper landing uncontested. He was so close. The prison yard was just beyond the next room.

As Corvo crossed the threshold, he barely managed to stop himself from crashing into a uniformed back. Two guards were mere inches in front of him, engaged in the tail end of a conversation. Corvo had a matter of seconds before one of them noticed him standing in their peripheral vision. He had to act fast. The execution yard’s door was meters away and sealed behind the massive metal door. 

There was no way he could open the door on his own, but Corvo spotted a large pipe that passed around the upper length of the room and traveled into the next room through a small opening in the wall. From his memory, there was a second door out into the execution yard in the next room.

Seizing his chance, Corvo shoved past one of the guards and darted over to the pipe. Taller and longer than a human, he found it  easy to hook his claws into the pipe’s surface and haul himself up. The guards shouted in alarm behind him, but he scuttled quickly across the pipe, through the gap, and into the next room. He couldn’t look back, couldn’t slow down. He didn’t know how much the guards saw of him, but the time for hesitation was over. 

The second door to the execution yard was open. A guard who had been coming in from the yard was frozen in the doorway, his attention focused on the shouts coming from the previous room. He had no time to react before Corvo jumped on him from above and knocked him to the ground. There was no time to choke him. Corvo seized the man’s head and bashed it against the floor. The man froze as his skull cracked wetly against the cold stone, and his eyes rolled up into his head. 

As Corvo stood up and shoved the man’s body aside, the metal door separating him from the guards in the previous room rattled and started to grind open. He picked up his pace and darted outside.

Huge flood lights lit the general area of the execution yard and the main platform. Corvo lifted his arms to shield his watering, aching eyes from the intense brightness. The officer’s box and the controls were in the back of the yard. He needed to disable the lights before the chaos starting in the main prison caught up to him. 

As the shouts from inside the compound grew louder and the guards on the walls suddenly snapped to attention, Corvo scrambled over the rocky ground towards his objective. His pursuers inside must have opened the door and found the guard.   

In a great turn of luck, the box was empty and dark. Two levers on the wall opened the whale oil receptacles. Corvo removed the first tank with a firm yank and half of the execution yard went dark. He turned to the second receptacle and a second yank plunged the whole area into full darkness. The guards on the walls cried out in panic, but a moment later Corvo heard bullets ping off of the metal sides of the box. Alarms blared out into the night.

Corvo could still see his surroundings clearly despite the darkness, but the guards, who had adjusted to the harsh glare of the flood lights, were temporarily blinded. They shot wildly as Corvo zig-zagged across the yard, and more than once he felt his feathers ruffle as metal balls whizzed past him. Guards poured into the yard from the main prison, but Corvo ignored them and put on speed as he closed the distance to the high stone wall overlooking the Wrenhaven. 

As soon as Corvo was close to the wall he leapt. His fingers barely cleared the top of the wall. He hung there for a long second, his legs scrabbling as he tried to find a foothold on the slick stone. A lead ball buried itself in the wall next to his head and Corvo turned his face away from the spray of stone chips. More alarms sounded from the main prison, and Corvo heard loud groaning as the metal drawbridge started to descend. Reinforcements were incoming.

Corvo managed to swing his leg over the top of the wall and haul the rest of his body up as adrenaline flooded his body. The razor wire looped across the top tore at his face, his legs, and his hands as he struggled to pull himself through. Feathers  ripped from his sides and back. Bullets whizzed past him, and when Corvo looked up, he saw the watchtowers on the other side of Coldridge’s drawbridge shine spotlights on the drawbridge and the walls of the prison.

Corvo pulled himself through the razor wire with a great heave and crashed down on the other side. The stones of the cliff below the wall drove the breath from his body. Winded, he panted for air and clutched his bruised and bloodied sides. As Corvo tried to catch his breath, a spotlight flashed across the wall above. Loud thuds echoed above him as the Coldridge guards, no doubt armed with rifles, took up positions on the lowered drawbridge. He groaned. There was no time to rest here.

Wheezing, Corvo managed to pull himself up onto his hands and knees. He peered over the cliff and winced. The rocky base of the prison was nothing but a long, steep descent down to the water, and he wasn’t strong enough to descend in his current position. There was no choice. Summoning the last of his strength, Corvo leaned over the edge of the cliff, braced, and tossed himself into the Wrenhaven below.

Icy cold water slammed into his back and knocked the breath out of his lungs. Corvo instinctively inhaled filthy water as the Wrenhaven closed over his head. He choked and coughed bubbles as his lungs tried to repel the water. His feathers, now waterlogged, were weighing him down. Corvo managed to thrash back up to the surface and cough out some of the water he swallowed. He needed to keep moving. He kicked and clawed at the water around him, and propelled himself forward.

He could see a sewer door set into the cliffs on the other side of the Wrenhaven inlet. His wet feathers added at least ten pounds of dead to each stroke, but Corvo just managed to paddle across the water and drag himself ashore just as the guards above started to fire down into the inlet.

The prison alarms pounded at his skull as their volume increased to a deafening screech. Corvo staggered up the shore and tore the sewer door open. Bullets peppered the sand around him before he threw himself inside. As the door slammed shut behind him, Corvo drew his first real breath since the execution yard. He was so close to escaping.

The rest of the journey through the sewers was a feverish haze of panic and confusion. Corvo was running on fumes, exhausted from the months of torture, starvation, and the wounds from the razor wire. He hadn’t exercised properly since Jessamine had died, and his past self would have been ashamed at how slowly Corvo picked his way through the sewers.

He barely remembered clambering through the labyrinth of twisted, decaying passages, ducking and hiding from the invading patrols. At some point, he swam for a good half mile from the search party, passing underneath various grates and bridges, and surfaced only when he couldn’t hold his breath for any longer. Eventually, he stumbled out of a small drainage pipe onto the shores of the Wrenhaven, shivering and exhausted. 

Corvo couldn’t tell which district he was in. There were swathes of plague victims laid out on the shore, wrapped in grimy white shrouds and covered in thick clouds of flies. Dirty brick buildings loomed on the cliff overhead, but Corvo didn’t have the energy to attempt a climb at present.

He searched instead for any kind of temporary shelter. He spotted a small piece of sheet iron propped up against a rock a dozen yards away. When he ducked under the metal, he found a lantern, several crates, and a grimy bedroll laid out against the rock, but any occupant had seemingly long since departed. Corvo barely managed to crawl onto the bedroll before  fatigue dragged his eyelids down and his limbs refused to cooperate anymore. Only a few seconds passed before welcome oblivion claimed him. He had done it. He escaped Coldridge.

Chapter Text

“The Lord Protector has gone missing from Coldridge Prison.”

Daud tiredly rubbed at his jaw with one hand as he looked up from the mess of papers on his desk to where Thomas, still in uniform but sans mask, stood. His insomnia had only gotten worse after the Empress’ death and his nights were little more than a painful blur. He beckoned Thomas closer and pushed his correspondence aside.

“He’s gone missing?” he asked as he stood up and walked over to a large map of Dunwall tacked up on the nearby wall. “He didn’t escape?”

“Yes,” Thomas said. “Lurk sent me back to report back what we knew as soon as we learned of it, but she took Leon and Rinaldo to finish the patrol and see if the other dead drops had any more information.”

Daud clasped his hands behind his back and turned his gaze to the map wall. Billie would likely not return for some time, as the Whalers’ dead drops were scattered all over various districts. The guard patrols and towers from the ongoing plague quarantine would slow down travel considerably. His eyes wandered to the left of the map, where he’d put up a copy of Lady Emily’s poster. She hadn’t been seen since he’d handed the girl off to those rotten Pendletons.

“Continue,” he ordered. Out of the corner of his eye, Daud could see Thomas stare at Lady Emily’s poster with an inscrutable expression.

“Of course,” Thomas nodded. “One of our informants, a cleaner, was on shift when the incident occurred. He was summoned to clean the Lord Protector’s former cell after the alert died down, where he learned that the Overseers were due to arrive within the day.”

“The Overseers were called?” Daud asked as he raised a surprised brow. Even with Campbell as an ally of the Lord Regent, the rift between the City Watch and the religious sect was common knowledge. Neither faction worked with the other unless they absolutely had to. “The City Watch wouldn’t call for fanatics unless they were desperate. Did our source catch the reason?”

Thomas nodded again. “Suspected heresy,” he said, “Numerous guards saw some kind of monstrous creature fleeing the prison yard. Nothing much to go on except that it was huge, dark, and fast. The thing escaped into the sewers, which the Watch is searching as we speak.”

“Not likely they’ll find anything,” Daud declared with a frown, pulling open one of the drawers and withdrawing a large roll of parchment. His Whalers had been slowly mapping out the sewer tunnels, and while the map was incomplete, he still had a perfunctory chart of Dunwall’s subterranean network. “And what of the Lord Protector? Proficient as he is, Attano couldn’t have escaped without outside assistance, and in our last encounter he had no supernatural capabilities. What did our informant find in his cell?”

Thomas nodded. “The informant reports that the cell had huge quantities of blood on the walls and the bed, as well as clumps of hair, loose pieces of skin, and torn fabric. They also found one or two teeth scattered in the mess. My intuition says the Lord Protector was tortured and taken from his cell.”

Daud paused, his hands lingering over the corners of the map as he sorted through the information. He had seen many grisly murders in his time, some of them done by his own hand per client request, and he knew that without a closer look at the scene he wouldn’t be able to piece together any concrete answers to this mystery. 

“But there were no body parts left behind?” He clarified, turning to face Thomas. “No toes or fingers? No blood or dragmarks found outside the cell?”

Thomas shook his head grimly. “None, which is likely another reason why the Overseers were called,” he said. “It’s nearly impossible to mutilate a body to that extent and not leave something more substantial behind. I would bet my coin that the creature that escaped had a hand in whatever fate befell the Lord Protector.”

“Not even Galia would take that bet,” Daud snorted good-humoredly, leaning over the map to trace the thin pipelines stemming from the Coldridge entrance. He felt rather than saw Thomas join him at the table.

“The sewers from Coldridge lead directly onto the banks of the Wrenhaven,” Daud stated. “but there’s some intersection in the tunnels that cross throughout the city. Without knowing more about this creature, it could be almost anywhere in the city. There’s plenty of boltholes the guards won’t search straight off due to the plague, so we’ll cover the closest districts first.”

“What are your orders?”

“Send out four-man patrols,” Daud commanded as he took colored pins from a nearby drawer and placed them in the different tunnels. Each one represented a patrol; Thomas, as one of the higher ranked assassins, would divide the Whalers up as he saw fit. “Keep to our current non-lethal parameters, but arm at least two of them with guns and incendiary bolts. I want the creature found and subdued, but the patrols should defend themselves if the creature proves to be too dangerous. Get the groups together, but don’t send them out until Lurk returns. Have them meet here for the report.”

Once the pins were in place, Daud checked over the map once more and tiredly rubbed a gloved hand over his face. Paperwork was still stacked up on his desk, but he had no energy to filter through the contracts and reports. When he turned back, Thomas was still present, despite the clear dismissal. He raised an eyebrow, and the younger assassin stepped forward.

“Daud.” Thomas was solemn now, and he pulled off his mask to reveal his mussed blonde hair, now damp with sweat, and intense pale gray eyes. “Do you think this is related to the Outsider’s message?”

Daud crossed his arms and said nothing. The thought had, in fact, crossed his mind. Lurk had brought him whispers of a ship named The Delilah docked at Rothwild Slaughterhouse, but he couldn’t see how Attano's disappearance fit into that ongoing mystery without further investigation. 

The Outsider had also mentioned his Mark in his cryptic message, as well as that Daud was one of eight Marked in the world. The black-eyed bastard wouldn’t have mentioned it if that information wasn’t relevant. The Delilah could lead to another person who bore the Mark, someone the Outsider wanted to pit Daud against like two hounds in a fighting ring. 

Emboldened by Daud’s lack of protest, Thomas pressed on.

“Three months of almost no activity, and now this?” he said, gesturing towards Emily’s missing poster and the map of Dunwall. “The Lord Protector goes missing from Coldridge, a strange creature loose in Dunwall, and a dream from the god that hasn’t spoken to you in years? Things are being set into motion, and you’ve changed, ever since Empress Jessamine-”

“Stop,” Daud snapped, cutting the younger assassin off.

