"What should we do?" Richard asked, turning to Frodo and Olivia, who had the best handle to deal with the situation at hand.
Frodo sighed. "I'd like to say that we should purify them and laid their souls to rest but unfortunately-"
"-We do that, and they know someone's been here and they up their guard." Olivia finished, showing a helpless expression. "Ruins the whole point of this initial operation. But we can't leave empty handed."
Frodo, despite his kind appearance, could also be quite realistic at times. "At the very least, we have to save the writer Que."
"Is he that important?" Panda asked confusedly, and Frodo nodded seriously.
Richard also knew something of this. " Que is not a mere writer. He's practically half an ambassador of the Australian federation at this point."
The wyrm looked over in surprise. "You mean that the federation and the empire are on speaking terms again?"
Richard nodded. "Although they weren't enemies like the Qing empire over there, the federation weren't allies either. There is after all, some enmity on both sides since the Federation was born from refugees fleeing the empire after the death of a certain emperor. Refugee may be less appropriate, so much as rebels who took their chance in a time of chaos, and greatly diminished the strength of the empire.
It was thanks to Que spreading his books on the life of people in the Federation that the empire became willing to reach out to the Federation in more earnest terms, and Que's efforts in getting leaders on both sides to talk that brought the two together on friendlier terms."
Olivia nodded, taking over from here. "Que has been traveling the empire to check for tunnels to the hollow earth, to ensure that there is no such ticking time bomb. Well, and to analyze what makes Australia so special to have kaiju pop up so frequently.
Whether it be the one who holds two empires together, or a researcher who's studying something critical, the identities of Que are too special. Were he to disappear on empire land, then relations with the Federation can get tense."
Hearing the severity of the situation, Alexandria nodded. "Then we save him at the least."
Olivia frowned,. "If we do this though, then we alarm the Thorston family." she pointed out, wincing as she said that and looked over at Richard.
Richard had no expression, showing an indifference towards them.
Seeing he didn't care, she felt a little relieved. She didn't think he'd care, so much as he'd have some ad ideas, given how much he clearly disliked his family already.
Alexandria looked curious as she asked her descendent. "I'm surprised you're being so cautious. It's not like you?"
Olivia looked at her "aunt" with a look of respect. "Of course, wasn't it your motto for the family? To be serpents lurking in the grass, to hide in waiting? If I want to kill my enemies, I must be ready, and they unaware, so that I can catch them by the throat."
Unlike her usual cheerful look, she had a chilling aura to her, as a murderous look sparked in her eyes.
Alexandria hummed her approval. "I was worried that you'd continue to be careless even as you got older. I'm relieved you know how to prioritize." she said with a hint of relief. She had always been worried about this descendent most of all, who had always been a little too careless.
Frodo shook his head in response to Olivia's initial suggestion. "We can't take the risk. If this all goes wrong, then his death will be on our heads. We'll have to take the loss this time."
Richard looked thoughtful as he asked sister Alexandria. "Out of curiosity, how difficult would you say the formation hiding the prisoners is to crack?"
She looked at him thoughtfully as she responded. "Around the low golden core level, or in adventurer terms a high B rank."
Hearing this, he nodded. "Then we should free the prisoners, but leave the undead behind." He said the last part with reluctance, but said it nonetheless.
Richard explained, "the jump from spiritual transformation to golden core is a huge jump. If we break the secondary formation, then whomever is behind this will likely panic." He paused. "But if we just break through the formation holding the prisoners then they'll probably be more relieved than anything else. I doubt the undead is the secret in there, but merely part of a far greater picture. I'm not sure what that man is up to, but I know that he can be ruthless if he feels that his plans have been compromised." Richard said it calmly, yet all knew what he meant when he referred to ruined plans.
The man had ruthlessly abandoned his own son because he was cursed, his own blood. What he would do if he thought the worst of his secrets were exposed... could be disastrous.
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Richard continued to reason, doing his best to infer the man's next actions. "He hates instability. If we attack the first formation, then yes, he might be worried, but far more relieved than if we were to find the bottom one. He may even lower his guard. Though, perhaps I'm being presumptuous. I've never met him after all."
There was nothing wrong with his reasoning, and Olivia easily conceded on this. She was merely worried about alarming the enemy, but as he had put it, the enemy in question may even lower his guard once he believed that he knew the enemy's strength.
"Whatever the case may be, the only one that really needs to be done now is the freeing of Que, which is a diplomatic issue." Alexandria stated, looking to confirm with everyone else as the group nodded in agreement.
"And he may very well have info as to what they're up to now!" Panda added on, in support.
Indeed,, he may very well know what's going on, for what other reason would you confine such an important figure?
"If that is the case, then wouldn't he still overreact?" Olivia pointed out, as the group remained in silence again, trying to figure out the solution.
