The rest of my party stood and stared at Benn’s body in muted shock. We came so close to completing the dungeon without any casualties. I glossed over my notifications from completing the dungeon. 43% contribution and one level gained, the Item Boxes contents were insignificant, crafting supplies to replace a few bombs, health potions and some gold.

Pitri was kneeling down near Benns corpse. He cupped the man's face in his hands and grieved silently. Mily was quietly crying on Rile’s shoulder, Yuar leaning against the wall with his head in his hands. Pitri leaned forward and spoke in a quiet but intense voice.

“The King may not have directly killed you, but he killed you all the same. We will have our revenge, in this life or the next.” Pitri said to the dead man.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up at his words. The anger and hatred on Pitri’s face was unmistakable. My motivations for being here were to rescue my mother above all else. The rest of the party may have been here to rescue friends and family also, but they certainly wanted revenge for the way they had been treated.

Pitri stood back up and took the lead of the party again. “Go through your classes and skills. Make your decisions and open any items, we need to be as strong as possible.” He said. “Let me know if there are any major changes.”

He turned in a circle to survey the tunnel, back to how it was before the dungeon. He climbed the ladder and gave the access hatch a slight shove. It didn’t budge, he tried putting all of his strength against it without success. He looked down towards me and I nodded to his unasked question.

I climbed up the ladder and felt my nerves tremble. This was the moment of truth I had been dreading for a week. If my mother wasn’t here, and wasn't being held in this barracks prison, I wouldn’t rescue her before the deadline. I didn’t know if it was morning yet but it was definitely after midnight, the day set by the King.

“We kill any Kingsworn we find above. As quickly and quietly as possible, we have to assume the place is full of them. If they are able to alert the rest of the soldiers outside we are dead. If you get separated, meet back at this tunnel or the closest safehouse, contact Rhet as soon as possible. He needs to know the tunnel is clear.” Pitri said from behind me to the rest of the group.

I braced my shoulder against the hatch and began to push. It didn’t budge for me either initially but as I put more and more strength into it, it began to rise. There was something heavy sitting on top of the access hatch. Looking through the gap it showed total darkness above. This was supposed to be the cellar of the barracks, under the main level. Once I started moving the hatch it became easier and whatever was on top slid off with a soft thunk.

Pitri let out a tense breath below me on the ladder and we all froze at the sound. After a moment of silence the room seemed to be empty. I slowly climbed up and let the hallowed lantern fashioned to my cloak illuminate the room. It was full of boxes and barrels, there were no windows and only one set of stairs leading up to a doorway.

Quietly as possible we replaced the cover of the tunnel and moved to the door. No sounds were coming from the other side, I exchanged glances with Pitri who nodded that he was ready. His sense of enemies wasn’t alerting him to anyone on the other side, then. I slowly turned the door handle and opened the door. It let out into a hallway with several other doors before more stairs led upwards.

The door to the first room in the hallway was open so we crept in. A horrible smell of iron and copper flooded my senses. Dark stains lined the floors and walls. Bile rose up in my throat as I looked around the room. There was a long table against the far side and on it was a mutilated body. There were iron posts on the walls where shackles could be placed. This was a torture chamber and it had been used heavily.

Mily looked to be on the verge of getting sick so Rile rushed her back to the hallway and away from the room. My horror only grew as I moved closer to the corpse, it had been horribly disfigured. It was a woman and for a moment my heart stopped but the face was wrong, it wasn’t her. Open wounds from knives littered its body in alternating stab and slash marks. Its hands had been amputated and were covered in defensive wounds. I couldn’t look away even as my stomach threatened to empty itself.

“Sylar, come on. We need to keep moving.” Pitri was holding my arm and dragging me away from the corpse.

“What...I don’t...” I sputtered out as Pitri dragged me back into the hallway.

“The King has grown even more evil than we realized. This is beyond anything we have ever seen or heard about. To torture his own citizens? And for what?” Pitri said in disgust.

Stolen novel; please report.

The other two rooms in the hallway contained similar themes without the corpses. Blood stains covered more of the floor than not by the time we approached the stairs leading up. There was light filtering down, flickering in the way that torches do. We exchanged glances and began to slowly move up the stairs in battle formation, myself in the lead. I wrapped the lantern in a thick cloth that almost completely hid the light from leaking out.

As soon as my eyes could see over the landing I froze in place. There was a guard sitting in a chair facing us twenty feet into the hallway. The torchlight wasn’t bright enough to illuminate his face, I couldn’t tell if he was watching or not. I started to back away until he let out a loud snore and twitched. We were in luck, he was fast asleep.

