First order of business, find Yulvin and relieve him of the burden of his responsibilities, which was just a grandiose way of saying steal his keys. Hopefully he will remain predictable and visit the bar that I heard he liked so much. If he wasn’t there, then it would just be a race to find where he had decided to go tonight.
No use speculating about what might be, I just had to go see for myself. The short trip to the little gambling den went without incident, and I was thankful for the small reprieve that provided. I just maintained the look of belonging as much as I could while walking along, something that felt a lot more difficult than it probably was.
Eventually I stood in front of the bar that Yulvin was known to frequent. With a quick breath to fortify my nerves, I stepped inside once again. I was met with the smell of stale alcohol, the quiet dull roar of conversation, and a lightly smoky air from those who were smoking pipes in the confined space. This place felt like how I imagined Vegas to be. While I hadn’t gone myself, I've had people describe the experience to me previously.
The clinking of coins, the rattling of dice, the soft slap of cards on the table all intermittently dispersed by a brief bout of laughter or curse from someone who was at the tables. I meandered through the hazy room, occasionally dodging waitresses who rushed by the fill orders or drop off the next round of drinks for the table. While I was weaving my way through the murk, I was looking for my target.
Then, I spotted the rotund form of Yulvin, sitting at a table with several others rolling dice while making a call out that was probably involved in the betting process. Now that I had found him, I needed a plan of approach and getting the keys off him. There was always the option of waiting for him to leave for the night and abducting him then, but who knows how long he would be here for. Maybe something a little more subtle was called for.
As I thought about the matter my hands wandered into my pockets and I felt the smooth form of the small crystal I had kept with me. Slowly an idea started to form in my mind as I continued to fondle the magical rock. I made an approximate measurement of the remaining energy I still had and figured that I could pull it off.
With the plan formed to a point where I could comfortably say it would work, I just needed to get close to him now. The easiest way to do that would be to join the game, yet I had to learn its rules first before I made that plunge. So, I took to observing the game from a distance, trying to puzzle out what you were supposed to do just from the actions that the players were taking.
It turned out that the rules were fairly simple all things considered. The person running the game would roll the dice every round, and the players, after making a bet, would call out even, odd, or doubles before the roll. The betting pool was in small numbers, consisting mostly of a handful of copper coins. Whether that was because of the rules or that they just didn’t want to risk a lot of money I wasn’t sure. If you guessed even or odd correctly, then you got twice your bet back, but if the dice turned up as doubles, that is to say two of the same numbers, and you call it out, then you got three times your money.
Now that I more or less understood the rules of the game as much as one could without being expressly told, I could approach the table and set my plan into motion. I sat down at the table as innocuously as I could in the empty seat next to Yulvin and decided to ask a pertinent question to the one running the game.
“There a betting limit here?”
“Five coppers maximum.” He replied mechanically. Must have been a question that was asked often.
I removed a few coins from my supply to use for the game, placing two on the table for the next round. We played a few rounds, all the while I was biding my time for it to eventually happen, and it inevitably did. Yulvin won a round, which signaled to me that it was time to act.
With one hand in my pocket, I started the process of creating a magical bubble of numbing energy and transferring it across my body and into my other hand. Once there, I gave Yulvin a congratulatory slap on the back for the round. The moment contact was made, I injected the numbing magic into him, hoping that the slight sting from my slap would be able to mask the brief feeling of tingling you would get before things would lose feeling.
He gave me a strange look at the contact, but there was no indication that he noticed the magic having an effect on him. It probably didn’t hurt that he was most likely several drinks into the night, so that was another factor that might have played into his ignorance and my advantage. This continued for a while, with him occasionally winning a max bet and me giving him some form of congratulatory physical contact to put more numbing magic into him. I could tell he was getting a little annoyed with me every time I did.
I had exhausted my store of magic fairly quickly doing this, but it turned out that it was just in time. Yulvin had apparently gotten sick of my constant poking and prodding at him and made to leave for another table. He collected his money and then started to stand and leave. I forced down a small smile as I was waiting for this.
