The wagon ride blurred with falling into bed for Cutlery. In the morning she awoke to a small clinking noise. Jim and another sat in the common space outside her room.
The person accompanying Jim was tall with a rough face and glasses. Their hard edges and curves outlined the telltale signs of a sliver or intense training. He still needs glasses, and had a sliver! That would suck, Cutlery thought. He had cards out in front of him.
He was explaining a game to Jim. The lankier man appeared to be nodding along while nodding off. The newcomer glanced at her then glanced away quickly when they made eye contact. He hunched over the cards.
She walked over. Right when Cutlery opened her mouth to speak Jim spun and said, "Cutlery! Just who I have been looking for! I have a friend here to train you for a special task! I'm pretty sure Jake here has the same sliver as you!" Jim's smile was large.
Jake's smile was in some other country far away. His face was empty. He gave a half-hearted wave while eying the wall behind her.
"What is my sliver, or, our sliver?" Cutlery asked. Jim bobbed up and down in his chair.
"Assassin," Jim answered. Cutlery raised an eyebrow at him.
"How come I have never met Jake before?" Cutlery asked.
"Jake is a fourth slive. He's part of our special friendship," Jim said. He waggled his eyebrows and squinted his eyes to emphasize special. Jake must be a rebel then. Jim then said, "Jake has agreed to train you if he gets certain boons when it is all over. Together you two are going to be tasked with taking down a gold, alone." Jim said.
Cutlery looked at him. He was dead serious. Jim was also excited.
"Specifically he will teach you how to dispatch someone, even if they are a sliver, instantly," Jim whispered. Cutlery liked the sound of that. All her troubles came from people fighting back. She nodded in agreement with this plan.
"Which gold?" Cutlery asked. Wrinkles covered Jim's face as he scrunched it up dramatically.
"We are trying to figure out who the most dangerous one is," Jim said through his overthinking face.
"Oh joy." Cutlery said.
"We will just run if it doesn't work in one second," Jake said. His voice was deep and grating like he had just woken up. An asshole voice. Cutlery liked that attitude for an Assassin though.
"Well, I see you two are just kicking it off. Have fun!" Jim said. He vaulted his seat and quickly rushed out. Gone like the wind. Jake looked at her and then at the wall again. This will be fun, Cutlery thought with an internal Sigh. Jake sighed aloud.
Jake asked her if she knew how to play Blackjack. He had learned it from a Wisconian when he was a child. Recently he had picked up how to never lose. Whatever that meant. She took him up on it. After a few rounds of losing she got bored.
"What does this have to do with being an Assassin?" Cutlery asked.
"Nothing. Just fun. We aren't here to learn how to fight. We just kill. That is because we skip the combat part, and do the winning." Jake explained. He stopped talking and cleaned up the cards. It seemed he stopped talking when he was done talking. Unlike most people in Cutlery's experience. He stood up and turned out of the room.
"I am leaving. Come with me." Jake said in the doorway. He looked back into the room and back into the hallway. He just wouldn't look at her. Was he nervous? She couldn't tell. He had an odd mix of confidence and a lack of social skills.
She got up and followed. Jake had started moving already. She caught up to him a. He was flipping a small folding knife of some kind in his hand with soundless ease. It was hypnotizing to watch. When it was folded the knife fit inside his palm. With a few flicks of his fingers, it was three times as long. They reached the training gym a minute later. He pushed his way in.
Inside he pulled out a strip of dry meat and chewed loudly on it. He did not seem to care that she was there. Nor did he look her in the eye. He probably hated her for some odd reason.
"I'm going to teach you where to stab someone so they die," Jake said flatly. He then led her to a corner of the gym. A small handle stuck out of the wall. He pulled it sideways and the wall slid outward and to the side to reveal several oozy dummies.
"Almost all kinds of creatures on Potestatem have a thing called a spine in the back of their neck. If you sever that up high, then they can no longer control their body. This usually results in death." Jake explained flatly. He stabbed one gelly dummy where he had pointed.
"Notice the knife is flat like this. The spine is made up of..." Jake said, and he just went on. Cutlery spent the session getting quick and useful tips. The tips just kept coming. He went on and on about certain scenarios like armor, unique kinds of creatures, and the like. Then suddenly he said,
"That will be all today." He walked out of the gym. It had been thirty minutes. Her head was swimming with his words. Well, it looked like actually applying the lessons was up to her.
-
Swinging her rapier and stabbing with it were two different things. Cutlery could count on one hand how often she had really tried to stab someone. Training fights filled a lot of her time. Real combat was rare for her. So she spent the rest of her morning before lunch stabbing the gelatin dummies. Their oozing wounds sealed quickly. Lunch came around and Cutlery was settling into the stabbing.
After lunch, she kept at it. She aimed for specific parts, tried different weapons, had the dummies angled in different ways, and so on. the precision of it came naturally to her. She found that only the moving targets provided her with a real challenge. The training still felt odd.
While the movement was easy, it did not feel natural. Her sliver seemed to know how to aim an attack, but not her muscles. She wanted that kind of power to be her own, lest it is taken. So Cutlery stabbed away at the gelatin dummies through dinner and into the late evening.
The next day Jake was waiting for her in the common room. He went over what they learned last time and had her answer a few questions.
"What should you stab should your target have their neck protected?" Jake asked. Cutlery thought for a second, she mostly acted in the moment so this was difficult.
"Through the chest?" Cutlery said tentatively. Jake shook his head.
"Eyes. If that doesn't kill them, they will at least be in intense pain and half-blind with blood flowing into their mouth. One eye does quite a number on people's aim." Jake explained. He continued to grill her. Once he was satisfied he moved on.
He unrolled a scroll. It revealed a long list of names, amounts, and effects.
"What is this?" Cutlery asked.
"Poison is the mark of an assassin. It takes resources, careful handling, and precise application to use a poison right." Jake said glumly. He then went over the list of poisons.
It was long. Stuff that paralyzed with a single drop, and things you could dunk someone in a full barrel of that would only disorient them. He then produced a bottle of simple poison. It was green and opaque.
He showed her how to apply it, to a blade, arrow, drink, or food, drip down a string into a sleeping mouth, and many more interesting methods of use. Some poisons clung to blades for days, and others would have to be applied right before use. Memorization coated the entire process.
"Learn the scroll. Remember the ingredients on the other side. Knowing how to make a poison is best. We will be putting this into practice soon." Jake said. Cutlery looked at him and said,
"Like using poison on someone soon?"
"Yes," Jake said. Cutlery waited.
"Whooo," Cutlery asked slowly.
"We will be poisoning a group of three fourth-level slivers that are loyalists to the tower. They are to be promoted to fifths soon. Killing them will free up many slivers for us to use." Jake explained.
