Rezkin adjusted his tactic as soon as he realized the truth. He focused his mind to picture the inner mechanisms of the lock. Even though no wards were present, his masters had explained that there was always the potential for a ward to exist. As such, a strong enough mind, even one with a lack of talent, could manipulate the potential ward. Rezkin had practiced many hours, perhaps more than all of his other Skills, to be able to manipulate potential wards with nothing but his untalented will. The concept was so simple, and yet, according to his masters, no one in the outworld practiced the technique.

The young warrior wrestled a tiny potential ward into existence, pressing it against the connection to the synchronic alarm. He wrapped the imaginary microward around the connection and then solidified it in place. Now, he could maneuver the locking mechanism without fear of setting off the alarm. The Grandmaster was clever to have employed such a device. Without Rezkin’s intense focus, he would have missed the warning signals and alerted the assassin to his presence.

Once inside the room, Rezkin stepped over, around, and through various traps. The young warrior was pressed to the extent of his Skill to keep from waking the man or stumbling into the camouflaged traps in the dark. The room was organized chaos. Likely, the Grandmaster knew where every item belonged, but anyone else would think the place had been ransacked. Items were placed in illogical and incongruous places, a method sometimes employed for disrupting intruders. While fumbling in the dark, one would not expect a coatrack adorned with pewter eating utensils hung from bale wire to be standing in the center of the room, fishing hooks strung at various heights from the rafters, or a teetering waste basin to be mounted on a pedestal like a prized sculpture directly in front of an open toilet, which was oddly placed at the head of the bed.

The young intruder detected several poisons on valuable or desirable items—the kind of items that would draw a thief’s attention. It seemed superfluous to the warrior since no one would be insane enough to simply rob the Grandmaster of the Assassin’s Guild. Well, anyone but Rezkin. The grandmaster’s sleep was shallow and alert, as one would expect from a man in his position. The young warrior finally decided on the item he desired, and despite his careful retrieval, he found himself poisoned. At least, he would have been poisoned if he had not been immune to that particular toxin. The grandmaster had earned his place in truth, and would be a worthy adversary, at least for a time, if the only Skills Rezkin had to rely on were those of an assassin.