Dear Duchess of Destruction,

The last two days have seen the death of many assassins. On Saturday, after Open Mat, I saw Mr. Daft Hands himself pass by my table in Sayles. As he climbed the stairs into the computer lab, I quickly removed my jacket and wrapped it around my head: a suitable improvised mask. Moving as quietly as possible, I snuck into the lab and dispatched halla with two shots through the cervical vertibrae.

Figures nobody was there. A kill like that is too good to be true, and when the smoke cleared, and I saw nothing but a smashed iMac smoldering on the desk, I realized my mistake. I mean, I’ve got a condition. I get confused sometimes. And seeing Hall’s ghost… just meant it was time to take my pills.

Turned out my partner, Grace, had taken out both Hall and his partner, Wakeham. Clever girl. Walked right into their unlocked Musser double, and shot them both. “I’m pretty sure you can’t do that,” one of them said. “Would you like to call my roommate, the guildmistress? We can validate the kills right now, if you’d like,” she replied, cooler than a certain man in city politics who knows he’s got every juror bought off.

But Grace got careless. “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she wrote in that beautiful 7-bit encoding that always made me smile. She was ambushed coming back from the restroom, only a few feet from her room door. “They’re the men with the golden guns,” her final e-mail said. Not much of a clue to go on.

Drag enough people along Division street, though, and you’ll find some answers. Garrett Miller. A stalkernet photo was all I needed. Oh, and watching him sit down next to his recently eliminated partner at the LDC. I ducked down from the table, crawled over to the upper level of the dining hall, and put on my mask again. In a crowded environment like this, I couldn’t take any chance of being recognized. I won’t let you down, Grace.

Luckily, I found a spot where a concrete support beam blocked his view of me. I jumped over the dividing wall and landed in a crouch on the floor. Applause from half the dining hall. I waited for the attention to fade, and keeping low, made my way up to the pillars just ten feet from Garret’s table. Only one chance to get this right. I rose up, jumped up onto the table, and dove for my target, pistol blazing in one hand, knife ready in the other. He didn’t even have time to react, just gazed up at me, astonished. With that team out of the way, I knew Ross would be coming for me next, and left through the back way.

Grace… I wish you could have seen it.

That night, I turned my attention to my new targets: Corey and Nathan. Formidable men on their own. Together, well… I just didn’t want to think about that. Nathan was the only assassin to outrun me, and I knew I couldn’t take him on in a straight-up fight. Corey’s exploits are the stuff of legend. I heard that once, trapped in his room, he jumped out of the second story window, got some friends, and came back up the stairs to ambush his attackers from behind. Not one of them survived.

I found Nathan’s roommate playing Assassins Creed in the 4th Watson lounge. He left the door unlocked. I left them a gift under their bed: .25 kg of cyclotrimethylene-trinitramine. As of 3:14 and 15 seconds this morning, Watson 410 was an oven rapidly preheated to “conflagration”.

Nathan down, only Corey to go. As I rounded the stairs onto 2nd Musser, I walked straight into him. “Hi Corey!” I welcomed him cheerfully, and kept right on walking. I heard him bolt back into his room and lock the door, and silently cursed that I hadn’t shot him then and there. Still, there might be some way to salvage this mess.

I ducked into the other hallway, and waited for a few minutes. Nothing. I figured I’d check the door and call it a day, but then I saw it–he was standing in the lounge, next to the sink, talking to his residents. Moving on blind reflex, I drew both pistols and emptied 8 rounds into the room. He didn’t have time to bring his Nerf pistol up before I ducked behind the corner for cover. “Corey, you died!” His floormates were shocked.

Walk down the right hallway in Musser, and you can find anything.