Shadows were growing in Sameena. Over the past three years, the king Larders have been acting quite unusual of late. Being a nice old man who was filled with wisdom and courage, was now a man who threw tantrums of saliva spitting rage when he didn't get his breakfast prepared just right - the one where he required four bananas, eight melons and twelve apples cut in such a way, it reads "You're doing the right thing". This sort of behaviour led his advisor to believe he was doing something illegal within his chambers, yet didn't have the courage to bring it up.

Tonight, it was too much. Everyone was fed up with this madness. Groups of people met and planned an assassination. One so quickly thrown together, they didn't even give the assassin in question a second guess, or a going over how experienced they were.

Down a silent alley, deep within a boarded up nook within the city, a person was checking himself or herself out in a mirror. Perfect, they thought. Their hood was right, their pouches were set properly, the metal darts and knives were tucked neatly away in under a shawl. A quick demonstration wouldn't do any harm, a thought bubbled up in the rogues mind. Flicking a knife in and out of a leather sheath, lining up a throw. Flick, sheath - flick, sheath - flick, SMASH! The rogue cupped their hands over their face and gasped.

It all happened with just one word: "die -" screamed a rather snappy dressed guard. He couldn't say much after that, as he gargled the last word and slumped over dead. His big feathered hat rolled off out the guard tower, falling through the murky waters below, overlooked by the keep of king Larders, deep within the centre of the great city by the sea.

A grimy shadow dragged the guard into a corner with some effort, flicked the blood off their tar-choked dagger, and then sheathed it within a tanned pouch of leather. Like a cat, they slinked through the shadows, leapt over low-lying walls that lead to a vegetable garden and silently surveyed the area. They were the night, the phantom, the - person standing up to their waist in near liquid, lukewarm manure. A female voice screamed in disgust through the night, a look of true horror washed over their face, under the navy blue hood and cape of a young rogue.

A chorus of guards yells and flip-flops of their sandals, echoed down the inner passages of the kitchen that was mere feet away from the smelly intruder. Two guards erupted out into the garden from the small kitchen door, with nothing but their feathered helmets, sandals and vertically lined linen undergarments. "Where do you think that scream came from?" a large solider said with his spear tucked under his arm, while holding up his pants that had lost its slack over the years. "Dunno, sir." Said a scrawny solider looking out over the garden.
"Couldn't be far off, I'd say - " The large guard sniffed rather unpleasantly, "Blotter, what did I say about bathing?" he said in disgust.
"Sir, I bathe every three days, just like you said I should." Blotter replied and gave one of his pits a quizzical sniff. "Though I'd say, it couldn't hurt to do it more often." A rustle amongst the cabbages alerted the guards to a hunched figure in the dark.
"Who's there!" demanded the Captain.
"Rustle, rustle - wooooossshhh" replied the cabbage. Both soldiers looked at one another, then back at the cabbage. "Rustle?" said a confused Blotter. "Who's that then? Do we know a Rustle, sir?"
"No we don't, Blotter. Besides, cabbages can't bloody speak, can they?" snapped the Captain.
"Umm - strange things are said to exist out there, on the other end of the core and such, and the Elemants like to prank a lot of us half the time." Said blotter with his crooked spear pointed directly at the cabbage. "We'll test it, ok?" he stepped up to the cabbage and gave it a jab. "Hey, are you a cabbage?" he asked the leafy vegetable interrogatively.
"Yes, I'm a cabba - I mean - rustle, rustle." Said the cabbage, which may have been sweating.
"And I was born a cow," growled the captain. "Take this!" He stabbed with his bronze spear, impaling the defenceless cabbage.
"Owe! You damn fool!" the cabbage screamed. Two leafy hands sifted out of the ground and grabbed hold of the captain's spear with an earthen grip. Both soldiers were wide eyed in horror. More so Blotter, as he wasn't the one getting clobbered with his end of the spear and cringing in pain.
"Run Blotter, the cabbages have rebelled!" the Captain yelled, leaving his spear behind with the cabbage and ushering Blotter back through the kitchen door. Blotter looked back just to see a glimpse of something sharp whistle past his face and lodge itself within the brickwork, behind his shoulder. Worried yelps noisily echoed down kitchens and dimmed down to a persistent drone, possibly to the closest barracks.

A heavily gasping rogue looked at a curiously close shaft of wood, attached to a long metal spike tip, gently brushing against her nose. Having nearly escaped death by salad, she took a sigh of relief, tested the strength of the spear in the stone. Deeming it safe, she leapt up on it and over onto the walk, all while keeping a close eye on vegetable gardens from now on.

Walking through many corridors with ash spitting torches, the young rogue - after many hours of getting lost - had come across the royal quarters by shear blind luck. The king lay snoring heavily, like a jumbo jet. A perfect cover, until it was run through of course.

All that stood within her way, was a guard, playing brain surgeon with a long index finger. She readied a small and angular knife from one of her pouches. She poised, tensed, flicked like a frog and danced like a fool as it fumbled out of her leather gauntlets. It hopped about and tumbled through the air as she tried to catch it. It came between her eyes and she grabbed at it in a thrusting motion with both hands away from her face. It caught fast on something, something belonging to the face of a bewildered guard who was clutching their throat.

The rogue blinked and took another mental mark against a book she loosely kept within her head, telling her how many more lucky moments she'll get.

She stepped over the corpse of the guard and crept through the unlit bed chambers of King larders.