Chapter 149

"Riley, do you detect any magic, any traps on the door?" Sabine asked.

Under her cloak was a crowbar.

Riley scrutinized the door for dear life and cast Celestial Insight.

The prompt hit her like a brick.

It's a door, dumb ass.

"Stupid prompt... It's not the boss of me," she grumbled to herself. A quick check while everyone was prepping showed she and Tobias both were now at 2-10, Ascendant.

That was the top of the pack, which made her her own boss.

"What was that, Ranger?" Sabine snapped.

"There went that idea... It's a door, looks clean, no sparklies, no danger that I can sense," Riley replied.

Deep within her patchwork soul, she felt something like laughter echoing off her subconscious.

"Ok, this one will do," Sabine announced, trying the door handle and finding it locked.

With a deft and practiced action she slipped the crowbar in near the latch then whistled in a distinctive bird like pattern.

Echoes came from opposite ends of the lane a moment later as both Caedmon and Eastmund reported that the night street was clear of guard, or onlooker.

With a brief and echoing pop, the door wrenched open.

"Finally," Justinian grumbled, stepping in, still pale but regaining his strength fast.

"After seven stops and no hits, what makes this one a yes?" Riley asked.

"That's easy, lass; this is the one she didn't know about," Cid replied with a smile, seemingly happier than any there.

Another whistle, brought Caedmon and Eastmund scurrying in behind them, as they all filed inside a small room no larger than a hundred square feet, seemingly carved out of the same smooth grey stone as the walls.

"We're at the base of the hill, before the windy part. How far down does the wall go?" Riley pondered.

"Far deeper than this. We're in the copperways. It's a warren of tunnels, mostly used by the servants, except in times of need," Sabine replied.

"So the walls aren't secure," Riley wondered, as Tobias quietly fumed.

"It depends on who you're fighting and how good your intelligence is," Cid replied.

"Which I just witnessed to full and deadly effect. There was so much chaos, there wasn't even time to get the wards up," Justinian, already pale, gained a haunted timbre to his voice.

"Exactly, which is why I wanted the Ratcatcher for this particular mission.

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Any way in that I know, will most likely be known and potentially watched by those on the castle grounds we're up against. Criminals, servants, and workers generally have a different view of the grounds, and often better than a soldier assigned to defend it," Sabine explained.

"They know where the bodies are buried, and they have to know how to move fast." Riley reasoned. "So, how do you know about this place?"

She looked to Justinian pointedly, who coughed uncomfortably into his right hand.

"Well, up that ladder there, there's a tunnel that takes you to the under basement beneath the Valenheim Academy's forge. It saved me from being late more times than I could count," he said, a bit too quickly to seem honest.

"I smell bullshit," Riley replied, picking up on his tell.

"Oh, it's at least... partially true," Justinian admitted, his eyes scanning around.

Sabine patted him on the shoulder, "It's fine son, you aren't the first artificer I've known. You move a bit of your goods and leftovers on the side?"

She grinned knowingly, which only turned Justinian paler.

"Well, actually..." Justinian lost his words.

Riley feared he was about to pass out.

Tobias meanwhile stood like a statue as Cid moved forward and climbed the ladder at the back wall, popping the hatch.

"It's clear," he whispered down before disappearing up it.

"I'm worried about you," Riley prompted Tobias as the others piled by.

"There's little to worry about; I'm more focused than I've been in a long time," Tobias replied, his tone clipped.

Riley butted up against his legs like a cat. "That's not what I'm feeling. You're so full of anger; you've got tunnel vision, but you're tougher than this!"

"They have my family. The one thing I've most feared. I can handle being bullied, mocked, or looked down on for my station, but they laid hands on my Granda and took my nephew; how should I respond to that?" He said, his voice a roar strangled down to that of a whisper.

Sabine poked her head out of the hole, "You two, quit the melodrama and get up here!"

"You respond by doing everything you can to save them. How many times have we used a target's emotions and habits to lure them into traps? Do you remember the Antlions? We used their instincts to play them like a fiddle. That's what Chadrick is doing to you," She explained before hopping over to the ladder and looking up.

Tobias, in spite of his anger, chuckled, before a look of worry washed over his face as he caught up with Riley, lifting her gently and tucking her into the crook of his arm.

"I don't know how to stop being furious," He admitted, as he climbed the ladder.

"You don't stop it, you don't suppress it, you don't let it control you. Accept that you're angry, but also accept that if you don't channel that anger into something useful, which is not going off half-cocked, Darius is going to watch all of us die before it's his turn because Chadrick is that kind of bastard," Riley let her words fall like a judge's hammer.

Tobias stopped, half poking out of the upper hatch, blinking as if a revelation had dawned.

"Have you had your moment, Ranger? Do you need some tea to think? God damned amateur night," Sabine muttered, surly as ever, before her own look of revelation dawned.

"I think I have a plan that might set things in our favor," She announced, as all eyes turned towards her.

"Anything that would make this feel like less of a suicide mission would be grand for my morale," Caedmon said with a weary smile.

"Remember our encounter with Mavora on the windowsill, just after you arrived? There is some professional bearing to the tactics of our enemy, but its disparate and few. Consider what you said of Hilvar, and and the Dame of Ravenwald thinking to take down all of Ranger central..." Sabine began as Tobias got the idea.

"Or Chadrick sending his hawk to spook Riley, which set us on edge and had us watching when the assassins came," Tobias replied, finishing her sentence.

"Exactly. The enemy, for all of their coordination and infiltration, is poor on tactics. They're not acting cohesively, nor are they thinking like soldiers. They're thinking like nobles with grudges, going for slights, going for bullying tactics, and overwhelming force in the dark. We can use that, twist their backroom bull shit in our favor," Sabine's voice grew excited.

"And how do you propose we do that?" Eastmund asked.

"By letting Tobias and Riley take the bait," she grinned murderously.