“James?” the guard’s voice called out, closer now. “I swear to the savior—”
He came around the corner, his words cut off by Red’s edge slamming into his eye socket. The impact nearly sent him flying back into the open courtyard, but Red was already shifting. I felt the intention pass through the sentient cloth as she expanded inside the guard’s skull, creating a three pronged extension like a grappling hook for his brain. With a tug, I was able to pull him back toward me as I dragged him to lay with his buddy.
Through our connection, I felt Red’s prongs shifting back as I extracted the cloth from his skull. A shiver traced up my spine at the image.
Athena leaned over the dead guard, her eyes wide.
“Nice work, Red!” she whispered cheerfully.
“I was there, too,” I said in mock outrage.
She waved her hand and gave me a patronizing smile.
“Good work, guys.”
We both jumped in fright as Lacy’s voice sounded in our ear.
“Jesus. I forgot you were there,” I said.
A light chuckle sounded across the comms. She adopted an ominous tone.
“I am everywhere.” Her tone switched on a dime, back to all business. “But seriously, let’s get moving. They’re bound to notice two missing guards eventually. We don’t want that alarm sounding in twenty minutes when we’re about to crack the vault.”
I nodded to myself. “Good point. You ready, Athena?”
She gave a serious nod, rolling her shoulders. “Let’s do this.”
I turned to eye the second-story windows. Counting over, I found the one Lacy had indicated and pointed it out to Athena.
“Race you there,” I said jokingly, then ramped up the friction on the castle wall.
She burst past me without missing a beat and I cursed under my breath. As she reached the wall and started climbing, I leaped the last five feet and landed above her head. She cursed me quietly as she was forced to stop or run into my boot.
With a soft chuckle, I raced the first ten feet up the wall, but made sure to keep my eyes peeled on the nearby exterior walls. There were no guards in sight, so I continued ahead at a more steady pace, letting the girl catch up. She realized that I wasn’t actually racing her, and she slowed as she came abreast of me.
We perched just beneath the window together, both of us clinging by our hands and feet with little effort thanks to the enhanced friction. Slowly, I lifted up and peered past the glass to look inside the room. Books lined the walls and comfortable seating were placed in the corners of the room. There was no one in sight.
I nodded to Athena and pulled out a dagger from my Inventory. Bumping up the friction between the blade and the glass pane, I slowly dragged it across the window surface. I half-expected the entire window to shatter and alert the guards, but to my pleasant surprise, it created a nice cut as I moved it in a small circle beneath the latch. When the ends of the cut connected, I de-summoned the dagger and grabbed the cut pane with friction-enhanced grip. Pulling at it, it gave easily, revealing a palm-sized hole for me to reach through.
Once the latch was undone, I pulled the window open quickly and slipped inside. Athena was right behind me and I closed and latched the window. We studied the room for a moment as I listened for any signs of movement.
“Guys, look up, far corner.”
Lacy’s voice cut through my thoughts and it took me moment to orient.
Athena slapped my arm and pointed to the corner of the study. There was a small, square hole in the stone wall near the top of the ceiling, about eight feet high. It had a small grate across its surface and I realized with a start what it was.
“Holy shit,” I muttered.
“Yeah,” Lacy agreed. “I hadn’t considered it before because none of my players could fit, but now…”
Athena groaned.
“Fuck me…”
I looked down at her and flicked her shoulder lightly. She swatted at my hand half-heartedly, but I could tell she was distracted by the realization of what that hole signified.
“Claustrophobic?” I asked gently. Now wasn’t the time to give her shit, especially if I wanted her to start crawling through whatever the fuck awaited her in that hole.
She didn’t answer, which was answer enough.
“Hey, listen to me, Athena.” Lacy’s voice was steady. “We’ll make that option B, okay? There’s still plenty of routes to the vault—my team made it there a bunch of times without ever crawling through those air ducts.”
The girl let out a shaky breath, combing her hair behind her ears.
“O-okay.”
She was rattled, but I knew that she’d push through if she had to. She was the strongest willed kid I’d ever met. Still, I put a hand on her shoulder to steady her. She glanced at it, then looked up at me.
