I understood perfectly fine why my race made for quite a few horror stories. We were masters of the night while humans were basically blind. This made me something to fear, even though I didn’t necessarily need to have any bad intentions. Like with the guards of the mansion for example. I could notice them from miles away, even though they tried to stay silent, and simply evaded them while making sure to cover up my own traces. Certainly, some people could track the traces I wasn’t able to hide, but Mary already told me that all the guards lived inside the city and probably weren’t capable of such a feat.

And so, I climbed the iron fence like a monkey and jumped down on the other side. I looked around once more and then simply strolled down the street without hurry. The streets were largely deserted wich a few carriages that rumbled away from the royal palace as exceptions. I had to admit I was a bit suspicious, but there was nothing illegal in going around, wearing completely black clothing. A few guards saw me and kept staring at me, but none of them tried to check me or anything. Thus the wall appeared after half an hour of walking down the street and I immediately turned left in front of the gate.

Luckily for me, there were a lot of different trees planted along the wall on the inner side which made it incredibly easy to climb the obstacle without the need of breaking into a tower. It was still safer to use the stairs though, so I soon found myself lock picking a wooden door that blocked the entrance to a staircase.

The staircase was completely empty and led me to the top of the wall in a tight, circular fashion. The upper door wasn’t locked, so I opened it a gap wide and listened to the sounds of two guards, conversing as they leaned onto a merlon. Annoyed, I leaned onto the wall and waited for them to move away for several minutes. As expected, they parted ways after ten minutes and each went in a different direction. I waited a bit until I opened the door slightly more, wincing as it creaked loudly and squeezed myself out of the gap. I shut the door behind me again, only to crouch in the direction of the other side of the wall. Going back this way was a bit harder as there was a larger patch of neglected grass in front of it. I wouldn’t be able to climb up this way, so I did have to find another way back except to use the document Mary gave me.

Using Mary´s letter was fine for a while, but I seriously didn’t want to overdo it. I looked around one last time until I placed one hand on the merlon, swung my legs above it and fell down on the other side. As I was travelling with light luggage, I had no trouble cushioning the impact on the ground, despite the hight of the wall.

I quickly ran away from the wall and ran through the streets, using the compass to go further and further east. A good ten minutes later, I stood in front of a tavern and headed towards a slightly less drunken man.

“Hi. I need to go to the red light district. Can you give me some pointers on how to get there?” He looked at me with amazement. Sure, my attire was a bit more revealing than my usual ones as he had full vision of a portion of my thigh, but otherwise … I just hoped I didn’t look like a whore with my body age.

“Girl, you don’t need to go there. I have a few spare coins as well.” I chuckled slightly, but my blood was boiling. He seriously offered payment to sleep with a child. I knew that anyone above thirteen was considered an adult here and even before that, there weren’t any restrictions on any kind of child labour, including whoring. This alone sickened me and being put into the same drawer with harlots wasn’t exactly a pleasing experience. I gritted my teeth in anger but returned to smile shortly afterwards.

“The red-light district?” I asked nicely once more.

“Fine … if you head down the ‘Spannerstreet’ there to your left, you will find it if you walk for half an hour.” Wow, I didn’t expect the change of heart. I thought he was trying to pressure me into spending the night with him, but I may have misjudged the man. Even though his eyes radiated with lust, he didn’t try to make a move on me.

“Thank you very much.” I was still angry though and thus didn’t pay him for the information he provided. Being able to see me should have been enough payment anyway. I quickly turned around and left him alone with his beer outside the tavern.

I soon found the street he was talking about and entered it. It was a large street, wide enough for several carriages to pass by at the same time. There were obviously quite a few shops and taverns at the wayside. I was growing more and more disgusted though with the choice of their wares. The taverns were still fine, although some questionably dressed women stood outside and regularly talked to the pedestrians. The shops though … were getting weirder and weirder with each step I took. In the beginning, they were selling a few mild things like lingerie and a few cuffs maybe which was fine, I guess … until they straight up sold sex toys. Well … guess what shops I would never visit? My hand began to itch a bit which already showed me I should get to my destination sooner than later.

I turned to one of the younger harlots and approached her, wearing a friendly smile.

“Hey, honey.” Oh no … now I had to think about her whenever Mary called me that. “How can I help you?” At least she didn’t assume I was here for her services.

“Oh, I´m searching for ‘The Red Baron’.”

“Uhh … and I hoped you … well, whatever. There is a road a few kilometres down this way. I think it´s called … I forgot, you should see the building though, it has red roof tiles.” I looked around at the other buildings and noticed their roof tiles were mostly brown. I smiled brightly, handed her a silver coin out of my purse and said goodbye. She was visibly happy with her payment, although I suspected she wanted to sleep with me as well, but rather as a customer. Just the thought of sleeping with a woman, or rather with anyone gave me the creeps though …

And so I ran away from her, sprinted down the large street and looked around at every crossroad. Quite a few minutes later, I spotted ‘The Red Baron.’, a three-storey tall, wide house, completely build out of stone. The roof tiles were obviously red, along with the majority of stones used to construct this building. This establishment was probably of the higher quality as quite a few carriages parked on the wayside near it. None of them had any family crests on them for obvious reasons. Nobody wanted to admit that their own wedlock was miserable and divorcing … well, you were either lucky that your partner died an early death or helped out a bit as divorce was strictly forbidden, at least for the nobles. One of the customers was just coming out while I already regretted coming here.

“Oh, please god of lightning, cleanse this place with your heavenly fire.” I mumbled under my breath as the customer looked at me embarrassed. If he had children, it could very well be that they shared the childish appearance with me, which probably made it very awkward for him to look at my face. Sighing, I went past him and opened the red door, only to be met by a horrendous stench. Sure, going by the deeds done in this house, scenting was definitely necessary, but this brothel smelled worse than that. Way too much perfume, the scent of sweat and stuff I didn’t even want to think about lingered in the air, torturing my sensitive nose.

And so, I did the only thing that wouldn’t come over as disrespectful to the woman behind the counter and simply stopped breathing. I still made sure to move my shoulders, but otherwise, everyone could now spot that I wasn’t breathing if they looked really closely. For talking though, I still had to breathe through my mouth, at least somewhat.

“How can I help you?” The woman asked with a friendly smile. I quickly pulled the letter out of my neckline … don’t judge me, it was incredibly rare to find dresses with any large pockets … and presented it to her. She didn’t bat an eye as I did so and stood up from her chair. “Follow me please.”

She guided me through a hallway, opened a door and showed me a stair, leading downwards in a cellar. I already saw the light flickering from upstairs and thus, quickly descended the stairs without the woman.  

“I asked you to buy as many high-class brothels and a shelter, not a brothel with a shelter you dumbass!” I shouted the moment I spotted Tom, sitting at a table and reading a finance book. He looked back at me dumbly, blinked a few times and then realized who I was. My right eyelid twitched as I struggled to contain my boiling anger.

He made me go inside a brothel, a capital offence in my opinion. And although there wasn’t any weird … stuff on my hand yet, it could still happen at any moment. The stench of sweat permeated through the air and even he smelled like it, making me even angrier. How the heck was I going to punch him now?