Thomas barely managed to doze let alone get any real sleep. The prospect of the coming battle, reuniting with Snowlily, and escaping from the pirates left him too excited and nervous. Still, he forced himself to rest until there were only thirty minutes of his forty-eight hours left. After a quick meal, he double-checked his supplies for the escape. Some cheap steel was used to make small simple spikes for the claymore mine tripwires. Something he had almost forgotten to do in his haste to make more gear. Lengths of wire were also wrapped around and fused to the pins of the mines. With the mines finally completely ready, he turned his attention to his long-awaited dessert.
Thomas had deliberately chosen not to use his experience before his nap so that he could enjoy the relaxing comfort of his attributes increasing before the coming stress of the escape. He looked over his ninety-five thousand experience and nodded in approval. The experience was quickly distributed between his Power, Endurance, and Agility. By the time he was done he couldn't help letting out a little laugh. Somehow his experience had been just enough to get his three attributes to a nice even two hundred and eighty each. This left him with just 2,223 experience, not enough to raise anything a single point.
Once the expenditure of experience was confirmed he relaxed and let out a long drawn-out sigh of relaxation. His whole body felt relaxed and soft. He reveled in the feeling until five minutes before he needed to leave the dungeon. Thomas climbed to his feet with determination written all over his face and in his every action. His sword was placed in the sheath on his back. His Peace Maker was fully loaded with six rounds and holstered on his hip. His earth buckshot shell was loaded into his Spell Cannon. The Ultrasonic Goggles were strapped to his head. Lastly, his throwing knives were sheathed and placed against his lower back within easy reach. He just hoped his equipment would be enough for his rescue and escape.
Thomas slowly stretched his body and hyped himself up while looking at the teleportation circle. Mana flowed from his entire body activating his chest armor, pants, and Spell Cannon. His eyes began to glow blue as he activated his 'All Seeing Eyes' and used the night vision mode. He took a deep breath and stepped onto the teleportation circle to teleport out of the dungeon. With a flash of light, he found himself standing in the cave once more. He quickly crouched down to make himself smaller and harder to see in the dim light of the cave. He quickly looked around and was surprised to see only two guards inside of the cave. Not just that but they looked extremely nervous.
As Thomas snuck closer to them to observe the situation, and potentially take them out, the whole cave shook with a violent explosion. Dust and debris fell from the ceiling as the whole cave seemed to vibrate with the distant detonation. Thomas was thoroughly confused at the turn of events. However, it was an excellent opportunity for him. He speculated that the pirates had pissed off the wrong person by robbing them. Now he had the chance to use the invader as a distraction and implement his escape with Snowlily! As he moved closer to the guards he could overhear their conversation.
"Are those three still not dead?"
"Doesn't seem like it. Who the hell are they?"
"No idea. We've got three teams raiding ships. Any of us could have pissed off the wrong person or group. Hell, could have even pissed off a whole kingdom. That's not the problem though! How the fuck did they find us?!"
"Followed one of our ships maybe?"
Thomas had heard enough. Whoever was attacking the pirates was clearly had beef with them and it was all the better for him. The guards were still oblivious to his return so it was easy to get behind them. They were too busy worriedly looking out the entrance of the cave to bother looking behind themselves at the dungeon entrance. Thomas aimed the barrel of his spell cannon at the back of the first guard's head and decisively pulled the trigger. With a muffled thump a fist full of gravel came flying out of the barrel and slammed into the back of the guard's head. Blood flew as the upper half of the guard's head was completely obliterated. Before the body could even fall the second guard started to turn around while drawing the sword hanging from his waist. Thomas gave him no chance and pulled the trigger again. The second burst of gravel ripped the face off the second guard and crumpled the front half of his head.
With the two guards dead, Thomas reached down to grab and move their bodies off to the side. It'd been so long since he killed another player that he'd forgotten he couldn't touch their corpses. An invisible layer over their bodies prevented him from touching or moving them. He grumbled about it but quickly moved on. He couldn't waste time on a futile effort to hide them. He needed to move quickly. The Ultravision Goggles were pulled down over his eyes while a couple of Sound Balls were pulled out of his inventory and rolled down the hallway to check for people lurking in it.
As the Sound Balls rolled down the hallway, he read the information translated by the goggles. The hallway was completely empty with no one inside of it. He swiftly moved through the hallway to collect and roll the balls further down the hallway to keep a good view of the path in front of him. The pathway was clear even to the main branch of the tunnels. Once he got close to them, he hid in a dark corner while tossing Sound Balls down both directions the cave path took. He couldn't map the entire complex but with the distraction of whoever was attacking he could spend some time searching around.
As the balls rolled through the tunnels, Thomas was given a view of the whole thing. He chose to go in the opposite direction that the guards brought him to go to the dungeon. The cave path was nowhere near straight allowing Thomas to remain hidden while the used the Sound Balls to scout ahead of himself. Finally, after what felt like an eternity he found the location of a wider area. As he moved closer to it he heard several explosions in quick succession behind him. He recognized those explosions, grenades. They were loud but nowhere near as powerful as the first explosion that shook the cave when he left the dungeon. It seemed like the guards were fighting back against the intruders.
