'Get Emily back? Why would I ca- no there's no time, I need to leave now'
Corvo crumples up the note in his hand and throws it behind him without a care. He grabs the key, all the while his heart beats in a forgotten emotion he hasn't felt in such a long time… hope.
After opening the cell door, Corvo is greeted by other cells, filled with men dressed in thug-like clothes, menacing scowls plastered on their faces.
This doesn't intimidate Corvo, though. He knows how powerless these people truly are.
He walks ahead to a desk with a sword and some coins placed on top of it as indicated by the note, quickly grabbing the sword before moving on to his first target.
But as he moves to the doorway into the next room, Corvo comes to a dilemma.
'Do I spare them or just kill them for what they have done to me'
Yes, these are the guards who not only allowed his torturer to go on unimpeded without complaint, but also took pleasure in it.
Humiliating him in his times of total weakness, bullying him and not even taking a moment to question if this is really okay.
You could argue that they were just doing their jobs under the mad Lord Regent's order… but Corvo knew differently, he had seen the looks in their eyes.
'I've come to a decision.'
Crouching low to avoid drawing the attention of the other guards in the accompanying room, he makes his way directly behind the first target.
'No witnesses.'
With that thought, he pounces with the stealth of a leopard, jamming his sword into the throat of his enemy.
"Guh-."
The guard goes to release his final breath in a pained groan, but is denied even that from the anger-plagued Corvo. His corpse is swiftly dragged away from sight and back into Corvo's previous home to not alert the other guards on duty.
Throwing the dead man onto the floor with less care than a sack of potatoes, Corvo takes a moment just to look and memorise what he had just done with such ease. To take responsibility for a deed he knows is wrong, willingly carrying the weight of this sin on his shoulders for the foreseeable future.
'How would mum think of me, knowing I've just killed someone with barely a blink of remorse?'
But he knows there is a time limit and he shouldn't loiter around to wait for the other guard to get suspicious.
Bending his knee to the ground, Corvo quickly removes the corpse's trousers and sword belt to put them on himself.
After taking a moment to get dressed in a recently departed's clothes, his fine apparel consists of a guard's trousers in a size slightly too small for him, a sword strapped to his waist, a pouch of money connected to the belt, as well as nothing to cover his gruesomely scarred torso, leaving it out for the world to see… if they could catch sight of him.
…
A short amount of time later, Corvo stands in a shadowy corner with two looted corpses piled on top of one another, who if looking closely can be seen to have stab wounds on the backs of their necks, appearing to have been taken out swiftly and silently.
Sheathing his sword, Corvo looks around the pillar he is hidden behind, checking for any guards in his view.
Seeing that the coast is clear, he heads towards the end of the room to a metal doorframe that leads to a barren room full only of pipes, but to the eyes of someone 'proficient' in free running, it's merely another set of steps up to the railing above.
But as he walks past a board full of equipment, a certain piece catches his attention.
"Oho, look who we have here." A gravelly voice escapes Corvo's mouth, the only real words spoken from him in months.
Picking up what he had his eyes on, Corvo brings the flintlock-looking pistol close to his eyes. On closer inspection, it actually appears to be some sort of chemical pistol as seen by the glowing blue colour on the chamber, which he can only assume is whale oil.
'Nice'
After finishing his moment of appreciating the weapon's style and craftsmanship, he finally holsters it on his hip, next to the blade.
Now just to make sure, Corvo heads over to the door to the side of the pipes and twists the handle to check if it really is locked as it was in the game.
'Great. Now let's tackle this little obstacle course… silently. And take this body for a test drive before the mission really starts.'
Standing back at the doorframe, Corvo gives himself some room for a running start and jumps up to reach the first ledge he has for leverage.
Reaching the ledge, Corvo pulls himself up with visible ease, something not common in someone who has barely moved in months.
But Corvo doesn't really think much about it after his initial surprise, chalking it up to his unique body, and climbs the rest of the way up to reach the room at the top.