Anger simmered in the back of Daud’s throat and choked back any further words. But Thomas had already gotten his point across. As Daud tried to formulate a harsher phrase, his second in command gave him one more meaningful look before he traversed away and left Daud to stew alone in frustrated silence. As angry as he was, Daud couldn’t deny that Thomas made a valid point. He had changed.

Daud made his way back over to his desk. As he walked, his hand strayed to the hilt of his sword. He drew it out and looked at his own scarred face in its polished reflection. He had spilled so much blood with this weapon, but he hadn’t needed to clean the sword in months. 

His weapon hadn’t been drawn to cut someone down since the Empress, and Daud found it darkly fitting that her blood might be the last to stain it. As much as he had done so in the past, he couldn’t conceive the thought of killing again and going back to his routine as though nothing had changed.

Daud slipped the sword back in its sheath and sat down at his desk. He knew no work would be done, but the piles of paper provided a convenient armrest as he cradled his head in his hands to ward off his encroaching headache.

“It’s one last mystery,” The Outsider’s voice echoed mockingly in his ears. “One that starts with a name. Delilah.”

Lurk would return soon, and the patrols would be dispatched. He would visit the Rothwild Slaughterhouse in person and discover the secret of The Delilah . He had to solve one last mystery, and then Daud’s story would be over. 

Corvo stood on a hill of burning corpses. He kept his mouth and nose covered with his sleeve to ward against the rancid smoke billowing around him as he picked his way down the massive charnel pile. He kept his eyes averted from the swollen and singed faces turned up towards him. 

He couldn’t see detailed features as he clambered down the seemingly endless slope of cadavers, but he could pick out charred shreds of the City Watch uniform wedged amidst the bodies. As Corvo moved further downward, he glanced behind him to see the corpses dissolve into piles of ashes and swirl up into the ever-present fume overhead.

Thick dunes of gray ash marked the bottom of the charnel pile. As soon as Corvo stumbled over the last of the bodies, the fiery smoke ahead of him parted to reveal a familiar silhouette. The figure’s red coat glowed like a sanguine beacon against the dark environment. Corvo didn’t know when he had drawn his sword, but it was in his hand as he dashed forward to meet the assassin. 

The assassin opened with a stab to his left, but Corvo blocked the swing easily. Enraged, he battered their blade to the side before he slashed upwards and tore a wide line across the front of the figure’s coat. He blinked, and the assassin suddenly relocated to his right flank as if by magic. 

Their sword arched up towards his neck, but Corvo managed to catch their arm. They were both locked in place, their weapons trembling against each other in a contest of strength. Corvo felt the enemy’s grip start to fade, so he pushed forward and forced the assassin to bend backwards with his grip. He locked eyes with the killer, but the figure’s face was indistinct beyond the faint glint of bright, murderous eyes.

“You killed her!” Corvo growled as he forced the assassin’s blade backwards. The swords whined as their edges scraped together and spat sparks out into the surrounding smoke. Corvo threw his weight onto the locked blades and shoved forward, trapping the shadow’s blade between their bodies. The shadow took a step back under Corvo’s unrelenting force, and then another.

The assassin leaned back to regain leverage for their sword, but Corvo lashed out with his fist and caught the killer’s neck before they could regain their composure. The shadow’s previously aggressive energy diminished as Corvo brandished his sword above them and as they turned away to flee, their hand began to glow. Corvo lunged forward and stabbed the assassin in the lungs before the shadow could cast whatever witchcraft they had at their disposal.

The light faded from the shadow’s hand and they stumbled forward, falling to one knee. Corvo yanked the sword out and planted one boot on the assassin’s back. They choked out black blood as he kicked them down to the ground and forced their face into the ashes with his heel. 

“This is for her,” he whispered, and wrenched his blade up out of the assassin’s body with a wet squelch. The wet blade gleamed crimson despite the low light. Corvo gripped his sword tighter and stabbed down again. Again. Again. Blood splashed up against his cheek.

“Corvo…”

Jessamine’s face stared at him. Patches of her blood blackened the coat’s fine red fabric and stained her skin and hair. Corvo, horrified, tried to pull the sword out of her, but the blade was immovable. He could only watch, paralyzed, as Jessamine seized the sword and pulled herself upward. 

The blade sliced into her fingers and palms, but the damage did little to deter the dead Empress as she arched up and forced the blade deeper into her heart. She slid along the weapon’s length with a grisly, wet squelch and seized Corvo’s ankle with raw, bloody hands. He could see the skin and muscle sloughing off of her fingers as Jessamine looked up at him with deranged fury.

“You could not save me!” she howled as blood dribbled from her mouth, “How dare you call yourself a protector? Avenge me! Kill them! Kill them all!”

She yanked his ankle towards her with an inhuman strength. Corvo toppled backwards, the sword wrenched from his hands, and cracked his head against the ground. He blinked up at the hazy sky overhead, dazed. His cheek and tongue stung. Warm blood pooled into his mouth. This couldn’t be real, he thought. How was Jessamine still alive?

Jessamine rose up over him, the sword still firmly lodged in her chest, and glared at him in utter hatred before she froze, choked, and began to cough up chunks of gore. As she heaved, she slumped forwards against the sword and her grip on Corvo’s ankle loosened. 

Corvo ripped himself from the imposter's grasping hands and scrambled as far away as he could on his hands and knees. Once he got to his feet, he blindly ran forward, heedless of Jessamine’s scream behind him. The ash below his feet dipped down into a steep slope, but Corvo pushed himself down as fast as he dared. He only slowed to raise his grimy sleeve to his face and wipe away the tears gathered in the corners of his eyes.

As he descended further, the surrounding haze swirled and brightened from the thick, dark cloying smoke of cremation pyres to the black-blue-gray saturation of the squalls that regularly buffeted the Gristol coastline. A strong, salty breeze whipped through his hair and stung his cheeks, but the storm clouds did not disperse. 

Gray ash kicked up around his boots in eddies before they were whisked away by the wind, and thunder rumbled overhead as Corvo stumbled on. Lightning flickered and forked in the distance, and in the brief flash Corvo saw another silhouette, far larger than any human, sunk into the ash below him.

The silhouette, he found, was an enormous statue of the new Lord Regent. Burrow’s harshly lined face, cast in pristine white marble, was unmistakable. The statue was buried up to its waist in ash, but the half that remained still towered a good seventeen feet over Corvo’s head. 

The Regent’s marble head swiveled impossibly downward to meet his eyes. Corvo jumped back. His hand twitched as he felt for his missing sword. The sea breeze suddenly died down, and he was left alone with the statue in eerie, expectant silence. He took a hesitant step forward, but he froze as Burrow’s stony expression suddenly twisted up his trademark scowl into a rictus of agony. 

The man’s marble eyes bulged unnaturally, and the marble rippled and stretched outward.

As the Regent’s eyes kept swelling, the stone face began to crack and chip under the strain. Wherever the stone broke, blood dribbled from the cracks and soon the whole marble piece was stained a gory pink. 

“Kill me! Kill me!”

Though the harshly carved stone lips never moved, Corvo still recognized the Regent’s scream. 

“Kill me!”

The Regent’s eyes burst outward in a shower of gore. Corvo stumbled back to avoid the grisly shower. When he looked back up at the disfigured marble face, something black wriggled in the depths of the socket. A crow’s head emerged, the feathers slick and red with sanguine fluid, its unnaturally white eyes locked on him. 

The remains of the Regent’s face crumbled away in a shower of stone chips as the crow viciously thrashed against the marble trapping it in the depths of the man’s eye sockets. Blood gushed out of the broken marble and began to pour down the statue and the ashen hill. Corvo backed up as the crow’s grimy wing emerged and drenched him with blood droplets. The sanguine stream lapped at his boots as Corvo turned and retreated back the way he came.

He’d barely moved a couple of feet before he heard a loud, ominous crack. When he looked back, the Regent’s statue had broken apart and unleashed a torrential stream of blood that rushed towards him. The monstrous crow, now perched on the stained crimson rubble, shrieked and spread its wings. There was a strange red gleam in its white eyes.

Corvo broke into a sprint as the river of blood plunged after him. Rivulets of blood snaked past his boots as he swerved from side to side, desperate not to get caught up in the deluge of gore. The air stank of pungent copper, and even as Corvo covered his nose and mouth with his sleeve, he could still taste the choking, bitter scent in the back of his throat. He had to keep running. 

Feathers brushed past his cheek. Corvo ducked a second later, but the crow’s beak still scoured a bloody line across his temple. He threw himself to the side, and his boots kicked up thick wet clumps of reddened ash as the bloody river roared past him. The crow swooped past him and circled overhead. Thick, black rain began to pour from the sky, and where the rain touched the bloodied ash, sickly brown plants bearing needle-sharp thorns emerged.

“Kill them! Kill them!” The crow shrieked from above as gore spattered from its beak and drenched his face, “Kill them all! Kill De — ”

Corvo screamed as he shot upright and raised his arms to ward off the crow’s next attack. He heard rather than felt the impact of his hand striking a metal sheet, and when he frantically cast around for potential attackers the tip of his beak scraped across the nearby crate. His heart pounded wildly, so it took a few seconds to recognize the metal sheet and rock outcropping he’d chosen as his makeshift shelter. 

He’d been dreaming. It had all been a dream, but one so vivid, so natural, that the waking world now looked washed out by comparison. As Corvo dragged himself out of the mess of blankets and looked down at his claws, he realized that he’d still been human in the dream as well.

Outside of his shelter, a steady rain beat a gentle tempo on the rocky beach. The metal sheet above him had a few leaky holes, but Corvo was only damp, not wet. He ran his hands over his new feathers and watched as the water droplets slid right off of his arms and shoulders. When he placed his hand on the stone it was cold, but not freezing to his touch. 

Thunder rumbled in the distance, pulling him out of his inspection. As he peered out of his shelter, he could see the distant flash of lightning as a seasonal squall whipped up the waves of the Wrenhaven. Shrouded plague victims littered his stretch of shore, scattered amongst metal scraps and various bits of trash. He couldn’t see any sign of the City Watch. Still, he shouldn’t linger.

He retrieved his coat, now soaked from the leaky roof, tucked it under his arm, and crept out from under the metal sheet. His head swiveled back and forth as he picked his way up the beach, but he couldn’t see any patrol boats nor hunting parties. From the amount of plague victims left on the shore, Corvo was likely in one of the quarantined districts that the Watch hadn’t gotten around to cleaning up yet. His hand went to his waist to feel for a sword he no longer had, and Corvo felt distinctly naked without a weapon. He didn’t want to run into opportunistic looters, or, Outsider forbid, a horde of Weepers.

As he climbed towards the nearest sea wall, Corvo couldn’t place how much time had passed since his escape from Coldridge. He was an extremely valued prisoner of the new Lord Regent and his execution would have been an Isle-wide event. Campbell and Burrows had likely heard of his disappearance and the two were scrambling to reassert control over Dunwall. He couldn’t help but wonder how the two were handling the situation. Corvo doubted that either of them would believe the strange creature seen in Coldridge was the Lord Protector. How would they handle his disappearance? 

The known heretics of Dunwall were regular people who created effigies or held secret rituals to pray for small boons. Corvo had visited the Abbey several times and the Overseers warned of strange behavior and carved trinkets as signs of heretics, not a literal transformation into Void creatures. Corvo himself had heard of nothing like his current situation, and he had been a street scrapper in Karnaca where hedge witches peddled minor charms and curses in back alleyways. No, he doubted Campbell or Burrows would identify him as the creature; they likely thought he was attacked and taken by an unknown third party with the creature’s help.

He felt a dark sense of satisfaction as he scaled the sea wall and made his way up the rest of the rocky beach, which gave way to a natural cliffside. No doubt they would be worried about a new obstacle that could ruin their ill-conceived power grab. He hoped the mystery would haunt their evenings, Burrows especially. Corvo scaled the cliff as quickly as he could, aided by his newfound changes and considerable strength. The natural rock soon gave way to aged bricks, all of it littered with graffiti warning of the plague.

When he finally pulled himself over the top of the wall he was greeted with a narrow view of deserted, trash-ridden streets from the end of a small alleyway. Corvo lowered himself from the wall to the ground without even a whisper. He found a door set into the wall immediately to his left. He tried the handle and the door swung open under his touch. 