The moment he tried to put any amount of weight on his legs they simply collapsed underneath him. He went to the ground, attempting to catch himself with his hands but still landing rather roughly. Everyone nearby turned their attention to the man who had dropped, some with concern, others with indifference.
I feigned concern and went to assist the man whose legs I had temporarily paralyzed. Me and one other nearby soldier helped Yulvin to his feet by throwing his arms around our shoulders. This, however, was only a preface to get close enough to the man to perform the next phase of the plan.
With Yulvin distracted by the lack of feeling in his legs, I used a free hand to subtly reach down and start unhooking the keys he kept on his waist. After a few seconds of trying, I slipped the keys off of him and quickly deposited them into my pocket. No one was the wiser about what I had just done, and Yulvin was deposited on a chair out of the way of the rest of the room. He was unaware that he was missing his keys and was focused almost entirely on the loss of feeling in his legs. I let others come over and attempt to provide assistance to him while I quietly slipped away into the crowd again.
I had what I came for, and after making a small excuse that all the excitement seemed to have ruined the mood, collected my things from the table and exited the building. A quiet sigh escaped me once I was clear of the building. This part went better than the last one at the very least. Hopefully Yulvin wouldn’t notice that his keys were missing until much later, and even then, he probably wouldn’t be able to connect me to it in any way before everything turned upside down around here.
Speaking of, we now had the means of making sure that when everything flipped it did a complete one-eighty. The solo mission that I had been on for the majority of this stay was now, at last, a squad operation. There was something reassuring about having someone at your back in a situation like this, and at the same time worrying. The people you most trust also being put in a dangerous situation right alongside you. It was a strange balance between comfort and anxiety.
A casual walk back to the inn that felt anything but. I wanted to run, or at the very least jog back to the inn as the sense of urgency was mounting. However, I knew that it was better to act as if nothing was out of the ordinary, despite my nerves telling me otherwise.
I made it back though, and not a soul looked at me funny. Slinking through the darkness, I entered the shack after confirming that no one had seen me back here. My entrance caused quite a nervous reaction from everyone inside, but it quickly calmed down once they realized it was me.
Kala was almost immediately by my side. “Did it work? Did you...”
I took the keys I had acquired out of my pocket and gave them a little twirl while a sly smile crept onto my face. “Who here feels like starting a rebellion?”
Smiles started spreading around the room like they were contagious. Everyone was on their feet now, ready to get to work and spring into action. “So, how are we going to do this?” Otar asked as he came to stand right beside me.
“We’re going to arm up with tools and rope from the cart and, hopefully, take over the slave pens as quickly and quietly as possible. Make sure you also bring tools that can break collars, we’ll need them. As for how we are going to get there...” I looked over at Silia, “you know this place better than any of us. Do you think that you can lead us to the pens without being seen?”
She paused for a moment and looked around the room at everyone. “Maybe. It would be somewhat dependent on our luck and patience. There are quite a few patrols that make their way through the area, so we will have to catch them between their movements. Also, if I'm going to be leading the way, you will have to follow my every move to the exact step. Is that clear?”
“Crystal. Alright everyone, Silia will be leading the way, so make sure that you listen to her. Now, let’s arm up.”
Arming up was a generous way of putting it. We were grabbing what were essentially farm tools, which at best would put us at the same armament level as that of conscripted peasants. Still, a pickaxe in the hands of an Ulgor was a scary thing to someone on the receiving end of it. Once everyone had some form of tool in their hands, ranging from axes to hammers, as well as a complement of rope and chisels that were capable of breaking collars, we were ready to move out.
Everyone slinked along behind Silia. She moved cautiously but had a certain level of confidence born of familiarity with the environment. Even taking the alleyways that twisted and turned between the buildings she knew where she was and what to look out for.
