Whatever the case was, it meant that something was going to happen in regards to my personal little encounter here. The moon was growing higher in the sky, and people in the streets were thinning out as they went home for the night. I felt my muscles tense up and a grim smile split my lips beneath my mask. I needed to draw whoever this was out, and an empty lot was nearby. It would have to do. I walked faster down the ever tighter, narrowing alley as the walls loomed around me, feeling like they would crush me at any moment.
It didn’t take long for me to get to the lot High walls surrounded it, meant to keep normal citizens out until the construction was finished. That was fine for me - it meant there was even less chance of a bystander being drawn into this confrontation. I easily scaled the fence - thick mesh and barbed wire were little impediment to me as I threw myself over the edge and into the construction yard. The place was, as expected for this time of night, empty. The only illumination was the soft, shimmering silver light of the moon.
The faint sounds of the city outside still reached me, faintly. Distant calls and the sound of carts and wagons being dragged across stone, clattering about their business at the end of the night. I knew none would come here, not now - the deliveries for the place would come in the early hours of the morning, not stretching into the deep darkness of the night. I shifted, flicking my collar to get rid of some of the mist that had gathered against it before glancing around me.
Beams and ropes crisscrossed the site, the half-hollowed shell of a building in the midst of progress. The signs of progress covered the ground in an intricate spiderweb of shadows, stretching across the ground in a network that left little untouched by their dark grasp. Moonlight and shadows danced back and forth smoothly, darkness and light swirling together and slowly drawing the eye inwards, trapping and ensnaring the mind.
I tore my gaze around, breaking the subtle spell the play of light had woven over me. I could not afford to be distracted right now. I looked around intently, refocusing on my actual problem. The feeling of being watched had momentarily abated as I went over the fence, so I had an idea that who, or whatever, was following me was on the other side. This was my best chance of -
There. A faint movement, a flicker of shadow against shadow, darkness that swept along the inside of the fence. A pool of inky darkness slipped over the edge of the barrier, and if I had not been intently watching for it, I could have very easily missed it. Some sort of shadowwalker then? With some power that allowed its user to hide in the very darkness? A potent stealth tool, and one that was clearly magical. I kept my face carefully bland as I swept my eyes along the area, giving no sign of the fact that I had spotted my pursuer.
A magical tool made it clear that this was no Aleran. Most of my kin still detested magic in nearly all of its forms, even the mundane and useful. No, something as advanced as shadow-stealth was not something they would go for. And that was no technological tool, either - no, the pool of shadow had been too small as it swept over the edge, too contained to be a form of cloaking or light obscuration. I dropped my hand onto the hilt of the Saw-Spear as I continued to look around, preparing myself. My pursuer was here, and I finally had some clue of who or what it was. But it was nowhere near enough. Eliminating one option, even a rather sizable one like ‘it’s not an Aleran, in Alerar’, left far too many variables possible. I gritted my teeth, my attention fully focused on the patch of blackness that was slowly drawing nearer to me. They would make their move soon, and that would give me what I needed, I hoped.