He stepped into an open stairwell of a rotting apartment building. Half of the doors on the ground floor were boarded over, and when Corvo peered up the stairwell he saw that the top floor was barricaded off with various household items and trash. Several quiet wails and muffled moans echoed from behind the barricade as he climbed the stairs to the second floor. 

The top floor would provide a better view of the district, but he wasn’t willing to face the Weepers clearly trapped up there and test if his new body was affected by the plague. He also hadn’t had elixir in weeks, as the Coldridge guards had confiscated the prisoner’s supply after the shortages started. His end would be painfully ironic if he escaped prison and then immediately died of plague before he could take his revenge and reclaim the throne for Emily. 

Corvo instead broke open the first door that wasn’t covered by offal or boarded up and entered the dusty apartment. There was a small kitchenette and a musty bed in the single room, but there were no Weepers or swarms of rats, the walls were clear of graffiti, and though clothes and other items were missing, all of the furniture was untouched. He pushed the heaviest wooden dresser to secure the broken door before he tossed his coat over the back of the musty couch and collapsed onto the stiff cushions.

The apartment’s barricaded door wouldn’t hold up to a City Guard’s search patrol, but Corvo could take a much-needed breather here. Now that he was as safe as he could currently be at present, Corvo felt the panic and hysteria he’d kept locked in the back of his mind start to crack through his calm facade.

His breath picked up as he picked himself off of the couch, suddenly restless, and slowly picked his way across the apartment. His head brushed across the ceiling, so he had to stoop and nearly fold in on himself when he settled down on a stool in front of a small wooden vanity adorned with a small, dusty hairbrush and an empty perfume bottle. A large dusty mirror hung behind the vanity, and from where Corvo sat he could only glimpse his chest, now covered in ink-dark feathers. Corvo drew a steadying breath and crouched down to look at his new face.

He saw his eyes first. His eyes were white and they lacked a visible pupil or iris, similar to the eyes of Pandyssian plague rats. His hair was a long, shaggy mess with feathers interspersed amongst his hair. The lower part of his face, however, had the most extreme changes. 

No longer could Corvo see the boy from Serkonos, aged prematurely by the stress of protecting the Empress and the hatred of the nobles who considered a non-Gristol Lord Protector to be subpar. His skin had an ashy, scaled texture akin to a bird’s. His nose and mouth had been absorbed into a large black beak that took up the majority of his face.

Corvo pulled back from the mirror and slumped over the vanity. He buried his face in his arms and sucked in a few deep breaths. His eyes watered, but before he could shed tears a see-through membrane swept across his eyes and whisked the moisture away. 

Corvo shook his head and tried to shake off the depressing notion. He had lost his home, his Empress, his daughter, and now, his body. How long would it take for Corvo to truly have nothing left? He couldn’t take on Burrow’s entire regime by himself, but how could he get allies when his monstrous appearance would drive away even the staunchest of loyalists? 

Frustrated, Corvo shoved his chair back and put his fist through the mirror in front of him. When he opened his beak to scream his frustration, all that came out was an ear-splitting shriek. 

The Weepers upstairs, roused by the din, added their own wailing and screeching as the infected thundered down to try and break down the stair barricade, but Corvo paid them no mind as he looked down at his face to the protruding beak. No.

His hands flew up to his face and mouth. Through the remnants of the shattered mirror Corvo could see a dozen of his monstrous reflections gazing back at him in horror. He opened the offending appendage wider and inspected the serrated rows of teeth nestled inside the bony protrusion. He had no lips or skin to shape his sounds; could he even speak in this wretched form?

He’d held his silence in Coldridge. Once the Burrows became Lord Regent and ensured the rest of Dunwall disregarded his word about who really killed Jessamine, he’d kept his mouth shut and refused to speak even to the guards delivering his meals. Burrows wanted his recorded confession so the loathsome weasel could legitimize his power to Parliament and the rest of the nobles. If Corvo spoke, he would give in.

Now, Corvo opened his beak and tried to speak, but he only cawed. Panic welled up in his throat, but he shoved the feeling down and he tried again. He cawed. His beak clicked as he tested out his new muscles and tried to better shape his words. He cawed. Corvo still had a tongue, albeit one longer than he was used to. He practiced shaping a few consonants and after a few moments he croaked out his next attempt:

“Ccccoorrvooo.”

He choked on the last part of his name. His mouth shaped the hard consonants easily, but he struggled with the softer v sound. “Myyyyyy namme… Ccccorvvhooo.”

As soon as he got the sentence out, his knees buckled under the sheer weight of his relief and he could no longer stay upright. Corvo stumbled and collapsed back onto the couch. The agitated Weepers continued their cacophonous wailing out in the stairwell, but Corvo couldn’t care less as he slumped against the dusty cushions and stared up at the peeling paint on the ceiling. 

He still had his voice. Corvo choked back a sob. He still had something human left to him. His shoulders shook, and Corvo closed his eyes as the next sob ripped out of his throat. He would find Emily, rescue her from wherever the Regent kept her hidden away, and restore her to the throne. But for now, he mourned.

Chapter Text

“I must say, this is an unexpected turn of events.”

Corvo jolted upright and nearly overturned his chair and the small kitchen table as a strange, yet hauntingly familiar voice wrenched him out of his uneasy slumber. As he cast around for the source of the voice, he found that the shabby apartment interior was… off. 

The small lamp he’d lid on the stove shone with an eerie white-blue tint reminiscent of whale oil. The same kind of light seeped through the peeling wallpaper and loose boards and cast ominous, shifting shadows on the now tiled floor. He was in another world, a strange realm, shining through holes in a paper-thin backdrop.

The glass doors leading out to the balcony were thrown outwards, but all Corvo could make out beyond them was a thick, bluish mist that reeked of seawater and whale oil. As he stepped forward past the couch, a rustling behind him drew his attention. His precious papers, the hand-drawn layouts of Holger Square and Dunwall Tower he painstakingly sketched out over the past few days were frozen in midair, scattered about and held by some mysterious force.

He reached out and touched one of the sheets, but the paper did not give under the weight of his finger. His sketch undeniably still felt like paper, but the texture was unnaturally cold. When Corvo turned back to the balcony doors, he found that the walls of his shabby room had been stripped away in places to reveal the natural grey bedrock of the islands underneath. A yawning blue emptiness stretched beyond. Transfixed, Corvo stepped out onto the balcony. With a soft whistle, white marble stairs, identical to the sets from Dunwall Tower, rose up out of the blue abyss and curved into a path that spiraled upward, out of sight.

As Corvo tentatively mounted the first step, he felt the ground buck beneath his feet, and he seized the balustrade in his claws as the building behind him tore itself free of the staircase and began to ascend. Dumbfounded, Corvo watched as the entire apartment building swooped upward to join boats, lampposts, and other debris he hadn’t seen before free-floating through the oceanic emptiness, driven by some unseen current. 

A non-existent wind whistled in his ear. Corvo looked on as streams of water flowed impossibly upward from the apartment’s broken pipes into the infinite blue mist. Numerous islands of Gristol stone and chunks of building bobbed about chaotically. Between two of them he saw a leviathan, fully grown, anchored in place by massive hooks and chains. 

The beast bellowed out a mournful cry as Corvo ascended up the stairs, a deep song that resonated in his bones. Somehow, he could understand the whale’s tone, and he knew it was welcoming. Corvo shivered. Although he didn’t want to believe it, he knew where he was. The sensation of the Void was altogether too familiar. As Corvo crested the top of the stairs, a sudden cold sensation forced him to stop.

“Hello Corvo. Your life has taken a turn, has it not?” 

Corvo whirled around. Just behind him, hovering a good foot or two in the air, a strange figure looked down at him. They appeared human, but their features were too perfect, their motions too fluid. Corpse-pale skin, tinged with blue around their lips, contrasted starkly with their black ensemble and slick, wet hair. Their eyes were black as the sea in storm, and in them Corvo could see his monstrous face peering back at him. A steady waft of smoke billowed from the Outsider, providing an ominous backdrop to the god’s presence. 

The Void had been much more of an abstract construct in Corvo’s life, even with ample evidence of heresy. The Outsider, even more so. Countless instances of The Outsider Walks Among Us graffiti littered brick walls around Dunwall and the Overseer’s fear-mongering tales of the black-eye god could never prepare Corvo for the alien sensation crashing over him as he stared at the Outsider.

Though he stood in the Void’s open space, Corvo felt he was a man submerged, the world rocking around him as a primordial tide swells overhead. Undeterred by his silence, the entity continued their speech, folding their arms as if they were simply musing aloud.

“An outcome neither of us could have predicted. The threads of time have snagged, and even one such as I cannot see what will emerge from the knots.”

The black eyes suddenly locked onto Corvo, and the deity looked down to face him directly. Their lips curled upward into a small smirk, but their gaze remained cold and impassive.

“Monstrous actions beget a monstrous outcome, my dear Corvo,” The Outsider cooed, “even if you will never meet the monster itself. Blood seeps through the cracks into this world, blood that must be answered for. Changed as you are, you yet still play a pivotal role in the times to come. For this I have drawn you into the Void. I am the Outsider, and this is my Mark.”

Corvo bit back a scream as his left hand twitched in sudden pain. Back in Karnaca, he had once touched a block of ice in the Duke’s palace. Childish curiosity kept his hand pressed against the frigid surface until his hand burned from the cold. When Corvo raised his arm, he saw the aforementioned Mark sear into the back of his hand with a burst of that paradoxical pain, the icy burn, accompanied by whiffs of smoke and burning whale fat. 

Speechless, he tore his gaze from the Mark shining starkly white against the black of his scaled hand to the deity. This was something straight out of the sermons of the Abbey, yet the Outsider hadn’t even tried to tempt him into accepting heretical powers.

“There are forces in the world and beyond the world, great forces that men call magic,” the Outsider stated, and faint amusement crept into their tone. “As you have discovered to your detriment. With my Mark, these forces will serve your will. You have been molded by effects beyond your understanding; I look forward to seeing what you do with it in the days to come. Now…”

The deity snapped their fingers and the island rumbled beneath Corvo’s feet. Rocks and other objects flew up from the emptiness around them and snapped together to form a patchwork path spiraling upwards towards a familiar pavilion, with its gabled roof and the Kaldwin family crest fluttering on pennants hung between embossed white columns. Corvo’s heart sank.  

“Come find me,” the Outsider demanded, pointedly glancing down at the Mark, and then vanished in a flurry of ash and smoke. Corvo was left standing alone on the island as the cries of the chained whale echoed solemnly around the Void. 

He studied the Mark, but when he traced a claw over the sigil, his scaled skin was flat and even. The Mark was so painfully visible, but Corvo wasn’t worried about anyone seeing it. Once glance at him would tell anyone Corvo wielded black magic.

Heretical status aside, Corvo was still in the Void, and the Outsider had given him a specific set of instructions that seemed to be his only way out. He shouldn’t try to anger a deity that could grant magical powers on a whim, so Corvo started forward and carefully picked his way through the crumbled piles of bricks and large spears of stone. 

Remnants of Dunwall lurked amidst the rubble, seemingly drawn from Corvo’s own past. He saw ugly gilded walls of some noble’s estate, complete with a golden fireplace adorned with ship motifs and umberwood carvings, as well as the familiar blue drapes of Dunwall Tower. Dread settled in the pit of his gut as Corvo climbed upwards towards the pavilion looming over him. 

He was so caught up in the sight of the pavilion he barely caught himself when the path suddenly came to a jagged end and pitched down into the formless Void. He nearly stumbled over the edge, but he barely anchored himself on a sturdy lamppost. The endless abyss yawned below him ominously, and Corvo backed away from the edge. There was a large gap between the two islands, farther than Corvo dared to jump. He cast around for an alternate path, but there was nothing but empty space around the island.

Corvo felt the Mark hum, and electricity spread under his skin, not dissimilar to the feeling he got near a Wall of Light. The Mark lit up like a beacon, and when he looked across the gap in the islands he could suddenly picture exactly where he would land. He focused in on the feeling, sinking slowly into the buzzing feeling, and when the sensation covered him Corvo felt an echo in the back of his mind. It was another sense, akin to taste and touch, another method of perceiving the world. He knew what he could do.

