The Assassin's Tale; The Elven Quarter

Credits; Krell, Rea,

Rea was moving pretty quick.  Not the fastest she could, but fast enough to make it clear she was angry and didn't want to be followed.  Krell was following her anyways.  She'd calm down eventually, and when she did he'd apologize and never bring up the subject again.  Apparently the line between right and wrong was thin for immortals. 
The bridges that connected the different parts of Stormguard were themselves stone, like much of the exterior of the city itself.  However, he could see the metal framework the stone was built upon more clearly here, without any buildings around.  Looking up he could see more distant parts of the city attached by long stairways, all lit up with little lamps, hovering flames, or even just balls of magical light, not unlike the ones that lit the streets ahead.  He'd never actually met an Elf before, but he had heard of their magical prowess and could tell by looking around as he reached the end of the bridge that not an awful lot of physical labor had been done to build it.  In place of the gas lamps that had lit the previous section of the city, little blue-green lights hovered over stone pillars that seemed to grow from the ground.  There were no carriages here, all of the inhabitants seemed to walk, or simply teleport from place to place.  There were few loud noises, yet somehow few quiet ones too.  There were no crowds, no one was working.  It was the most serene and somehow boring place he'd ever been.  The Gothic quarter had been loud, and dark, and spooky and it was still more comfortable than this was. 
"Take the keys, go to the Gravagan district, and stop following me."
Rea had managed to slip behind him while he was looking around.  She held out a set of keys; Krell took them by the top key, a sort of purple crystal with a rune carved onto the top.  He wasn't going to argue with her, twice in one day was just asking for trouble.  Rea vanished as soon as he had them in his hand.  Krell glanced around and couldn't tell if anyone had even noticed they were there.  He could see a few pointed ears turned subtly towards them, but he wasn't sure if that was general suspicion or just coinciednce. 
He walked up the street until he found a map of the city projected over a central square.  A few other confused looking travellers were examining it intently, so he slipped into the area and looked for the Gravagan District.  Liss had mentioned that was where their belongings had been taken, and the purple crystal was clearly Gravagan technology; he'd need to head there then. 
"Excuse me."  An elf tapped him on the shoulder.  Krell turned around and looked at the newcomer.  He looked darker than most elves.  It was strange to think of anyone as pale as him as tanned, but compared to most Elves, he was.  Dark hair, which was actually, juding by the rest of the inhabitants of the district, rather uncommon.  Maybe he was from a different group of Elves. 
"Yes?"
"I couldn't help but notice that your sister gave you the keys to something Gravagan.  I don't suppose you're headed that way?"
"Well yes, but she's not my sister."
"Oh, did someone curse your girlfriend then?"
"She's not my..anything really.  We're just partners."
"OH."
"We're adventurers, of a sort."
"Oh.  Well in that case I don't suppose you'd need a guide.  You should know your way around Stormguard then, eh?"
"Actually, this is my first visit to Stormguard.  If you could show me to the Gravagan district I'd be rather grateful."
"Excellent!  I don't suppose you have any..."
He was looking for work.  Judging by his equipment he was a guard or a mercenary of some sort, so that wasn't surprising.  Krell found himself regreting the decision not to bring anything from Medea. 
"I'm afraid I don't actually have anything.  But if you stick around for a while my companion is one of the wealthiest women in the Empire."
"Which Empire?"
"Daniellandish, does it matter?"
"The Secloran money is no good.  They stopped backing it properly so they could pay for the invasions, now its inflated to high heaven and the exchange rate is all messed up."
"I already like you.  Which way then?"
"This way, and never trust the maps around here.  They enchanted it to lead you directly through the will weakening enchantments in the shopping district no matter where you're going."
"Good to know, my name's Krell."
"Nice to meet you Krell, you can call me Nao."

Nao took them through backstreets and into tunnels he'd have never known to look for.  Not sewer tunnels, although the smell was comprable, but a sort of hidden rail tunnel. 
"Hop in, these are public use, but mostly only vagrants and law enforcement use them anymore." 
"Are you sure it's safe?"  Krell had served on some rustbuckets in the past, but the little tram wasn't much more than a few cars suspended from a cable.  It had internal power from the looks of it, and an internal motor as well.  But between the rust, the graffiti, and the smell of mold he wasn't confident either still worked. 
"Unless you jump off.  Genuine Cystech systems custom tramway with internal repeating power supply, internal motor, autorepair drones, and it wouldn't be Cystech if there wasn't a large clearly marked red self-destruct button."
More of Cyssie's work.  He'd met her, and while she had been a bit unstable there was no questioning the quality of her work.  And considering when most of Stormguard had been built, she'd probably done it on location, for free, and under close scrutiny.  After all, they'd been fighting Arcania at the time and all of her family were under suspicion. 
"Cystech, well I suppose that's evidence enough for me."
"You've heard of them?  That's impressive, most of the tourists haven't." 
He joined his companion in the little car.  The lights turned on and a door opened up in front of them.  He felt the motor kick on overhead and they lurched forward before settling into a moderate speed.  They zipped along under the bridges connecting the parts of the city and through the underlevels.  They finally came to a stop in a station that looked exactly the same as the one they'd started in, although it smelled less like homeless people and more like dust. 
"Here we are.  Gravagan district as requested, don't suppose you know where we're headed?"
"Does the Countess have a house around here?"
Nao looked back at him as he reached the stairs that lead up to the streets. 
"Yes, but not many people know that."
"Do you know where it is?"
"Yes, but how do you know the Countess?"
"The girl I'm with, she's a friend of the Countess."
"And she has keys to the Countess' safe house in the Gravagan district?  Must be quite the little girl then."
Krell chuckled as he imagined Rea's outburst at the idea of being called a little girl.  "Yeah, she's pretty special all right."