Medivh Manor [M|O]

[Molokai]

SPOILER: Click to show

Assassinate a Delegate
Rank: B
IIC Length: Two days
Difficulty: Difficult
Objective: Kill a delegate who is residing in a manor within Kawa no Kuni.
Description: An unnamed person wants a message sent, kill a delegate in his own home and don't make it look like it was from natural causes.
Reward: 18,500 Ryo
Continued from here

Medivh Manor

Continued from here

Kirin Medivh's time had come. His manor imposed itself on the landscape, a red brick monolith amidst the vast green of River Country. Turin had spotted it from kilometers away, following the directions provided to him by his contact at the Merry Mermaid. It sat atop the highest hill within view, and had its own private road leading right up to almost the front door. Turin had veered from the main road and into the brush the second he identified the manor and now stood to the south of it, with the sea behind him. It was close enough to Yabunkashou that he could see it and the ocean from his position, and the front face of the building pointed South so that Mr. Medivh could see the splendid ocean every time he looked through his window.

It was close to dusk, and Turin had already begun scoping the place out. Lying prone about two hundred meters away, he was posted on the crest of a different hill and had a clear view of the entire front of the building. Taking inventory one last time, he made sure he had all one-hundred fifty of his standard bolts in his hip quiver, fletching modified to make the bolts spin when fired, with one currently loaded. His butt bag, resting on the back side of his right hip, contained all of his break-in gear (20 piece lock pick set and 5 glass cutters), plus his map and lensatic compass. Tucked into the hidden pockets of his jacket and shirt, which were secretly a type 1 cloak and type 5 robe, were his twenty backup knives. The crossbow that he had loaded and aimed at the front of the house had all of its modifications in place, including the Optima mod and the scope with 10x zoom and thermal vision. While it had the Sniper modification, it was not currently in use as the crossbow was fully assembled and in his hands.

With all of his gear checked and in place, he cranked his scope up to maximum zoom and began the scouting phase of the kill. First, he noted the layout of the building. Two stories, exterior made almost entirely of bricks. Plenty of wide windows, at least on the front. There appeared to be three different chimney stacks, implying at least three different locations for studies or foyers. It appeared as though at least two small cottages had been added on to the front of the house at some point after its original construction, possibly guest houses. On the right side, he could clearly see at least one window that was obscured by the roof of one of the add-on cottages. Most of the left side of the house was obscured by trees, but from what he could tell it was mostly just a bare brick wall.

As he lay there, he spotted a pair of men with flashlights apparently doing a sweep of the grounds. They didn't seem to be looking in too terribly much detail, and simply appeared to be going through their scheduled rounds before going back to whatever they were doing before. Lightly guarded meant this guy clearly wasn't expecting any sort of company, implying that he had no idea that there was someone out in the world who wanted him dead. Generally, Turin found, people who knew they were up to no good expected violent retaliation and prepared for it. Whatever this guy had done to get a target painted on his back, he didn't appear to be aware of it. Either that, or he was extremely confident in the ability of those two.

Turin wanted to get a closer look at the home itself, get a better feel for the layout, but there didn't appear to be anybody home and he had no way of knowing when Mr. Medivh would return. Didn't want to look sloppy and be walked in on while still casing. Instead, he elected to be patient and wait for his target to return. Twilight slowly turned to night, and Turin had to strain his eyes in order to see what was going on. After a few hours of nothing happening except for the occasional scheduled round, Turin finally noticed a faint yellow glow coming up the private road adjacent to the house. Turning his scope to examine this new arrival, he flicked on his thermal scope and set it to white=hot. Immediately, a crowd of grayish figures illuminated beneath a set of brilliant white lights came into view within his scope.

[Molokai]

At least two horses, a carriage, and no less than four presumably armed guards lumbered slowly up the steep hill. The guards all carried lanterns, and there was a lantern on each corner of the carriage; the sources of the bright lights in Turin's thermal vision. An entourage, it would seem. Explained why the house was so lightly guarded, his guards physically went with him wherever he traveled. It occurred to Turin that it was entirely possible for him to just shoot through the door and nail Mr. Medivh's head to the carriage wall right then and there. However, it was a big carriage, and he couldn't clearly tell which seat Medivh would be sitting in. He decided it was best to wait for the opportune moment, when he knew for a fact that he could make the shot.

With his eyes locked on to the lumbering carriage, he watched it come to a halt before the front door, and could faintly make out a pair of gray feet beneath it. The grayness of the bodies was only because they were comparatively cool next to the heat of the lanterns, but they were nonetheless easy to distinguish even in the darkness. Frustratingly, the carriage had stopped at the perfect position to give Mr. Medivh cover all the way to his front door, into which he disappeared without giving Turin a single decent shot. The carriage driver then flicked the reigns and rounded the corner to the back of the house, where the stables were presumably located.

