I Built This City Chapter 72: Chapter 72

Read chapter 72 of I Built This City by ThePudding on NovelPedia.

Stage Ellen The few who actually paid attention to Ellen when she pushed through the gathered crowd did double takes once they got a look at her. She wasn’t surprised, since she was laying dead on the ground right now. Anyone would look twice at that. “Excuse me! Excuse me! Please! I think that’s my sister!” Her calls were able to get more attention on her, and the crowd shuffled aside to give her access. The pleas for their eyes on her were helped along by her new Perk and its rather apt name. She’d never heard of it, but that just made it more interesting. All Eyes On Me Prerequisite: Perception 9+, Stage Face Perk, Any two Stealth-related Perks, Any Social Perk Effect: Instead of remaining unnoticed through stealth-related Perks and skill, the user may attempt to draw attention to themselves. Watchers will find their eyes drawn to the user, sometimes to the exclusion of anything else. This is not a mental effect and is not guaranteed, it merely makes the user so noticeable that they will draw the eye, especially for any Perks aimed at detecting unusual surroundings or searching. Not every Perk listed its prerequisites, so it had not been clear until this one had showed up that the System was definitely counting Perks that other Ellens had chosen in selecting what to offer. As far as Ellen could tell, the attribute minimum for each Perk had to be met by the Ellen who picked it, but any Perks other Ellens had chosen would count. It didn’t seem impossible to get for an experienced Performer , but she had still never heard of it. Either it was too specific to have been ever mentioned to her, or there was some other hidden unlock condition that kept it from being selected often. Ellen wasn’t sure which, and she would leave that to Bookkeeper Ellen. She had a lot of things to cover for her own planned growth path, and couldn’t distract herself with anything else. The last of the crowd parted before her, and Ellen saw what she’d expected to see. When last she remembered, she’d been picking up some shirts. Suddenly waking up to see someone stabbing a sister she’d never met was not how she’d imagined her next awakening. She’d been the one to smother him with the pillow, even. Her body lay broken on the paving stones, and she was thankful that the city guard had already covered it. There were three guardsmen here, one with a rank insignia, and they were discussing matters amongst themselves. Ellen could see the officer held the bronze-colored Guild card in one hand, which was likely the point of confusion. A dead girl carrying around a Guild card that wasn’t black would be strange. Why would a corpse have a card of an adventurer that wasn’t dead? It was a mystery that wasn’t deep, but would certainly draw some raised eyebrows until it was answered. They likely wondered whose card it was, but none could pull the name from it. That required specialized Perks or enchantments. Of course the guards, trained to keep an eye out for anything unusual, immediately looked over toward Ellen. Aside from being identical to the corpse, her Perk was conceptual poison to the kinds of Perks they usually took for keeping an eye on things. She would have been surprised if he hadn’t noticed her. “That’s my sister!” Ellen repeated. She huffed as she reached the three men, although she wasn’t really out of breath. She’d come up with a good story on the way, thankfully. “I was going to go to the bath house, so I told her to take my stuff with her to my room, but then I heard there’d been an accident and just got a bad feeling so I came back here!” It was a flimsy story, but she doubted anyone would blame an upset, breathless girl for rambling a little and saying something that didn’t work. Whisper Ellen had assured her of that. Now that she was near, Ellen could make out a fourth guard speaking quietly to a distraught cart owner off to the side. If not for the timing, she would have thought it possible it was an accident… but she also knew she’d be too care