“We’ve got this,” I said with a nod. “The two of us together? Pssh, we’re gonna eat this scenario for breakfast.”
The corner of her lip quirked in a brief smile, then she nodded.
“Let’s go, then. Where to, Lace?” I asked.
“I’m blind here as well,” she replied. “But the left leads to the castle front. Right goes in deeper. Let’s try that. Look for stairs leading down and keep an ear out for patrols. There’s usually alcoves with statues that you can hide a body in if you have to take a guard out, so keep that in mind.”
“Roger.”
With a shared nod, Athena and I strode to the only door. This time, I did cycle my Fate energy and used it to peer out into the hall. There was no indication of movement, so I cracked it open slowly and peeked my head out.
“All clear,” I said quietly.
Together, we turned right and crept down the hallway. After a minute, we reached a junction, one path leading inward, the other continuing along the castle edge.
“Cut in,” Lacy said and we did.
As we walked, I was sending my Fate energy questing forward, peering in rooms and around corners to spot any coming guards. We passed one of the alcoves Lacy mentioned and I saw what she meant. It was a deep, recessed cut out in the wall with a seven-foot-tall statue of a man in head-to-toe armor. There was just enough space behind the statue to prop a body up. We could possibly even squeeze in and lay in ambush for when a guard passed.
We continued on when something touched my Fate energy ahead. Around the nearest bend, I felt two presences approaching at a leisurely pace. In a panic, I grabbed Athena’s arm and indicated the alcove we had just passed. Her eyes went wide but she followed my lead immediately.
Lacy’s voice sounded in our ears.
“I see them, Dirk. Two guards, swords sheathed on their belts. They’re moving slow. Estimated arrival is thirty to forty seconds.”
We didn’t reply in fear that our voices would travel down the narrow halls. Athena slid in behind the statue and I shimmied in beside her. It was immediately obvious that parts of my body were sticking out from behind the statue.
“I don’t fit,” I whispered. “Ambush?” The question was for both Athena and Lacy, but the girl answered first.
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“I’ll go near, you go far.”
“You sure? Red can probably get both.”
The sounds of approaching footsteps cut off her reply, but her eyes bored into mine with a fiery determination. She nodded once, then bent down to crawl to the edge of the alcove. Her sword flashed into her hand, held ready to strike.
I knew that a joint ambush wasn’t what was practical. A low strike would only bring the guard to the ground where she’d have to finish him off. Red could probably split into two and spear both of the guards at the same time.
But this wasn’t about practicality; this was about Athena getting her hands dirty, contributing to the scenario in a way that mattered. So I readied from behind her, sending Red instructions on how to strike. If Athena faltered, we might even have time for Red to clean up the second guard before he could scream.
The footsteps were nearly on top of us and I tensed in anticipation. Below me, Athena’s arm was steady, her short sword poised at knee height. As soon as the two guards passed the alcove, Red was lancing forward, strong and steady but with a needle point thickness at the end. It took the far guard perfectly in the side of his nearest eye, skewering his brain. He didn’t even have time to cry out as he convulsed once and fell to the floor.
At the exact same moment, Athena’s sword stabbed forward into the second guard’s kneecap. He did make noise, but it was a muffled cry of pain rather than a shout of alarm. Even as I pulled back Red, Athena pushed into the guard as he fell to his knees, knocking him onto his back. With one smooth motion, she slapped a hand across his mouth as her sword went up and under his chin. There was zero hesitation as she pulled the blade back, ready to stab again if needed. Blood splashed from the wound, coating her hands and arms up to the elbow, but the grisly display didn’t seem to faze her one bit.
Before I could even compliment her on her efficiency, she was dragging her target into the alcove.
“Hurry,” she whispered. “Before the blood creates a mess we can’t hide.”
My eyes went wide—partially at her coldblooded instincts, but also at the realization that hiding a body wasn’t worth shit if there was a hallway splattered with blood as evidence. Red snapped out like a whip, latching onto the second guard to reel him in. The blood seeping from his eye had already dribbled down his face onto the stone, but my cape shifted to soak it up even as she pulled him in.