Two of the guards went to go talk to the patrolmen, but Turin couldn't make out what they were saying. Between the distance and the fact that the thermal vision removed most visual details, lip reading was impossible. He could assume what they were saying, though. Another typical, boring night. Nothing to report, carry on. The patrolmen went back to their guard house or wherever they went when not patrolling, and the two whom they were talking to went through the side door of the right-hand cottage. Apparently they were live-in bodyguards, and had one of the nicest guard houses Turin had ever seen. People could say what they wanted about Medivh, at least he treated his people well.

While those two slept, the other two, who had apparently drawn the short straws, posted up outside of the front door. Two guards in front, two guards patrolling, and two more on standby. Pretty easy stuff to get past, really. All he had to do was find the right entryway and they would be none the wiser. Turin stayed up the rest of the night watching the guards, flicking off his thermal vision to save the scope's battery. Between the lanterns each guard held and his Hunter's Sight, he could see them well enough without it. The guard shift changed after about four hours, at which time the two in the swanky guard house came out and relieved their comrades. Those two then remained there until around dawn when another four-man squad of guards came up the road and relieved the four who had been there all night. At some point during the night, the patrolmen had switched out as well, but Turin didn't personally witness the change up. He assumed their post was somewhere on the side of the house he couldn't see.

After having stayed up all night, Turin allowed himself to doze off briefly, but slept lightly and woke up every now and again to check back in. It was almost noon before the carriage was pulled around, conveniently covering Medivh's entrance yet again. As the carriage lumbered off down the road with the four guards in tow, Turin stood and dusted himself off. Time for a little alone time with Medivh's manor. With only two guards who occasionally mounted a lackluster patrol, Turin knew he could easily scope out the whole house before anybody returned.

[Molokai]

Once the carriage had left for the day, Turin stood and stretched for a moment before running down his hill and mounting the one on which the manor sat. The front, which he could see from his prior position, was lined with a twelve-foot tall hedge, interspersed here and there with some basic concrete columns. Using one of these columns as a kick-off, he easily cleared the hedges and landed in the front yard. Looking to his left, he could see now that the patrolmen had a small guard house next to a wrought-iron gate that extended over the private road. They were preoccupied playing cards or something and didn't notice him come in, so he dashed across the small front lawn to the right-hand side of the manor.

From there, there was a thin walkway that lead to the backyard, which was lined with a red-brick wall allayed with white-brick columns every ten feet or so, similar to the brick design on the house itself. This wall was also about twelve feet tall, but extended a good fifty meters behind the home on either side, creating a generously large back yard. The forest grew right up against this wall, and a few of the larger oak trees grew over top of it and made it look like the woods were trying to reclaim the land.

In the back yard, there was a beautifully manicured garden. This garden was filled with topiary structures of exotic animals, vibrant flower bushes of violets, roses, chrysanthemums and tulips, and pristine cherubim fountains. A cobblestone path lead from the back door and wound through the middle, going through a white, thatched archway covered in dark green vines and bright red hibiscus flowers. All of this was centered around a beautifully detailed white pagoda with carved vine moldings lining the roof and surrounded with real vines and flowers that matched the ones covering the archway.

It was a beautiful, and clearly expensive, garden that probably had a small army of maintenance workers who tended to it. Much to Turin's chagrin, three of those gardeners could be seen picking around the garden. Two of them tended the rose and lilac bushes lining the inside of the wall, and a third pruned an almost life-size elephant topiary. All of them were either heavily invested in their work, or were running on autopilot and not paying attention. Either way, they didn't notice Turin as he swiftly rounded the corner, trying to stay out of sight of the patrolmen. With a short flurry of handseals, Turin vanished from sight just in time for the one pruning the elephant to wipe the sweat of his brow and glance in his direction.

Presumably, these gardeners wouldn't be here come nightfall, unless they too lived on the grounds. Come to think of it, it was probably quite likely that the gardeners lived on the grounds, much like the guards. At any rate, Turin applied some acrobatics and scaled the wall immediately to his right. It was just high enough, and close enough to the building, that it was an easy jump for him to make it to the roof. Padding along as silently as he could, he examined the windows along the back side of the building. They were similarly laid out to the ones on the front, with two large windows that presumably belonged to larger rooms and four or five smallish windows that didn't appear to actually open. Taking care not to make too much noise, he tried a few of the larger ones and found them locked.

