Honestly, seeing Amber capture someone alive was quite a surprise for Wayne. An hour ago he might not have been so shocked, but ever since this "shadow master" had been swatted across the sky by a banking representative named My Little Pony, he'd given up all hope for her combat ability.
Posting her outside was less "standing guard" and more "deploying a human alarm"...
After all, Amber's shadow techniques were genuinely formidable. Having her detect an assassin or spy and sound the alarm should have been well within her capabilities... but who would have guessed she'd actually drag one back alive?
As Amber hauled in her catch, another set of hurried footsteps sounded outside the study, and Ser Byron burst through the door. "My lord, what's happening in here?"
He'd been guarding the front entrance below, but the commotion on the roof had been considerable enough to draw him up.
As for Mailita's earlier visit... Amber had been knocked away so fast that it barely made any noise at all.
"Nothing to worry about. Just a sneak, already caught," Wayne waved Byron off. "Go back to your post. It's a restless night."
Byron glanced around the study with some confusion, taking in the smug-looking Amber and the unconscious infiltrator on the floor. But an order was an order. The middle-aged knight nodded. "Yes, sir."
"How did you catch him?" After Byron left, Wayne looked at Amber with genuine surprise. "You won a fight?"
"What's that look supposed to mean?!" Amber was quite displeased with his reaction. "My direct combat ability is a little below average, but it's not like I can't beat anyone! I even killed one of those things you called 'Others' back then..."
Wayne continued staring at her.
"Of course, mainly this guy was an idiot," Amber admitted, there was always a second half to the story. "He probably could have beaten me in a straight fight, but instead he decided to show off his Shadow Walk, and I kicked him right out of his shadow state. His mind bounced between the Shadow Realm and the Prime Material Plane, and he passed out."
Wayne gaped at her, thinking that this kind of brutally crude maneuver was something only a freak like her could pull off.
Shadow Walk was the signature ability of rogues. Practically everyone in the trade had some degree of "shadow walking" capability, but the average person's shadow walk and Amber's defiance-of-all-logic ability weren't remotely the same thing, they were practically different skill trees entirely.
Normal rogues could at most temporarily turn invisible in the material world, slipping through the boundary between the material plane and the Shadow Realm, what mages called the "shadow threshold." It was an extraordinarily dangerous technique, like dancing on a knife's edge, demanding precision and caution. One wrong step could send you tumbling into the shadow side, where the nameless things of the Shadow Realm would tear you apart. As for Amber... Gods knew what her ability actually was.
Under normal circumstances, rogues only needed to focus on their own footwork. As long as they didn't misstep, there was no risk of falling into shadow, because Shadow Walk was also known as the Lonely Path, every rogue knew that not even the greatest shadow master could intrude into another person's shadow stride. For a skilled rogue, this "dance on the knife's edge" was second nature. But that was under normal circumstances...
When you're dancing on a knife's edge and a freak with a combat rating of 1.5 geese suddenly appears beside you and boots you off, that's a different story entirely.
Amber was still crowing with self-satisfaction.
"It was hilarious! This guy struck the dumbest pose ever, then whoosh, shadow form. But I could see him perfectly clearly. I watched him creep over to me, waving his little knife around. I pretended not to notice, waited until he was standing right on the edge, and then, punt..."
Rebecca had no interest in entertaining Amber. She crouched beside Wayne, examining the uninvited guest. "He's not going to stay unconscious permanently, is he?"
Wayne shook his head. "Hard to say. A normal person hit with a shock at the shadow threshold would either die or be reduced to a vegetable."
As he spoke, the infiltrator on the floor suddenly twitched, then groggily came to.
Under normal circumstances, a trained rogue would have seamlessly continued playing dead, controlling heartbeat and breathing so perfectly that onlookers would notice nothing. But the impact at the shadow threshold had robbed this professional of his self-control. By the time he realized something was wrong, he was already staring directly into Wayne's face.
The unnamed young man's expression was somewhat dazed, as though events had exceeded all expectations. Then he moved to bite down on the poison capsule hidden in his mouth, only to discover it had been removed at some point without his knowledge.
His only remaining option was to keep his mouth shut and say nothing.
"What's your name?"
"What's your purpose?"
"Who sent you?"
Wayne fired off several questions in rapid succession, but received no response whatsoever. The man might as well have been deaf.
Amber produced her small dagger, spinning it rapidly in her hand. "Want me to try some enhanced interrogation? I'm not exactly an expert, but I did pick up a few techniques back when I used to sneak into dungeons to steal things..."
Rebecca looked baffled. "What were you stealing from dungeons?"
"Ah, you wouldn't know about this," Amber said, happily educating her audience. "A lot of jailers confiscate valuables from prisoners, then stash them in the dungeon's nooks and crannies. They have to wait for shift change to smuggle the goods out, otherwise the patrol officer or the lord would catch them. That's exactly when I'd strike..."
"Forget it, enhanced interrogation won't work here," Wayne cut off Amber's boasting. "Shadow Guard. Specifically trained for the High King's service. The elite of the elite. On top of all their special operations skills, their willpower is terrifyingly strong. You're honestly lucky you stumbled into catching someone this skilled, you can brag about it at the tavern for at least half a year."