He clenched his fist, felt the strange energy build up into a peak, and when he released the energy there was a flash and the Void compressed around him into a solid, narrow tunnel of blended colors and sounds. There was a weightless feeling, a tugging in his gut as wind rushed past his cheeks, and then suddenly he was standing on the edge of the far island, balanced precariously on the rocks. 

Elated, Corvo concentrated again. He felt the power coalesce, and he easily crossed the next gap with superhuman speed. The range seemed to be limited, but the rush that came each time he blinked from place to place was exhilarating. He took a matter of moments to traverse up the path to the topmost island, though he was sweating heavily by the time he came to the edge of the pavilion, and the strange energy he sensed from the Mark had nearly vanished. Corvo looked down at the Mark, and tried to use it once more, but the sigil refused to glow, and the power remained inert. 

Now that he couldn’t use the Mark, Corvo looked up from his hand at his surroundings, and his previous elation spiraled into terror. He swallowed back a scream as he realized that the pavilion was not empty.

Jessamine’s body stared vacantly up into the ceiling of the pavilion, the pool of blood frozen in time. Corvo approached slowly, hesitantly. He remembered her screaming and accusations from the terrible dream from the previous week, and how it felt to plunge the blade into her chest. But even as he crept closer, Jessamine did not move or speak. A folded note lay at her side. Corvo retrieved it carefully, unwilling to make contact with any part of the pale corpse. When he opened the note, there were only two sentences, repeated over and over dozens of times:

TIME WILL NOT UNWIND TIME WILL NOT UNWIND TIME WILL NOT UNWIND

YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER

Disgusted, Corvo threw the note aside. The Outsider had a twisted sense of humor, to poke at such a fresh wound at the site of Corvo’s greatest regret. He looked beyond the pavilion, and another bridge constructed out of Dunwall debris stretched out into the distance. As he cast one last glance at the body of Jessamine, Corvo tried to gather the power in the Mark once more. When he was successful, he traversed across the hovering tableaus of city life without a second glance back at the pavilion.

The Outsider’s strange brand of humor carried across the rest of the journey. Corvo passed by frozen Dunwall tableaus: the Lord Regent scowling at a map amidst his Generals, tallboys chasing a terrified couple, masked nobles with cups raised in a toast, and Weepers lurking in derelict buildings. 

He also found scenes that made him hurry along the Outsider’s set path: Emily, desperately trying to fight the grip of two strange men whose faces Corvo desperately memorized, and Curnow, regret clouding his features as guards nailed up huge posters with Corvo’s human face plastered all over them.

The last floating island in the chain contained a tall, ominous shrine. Splintered and jagged wooden planks spread out in a large fan, bedecked with iron spiked wire and draped in eerie purple cloth. At the center of what could be called an altar sat a strange human heart, bound in wire and pulsating softly in time with the gears whirring in the center of the contraption. Beneath the heart sat great disks of yellow-white bone that bore the same symbol as the one on Corvo’s hand. 

As Corvo stepped towards the altar, a screech and frantic movement drew his attention. A live crow, nearly identical to the one from his nightmare, looked down at him from the top of the shrine. Its beady red eyes leered down at him from behind a screen of sharp wire. Corvo drew closer; he could see that it was impaled on a large splinter of broken wood, and the shrine’s barbed wire wrapped around its throat. It screamed at him and frantically flapped its broken wings, futilely wedging itself deeper on the splinter and dripping fresh blood onto the shrine.

“Kill them! Kill them!” The crow squawked weakly, blood drops flying everywhere. Corvo stepped back to avoid the shower of blood and nearly screamed when he ran into something cold and solid behind him. The Outsider gazed impassively at him for a moment as he shrank away, and then lifted their black eyes to look at the feeble spasms of the trapped crow.

“The consequences of change are far-reaching, Corvo,” the Outsider commented idly, “and your struggles will be great in the days to come. Every choice, every action will change the outcome of this world.”

The deity vanished, before they reappeared over the altar. Behind them, the crow finally fell silent. The Outsider beckoned, and Corvo approached the altar and reached over the strange bones. The disks were smooth to the touch when Corvo picked one up, similar to the round pebbles worn down by the Wrenhaven and washed up on the river’s banks.

The yellowed pieces warmed up in his hands, and when he traced the Outsider’s sigil the mark glowed briefly before the entire pile of disks melted away into smoke. Corvo startled and staggered as sudden vertigo washed over him. His Mark hummed. He was on the cusp of something new, something different than his strange blinking transversal.

“How you use what I have given you falls upon you, as it has to the others before you,” The Outsider stated solemnly. “I grant you the Heart of a living thing, molded by my hands; it speaks of secrets within men, and will guide you to the ancient runes bearing my mark. These runes, as you have seen, will increase your control over the forces of magic.”

The Heart, as the Outsider called it, was a contradiction. A mixture of flesh and metal, the object had a clammy, skin-like texture, but when it beat in Corvo’s hand he could feel warmth pulse through it. All the while, the deity kept their eyes on him, and Corvo didn’t dare to return the gift, as much as he felt nauseated. He had no doubt that this contraption had once been inside a living human. He squeezed the Heart once, and a familiar voice rang in his ears.

“All time is meaningless here; neither seconds nor centuries.”

Corvo choked and looked at the object in horror. The window of the Heart lit up in his hands as Jessamine’s voice whispered back to him, and above the shrine, the Outsider smiled.

“Now I return you to your world, dear Corvo. Know I will be watching with great interest.”

Corvo screamed as he opened his eyes and pushed backwards away from the table. His chair tipped over and crashed to the floor, papers flew everywhere, and the small oil lantern smashed to pieces as he struggled to get his bearings. His long limbs tangled in the chair legs and he tripped ungracefully and collapsed on the floor. In his panic, it took several embarrassing moments before he could center himself, panting heavily, grab hold of the edge of the table, and haul himself upright. 

He was back in the dingy apartment. Sunlight shone through the grimy windows, and the Weepers on the floor above and in the stairwell screamed and wailed, no doubt agitated by the noise.

He immediately checked his left hand, half convinced that the whole journey had been a terrible, cruel dream. The Outsider’s Mark, which buzzed with a familiar power as soon as Corvo focused on it, immediately dispelled that hopeful notion. Drained, Corvo righted his chair, collapsed into it, and cradled his left hand. He felt exhausted and wrung out, but he still warily cast around the apartment. If the Mark was real, the Outsider’s other nightmarish gift must be present as well.

A sudden weight in his lap made him look down. The Heart was inert, and surprisingly heavy. The small window into the inner gears was dark, but it still beat quickly, synchronizing with his rapid pulse. Corvo hesitantly cupped the Heart in his palms. He remembered the sad, familiar voice in ear, and tentatively squeezed.

“Why am I so cold?”

Corvo dropped the Heart like a hot coal. It landed on the floor with a wet, meaty squelch. 

“What have they done to me?”

Bile rose in his throat, and he pushed away from the table, knocking over his chair again. He barely made it to the balcony, slamming open the door with one shoulder. He grasped the metal railing in his claws, leaned over the edge, and retched onto the street below.

“Any luck so far?”

Galia, who perched precariously on the edge of the rooftop, shook her head. Her mask jostled with the movement. Thomas stood behind her, with Andrei and Finn trailing behind him. Finn had his mask off, and even from a meter or so away Galia could smell the stench of sewage waft off his heavy coat. 

“Nothing but krusts, hagfish, and corpses,” Thomas sighed as he joined Galia at the edge of the building. Behind him, Finn and Andrei transversed away and took up sentry positions on the nearby roofs. This district, abandoned at the start of the quarantine and largely untouched by looters, was calmer than the rest.

Daud had them scour out the possible hiding places in each district based on their map of the tunnels to comb through every abandoned building and dirty alley for any sign of the creature.

The City Guard search parties, even a week after the creature vanished from Coldridge, still swarmed the tunnels themselves. Galia pinned their zeal on a desperate attempt to avoid the Lord Regent’s wrath for the creature’s high-profile escape as well as the disappearance of Empress Kaldwin’s assassin, the man whose death would have cemented Burrow’s control of the throne.

Daud and Lurk, both currently dealing with the situation at the Rothwild Slaughterhouse and the promise of information about the Delilah, were unable to search themselves, and the search was proving pointless so far.

“ How many more days must we do this?” Galia muttered heatedly and looked away from Thomas to gaze over the deserted streets. “We’re straining our supply of elixir from knocking out every single Weeper holed up in a three mile radius, and Javier’s still stuck in the infirmary for those rat bites.”

Thomas didn’t grace her with an answer, and  instead turned his attention to the rooftops with a vacant stare that Galia recognized as the Gaze. She had received the transversal and the Pull, as all of Daud’s assassins had, but Thomas had always been closer to Daud, their connection one Galia barely understood. Only one assassin in three received extraneous gifts from the Arcane Bond, and Galia tried not to let the familiar bitterness swell in her chest as Thomas stood and looked through the houses around them for any sign of the mystery creature. Behind Lurk, Thomas was the next favorite. If Billie croaked, he’d be the next to take the red. 

“Daud thinks another Marked has plans in Dunwall,” Thomas spoke softly but firmly as he continued his search. “The Outsider marks those who end up the biggest players in current events- why else would he mention this Delilah? If this creature is behind the Lord Protector’s disappearance, then I agree with Daud, no matter the risks.” 

There was a tense pause before Thomas signaled with his right hand. Galia heard Andrei and Finn appear behind her.

“These buildings are clear,” Thomas stated as he stood and adjusted his mask. “Galia, check the alleyways. We’ll cover you.”

He vanished. Wordless, Galia stood, and followed.

The first sign that something was amiss was the silence in the streets. With the entire district sealed off, the only residents remaining were Weepers in the later stages of the plague. They wandered the streets in the daytime, groaning and vomiting out rancid puddles of bile. When the weather turned frigid at night, they lurked in the foyers and stairwells. Corvo had adjusted to the constant background noise and residual smell after several days.

After the incident with the Heart, Corvo had spent a better part of the day climbing and hiding in the district to little avail. The artifact would appear in his hands or on his lap, heedless of distance. It didn’t speak again. Corvo didn’t dare to hold it too tightly, just in case. The constant heartbeat made the artifact too alive, too real. 

He also caught onto the fact that the Heart only beat so rapidly when in proximity to the Outsider’s marked runes. The Heart led him on, like a fish caught on a line, until he located the strange objects. He found charms, small trinkets of bone and metal that imparted small boons as soon as he touched them. With no pockets or pouches to speak of, Corvo instead scavenged wire and thread to weave the two charms he found into a makeshift necklace. 

The runes he found simply dissolved in ash when he touched them, but as Corvo worked his way across rooftops and balconies he knew that he could now teleport farther and higher. Once he collected all charms and runes in the district, the Heart fell silent, and when Corvo looked away the device vanished. He knew it would be back again soon enough.

He was on a rooftop near his apartment when he noticed the heavy silence in the streets. Immediately on alert, Corvo kept low and close to overhangs and chimneys as he made his way across the roof. He wasn’t worried about being seen from the street level, but if anyone looked out over the rooftops he would stick out against the gray slate tiles. 

When he reached the edge of the building he took cover behind a large trio of chimneys before he peered over the edge and scanned the streets below. There were no Weepers in sight, though when he had left an hour earlier there had been at least thirty shuffling around and trying to catch rats. Corvo knew the City Guard couldn’t have been responsible, as there would have been gunshots or shouts if they had come to round up the Weepers. Looters would also be unlikely, since even a large group of opportunists would struggle to put down thirty Weepers without making any noise. 

A flash of movement caught Corvo’s eye, and he looked just in time to see a figure dressed in a gray uniform and a whaler’s vapor mask appear on the railing of his apartment’s balcony as if by magic. He recognized those garments. His claws left furrows in the brink of the chimney as he restrained himself from blinking across the street and tearing the assassin’s throat open as they strode into the apartment as if they owned it.

Corvo could see sheafs of papers clutched in their hands. His diagrams, no doubt, and his kindled fury only increased, as it had taken days to make those; his new hands, with their wicked claws, were ill-suited to guiding a pen. As he watched, a second assassin appeared out of thin air.

