Rosellina very carefully measured out just a few drops of the green liquid, letting it fall into the vial on the table in a precisely controlled fashion. The drops mixed with the clear fluids within the container, the colors changing and the mixture fizzing slightly as the chemicals combined. She leaned back, letting the toxic fumes of the mixture dissipate before leaning forward to put her eyes at table level to observe the results.
She'd tied her hair back carefully and moved everything of importance off of the table before starting the project naturally. Her apartment was small, consisting only of a basic kitchen/dining room, bedroom, and small wash room in the back. It was all she needed though and all she could afford from the stipend provided by SI:7. The rest of the coin she received would either be used to purchase equipment or was stashed away to save for a day when her career came to an end; if she lived to retirement that was. At twenty, she had many long years ahead of her in what would be considered a rather hazardous line of work.
SI:7 provided the basics for their agents; training, weapons, coin, papers and identities, virtually anything one could need in a tight situation or where subtlety was required. They had stocks of poisons of course, but each agent or assassin had their own style, their own methods for accomplishing their goals and it was not uncommon for many to mix their own concoctions where needed. For Rosellina, it was more about ensuring that her weapon poisons would help her in battle than about being the perfect assassin. She didn't specialize in cold-blooded killing, and was instead a classically trained swordswoman intended to act as a spy and informant. Her blades were smaller and lighter, typically dueling foils or lightweight longswords. As a result, she preferred mixtures that would encourage blood to flow freely and prevent clotting; poisons ideal for weapons used to poke someone with the tip or slash with the edge.
The thought about what the poisons she was mixing might be used for did cross Rosellina's mind from time to time, but she knew that the work she was doing was important both for the stability of the realm and to ensure that evil didn't gain the upper hand. To her mind, she was one of the King's hidden blades and she had best be ready to perform that roll at all times. With this thought in mind, she nodded in satisfaction as the mixture in the vial began to settle, the hissing dying down.
She leaned forward, ready to cap the vial of deadly poison and see to her other tasks when the most horrific thing that could possibly happen occurred.
A spider fell from the ceiling and landed on the table.
The event had immediate and drastic consequences. With a shriek Rosellina jerked her hand back, windmilling back into her seat. Although not very heavy, the force of her body landing in the chair was enough to tip it backwards, causing her legs to fly up into the air and strike the edge of the table. She fell over in a heap, chair landing on top of her and the table jarred and moved a foot or so from its original position.
Heart pounding with irrational fear, she shoved the chair off of herself and jumped up. The table was a disaster, the chemicals spilled over and the poison of the vial running across the table's surface and eating away at the wood's finish. That was not her concern though as the object of her horror skittered across the table. In a panic she drew a throwing knife from a sheath on her belt and hurled it. The overly large weapon naturally missed the miniscule spider, the blade sticking point first into the table near it. It was enough to startle the creature however, and the little arachnid scurried off the table's surface, down one of its legs and was lost in the depths of Rosellina's apartment.
"Sweet mother of Wrynn it's still alive," Rosellina mewled to herself. "It's still alive...it's still alive in here somewhere!"
Pounding on her door immediately snapped her back to her senses. She blinked once, staring at the mess in her apartment. The table was covered with a hissing, acidic mixture of chemicals that had eaten away at the wood. A dagger quivered in the table top and her chair was laying on its side on the floor. She quickly picked the chair up, righting it before snatching the dagger from the table. After re-sheathing the dagger, she picked a jacket up from the nearby couch and threw it on the table, covering the still hissing mess of poisons. She winced as she realized her good jacket was going to be ruined, but there was no way to prevent that now.
Running her fingers through her hair to fix it as best as possible, she hurried to the door, undoing the chain before opening it. She was confronted by an old woman who was frequently seen in Stormwind's Canal District, 'Ol Emma.
"What's going on in there? You in some kinda trouble?" the old woman said indignantly. "Could hear your screaming halfway down the block. Bad enough I gotta haul water back and forth at my age but then there's people screaming and whatnot!"
Rosellina sighed, nodding politely, "Yes ma'am. I'm sorry for the disturbance ma'am. It was just a spider you se-"
'Ol Emma pushed her way into the door, gesturing wildly at Rosellina's apartment, "And what's a young lady doing living by herself in a place like this anyhow? In my day young women did not live near the canals and scream in their apartments you know! And what's that smell? You burnin' something in here? Your mother ever teach you how to cook? Also you don't have enough color in here, and why do you leave your clothes draped all over the furniture? You should be out there, finding yourself someone nice to help with-"
It went on and on. Rosellina didn't even bother trying to get a word in edgewise as the old woman instructed her on the proper way to decorate her apartment, the reasons why she shouldn't leave her things in such a disheveled state, gave her advice on how to find herself a 'nice young man', and told her the horrors of hauling water from the well on a regular basis.
By the time she was done, Rosellina had lost nearly an hour of her time and was thoroughly exasperated. As she let the old woman out, she let out a sigh of relief. She affixed the chain on her door and leaned against it, looking at her ruined jacket and kitchen table and rolling her eyes.
"Nice Rose. You're a highly trained, sophisticated spy and assassin of SI:7 and you can't handle and old woman and a spider. This is going to go really well," she murmured to herself. With another sigh, she pushed herself away from the door and set out to begin cleaning up her mess.
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