Leah moved through the evening crowd without slowing once.
The market district was at its loudest around this hour. Vendors yelled over one another, gamblers argued outside cramped dens, and buyers squeezed through narrow paths with the desperate energy with no real destination.
She brushed shoulders with the courier as he stepped out of the liquor stall, the kind of small collision nobody remembered after a few seconds in a crowded market. The man muttered under his breath and kept walking without looking back. Leah continued past him at the same pace, adjusting the strap on her bag while a faint pressure settled at the edge of her consciousness.
The anchor had connected.
Her skill never felt natural to use. Maintaining awareness through another person was like listening to a conversation through a cracked wall while trying to focus on the world in front of her at the same time. Most people who developed perception skills like these abandoned them halfway because of the strain involved. Leah had spent years building her work around that exact discomfort.
She turned into a busier lane while the courier moved elsewhere entirely. Their paths separated physically, but fragments of sensation continued feeding into her mind through the connection.
Footsteps against stone, voices overlapping each other and the muffled creaking of a door opening. The courier had entered a building.
Leah slowed near a spice stall without drawing attention to herself and concentrated harder, filtering through the distorted sounds until individual words finally became clear enough to understand.
"…shipment already moved?"
"…Virex wants updates personally…"
"…someone keeps intercepting routes…"
That last part held her attention immediately. So the pressure between groups had escalated further than expected.
She maintained the connection while casually moving through the market, careful not to focus too deeply. Too much concentration overloaded the senses quickly. Early on, she had pushed herself too far trying to maintain multiple anchors simultaneously and spent two days unable to separate her own thoughts from borrowed sensations. She never repeated that mistake again.
She could feel that the man stopped moving as she started hearing more voices.
"…another rendezvous point changed tonight…"
"…they think Hollow Dogs are behind it…"
"…doesn't matter who did it anymore…"
Leah absorbed the conversation carefully while piecing together the larger picture forming underneath it. Multiple groups were cutting into each other's operations now, shifting routes and altering schedules faster than smaller players could keep up with. That level of instability usually took months to build naturally.
Riven had accelerated it in less than a week.
A sharp ache pulsed behind her eyes as overlapping voices began stacking over one another. Leah released the anchor before the strain worsened. The secondary sensations disappeared instantly, leaving only the regular sounds of the market behind.
She had enough useful information to report back and even though information without confirmation was dangerous to rely on.
She moved deeper into the district, passing out of the louder merchant lanes and into the quieter inner roads where conversations lowered the moment unfamiliar people walked nearby. The atmosphere changed gradually here. Fewer stalls remained open, and more doors stayed closed despite lights being visible through the cracks. Men stood outside buildings pretending to smoke while watching every passerby.
Leah eventually stopped outside a gambling den wedged between two abandoned storefronts. One guard near the entrance glanced at her briefly before stepping aside. He recognized her well enough not to ask questions.
Inside, the air smelled like cheap alcohol and old smoke. Dice rolled across tables while several loud arguments covered the quieter conversations happening underneath them. Nobody conducted actual business in silence around here. Noise protected privacy better than walls did.
Leah headed toward the rear booth where a thin man shuffled cards by himself.
"How nice, it's always a delight seeing your face," he said as she sat down across from him.
"How many women have heard that line today," Leah replied uninterested.
The man gave a humorless chuckle and lowered the deck onto the table. "C'mon, you know you are my one true love."
Leah knew about this quirky habit of his for years since she started collaborating with him. She had learnt to ignore it and move on with her business as usual.
"I need information on Virex's side."
His fingers paused briefly against the cards before continuing again.
"That's expensive information."
"I think you owe me enough favors by now. Why don't we cross one of those off the list?" She asked rhetorically.
The man studied her expression for a moment, probably deciding how much he could safely say. Eventually he leaned forward slightly and lowered his voice.
"Virex's people are preparing retaliation tonight. They are considering the attacks on their players an act of war." He said with mild interest showing on his face.