Corvo thought back to the assassin’s ability that had dangled him helplessly in the air at Dunwall Tower. Did this mean the assassins were all Marked by the Outsider? The two assassins appeared to be talking, but with their faces and voices obscured by the thick whaling masks Corvo couldn’t hear anything distinct. He had to get closer. When the assassins bent their heads over the papers, he blinked across the street. 

As soon as his feet connected with the roof, Corvo dropped to all fours. Corvo quickly cast around, but he couldn’t see any other assassins. Silently, he scuttled forward until he was perched just out of sight, but close enough to listen in.

“He’s been here recently-”

The killer’s voice was feminine. Corvo heard soft footsteps and the rustle of cloth and paper, so he inched closer to the roof’s edge and risked a quick peek over. One of the assassins held up his Lord Protector coat and examined the damage to the garment. The second assassin, who was mulling over the papers, shook their head.

“ Someone’s been here recently, Galia,” they said, “We don’t know for certain if Attano’s been living in this apartment, but whoever it is should still be in the district. That shattered lamp was still warm, and these diagrams seem too important to discard.”

Corvo cursed silently as he slowly withdrew from the edge of the roof. He had been too careless and assumed that he would be safe with the quarantine. The Lord Regent must have dispatched his hired killers to search the blocked off districts while the City Guard tore apart Coldridge Prison, the sewers, and the noble estates.

“The creature’s been here as well,” The assassin Galia stated, her voice growing faint as she progressed deeper into his apartment. “Outsider’s eyes, look here! Thomas, what do you think?”

Corvo crept back from the edge as a prickle on the back of his neck put him on guard. Was he being watched? He scanned the rooftops again, suddenly wary. He couldn’t see anyone, but the sensation didn’t fade. He gathered power in the Mark, just in case.

“Daud will want to hear of this,” Thomas said below, “No bird I know of in Gristol has a wingspan large enough to support this long of a feather. These scrapes weren’t made with a knife either. Signal the others; we’ll sweep the rest of the district and meet with Fisher’s patrol-”

Corvo didn’t wait to hear the end of the sentence as a faint fwip heralded the appearance of a navy-clad assassin in the corner of his eye. His claws screeched on the slate tiles as he bounded up the valley of the roof and drew alarmed shouts from the apartment below. As soon as he reached the apex, Corvo glimpsed a flash of dark blue near the ventilation shaft of a nearby building before something sharp pierced the back of his shoulder. Corvo yanked out the offending projectile: a needle-tipped dart, with trace amounts of a strange green liquid.

He heard rather than saw the two assassins from the apartment appear behind him. Change of plans. Corvo turned towards the hidden assassin and mentally mapped out where he would land; his blink could make the distance to a roof. As soon as he released the power, he heard the surprised shouts behind him as he vanished, but there was no time to relish the victory.

The assassin in the blue was exceptionally well-hidden; from Corvo’s method of approach, he would have never seen the person currently kneeling on the edge of the rooftop, concealed by thick metal vents and a low-lying wall. The assassin was distracted by Corvo’s sudden disappearance, so when Corvo dropped down and dragged them into a chokehold their cry of surprise was muted by the whaling mask. Still, they struggled violently, and he winced as their fist glanced across his beak.

The smell of rancid sewer water assailed him just as the assassin in his arms went limp, so Corvo looked up just in time to drop the unconscious form and sidestep a fourth assassin’s blade. This one smelled like river krust bile and fecal matter. Corvo could see their mask and coat were damp. How many more were there? 

They had a blade, but Corvo was easily twice the size of his assailant, and he took advantage of it as he rushed forward. His training had prepared him for unarmed combat, so he used newfound strength to seize the assassin’s elbow mid-swing and drive his palm into their throat. 

The assassin staggered backward as they clutched their neck, unable to defend themselves as Corvo charged forward, picking them up and slamming them into the ventilation duct. As soon as they went limp, Corvo seized them by the back of the coat and lifted them up in front of him. A bullet grazed his thigh, but Corvo paid it no heed as he swung the assassin as a living shield towards his remaining pursuers.

The two remaining assassins, the ones from his apartment, stood on the edge of the rooftop. The taller of the two had a gun, while the other aimed some contraption concealed in their sleeve. The one he was holding groaned. Corvo saw a dart embedded in their upper arm. As the taller assassin started to reload the gun, he saw his chance. 

Corvo darted forward with his human shield and the two foes teleported away. Corvo gathered the power in his Mark, and when the gun-wielding assassin reappeared to his right, he tossed the unconscious body in their direction to block any projectiles. He hissed as another dart struck him in the back of the leg and he stumbled forward as the world shifted unexpectedly. Still, he released the power and crashed face first into an open apartment window across the next street.

He hoisted himself through the window frame and sprinted through a small, dusty room. He dodged over sheet-covered furniture and passed through a small kitchenette and bedroom before he found another set of doors that led out to a balcony. A second balcony stood across the street, but the gap was too far for Corvo’s teleport to reach. There was a crash from inside the room behind him; he had seconds to choose a path. Corvo cast about as his heart pounded furiously. Now that he lost the element of surprise, he had to shake them off-

There! A large rusting pipe wound its way down from the rooftop of the building to the street below and formed a small, barely visible gap under the balcony. Corvo vaulted over the railing and crammed himself into the gap as fast as possible, wincing as sharp metal bits ripped feathers from his arms and neck. He was far too large for the hiding place, but he managed to balance precariously on the slick metal with one leg dangling over the long drop.

He froze as he heard the ripping sound of the assassin’s teleportations and the balcony above him suddenly creaked under the weight of two new bodies.

“It couldn’t have gone far! If we hurry, we can catch up!” Galia demanded, though she sounded out of breath.

“ Enough. We have two down, and we’ve lost line of sight,” Thomas ordered. His voice echoed harshly overhead, and Corvo winced. “You saw how that thing took care of Finn and Andrei! It could easily be waiting to ambush us. The gun barely phased it, what do you think you could do?”

“But-” Galia protested.

“No, we’re pulling back and waiting for Fisher’s patrol.” Thomas interrupted, his voice cold and commanding. He must be the leader of these specific assassins. “Andrei is unconscious, and Finn is wounded. Daud will hear of your recklessness when we report in. Now, do I have to knock you out as well, or will you continue your foolish behavior?”

There was a weighted pause.

“Fine,” Galia snarled, and with another fwip the assassins vanished.

Corvo waited under the pipe for another half-hour, just in case the mentioned second patrol materialized or Galia defied orders and returned. As he waited, he pondered over the name he heard: Daud. The name niggled at Corvo, even as his back started to protest his position. He knew that name. 

Thomas had mentioned the name before at the apartment. When Corvo’s back and limbs threatened to give out from the strain of keeping a hold on the pipe, he finally crawled out from his hiding spot and picked his way down to street level. He couldn’t return to the apartment, as he had no doubt the assassins would watch it, and their stealth skills were superior. For now.

It wasn’t until Corvo was halfway back through the dusty apartment that the familiarity of the name struck. He remembered another boring state dinner, listening to the whispers of the nobles. Daud. Daud, infamous Knife of Dunwall, born of a witch, who took any job for coin.

“Daud,” Corvo whispered to himself as he clutched his necklace of bone charms in his claws. “Daud.”

He would remember the name.

“Daud.”

Chapter Text

The Hound Pits Pub brimmed with quiet activity.

Wary eyes constantly watched the Wrenhaven; every half hour the River Patrol’s passage was marked and monitored. Behind the deserted waterfront and grimy glass windows, servants scrubbed the sticky wooden floors and beat the dust out of ratty sheets. Hard-faced people in workmen clothes filtered through the back entrances towards the alleyways and exits out of the district, and three figures looked out over the river and raised their glasses as one. A toast to new plans, and a new era for the Empire.

They would claim the throne, or die trying.

“Another one?”

Daud stared down at the corpse of the Overseer, the face bloated beyond recognition. The body was dressed in dockworker’s clothing and the hagfish had gotten most of the exposed bits, but the remaining skin, even clammy and drained of blood, was too pale for a common laborer. 

“Yes, sir,” Montgomery said from his position crouched over the corpse’s head. “We found his boat near the south barrier. He managed to get further than his predecessor, but he ran into Weepers when he was trying to give Rickard the slip. Took his chances with the hagfish instead.”

Daud nodded. He knelt down and turned one of the corpse’s palms face up. He felt faint calluses between the first finger and thumb, as well as across the palm, but the Overseer hadn’t had time to develop proper ones to lend better authenticity to his disguise. 

The body’s fingers curled forward like pale spiders; Daud grunted as the bones snapped under his grip as he forcibly pried the stiff appendages apart. There, barely visible between the folds of the skin, laid a tattoo of a pair of crossed hands. 

“Restless Hands,” Daud snorted and shook his head. “Ink’s fresh, too. Montgomery, check his tongue.”

The other assassin nodded and pried the corpse’s jaws apart. A small puddle of sludge poured out between the man’s teeth and doused Montgomery’s coat, but the assassin ignored the mess as he reached into the mouth cavity and extracted the nibbled remains of the tongue. After studying the pale strip of flesh for a moment, Montgomery shook his head.

“Nothing here. Looks like Campbell’s getting desperate, if he’s only sending in novices,” Montgomery remarked, wiping his grimy gloves on the dead man’s trousers.  

“Or he’s simply throwing bait,” Daud grunted, and ripped the corpse’s boots off to reveal another black tattoo on the man’s heel, “to see where and when we take it. He can waste as many Hands as he sees fit, especially after the plague has left him with zealots aplenty. Many turned to the Abbey after the death of the Empress.”

The Hands were the spies of the Abbey, and their selected members infiltrated the dregs of the world and dug out hidden roots of heresy for the Warfare Overseers to purge with fire, swords, and hounds. The small bits of ink were a means of identification; for each of the Seven Strictures they violated, the Hands placed a mark in corresponding locations for future penance. 

Each mark had unique elements specific to the areas the Hands operated in; Daud had no doubt Campbell had another black book for his spies’ identities stashed away in his compound.

“Perhaps he’s only putting in a minimum effort to appease the Abbey,” Montgomery said with a grunt as he reached down and grasped the corpse’s arms. Daud picked up the legs. “His involvement with Burrows complicates matters. He knows we assassinated the Empress, but the Abbey has ordered our capture or execution.”

“Burrows has yet to send the rest of the coin to the drops,” Daud grunted as they threw the corpse back into the canal. The hagfish immediately began to swarm again as the two assassins stepped back from the edge of the catwalk. “His letter indicated he wanted our services in helping secure his position should the need arise. Campbell may not agree, since he advocated against using our services from the start.”

“And will you take him up on those services, sir?” Montgomery asked with a hesitant edge to his voice. Daud couldn’t see his face, but he knew the assassin was looking at the empty sheath on his belt. The blade remained back near his desk, untouched. Daud glared, and Montgomery turned away with a small shrug. He knew it wasn’t worth the fight, unlike Thomas. Good. 

There was a sharp whistle. Daud looked up to see Leon lean over the edge of the roof. Leon signaled frantically, and Daud quickly transversed up to the rooftop. 

“What is it?” Daud barked as soon as he appeared. “What happened?”

“Thomas’ patrol was attacked by the creature,” Leon said quickly, pulling a small oilskin map of Dunwall out of his coat and holding it out. “Finn and Andrei were wounded; Fisher’s patrol saw the distress signal and sent Kieron back to base for reinforcements.”

Daud cursed silently. Even his precautions hadn’t been enough, and the city was quickly turning into a hotbed of supernatural occurrences and conflict. He took the map from Leon and unfurled it on the roof tiles, kneeling beside it.

“Show me where the attack happened,” Daud demanded as his finger traced Thomas’ patrol route. Their path wound through the Distillery District before crossing the Wrenhaven to Old Waterfront, and both locations had plenty of places for the creature to move freely without detection. “How serious are the injuries?”

“Nothing life-threatening. Fisher found them around here-” Leon said, and he tapped a spot near the edge of the Distillery District on the map, “-and the creature fled towards John Clavering, according to Thomas.”

Daud nodded, staring down at the map. If the creature was in the Distillery District, he could call off all the extra patrols on the other side of the Wrenhaven. With two bridges down and the extra security on Kaldwin’s Bridge, he doubted that the creature would be able to flee across the river. It also wouldn’t be able to move quickly in heavily populated areas like John Clavering. This was his chance.