Finally, Eliie put forward her own opinion.
"Why do they have to find out?" she asked, and Alexandria found herself intrigued.
"And what do you mean by that?" she asked, and Ellie looked at her tentatively
Alexandria responded calmly, yet her focus on the dragonewt clearly increased.
"Decent enough to fool them if that's what you're asking."
"How long?" she asked and sister Alexandria paused as she considered it.
"Depends on the enemy's level. If we assume he bought both formations and is not nearly as skilled in magic, then we can assume a few weeks?
And if he, or someone collaborating with him is the one behind the formation, then days."
Panda smiled viciously. "That's more than enough time to sabotage their efforts! Let's do it!"
"I see no better option at the moment." Frodo said in agreement and Olivia shrugged. "Whatever. They were going to find out no matter what we did, so this is probably the best choice we have."
"Let's do it." Richard said finally, as Achil had no interest in the conversation at hand, leaving him to be the final speaker.
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Slipping into the formation containing the prisoners was easy. Smooth like butter.
As they snuck into the dark area, they observed the prisoners, all of whom were clearly in poor condition.
"They look underfed." Richard noted with concern and Frodo looked equally uncomfortable.
Olivia was more confused than anything. "What are they up to? They're not slaves, but clearly not normal prisoners either. Why would they risk starving them?" It seemed foolish. Why starve your prisoners, especially when they have such significance.
Alexandria had the answer as she pointed to a marking on one of their arms. "Because they don't want to activate that."
Seeing the mark that had been pointed out, Olivia clicked her tongue with realization. "Of course. A death mark."
Hearing this, Richard understood as well. There are many ways to detect when one may die, such as the candle binding technique, or in this case, the death mark . A candle can tell you more than the life and death of a person, telling you their current status, whether their life was flickering or doing well, going out when the person dies. The death mark returns upon the death of a person, listing their cause of death.
Although the death mark cannot tell you of the person's current status, it can tell you how the person in question died. Both had their own positives and negatives.
It made sense. Why wouldn't they kill such a loose end? Because doing so would alert the Federation, and point clearly to them.
Irrefutable evidence of who did it. So instead, they were starving them to death, so that there would be no proof that the famous Que had died at their hands, and that the Federation would have nowhere to direct their anger.
Dangerously clever.
"Looks like something was put into their food too" Olivia noted as she prodded the prisoners, whom didn't have a reaction in the slightest even as they were prodded.
And the half-arachne was a rather weird sight.
When one hears arachne, they know of the goddess arachne, and with it the image of a lower body of spider, and upper body of human.
The woman before them didn't look like that, rather looking more human in nature.
She had 4 spider legs dangling out the back of her torso, twitching in the air.
There was two extra eyes above her other ones, but so small they were hardly noticeable, more like moles than eyes.
That was it.
She looked too human to be arachne yet the appraisal-
[human-arachne]
[ being 1/4th arachne, the bloodline of arachne is receding, but not enough for Arachne to ignore this daughter.]
It seemed there was now another reason to get this prisoner out, for who could bear the consequence of the wrath of Arachne. It was known after all that although Arachne had long left the empire to reside in the Federation, she still had friends in the empire, friends who could make a dangerous fuss like Echidna and her husband Typhon.
It was a crisis averted in this regarded.
None of the other prisoners were that important, but there was no reason not to save them. They were already here after all, saving prisoners and making duplicates, so they may as well finish the set.
The drugging of these people made the situation easier for them luckily, with none of them active enough to deny them as they grabbed them, with a total of 8 prisoners being saved.
Sister Alexandria waved her hand, and with that, an illusion appeared, one so real that Richard could barely distinguish the two. However, appraisal was able to see through it, which made Richard marvel at the spell's ability to discover the truth.
Richard made a note to use the spell more often to ensure that he himself never falls prey to such an illusion.
And with that, the group was able to set out without interference as they walked out.
Richard took one last glance at the slaves, clenching his hands and promising to himself that once he knew the full scope of his father's plans, he would come back and save them, and ruin Thorston's machinations.
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Taking the group of unconscious people back to the hotel, Alexandria attempted to awaken them, only to frown.
"Is it too strong?" Olivia asked, and Frodo stepped forward, casting purification magic in an effort to wake the people, only to no avail.
"This agent they've laced into these bodies is stronger than I expected." Alexandria noted, frowning.
"Even you can't do it sister Alexandria?" Richard asked anxiously.
The wyrm could only shake her head. "I am a master of magic and the magical arts. This is something else, falling into the field of alchemy, beyond my purview. Luckily it seems to only be temporary, and should wear off, but it begs the question." she noted, tapping her tail on the ground, eyes narrowed.
"What did they see that I missed? What would justify kidnapping and killing such an important political figure?
What justifies incurring the wrath of the federation."