I head into the bar to begin my first assignment, and my new life. Havelock is there reading from what seems to be some sort of journal. He tries to encourage me, saying that “sometimes good men need to do bad things to make the world better”, but I think he realizes both of us see through the bullshit. With that said, he gives me three objectives. My first target is High Overseer Baldy himself. As he announced it, I couldn’t help but grin. In stories like this, the cliché is that the ones most directly involved are the last targets. Unlike those stories, the second-in-command is will be my first. Once the deed’s been done, I’ll need to loot his black book, where he keeps all his blackmail secrets, from his body. The final objective will be to free Martin, an overseer who decided to join up with Havelock’s group. From what the Admiral says, Martin is the brains of this entire operation, so freeing him will get me that much closer to Emily. Neither one of these tasks seems terribly complicated, so I don’t see much reason to worry. Getting their seems like the hard part, but Samuel can get me close enough so that I can do the rest.
Before catching my boat, I take a look at what Havelock was reading. It appears to be a report from one of his spies. The message claims that it’s no coincidence that the Mole took control after Jessy died. No shit, Sherlock! I figured that out almost immediately after it happened. What have you been doing the past six months? Continuing on, the report mentions what are referred to as “Tallboys”, special guards on stilts who are heavily armored, wielding incendiary bolts. I recall the vignettes from my trip to the Void, in particular the one of the stilted guards shooting two innocent civilians. If this text is correct, then the guards in these suits are drugged so that they feel nothing. Let’s hope these guys aren’t terribly commonplace, else I may be in for some trouble.
Since I’ve already stocked myself at Piero’s shop, I head to the boat in order to embark on my mission. Before I reach the vessel, I am stopped by the woman whose voice I didn’t recognize on the audiograph earlier. She introduces herself as Callista Curnow. I recognize her last name, as her uncle Geoff and I go way back. My recollection of Geoff seems to be a crazy coincidence, as her request involves him. My old friend has been invited to The Abbey of the Everyman to speak with Baldy himself. According to Callista’s sources, the High Overseer has ordered a quantity of exotic poisons that are impossible to trace. She suspects that the two facts are related, and fears that her uncle’s life my be in danger. I accept her request and vow to protect her uncle, after all what friend would I be if I let him die, especially to Baldy of all people. Since the poison intended for Geoff is untraceable, I think I know of a good way to kill two proverbial birds with one stone, or in this case switch the target of the stone from one bird to the other. Anyway, it’s about time I departed this place and made myself useful. I speak to Samuel and we head out.
As we touch down near the Distillery District, and out of sight of the City Watch, the boatman primes me on how the area’s changed in recent months. He tells me that the guards and the gangsters have been fighting over the territory for some time. The guards have establish Sokolov’s “Walls of Light” so that non-guard who passes through them is disintegrated. Meanwhile, the Bottle Street Gang has taken control of the Distillery, likely where Slackjaw is making his diluted plague elixir. Lastly, Granny Rags has recently appeared in the fringes, and who knows what the old hag is thinking. This information will no doubt come in handy.
Before I begin to pursue Baldy, I move away from Samuel, who has taken up camp nearby so that I can make a quick escape, and pull out the Heart. It points me to two Bone Charms and two Runes in the area. The closest thing to my location is a Bone Charm in the guard tower on a small island outcropping nearby. There are watchmen on the bridge dumping the bodies of plague victims, so I’ll have to swim around into order to get to it. When I pull myself out of the water, I see that the Bone Charm is out of my reach. Then, I spot a chain with which I can pull myself up towards it. Rather than risk the jump, I Blink onto the ledge. The Bone Charm is next to a body and a pouch containing 100 Coins. This charm has the effect of tricking rats into thinking I’m one of them until I get closer, so I hook it to one of the holes in my belt.
Once more, I follow the Heart to a Rune nearby, swimming back to shore and walking down the streets to get to it. One guard doesn’t even notice as I creep directly behind him and back into the shadows, until he returns to his patrol route. Rather than chance future encounters, I Blink to the top of a nearby pillar and decide to take to the rooftops as long as I am able. On the rooftops rafters overlooking the streets, I see a gangster’s corpse on a rooftop, apparently keeping watch for Slackjaw until he died. Next to him was a pouch of money that I decide to take with me. It was then I saw Granny Rags herself, talking about feeding the birds. It should come as no surprise that her squat happens to be the one with Poncy’s Rune in it. If I’m careful, I can in and out of here before she even realizes. Sneaking past her, I notice that the Rune sits atop a shrine to the ponce himself. Taking it from the shrine is enough to summon him into this world because apparently he’s so interested in speaking at me. He tells me things less about Granny Rags than I already know, then wonders out loud how I intend to take out the High Overseer. It’s amazing how dull chaos incarnate can be.