"Do they know who?"
"No. That's the problem." He glanced around the room instinctively before continuing. "Every group thinks the others are moving against them right now. People are getting jumpy."
Leah listened without interrupting.
"Yesterday's stolen shipment made things worse," he continued. "They started hiring contract hitters after that."
That was a crucial piece of information. Enforces doing it was just regular gang workings but contractors cost money and makes matters a whole lot complicated. It means someone important had decided the situation needed to be corrected quickly and cleanly.
The man across from her narrowed his eyes slightly. "You've been asking around these routes a lot recently."
Leah's cold gaze settled on him immediately.
"Careful."
The shift in her tone made him raise both hands with a dry laugh. "Relax. I'm not accusing you of anything. I'm saying people will notice eventually too if I did."
That irritated her more than she showed. Information brokers survived by remaining forgettable. The moment people started tracking your movements, your lifespan shortened dramatically.
"Who noticed?" she asked.
"Couldn't tell you. Word moves around."
Leah leaned back slightly, thinking through the implications carefully. Nobody knew about Riven yet. That remained the important part. The underworld currently believed another organization was responsible for disrupting Virex's operations, which meant suspicion stayed with themselves. They didn't have the capacity to think about a totally anonymous third party they were hearing about for the first time. As long as that continued, Riven still had room to maneuver.
She stood from the booth and gave a nod.
"Try to stay away from the inner lanes tonight," the man warned before she left.
Leah adjusted her bag lightly over one shoulder and gave an imperceptible smile. "Those words are like honey for an information broker."
The streets outside had darkened fully by the time she stepped back into the market. Night transformed the district faster than people realized it happened. Regular merchants disappeared while quieter businesses emerged from behind closed doors. Deals happened quicker after sunset. And so did murders.
Leah moved through the crowd at a steady pace, her thoughts occupied with the same conclusion she kept returning to. Riven had stepped into the middle of an unstable system at exactly the right time.
That kind of timing usually belonged to experienced operators, not someone who had only recently entered this world. Most newcomers focused on immediate survival, a quick buck here and there without any major risks. Riven kept looking at the larger picture instead.
That was either intelligence or recklessness disguised well enough to look convincing or maybe both.
She eventually spotted him near the edge of the outer district, leaning casually against a wall near the meeting point they had agreed upon earlier. His posture looked relaxed, but his eyes shifted toward her immediately the moment she approached.
"I really hope you found something after making me wait here for all this time," he said.
Leah ignored him and got straight to business. She leaned against the wall in a similar manner and started whispering. "The situation's escalating faster than expected. Virex's side is preparing retaliation tonight, and contract hitters are already involved."
Riven's attention sharpened at that.
"They're still blaming each other, right?" he asked.
"Pretty much. Nobody's certain who's actually responsible anymore. Every group thinks another one's starting the feud totally unprompted."
A faint smile appeared on his face after hearing that.
Leah noticed the glee in his expression. "You look way too pleased hearing that."
"It just means the blow landed at the perfect place, we have to start planning the next steps very carefully to take advantage of this."
She sighed at how much fun he seemed like he was having. "Most people would be trying to disappear after provoking organizations that control all the illegal trades in the city."
Riven pushed himself off the wall slowly. "That's exactly why they stay on as most people."
Leah watched him start walking before falling into step beside him again.
"So how do you wanna move from here?" she asked.
Riven glanced toward the darker inner districts ahead where the underworld had begun moving in earnest beneath the city lights.
"We just sit back and watch from a distance," he said. "People expose more flaws during conflict than peace."
Several streets ahead, a body hung suspended from a metal frame above the alley entrance. No crowd gathered around it. People simply avoided looking at it while passing underneath. A symbol had been carved into the dead man's chest.
Riven recognized him instantly. The man who killed the courier a few days ago, the one he witnessed.
"Looks like retaliation already started," Leah said quietly.