It was a tight fit squeezing both guards behind the statue and wouldn’t stand up under any sort of scrutiny. But it would have to do for now. Without a word between us, I sent my Fate energy questing forward once again and a moment later, we were off.
It took us only another minute to find a spiral staircase leading down and with the help of my Fate sight, we managed to reach the basement level without running into any guards.
We weren’t so lucky once we actually hit the basement level and I had to stop Athena from turning a corner when I sensed two more patrolling guards about to hit the stairway. Before I could indicate how many were approaching, Lacy did it for me.
“Two guards incoming. Thirty feet and heading your way.”
The angle of our position wasn’t great to run the same play, so I pointed at my chest and mouthed the word, ‘Me.’ She frowned, but the sound of their footsteps were approaching fast and she reluctantly nodded. With a nod, I turned to get in position. I sent a visual of my plan to Red, who practically vibrated with pleasure.
With the Fate sight, I was able to time it perfectly. When the guards were a half-step from the threshold where we were hiding, I stepped out with a smile.
“Hi, boys,” I said with a wave. Before they could even register my presence, Red stabbed forward from my arm in a perfect double prong, stabbing through the left eye of the left guard and the right eye of the right. They didn’t even hit the ground before Red wrapped them up like one giant cocoon, absorbing any blood before it could leak onto the floor.
“Where do we hide them?” Athena whispered at my side.
“Stairwell’s no good,” Lacy said in our ears.
“Hmm,” I mused, looking around the hallway for another alcove. It was obvious in a glance that there were none within sight, but my eyes did catch on a very familiar duct opening further down the hall.
Pointing at it, I shrugged. “Best option, I think.”
She gave me a deadpan look and crossed her arms.
“How the hell we gonna squeeze them in that?”
“I can reduce their mass, remember? That’ll bring their Endurance down to the single digits. We’ll easily be able to break their bones and compress them into the space. It’ll be like that serial killer that shoved his victims into suitcases!”
Her nose furled in disgust, then smoothed out as she shrugged.
“Worth a try, I guess.”
“Ugh, I can’t watch,” Lacy groaned.
The reality of my plan hit me and I suddenly felt less than enthused.
“Yeah, this is gonna be gross.”
Without wasting another second, Red and I dragged them over below the duct and I reduced their mass by swapping energies and feeding it into them with intent. Once they were as light as I could make them, Athena and I got to work.
I reached down and grabbed an arm, then stomped on the shoulder joint. It snapped with a sickening crack and I felt my gorge rise.
“Wow, that’s gnarly,” Athena said even as she physically twisted the other guard’s knee a hundred and eighty degrees in the wrong direction.
Then a perverse giggle left her tiny body and I stared at her in horror.
“Oh God, you’re a serial killer in the making, aren’t you?”
She rolled her eyes at me then twisted another leg in the wrong direction.
“No, it’s gross to me, too. It just reminded me of this Gumby toy my dad had. I remember giving him crap because it was so lame…” She had a distant look as she continued snapping limbs. “He made some dad joke about kids not appreciating the classics or something…We both laughed for no reason and…it just made me remember it, is all.”
Her story made me forget all the bullshit we had just went through. Reminded me that this was all just a scenario. What she was describing was what was real. It was easy to forget that sometimes with the pressure of the Tower and trying to always get stronger.
She looked up and noticed that I was deep in thought.
“Hey,” she said with a snap of her fingers. “I didn’t tell you that for pity.”
I shook my head distractedly. “I know.”
She snapped her fingers again and pointed at the guard held loosely in my hands.
“Let’s go. That corpse isn’t gonna origami itself.”
I stared at her numbly, my brain slow to process her words. When I finally did, a deep laugh erupted from me suddenly. Her eyes went wide and she looked around frantically. Lacy scolded me in my ear.
“Dirk, lock it down!”
I put a hand over my mouth and whispered back.
“Sorry, sorry!”
We finished folding the guards into themselves and I hoisted them up one at a time and shoved them into the open duct. Some blood escaped from our efforts, but I was able to wipe most of it up with Red’s help.
