CHAPTER 22 - THE SECRET TUNNEL
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«"I can't believe it! It's outrageous! After everything I've done, and she leaves me here for some guy she just met!"» Riaca continued to exclaim to herself, while Igre covered his ears, trying to sleep.
«"And now she even has the nerve to leave our tent without telling me anything about it! Damn it! I hate her!"»
Igre, as if performing Herculean labors, rolled his body in an attempt to ignore the noise.
Riaca, theatrically exaggerating, put her hands over her eyes, lying down but keeping her feet on the ground.
«"Maybe she doesn’t want me as a friend anymore, or maybe something between us has changed? Maybe she wants to abandon me? That guy convinced her more than I did? Am I a terrible friend? Answer me, Igre!"»
«"How should I know?! Let me sleep!"»
Riaca quickly approached Igre, an ominous aura surrounding her. Reaching the poor soul, she delivered a blow so forceful that it knocked any possibility of sleep out of him.
«"You better listen to me and listen clearly! I didn’t come here to be repeatedly ignored by my best friend!"»
«"And how do you know she’s ignoring you?"» Igre asked stupidly, and after that, a slap from the finest karate fighters knocked him flat.
«"Because she left with that guy! That... that... that damn Monomia wants to steal my best friend!"»
«"But they haven’t run away!"» Igre said, Riaca looked at him confused. It was the only theory she could think of. Riaca blinked, waiting for more.
«"They woke me up, but I pretended to be asleep because I didn’t want to be bothered. Actually, Monomia woke me up."»
«"And where did they go?"»
«"How should I know—"» at that point, Riaca continued to hit him.
«"Useless! How the hell do you think they haven’t run away if you can’t tell me where they went?!"»
«"Ow! Come on! They probably went to investigate—Ouch! Stop hitting me!"»
At that moment, Riaca stopped. «"They went to investigate Eneas... at night."»
Then, both Riaca and Igre turned around, speaking at the same time.
«"They didn’t go to the office, did they?!"»
«"Damn, I’m a genius!"» Riaca announced. Igre was offended. «"I said that too..."»
«"So we have to go to the office. To find them!"»
Igre lay back down, pretending to be asleep. «"Forget it. You go ahead."»
«"..."»
Riaca forcibly grabbed him and dragged him out of bed. The difference in their strength was offensively evident.
«"No! Let me go! I don’t want to go to the office at night! Let me sleep!"»
«"No! We have to save my best friend!"»
Finally, a voice spoke from the other rooms. «”Can you guys shut the hell up?!”»
«”Yes, we want to sleep!”»
«”Damn you, you want a beating?!”»
So they both stayed silent.
…
«"I didn’t find anything."» The office was a fairly large structure with several floors, but the first didn’t seem to offer much, except for the chief of militia's office, which appeared closed to the public.
Gaid was thinking. «"Have you checked all the rooms? Did you find anything? And Eneas?"»
Both Natirra and Monomia answered negatively. Their actions were, from a certain point of view, extremely wrong, and if discovered, the consequences would have been terrible. For this reason, all three had a constant shiver in their bodies.
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Gaid thought. "It's useless to steal the paperwork. We won’t be able to read it in time, and it will only slow us down..."
«"The upstairs has the library and the archive. But it’s locked. Even the chief of the militia's office is locked. All the other rooms are open but we checked them and aside from some strange files, there was nothing interesting."» Monomia said, with a bored tone and a subsequent loud yawn.
Natirra looked around, paranoid that some guard might pop out of nowhere. «"Hey... Are we sure there’s no one here?"»
«"Don’t worry."» Gaid said. «"At this hour, no one is—"»
A sudden noise startled all three of them. The entrance door slowly opened, making an eerie creaking sound.
Not being visible from the entrance, all three hid. Thus, they weren’t even able to see the faces of the individuals who had entered the place.
More footsteps could be heard simultaneously. It was a group.
Gaid clenched his fist, looking at both Natirra and Monomia: Monomia was naturally ready even though sleepy. Natirra was decidedly trembling and nervous at the thought of encountering a potential enemy, unsure of how to behave in such situations.
The footsteps approached closer and closer, Gaid and Monomia took up a fighting stance. And when the footsteps finally reached the end of the corridor and a foot appeared, Gaid jumped along with Monomia, capturing the two intruders, who turned out to be… Igre and Riaca.