Can't say that was overly surprising, but it was worth a try. With a kick-off jump, he used part of the chimney on the back side to scale the very top roof. Carefully, he climbed up and over and descended to the other side. Easing himself down onto the first floor roof, he checked a few of those windows. The one that was directly over the front door, tucked way back beneath an archway and it's own triangle of roof, proved to be unlatched. Poking his head in, however, he saw that it was mostly a show window. It opened to empty space, and below it was a two-story drop straight to the bottom of the stairs.

From there, he could see how the entryway was laid out. The front door opened directly into a large, white-tiled mud room, complete with coat hangers and all. Left of the large open space was a wooden archway that appeared to lead to a dining room. To the immediate right of the front door was a hallway that led to the right side of the house, and if one faced in the direction of that hallway and turned left they would be looking directly at the stairs. The stairs were grand, marble stairs with cherry-lacquered banisters and one landing leading up to the second floor balcony. If he was feeling daring, he probably could have made the jump to the balcony from the open window, but he couldn't risk the injury or the noise. Instead, he backed out and quietly shut the window. Now sitting underneath the archway and straddling the roof directly above the front door, he planned his next move.

[Molokai]

Since Turin had already gotten this far, he decided he would go inside and check out the interior after all. Might as well locate Mr. Medivh's personal bedchamber. Might have something worth stealing in there. Nothing wrong with making out with a little bit of extra pay, since he was in the neighborhood anyway.

Just as his basic, five minute invisibility wore off, the guards at the gate started their patrol. With a scramble, Turin backed even further under the archway and pressed his chest down on the spine of the roof. Looking carefully, he couldn't see the guard house or their patrol route from where he was, which was a good indication that they wouldn't see him either. Also, since most people can't fly or climb it rarely occurs to anyone to look up, so he knew he was safe. Still, it was an extremely inconvenient coincidence for it to happen right then. From behind him, he heard a pair of feminine voices filter in through the partially cracked window. With a swear, he shuffled around until he could see the source of the disturbance.

His heart jumped up into his throat when he saw a pair of plainly dressed maids bustling around on the second floor balcony, their faces almost on level with his. It would take just a passing glance out the window for his whole cover to be blown. Scrambling, he got out of the archway and pressed his back against the support column just as he imagined one of them was looking up. A few breathless moments passed as he tried to hear what they were saying. Anything akin to, "did you see that?" would mean that the jig was up. With the sound of his heart pounding in his ears, he couldn't make out exactly what they were saying. All he could tell was that their general speech pattern hadn't changed. Must not have seen him, he concluded, or at least didn't think anything of whatever they did see.

Once the voices faded, he ducked back into the archway and opened the window a little bit more, straining his ears for the sound of them returning. When no such sounds came, he decided he would endeavor to gain access to the house through something other than the window.

Mounting the highest rooftop again, he nimbly skittered across the peak and went prone to look over the edge of the left side of the building. One of the guest houses, or possibly servant houses, was on his immediate left, and he could see a door at the bottom. This door was facing toward the back of the house, and was effectively the back door to the house that had been fused to the main house. That looked like his way in, because there were a few sheds between it and the backyard populated with gardeners. Applying chakra to his hands and feet, he quietly slid down the bare brick side of the building.

This was the first decent view he had gotten of the left side of the house. It was almost entirely bare brick, with just the tiniest white-brick ledge at the border between the two floors. There was one semi-large window on the bottom floor facing the wall, but he could see that the curtains were drawn from the inside. This side was even more grown over with trees than the other. Luckily, this side didn't seem to have much worth looking at so the likelihood of someone moving the blinds aside was low.

Once he had descended back to the ground, he glanced around the corner to make sure the patrolling guards weren't coming his way. Sure enough, he could see their silhouettes playing cards next to the gate again. Ducking back behind the servant house, he tried the door and found it locked. He drew his lock pick set and got to work on the door. It was simple, but both the deadbolt and the handle were locked so it took a couple of minutes to get through both of them. With rising tension, he kept looking behind him to make sure none of the gardeners came along at the wrong moment. Once he finally felt the lock give, he pushed it open slowly and listened. When no sounds or questions came from within, he ventured a peak through the cracked doorway. It turned out to be a guest house, after all.

Inside the door was a decently-furnished living room, complete with plush chocolate leather couches, a large armchair, and a nice mahogany coffee table, all sitting on a rather large and exotic-looking rug. Immediately to the left of the door was the entry to the kitchen, the bathroom was to the right, and the single bedroom was to the left of the bathroom. Beyond the kitchen door, directly across from the bedroom, was what appeared to be the entrance to the main house. Creeping in slowly, he carefully shut the door behind him and made a point of re-locking it. If checking these doors was a part of the guards' patrol route, he didn't want them getting suspicious if the door was found mysteriously unlocked.

