Within the abandoned, dilapidated cellar of a half-standing home in the eastern district, the air was moist with humidity and mold. From the ceiling came a bang, followed by an innumerable parade of footsteps. Seconds later, the peeling hatch creaked open, spilling light into the forgotten chamber. Down the ladder came Lieze, who found herself coughing as soon as her lungs inhaled the damp air.
“Oh dear…” Covering her mouth with a hand, she looked over the space. Old crates and barrels filled with who-knows-what were strewn across the floor. Cobwebs sprung from every corner.
“This isn’t too bad…” Lieze commented, “Coaxing these thralls up a ladder wouldn’t be particularly quick, though…”
Quest "Monster House" Complete! Reward - 1,100xp
-Even so, it was a relatively safe place within the city to store thralls while she needed to move around incognito. There was no reason to hide them away just yet, however. Lieze still had plans for her newly-raised minions. Returning to ground level, she peered up through the old building’s sheared first floor and roof to see the sun hanging directly above her.
“Midday… Drayya is probably preparing to attack the farmsteads outside the city right now.” She muttered, “I should execute a diversion. The more time she has to work, the less chance there is that she’ll be identified by any guards.”
Tonberg was in need of a scare. Lieze had noticed that many of its citizens had placed the siege at the back of their minds, content with the idea that Sokalar had been defeated and that the city was safe from the Order. Ricta couldn’t be allowed to take advantage of the public’s ignorance. His approval was already waning - a single push could see the commoners demanding for the maggot king’s abdication if Lieze played her cards right.
“Sickness… poverty… and now, undead wandering the streets.” Lieze smirked, “Why bother taking on Tonberg by ourselves when we could work the people to our advantage?”
She needed a target. Somewhere public and popular. A tavern would be an excellent choice. The only problem would be manoeuvring her 19 Gravewalkers through the city without being spotted by anyone - a practical impossibility. She was nervous enough wandering through the city’s eastern district, never mind its more populated corners.
“Oh, if only Drayya was here…” Lieze sighed, “Then again, I doubt she could mask the presence of 19 thralls…”
-Not to mention, Drayya was currently in the process of completing a mission herself. She would have to figure the problem out on her own.
“...The sewers.”
A candle flickered in her sparking mind. The phrase came so naturally as to stun her into silence. Of course - the sewers! Royalists didn’t patrol the labyrinthine tunnels at all, and they provided a faultless method of transferring thralls from one end of the city to another. She could dip into the sewers, lead a force wherever she wished, and deploy them in some back-alley.
Immediately, she began the search for a manhole. Finding one wasn’t any trouble - it was a wonder the city hadn’t collapsed in on the endless network of tunnels already. After spotting one, she (with great effort) lifted the cast-iron slab and lowered herself into the stinking pit.
Ordering 19 thralls to descend a single ladder wasn’t the quickest or the quietest, but with enough concentration, Lieze had no trouble ushering the group down after her. From there, it was a simple matter of picking a single direction and walking. Conveniently, every sewer exit had a compass chiselled hastily onto the stone floor, leaving zero ambiguity as to what direction she was headed in.
-Or so it seemed at first, anyway. Compass or no compass, navigating the sewers was still quite the challenge. By the time Lieze had finally found herself in her desired location - namely, the tunnels beneath the eastern district, a little over an hour had already come and gone. Using the sounds of wagons being drawn above as an indicator, she made an educated guess on the location of an exit, grunting as she pushed aside another manhole near the top of a ladder and peeking out from the crack.
“An alleyway… excellent.” She thought to herself, “I’d better do some scouting first…”
Hopping up over the ladder to street level, Lieze left her thralls behind while taking stock of her current location. Crowds of commoners wandered to and fro as she emerged onto a main road, taking note of a quaint, local tavern which seemed to be enjoying its share of patrons. She couldn’t spot any guards patrolling the street.
“This will work…” She concluded.
The plan was simple: relocate to a safe place and order her thralls to emerge from the sewers while observing from a distance. If the crowd was swept up in a panic, she would simply go with the flow and escape, melding into the masses while the city would remain none the wiser. Wandering up to a poorly-stocked jewellery shop, Lieze pretended to admire the exorbitant prices of Dwarven necklaces while sending out the order for her thralls to emerge from the sewers.
“300 gold?” Her eyes crossed over a particularly inflated price tag, “Well… supply and demand, I suppose. If there aren’t any jewel deliveries coming down from the north, then simply overcharge for what’s available. Some rich fool is still going to buy it.”
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Seconds later, a blood-curdling scream managed to genuinely frighten her. Craning her neck, she witnessed a well-dressed woman pointing a finger towards the alleyway as a shambling corpse wandered out from the darkness. Then two. Then three. Similar screams broke out one after the other as more commoners looked over to see what the fuss was all about.
To those who lived simple lives, witnessing an undead first-hand was enough to completely shatter their fragile view of the world. No longer did the walls surrounding their fair city impart a feeling of security. Indeed, the experience would only make them feel trapped. Most who bore witness to the event didn’t think twice about fleeing, but some - transfixed by the horror of the situation, could only watch as the Gravewalkers forced themselves into the local tavern.
