The Lord Regent, Burrows Hiram, was very dissatisfied.
Surely, there must be a limit to incompetence? First, the warden of Coldridge Prison, who had been paid very handsomely, somehow still managed to let a half-dead man escape his custody. Then, that half-dead man broke into the High Overseers office and branded the face of said High Overseer and let a captain of the city watch, a major thorn in their sides, escape with his life.
All of that was still manageable. At least, it would be, if Daud hadn't up and vanished. For all that Burrows knew, Daud had fled the country or worse, was now working against him!
Incompetence! Burrows was the only man in the entire country with half a brain!
Thankfully, he thought to check with the Pendletons in that whore house of theirs and confirmed that they still had the Kaldwin girl. At least that part of the plan was still going well. He'd have to see about getting those two into positions where they can apply their talents of not fucking everything up.
Sigh…
Well, there was some good news today. The marines finally stopped sniffing around, accepting his story about how everything went down. Why they had to poke their noses into things that didn't concern them, he'd never know. He didn't go looking for trouble, and as a result he didn't find any either. Everybody was happy. Damned dogs.
Perhaps going through his mail would ease his frayed nerves.
He took the first envelope in hand. The paper was high quality and the wax seal oddly displayed a skull wearing a hat of some kind? There weren't any nobles who used a stamp like that…
He used his letter opener to pry open the seal and beheld what laid within: a short note and a photograph.
The photograph gave him immediate pause and set his heart thumping like mad. What is likely to be the most dangerous woman on the planet with her arm wrapped around Attano Corvo like they were old pals, her smiling and him glaring daggers into the camera.
Hesitantly, Burrows took a look at the note. It read:
"Dearest Lord Regent,
I hope this note finds you well, because Corvo certainly won't. It's only a matter of time until your end finds you shortly after he does. I would recommend you spend it doing something more productive than counting the seconds until the inevitable. Perhaps have an ice cream?
Yours truly,
Cherry
Ps - Look under your desk."
Burrows dropped the note and wiped the beading sweat from his brow with his handkerchief. At this point, he wasn't sure that he wanted to know what was under his desk. The wise thing to do, even, would be to flee his office with haste.
He pushed his chair back and looked underneath with stiff motions.
A package was taped to the underside of the desktop. Again against his better judgment, he reached for it and tugged it free, placing it on top of the desk. Finally, he peeled the brown wrapping away to reveal a brick with more writing on it.
"Wow, you really opened that? What if it was a bomb? Are you stupid?"
Burrows had spent the majority of his life seeing everyone around him as one of two kinds of people: useful idiots, and useless idiots.
This was the first time he'd ever been called stupid and been unable to retort. He didn't like the feeling very much.
He threw the chair back as he stood up in a rage, directly storming out of his office. "Guards-!"
*KRAKOOM!!!*
Then his office exploded.
…
"Pfft, ehehehe~!" Cherry cackled as she watched the smoke rise from the hole in Dunwall Tower where the Lord Regent's office once was.
Nobody expects the old 'fake bomb that's actually a brick, that actually has a real bomb inside' trick.
The Lord Regent is probably thanking his lucky stars right about now, completely ignorant of the fact that the bomb had been remotely detonated by Cherry when she knew he was mostly safe from the blast. She couldn't just go and steal Corvo's quarry, after all.
That didn't stop her from turning up the heat, though. If a delicate political situation needed anything, it was a little chaos and confusion added into the mix.
Probably.
"Did you really need to do that?" Corvo asked, giving her a dirty look.
"Do what?" Cherry fluttered her eyelashes innocently.
He was clearly mulling over whether or not to argue with her, but reason seemed to take hold at the last second and he gave up. Tch.
"That's the place," Corvo pointed at a very fancy brothel called the Golden Cat. "Supposedly, the Lord Regent got nervous after High Overseer Campbell's encounter with me and sent an urgent message here. The Pendleton twins are staying here, allegedly to keep an eye on Lady Emily."
"Hm hm, I see," Cherry nodded seriously, though Corvo didn't look like he believed she was taking it as seriously as it ought to. "Hey now, no need for the doubt! The princess will be safe and sound, no matter what happens under my watch!"
Corvo studied her for a minute before sighing. "Just don't get in the way, please. Too much is on the line here."
"Fine, fine~! I won't get in the way. In fact, you won't see hide nor hair of me until Emily is secure," Cherry said. "See ya!"
"Wait, wha-?" Corvo lost sight of her as she bounded straight up into the air too fast for his eyes to track. He hurried along with his own infiltration, probably worried that she'd sound the alarm before he could even do anything. A pointless worry.
*tap tap tap*
Cherry knocked lightly on the boarded up window of the attic room. She heard some shuffling from the other side.
*tap tap tap*
A heavy curtain was shoved aside as a girl pressed her face against the glass, trying to peer through the boards with little success. They had been pretty thorough on ensuring no one would see her up here.
This did not deter Cherry in the slightest, though. She simply sunk into the roof at the side of the window, then popped out from the wall on the inside behind the girl.
"It's rude not to answer when somebody knocks," Cherry announced her presence.
"Eep-!" Emily stifled her own surprised squeak as she spun around to regard her.
For a moment they stared at one another in silence as Emily came to terms with the fact that this was actually happening and not some kind of imagined event conjured by her bored mind.
"Isn't it rude to enter without permission…?" Emily finally mustered a reply.
"I can go if you want?" Cherry jabbed her thumb towards the door, taking a step in that direction.
"No!" Emily whisper-shouted at her. "You have to help me! I'm being held here against my will!"
"No shit?" Cherry leaned over to look past her at the poor excuse for a rat's nest made of what little comforts her kidnappers had given her.
"Cursing is crass," Emily responded almost on autopilot, then she flinched as if expecting some violent response in kind. Something that told Cherry that her time here had been less than swell.
Cherry had half a mind march downstairs and use one of the Pendleton twins to beat the other to death.
"You're right, I'm sorry. My grandma wasn't fond of my cursing either," Cherry apologized, which let the girl relax somewhat. "Though, just between you and me? I learned it all from her."
Emily couldn't help but giggle at that. "Mom was the same way-"
Then a sadness overtook her that nearly broke Cherry's heart.
Damn, she was actually invested in this shit now, wasn't she?