I take a moment to plunder a couple of heirlooms from this shack before I finally leave once and for all. Even if Granny Rags finds them missing, she didn’t see me and no one will pay attention to her, so no matter what I’m in the clear. I cross through Bottle Street on my way to the Abbey on John Clavering Boulevard. On my way over, the Heart once again starts to beat. It pinpoints a Bone Charm located in a nearby house, but going for it seems to be a less than wise idea. There’s a man being blockaded by two members of the Bottle Street Gang looking for their extortion fee. I can take care of them by summoning rats. However, if I want to get to that Charm, I’ll need to expose myself to the man inside. He’ll likely get grateful to me for rescuing him, but under the interrogation he might crack, so while I feel sorry for him, I have to ignore his pleas for help.
But just because I can’t help him, doesn’t mean I won’t do anything to the Bottle Street Gang in response to this outrage. Instead of heading to Clavering Boulevard, I make a split second decision to take a detour over at Slackjaw’s distillery. As usual, I take to the rooftops on my way there. And, as I’ve come to expect, the Heart starts beating once again, indicated the presence of a Bone Charm. I see a key on the belt of one of the guards. Assuming I’ll need this key, I wait on the rooftop until just the right moment. As I wait, I hear a group of nearby guards mention Daud, which gets my attention. Sadly, they don’t know anything I’m not already privy to. When the guard with the key goes to relive himself on a nearby tuft of grass, I Blink down behind him, nab it, and then quickly make my way into the distillery proper. Aside from those two guards at the front door, the entrance is barren. They have a locked gate barring direct access to the control room, but the key I nabbed renders it moot. Once there, I steal Slackjaw’s recipe for the diluted elixir as some strange form of revenge for the poor guy back on Bottle Street. Thankfully, Slackjaw runs with the type of people who would do something like that, so he’ll likely blame his staff. And it’s not like criminals are known for calling the City Guard.
I decide to nab the Bone Charm and then make my way out. The door to the room containing the Charm is being watched, so I take to the top of the some nearby pipes and wait for the patrols to pass before entering. Since I don’t know the guard routes in here, I am relived to find that the Bone Charm is onto of the rafters, so I can hide there for a bit. This one has the power to boost my speed while sneaking, so I immediately attach it to my belt. After the guard below me passes, I make my way through the distillery room back into the warehouse area. With haste, I Blink back into the control room before someone looks in my direction and slip back to the entrance. From there, heading onto the roofs and back onto Bottle Street in trivial.
Sneaking back onto the roofs, I utilize my powers to make it onto Clavering Boulevard. From my vantage point on a nearby balcony, I can see a Wall of Light under in the stone archway on the route to the abbey. Above it is a sign that I know comes from the Mole himself, saying that “The Boldest Measures are the Safest”. It’s amazing how paranoid one man can be. Rather than take a direct approach, I look around the area for an alternate pathway. Remembering the powers I have at my disposal, I have the idea to Blink onto a light fixture above the archway. Though the move could be seem as rather reckless, it worked, and soon I’m on the roof of the archway, above the Wall of Light. As I complete my maneuver, I hear a couple of guards scream. I jumped, not sure if they saw me or not. Luckily, they were being devoured my ravenous mutant plague rats. One of them shook it off, then other is too chewed up to be recognizable.
After that brief amusement, I blink onto a nearby lamppost and again to another condemned building that has the look of a seedy hotel. This new rooftop gives me direct view of the entrance to the Abbey, but something else gets my attention. I look down at a small guard post and the Heart begins to beat in my pocket. Taking it out, it shows me that inside that post is a Rune. With a running start, I jump forward and Blink onto the roof of the post. Fortunately, there’s a hatch on the roof that leads directly to the Rune, so I drop, quickly seize it, and teleport behind a section on cover on a nearby awning. In order to make suspicion low, I make it back on to roof to close the hatch before retreating back into my cover. Since no one will see me from here, I take this time to strengthen my powers. With my mind’s eye, I envision my new ability. I see me, leaping into the air in order to get to someplace high up. Normally, I wouldn’t be able to do so, but I see myself leaping again, seeming to push off the air itself, in order to gain extra height on my jump. Pouring the energy of the 2 Runes I’ve obtained here into this vision, I feel my abilities strengthen. From this point, I teleport passed the guards and stroll up to entrance of Holgar Square, where I’ll find the Abbey of the Everyman, and my first target….
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