Everyone followed her instructions to the letter. When she said stop, we stopped, when she told us to be quiet, we shut the hell up, and when she said move, we hopped to it. Everyone understood the stakes, and there was no room for error now that we were this deep. After a tense several minutes of travel, we encountered the first obstacle that our group had to overcome.
The gate dividing the common area to where they kept the slaves and supplies was guarded by a trio of soldiers. We couldn’t just walk through, and the area was too open to try to take them all out without raising the alarm. As I was pondering how we were going to get past this, Silia drew everyone's attention elsewhere.
“Over here.” She spoke quietly but with a commanding tone as she started to move in the opposite direction from the gate. Privately I thought that was counterintuitive to our goal, but I didn’t voice it as logically, she must have a plan in mind. What she was leading us to wasn’t apparent at first, and I was even more confused when she just stopped alongside the wall. “Okay, we’re here.”
I looked around and didn’t see anything, but then I started to pay more attention to the wall itself. It was difficult to make out in the gloom of the night, but part of the way up the wall there were chunks missing from some of the stones, creating what I would tentatively call handholds. Her plan became clear then, she wanted us to climb up the side of the wall.
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That would be a decent way to get around the gate guards, and the inner walls didn’t appear to have many patrols that would walk along them. However, I wasn’t all that confident in my ability to climb such a difficult path, and it looked just about impossible for someone like Berl to manage it given the size of his hands compared to the surface space of the grip.
We needed a workaround, and one came up rather quickly when I remembered the rope we were carrying. Only one person needed to reach the top, then a rope could be lowered for everyone else to follow. The only thing we needed was someone who could make that first climb.
“Alright, who’s confident in their climbing skills? We need at least one person up there with some rope to help the others.” Everyone just looked around for a second, waiting for someone to volunteer.
Eventually Holdrem just sighed and stepped forward. “I guess I have some experience with climbing, though I haven’t tried anything quite like this.”
I just nodded at him. “If no one else objects...” Everyone just nodded and Silia shrugged, making a quick comment.
“I would go, but I'm not exactly in peak condition right now.”
“Fair enough. Alright Holdrem, you’re up.”
We handed over enough rope to comfortably reach down the wall and he slung it over his shoulder. Holdrem stepped up to the wall where Jorn and Otar assisted him in reaching a comfortable first handhold.
Now that he was situated properly, he started to climb, reaching and sometimes stretching towards the next available flaw in the wall. His progress was slow, but steady. He was taking appropriate precautions before making the next move.
All of us still on the ground watched his progress with craned necks. About three quarters of the way up the wall a problem occurred. We heard the scrapping of his claws as his foot slipped off the hold he had attempted to place it in. Everyone tensed, ready to dive in and catch him while I involuntarily released a quiet curse. He dangled there for a second before giving a heave and placing his feet back into a secure position.
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief and continued to monitor his progress with a little more anxiety. Once he reached the top and slung himself upon the parapet, relieved elation swept over me and probably a few of the others as well. We only had to wait another minute before a rope came tumbling down off the side of the wall, the end landing with a dull thud.
Now that a much more reliable method of getting up the wall was secured, we started to climb one at a time. It was a process, but eventually we all sat crouched atop the wall, trying our best to minimize any silhouette that we might have had. Berl had the roughest time doing this and was relegated to being a quadruped for the time being.
We traveled along the wall looking for a spot where we could drop down that was out of sight and safe. We found one some distance away that would put us back in another dark alley. Utilizing the rope once again, the group started to slide down the side of the wall.
There was a small issue of getting the rope back after using it, but I volunteered for that job. What would happen was essentially an extreme trust fall. I would untie and drop the rope down and then jump off the side of the wall into the waiting arms of Berl, who was designated catcher for being the largest and strongest of us there.
Once the last of them was safely on the ground, I tossed the rope down and then dangled myself over the ledge. Normally, this approximate twenty-five-foot drop would have been vertigo inducing for most people, but I had already leapt to my death from a much taller wall before. With barely any hesitation, I pushed off the wall and entered a free fall, making sure to present as much of my back as I could.