I switched my spear for my bow and strung an arrow. It would have to be instant to prevent him from shouting. I took a deep breath in and lined up a shot. I released the arrow and breathed out as it took the guard through the neck. I dashed up the stairs to try and prevent the body from falling. I was almost in range to catch him when he shocked me and clasped his hand around his throat, a health potion appearing in his other.

I stabbed my spear through his chest three times in succession and watched his arms go limp. Even a perfect shot from my bow wasn't enough to kill him with one arrow. It was going to be a tough fight if we ran into a group. The rest of my party caught up and we took stock of the rest of the hallway.

There were cells lining the hall on each side. The door for each was closed and locked. I could see the shape of a body laying against the far wall. Pitri continued down the hall to look for more threats while I searched the guards body for keys. He didn’t have any sort of key on him. Pitri was at the top of the hall waving to me.

Creeping up slowly behind Pitri revealed another staircase, presumably up to the main level of the barracks. If the prisoners were still here, they would be on that level. We waited for the rest of our party to get ready. Weapons out and tense, we advanced up the staircase and into the barracks proper.

There were two guards waiting for us on the landing. They spotted us first and one got out a yelp even as my arrow caught him in the throat. The other managed to get his shield up and stop Rile’s arrow. We charged into melee range and I lashed out with my spear. The sound of the spearhead hitting the Kingsworn armor echoed off in the distance.

With the numbers advantage it only took us a few moments to take down the Kingsworn. We moved the bodies down the stairs and waited to see if our cover was blown. I felt oddly calm given the situation we were in. A few moments later we heard a voice, and watched as three figures entered the hall from a closed doorway.

“Every day we do the same routine! You push and shove and threaten as if I have ever refused! Get your hands off of me!” A whiney, nasally voice complained. It came from the middle member of the group and it was quickly apparent he was shackled and being led roughly by two Kingsworn who both spotted us.

My first arrow took the Kingsworn on the right in his eye before he was able to react. The second shoved the shackled man out of the wave and raised his shield. Two arrows, one from Rile and one from me, went high and low, aiming to hit the areas the shield wasn’t covering. A shimmering wave of light erupted around the Kingsworn and both arrows fell as if they hit a wall. An ice bolt met the same fate seconds later.

“He has a shield skill!” I yelled and charged the Kingsworn.

The Kingsworn was a skilled melee fighter with a wicked hand and a half sword. He deflected my spear over and over as I searched for an opening. Rile continued to fire arrows every few seconds probing for a weakness. I felt the chill of Mily’s Ice Armor skill wash over me as a layer of frost appeared on my armor. Yuar caught up to me and together we circled and probed the Kingsworns defenses.

The fight took less than a minute but felt like hours as the fear of discovery hung over my head. The man on the ground rolled to the wall and was doing his best to pretend to be dead. Eventually the Kingsworn slipped up, leaving his shield and sword too far forward blocking Yuar, allowing me to snake my spear tip in under his arm. It was only a matter of time after that as we picked him apart one wound at a time.

Pitri advanced into the open hallway to scout for more danger while Yuar checked on the shackled man. I drug the Kingsworn’s body over to the stairs and kicked it down to join the other guards. There was a shout from behind me so I turned to see Yuar shove the man against the wall roughly.

“Wait! Wait! I’m not one of them!” The man was pleading with an angry Yuar.

The anger in Yuar’s eyes slowly drained away, replaced by the tired strain we all felt. He let go of the man and walked away to check on Pitri. Mily rushed past to check on him. Rile stayed back and kept watch over the stairs to keep anything from sneaking up behind us. I walked over to the man and waited for him to calm down. The shackles did indicate he wasn’t one of the Kingsworn. What was he doing down here?

“What is your name?” I asked him, keeping my voice neutral.

“My name is Mattias.” Mattias answered. He began to speak rapidly but I held up my hand.

“Wait. I’m not going to hurt you unless you attack us. We can help each other, we need as much information about the barracks as you can give us. Start from the beginning. I’m going to use Identify.” I said in a soothing voice.

I had been avoiding using Identify on members of the rebellion. It didn’t seem like a great way to foster trust and friendliness, considering my already negative disposition. I considered not using it here but the stakes were too high. We needed as much information as possible.

Mattias - Human - Level 17 - Runecrafter - Health 80/80 - Armor 0