Staying low so as not to accidentally cast a silhouette on the windows, Turin swept through the small guest house to make sure he was truly alone, then headed toward the door to the main house.

[Molokai]

Having successfully gained entrance into the guest house on the left side of Medivh's manor, Turin crept up slowly to the door that separated it from the main house. Listening intently, he made sure nobody was in whatever room this door was about to open to before reaching to the handle and giving it a gentle twist. Locked, as with most doors. However, he felt like an idiot as soon as he noticed that it was locked from his side. Made sense, really, in case the guests wanted some privacy. A guest house such as this one implied that whoever stayed in it would be there for a number of days, so of course it was locked from the inside. Feeling lucky that nobody saw him be such an idiot, he unlocked the door and opened it.

One of the best parts about houses like this one was that they were well-maintained. Which meant no squeaky door hinges. Because, in all honesty, no guest wants a loud squeak every time a door opens. Especially not guests who have broken in to kill the owner of the house. For future reference, Turin noted that he was going to make every single door and floorboard in his home squeaky as hell.

The room he entered into was on the opposite side of the dining area he spied from the window earlier. He could see the stairs dead ahead of him, and to his left was another dark wooden archway that appeared to lead into the kitchens. The smell of baking bread wafted in from that direction, and Turin could hear the clanking of pots and the boiling of water. Personal, live-in chefs this guy also had. After killing him, Turin might just move in here himself. Deciding that he needed to move before anyone in the kitchen came through, he padded along as quickly and quietly as he could toward the entryway with the stairs, crossbow leading the way.

He didn't intend to shoot anybody if he didn't have to, but if he rounded a corner and found himself face-to-face with somebody he would have no choice but to silence them. Ideally, he would be stealthy enough to not have to worry about that, but things do happen. Mounting the stairs two at a time, he kept his eyes and his crossbow locked on the balcony above him where he had seen the maids earlier. As far as he knew, there were at least two maids up there. Since he hadn't seen them leave, he had to assume they were still around. Before totally clearing the stairs, he popped his head up just above the banister and scanned the nearby hallways. At the top of the stairs, the railing of the balcony was to his left. The window he was at earlier was on the wall across the gap, and he could see just how close he had truly come to being spotted.

Directly ahead was a wall with a portrait of Mr. Medivh, and to the right was an intersection of two hallways. One hallway went back toward the right side of the house, the other went perpendicular to that. Turning so that the railing and the window were behind him, with the front door about a story directly below that window, he was oriented toward the back of the house. The hallway that went dead ahead had two doors on the left side of it, and one door on the right. The hallway to his right ended in some sort of opulent bathroom and had another hallway that went left just before that bathroom door.

Keeping low and fast, he went straight and listened to each of the three doors before opening them. All of them were just general guest rooms and a bathroom, nothing special at all. At the end of this hallway, it turned left, and a grand door awaited at the very end. Had to be the master bedroom, Turin thought, and started moving toward it while checking behind him to make sure none of the maids caught him by surprise.

Once he arrived at the bedroom door, which was a large oak door with deep square moldings and a solid brass handle, he found that it, too was locked. Pulling out his lock picks again, he set to work on the handle and found that it was a very old lock. He expected the age of it to make it easier, but since he wasn't use to that style of lock it took him almost five minutes to get it sorted out. The whole time he was just waiting for one of the maids from earlier to round that corner and start screaming before he could get a shot off. When that never happened, he became more and more convinced with each second that the following second would be the one.

At long, long last the door finally gave and he ducked into it like the fountain of youth lay behind it. Locking it again in order to keep up appearances, he examined the room. Opulent was probably the polite way to describe it. Gaudy was probably the most accurate. The four-poster, canopied bed was made of laminated mahogany and covered in a rich green duvet lined with gold frills. The canopy itself matched the bedspread exactly. Beside the bed, two nightstands made of the same dark mahogany sat with lamps atop that had green lampshades with gold lace around the edges. At the foot of this bed, an immense wooden chest inlaid with a golden thatch pattern and crusted with jewels at the apex of every gold square sat with a hefty iron lock on the front. This chest just begged to be looted, but Turin resisted.

To the left, there an immense window facing the front of the building with silk curtains and green blackout curtains that matched the bed. A truly impressive-sized armoire with the same gold inlay and jewel crusting as the chest squatted against the wall to the right. Along the far wall between the bed and the window was another door, presumably to a closet or bathroom. Finally, a high-backed armchair furnished with green leather with gold accents sat facing the window at a diagonal with a book on the arm. . .

