The tension in the air was as thick as forest foliage when Verist called for a meeting just a week later. Merdon had wanted more time than that even for himself to train. Yet, time was not on their side, things never went according to plan. There was only one reason Verist would have asked for them to meet in her room atop the white tower in the frozen North. She had found the Eyes' training facility. How and where had yet to be seen, but as Merdon, Grot, Shade, and Sarel teleported to the room, they all knew in the back of their minds. Skyeyes and Red were already there, seated on the metal chairs, faces stern and unflinching. Verist was calm as well, an uncannily serious look on her face as she waited for the four arrivals to sit down around the table. Grot was the first to move, his frame barely fitting on the seat that the witch had conjured just for him. Sarel and Shade moved at nearly the same time, with Merdon being the last to sit down.
On the table in front of them was Verist's scrying crystal, currently staring at some nondescript manor in the middle of nowhere Avant. They all knew that was their target, it had to be. It was no secret that the witch had been watching places exactly like that looking for signs of their enemies. If they were watching one in particular at that moment, then that was what they were looking for. Each of them tried to spot something off. A trail, a sign, movement in the windows, anything that would tell them what Verist had found. A numb hyper-awareness came over them all as if they had become pure consciousness to travel to that mansion on the plains. The warmth of the tower faded into the void with their forms until Verist cleared her throat.
“As we have gathered,” she said, her eyes dragging across each of them, “I've located our target.” Her voice was calm and steady, far from her usual grandiose act. Somehow, it made Merdon even tenser.
“How'd you figure it out?” Grot asked, still staring at the orb.
“Many merchant wagons stop off at the manor,” the witch said, directing their attention to the road that led to the building. “They come in often enough to have worn down a path. The groundskeepers try and keep the road in order, but the signs are there.”
“Lotsa wagons drop off stuff,” Grot grumbled. “What makes this special? Looks like a big place to me.”
Verist nodded, “However, I've counted. The number of people who go into the manor is more than the number that comes out.”
Merdon leaned forward, catching the drift. “They stay. Do you see them again?”
The witch shook her head. “There's a spot in the back where I've seen riders head out in the night, covered by cloaks, always in pairs, never more than four a night.”
“Finished recruits,” Shade guessed. “Or perhaps scouts, agents on a mission.” The list went on.
Verist stood, commanding their attention. “This is the only house I've watched that has this level of activity. If this isn't their base of operations then something is happening there regardless.”
“We need more information,” Grot surmised. The orc leaned back and stared at the ceiling, envisioning their movements, using the lines in the bricks above him as units of measurement. “There's cover to the back of the manor,” he started. “Trees, a copse, maybe a forest. If we could position ourselves in there, watch the place up close, snag a couple of their riders...”
Shade shook her head, “Pointless, Grot, and you know it. We need to know if our enemies are hiding in that mansion, and we have the perfect method to access it without alerting them.”
The chief-of-chiefs swung his head down so fast it made Merdon wince. “Not a chance,” he told the assassin.
Shade grinned back at her dark-skinned verakt and proposed to the lot of them, “An assassin and a thief sneak into a manor.”
Sarel grinned. “They find out whether the Eyes hide there or not, the army waiting outside in the bushes comes running in or quietly slinks away after.”
Merdon frowned and looked at the building in the orb again. “It's risky,” he admitted, thinking about it from his and Grot's perspective. To trust their little mates to sneak in without causing a commotion. “But what choice do we have?”
Verist chimed in, “The building is warded against magic, so I can't peer inside of it. How heavily it will affect casting spells once inside has yet to be seen, but they don't want it monitored.”
“That can't be too common,” Grot hoped against hope.
“More common than you'd think,” the witch shot him down. “Especially among the Avantian elite. Any well-intentioned novice with a cut of pure crystal can scry. Let alone a paid one.”
They sat in silence for a moment, Grot biting his lip, Shade already concocting plans of entry, the others looking at the orc expectantly. There was no smarter play, and he knew it. This was their best chance at finding out if this was their target. If they moved on the wrong mansion Avant would start the war and have the full force of the Eyes at their beck and call. What little advantage they had to cut off Avant's most powerful tool would be gone, if it wasn't already being moved. Speed was key, but so was accuracy. Too heavy a loss of either could turn the tide of their campaign against the humans dramatically. Shade and Sarel were their only choice. Yet, the chief-of-chiefs held out for a savior, some glimmer of hope that they could do something else. A diversion to draw out the Eyes inside, ambush them when they were least prepared. Having Verist gather more information from afar, give them more time to train and prepare. The more he thought about it, the more Grot knew he had to give in.
He groaned and shifted in his already uncomfortable seat. “Fine, fine,” Grot grumbled. “We'll set our forces in the trees, some orcs, some kobolds, enough to deal with a couple regiment of rookies, but not enough to see us coming. Once you two figure out what you're dealing with, you signal us. We'll either back away or advance.”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Shade rolled her eyes. “Yes, the obvious plan. There are more important things to consider now, verakt,” she told the orc.
“Like what?” he huffed.
“How will we break in?” Sarel finished, leaning forward, much like Merdon, to look at the mansion displayed within the orb closer.
The night sky was clear and dark without the moon in it. Only the stars dotted the sky above and shed the most minimal light possible. For the humans walking around the inside of the manor, it was a terrible time of month. One where they had to remain extra vigilant, where even blowing out the candles wouldn't help them see beyond the windows of the mansion they occupied. The darkness outside obfuscated everything, but after years of being established outside of a city, the inhabitants of the manor were largely desensitized to the scenario. It was another month, another new moon, and nothing would happen just like every other month.
