“Children, your mission will proceed unimpeded.” Cadmus announced.
The trio looked at him in confusion. The stalemate slowly breaking down was a major game changer, so they were surprised that they’d actually still be able to go on the mission.
“There are many reasons why your mission is even more important now.” He continued. “First of all, we need access to James’s Darkness powers even more than ever. Especially since his level is so much higher now, we can probably actually extract some crucial information out of them this time.”
Cadmus then pulled out a crystal ball out of his desk drawer.
“But another goal is this.” He pointed towards the crystal ball that was displaying an odd pool of black goo. “What you’re seeing here are residuals left from the recent mass teleportations. The residuals alone are extremely rich in energy, so we believe that whatever they use to power up their teleportation, it’s much more energy-rich than even a Bloodwell.”
“What does that mean?” Lunaris asked as she curiously looked at the black goo.
“It means that however they get the energy isn’t important right now.” Cadmus answered. “Bloodwells or whatnot, those are merely ways to extract energy. But what we’re really after is the way in which they store the energy.”
“You want us to sabotage it.” Helios clenched his fists, unable to stop himself from imagining how they harvested that energy.
“Precisely, son. There is no better place to store the energy than in their Stygian cities. Even if someone wanted to attack the energy storage, who would be crazy enough to go against a city full of agents? That’s the last place anyone sane would want to go.”
The trio chuckled awkwardly. The insanity of their own mission was not lost on them, but there were so many reasons why they had to do it. The amount of lives they’d save was reason enough.
“Luckily for you, I love you too much to send you on such a mission without giving you as much help as you can get. My main worry over the past few months was figuring out how you can infiltrate the city, while fighting as few enemies as possible.” Cadmus smiled slyly.
“But before that, here’s another reminder on why it’s so important to get James’s powers back.”
He then pulled out three small capsules and handed them to the trio.
“These things are a testament on how important research into the Darkness is. They were made after countless hours of research focused on the flower you brought to me after the Soul Grinder.”
James looked at Lunaris, relieved that she had the foresight to pick it up. He didn’t have the same attention to detail as an actual researcher did.
“What do they do?” Helios asked while fiddling with the capsule.
“Not much in the grand scheme of things. But they do have one very important use for this mission.” Cadmus grinned excitedly. “It’s very simple. The Dark Flower absorbed the remnants of the shadowy figure you killed, so it was essentially a rich bundle of Darkness with some strange properties. After analyzing it, we were able to figure out a way to detect big concentrations of Darkness. You crush the capsule, and it will lead you to the highest concentrations of Darkness within several miles.”
“I’m pretty sure things with such functions exist already, don’t they?” Helios looked at Cadmus in confusion.
“They do, of course.” Cadmus nodded. “The difference is that these are cheap! It cost us almost nothing to make them, other than the actual know-how. Whereas the tools that could do this that we had up until now cost a fortune. We used to need thousands of expensive materials, but now it’s just a small little capsule made of almost nothing but the most basic alchemical ingredients.”
“So we can use it to detect the place where they store all their energy, without having to prowl around the city more than it’s necessary. Pretty useful indeed.” Lunaris replied in a giddy tone.
“Not only that, but it can also lead you to actual beings that are rich in Darkness as well. Once the energy reserves are taken care of, the capsules can point you right to Garantep. Assuming there’s no stronger foe that it would point to instead, of course.”
“But even if we know where our targets are, how do we avoid detection? In a city full of agents, I doubt we can sneak around as we please.” James asked.
“Don’t worry, it took me many sleepless nights to plan things out, but I’ve spared no cost. Of course, we can’t ever underestimate our opponents. You should always operate with the thought in mind that you can be detected at any time. But with the things I’ll give you, let’s hope it never gets to that.”
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Cadmus smiled and pulled out eight masks, handing them to the gang.
“You were quite wise to bring me the corpses of the neophytes.” He smiled.
The trio had been looking at the masks with great curiosity. But as soon as he said that, they all dropped the masks like they were burning their hands.
“Eww, they’re made out corpses?” Lunaris asked in disgust.
“It’s fine, it’s fine.” Cadmus laughed. “Look, I’ll put one on right now, it’s not disgusting at all!”
As soon as he put on the mask, Cadmus transformed into an agent. Not only his face, but his entire body had changed into the one of an agent. Even his aura was wildly different. If they hadn’t seen him put on the mask, they would’ve really thought he was an agent.
“Wow, I can put up with the thought of wearing that creepy mask if the effects are that good.” James said as he admired the craftsmanship while staring at Cadmus. The results were incredible, it was so convincing that he actually felt a strong urge to attack the agent in front of him.
“All right dad, you made your point. Now take it off, that aura is making me want to punch something.” Helios grinned, his hate for agents being as strong as ever.
