Chapter 84: Look Down

Annoyingly, neither of them said a thing to me, though judging by how Kyle stiffened shortly after, they had simply chosen to send him the details instead. An understandable precaution for sharing sensitive information, since we were still standing out in the street, so I couldn’t fault them for it despite my annoyance at being something of a third wheel. Idly, I wondered if they had access to the group chat feature; the System had offered it to me, so it definitely existed, even if I’d balked at the price. More importantly, I wondered how secure the information was; I’d already become the target of interference in my communications, but was that the extent of what was possible, or could a sufficiently equipped adversary perform a wire tap and actually listen to or read what was said? I was hopeful that the System was secure against such intrusions, but I wasn’t willing to bet the farm on it either.

“Acceptable,” Kyle eventually declared, pulling me from my thoughts and back to the matter at hand.

Seb was quick to open the door after whatever agreement had been reached, but neither of the guards followed us into the prison itself. The inside of the building was as dilapidated as the rest, with mold growing on the walls and damp patches in the corners where the pipes were leaking. Even that was better than my expectations, as an equivalent facility in old England wouldn’t have had interior plumbing at all. Manpower was the only thing not lacking, as pairs of guards stood at attention in teams of two, a dozen of them to guard barely twice that number of cells, of which less than half actually had any residents. The resulting staff to inmate ratio was skewed in favour of the former, something that only really happened in maximum security prisons of the modern day.

We passed these guards without interruption, having clearly been informed of our presence in advance. The prisoners were likewise quiet, most of them already asleep, leaving only a handful of shifty-eyed fellows to stare avariciously our way. I could only assume they longed for our freedom of movement, something heavily ingrained in all right-thinking men, but they were smart enough to keep quiet, and I had no intention of indulging them. Kyle didn’t spare any of them a second glance, leading us down the corridor of cells to a stairwell at the very end, where we led us down into the depths. Twice more this ritual repeated, our silent procession of two passing a ridiculous number of guards, far too many to be needed for such a run down facility.

I could only guess that this was a front of some sort, either for the provision of sinecures to the otherwise unemployable, or as a way of inflating the payroll with an eye towards pocketing or skimming off the top. Naturally, I didn’t share any of my speculation, because we were still surrounded by law enforcement officers, irrespective of their potential corruption. It was only as we reached the end of the third corridor that the routine changed.

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“Anti-scrying runes are active in the floor below. They will alert us if anybody tries to make a recording. You don’t want that to happen.”

[Level 15 Warden]

I believed him. His was the highest level I'd seen in the city thus far, and the full plate armor he wore, complete with an all-concealing helmet certainly added to the aura of menace he exuded. The fact that someone like this was guarding the stairwell made it clear that the next floor was nothing like what came before; given that no guard had exceeded Level 5 the whole way here. Unlike the previous stairwells, which corresponded to a single floor, this one spiralled down into oppressive darkness, even the candles inlaid at steady intervals struggling to pierce the cloud. There were no guards at the bottom when we arrived at last, just a single cell with a single occupant, still awake and far more lively than his brothers in chains.

The prisoners above were thin, shrivelled things wearing little more than tattered rags, who slept on straw mats on the floor in cells devoid of furnishings. On the contrary, this particular jailbird was well dressed, having managed to keep a pristine white robe trimmed with gold, the kind of gaudiness I tended to associate with high end spas and saunas. His cell likewise featured a proper bed, a writing desk and even a mirror, making it positively luxurious by comparison. Even his name was hidden, indicating either an unusual Trait or the presence of at least one magical item to boot.

“You, you’re no guards. You must be the ones Father sent to free me. Well, what are you waiting for? Unlock this door at once, and I’ll forgive your tardiness just this once!”

He was young, his voice barely broken and still carrying a hint of youthful vigour. His manner of speech was equally informative, every word laced with condescension and an arrogant certainty that they would be obeyed. That said, it didn’t escape my notice that he made no mention of who his Father was, whereas the spoiled young brats back in London would’ve had the name on their lips within a single sentence; a sign that he was still capable of some subtlety, perhaps, or an indication that it was a name so well known that he didn’t usually need to say it.

“Who are you?” I asked him bluntly, because he wasn’t a person to me, just a resource I needed to get out of a rather sticky situation, so there was no need to flatter him.

The young man, and I was pretty sure he was no more than a teenager, didn’t respond, instead turning an odd purple that made me wonder about his health. Thankfully, in the absence of his reply, Kyle was more than happy to fill me in instead.