. . . and a dog on the cushion.

[Molokai]

A fat, slobbery English bulldog was snoozing and drooling on the green leather cushions and didn't wake up to Turin's entrance. This was not a good situation, though. Dogs are an assassin's worst enemy, because they possess much keener senses than humans and are much, much louder. This one was probably a bit lax on the keen senses side of things, but if it woke up and started barking someone was bound to come investigate. There was only one thing to do in a situation like this, and Turin seriously didn't want to do it.

His hesitation would almost cost him dearly. The dog's nose twitched, apparently picking up on his foreign scent, and it began to stir. Its head slowly came up off of its paws and its eyes lazily regarded Turin. "Woof," it said, quietly at first, as if it was still waking up. However, after the first woof it stood bolt upright and started quivering, and Turin realized he was out of time. . .

thock

The sound of the crossbow seemed to echo in the open space, and Turin was almost afraid that it was too loud. He drew it up and fired without any hesitation as soon as he realized there was no other way. His bolt went in squarely through its forehead and silenced it instantly. Its head dropped down on top of its paws as if it had never woken up in the first place. Blood started to slowly drip along the length of the shaft, staining the fletching red and dripping onto the green leather. Red blood against the dark green looked quite black. At that moment, he felt more guilt for killing that fat, ugly little dog than he did for any of the people he had shot in his lifetime.

Realizing that he couldn't let Kirin Medivh come home to find his dog like that, Turin knew that that night had to be the night. If the dog was found like this, security would tighten and it would be even harder for him to get access to Medivh. Plus, raising an alarm like that would make him look amateurish, and that simply would not do. So, he determined that he was going to wait for Medivh and kill him in that very room.

Hours passed, the sun slowly crept down beneath the horizon, and Turin had to resist thinking about the dog the whole time. Eventually, a few hours after the sun had gone down, he heard the sound of hooves on stone and saw the glow of the lanterns. Now or never, he thought. Taking a deep breath, he prepared his crossbow and got ready. The guards took up their posts, and Medivh's heavy footsteps could be heard lumbering down the hallway. It was time to act.

Turin had unscrewed all of the light bulbs in the room long before anyone had arrived, just enough so they wouldn't turn on. When Mr. Medivh opened the door and flicked the switch, nothing happened. Standing behind the swing radius of the door, Turin was hidden by its opening. When Mr. Medivh entered the room to try to figure out why the lights didn't work, his door slammed behind him and locked. He wheeled around to see what had caused the door to close, but Turin shunshinned to the other side of the room before he was spotted. To Kirin Medivh, it was as if the door had simply closed itself.

Unnerved now, he went over to the door and tried to force it open, but found that the doorknob had been broken off on the inside. What the hell? He turned around again, and saw Turin for the first time. Coated in glamour chakra, Turin appeared as nothing more than a glowing, wicked grin and a pair of evil eyes floating in a formless black mass. Mr. Medivh wanted to scream, but was too terrified to make a sound. His eyes drifted to his left to get away from the hideous visage, and there he saw his precious pooch with a bolt protruding from its forehead, a pool of blood slowly growing beneath it drop by drop.

When he managed to pry his eyes away from the dog the grinning shade was gone. He hoped, even believed for a brief moment, that his eyes had just been playing tricks on him. Looking again to where the dog used to be, he found that it had vanished as well. Suddenly, the lights clicked on and he could see the room clearly. No dead dog, no smiling creature, nothing amiss at all. Chalking it up to simply drinking too much, he went to his armoire to locate his pajamas so he could finally sleep.

The moment the door opened, the bloody corpse of his dog hit him squarely in the face with enough force to knock him on his fat ass. Sprawled on his back, his face covered in the blood of his dog, his panic was renewed and he tossed the body off of him with disgust. Desperately wiping the blood of the dog off of his expensive clothing, he rose to his feet and found himself face to face with the grin. What would have been a scream came out as a wet gurgle as his throat opened like a second mouth on his second chin. Stumbling backwards, grasping at his bleeding throat, trying beyond hope to hold the flaps of skin and flab together, his eyes asked, "why?"

Turin didn't answer. Instead, he dropped all of his genjutsu, took down his hood, and looked Kirin Medivh dead in the eye before wordlessly putting a bolt in his forehead. The fat man fell over sideways, landing in the same position as his fat dog, with the bolt sticking out of the same part of his fat face. Making sure to unlock the bedroom door before he left so the body could be easily found, Turin turned off the light in the room and left through the open window.

Meanwhile, the guards stood dutifully before the front door, blissfully unaware of their new need for employment.

[ Exit ]