Enigma of Sin

As Kayn entered into the shadows of the academy so that he could sneak out, he activated a couple spells that he had come up with to fully enter Stealth. These were spells that he had to sustain, but they were such high efficiency spells that he was gaining back as much mana as he used by just breathing, his Demonic Dragon Heart was working its magic.

With the combination of the Garments of the Shadow Phoenix set options and his own spells, there was no way for anyone at or below his current strength to find him unless they had some special artifact, at least if he remained in the dark.

One spell covered his scent using wind, one covered his heat signature using ice, and one would bend any trace amounts of light around him even when he was in the dark. Lastly, the most intensive spell that required a bit more concentration was a spell that attracted the ambient mana in the air to surround his body and hide the natural mana aura that all mages would let off.

He took his time getting out of the academy as this was his first time trying to sneak out and back in like this. Truthfully, he should have tested it out before, but after limit testing with Charlotte, he was quite confident.

If one could see him moving in the darkness, it would only look like something flitting through their eyesight. He was moving quite quickly, even if this was him taking it slow. Once he reached outside the academy, he would boost his speed as much as possible. Palatine was massive, and he would need to travel quickly in order to make it around the city in one night since he wasn't about to fly.

He was expecting to reach the Black Hand Society, join, and pick up a contract tonight. He didn't expect to be able to make any progress towards the actual target though. He planned to do reconnaissance, rest, and explore the city during the day and then begin hunting once the sun began to set.

Kayn had made a promise to spend time with Kinzie during his break, so he set his sights on closing maybe two contracts. If he was able to take more than one contract in the same area at a time, that would be the only case he would commit to more than one.

Obviously, he knew that assassination and performing contracts was new to him. He didn't want to set high expectations for himself as this wasn't something he had really done before. Sure, he sneaked his way around a bandit camp to find Kinzie, but he still ended up getting found out.

Kayn had been warned that the Black Hand Society was quite strict when it came to collateral damages. He was allowed to eliminate anyone that directly impacted his contract, but going out of his way to kill all of the guards or causing a major scene that called upon the city authorities was a no no, especially while the assassination was still taking place. Any of these situations would cause a reduction in payout and less freedom picking contracts.

Their goal was to get in, kill the target, and get out. No more, no less. The more successful assassinations one performed without causing any uproars or performing actions outside the scope of the job, the faster one could move up in ranks and receive more freedom of contract selection.

Kayn was able to easily leave the academy much to his surprise. Simply climbing up the walls that surrounded it and jumping over wasn't as hard as he thought it would be. Though, due to Charlotte, he had taken all of the precautions in order to not set off any alarms that would typically go off at the slightest disturbance.

Once he was outside the academy, he instantly brought his speed up a notch, jumping from roof to roof and even utilizing a new trick with the wind element that he learned in order to create a very temporary solid spot underneath his foot so that he could run in the air.

He decided to stick to the roofs of buildings as it was highly mana inefficient to run in the air with that spell for long periods of time.

Not to mention, the moon was bright tonight and he would probably be easily spotted by someone with the moon as his backdrop. Bright moonlight was a downside to the set bonuses, but it still enabled him to be more concealed than if he was in direct sunlight.

To Kayn's luck, he didn't have to travel into the outer ring of Palatine to reach the Black Hand Society's headquarters. Or at least the branch office he was told about. He expected their actual headquarters was hidden somewhere in the inner ring.

He soon arrived at a beautifully decorated and designed monument to the city's founding revolutionaries. He had to walk around the area for a bit to find what he was looking for, but eventually spotted it. A small, almost unnoticeable black hand with a vertical eye in the middle of the palm, carved intricately into the calf of one of the statues.

If one wasn't looking for it or at the statue closely, it would be missed 100% of the time as it blended into the details that were original parts of the statue. Taking a quick look around so that no one saw him, he moved exactly 10 steps west of the statue, and shifted one of the stone tiles that made up the ground and hopped into the hole below.

He walked down a dimly lit hallway only to find a single door at a dead end. Behind the door was a room lit by several lights that were powered by mana. This room had no other entrances or exits that he could see, only the one he came in through.

Sitting in the middle of this room behind a desk was an old man who was yawning while writing things on the several documents in front of him.

Kayn was amazed as he couldn't tell whether this man was a mage or not. He was also surprised by the lack of security around this place. How had this not been taken care of by the city guards yet? Or maybe they knew, but just didn't care?

"Odd getup for someone applying for a trash cleaning position," the man spoke as he poked fun at Kayn's all black appearance and mask. He then grabbed a rolled-up parchment from underneath his desk, and threw it over to Kayn.

"Here's the application. Now get out of my face, I have a lot of work to do." The old man spoke as he waved towards the exit while he focused back on the documents before him.

Kayn thought that maybe, just maybe, he got something wrong with the instructions he was given, but he didn't bother arguing with the old man and walked back out the door he had come in. Only when he closed the door did he open up the parchment to try and understand what was going on.

There was a drawing that looked like a map, but it also just looked like scribbles to Kayn as he didn't recognize any of it. Below the drawing was a single sentence, "Report to the supervisor of the site denoted on the map and hand them this parchment to apply."

It was now that Kayn spotted the spot marked with a very small X shape on the drawing, but what stumped him was how to interpret it. Kayn didn't want to be caught off guard here by someone else, so he quickly placed the parchment into his spatial sash and exited the hole that he entered through after clicking a small button on the wall that would move the tile out of place.

The tile moved on a very short timer, closing the hole back up almost as soon as Kayn had jumped out. He then moved to the top of the highest building in the area and placed the Wanderer's Villa on the roof. He had the invisibility formations active already, so this would serve as his mobile home for a while.

Once he was inside, he removed his mask and entered into the study. He had to figure out what this drawing meant. Charlotte had no information on this or else she would have given it to him. Perhaps her knowledge was just outdated?

For the rest of the night, Kayn used various methods to try and figure things out. He matched up the drawing in several different orientations to a map of Palatine, but that didn't lead to anything fruitful. He adjusted the light to various different levels, carefully wiped different chemicals onto small parts of it, but no matter what he tried, nothing worked.

Kayn had almost given up and was flailing the paper around in the air with his hands when he suddenly felt a slight sting on his finger. His eyes widened as a small amount of blood came out of a cut and was absorbed by the edge of the parchment that caused it.

"This isn't possible. My body receiving a paper cut? That's just not possible, how did this piece of paper cut my skin?" Kayn spoke out loud since he was alone, talking to himself did help him figure things out after all.

He watched as the small cut on his finger healed quite quickly. He began staring at the piece of paper that cut him and seemingly absorbed his blood, and he finally had an idea. He withdrew one of the Shadow Points on his bandolier and made a swift cut to his finger once more.

He squeezed the spot on his finger and began dripping blood onto the middle of the drawing on the parchment. After repeating this process a few times as these small wounds healed too quickly, he watched in awe as the scribbled drawing changed into that of the crest belonging to the Black Hand Society.

Once the entire parchment had absorbed some of his blood into it, the words below the drawing also changed. "Congratulations on meeting initial qualifications of a trash collector! Please bring this parchment back to the one that gave it to you, then you will continue the process."

Kayn couldn't stop from cursing the old man. Kayn understood why this was necessary, but he was in a hurry and this was just a massive waste of time. Instead of finding some other place as denoted on the 'map', he just had to return to the old man and give him the parchment back.

"Let's hope that tomorrow I can make actual progress towards my goal. What a waste of a night." Kayn lamented as he changed his clothing in order to wake up Lara, feed her, and go about his day exploring the middle ring.