The maids did their rounds, picking up the linens, replacing candles, making supper. What men were notable in the house were lightly armed and dragging their feet. Their days wore on them, made them tired, a changing of the guard was in order soon, right before dinner. That was Sarel's window of opportunity.
With inhuman dexterity, the thief and assassin scaled the side of the mansion and readily climbed in through an upper floor window. The mansion had three floors and the windows on the topmost floor were open for intrusion. It made sense; who expected a kobold thief outside of a city? Once the pair were inside, they glanced around before moving to the closest door. Shade was dressed specially for the occasion, her face and head covered by cloth that matched her shirt, making her blend into the darkness even more. Sarel had stayed in her usual clothing, really lacking anything like Shade had to blend in. She would rely on her usual wits to avoid being spotted. Every house had blind spots and she was good at finding them.
The first room they entered was a study. A desk sat across from the door and bookshelves lined the walls. On top of the desk sat a map, which interested Shade for just a minute before she turned back to Sarel and shook her head. The thief nodded and subtly dug her claws into the outside doorframe, to signal to Verist this was an area of interest for her. The witch insisted on coming to find something within the mansion, and no one was interested in telling the most powerful spell caster they knew to stay at home. She could help them one way or another.
Other than the desk and books, the room was unremarkable. There were no ornate decorations, switches, traps, nothing stood out. It was a plain room, oak, like the rest of the manor, with dark wood bookshelves that Sarel didn't feel like inspecting too closely. It was dark, and she and Shade were only able to see what they could thanks to their kobold eyes. Besides, the books weren't of importance to them, although maybe to Verist. If they were wrong about the purpose of the mansion, they were only vandalizing a few doorways.
The pair moved out of that room and back into the hallway, their foot claws covered in cloth to move silently through the house. They split up, Sarel taking one side while Shade moved to the opposite. More ground could be covered that way and neither of them would get in the way of the other if they needed to hide. Sarel, used to breaking and entering as a thief, moved quickly, ducking into corners and doors as she heard footsteps coming. Shade spent more time moving above her patrols, using her claws to stick to the ceiling when necessary and remaining totally out of sight.
Their sweep of the top floor turned up nothing, except a conference room and a master bedroom, which Sarel marked for Verist as well. Bedrooms were usually where people felt safe, a good place to stash something away from other humans in the mansion. The thief noted, however, that this bedroom was as bare as it could be. While the wardrobe and dresser were fancy, much more than any commoner owned, and the bed was made and topped with fancy quilts and downy soft pillows, there were no personal affects to speak of. More and more she felt in her gut they were in the right place. Even the poorest peasant in the world had something of personal worth in their hovel. It took extreme training and dedication to live without any kind of identifiable items in a home. Unless they happened to be in a spare bedroom, which the thief found extremely unlikely.
Bypassing another group of maids, the pair worked their way down to the second floor and continued their search of the premises. Shade made note of a sickbay that had dozens of beds, of which two were occupied by sleeping men, while Sarel found the maid's quarters. After meeting back up, the pair had a silent conversation with their eyes and hands. Both of them conveyed the notion of beds, to which Sarel asked in mime, why would all of the bedrooms be off the first floor? There was some sense to be made. If someone were injured on the third floor it would take longer to get them to an infirmary on the first. The number of beds, their occupants, and the fact the maids were put on the second floor also raised questions to the thief. She'd never seen that layout in a manor before. Nor had she seen this many maids, and the assassin before her raised a point. The maids were patrolling in an organized pattern. Like guards in a prison.
Minds made up, the two kobolds moved to the first-floor landing and spread out once again. At last, Sarel got the information she was looking for. After ducking into a room to hide from a maid, she heard a familiar voice. A voice that made her snarl involuntarily and flex her claws in a threatening manner even in the dark and quiet room. She pressed her head to the wall and listened to the Eyes that had broken her arm, assaulted Shade and Thickhide, the bastard she wanted to put in the ground more than anyone else.
“Our men will be ready,” an unknown voice told the leader of the Eyes assassins.
“Very good, Drake,” the familiar voice spoke again, causing Sarel to dig her claws into the wall she was pressed against. “The king has insisted on our new recruits being ready for the impending war. As long as his majesty is happy my plans will go uninterrupted, and that's really all I care about.” His twisted chuckle made Sarel's scales crawl.
“And as long as you get your chance at beating the so-called Kobold Whisperer, yes?” the other voice said, the sneer audible in his tone.
There was silence for a time before the assassin replied, “Yes, and if I get my rematch with the second-rate swordsman the king is oh so concerned with.” Sarel heard a rustling in the room, the assassin or his companion, or both, standing up. “Get the men gathered in the training hall. We'll pick up where we left off and the next two graduates will move out tonight.”
The thief didn't wait to hear more. She moved towards the door and into a room across from the one she'd been eavesdropping on, so she could watch the assassin and his man leave. As much as she wanted to follow him and make the Eyes leader her first kill as a trained assassin, she had to prioritize the mission. If he caught her, things would not go well. Summoning the cavalry, metaphorically, was the smart play. The man that had been ordered to gather the recruits went a different way, and after letting him walk around a corner, Sarel followed. She shadowed the other man, Drake, down several hallways before he stopped at a clock. There were no windows around, it was a dead-end, and no doors that the blue-scaled kobold could make out. Until the man rotated the hands of the clock to a certain time and wall beside it slid open. Whatever was down there had to wait. As quick as she could, Sarel moved back and went to find Shade. They had the right place and she knew where they needed to go. It was time to put the Eyes of Ethral into the ground.