The Guild (Chapers one/two)

because this is told from four different third person perspectives, it gets kind of confusing if not read together, so don't take long breaks in between reading chapters.

Cody (Sanguine)

[spoiler]Cody crouched silently in the dead grass, and looked worriedly up at the house on the hill.  His hands shook as he pulled a curved knife and a tiny bottle of poison from his satchel.  This was it.  This was the moment when he would finally pass his training.  All he had to do was assassinate someone.  How hard could that be?  Still, his breathing only became shallower as he applied the poison to the knife.  What had before seemed like mere speculation was now reality.  Three drops, the contractor had said.  Three drops.  Any less won't be fatal, and any more is just a waste.  Cody had never dealt with poison before, and as he crept stealthily towards the house, a part of him worried that he might accidentally cut himself and die before he even saw his target.  How foolish he'd look then! 

               Cody put the thought out of his mind and peered through a window into the house.  Inside, twenty people sat at a long table, their raucous laughter audible even from the outside.  Cody almost felt bad about going through with the killing, because the party really did seem like fun, and everyone looked to be having a great time.  Nevertheless, Cody had no love for rich people, and wouldn't mind taking some down a notch or two.

                The first problem he encountered was getting in.  the only two visible entrances were the front door and this window.  For obvious reasons, the former was out of the question, so Cody began working on the lock that held the window shut.  To his dismay, there was no way to pick it, as it had no key, and the lever to open it was on the inside.  Still considering his other options, Cody picked up a rock.  "I'm going to regret this, I just know it..."  he mumbled to himself as he pulled the pulled the material of his cloak around his face, and tied it so that it covered all but his eyes.

                With a deafening crash, the window shattered, and the rock found its way into the soup bowl of an unsuspecting party guest with a loud plop.  Cody held his breath to keep from laughing at the horrified expressions of the men sitting at the table, and instead restricted himself to a broad grin which he hid behind his cloak.  Having followed the stone, Cody was now crouched just inside the enclosure, with bits of broken glass still protruding from his robe.  All eyes in the room focused directly on him.  Well, I hadn't planned to be this dramatic about my entrance, but now that it's done, I might as well just run with it, Cody thought to himself.

                "Who among you goes by the name, Lord Tiberon?"

                The man sitting at the far end of the table stood and responded.

                "Who wants to know?"

                Cody grimaced behind his cloak.  He hadn't thought this far.

                "It is I, a... a messenger!  I bring an urgent message for Lord Tiberon."

                "You're speaking to him, now deliver your message and tell whoever sent you that they'll need to pay for that window."

                Cody relaxed, and began to walk towards his target.

                "See, I thought you might be Tiberon, given that you're sitting at the front of the table, and it's usually common practice for the host to sit there, but it still could have been that skinny old guy at the other end."

                Lord Tiberon's mouth hung open, and he stuttered a few times before he could bring himself to answer. 

                "That skinny old guy is my uncle, and he is sitting there because he is my esteemed guest.  You have now both insulted him and gotten glass shards in his meal, so I hope you're happy messenger."

                "If he's so esteemed, why isn't he at your right hand?  Isn't that the custom in these lands?"

                The Lord scoffed, unsure how to handle this kind of insubordination from a messenger.

                "My brother sits at my right hand.  He is equally as esteemed as my uncle."

                Cody had now reached his target, but was too interested in the conversation to kill him just yet.

                "It would seem to me that the guy sitting right next to you is just a little bit more esteemed than the guy sitting all the way over there, where you don't have to talk to him or look at him.:

                The aforementioned uncle shot a dirty look at his nephew.

                "How dare you!"  Lord Tiberon spat.  "Deliver your message and leave at once, lest you taste the steel of my guards!"  The two men standing at the door placed their hands on their swords menacingly.

                "The message,"  Cody announced, "is from the assassin's guild!"

                As he said this, he drew the knife from his cloak dramatically and raised it above his head.  To his horror, Cody realized that he could not move the hand that held the dagger.  For about three seconds, no one moved.  It was not until Cody looked behind him that he saw why he was paralyzed.  Firmly clasped around his wrist was the large hand of one of the guards, who was now trying to wrench the knife from his grasp. 

                Cody began to panic and let his training take over.  No longer focusing on the future, he let the situation move him and delivered a swift elbow to the guard's nose.  With a split second of respite from the man's grip, Cody seized his target's hand and slid the knife along it.  Having been sharpened obsessively before its use, the knife cut very deeply, even with barely any pressure behind it.  The poison must be in his system now, Cody thought as he ducked to evade a sword swung at his neck.  With the knowledge that his target was done for,  Cody dived through the nearest door and found himself in a long narrow kitchen. 

                The multitude of cooks looked surprised as Cody ran towards them, but posed him no threat.  That is, of course,  until the guards behind him burst into the room with shouts of 'Kill the assassin!'.   All at once, two of them raised frying pans and the other three brandished knives.  Cody didn't have time to revel in his misfortune and continued to run, vaulting over a countertop to dodge and attack by a frying pan full of broccoli.  He almost laughed as the broccoli flew in every direction, but had the laughter bludgeoned out of him when a knife wielding cook slammed him against the wall.  In one fluid motion, he moved his head to avoid being stabbed and spilled a dish full of steaming sauce all over the floor.  Horrified at the ruination of his sauce, the cook loosened his hold on Cody's shoulders and by the time he regained his composure, Cody had already used the now slippery floor to slide himself in between the cook's feet and gotten one step closer to the exit.  Performing an elaborate flip over the shoulders of the final cook, he reached it, and crashed through into the next room.

