Xander’s shift drew to a close as the two of them idly chatted. As his watch buzzed out an alarm he’d set to notify him of the end of his time guarding Alesse for the night, which drew a curious look from Gabrelle, he bid Gabrelle good night and made his way to bed. Being able to take the time and relax while talking to a friend had helped immensely in taking the edge off his nerves, and he quickly fell asleep for a few hours.
He woke to the sound of his name being called.
“Xander?” Atrax called again.
“Huh?” He mumbled back to the man.
“Good, you’re awake now. We were planning on making a quick trip to check out the restaurant that Alesse chose before Gabrelle’s shift is over. But we need to keep at least one other person around just in case. I figured I’d ask and see if you wanted to come. Graffus said he would stay if you wanted to come.”
Xander thought the situation over before saying, “No, I think I’m good. Besides, I have to fix the stairs I made out of the outside wall, and talk to Huron about getting more supplies to replace the alarm devices that got triggered. And I also wanted to put some smoke grenades together.”
Atrax nodded. “Fair enough. Well, we’ll see you in an hour or two.”
Xander checked the time, noting that it was about eight in the morning. So he’d only gotten about two hours from his after-shift nap. Still, he felt refreshed from his previous tired state. He thought about his tasks for the day, and decided that his first order of business should be fixing the steps he’d used [Improved Manipulated] to create last night. It made the balcony to Alesse’s room easily accessible. Next would be replacing the alarms that had been triggered. Then, if there was still time before Alesse’s dinner, he’d mix up some smoke grenades.
He entered Alesse’s room once more, finding Gabrelle still at the same seat she’d been in when his shift had ended, Alesse was dressed and moving about the room, gathering paints and brushes.
“Morning,” He greeted the women.
Gabrelle waved in response, and Alesse turned her head to face him. “Good morning, Xander! What brings you back here so soon?”
“Gonna fix the wall so you don’t have your own personal outdoor staircase growing out of it anymore,” He joked.
“Oh. I suppose that makes sense. Good luck, don’t fall! And thanks for fixing it, too.” Alesse returned to scrounging for something in a pile of paints.
Xander made his way out to the balcony and observed the steps he’d created. It had been a good idea he’d had in the heat of the moment. He should really try and think more about how he could use his abilities to reshape the terrain around him. Reshaping the ground under someone to break their footing would give him an advantage. Even better if he could trip them. And he could quickly grow walls to shield himself. But this particular terrain needed to go back to how it was. Carefully stepping back onto the narrow steps, he placed his hand on the wall once more and carefully began smoothing the steps to be flush with the walls once more. Once he stepped onto the grass, there was no evidence that there had ever been stairs growing from the wall. Xander dusted his hands off by clapping them together, and set about finding a guard. He spotted one nearby one of the doors and approached.
Dressed identically to every other guard he’d seen on the estate, he didn’t even notice the guard was a woman until he drew close enough to notice the longer hair. Xander kept assuming that, since the forms of technology were primitive on this world and the political system was similarly medieval, that their social standards would mirror his expectations from Earth about the time. But classes really did change that. If you had a class that let you be a guard, it didn’t matter if you were a man or a woman, the class made you a good guard. He shook his head at the thought that in some ways, this world was more progressive than earth as he approached the female guard. “Excuse me,” he asked. “Could you tell me where I might find captain Huron?”
The guardswoman thumbed behind her, into the manor. “Just saw him enter, he mentioned something about getting food. If you hurry, he’ll likely still be at the kitchens.”
“Thanks!” Xander said and hurried his way to the kitchen area. There, he did indeed see Huron, enjoying his breakfast at a sedate pace. Grabbing his own plate and some food, Xander went and sat across from the guard captain.
“Morning, Huron,” he greeted.
“Morning, Xander,” Huron replied.
“I hate to bother you while you’re eating, but I just wanted to let you know that I’ll need some more of those components so I can reset the alarms. The metal they were in is still fine, so I just need the other parts.”
“Mm. Thanks for letting me know. I’ll have it delivered to you sometime tomorrow hopefully. In the mean-time, it might be best to let your companions know that your system has a hole or two in it for now so that they can be on high alert during their shifts.”
