Anton wouldn’t have thought there was anything unusual about the fort if it wasn’t for the fact that it was the destination that they had been seeking. As soon as it came into view, Kelsey pulled them back, off the road, and had them climb a nearby hill. Now they were all on their bellies, looking at their target.

“How do lens flashes work again?” Kelsey muttered to herself. “If the Sun is… there… and those guys are… we should be good.” Pulling out some kind of device, she held it to her eyes and looked through it at the fortification.

Anton and Aris looked at each other. “What is that?” Anton finally asked. He kept his voice low, even though the guards manning the fort were far too far away to hear.

“Gimme a minute,” Kelsey murmured, focussing on the fort. “I should have made more than one of these, but it’s finicky work and monsters don’t have much use for them.”

Still curious, Anton used Delver’s Discernment.

Binoculars, Tool, Excellent Quality, Tier 3

Kelsey continued to stare into the device, before finally rolling over and offering it to Anton.

“Here, your turn,” she said. “Hold it to your eyes and turn the wheel. If the picture gets more blurry, turn it in the other direction.”

Anton did as she said. To his surprise, a closer view of the fort jumped at him through the device.

“It’s a double telescope?” he blurted. He’d heard of telescopes. The texts he’d read weren’t sure if they were magical or not, but this device was definitely not. Though how they were Tier Three items without being magical was beyond him, he couldn’t detect any mana running through them.

“Get a good look,” Kelsey said, “And then pass them to Aris.”

When they had both examined the fort carefully, Kelsey had them scoot down off the crest of the hill.

“I don’t like the size of the place,” she said pensively. “They had two guys on the gate, and one on the tower. If they’re running four shifts a day, that means they just need twelve men. Courls, that is.”

“Right,” Anton said. Maths wasn’t his strong point, but he could manage that much.

“That place can hold a lot more than twelve men,” Kelsey said. “I’d say fifty?”

“Maybe they sometimes have more people there?” Aris suggested.

“Maybe,” Kelsey agreed doubtfully. “At least it looks quiet now.”

She made a face as she thought about it, but then seemed to come to a decision.

“Okay, team,” She said brightly. “We need to get in there and access the dungeon. They won’t let us, so we need to kill them.”

“Wait, what?” Anton said.

“They’re the enemy, Anton,” Kelsey said, looking at him with a serious face. “The same army that you faced on the wall. I’m not going to tell you that they’re all evil and need to die, but these guys are in our way, and we can’t afford any witnesses.”

“That doesn’t make it sound less like cold-blooded murder,” Anton objected.

“It’s killing in defence of others,” Kelsey insisted. “As soon as Lord High Mucky-muck finishes drinking the palace dry, he’s going to come up here and kill this dungeon. We need to do something before that.”

Anton wanted to argue with her. The idea that this dungeon had been fed slaves and other criminals for all the years that it had been alive revolted him. But it wasn’t like it had had a choice. Part of him wanted to argue that dungeons weren’t really people, but he couldn’t deny the evidence in front of his eyes. Still…

“No witnesses though? We don’t need to kill everyone to get inside.”

“Any witnesses, any account of what went on here, is going to make it much harder for us to pull off our next heist. The less that the Bey, or whoever is in charge of hunting us knows, the better.”

“So no quarter given,” Anton said slowly. Just like the wall. Except they had taken captives back then, hadn’t they?

Thinking back to the wall brought up another objection. “Are you sure we can do this? Three of us against twelve, and they out-level most of us.”

“Ah, that’s because I haven’t told you my cunning plan,” Kelsey said. “It won’t be three against twelve, it will be one against nine!”

“Pretty sure that’s worse, but go ahead and explain it,” Anton said glumly. Without even asking, he knew that he was going to be the one.

“Step one,” Kelsey said. “Aris takes out the visible guard from here, with the rifle.”

“Are you sure you can do that?” Anton asked his wife. She nodded.

“I killed that noble, before, and before then I shot some of the guards,” she said. “It’s not as bad as hacking at zombies.”

“In a perfect world,” Kelsey said, “They would just all swarm out looking for the shooter and Aris could just cut them down. However, we live in a sadly imperfect world, so they’ll probably just hole up in the fort where we can’t get to them. So!”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

She held two fingers up.

“Anton and I are going to get close to the fort before Aris starts shooting. Close enough to run through the gate before the reinforcements start to close it.”

“That leaves two of us against the nine we think are inside… You’re not going to fight them, are you?”

“I don’t get experience from this avatar, remember? It’ll be a massive waste if I join in. I will watch your back and keep you out of trouble, but the main event is all yours, kid.”

Anton glared at her. “And what if there really are fifty guards in there?”

“Then we run, and Aris picks them off as they chase after us,” Kelsey said placidly. “That’s what we do if you can’t handle a mere nine guards as well.”

“There’s no way that I can,” Anton said bitterly. “Nine guards! Probably Tier Three as well.”

“You won’t be fighting them all at once,” Kelsey pointed out. “They’ll be off-duty, maybe unarmed. Some of them will even be asleep. At the start at least.”

She smiled wickedly. “They won’t know what hit them.”

* * *

I can’t believe I’m really doing this, Anton thought as the pair of them trudged up the road to the fort. The courl manning it were not particularly alert, but they didn’t have to be to note the approach of the two attackers. Anton had been close enough to hear the warning that was shouted down from the tower but as they approached closer, the guards did not appear too concerned.