“Montgomery, return to base. Take Marco, Pavel, and Aedan’s patrols and search the areas around John Clavering,” Daud ordered, tracing out a large circle around the boulevard. “I want everyone armed with pistols this time. If you see the creature, send up the signal and have the other patrols assist. If possible, capture it alive.”

Montgomery nodded, and vanished from sight. Daud stood and passed the map back to Leon. 

“Leon, with me,” he said, nodding at the other assassin as he strode towards the edge of the roof. Leon fell into step easily as Daud gathered the arcane energy in his hand and stared out across the flooded street. He took a moment to take in the sight of the dead District, inhabited only by the desperate and the dying.

Dunwall was changing drastically, and the Whalers were caught dead center in the maelstrom. Daud looked down to his empty sword sheath, and shook his head before he traversed across the canal. He really had no one to blame but himself, didn’t he?

John Clavering Boulevard was bustling during the day despite the ongoing plague. The City Watch patrols were out in force and Sokolov’s Walls of Light flickered ominously near the periodic checkpoints Huge lines of laborers and other plainsfolk zigzagged across the square, forcing all foot traffic to slow considerably. 

Everyone was wearing cloth masks to ward off the plague, and anyone who coughed or looked sickly was quickly seized by the Watch and separated from the crowd. Corvo could see a few Overseers walking up and down the lines of folk, offering loud benedictions whose specific words were lost amidst the crowd. 

From his perch on the rooftops, Corvo did his best to keep as low as possible as he watched over the boulevard. It was a definite risk to approach in daylight, but he would have to risk it with the recent encounter with the assassins. It would take him most of the day to cross this part of the city to Holger Square, and he wanted to be the before nightfall.

The Warfare Overseer compound was heavily guarded at all times, but the evening would be the best time to attempt a break-in. The guard shift would change and petitioners would be escorted out of the square as it closed to the public, leaving a small window of opportunity.

There was also no doubt that Campbell would still be there performing his duties as High Overseer, and he was Corvo’s best chance at learning where Emily had been taken. 

As a public figure, Campbell was the (relatively) easiest to access. Burrows was holed up from the fortress of Dunwall Tower, and the other conspirators were currently unknown. Corvo would make them pay for what they did, each and every one of them. His heart raced at the thought of Campbell suffering.

He made his way slowly across the plaza. Most of the delay came from the guards stationed on the balconies of some of the well-off houses. The families inside were likely ‘visiting family’ in Serkonos or Gristol due to the plague, but the City Guard’s presence deterred looters. 

Clasped in his free hand, the Heart pulsed feebly as he passed over the house; there was another rune nearby. Corvo made note of it as he Blinked across a large gap in the rooftops. He would come back later and clear the place out; the family could clearly afford to lose a few trinkets and a meal.

“Such corruption! Such hypocrisy!” The Heart whispered to him. “Somewhere near a man has just taken his last breath. His eyes are still open!”

Corvo winced. No matter how many times the device spoke, he would never get used to her voice echoing in his ears. He clenched his fist around the Heart and let the contraption fade away. It would return, in time, but he had to focus on getting near Holger Square. 

The first checkpoint would be the most difficult to cross, but not impossible. The bridge was overflowing with foot traffic, and the City Watch’s inspection force easily numbered around 30 armed guards. Corvo was glad that there were no tallboys, as the stilt-riders would be easily able to spot him in his new position.

On top of the highest ventilation shaft he could find, Corvo aimed his Blink upwards, towards the harsh incline of the rooftops. It was risky- the ledge he was aiming for was barely a foot wide, but it was his best chance to get over the checkpoint undetected. He couldn’t afford to be found, not until he got what he wanted from Campbell. 

Corvo clenched his fist and released his power, reveling in the sudden rush as the world compressed around him. He landed precariously on the small ledge and sank his talons into the slate to keep his balance. For a dangerous moment he teetered backwards, almost losing his footing. 

The drop yawned behind him and the muted roar of the crowd below vanished under the sound of his pulse hammering in his ears. Corvo seized the edge of one of the nearby windowsills and barely managed to right himself. Panting, he remained there for a few seconds to catch his breath. He looked up at the top of the building a few meters above him.

One step down, he reminded himself, looking down at the crowd below him. There was still a fair distance to Holger Square. Corvo took a deep breath, and started to climb.

“Your suspicions are correct, ” Daud remarked, gingerly lifting up the ragged coat. “This is certainly the Lord Protector’s.”

The coat was heavily stained with blood, grime, and other substances. Most of the stains were older, no doubt a result of Coldridge’s hospitality. There were newer additions Daud estimated to be around a week old; the remnants of blood flaked off at his touch as he gently probed the cloth. He also found numerous puncture marks near the shoulders and sleeves, but there was no blood around those areas. 

Thomas nodded as he stood at attention beside the map table. Galia had been dismissed after the report, her punishment undecided. Daud knew she was headstrong, but charging in like she had was just foolish. He would speak to her later, after the situation with the creature had been resolved.

The patrols were still being assembled and armed, so there was still time to strategize. Daud looked over the table, now covered with the assembled artifacts gathered from the apartment.  

There were over a dozen pieces of paper that depicted shaky sketches of Dunwall Tower and parts of the city, several black feathers, longer than a man’s forearm, and, of course, Attano’s coat. Daud plucked one of the feathers from the table and held it up to the light.

“Excellent work. We still don’t know if Attano escaped under his own power or was abducted from Coldridge, but it’s a lead,” Daud remarked, turning the feather over in his hands. The vane and afterfeather were rumpled or torn entirely, and the shaft lacked the typical downy barbs of a bird’s feather. No natural bird shed these. “Is there anything else to report?”

Thomas glanced around the office, as if checking for any wayward eavesdroppers, and then stepped closer.

“I believe the creature had a Mark,” he murmured, quietly. 

Daud carefully returned the feather to its place.

“Are you sure?” he asked, his voice flat. He trusted Thomas, but he had to be certain.

“I saw something white here-” Thomas tapped the back of his left hand, “-when we first saw the creature. I couldn’t tell what it was at first; the creature moved too fast. But whatever it was lit up bright right after it dropped Finn, and then it moved like we do. It wasn’t exactly the same as our transversals; it was quicker, and with a shorter range.”

Daud frowned and rubbed a hand over his chin. His headache was growing stronger.

“Are you certain?” he asked, tamping down on a long string of swears. The fucking Outsider was going to be the death of him. Ten years without supernatural bullshit in Dunwall and now Marked ones just pop out of the woodwork.

“I would be surprised if the creature wasn’t marked, sir,” Thomas admitted, nodding. 

Daud let out a deep sigh.

“Three Marked in one city,” he finally said, brushing a hand over the Lord Protector’s coat. “The black-eyed bastard’s laughing at us all.”

“What do you want to do, sir?” Thomas asked, gesturing towards the map of Dunwall. 

“Assemble another squad with as many of the masters as we can spare,” Daud ordered as he looked over the crude maps. He lifted one with a rough sketch of John Clavering and Holger Square. “We’re sticking to the original plan and searching near John Clavering, but keep the master group in reserve. If the creature truly bears the Outsider’s Mark, it will have powers we can’t predict. Inform the patrols about the teleportation. As soon as one group engages, send up the signal and the masters will move in to capture. I also want the patrols to look for Corvo Attano. If he drew these maps, it’s likely he’s going to strike at the High Overseer and the Lord Regent. Take him alive.”

Thomas nodded, and vanished immediately. Daud pushed back from the table, overcome with weariness. On a sudden whim, he snagged Attano’s coat as he walked back to his desk.

The Lord Protector. The last Daud had seen of the unfortunate man was from the rooftops as the Regent’s guards seized Attano’s unresisting form and dragged him to Coldridge. He had tried to defend the Empress and her daughter to the death, and almost succeeded in thwarting the Whaler’s assassination. The City Watch described him as a whirlwind with a blade.

Who are you, Corvo Attano? Daud wondered silently, spreading the coat across his desk as if it would give him the answers he sought. What are you involved in now?

“Daud.”

Daud looked up to see a familiar red coat appear on the balcony above him. With one swift motion Billie removed her whaling mask and wiped strands of sweat-slick hair away from her face.

“You took your time,” Daud growled as he massaged his temples to ward off another oncoming headache. Dunwall wouldn’t let him rest for even a moment; he hadn’t forgotten about the ongoing search for Delilah.

“Unavoidable delays,” Billie said, leaning up against the railing above. “Arnold Timsh holes up in his mansion in the Legal District behind City Watch barricades and a host of tallboys. His niece, Thalia, wants a word with the Knife of Dunwall.”

Barrister Timsh, former owner of The Delilah and another step towards answers. Daud grimaced. He glanced towards Attano’s coat laid out on his desk. There were only more fucking questions building up as time passed and few satisfactory answers.

“Let me guess,” he grumbled, “She can give us information on Delilah in return for our particular services.”

Billie nodded. “She wants to trade information for something Arnold Timsh keeps in his possession. Said nothing about a hit.”

Daud nodded, ignoring the lingering look that Lurk shot him. He touched the hilt of the sword belted to his side, and felt the tension drain out of his shoulders. He just wanted this Delilah business to be over. He would rejoin Thomas later and resolve the situation with the creature.

“Good,” he said quietly. “Arrange the meeting. I’ll hear what Timsh has to say.”

The Overseer compound was a joke to break into. 

He had crossed the rest of John Clavering without much further difficulty. Once he was in sight of the square, he settled on the tallest rooftop he could find. From his perch, Corvo kept an eye out for more assassins, but found none. 

When the sun dipped below the horizon and the street lamps flickered on, Corvo slipped closer over the rooftops.

Even with the multitude of floodlights, Corvo barely had any trouble entering Holger Square amidst the departing crowds. He moved across the rooftops as the Overseers finished the last of their sermons and the common folk returned to their residences before the Guard enforced the plague curfew. 

Many had turned to the Abbey’s authority because of the plague; no one was safe from suspicion of heresy, especially when the Abbey rewarded verified reports with a few coppers and a meal.

The massive open courtyard had been a major concern, but when Corvo slipped down from the rooftops the remaining Overseer guards had been concerned only with their latest victims: the corpses of three men and women found guilty of heresy, posted up around the stockade with the brand of the Abbey seared on their foreheads.

Unbidden, the Heart appeared in Corvo’s clenched fist.

“Once they are brought here they never leave. The Overseers always find the guilt they seek,” Jessamine crooned mournfully, an unpleasant echo of his own thoughts. Corvo had never been fond of the Abbey. Up in the Tower by Jessamine’s side, their zealotry had just been another aspect of politics to juggle.

But he was the heretical monster the Overseers were supposed to combat, branded with the sign of the Outsider. The people below were likely victims of circumstance who acted just differently enough that their neighbors justified selling them out and collecting the reward money.

One of the Overseers lifted up his mask to spit on one of the corpses, and Corvo bared his teeth from the shadows. His Mark thrummed. One quick blink, one small gesture, and he could crush the man’s neck with his hands-

No. He had to find Campbell first. Corvo’s beak snapped shut as he bit down on a frustrated curse, and he let the Mark’s power fade. He had to focus, for Emily’s sake. He scuttled across the courtyard, using the stockade as cover from the Overseers’ line of sight. They were careless in their arrogance, lingering to gloat. By the time they started their nightly patrol, Corvo was gone. 

The rest of the journey blurred together. From the rooftops he easily located a series of darkened ledges from which he could Blink over the gates, bypass the Overseer checkpoint,  and land on the wide white ledges that lined the second floor of the compound. Several of the windows had thick, metal shutters, but they were open and posed little issue. 

Corvo crept behind the enormous Overseer banners draped over the building and took advantage of the well-lit nature of Holger Square proper. The numerous floodlights created deep shadows around the edges of the square, and with his dark coloring Corvo was all but invisible to the zealots prowling around the ground level. His elevation also meant that he was safe from the Overseer’s wolfhounds and their keen noses.

As he vaulted through one of the open windows, Corvo couldn’t shake the feeling that his infiltration had been too easy. Granted, he doubted the builders of the compound conceived that potential intruders could teleport short distances to reach the higher ledges, but still. He made a mental note that when ( when, not if) he restored Emily to the throne, he would need to see how the Tower’s security held up to a supernatural entity.