Xander nodded in response and the two men finished their breakfast, though Xander was significantly faster at eating than Huron was, and so left before him. The stairs hadn’t taken as long as he’d feared they might, and he couldn’t work on the alarms without an outside source of black powder ingredients. That meant he had time to put together some smoke bombs. He wasn’t sure yet what to name them. It wasn’t real tear gas, but calling them ‘itchweed grenades’ just didn’t roll of the tongue. Cough bomb? Definitely not. Xander pondered the conundrum as he made his way back out of the manor and towards the training yard. He shrugged to himself. Tear grenade would work well enough for a name. Short and simple. He created himself another table in the dirt and then put on his air filtering helmet and created a set of long gloves for himself, too. He didn’t want to get any of the itchweed on him.
He created a pile of each of the materials he’d need to fill the casings of his smoke bombs. Fortunately, he was able to create the itchweed an already crushed form, as if it had gone through a mortar and pestle, saving him from having to do it himself. Using [Improved Manipulate] he worked it thoroughly into the mixture for the smoke bombs. It should already have been hard and crystalized, impossible to work with in such a manner, but his skills allowed him to mold it like he was folding an ingredient into dough. Once he was satisfied with the mixture, he began pulling clumps of it off and filling the grenade bodies with it. Soon enough, he had ten tear grenades, which he figured should be plenty. Checking his watch again, he decided that he had plenty of time to release Freyja from her stable, and relax in the suite before he needed to armor himself and Freyja up and get ready to go out and guard Alesse at the Golden Gryphon.
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Freyja was happy to be let out of her stall. While it was still before ten, she had gotten used to being let out earlier, and he felt the mental equivalent of a grumble about his lack of timing from their bond. “Sorry Freyja. I got distracted making things. Let’s get you onto your favorite couch, will that make up for it?” Freyja responded by rubbing her cheek on his shoulder. Xander laughed, and said “Alright, let’s go, then.”
Xander spent the while in comfort, having decided to climb up onto the couch with Freyja. The big cat made a wonderful pillow, making up for how much of the couch she hogged for herself. His teammates came back about half an hour before Gabrelle’s shift was up, and filled him in on their findings.
“It’s in one of the nicest areas by the river, obviously,” Atrax said. “But it’s a bit of a walk, which leaves a lot of space for any kind of ambush.”
“Are there multiple ways to get there?” Xander asked.
“I was getting to that!” Atrax said, annoyed that Xander had asked before he could answer. “There are a few ways to go. I’m thinking that we would take one way there, and a different way back. Neither are what I wouldn’t consider as the ‘main’ pathway there, so hopefully it will throw any potential assailants off the scent.”
“Sounds good to me,” Xander replied. “Get a look at the inside?”
“Briefly,” said Graffus. “They didn’t want us hanging around much, the place is too good for the likes of us simple mercenaries, you see,” he explained sarcastically. “But enough to see that there is seating on two floors and a few balconies. They were at least able to tell us that Alesse’s table was on the second floor, and not on a balcony, thankfully.”
“Mm, yeah that’s probably for the best. How should we go about guarding the place?” Xander was unsure if they should just focus on Alesse or try and secure the entire area around the restaurant.
Frazay answered him. “I was thinking that I, you, and Freyja would be best positioned outside the building, patrolling around to look for anything out of sorts. That would leave Graffus, Atrax, and Gabrelle to keep watch over Alesse’s person.”
“That makes sense to me. Graffus should be close to her at all times anyways so he can use his shield skills, and Atrax can make space between Alesse and any attackers while Graffus shields her and moves her outside for us to get back to the estate. And Gabrelle will be able to heal any of the three of them if they’re surprised.”
Graffus nodded his head, agreeing with Xander. “And that leaves you two and Freyja to watch for anything. Between Freyja and Frazay’s senses, anyone who wants to sneak by ought to have a hard time of it. You can provide some extra firepower or move to intercept anyone that you three do discover, Xander.”
“I like it. Glad we’ve got a solid sounding plan hammered out. One of will have to tell Gabrelle the plan, too, when she gets in. Who’s on next shift, anyway?” Xander asked.
“Me,” Atrax replied.
“Well, if ya’ll need anything, just wake me up. I think Freyja and I are going to take a nice little catnap until it’s time to get ready.” The two of them did just that, Freyja falling asleep far faster than Xander, being a professional at catnapping.
Xander and Freyja’s nap time was soon up, and they were awoken by Graffus throwing a pillow onto them. “Time to get up,” he said. “We’ll be leaving soon.”