He looked down at the young man, whose face now showed genuine shock. "Though back when I was alive, the Shadow Guard were just personal bodyguards at most, doing intelligence work in extreme environments. How is it that after seven hundred years, the Shadow Guard has degraded to sneaking and skulking?"
The captured guard stared at Wayne in astonishment. Before he could speak, Wayne continued. "You want to know how I identified you?"
The guard gave a slight nod.
"Obviously, I'm the one who came up with your unit's designation, and the first version of your training program," Wayne patted the guard's face. "I was the first-generation Shadow Guard's instructor!"
Amber gaped at Wayne's nearly two-meter frame. "You're a knight... and you taught rogues? You taught them stealth?"
Wayne smiled faintly. "No. I taught them physical conditioning and two-handed swordsmanship."
Amber was utterly lost. "Why would rogues need to learn two-handed swordsmanship?!"
"To eliminate all witnesses when they're discovered during a mission, obviously."
"For a rogue, being discovered during a mission basically means the mission is over, doesn't it?!"
"No. For Andraste's rogues, being discovered is when the mission begins... Though this one here doesn't seem to have completed that part of the curriculum very well. Or maybe after seven hundred years, my old training program has been phased out as obsolete?"
The guard on the floor visibly winced in anguish, so this was the man behind those hellish training courses...
Though seven hundred years had brought countless rounds of updates, the modules considered foundational had never been fundamentally replaced no matter how many revisions they'd undergone. Physical conditioning and two-handed swordsmanship were two of those.
And seeing the expression shift on the guard's face, Wayne knew those courses were still very much in use...
"Denethor sent you, correct?" He looked at the young man on the floor with a genial smile. "But I imagine His Majesty isn't foolish enough to send an assassin after me when half the kingdom knows I'm in the capital. So his orders were surveillance?"
The guard said nothing.
"But he should have told you to keep your distance. The risk is enormous. House Seawright may have declined, but Gwayne Seawright hasn't declined with it. So was this overconfidence on your part... or did you disobey orders?"
The guard finally spoke his first words. "I have disgraced my mission. I will accept death. Don't trouble yourself."
"Accept death my ass!" Wayne smacked the man across the face. "You've had it too easy for too long, is this how far you've fallen?!"
The guard stared at Wayne in confusion, apparently not understanding what he meant.
"What is the Shadow Guard for? To protect the High King, protect this nation, protect this land! Your duty is to deal with villains who seek to overthrow this kingdom, not to help a muddled king spy on his own founding duke! If you'd been captured on a battlefield against a foreign enemy and said that line, I might credit you with some backbone. But you're here. In my house! Saying 'I've disgraced my mission' to my face, are you saying I intend to overthrow this country? Are you saying that Gwayne Seawright capturing you is a disgrace to Andraste?! Has it come to this, that in the minds of today's Andraste citizens, the founding duke and the kingdom he created are on opposite sides?!"
Faced with Wayne's righteous rebuke, the young guard finally looked lost. "No... that's not what I..."
"It doesn't matter. Your opinion isn't important," Wayne cut him off, then stood. "I'm not petty enough to hold a grudge against someone from a younger generation. So you can leave now."
The young guard hadn't remotely expected this turn of events (in fairness, nothing about tonight had gone as expected). He stared blankly at Wayne, unable to believe what he was hearing.
Even Amber and Rebecca beside him weren't exactly the picture of composure.
So Wayne repeated himself. "I said you can go. Do I need to walk you out?"
The guard slowly got to his feet. "You're certain?"
"Of course. I can't kill one of Denethor's men here. And I don't intend to parade you through the Silver Keep in front of everyone tomorrow, though I'll admit I'm tempted. But unfortunately I'm past the age of acting on impulse, so the only option is to let you go."
Rebecca seemed about to say something, but under Wayne's stern gaze, she swallowed it.
The guard edged toward the window. Just before he left, Wayne spoke. "I have no interest in telling anyone about tonight. So how you report this to your king... is entirely up to you."
"...Thank you for your mercy."
With those words, the guard's figure gradually faded into the air.
Wayne pursed his lips. "...Another one using the window."
Only then did Rebecca find her chance to speak. "Great Ancestor, you really just let him go?"
"Of course," Wayne smiled. "Of course I let him go."
"But shouldn't he be punished? And the fact that the High King sent someone to surveil us, that itself could be..."
"Rebecca, remember this. if you want to gain greater benefits, you have to take the long view," Wayne patted Rebecca on the head. "Releasing one foot soldier is no real loss, but the potential returns are guaranteed."
"Potential returns?" Rebecca blinked. "Such as?"
"It depends on how that young guard chooses to report back. And there are really only two outcomes," Wayne spread his hands. "Either Denethor doesn't sleep for the rest of tonight... or from this day forward, there's a guard at his side who is... not quite so loyal."
He turned to face the moonless night sky of this other world.
"Relative loyalty is absolute disloyalty, and that saying carries a great deal of truth."