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He wasn't sure how many grenades were left inside of the pirate hideout but it probably wasn't more than half of them. Yorik seemed intent on using the grenades for his raids so they were probably distributed out to the other pirates. Shortly after the explosions of the grenades, another explosion went off. This time it was similar to the first explosion he heard. The whole cave vibrated and caused dust to drift down from the ceiling. The vibrations even affected his Ultravision Goggles giving him a very brief view of a huge portion of the cave system. He saw several different caverns that could be used for various things. The image quality wasn't good but it gave him hints on the direction to go.
With the excitement coming from behind him, the pathway he was following was completely deserted giving him free rein to search where he pleased. A Sound Balls rolled into the room and revealed its layout to him through his goggles. The cavern was wide and filled with stuff that he couldn't identify through the goggles. Still, there was no one inside of the room so he entered it and looked around. There were dozens of bunk beds filling the room. He'd found the bedroom for the pirates. Any other time he'd have been happy to dig through all the trunks he could see at the foot of the beds and see what he could loot from the pirates. He ignored them at this time though and instead tossed a Sound Balls down each of the tunnels leading out of the room.
The first tunnel was short and led to another cavern with no exits that he could see on the goggles. He checked that pathway first and found it was mostly empty with just a few shelves and large crates. Nothing caught his attention so he left the room and went to the other pathway after collecting his Sound Balls. The next path was significantly longer and took more time to carefully traverse. At the end of it, he found a massive cavern filled with luscious decorations with a gigantic bed resting in the center. One wall was covered in weapons, some broken and some in great condition. Another wall was covered in armor in similar conditions to the weapons. He felt like looting it all but left it alone. If he had to guess, this was Yorik's bedroom.
Disappointingly, there was nowhere in the room for Snowlily to be. He even used the Sound Balls and his 'All Seeing Eyes' to scan the walls, floor, and ceiling for any possible hidden doors. He found nothing. He stopped wasting his time in the room and started making his way out while scouting with the Sound Balls. Even now, explosions went off in the distance. Some small, grenades, some large enough to shake the whole cave. Whoever was attacking the pirates was not going easy on them at all. With his eyes activated he could see fire mana particles flood through the corridor around him briefly. The person causing the explosions was definitely using powerful fire spells or enchantments to blast the pirates. Thomas wished the attackers luck.
He quickly arrived back at the entrance to the tunnel leading to the dungeon. He still had many places left to search. He made his way down the path he knew that lead to his workshop, it was the only path he could take at the moment. Along the path, he found one leading in a new direction. Sound Balls were immediately tossed down it so he could take a peek and know what to expect. Immediately the new path branched off in multiple directions and as he was looking another massive explosion rocked the cavern. The soundwaves and mana particles from the explosion came from the direction leading to his workshop and seemed to be getting closer. As he listened he could hear footsteps and shouting, likely from the pirates.
He ducked down the empty tunnel and continued to move along it until the first branch came up on his right. After checking it, he made his way down the tunnel and found that it ended in a room filled with supplies. A quick check showed it was food supplies. Useless to him. He was really starting to get annoyed with the constant pathways leading him to anything but what he was looking for. After leaving he checked two more branches on the path and found a huge supply of water in one and rooming supplies such as blankets and pillows in the other. For a brief moment, he contemplated setting the supplies on fire but decided not to so he could keep his presence hidden.
He continued to move as the sounds of explosions came closer and closer to his position. Whoever was kicking the shit out of the pirates was moving pretty quickly while doing it. He could hear shouting voices bouncing off of the tunnel walls. The pirates that were fleeing kept saying the same thing over and over, "Retreat to the dungeon!"
Thomas had to admit that it was a great idea for an escape plan. The pirates had plenty of time to explore the dungeon and had access to the fourth floor. Just taking the teleportation circle would provide a huge gap between them and the people chasing them. If he could think of one flaw in the plan, it would be that there was no exit to the dungeon but the front door and the teleportation circle. A determined enemy could just camp there and kill anyone trying to leave. So there was still a possibility of the pirates being camped to death either by starving in the dungeon or getting killed the moment they stepped out. Not his problem though.
He pushed further along the path he was searching while the sounds of combat mixed with the sounds from his Sound Balls making the view in his Ultrasonic Goggles a fair bit fuzzy and harder to decipher. Though he was fairly certain that there would be no one on his path. The pirates all seemed to be fighting the intruders or they were before they started to retreat.
Three rooms later there was still no sign of Snowlily to be found. Worse, the sounds of combat seemed to be fading away. If the pirates all managed to flee and the attackers started searching the caves and found him, he could easily be mistaken for a pirate and blown to bits. He sped up his search of the tunnels until his Ultrasonic Goggles started picking up a sound he couldn't hear. Steady and even footsteps that were moving in his direction.
Thomas hid around a corner and channeled mana into all his gear while removing the goggles from his eyes. He needed to be able to see clearly. He had no problem with the people killing the pirates but if they gave him trouble he would fight back. He couldn't afford to die. He still needed to find Snowlily and escape. Anyone getting in his way needed to be taken out with extreme prejudice. He crouched in stealth while practically invisible as he waited for the person to walk down the tunnel. They made no turns and didn't look through any tunnels.
As the sound of footsteps became clear he looked around the edge of the wall and froze at what he saw. When his brain started to work once again he ended up shouting out, "WHAT THE FUCK?!"