“So you refined these out of the corpses we brought you? I knew they’d be useful, but I never imagined they’d be this useful!” Lunaris exclaimed as she put on her mask, immediately transforming.
Now it felt like there were two agents in the room. Even James was feeling suffocated by the aura.
Helios’s eyes turned into fire, and both Cadmus and Lunaris immediately took the masks off.
“Ok, ok, I’ll get to the point.” Cadmus continued. “With these masks, you’ll be able to sneak around in a much safer manner. Even with the best stealth, your presence would probably be felt eventually if you’re in a Stygian city. But this way, even if someone did detect your aura, they’d just sense the fluctuations of a bunch of agents.”
“But won’t the jig be up once we attack the energy reservoirs? And if we manage to do that stealthily, then there’s Garantep. We’d be in the middle of their city, thousands of agents could attack us once we engage in battle.” James mentioned something that had been bothering him for a while.
“Yes, that’s true. And I’m afraid that fighting more than a few agents will be unavoidable.” Cadmus answered and sighed. “In theory, you can just use the tablets to detect Garantep, sneak towards him, isolate him and kill him, then deal with the energy reserves in the same way. But your execution would have to be perfect, and we all know that things never go according to plan. And we can’t underestimate our enemies either. But my confidence doesn’t come from the fact that I’m underestimating them, it comes from correctly estimating you guys.” Cadmus looked at James, beaming proudly as he carefully scanned each one of his beloved youngsters.
“So it all depends on how good our stealth is?” Helios asked, unsure of what to think about this plan.
“On the contrary.” Cadmus replied. “With these masks and Denmac at your side, stealth is already taken care of. Especially with how potent the masks turned out, if you manage to vanish out of sight and re-equip the masks, you can even continue prowling about undetected even after your cover is blown. That’s how confident I am in the masks. The real problem is everything other than the actual stealth.”
“What does that mean?” Helios asked.
“It means that you may not get to use your stealth at all. You can walk in there and think you’re all stealthy, only to have a thousand agents upon you within minutes. At that point, stealth won’t matter at all, even if you can turn completely invisible in an instant. The masks will keep you hidden, but what will determine your success is just how powerful you are when you’re not hidden.”
“Well, I’m pretty confident about that. Right, brother?” Helios asked James.
“That’s right. Leave it all to us, Cadmus. I’ll keep everybody safe, I promise.” James said in an unusually serious tone.
Cadmus nodded and smiled as he looked at James. His sage eyes could see that he meant it. But more importantly, he could see that James’s confidence was not at all unfounded.
“Wait, but how do we know they’d have energy reservoirs in this city at all? There are a lot of Stygian cities out there.” Lunaris asked.
“We don’t know for sure, but it stands to reason that they’d have these reserves in most cities. Hell, this is probably one of the main purposes of the cities. Obtaining energy through nefarious means and then storing it safely.” Cadmus answered.
“So there are probably hundreds of other cities, storing as much energy?” Helios asked, his eyes wide in shock as he imagined the magnitude of what that meant. “Just how many lives were sacrificed to create those energy reserves? There could be so many of them that we’ll never destroy them all.”
“Unfortunately, it does seem like they have more reserves than we can even imagine.” Cadmus answered in a grim tone. “But we must focus on the task at hand. Just destroying one city’s reserves would be a great win for our side. Think of how many lives could be saved if they won’t be able to use that energy for their nefarious purposes. Just one army that is unable to teleport because of our efforts can mean millions of lives saved.”
“Still, even if we can destroy the reservoirs while remaining undetected, attacking Garantep will certainly attract a lot of other agents. Even if we manage to attack him in such a way that the rest of the city won’t get to us, his entourage alone would probably give us enough trouble. He could have dozens of underlings.” Lunaris stated with a furrowed brow. But then she remembered that there Cadmus had five other masks.
As she looked up at him, Cadmus smiled.
“That’s right, my smart little cookie. I wouldn’t send my children away on such a mission without reinforcements. Even if the stalemate did start to crumble, and thus personnel is even harder to find, I can certainly justify it. The mission is quite important, after all. But even more important than the mission are you, my children!”
“Three masks for us, and I imagine that one is for Denmac, and one would be for the other mercenary we asked him to find. What’s with the other three?” Helios asked curiously.
“Why, you know them already!” Cadmus answered mysteriously.
“The three dwarves!” James answered.
“My children have quite the intuition it seems.” Cadmus smiled. “You already spent three months together, so they know you and your powers quite well. They might not be the most powerful of combatants, but their utility is unparalleled. Plus, they’ve already told me how much they like you. Together, you’ll make quite a team, I’m sure!”
Cadmus looked a lot more energetic than when they first saw him today. With a wave of his hands, the table became full of fancy meals, James’s mouth watering in an instant.