Freyja let out a small hiss from being awoken so suddenly, but Xander could tell it wasn’t very serious from how she was feeling through the bond. For himself, a simple “Ugh, okay, I’m up,” sufficed.
Rolling off of Freyja and the couch, Xander began summoning his and Freyja’s armor from his inventory. He armored himself quickly, used enough to the process at this point that he rarely fumbled with the leather straps. Freyja took slightly longs, as her armor was larger, and she had to be coaxed down from her comfy couch spot. The two of them were still ready in time to make their way down with the rest of their teammates.
Down in the entrance room of the manor, Xander and the rest of the teammates who had come down the stairs met with Frazay, who had been on shift, Alesse, and two members of the household staff. A maid and a driver, who would be accompanying Alesse. One to drive to carriage, and the other to attend to any miscellaneous needs that Alesse might have, as well as to notionally be present as a chaperone for the situation. Graffus would be riding in the carriage with Alesse and her maid, to provide protection should anything happen, while the rest would guard the carriage from outside.
Soon enough they were off, the carriage moving slowly to allow for the mercenaries who were on foot to keep up easily. Xander rode on Freyja, trying to keep his head on a swivel as they slowly traveled towards the Golden Gryphon. The trip, while tense, was short, and they arrived at the Golden Gryphon without incident. Xander breathed a sigh of relief. Either there had been no ambush at all, or they’d avoided it by taking an alternate route.
Alesse, Graffus, Atrax, and Gabrelle were let inside by a muscular man who was in front of the door. Some kind of bouncer, Xander assumed. That left himself, Frazay, and Freyja outside the building. The carriage and its driver had moved to a designated waiting area adjacent to the restaurant that housed many other carriages. The driver was already deep in a conversation with another driver that he apparently knew from another house.
“Well, guess we should get to it… whatever ‘it’ is.” Xander said.
“I think we ought to do a circuit around the restaurant and then move from there,” Frazay responded.
“Sounds like a plan to me. Just looking for anyone suspicious I guess?”
“Yup,” Frazay grunted.
“You heard the lady, Freyja. Let us know if you see anyone suspicious.” Xander said to the cat, patting her on the neck.
The two of them began making a clockwise circle around the restaurant, looking around the area, peering up at the roofs of buildings, and watching the comings and goings of the restaurant patrons and people on the nearby streets. This was repeated several times with the same results: nothing of interest. On the sixth patrol around the building, though, Freyja halted, and let out a low growl. She began scenting the air, and Xander followed her gaze to a roof several buildings over. There, he saw a dark figure laying flat against the tile shingles, angled to be facing towards the Golden Gryphon. They were quickly noticed by the silhouette, who began running across the rooftop before jumping to another building, out of Xander’s line of sight.
“Did you see that, Frazay?” Xander asked.
“Once he started running, I did,” she replied.
“What should we do?”
“Well we aren’t going to catch him, he’s long gone already. We should let the rest of the team know, see what they want to do, and go from there.”
Xander continued his patrol around the building, paying extra attention to the rooftops, while Frazay made her way into the restaurant to confer with the team. She returned soon after to tell him what the group’s thoughts were.
“Atrax and Graffus are both concerned, for sure. But no one’s is really sure what we can do about it. Hopefully, the fact that we noticed their lookout will have them rethinking any potential ambushes. Leaving now is just as risky as leaving when Alesse’s done, so, in consideration of ‘public appearances’ we’re going to wait until the dinner is completed and leave like normal. They haven’t told Alesse yet, there’s no point until we leave. Might as well let her have a pleasant dinner, at least.”
Xander nodded. “Sounds as good as anything else. We’ll just have to keep our eyes peeled. Not like we weren’t already, though.”
The three of them continued their patrolling for about another hour before Alesse’s dinner reached its end. As Xander saw her leaving the building, he noticed that Graffus was staying very close to her and that Atrax and Gabrelle weren’t far behind. Alesse looked worried, leading him to assume that she’d been informed about the watcher they’d discovered. She was quickly bundled into the cart and they all began moving, taking the second alternate route that they’d discussed earlier.
Xander, as well as the rest of the team, was even more tense than he had been on the way to the restaurant. He kept his eyes on every rooftop and alleyway he could see and held his shotgun at the ready. Even as paranoid as he felt, the speed at which the ambush began took him by surprise. One moment, the rooftops were barren, and the next, there was a figure on top of it, their crossbow outlined with the light thrown out by the streetlamps.