Once that was done, I cycled up my Fate energy again and sent it questing forward. Following it’s trail, we continued deeper into the basement until I sensed more guards around a corner. Before I could stop Athena, Lacy was warning us.
“Two guards ahead. I can’t be certain but looks like they’re guarding the vault. Fifty feet from your position with eight feet between the two guards. If you can sneak a look, we can see which one is closer to the alarm.”
“Got it,” I whispered back, slinking forward. Crouching low, I peeked my head out for a split second. At a glance, it was easy to see that the leftmost guard was within grabbing distance of a rope that disappeared into the ceiling.
“Leftmost guard,” Lacy relayed to Athena. “Okay, now here’s the tricky part. We can’t kill both of them.”
“What?” Athena hissed.
“We need one of them to open the vault. If you kill both of them, you’ll have to either crack the vault or cut through it. If one of you knows how to crack a safe, that would be one thing…” Neither of us chimed in. “Was a long shot. Other option is to break through using Dirk’s powers, but the Adept hiding inside will hear you way before you break through and will raise the alarm. Capturing one of them alive is the only way in that I found.”
“Shit,” I muttered. “Alive it is. What’s the plan?”
“Can you use your diskslinger to take the left one out?”
I chewed my lip in thought. It was possible, but the disks didn’t move as fast as a bullet or an arrow. There was a non-zero chance that the guard managed to lunge for the alarm before the disk reached him.
“Too risky,” I whispered. “I can throw a knife faster and with the same accuracy.”
“Hmm. Oh, I just got an idea,” Lacy said excitedly. “Can you hit the rope while moving? If so, you can cut through it higher up so it’s impossible for the guards to pull it. Then you can take out the left guard and take your time with the other one.”
Athena and I shared a look and she shrugged.
“I’ll bum rush the second one while you deal with the rope and the other guard?” she suggested. “Probably won’t take him out, but I can at least keep him occupied.”
There didn’t seem like any other options, so I nodded. As long as she could stop him for running for help, I’d be on him in a second.
“On Lacy’s mark?”
She nodded and I pulled two throwing knives from my Inventory. I considered a baseball for the second guard, but I was resisting doing all the work. Athena needed to learn and grow from this just as much as I did. If I did everything for her, she’d get nothing from this. That wasn’t to say I’d let him get away if she messed up, but it was worth a calculated risk. I didn’t expect us to complete the scenario on the first try anyway—Lacy had pretty much implied it was impossible—so I wouldn’t be too miffed if he raised the alarm inadvertently.
Lacy counted in our ears.
“3…2…1…mark!”
We both burst from behind the corner at superhuman speeds. I lowered Athena’s mass so far down that her Agility must have been over a hundred. For me, I only did half-mass so that my throws would still have oomph behind them.
The guards were just registering our presence when the first knife cleaved through the top of the rope. My target’s eyes went wide as he followed the knife’s trajectory, realizing too late that the rope was cut. As he reached for it, it fell to the stone floor and he opened his mouth to yell out.
My second dagger took him through that opening, piercing the back of his mouth and lodging in his spine. He let out a strangled gasp and fell back against the wall. Just as my knife hit, Athena reached her target.
He was slower to react, his eyes glued to his fallen companion for a second before snapping back to the rushing girl. To his credit, he didn’t discount Athena because of her size and went to draw his sword even as he prepared to yell.
Athena’s short sword clattered against his face from a sloppy throw, the side of the blade hitting his teeth and jaw. The throw had been weak from her reduced mass, but she was coming in right behind it. At the last second, I bumped her mass to the max and she collided into the guard like a bull. He was launched against the stone wall in comical defiance of physics when their two sizes were taken into account. His head smashed back against the stone and his eyes rolled. Athena didn’t lay off the gas and slammed three mass-enhanced punches into his jaw, putting his lights out.
I pulled up beside her with a chuckle, leaning dramatically over the guard.
“You got knocked the fuck out.”
Athena was breathing hard—mostly from adrenaline, if I had to guess—but she scoffed through the ragged breaths. She punched her fist into her other palm with a self-satisfied grin.
Then her face shifted.
“Ugh, now we have to wait for him to wake up!”