The stomach lurching few seconds of falling abruptly ended as I landed in Berl’s arms. He compensated for my weight as I made contact and successfully held me in a princess carry. Despite my blasé attitude towards jumping, I released a sigh of relief at not having to collide with the ground.
I gave a grateful pat on Berl’s chest. “Nice catch.”
He just chuckled and set me down on the ground. “I said it once and I'll say it again, you’re insane.”
I shrugged and looked back up the wall. “At least I can say that I do my own stunts.”
“What?”
“Never mind, inside joke.” I waved off the question and we got back to the mission at hand.
Now in the correct part of the castle, we started moving towards the slave pens, dodging any wandering night patrols that were in the area. Silia appeared to know this part of the castle like the back of her hand. I suppose having to spend a year plus trudging back and forth through here would do that.
We made good time reaching the small building that heralded the entrance to the pits. All of us sat crouched just behind it while we worked out how we were going to take it over. “Alright, this is what I'm thinking. I wander in there with three of you at my back, make up some bullshit excuse for why I'm there, probably feign being confused, and once they are in a good position, we will strike. Make sure that they don’t make too much noise as well, things would get difficult if we suddenly had reinforcements show up. After that I need the rest of you to file in as quickly as possible so we can secure the rest of the building. Sound good?”
Some general nods of approval at my plan went around, cementing it as the outline for the coming fight. The first strike would involve some level of surprise, so the three that were best at unarmed fighting were chosen to follow me. The group consisted of Jorn, Berl, Holdrem, and I. Kala wanted to go, but Silia shut that down, intent on keeping her daughter out of anything that was outside of her immediate reach. Kala would have been fine, but Jorn and Berl had a serious strength advantage while Holdrem simply had more experience than her, so this formation made the most sense.
We checked for patrols, and once it was confirmed that the coast was clear, we moved to enter the building. The front door was locked for the night, but the keys I had appropriated made short work of that problem. With the soft clattering of tumblers and a quick intake of air in preparation, I pushed open the door.
I was met with the confused looks of four guards loitering about the room. One stood from the chair behind the desk. “Who in the pits are you? What are you doing here? Who gave you permission to enter?”
Going along with the plan, I started to play dumb. “Sorry to interrupt, I was told that this is where you go to trade slaves.”
“Yes, but this is far beyond the hours for such things.” The guards all started to congregate together, looking annoyed and skeptically at us. “The door was locked as well, where did you get a key for it?” Now they were all standing in front of us, looking intimidating. “Someone go tell the others that we have a problem up here.”
That was our cue to act. The moment one of them turned their back I charged forward and picked the man who had been interrogating me up by the throat and slammed him into the ground. The wind was knocked out of him, and I immediately cut off his attempt to get any more by squeezing on his throat.
The room exploded into chaos after that. Holdrem lunged forward and started to claw and bite at any vulnerable spots on his target, doing his best to cut off their ability to yell. Jorn attacked the one who had turned his back to get the others, tackling him to the ground where he was beaten violently into submission. Berl simply lowered his head and charged at the last one who had only just begun to unsheathe his weapon. He was impaled through the chest and rammed into the far wall where he appeared to be choking on his own blood.
In total, the struggle lasted maybe a total of twenty seconds before everything went still. Surveying the aftermath, we had two soldiers dead and another two unconscious. There was no time to think about that though, and I immediately launched into giving more orders.
“Jorn, Berl, get everyone else inside and then watch the door, we don’t need visitors right now. Holdrem, tie the ones who are still alive up and toss them in a corner somewhere. I’ll keep an eye on the stairwell in case someone heard us.” Everyone started to move as instructed. Peering down the stairs I couldn’t see or hear anyone coming up, so we were clear for right now.
The rest of the party quickly rushed through the door and established control over the whole room. Weapons were taken from the downed Thrainians and given to those who could make the most of them. First part done, now we needed to clear out the basement.
