It took them at least an hour to find the pirate lair.

They hadn’t moved slowly, either. Zoe would have struggled to keep pace if it weren’t for her abilities such as {Kinetic Enhancement}. She did also feel that even though she no longer had {Physical Enhancement}, the system was passively enhancing her somehow.

She was also able to level up several abilities in that time as well. It turned out that hiking, meditating, moving rocks and sand around, and trying to hold your breath all at once was a decently effective challenge.

{Meditation} had gained two more levels, bringing it only three away from level twenty, at which point it could rank up. {Kinetic Manipulation} had gained a whopping three, bringing it to level twelve. But it was breath control that had gained the most — a full four, bringing it up to level seven.

After that, Zoe figured she had hit her limit for those skills for now, and so she had switched to practicing {Mana Manipulation}. It was supposedly an incredibly rare and powerful skill, so it made sense to try to improve it.

Unfortunately, she had only barely begun to practice with it when Andric shushed everyone and made them stop and hide in a dark crevice between a boulder and the canyon walls. Signaling with just his hands, he made them wait while he scaled the rock wall.

Zoe canceled her {Mana Manipulation} as she and Lily hunkered down in the darkness. She didn’t know if using the ability might do anything to give them away, but she didn’t want to take that kind of chance.

This left her with nothing to do.

Fortunately, Andric came back in just a few minutes, and this time he spoke — if only in hushed whispers. “They have a field of tents set up, as well as fortifications in a cluster of caves in the walls. It’s rather well defended. Lot’s of natural obstacles.”

“So what do you intend to do?” Lily asked, getting straight to the point.

“There’s what looks like an obvious command room, but it’s currently empty. Just a single guard. I must admit I’m sorely tempted to sneak in and snoop around.”

Zoe arched an eyebrow. How bold. “So what do the two of us do? Just wait here?”

“No. Climb up to the top and keep watch. There’s at least a little bit of cover, and it will let you be able to see if something goes wrong. You’ll also have an altitude advantage, should it come to that.”

“And what if it does?” Lily asked. “Do you want us to run, or…”

“I’d appreciate it if you could at the very least help cover me on the extraction,” Andric drawled. “But yes, if it looks completely unsalvageable, you might as well save yourselves. It’s okay if I die anyway. It’s not like our sect doesn’t have plenty of alchemists.”

Zoe snorted at the young man’s painfully obvious attempt at mockingly appearing pitiful and selfless. Lily rolled her eyes. “Yeah sure. Now get on with it.”

Somehow managed to both sulk and pump out his chest, Andric turned his back and began silently scaling the rocks again. Zoe turned to Lily and pointed upwards. “Should we both go, or do you think we should take opposite sides?”

“Opposite sides. You take this one, I’ll take the other.”

“Got it.”

And with that, Zoe began climbing herself. She didn’t look back to see what Lily was doing — she trusted that the ice mage would be able to manage, if not as well as her and Andric. Smiling, she recalled the incident in the mines with the tunnel rats. So recent, and yet it feels so long ago.

Zoe started out using {Kinetic Enhancement} but quickly switched to doing it the old fashioned hard way. After all, she doubted the ability would level for something as easy as this, and it wouldn’t hurt to keep conditioning herself to be in shape.

It only took about two minutes to reach the top. Much to her irritation and lament, Zoe did have to resort to {Kinetic Enhancement} a few times to get past particularly challenging portions, but overall she used her own muscles.

Finally, she heaved herself up and rolled onto the cracked, dusty ground of the scorched wastes. She stared up at the stars for a moment — the moon was waning, she thought, and the encircling star was just appearing over the horizon — but then Andric was dragging her up to a kneeling position.

Raising a finger to his lips, he pointed upstream. Following his gaze, Zoe saw some sort of metal device about a hundred meters away, along with what looked like some kind of bundle on the ground next to it.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

The pair crept forward. They took a fairly brisk pace — Andric seemed cautious but also intent on getting there quickly. Glancing over to the other side of the canyon, Zoe tried to spot Lily. She couldn’t — but she did level up {Stealth}.

They made it to what turned out to be a large winch without incident. The bundle turned out to be a human body — one that had recently had its throat slit. Zoe looked up from it, and Andric shrugged. His doing, obviously.

Zoe guessed the woman was probably a lookout.

The winch was connected to a thick hemp-like rope. The rope stretched from one side of the canyon to the other at an angle. Another rope did the same, crossing the first one in the middle, where a small airship was docked.

Looking back around, Zoe realized that Andric had disappeared. Shrugging, she knelt down and peered over the edge. The assassin was working his way down the canyon wall — but Zoe was immediately more interested in the tents and caves below.