The upper hallways had huge overhead pipes and open panels over every door, and none of the patrolling Overseers looked up to see the monster pass over their heads. Corvo sneered over the edge of his perch as he watched a patrol walk down the hallway towards him without any sign of alarm. Perhaps the masks drastically reduce their field of vision, Corvo mused. The pipes were wide, but not that wide.

“They find each other in the dead of night. No scriptures come to their tongues when they embrace.”

Jessamine’s voice echoed like a gunshot in the muffled quiet right as the two Overseers passed underneath him and Corvo flinched violently, banging his elbow against the wall. The newly-conjured Heart nearly slipped from his claws as he plastered himself to the pipe he was crouching on and froze as the pair of Overseers paused right below him. The bone charms on his necklace clinked together softly, the sound muffled by his thick feathers.

“Is there a problem, Brother Marcus?” The second Overseer asked tentatively. He reached out, as if to take the other’s hand, but quickly forced his arm back to his side.

Corvo held his breath above them, his heart pounding. His left arm and elbow smarted and protested his new position, but he didn’t dare move. 

The other Overseer looked up and down the hallway for a few precarious moments. Finally, he turned back to his companion.

“No, it’s nothing,” he said as he shook his head. “Just my overactive imagination. Let’s hurry; Curnow should arrive any minute, and the High Overseer wants him escorted to the meeting chamber as soon as possible.”

Corvo waited until the two vanished around a corner and their footsteps faded to silence before he unfolded from the ball he had curled into. He glared at the Heart and bit back a couple of choice swears as it vanished from his palm without further commentary.

Despite the close call, Corvo’s metaphorical hackles were raised. What was Curnow doing here? The Warfare Overseers and the City Watch were far from friendly, doubly so after the Lord Regent effectively made the Overseers a secondary military force within Dunwall. Campbell had to be up to something nefarious if the Captain of the Watch was here, tonight. 

The meeting chamber used by the High Overseer was, in the end, fairly easy to find. The compound had helpful directional signs posted at every corner, and each of the rooms were neatly labeled with plagues. Corvo noted the different rooms as he prowled around on the upper pipes. The second floor housed the Overseers’ Archives and an interrogation room. When he’d peeked inside, the familiar sight of the restraining chair deterred any further exploration.

The meeting chamber’s doors, solid black with gold accents, were guarded by a pair of heavily armed Overseers, but the filigree hatch above them was still open. Corvo knew he had the right place when he silently crept above the zealot guards, crawled inside the hatch, and took in the horrid interior decorating.

The portrait of Campbell Sokolov painted the day of the Empress’ death hung over an elegant writing desk separated from the rest of the room by a delicate wooden screen. A pair of fine pistols were mounted over an ornate fireplace, and above them one of the Outsider’s runes whistled softly from a decorative placard. 

An expensive dark wood dining table and a complementary soft red carpet with gold tassels took up most of the room. The table was set for two with an elegant black and gold table runner under some of the finest gilt dishes Corvo had ever seen, and he had regularly dined with the Empress of the Isles. The whole room screamed of opulence tastes, and Corvo swallowed back the bitter taste in his mouth.

Before he could do anything he regretted, the double doors slammed open and Campbell himself strode in.

“Close the doors,” he ordered, blissfully unaware of Corvo’s presence. “When Curnow arrives, send him in alone and escort any City Watch officers downstairs before you return to your duties.”

“Understood, High Overseer.”

Corvo couldn’t believe it. Campbell was practically offering himself on a silver platter. The man in question busied himself with a drink tray and poured out two generous glasses of wine. The High Overseer muttered quietly to himself, but Corvo couldn’t hear the exact words where he was, nor did he care. Campbell was here.

Corvo slowly unfurled from the ceiling hatch, his unnatural form stretching out like a black ribbon. He wanted to savor this. Tall as he was, there was still a bit of a drop to the ground. As Corvo landed, his claws softly clicked against the stone floor.

Campbell tensed up at the sound, but before he could move, Corvo darted forward. He wouldn’t get another chance like this, and in the end, he was faster.

As Corvo clamped onto Campbell’s shoulder and neck, he felt a vicious surge of satisfaction as the man turned towards him, horror and shock twisting his weathered face into a grim mask. Before he could scream, Corvo clamped a hand over his mouth. His talons dug bloody furrows into the man’s cheeks.

Campbell clawed at the hands holding him, but Corvo already had a strong grip and the older man’s attempts to free himself were futile. He dragged the horrified High Overseer closer until they were roughly eye level and forced Campbell’s chin up so they could lock gazes. Corvo did his best to smile and revealed his beak full of sharp, white teeth.

“Hello, Campbell.”

Chapter Text

In the Abbey’s stockyard, a bedraggled man dressed in Overseer blacks smirked as he shifted in the metal binds locked around his wrists and neck. His legs had gone numb after kneeling for hours and his eyes constantly watered from the harsh spotlights overhead, but Martin barely paid any mind to his body’s suffering as he watched two Overseers patrol around the edges of the courtyard through half-closed eyes. 

Campbell had sentenced him to rot out here under the guise of violating the Scriptures, but Martin knew better. Martin had been in Campbell’s den of vice, and a little black book of secrets had coincidentally gone missing when he left. That, and a little key slipped to a Coldridge guard for a certain bird who had recently vanished from its cage.

“Overseers,” he called out, and the masked zealots glared at him. “I would like to confess my crimes.”

The two patrolling Overseers glanced at each other for a few seconds, and then the taller of the two stormed up to the stockade platform.

“Speak, traitor,” the Overseer spat as he seized Martin by the hair and yanked his head back. “If you confess true, the High Overseer may grant you clemency.”

Martin smiled as he locked eyes with the garish golden mask. “Of course,” he said, grinning. “Though High Overseer Campbell, hypocrite that he is, has no right to judge me.”

With that, he spat on the man’s uniform.

“You-”

The Overseer’s grip on his hair loosened as the man’s shout suddenly cut off with a sickening crack. It fell away entirely as the man’s corpse fell to its knees and crumpled in front of him with a wet gurgle. Martin’s smile widened further as his bindings clattered to the ground moments later. 

“Thank you, Berthold,” Martin remarked as he stood up. He rubbed feeling back into his wrists and made a show of stretching his back luxuriously as he ignored the gaze of the second Overseer he felt burning into the back of his head.

“My sister?” Berthold asked roughly as he yanked his sword out of the taller Overseer’s corpse and jammed it back into its sheath. His uniform was stained with blood, and his eyes looked wild behind his mask’s golden facade.

“No longer under scrutiny,” Martin replied easily as he bent down to retrieve the fallen Overseer’s mask and measured it against his face. It was a touch too large, but it would have to serve. “The one who brought forth the accusations, her neighbor, will be found to be the real heretic after questioning.”

The younger man exhaled slowly, nodded, and then stooped down to pick up the body of his former brother. Martin felt a brief pang of pity for the man. The Abbey of the Everyman was a cesspit of zealots and opportunists; Martin would bet that Berthold had been the former until his sister came under scrutiny.

Berthold wouldn’t be the last to realize that Overseers never failed to find heretics to burn, regardless of the truth. Martin would have recommended that he take his sister and flee, but he wasn’t one to cast away a useful pawn. If the boy was smart, he’d run regardless.

The lights from Holger Square threw Berthold’s silhouette into sharp relief as the younger man hauled the dead Overseer away. Beyond the gated fence that separated the stockade, Martin could hear the next patrol of Overseers recite the Scriptures. Soon, they would raise the alarm and send the rest of the Abbey compound into chaos.

“Rest well, Campbell,” Martin muttered vindictively. “I’ll be taking that seat from you soon enough.” He slipped on the dead man’s mask and left without another glance. 

“Let us in, Granny!”

Eddie folded his arms and resisted the urge to roll his eyes as Cadmus pounded on the apartment door. He’d rather be back in the Distillery and under the cover of the aged brickwork instead of out in the cold and damp. 

He glanced up at the roiling dark clouds overhead as he pulled a cigar, one of his few remaining Culleros, from his pocket and lit up; if his bad luck continued, Cadmus would keep them all out in the pouring rain harassing a crazy broad instead of picking a juicer collection target. “I bet she can’t even hear us,” Stiggs, who was keeping watch off to the side, complained. Cadmus shot him a dirty look, but he continued his knocking.

“She’s blind, not deaf,” Eddie replied, and took a drag of his cigar. “Not stupid either. We’re wasting our time; she digs in the trash for a living.”

“She knew what she was getting into when she moved into Bottle Street turf,” Cadmus snarled, “Whatever she’s got, Slackjaw gets a cut.”

“Yeah, she’s surely got treasures abound in this dump,” Eddie snarked as he gestured towards the piles of broken ceramic and wood scattered across the street. He’d passed by earlier and witnessed the old woman toss dishes and other garbage from the second story balcony. “Is she even in?”

Cadmus paused, his meaty fist still raised to knock. Stiggs snickered, but he raised his hands in surrender as Cadmus rounded on him angrily. Eddie took another drag on his cigar before he strode forward and shoved the stockier man away from the door. “Hush up, both of you,” he barked, and knelt next to the keyhole. “Lemme see if grandma’s up to receiving visitors.”

The two men grumbled behind his back, but Eddie ignored them as he cupped his hands around the keyhole and listened for Granny Rags. He didn’t have to wait long to hear snatches of a quiet conversation.

“-my my my, dearies, it looks like I have gentlemen callers again,” Granny Rags cooed. Eddie could hear her shuffle back and forth in the hallway beyond the door. “Not the same, not the nice ones, and my dear husband isn’t here to toss these nasty children out.”

“Well, is she in? What’s she saying?” Cadmus blurted out. Stiggs shushed him loudly, and Eddie glared back at the both of them. 

“Crazy broad’s here and she’s talking to someone, but I can’t tell what when you’re both bloody yapping in my ear!” he hissed, and after the two choffers shut their fucking gobs he pressed his ear back to the keyhole.

“-after all, my dear birdies, my handsome black-eyed groom has been so awfully busy lately. Ripples and waves, ripples and waves. So many children run around without guidance from their grandmother. I just want to tell him I’m doing my part. Yes, Granny Rags is doing her part.”

Was the bitch talking to herself? Eddie looked through the keyhole, but Granny Rags had evidently moved on from the building’s hallway to the stairwell and all he could see was the squalid, empty interior of the apartment.

“These poor dears need some presents,” Granny Rags continued, louder this time, “and my little boy needs to hear from his granny. Yes, yes, that’s what I’ll do. Clever, clever boy. When you were here, we made them scream, didn’t we?”

Eddie shuddered at the gleeful malice in the old woman’s voice. He’d grown up hearing tales that Granny Rags was a witch, but many things had been said about the decrepit blind hag over the years. Slackjaw considered her a sad old woman, and before now, Eddie would have agreed with him. 

“-it seems some nasty children are listening at the door, dearies,” Granny cooed, her tone dripping with a dark malice. “Be a sweet and ask them to leave, dear?”

Eddie jerked back from the door and nearly fell back into the dirty street. He didn’t need to press his face back to the door to hear the older woman’s loud cackles echo through the empty building.

“Sounds like she’s in, then,” Cadmus grinned as his hand went to the hilt of his blade. Stiggs had gone pale as Granny Rags continued her unhinged laughter. Eddie met the lankier man’s eyes, and Stiggs shook his head minutely. 

“Listen, Cad,” Eddie started, and lifted his hands in a placating gesture, “let’s just get out of-”

A creak. The three men whirled around as the apartment door handle slowly turned. Eddie’s hand went to the butcher blade at his side as the door slowly creaked open. “You said the door was locked!” Stiggs hissed, whirling on Cadmus.

“It was!” Cadmus replied, a note of panic in his voice as he took a few wary steps back from the door. The stockier man seized the bottle of whiskey hanging from his pouch and pulled out a lighter as Granny’s cackles suddenly died down. Eddie held his breath as an eerie silence descended on the area. A minute passed, and then two.

“Okay,” Cadmus whispered, unable to take his eyes off of the building. “Eddie, you’re right. Let’s get out of here-”

The door suddenly burst open, and Eddie glimpsed dozens of white eyes gleaming from the depths of the darkened hallway before a swarm of plague rats spilled out into the street. 

