B4 Chapter 30 - Dungeon (Patreon)

“Ideally, the next group of goons that visit should get knocked out silently.” Cael faced Lortel calmly. “Death also works if it’s without rips or blood on their clothes. I don’t have any qualms killing Shilman’s goons. Can you do that?”

Lortel remained hesitant. Cael tried his best to appear as neutral as possible, to not rub in the fact that he’d just proven wrong just about everything she said. People hated being proven wrong, which was why rubbing in a victory was so satisfying when done to the right people. With Lortel, though, Cael really didn’t feel any need to turn this into any more of an argument.

“I could escape without you right now,” Lortel said. “Adalene’s guards won’t sense me. Shilman no longer has a tracker on me, and he’s most likely going to be busy exploring the gauntlet you just opened up. If I slip past, I am gone.”

“In that case, we’ll create an escape with Alda,” Cael said. “My plan is dumb enough that it should work regardless. It’ll just be much easier with you helping out.”

“You’re hoping for my assistance, then,” Lortel said.

Cael snorted. “You’re genuinely good at your job. Of course I’m asking for your help.”

Lortel frowned at his smile.

“No use arguing with him,” Alda said from the side. “Cael could convince you that collecting frogs is a fashionable hobby.”

“Is it worth it for me to risk my own escape to assist you?” Lortel asked nonchalantly. “I benefit very little from seeing you outside these cells.”

“The three of us will have an easier time finding Vivi,” Cael said.

Lortel batted an eye. “Staying as her friend is a great benefit, yes, and she sees all three of us favorably. A missing person could cause conflict. I will likely need to abandon her regardless.”

This goddamned woman… Cael thought with a sigh, and he was about to open his mouth.

Alda moved first, towering over Lortel with a frown on her face. “What is wrong with you?”

“What is wrong with me? Do you want to know how many people I’ve murdered?”

Alda’s frown stayed, but nobody said anything.

N broke the silence in Cael’s head. “Two Shilman’s goons arriving. Fifteen seconds until here.”

“Checkup’s coming,” Cael said. He placed his hands behind his back, pretending like he was still cuffed. “I’d like to escape with you regardless. No blood or rips on their clothes, please.”

That went for Alda as well. He glanced at her, and she nodded, also with her hands behind her back. If Lortel didn’t knock the guards out, Alda was their next best hunter. Cael would probably lose to Shilman’s guards even if he had Vivi’s sword.

Lortel made no effort to hide the fact that her hands were free. She leaned against the wall, arms crossed, as the same goons that brought her here walked up on the other side of the cell bars.

“Anyone pissed yourselves?” the first man in a black and red cloak asked with his odd way of introducing a toilet break. The second man reached the cell key into the slot, when he suddenly paused.

Both guards stared at Lortel, blinking.

“What the fuck?” the first man asked.

Calmly, Lortel walked up to the cell door, while the guards stood frozen in place. She placed her palm on the lock, where she pushed ether into the mechanism, breaking the lock with a satisfying click. She opened the door.

Shilman’s guards finally reached into their cores, about to flare their auras, when the shape of Lortel’s figure distorted, as if a coating of ether camouflaged her in the surroundings. She dashed faster than Cael could track. He heard a chop, and both guards collapsed on the ground, unconscious.

Lortel’s hand was hard with the texture of sandstone, like it had been when she blocked an arrow in Helegar’s royal ball. If Cael had to guess, she’d given the guards a chop in the back of their heads.

“Let’s go, then,” she said.

“You didn’t kill them,” Cael noted.

“I would have if murder was the easier option,” Lortel said.

“You insist you’re a monster,” Cael said, “but all of your actions otherwise have shown the opposite.”

Lortel’s aura was fully concealed, presence entirely invisible. Cael couldn’t tell if that was the effect of a skill, or if she was seriously just that good at containing her aura. With silent footsteps, she turned to the hallway the guards had come from.

She glanced at him and paused, but stayed quiet. Her figure distorted again, blending her with the dungeon’s dark bricks, and she disappeared, dashing off.

Cael and Alda were left in the cell, the door open and two guards unconscious by their feet.

Alda let out a long sigh. “What do you think? Is it good to let her free, or is she just trying to scare us off?”