They weren’t leaning against the wall any more, but they hadn’t taken any basic precautions like closing the main gate. Anton had his sword sheathed and wasn’t presenting a threat and Kelsey looked like a harmless unarmed woman. Looked like.

“Dungeon’s closed!” one of the guards yelled out to them. Anton looked at Kelsey, but she elected to keep walking calmly. The guards watched them approach.

When they were close enough to speak instead of yell, Kelsey addressed the guards.

“Gate’s open, though,” she pointed out. It wasn’t a particularly clever response, but it let them get a few paces closer.

“Breeze keeps it cooler inside,” the guard explained. “Doesn’t mean you can come in.” They both raised their spears meaningfully.

From a far-off hill, there came a loud crack, made softer by distance.

“What was that?” one of the guards asked. Anton held his breath. There was a soft clatter from the tower.

“Dunno. You see anything?” he called up to his compatriot. No one answered, and he had just long enough to frown before the crack came again. There was a pause of about a second before the bullet smashed into his face.

“What was that? What did you do!” the remaining guard yelled.

“What? Us?” Kelsey said theatrically, raising her hands. Anton couldn’t bring himself to act, knowing what was going to happen next.

They had stopped at the first shot, that having been Aris’s signal that moving closer would block her sight lines. The last guard yelled for backup and pointed his spear at them, but he didn’t come closer. He had only a few seconds to live.

This isn’t a fight, it’s an execution, Anton thought as the third guard fell.

“Let’s go!” Kelsey called and broke into a run. Anton followed, hoping that she’d remember that he was supposed to be taking the lead.

As if listening to his thoughts, Kelsey stopped suddenly as soon as she got through the entrance. When Anton joined her, he too stopped, jolted by what he saw.

The fort looked larger because much of it was empty space. A large interior courtyard, partially roofed over, occupied at least half of the volume enclosed by the fort walls. A building at the back was probably where the occupants lived. Anton could see some uniformed courls coming out of it now, pulling out weapons.

Chained to the posts that held up the roof of the courtyard were a dozen slaves.

“Worry about the combatants for now, Anton,” Kelsey said giving him a slight push. Knowing she was right, he ignored the surprised stares he was getting and charged towards the courl.

He triggered Leaping Attack as soon as he was in range, long before the courls realised he was a threat. With the momentum of his leap behind it, Chainbreaker sliced through the courl’s armour and continued on into his stomach. It stopped on his spine, but Anton was pretty sure the courl was dying even as he pulled out Chainbreaker and moved on to his next target.

This one managed to get his sword in the way of Anton’s strike. He was faster and more agile than Anton, but Anton had a few advantages. Courl were renowned for their agility, not their strength or speed. Anton was tough, and he had both Stoneskin and heavier armour. He thought he had the measure of the courl’s blade, but he checked to make sure.

Standard Elitran Shortsword, Mark IV, Weapon, Good Quality, Tier 2

Anton left an opening. It was a real opening, but it was also a trap. When the guard's sword flew, Anton took the blow. It hurt, but he was ready for that. The actual damage done was minimal as the sword glanced off Anton’s layers of protection.

Shocked at the lack of effect, the guard hesitated. Anton didn’t. Chainbreaker made short work of the guard’s neck.

Anton moved inside. He could hear movement from further in the building, but his next opponent was racing into the room right now. Theoretically, a shortsword had an advantage in such cramped quarters, but the guard was panicked, unsure of what was going on. He yelled at Anton, but to Anton’s surprise, he couldn’t hear what was being said. All he could hear was the sounds of the wall. The shouts of the enemy, the screams of his friends.

The sounds of his family dying.

The next thing Anton knew, he was standing over the dead body of the courl he had just been facing, breathing heavily.

“You all right?” Kelsey asked from behind him. “You got a little heated there.”

Anton looked down at the courl, and then back at Kelsey. “I’m fine,” he said.

“You want me to take the rest?” she asked.

“What about the waste?”

“Losing you would be a bigger one,” she said. “Whether it’s to a wound or something more… psychological. The next lot should be easier, but a bit more more… morally challenging. Some of them are probably still putting on their pants.”

“I’ll give them that much time, at least,” Anton told her. “But my parents always taught me that fighting fair was for sparring and tournaments.”

* * *

A little while later, Anton went back to the gate and signalled for Aris to approach.

You have reached Level 9.

Please allocate free Ability point.

Dexterity, Anton thought. It was his lowest physical ability, and courl were just too hard to hit sometimes. A number of the guards had managed to slip around his guard and get a blow in. None had beaten his defences, but Kelsey had had to shoot one of them.

With a few free moments, while he waited for Aris to arrive, he glanced over his status.

Anton Nos, Adventurer, Level 9

Overall Level: 14

Paths: Delver/Adventurer

Class: Adventurer

Strength: 17

Toughness: 21

Agility: 17

Dex: 16

Perception: 15

Will: 13

Charisma: 10

Traits:

Delvers Discernment

Leaping Attack

Stone Skin

Uncanny Evasion

Sense Mana

Spider-climb

Looking back, he saw that Kelsey was going through the bodies, touching each one with her foot, and making it disappear. By the time Aris jogged up to the gate, Kelsey was almost done.

“So!” Kelsey said, coming up to the pair with a bright smile. “What are we going to do with the slaves?”

“What do you mean?” Anton asked.

“No witnesses, remember?” Kelsey asked.