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The Vestra Aqueduct
The vista view of Allira was spectacular. So spectacular that even the lone shadow of a thief had to stop in her tracks, and take it all in.
At daybreak, Alliria's gargantuan walls veritably glowed, white and uniform. But at night, their radiance morphed into silver. The full moon cast a glimmering edge to each spire and balustrade, as if they sought to rival the stars. Veins of imprisoned starlight funnelled into the city via its grand aqueducts, flowing like quicksilver.
Alicia stood on one of those tall, arched aqueducts, boots firmly planted on either side of its canal. The Vestra Aqueduct led all the way from the south-west of Alliria Reach, piercing through each layer of the metropolis: Cresting arrogantly above the slums, imposing gateways in the packed plazas of the Outer City streets, before finally ending in the Inner City, where it faded into obscurity among the much grander architecture. For much of its twenty mile path, it didn't share any water. Instead, it exclusively distributed its supply in the Inner City.
To the average citizen, it served little purpose. But to someone of Alicia's inclination, it provided a perfect gateway to these paradisal stone gardens. A road unobstructed by gatehouses or walls, minimally guarded. Its main danger remained the act of scaling it.
And now, it had led her to here. The Aeon Plaza - currently little more than a construction site. As she tore her gaze away from the vista view, she crouched on the edge, peering down.
The cobbled plaza looked like a volcanic crater, spewing cobblestones and loosened earth instead of magma. Impressive stone mansions and houses surrounded it, but an encapsulating palisade of wood marred its features.
The Merchant House Iskander was developing this plaza. Part of that development involved the Aeon Cistern, a grand complex of water storage built underground. And since construction could take a while, one particular nobleman behind the project had decided to store some of his rich valuables in the cistern, including the Eyes of Tathras, a pair of rubies supposed to be as large as human skulls. No doubt he had run out of space in his home, and simultaneously, he could dazzle patrons and friends by making his construction project look a little more grand with his collection.
She unfolded a weathered map from an inner pocket of her cloak and consulted it.
According to her tip, there were two ways in. The first and obvious one remained the stairs built by the street masons, leading down by a ciruclar stairway from the worksite to the cistern. Only problem was the guards that House Iskander might have loitering around their site, protecting their work equipment.
The other, more circumvent route was down through the castellum - the building where the water gathered into a main basin before being distributed to fountains, baths and mansions in the area. The pipes to the cistern should still be undergoing work. As long as that remained the case, they could fit a human.
Alicia stuffed the map back in its place and let the folds of her cloak envelop her again. A long exhalation left her, nearly funnelled into a drawn-out whistle. The hardest part of any job was to start it. In many ways, it felt like jumping off a cliff. Once she had begun, there was no turning back, no time to reconsider, only time to work around the situation at hand. But the first plunge always took some persuasion.
She unhooked her wieldy and enhanced crossbow from her back. Cranking a small lever, its reinforced arms snapped out, so oiled they hardly made a sound. Her hand hooked backwards and found the lid to her quiver, unclasping it. There, her fingers brushed over feathers of different colours - but by now, she could tell each bolt and its purpose from the texture of the feather itself. Once she found the smooth and distinctly stiff quality of a goose feather, she pulled it free and closed her quiver again.
This bolt connected to a rope tied at her waist. Unhooking the rope into a neat pile and placing the bolt in her chamber, Alicia took sights on a nearby building. A building with a wooden beam above its balcony.
A quiet shot, and the rope grew taught. She tested if the broad arrowhead had pierced the wood thoroughly and sunk its steel teeth deep enough, pulling in the rope. It held.
Moments later, she scaled the aqueduct on the other side of her rope, the line crossing half the plaza and the aqueduct. Fortunately, few people ever deigned to look up.
Aeon Plaza
Descending to the bottom, she allowed the rope to remain dangling by the wall, should she need a quick escape. Her thumb pulled up her mask to her nose, revealing only her gray eyes, dissecting the worksite for any threats.
Surprisingly, she saw no guards. Not a single soul.
Peculiar. But not unwelcome. Still, she wouldn't risk the stairs - there could still be guards there. She went for the doors to the castellum as originally planned, a part of the very column she had just descended.
Quickly enough, she found a door. Predictably, it was locked.
She sighed wearily, and knelt down, hoisting out her satchet of lockpicking tools. But just as she had put in her tension rod and pick, her fingers froze mid-action.
There was a sound coming from below. Faint, but just there. Music. From the stairway she had neglected to use. Alicia grumbled quietly to herself and glanced over her shoulder. She hated lockpicking. It always left her exposed to creeping danger.
The swelling of a violin, it sounded like. Perhaps a lute or two. And drums. Like a spectral orchestra playing from some deep netherrealm, beckoning her to join them. A shudder went through her at the thought. She thought she could even smell faint smoke and cooked meat
No visible guards, but some manner of festivities, then. This did not bode well. She had planned for a few, vigilant eyes, not a host of drunken fops. But so long as they drank deep, they would be none the wiser.
Charming the lock, Alicia slipped inside the door and into the darkness of the castellum. She let her outstretched hands guide her in the pitch blackness, slowly creeping her way to the tunnels that would take her deeper into the cistern , , , and closer to the sounds of music and warm light, beckoning her in this realm of cold, damp stone.
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