“Her behavior would make sense for a fugitive,” Cael said. “She’s committed crimes, for certain. I doubt her motives are pure evil, but she didn’t lie either.”

There were too many possibilities. Maybe Lortel had escaped from something and tried to start a new life, but her past caught up to her down in Norfolm. Maybe she could have been drugged as well. Her mind was twisted in one way or another.

Either way, Cael was still imprisoned. He knelt down by the unconscious guards and began undressing them, and stole both of their key rings.

“What’s the escape plan?” Alda asked.

Cael grabbed the black and red cloak from Shilman’s guard, and dressed himself in the outfit. “N scouted Adalene’s knights everywhere in runic armor, and very few of Shilman’s goons.”

“I doubt even Lortel can just walk out,” Alda said. She summoned Moonlight, Vivi’s sword. “We’ll have to do some fighting. I’d bet I can beat one or two, but it won’t be silent.”

“No, we’re not fighting,” Cael said. “Put this on. It’ll be an easy escape.”

He tossed the other guard’s cloak to Alda, who complied, but kept eyeing him for more answers.

“Adalene’s influence is overwhelmingly weak against Shilman,” Cael said. “That extends to his guards. Anyone with these cloaks walks right over the Queen’s guards.”

Alda adjusted the cloak, but she didn’t look enthusiastic. “So one of these plans…”

“It’ll work,” Cael said. He put the hood of the cloak up. “N, can you turn into horns for me?”

“Horns?” his spirit asked in his head.

“Yes, turn yourself into two black horns on my forehead,” Cael said. “The hood has two holes to slot them into.”

N always hated showing himself in any physical form, and the dislike radiated from his mood, but he tried his best regardless. Two black horns poked out from Cael’s hood.

“They need to be harsher. That’s way too shiny.” Alda put her hood up as well. “Mint, give me horns as well, please.”

Alda’s spirit also made it look like she had small and sharp horns. Her spirit did its best to conceal the appearance of transparent ether. Black was by far the best color to make a spirit appear like a solid object. The smooth skin on her face was a tell, but not all demons had scorched spots on their faces.

“Give me your best frown,” Cael said. “Let’s go.”

N had said there were two doors out. Cael turned left, to the opposite direction from where the two unconscious guards had come from. He walked with his back straight and imagined his father’s face to truly feel as irritated as he wanted to appear. Alda followed closely behind.

Dim ethereal lamps lit the hallway. None of them were connected to surgeways, and instead the lamps had to be individually fueled with everything runes. Cael passed cells and heavy steel doors, with many cells being full of boxes and storage instead of captives. This didn’t seem to be a torture dungeon, or maybe it was just a calm time of year, but the lack of other captives made the dungeon much calmer. Guards didn’t feel pressure protecting the prisoners themselves.

“Upstairs behind that door,” N said. “Hallways, dining room, cleaning closet, storage rooms, then reception.”

Cael tried different keys until he found one that unlocked the door. They walked upstairs, into a less musty but still closed-in brick hallway. Talking came from a room to their left. “...can’t actually be the real prophesied gauntlet,” a woman was saying. “It’s just some dungeon in a mountain.”

With an irritated scowl glued to his face, Cael walked past. Conversation paused, but nobody walked out of the small dining room. Clear.

“Door outside three rooms to the left,” N said. “Reception first. One guard there.”

Cael followed the instructions silently, until he stepped into the first room with a guard in runic armor. He stood by a table filled with paperwork. To the left was a holding cell for prisoners coming in, also empty.

The guard didn’t react as Cael walked straight to the next door. He tested the handle.

Locked. His frown deepened. The keyring clinked as he tried to guess which key could have fit the handle.

Guessing would be risky, and it didn’t seem like N knew either. If this went wrong, it would appear suspicious.

“Which key was this again?” Cael asked, giving the guard a sideways glance.

The helmet shifted toward him. “Cross with a seal,” he grumbled.

Cael looked at the keys. Each one had markings on them, but only one had a cross. He wasn’t sure what the seal referred to, but he tested the key. The door unlocked, revealing another stairway. Light came from above.

Stepping up, Cael and Alda found themselves in the city, surrounded by government buildings, in a street that was most definitely heavily guarded.