Those not currently watching the door followed me down the stairs into the holding area. We emerged into the rancid smelling cellar, dimly lit by a few oil lanterns. There were no patrols in sight, but they were definitely down here somewhere. I made a few hand gestures to everyone and successfully conveyed the silent orders as they started to spread out and clear the room.
Each of us took a different isle and started sweeping for enemies. My row didn’t appear to have anything other than the sleeping forms of those who were still stuck in their cages. However, shortly after I had made it most of the way down the path, there was a grunt and the sound of something, or more likely someone, hitting the ground.
A voice carried over from around the corner from me. “Hey, what happened? What’s going on over there?”
I moved quickly to catch this guy before he could interrupt whoever was fighting. When I came around the corner, I caught the man moving briskly towards the sound with his back towards me. Rushing forward, I seized him around the neck in a choke hold, cutting off the blood flow to his brain. He struggled against me for a few seconds before he started to slow down and eventually went limp.
I dragged the man behind me and looked around to find Otar holding his own victim over his shoulder. We exchanged a quick nod and kept moving. When we attempted to find the others, we found that they had already subdued the rest of the guards, making a total of five. In turned out a few of the guards had been killed in the struggle, a fact that again I had to ignore due to circumstances.
At this point all the commotion had started to wake some of the occupants of the cells, who were both confused and excited by what they saw. We tied up those guards who were still alive and tossed them in some remote corner of the building. At this point I figured it was time to start freeing these people, and I started with my companions whose collars I had a key for.
Everyone appeared to be quite relieved to have the bits of metal off, but we didn’t stop there. I went around from cell to cell and unlocked the doors, ushering the occupants out while telling them to be quiet. It was a fairly lengthy process as there were many doors that needed opening, but eventually we had all the occupants out.
There was a lot of confusion going through the now packed basement. This place quickly became standing room only as hundreds of people murmured to one another, trying to figure out exactly what was in store for them. I decided to address the sea of bodies the best I could, hoping that my voice would carry well enough in this confined space.
“Attention everyone!” Immediately I had a plethora of faces looking at me causing my throat to dry up in nervousness. I pushed through and continued addressing them. “We are from the coalition, and we are here to free you.” More murmuring spread amongst them and from the sounds of it, it was a combination of skepticism and hopefulness.
I continued on. “I know you must have many questions, but we don’t have much time to answer them. The coalition’s army will be attacking at sunrise, and we need to get you ready for that. We will make sure to get as many of you out of here as we possibly can, but I must ask something that will be dangerous for you. I must ask if there are any amongst you who would be willing to fight back, willing to place your lives on the line and struggle against tyranny. The coalition forces may be hard pressed to take this place without your help, but if we can distract a portion of their forces, then we might create an opportunity for victory that is once in a lifetime. So, will you take this opportunity to fight for a better future, or will you simply drift along the winds of fate without ever trying to change anything? What say you?”
There was silence for a few moments as they all nervously looked around, and I was afraid that they might have been too beaten down to rise up. Just then, a hand emerged from the sea of faces as the form of a Trelnval, emaciated and scarred, pushed their way to the front. “I will fight.”
I smiled and nodded at the first brave individual with the will to persevere against the odds. With his single act came a cascading wave of others who were inspired by him. Hands rose one after another as my smile widened. Eventually I was looking out over most of the room having volunteered to fight back. I now had an army, a half-starved and mostly untrained army, but an army nonetheless. The only ones who didn’t volunteer, and wouldn’t have been accepted anyway, were those too young or sick to be of much help.
We still had some work ahead of us. An army that can be disabled with a single word wasn’t much of an army at all, so we got to organizing and removing their collars. There were hundreds of metal bands that needed to be chiseled off their necks without causing injury to them, and with only a handful of tools at our disposal, it was starting to look like a long night was ahead of us.
Still, this gave me more hope that we could pull it off, and for once I was optimistic about our chances. This was shaping up to be a historical moment, and the gravity of it all was not lost on me. It was going to be one crazy morning.