                Cody immediately regretted not leaving the same way he entered.  The room he now found himself in was clearly some sort of sitting room, but it also appeared to be the room where all of the guests at the dinner party had left their bodyguards.  Surrounded and outnumbered, Cody pulled the bloody knife from his robe and backed up until he was pressed against a wall.

                "Tell us who sent you, and we'll take you alive,"  called one of the guards who had chased him since the dining room.  Cody noticed that the section of wall behind him was actually a large window, and peered through it to the river below, weighing his options.

                "Don't even think about it, it's got to be at least twenty metres high, and that river is pretty shallow,"  Said one of the guards,  "You'd never survive the fall."

                Cody observed the guards gradually getting closer as they talked, so he made his decision before it

was too late.  With his dagger raised, he charged at them.  When he had enough space to gain the proper momentum, the boy doubled back and dived through the window, falling amidst a shower of bloodstained glass.[/spoiler]

Myra (Phlegmatic)

                [spoiler]Myra limped along the dimly lit tunnel, her bruised hip still hurting from where she had fallen on it.  She as glad that her journey had finally come to an end, but the prospect of relief was not enough to keep her from cursing at the tunnel.  "Whoever designed this stupid thing clearly wasn't injured when they decided to make it this long,"  she grumbled, knocking on the wooden trap door above her head.

                "How does one enter?"  a voice asked from behind the door.

                "Still.  As the ground."

                "Name?"

                "Myra, assassin third class."

                She instinctively saluted as she said this, her training still fresh in her mind.  After ten or fifteen seconds, the door opened, and the doorman offered her a hand.  Still frustrated at how long it took for him to open it, Myra ignored his hand and pulled herself up, using the ladder rungs on the wall.

                "Did you have a good hit?"

                Myra sighed.  "I guess you could call it that.  I mean, I got him if that's what you're asking."

                "Just making conversation Miss,"  the man said, unnecessarily polite, like all the servants at the

manor.

                The indoor grounds were spectacular as always.  Unseen from outside its tall walls, the manor boasted fountains, botanical gardens, and to Myra's delight, a bar, free of charge to any guild member.  Ignoring the spectacles of the manor's campus, she headed straight for it.

                "Myra!"  cried a girl's voice, "It's great to see another phlegmatic.  How have you been?"

Myra recognized it as one of the nine others she had trained with.  At only twenty two, she was the youngest not only out of the phlegmatic, but out of all forty assassins.

                "Hi Katie, I've been great.  At least, I was great until my target swept out my legs and tackled me to a stone floor."

                Katie cringed.  "Did you get him though?"

                "Yep.  Reverse headlock.  Took him a while to go down, but I got him alright."

                "Well that's good.  I just came back from my second hit,"  Katie said, taking a sip of some sort of tropical cocktail.

                "Wow,"  exclaimed Myra, genuinely surprised,  "It's only been like a week since graduation."

                "I know,"  Katie responded, lovingly rubbing the green tattoo on her wrist,  "But you should see some of the others.  Madison just got here the other day and she's about to leave for her fourth.  The girl's a damn machine."

                Myra thanked the bartender as he gave her the whiskey.  She stared at her glass as she asked the next question, so that Katie couldn't read her expression.

                "Is Jason here?"

                "No.  but you shouldn't be hanging out with that choleric boy anyway.  He's your competition now.  Plus, you heard what councilman Norman said, 'prolonged exposure to the other classes is unhealthy',  it'll undo our training."

                Myra took a sip of whiskey and slammed the glass down on the bar, abandoning all pretense of nonchalance.  "I can see who I want to see, and you have no right to tell me to stop."

                Katie smiled, her eyes wide.  "It's more than just hanging out isn't it?  This is a serious thing, am I right?"

                Myra rolled her eyes and crossed her arms.  "Well don't go telling everyone about it,"  She said.  "We're trying to keep it low key, and if you're lecturing me on the rules, God knows what the council will do."

                "Alright, alright,"  Katie said, putting her hands in the air in a way that almost seemed sarcastic.  "I won't tell anyone about it.  But if you want my opinion, it's a bad idea, and it will only land you in trouble."

                "Next time I want your opinion,"  Myra said, downing her drink to dull the pain in her hip,  "I will ask."

                "Good hunting,"  Katie called from the bar to her departing classmate.

                "Good hunting."

                Myra passed her contractor on the way to her new dormitory.

                "Any word from the council?"  she asked him.

                "They acknowledge the hit, but they're still deciding on how many glory and honor points it's worth.  In the meantime, we can arrange another job."

                Myra snorted.  "Not interested, talk to me in a couple days when I've rested."

                The contractor looked like he was about to cry.  "But, some of the other assassins have already gotten two or three hits!"

                Myra walked away.  "And sadly,"  she said without turning around, "you were assigned to me, and not them; so talk to me in a day or two."

                The bed in her new room was the most comfortable thing Myra had laid down on in almost a year.  Between the lumpy cots they had slept on during training, and the shabby bunks offered by regional safe houses, Myra was in dire need of a comfortable resting place.  She attributed part of her irritability to that, among other physical discomforts, but the majority of it had to be Jason.

                I know I shouldn't worry about him, she thought, but I do hope nothing's happened to him.  Myra tried to comfort herself with the memory of Jason's feet, burned black from the final day's test for the choleric.  If he can handle that, she told herself, he can handle anything.

                While she enjoyed the comforts of the new dormitory, Myra wondered about Jason.  She wondered where he was and what he was doing.  She wondered if he was thinking about her in the same way she was about him.  Most of all however, Myra wondered if she would ever see him again.  As she laid in her bed, still as the earth, a fire burned in the girl's heart. [/spoiler]