«"What are you doing here?!"» Natirra exclaimed.
«”What are you doing?! You left me suddenly!”» Exclaimed Riaca, furious.
«”I was forced into being here.”» whispered Igre still a bit sleepy
«”We… We… We wanted to… How did you guys avoid the guards…?”»
«”You’re not the one asking questions! Why are you here?!”»
Gaid looked at both of them, surprised. «"Do you know them?! Why did you bring people into the plan!"»
Riaca, among all, was offended, and pointed at Gaid. «"Hey! It’s you! The annoying guy who rejected our help!"»
Before everyone could jump to their conclusions, Monomia stepped in the middle of the situation.
«"Hey! Hey! Listen. Let’s calm down."»
Igre, for once agreeing with him, shared his sentiment. «"He’s right, we’re not getting anywhere by shouting at each other, we might actually make the situation worse. Instead, can you explain what the hell you’re doing here?"»
Everyone looked at Gaid, who had already opened up too much to leave Monomia, but saw in the appearance of these two new figures no other choice. He cursed in his mind, then motivated himself knowing it was for a good cause, and raised his head.
He explained the plan, and this time he also explained the thing about the signals, something he initially thought of omitting. Everyone listened.
Igre, finishing the explanation, smiled. «"Heh, really? Don’t tell me you believe it. It’s impossible that something like this could happen. Spirits giving signals? Don’t you think it’s just a bad dream?"»
«"Well, it’s a shared dream. Neither of them knew it was."» Natirra said in response.
Riaca remained distressed. «"It means something happened to Eneas. But why are we here? Shouldn’t we be looking for her?"»
«"We are doing that."» Gaid said, «"It’s here, where I understand, that it all started, and it’s from here that we need to begin our search, right?"»
«"Morally wrong, but if there’s something underneath, we might as well try. The risk is high, but no guard will disturb us, they should have left the offices and gone to the entrance, they are walking in cycles."» Igre’s statement, which everyone agreed with, made everyone more confident.
«"So, we have the chief of the militia's office left ti explore. Huh?"»
Monomia smiled. «"Apparently, but getting in is impossible, and breaking the door is not an option we can afford."»
«"Clear."» The group was now in front of the chief of militia’s door, Igre approached, looking at the door. «"I don’t believe in spirituality, I find it a stupid thing, but might as well try, right?"»
Everyone looked at him, slightly confused, trying to understand what he was doing. After a while, finally, they all heard a click, and the door revealed itself open.
«"How did you do that?"» Natirra asked.
«”I… It’s a long story, let’s say that I’m a genius, so I know.”»
It was a small office, looked cozy, and was surrounded by bookshelves. Which was peculiar because generals weren’t really interested in reading, but that could be ignored. The most important thing was the small desk in the room, with paperwork on top, and who knows how many more in the drawers.
They began their search, and among all of them, Monomia was the only one who showed any interest in the chief of militia’s library.
He flipped through various random and strange books, all covered in a gray that at the very least gave a profound sense of depression.
«"Damn, the general is really gloomy."» Monomia announced.
Gaid turned to him. «"It’s useless to look at the library, I doubt you’ll find anything that could help us in any way."»
But before anyone could object, Monomia brushed his hand over one of the books that protruded more than the others. At that point, a quick noise, like wood moving, was heard, and Monomia stepped back. Everyone’s attention was drawn, and each person watched as the previous bookshelf transformed into a passage, a door, to a... Underground.
Among all, Monomia broke the silence, turning around, smiling. «"Hey, it looks like it worked!"»
Gaid approached, looking at the stairs leading down into the ground in a narrow way, so far that the darkness covered the bottom.
«"I suppose we still have more to explore."»
«"A secret passage...?"» Riaca, who had remained silent until now, had her doubts. «"What the hell, is this normal stuff?"»
Natirra, on the other hand, remained silent, trying to figure out the next course of action. It seemed that this office really hid something, and she was ambitious in trying to find Eneas, and hoped, despite having known each other for such a short time, that nothing bad had happened to her.
Among all, Igre delivered the next blow. «"I found something interesting."»
Everyone turned to him. Igre pulled out a document.
«"It seems Eneas wasn’t so wrong about the pirates; they really have control of the situation."»