When Corvo actually reaches the top and is about to breathe a sigh of relief, he flinches back at the shout of a guard outside the room he's occupying.
"Anyone there?! sigh Those idiots better not be slacking off again."
'Fuck. That made me jump.'
Quickly, he loots the vials of Sokolov health potions as well as loose coins and billets before opening the door, straight to the sight of a guard's back.
Quickly unsheathing his sword, Corvo positions himself behind his unsuspecting enemy and plunges his blade into the guard's collarbone and through his heart.
The man stiffens up instantly as the light leaves his eyes. The corpse almost falls to the ground, which would have caused a loud noise if not for Corvo catching the body and throwing it off the balcony to the guard pile, nullifying the act of stopping its fall in the process.
Looking down, he checks the key in his hand, concluding its use is for the gate opposite him.
Using the key, Corvo makes his way through another room with only a single guard to neutralise, then to the Lord Regent's room… the room his torture was conducted in.
Closing the door behind him, waves of repressed memories and emotions assault his mind, which are swiftly pushed further back into the corner, saving himself from a mental breakdown, but only causing further damage to his mind and just delaying the inevitable.
Walking through, he catches sight of one of those audiograph players, probably built by Anton Sokolov, and is overcome by curiosity, so he decides to play it.
"AHHHHHH- NOOOOO… ahhHHHH STOP PLEASE… I'm begging."
Crashhh
The audio quickly stops playing and all of a sudden a sword is jammed through it, Corvo himself conveniently missing his sword, it sparking with excess electricity from the machine.
Corvo himself, with his hands tightly gripping his face, nails digging into his forehead to the point of bleeding while breathing heavily in what can only be seen as pain.
He is paralysed in that position for several minutes but eventually regains his composure, if that is what you can call that.
He stares at the broken machine with a fire burning inside his glaring eyes and an emotionally frozen face.
'THAT FUCKER… AHHHHHHH. I swear I will rip him apart.'
With new fuel to the fire, he hastens to hurry along.
Quickly grabbing the sword on the desk, he becomes unusable for some time, time Corvo doesn't have.
Going into the next room and twisting open the safe's wheel, he collects the bomb stored inside and storms outside, only to find another guard lingering by the gate of the next area, apparently lost in thought.
"Ah man, forgot I owe the fucker money. Should I just scrap this shift and leave? No, I've done that multipl-"
The words of the guard are interrupted by a pair of calloused hands gripping tightly around his throat, almost instantly choking the life out of him.
Looking at the man in front of him, the guard nearly pisses and shits himself out of fear, not only from the approaching coldness of death, but the heat of rage coming from his aggressor's eyes that, despite his silence, scream out his pain and the pain he will dish out in return.
Corvo eventually releases the man as he has his final convulsions in his death throes, clarity finally returning to his eyes as he comes back to the present.
Looking down, some remorse fills his eyes as he stares at the sight of the man with soiled trousers and despair lingering in those dead, glassy eyes.
'I… had never liked hurting people. I am ready to give my enemies a swift death, but I don't want to torture them… I don't want to push what was done to me onto others.'
Taking a moment to memorise what he did to this man, Corvo walks away to his next target with a heavier weight on his shoulders.
He quickly takes him out, hides his body, and moves onto the next room.
But what greets his sight is a room packed with guards that will take a lot of time, and a lot of noise, to neutralise, which will bring the prison down onto him.
So Corvo does the next best thing.
Waiting for the opportunity for the guards to be distracted, he climbs up another set of thick pipes that run all the way to the room past the big mechanical door at the end.
Reaching the top of a large pipe, he starts making his way to the end of the room, but Corvo picks up parts of the guards' conversation.
"Corvo's execution is tomorrow, right?"
"Yeah, but everything has to be set up today."
"If I'm being honest, I can't wait to see his head roll…"
Hearing this only hardens his resolve and conviction to do what has to be done and to finally rid himself of this place.
Tuning out the conversation to solely focus on not making any noise, one wrong step could bring the whole prison down on him as well.