“Shit, run!” Eddie screamed as the closest rat threw itself forward and took a bloody chunk out of his ankle. He drew his blade and slashed the offending vermin off of him before he turned and bolted. Two larger rats immediately began to snap at his heels with needle sharp teeth, followed by a wave of squirming bodies. Eddie couldn’t turn back, not when he could hear hundreds of legs pattering on the cobblestones behind. 

Stiggs cried out behind him, and he risked a glance back to watch his friend trip and stumble to the ground as he also tried to outrun the swarm. Stiggs screamed as five rats latched onto his legs and began to chew through the cloth and into the flesh beneath, and soon the man vanished beneath the mass of vermin. Eddie covered his ears to drown out the wet, fleshy chewing and cracking sounds as he kept running.

He ran, and ran, and ran. The rats bit and scratched and tore at his legs, but Eddie managed to keep his feet even as his shins, knees, and ankles wept blood. He ran what must have been miles, but the swarm was always there. 

He swore he could see malevolence gleaming in their white eyes as they chased him through the back alleys and streets of Claverling until Eddie finally found a barbed metal fence that separate two alleyways and scaled it, heedless of how the metal ripped his shirt and shredded the skin on his chest and arms. The rats chittered below him as he panted to catch his breath. Eddie could feel the fence’s sharp metal slice bloody lines into his palms, but he refused to let go. If he let go, he would die.

“Eddie, is that you?”

Eddie blinked. When had he closed his eyes? He looked down to see Boo and Rodney gape up at him from the alley below. The rat swarm was gone, and a soft rain petered down on the otherwise quiet street. He took a moment to figure out how to unclench his hands from the sharp fence, and once he let go he toppled bonelessly to the street and landed with a wet thump. He tried to stand up, but failed.

“What the fuck happened?” Rodney demanded as Boo hauled Eddie to his feet. Fresh blood from his newly aggravated injuries left wet smears on the man’s vest and white shirt. “Where’s Stiggs and Cadmus?”

Eddie shuddered dazedly in Boo’s grip. He had to tell them something, something about the rats. Right, Granny Rags. He had to warn them about Granny Rags. The memory of the old woman’s laughter made him shiver.

“Slackjaw,” Eddie gasped as he staggered upright. He tumbled into Rodney’s chest and he desperately seized the man’s shirt lapels with bloody hands. “Please, I need to speak to Slackjaw.”

“Hello, Campbell.”

Campbell’s arm immediately shot for the pistol strapped to his hip, but Corvo was ready. Before the man could get his finger over the stock Corvo seized his hand and wrenched it backwards; his claws dug bloody furrows into Campbell’s skin as Corvo tightened his grip and slammed Campbell down against the floor. The thick, luxurious carpet muffled the heavy thunk of Campbell’s head as it cracked against the floor.

Corvo paused and cocked his head to the side as he knelt on Campbell’s flailing limbs to quiet the man’s wild thrashing. He listened for any sign that the Overseers stationed outside of the doors heard the scuffle, but after a few seconds of tense silence, the doors remained closed.

Campbell had finally gone limp, but Corvo could still feel a faint pulse flutter under his hands. His instincts screamed at him to disembowel the loathsome man. 

It took all his willpower to carry the unconscious Campbell over to one of the dining table chairs instead of snapping his neck or throwing him out of the open window. Corvo’s hands twitched as he dug through the man’s pockets. 

The Office of the High Overseer didn’t simply pass from person to person in this city. As high as they held themselves, the Abbey of the Everyman was a viper’s pit of political maneuvers and backstabs that rivaled the infighting between the Empire’s nobles. Campbell had to have records of his dealings with Burrows stashed somewhere in his stronghold, the seat of his considerable power. The Lord Regent had raised the Warfare Overseers to the same authority as the City Watch, and Campbell would have leverage to keep it that way.

If he couldn’t find Campbell’s records, the conspirators would remain unnamed, and Emily would remain out of his reach. Dunwall was a large city with a long history, and there were a thousand places a child could vanish into and never be seen again. His search efforts netted him a pouch full of coins, but nothing else. Corvo hissed.

If not on his person, then the journal must be in his office, or the Archives just down the hall. He’d stash Campbell somewhere safe and start there. There was also the option of the interrogation room he’d passed on the way to the meeting chambers, but that was the last resort. Corvo doubted he could stop at just asking a few questions, not after his time in Coldridge. 

A crow’s caw startled him out of his spiraling thoughts. Corvo cast around for the source and saw the creature blink its beady black eyes at him from where it perched on the fireplace’s marble mantel. The lit fire below the Void-damned apparition dyed its plumage in a bloody scarlet. When it cawed again, louder this time, Corvo heard the Overseers outside stir and murmur to themselves.

It’s not real, the Heart chided softly, the device suddenly nestled in his free hand. A fragment of time lost, made to mock you.

It sounds real to me, Corvo thought to himself, but he didn’t think arguing with a cursed object was his best choice of action. 

He reached out and dissolved the fireplace rune with a touch. As the carved whalebone faded into ash, the faint ambient sounds of Holger Square snapped into focus. He could hear the steady breaths of the Overseers standing outside, the faint scrabbling of rats in the building’s corridors, and the faint clack of approaching footsteps as a group of people reached the top of the nearby stairs.

Curnow. Shit.

Corvo quickly considered his options. There were three sets of doors leading out of the meeting chamber, but the Overseer guards would hear if he opened them. He could hide in the ceiling hatch again, but Corvo doubted he could fit Campbell up there as well. Where could he hide him?

“Greetings, Guard Captain Curnow,” one of the Overseers outside sneered. “The High Overseer has been expecting you.”

The windows in the meeting chamber were open, but the outside ledges were narrow and if Campbell woke up and panicked, he’d roll off to his death. The dining table lacked a table cloth, so anyone with eyes would spot the High Overseer’s body as soon as they walked in. 

He seized Campbell’s legs and quickly tore off strips of the man’s pants. He bound the High Overseer’s arms and legs together before he gagged the man, just in case. Corvo’s only viable option was to stash Campbell behind the wooden screen that separated the man’s desk from the rest of the chamber. The hiding place was flimsy; if Curnow peeked behind the screen he’d see the High Overseer immediately and raise the alarm, but that was a risk Corvo would have to take.

The meeting chamber doors creaked as a key turned in the lock. Corvo heaved Campbell behind the screen and Blinked back up to the ceiling hatch just in time to watch the doors swing open.

“High Overseer Campbell is already inside,” the Overseer continued, “Your men are to wait in the main hall until the meeting is concluded on the orders of the High Overseer.”

“Very well,” Curnow curtly replied, even as his men murmured protests in the background. “Wilson, Bryce, you heard the Overseer. Wait for me in the main hall; I’ll be back soon.”

Corvo watched through the ceiling hatch as one of the Overseer guards led the City Watch escort back towards the staircase. Only Corvo, Curnow, and one Overseer remained, which were good odds if he needed to fight. 

As Curnow pushed open the double doors, Corvo took the opportunity to observe the man as he entered the meeting chamber. They’d spent several months together traveling to the rest of the Isles for the Empress, and Corvo had found Geoff Curnow to be an earnest, hardworking man loyal in service to the Empress. Curnow was smartly dressed, as was befitting his position as Captain of the Watch, but Corvo could see new patches of gray hair at the man’s temples, and there were dark bags under his eyes. Geoff’s posture was military perfect, but the man faltered once he saw that the chamber was empty. His eyes fell on the tray of drinks and the arranged plates, and his next steps forward were slow and cautiously measured.

“High Overseer Campbell?” Curnow called out tersely, and his hand went to the hilt of his saber when silence greeted him. Corvo had a few moments, if that, before the captain raised the alarm.

He had a choice to make. Curnow’s position put him directly under the Lord Regent’s thumb and in charge of the men who were tasked in hunting Corvo down. Still, the man had been nothing but cordial and professional during their ill-conceived diplomatic mission together. They’d both spoken of their Serokonan heritage; Geoff’s grandfather had entered the Guard after he came to Gristol, and the Dunwall elites had never let Curnow forget about that lineage. They both knew what it was like to face unfair odds and presumptions, and Corvo was desperately short on allies. If he protested his innocence in Jessamine’s assassination, would Curnow believe him? Corvo took a deep breath-

-and made an impulsive decision. Just as he had with Campbell, Corvo silently descended from the ceiling behind Curnow, crept up behind him, and clapped a hand over the man’s mouth to muffle his surprised shout.

“Shhhh,” Corvo hissed quietly as he used his other arm to pin Curnow’s arms to his side and stop his frantic struggling. Curnow’s head jerked to the side as he tried to turn and fight his attacker, and the man’s eyes widened as he got a good look at what exactly had a hold of him. “Cuurrrnowww… it’ssss me.” 

He knew Curnow finally recognized him when the Watch captain stopped struggling and yelling behind the impromptu gag. Corvo pulled his hand away from the captain’s mouth enough to let the man speak.

“Corvo Attano?” Curnow whispered back, his face unnaturally pale. “Lord Protector, is that you? By the Void, what’s happened to you? Where’s Campbell?”

“Ifffff I reeleassee youuuu,” Corvo demanded, and pointedly glanced towards the chamber doors. “Will youuuu rreeemainn qquiet? Will youu hhear me outt?”

After a moment of silence, Curnow nodded sharply.

Corvo slowly released the man’s arms. When Curnow didn’t reach for his sword or shout for help, Corvo cautiously stepped back. Once they stood apart on equal footing, Corvo, now at least a foot taller than Curnow, leaned down so that he could meet Curnow’s judgemental gaze. He grasped his bone charm necklace to ground himself, and he started to speak.

 “Thisss isss the hhonesstt truthhh: I did not kill Jessamine Kaldwin.”

“Let me out, I’m fine!”

He was slowly losing his voice, and with it, his strength. One of the Bottle Street thugs smirked at him from the gap in the boarded up door. “Heard you were running a new sort of business, Griff,” he taunted as he brandished a pry bar menacingly. “Digging up bits of trash is a good way to catch the plague, didn’t you hear?”

Griff clenched his fists and glared helplessly at the grinning gang members. They’d woken him up when they’d nailed the first of the planks across his shop door, and he’d had to watch as they boarded him up inside at gunpoint.

“What do you want?” Griff demanded hoarsely. He’d been shouting for what felt like hours, but no help had materialized. Either he hadn’t been heard or, most likely, any passerby had been scared off by the men outside.

“I’ll make it easy for you, old man,” the man with the pry bar sneered. “Give us all you have right now, and we’ll let you off with a warning. If not, we’ll have to keep you in quarantine until we’re reaallllyy sure you don’t have the plague, understand?”

All the men outside chuckled and exchanged nasty glances. Griff scoffed, but he still retreated into the bare remnants of his former store to duck out of sight and retrieve his stash of coins from a slit in the wall. He looked over his shoulder, and once he was sure the gang outside wouldn’t see him, he slipped several coins back into the hiding place. He was desperate, not stupid. He’d have to go out scavenging again, but he could get through this.

“Hurry up, grandpa,” a Bottle Street member hooted outside. “We don’t have a lot of patience-”

His voice cut off with a faint thump. A second later, Griff ducked down behind one of his empty displays as the boards covering his door shattered into pieces. Wood chips flew everywhere and Griff covered his head to avoid a rain of sharp splinters. A sudden, ominous quiet settled over the street.

Griff, after a minute of waiting for something, anything to interrupt the eerie quiet, shakily poked his head over the display stall. The boarded up door had been thoroughly destroyed and the remnants of the planks lay scattered across his shop floor, but there was no sign of the Bottle Street gang members. He cautiously picked his way over the scattered wooden debris.

The Bottle Street members were gone, as if they’d never been there to begin with. Griff cast about the street, but no one was there. He couldn’t even hear foot traffic from nearby Claverling. 

As he took a hesitant step outside of his shop, his boot clattered against something metallic. Griff looked down and saw a pry bar innocuously sitting in front of the door. He shook his head and tucked his pouch of coins back into his pocket. A mysterious savior who blasted doors and silently vanished several criminals sounded like something out of a children’s fairy tale. Who was he, to be so lucky?

“I don’t know why you helped me,” he called out to the seemingly deserted streets. In all his years in Dunwall, he’d learned to appreciate unexpected blessings found in the city’s mire of overwhelming misery. “...Whoever you are, thank you!” He caught the faintest of footsteps above him, but when Griff looked up, the rooftops and metal balcony above him were empty.