Dahlia, the town surrounded by wet moorland, eerie mist, and filled with the worst kinds of scum. Thorn found it ironic that it was situated in the same area of Fiore as the cheerful and justice filled Magnolia town, home of the guild Fairy Tail. It was actually a bit of a surprise to the woman that the guild, which seemed to stand as the center of the ‘good’ guilds, hadn’t gone on some sort of crusade to rid this town of its evil or something. But until that day Thorn was living in this town known for its vampires, werewolves, undead, and general nasty creatures that prey of the weak. Thorn was not weak by any means, thus had the tendency to be predator rather than prey. This served her well in Dahlia town since acting as the hired muscle to such a horrible towns citizens always payed well, whether they wanted to or not. That, Thorn made sure.

Today though she had actually been hired for a contract job. The last lord of this town had recently died causing the local bishop, Santos was his name, to take the reins and was currently holding it in a deadly grip. The man was not only a religious heretic but also possessive and power hungry. Those traits didn’t spell a good future for the residents, but very profitable for people like Thorn. And profit was one of her favorite words. Recently Bishop Santos was driven to rid his city of ‘heretics’ by hiring mages and thugs to wither murder them, or drag them to ‘court’ to be burned at the stake like some sort of inquisition.

Which was why Thorn was currently walking out of a dirty alley; she just got herself a nice job as an executioner. A priest who seemed to constantly be in fever with the strength of his zealotry gave her a simple note with a word and an address. The word was simple, ‘execute’, which suited her just fine.

Thorn had been living in this city for a while now and liked to think she knew her way around. Unfortunately this address seemed to evade her understanding and it took her over two hours to find the damn place. She probably could of asked for directions but one; her employer would not like her drawing attention to herself and the house and two; asking such things was just not what Thorn usually did, let alone in Dahlia town. Thankfully she did find the place, a dirty little house near the outskirts of the town that seemed deserted.

. Camouflaged by shadow and mist, Thorn made her way up to the door and started to investigate. She didn’t want to try to open it right away in case of traps or even just loud creaks. But while she didn’t find any traps she did find out that the door was literally bolted shut. She could just use magic to tear it open anyways, but that would make sneaking pointless. So she would have to find another way in.

Looking up Thorn mentally cussed at the houses builders for making all of the front windows on the second level. She could easily jump to that height, but getting in without giving herself away would be incredibly difficult. Smart, considering the town it was built it but horrible inconvenient for anyone trying to murder those inside (which was probably the point but whatever). She would try to find another easier to reach entrance.

Thankfully that was easy. While the back door had an impressive locking mechanism to it there was a murky medium sized window over what seemed to be a kitchen sink in the back of the house. Subtly peering through showed only darkness and dust, the place seemingly abandoned. Thorn’s frown deepened at the thought of her targets not being here, she would have to pronounce the job a failure thus not get paid, but she should investigate inside the house first before cutting her loses. She reached into a small pouch attached to her belt and pulled out a silver lock pick. The window wasn’t kept closed with a lock thankfully, just a small latch in the inside which Thorn unlocked by shimmying the lock pick between the window and flicking upwards. Easy and simple break in, totally silent as well. With only the faint rustling of cloth Thorn ducked through the windowsill, landing softly in the dusty sink, then leaping to the floor with a small tap. Getting up from her crouching position Thorn takes a closer look at her surroundings and finds little difference at first on this side of the window. Then she takes note of the cutlery, dishes, high chair, and abandoned toys. This house obviously once belonged to a family, but what interested Thorn the most is the small trail of footprints leading from the back door out of the room, looking very fresh. These people were obviously amateurs, probably civilians though Thorn was still wary of a trap.

There was none. While she did sneak and peek around corners, it wasn’t needed. The place was strikingly empty save for the evidence of people at her feet. Following the trail led her to a closet in the main floor which was not only suspiciously ajar but was at the end of the trail she was following. Her prey was near, it was time to get serious. “Curse Magic: Shadow Sneak” Thorn whispers while clenching her bandaged left hand before releasing it, causing magical runes glowing with a demonic black and red aura to appear on the underside of arm. Thankfully it was night time and very dark in the house, making finding shadows to grab at and pull over herself like a literal blanket child’s play. Covered by shadow she carefully, but surprisingly soundlessly, moved the closet revealing a hidden staircase with a faint light at the end.

Thorn stalked down the long flight of stair and soon began to hear voices. Peeking around the last corner Thorn spotted a group of nine people, an elderly man, a middle-aged couple, another couple and two young children huddled together in the middle of the room discussing some matter to each other. None of them seemed to be mages which made this very easy for her. Prepping herself Thorn didn’t bother to listen to the conversation happening as her job was to merely kill, not gather information.

And so she did. Bursting out of the shadows Thorn whipped out her bandaged left arm from her chest to her side, causing the end of her hand to burst forward in demonic energy and curve out behind her like a scythe while yelling “Curse Magic: Deadly Scythe!” and whipping it around causing all within a 1 meter radius to be hit. As in the entire group of people who had very little chance of surviving a direct magical hit like that. Sure enough, they all fell with cries of agony, gushing blood until the stone floor ran red with it.

Thorn took a moment to make sure all targets were indeed dead before taking proof of kill and leaving the house without a backward glance. Her job was done, it was time to receive her payment.