Corvo quickly makes it to the opening leading to the next room, jumping onto another pipe below after crossing the threshold and quickly positioning himself above another guard.
Jumping off the piping onto the ground behind him, but as he is falling Corvo plunges his blade diagonally into the man's neck. The only sound created by his fall is the small slap of his feet hitting the concrete floor.
Bringing the corpse down to the floor gently, going unnoticed by the final guard in this room.
'One more. Then I only have to plant the bomb and leave this god-forsaken place.'
Taking a quick breath, he vaults the railing to his right, ending it in a high jump. This time aiming straight for the guard himself and almost tackling him to the ground when aiming his blade to fall onto the man's skull.
Getting up from the ground, he pulls his blade from the man's brain and leans onto a piece of metal next to him.
exhale
A heavy breath Corvo didn't know he was holding is finally released from his chest.
This whole process since leaving his cell has only taken about 10–15 minutes, but to Corvo that felt like an eternity compared to his usual routine, though he also felt like it passed in a mere moment. A peculiarity in a human's perception of time.
Finishing his quick break, he knows that there is not much time left. It could be any second that someone finds his cell empty. So Corvo grabs the two corpses, throwing them in the large dumpster in the corner, grabs any money he can scrounge up as well as any health potions, then quickly plants the bomb, taking cover behind the dumpster.
..5
..4
..3
..2
..1
….
BOOOOOOOOOOOM
A large explosion rips open the metal door that once blocked Corvo's exit, but the sound travels far and wide, finally letting the prison know of an escape.
Running through the now large hole in the wall, Corvo is quickly forced to stop as he comes face to face with a massive drop into a body of water.
"Woaahoho… do I really have to jump from this? I'm not really a fan of heights."
As Corvo takes a moment to rethink his life choices, a grating noise of metal rubbing against metal can be heard behind him.
… the doors are opening.
"SOMEONE ESCAPED!!"
"GET THEM!?!"
… the guards are coming.
There's no time to think. He needs to leave, and now is a time of action.
Taking a deep breath to steel his will, Corvo takes the plunge straight off the building down into the cold waters below.
——
Two groups of guardsmen rush to different posts. One rushes outside, checking the waters for any prisoners taking to the sea to escape. Another looks across the bridge, only finding that it too was ripped apart by the explosion.
"Sir, what should we do?" A fairly young guard in his early adulthood questions his superior, never having experienced an emergency of this magnitude.
"Leave a few men stationed here and another few below. I want another group of you to check the cells to make sure no prisoner escaped. Finally, take the rest of the men and relocate to the ends of the sewers in case whoever set the explosive used that way to escape."
The older, more experienced superior gives orders to the guards around him, who promptly stand at attention and salute.
"YES SIR!"
The group of guards quickly disperses, leaving the officer on his own.
"As for me, I will have to bite the bullet and report to the Lord Regent. I hope he doesn't kill me for this in anger… sighhhh, I miss the Empress."
The lone guard walks off with a depressed expression covering his face and a sag in his shoulders.
——
In the maze-like sewers, one man can be seen slowly making his way up a chain to reach another section—a place where he was promised the equipment would be.
Yes, this man is the former Lord Protector, Corvo (Luke) Attano.
One could see, if they looked closely, mouldy sewage water stuck on him, along with the accompanying smell that pierced his nose constantly.
Making it to the top, he just sits there for a moment, breathing heavily. After having run and swum as fast as he could through the sea and the sewers, Corvo is definitely tired.
"Ughhhh. I've been rotting in a prison for six months and the first chance I get to wash is sewage water. They'd better have a bath ready for me, or once I get the mark… I swear I'm gonna."
Finishing his sentence with a 'menacing' shake of the fist.
Letting out a snort at his own stupid actions, Corvo gets to his feet and looks around to take note of his surroundings.
To the left is a set of stairs leading to a couple of corpses, an unknown box, and a gate leading further inside the sewer. But on the stairs is a suspicious trip wire, which, if he can remember right, instead of tripping you up, sends a bomb straight to the noggin.