Of course, there were always those who chose to fight. Those who sought to rally their people against the forces of darkness. Just as Lieze had predicted, a small handful of determined men took to appropriating the pub’s furniture in an attempt to show some resistance, tossing chairs, tables, and whatever else they could get their hands on.
That was what Lieze wanted to see. The proud, noble citizens of Tonberg reducing themselves to witless apes when confronted with the truth that they were no longer safe. Most didn’t last against the thralls’ assault. Gravewalkers were surprisingly powerful creatures, especially when matched against plainclothes labourers without a day of martial training under their collective belts. Greedily, the creatures sank their teeth into the flesh of those who thought themselves capable enough to avert disaster.
Commoners with streaks of morbid curiosity observed the carnage from a distance, through the tavern windows. The sight of blood being spilled activated some basic instinct in their simple minds - the flight response of prey caught in the eyes of a predator. Lieze couldn’t afford not to follow the crowd’s lead as it dispersed. She didn’t want to be caught enjoying the fruits of her labour. As she sprinted down the road, groups of spear-toting guardsmen rushed in to fill the vacuum.
“Good. News of this will spread across Tonberg within the hour, and guards patrolling the city perimeter will be recalled to prepare for any future attacks…” Lieze thought, “Drayya will have as much time as she wants to torch the farms.”
-But her mission wasn’t finished just yet. There was still so much more she was capable of accomplishing.
Like ripples in water, news of the attack spread across the city faster than Lieze could have ever hoped. Even as she retreated to relative safety in the southern district, panicked townsfolk were already emptying their lungs onto the streets, claiming that the Order had suddenly returned. Terror had a habit of blowing itself out of proportion, forcing those who were witness to the attack to inflate their claims as if seeking some kind of salvation from the drama they were causing.
More guards poured in from every corner of the city. Lieze was surprised at the sheer panic she’d managed to cause with only 19 Gravewalkers. After spending a few minutes enjoying the sight of royalists sprinting down the city highways, she turned a corner onto the main throughway leading towards the southern gate, witnessing a large, frenzied group of commoners attempting to seek asylum within the Golden Flagon.
“W-What’s all this!? Please- please calm down, everyone!” Standing squarely in the doorway was the guild receptionist, clearly far out of her depth, “We can’t allow so many patrons in the tavern at once!”
She received nothing but irrationality in response - demands to step aside, veiled threats, and the panicked voices of mothers overwhelming her with sympathetic spiels. As Lieze wandered into view, there was a spark of something like hope in the receptionist’s eyes.
“Miss Lieze!” Waving a hand, she tried (pointlessly) to speak over the crowd, “Please, come over here!”
Lieze clicked her tongue. She didn’t want anything to do with the situation, but she also had an image to maintain. Hiding her sigh, she wandered over to the tavern’s entrance and pushed her way into the crowd, putting on her best worried look as she came face-to-face with the receptionist.
“Is everything okay?” She asked calmly.
“I don’t know! Things were fine one moment, then the next, someone ran into the tavern screaming about an undead attack! Now these people are demanding to be let inside!”
“I was in the area when it happened.” Lieze replied, “Apparently, a few undead came out of a nearby alleyway and attacked a pub in the eastern district. Or, at least - that’s what I heard, anyway. It’s difficult to ask for details when everyone is too busy running away.”
“Is it safe now!? Was anyone killed!?”
“I can’t say.” She lied, “-But I’m also not very happy about it. I was trying to do some shopping, and now the whole city’s going to be under martial law.”
“Martial law!?” One of the observers in the crowd repeated her prediction with fury in his voice, “Did you just say the king’s imposing martial law!?”
Spittle flew from the gentleman’s face. Lieze was only barely able to hide her disgust.
“No… that’s not what I-” She began, but her protest was already being drowned out by the screams of the crowd.
“Martial law!? Who does this bloody king think he is - tryin’ to keep us all inside when there’s undead about!?”
“Some king he is, sitting cosy in his castle while we’re left to the dogs!”
“First we weren’t allowed to leave the city, now we’re being held hostage in our own homes!?”
There was no arguing with an angry mob. Lieze only needed to make a single prediction to light the fuse, and suddenly the crowd was ready to explode. The shouting and jeering acted like a magnet to any nearby citizens, pulling them into the frenzy and reinforcing the group mentality.
The sheer amount of potential lurking in that fury intrigued Lieze. Tonberg’s people had been forced to endure the loss of their loved ones and the dismantling of their pristine country, all the while being forced to sit and watch as the Order crept ever closer. It was a gratuitous maelstrom of discontent - inches away from transforming into full-on rebellion.
“Oh dear…” Lieze could barely hear the receptionist’s sigh, “It’s been quite the day, hasn’t it? Miss Lieze? Where are you-”
Seconds later, she was out of earshot completely. The gears in Lieze’s mind were turning as her gaze settled on a lonesome barrel stacked near the entrance to a shop on the other end of the street. Scrambling onto the rotund platform, she spent a few seconds making sure her balance wouldn’t send her careening towards the ground.
“Alright…” She rubbed her hands together, “Let’s see if I can’t stir the pot a little…”