The Surge

Jessamine Kaldwin's hands were all that was holding this city together. With her dead, the city was a fast disintegrating web of guardsmen, Overseers, nobles, weepers... Maybe this was the world the Outsider was trying to show me all along. For years I'd held together a shadowy band of ex-mercenaries, street kids, and refugees through discipline and a bit of black magic, on the fringes of a city that ate up innocence and weakness. Maybe today was the end of that small world. I thought of Jessamine Kaldwin's hands shuddering as she lost her grip on life. Whatever doom was coming, I deserved it. My people didn't.

You once told me Billie Lurk was your finest pupil. Fast and strong, with a sharp mind, it's no accident she was the only woman you ever trained. And she proved even more ruthless and deceptive than you thought. But she was no match for you. This is why, in a city of horrors, parents will scare their children with the legend of Daud, the Knife of Dunwall, who never chose sides, who preyed on the city's lords, who never swore fealty, who brought down Overseers, once even an Empress. I wonder what the final chapter will be. What happens to scary monsters, in the end?

When Billie Lurk was eight she wanted to be the captain of a ship. From the moment she met you all she wanted was to be a legendary assassin. She watched you, learned from you, and when she saw weakness she struck, just like you taught her. Only you were a little better. In the seconds before she died, she remembered the first time she met you, when you caught her breaking into the school and spared her life. When you made her an assassin it was the proudest moment of her life. She had no regrets. And you, Daud?

When Billie Lurk was eight she wanted to be the captain of a ship. From the moment she met you, all she wanted was to be a killer. She watched you. Learned from you. And then she saw you losing your grip, and decided to take your place. And now? She's limping to the outskirts of the city. She'll pay a smuggler to get past quarantine. She'll watch herself for signs of plague for a while. Gradually, the fear and grief that seep into your bones in Dunwall will dissipate, and she'll find a new name and a new use for her skills. Even if Dunwall burns to the ground, one corner of the Empire will still know your story. Daud, killer of an Empress. Daud, who spared his betrayer's life.