'Unlike the game, I doubt I'll just take a little bit of damage from an explosive crossbow bolt.'
Then on the right is a small tunnel with another trip wire and a piece of suspicious machinery with a bolt sticking out of it. Carrying on is a mattress with two more corpses on top of it, seemingly a couple by their hands interlocked and leaning into each other.
Looking at the pair, memories flood Corvo's mind as he's hit with waves of nostalgia.
'Ah, Jasmine. How I long for your touch once more.'
As these thoughts flow through Corvo's—actually Luke's—mind, he catches them and his expression turns bitter.
'I'm slipping, I can feel it. My identity keeps getting mixed up or just forgotten. This needs to stop, lest I really lose myself in them.'
Deciding to shelve these thoughts for when he is safe, Corvo starts moving on.
Heading for the small tunnel and ducking under the wire, Corvo grabs his sword from its sheath and hits the end on top of the machine, breaking the top apart.
Grabbing the ammunition, then ripping it apart and pocketing the scrap until he finds it sufficiently disarmed.
Climbing the box the machine is resting on, then over the railing, Corvo comes face to face with another one, so he repeats the disarming process, earning himself two incendiary bolts which he safely packs onto one of the ammunition pouches attached to his sword belt.
Jumping down and taking a final glance at the corpses, Corvo turns away, making his way over to the equipment.
Opening the box, a letter first catches his attention, which he promptly reads.
(TO THE LORD PROTECTOR
Greetings, Corvo. Or should I say Lord Protector, as you were known before that title was wrongfully taken from you?
We are servants of the Empire and of the true Empress, a group of loyalists who want very much to meet you.
Take these weapons, crafted for you of the finest materials in the Isles, and meet with our man, Samuel, near where these tunnels spill into the Wrenhaven River.
All haste and luck. We share a common purpose.)
"More bullshit. Next."
Crumpling up this letter as well and throwing it behind him, Corvo observes the masterpieces that will accompany him till the end of this story.
With shaking hands and a smile threatening to break out on an otherwise stoic face, Corvo picks up what can only be seen to the untrained eye as a sword hilt. Turning it around in his hand, Corvo eventually figures it out, throws it up in a flip, and a short blade pops out of the hilt, transforming into a proper blade.
"Nice."
Giving the blade a nod of appreciation that all men could understand.
He moves onto the other piece of equipment.
A mechanical crossbow that will be the bread and butter in times of stealth.
"Double nice."
Taking one last moment to appreciate his equipment, Corvo decides he actually needs to stop wasting time now. So unsheathing his old sword and discarding it, he attaches his new sword to his right side and his crossbow next to the pistol.
Using his key to enter the next area, he swiftly loots the safe and machine before dropping into the next room.
Standing on a rock structure at the entrance to the new room, what greets Corvo's eyes is the floor covered mostly in water and floors built over it. Tucked away in the corner by the entrance are two guards chatting away.
"He won't get past me, sir." One guard states confidently to his colleague next to him.
"Do you even know who we're hunting here? Don't even try to take him on alone." The other responds mockingly, but with a stern undertone.
"But what if no one from the squad is around? What then?"
"Then try to make a lot of noise when you die, knock something over if you can. Hahaha."
Though not for long, as from above a crossbow bolt comes flying silently and hits the first guard straight in the head, killing him instantly.
The noise from the body hitting the ground alerts the second guard, but he is silenced by Corvo's new blade stabbing through his collarbone.
'Now I've dealt with them, I should be able to swim undetected to the exit path. Also, with the added benefit of the water being a bit cleaner, it should wash off the sewage smell.'
Making his plan to get out of the sewers, Corvo quickly loots the corpses for their coin and bullets before diving into the water.
Swimming with a fish-like grace, Corvo makes it past the guards still stationed there and to the exit, where he instantly starts sprinting once he reaches land, straight out of the sewers.
And into the real world once more.
——
Word count: 3,391
EDITED