It was fairly dark, actually — but there was still enough light from the concealed lanterns to illuminate the area in shadows of varying shades. Zoe was able to count exactly twelve tents. They were fairly large and rugged looking — probably built to last and not move very often.

The caves caught her interest as well. Set into the opposite cliff face, their darkened openings looked almost inviting, in a thrilling, dangerous sort of way. However, while most were dark, one shone with a bright, warm light.

Peering into it, Zoe realized that a banquet was going on. A long table was piled up with what looked to be a sumptuous feast. She couldn’t actually tell what all of it was from this distance, but there was a lot of it.

The table was mostly empty for its size, with only five people present. There were two on each side and one at the head. Perhaps that was their leader.

Looking back down, Zoe realized she had lost track of Andric. As she looked around the camp below, she saw absolutely no sign of him. Finally, her eye landed on a narrow wooden bridge spanning the shallow water — it was the only path connecting the two banks.

He might have to cross it there, Zoe thought. At least, if he needs to get to the other side. I guess it’s fifty-fifty.

So with that thought, Zoe kept her eye on the bridge. Just several seconds passed, and then sure enough, a shrouded figure darted over the bridge. It was fast — in fact, it didn’t look like he had even set foot on it, but practically teleported from one end to the other, which made her wonder why he even had to choose that point to cross.

Either way, it wasn’t something anyone would see if they weren’t expecting it.

After that, she lost track of him again, until a shadow flickered by one of the cave entrances. Zoe peered into it and activated {Mana Sight}. The ability didn’t give her much — just the vague outlines of a room and some blobs of possibly-furniture. Can he see in the dark? He said it looked like a command room.

Pursing her lips, Zoe went back to watching the bridge. Andric had said to keep watch, and she had nothing better to do, so she studied the bridge and its construction. It was arched, that much was clear. It also had a little railing. How quaint. And fucking boring.

Someone walked over the bridge.

They weren’t trying to be stealthy, so Zoe assumed they were meant to be there. Another figure followed, and they met up with two more from a nearby tent.

All four of them headed straight for the command cave.

Shit.

Zoe could feel it in her bones that something bad was about to go down. The way they met up with each other and walked towards it with calm purpose — they had to know something was up.

But why hadn’t they alerted the whole camp? They almost looked like they themselves were starting to sneak.

Shit shit shit. Zoe was at a loss for what to do. Had Lily seen it? There was no doubt that Andric was about to be in trouble — but just what kind, Zoe was — almost bizarrely — unsure of.

But if they weren’t going to wake the whole camp — well, perhaps Zoe could make that their last mistake. She would just have to act fast.

There was no way that she could scale the rock face and get to the cave in time. No way at all. But most fortunately, the pirates had been so kind as to design their camp with a most convenient method of rapid transportation.

Activating her storage ring, Zoe pulled out a plain throwing knife. It was the one weapon she had managed to wrangle out of Andric back on the ferry. Dashing over to the the winch, she grabbed hold of the thick rope with one hand and reinforced her grip with {Kinetic Enhancement}. It wasn’t an optimal use of the ability, but it would have to do.

And then she slashed the rope with her other hand.

It didn’t cut.

Cursing, she tried again with a {Kinetic Strike}.

The blade cleaved straight through the entire cable, and Zoe was yanked off her feet and over the ledge. As she swung, she realized that the rope must have been under considerable tension. In any case, the flight was exhilarating, and she just barely remembered to stow her knife away.

As she swung across the midpoint of the bridge, Zoe realized a slight problem. She was too high. Her current trajectory had her rapidly approaching a very hard rock wall.

Eyes widening, Zoe prepared to release. This is going to hurt. Well, it was going to hurt either way, but she hoped she could pull off some kind of roll to the ground that would mitigate the damage.

Zoe let go.

As she fell, she planned to duck into her roll and even readied {Heal Wound} for the inevitable broken bones. But as she neared the wall and the ground, she realized that she was still too high.

Only this time, instead of hitting the wall, she was headed straight for one of the caves.

The one with the banquet.

Zoe smacked down onto the table hard. Sliding across it, she groaned as something inside her cracked. The wind was completely knocked out of her, and she was definitely going to be sporting some nasty bruises.

Several people rapidly rose to their feet.

Zoe was already using {Heal Wound}. Her {Pain Resistance} was helping as well, and she sat up just as quickly. Doing so created a sharp pain in her chest, but she ignored it. She needed to assess the latest sudden development in her situation.

Let’s see. One guy has a gun to my temple, another has a sword under my throat, the guy ahead to the right has his hands raised menacingly, and the girl to the left is just glowering. Fantastic.

That left one more person — the handsome, gray bearded and grandfatherly man right in front of her who was now nonchalantly downing the rest of his goblet.

Zoe analyzed him.

{Beast Tamer - 112}

Zoe gulped.

“Uhm, hi?”