Garut then brings out a recording crystal of his findings. We all watch with bated breath at the crystal’s contents.
“What the hell?!” Uncle Moren exclaims.
“Its worse than we thought. They brought a Spirit Caller AND a Necromancer. They even brought an Empire Hound if it couldn’t get worse.” Gael says darkly.
“What’s an Empire Hound?” I ask.
“A person who’s hyperspecialized in investigation an detective work. It’s a legendary class, so the amount of them that the Empire has on hand in numbered in the single digits.”
“So we’re screwed?”
“Seems so young man. Our plans kind of hinged on that tunnel not being found, and with the hound there, it’s almost guaranteed to be compromised. Not only that but Garut, Delorie and I are also now compromised agents.”
“Oh…”
“Oh is right.” Uncle Moren says while sighing.
“So what are our options?” I ask.
“Well there’s not many, but with the hound sniffing around, we’re going to have to make a decision quickly.”
He continues,
“Option one is to leave this city and head to the next closest one with a jump pad. This is the safest option in the short term, but long term is dangerous as this city’s jump pad is unregulated while the nearest city’s is. Meaning more eyes and more guards. That’s not even considering the fact that now that the hound has our trail, he won’t be letting go any time soon.”
“Ok, so what’s option 2?”
“We gather more agents and prepare for a frontal assault against the jump pad.”
“How long would that take? Do you even have enough time to wait for agents to get here?” Uncle Moren asks.
“That’s the thing, their way of getting here is exactly where we want to get to.” Gael says while slightly smirking.
“Hahaha! It’s genius! We attack from the front, meanwhile the guards defending the jump pad get stabbed in the back from their ‘civilians’!” Delorie exclaims boisterously.
“Exactly. Now we just need to send out a message to the Kingdom so they can relay our plan to any agents who have access to a jump pad. The only issue is that a few agents may become compromised, but the Kingdom will see this as a worthwhile trade, I’m sure.” Gael says confidently.
“How do we even know we can beat them? I mean wouldn’t they have a lot of high tiers to help them?” I ask.
“Yup, but so will we. Don’t underestimate the number of high tiers the Kingdom has hiding in the Empire.”
“That’s right,” Uncle Moren pipes in, “don’t think you won’t be getting your hands dirty too kid. The high tiers won’t be able to be everywhere at once, so I’m sure a few lower tiered guards will slip through the cracks.”
“I’m ready.” I say seriously.
Uncle Moren nods proudly at my reply.
Empire Hound’s POV
“Why the hell did Lady Steel finally make a move here of all places? I mean, if your gonna make a first move, you might as well make it big right? Not kill two nobodies.” The guard captain says to me.
“Yeah, doesn’t exactly make sense… maybe… maybe they got caught up in something else? Maybe instead of getting killed by Maria Steel, they were somehow involved in something else…” I say quizzically.
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“Could be, what else is going on that they could’ve gotten wrapped up in though? There was that new underground crime boss that just popped up right? Could it have been him?”
“No, he’s too careful for something like this… hey what about that kid we’re supposed to be on the lookout for? Didn’t the reports say he had some higher tiers with him that could do this? Maybe they caught the wrong trail… maybe instead of following one of Steel’s guys at the gate, he accidently followed one of the kid’s accomplices, or even the kid himself.” I say while thinking out loud.
“But why did they bring them here? What’s the significance of this place?” The guard captain asks.
“I’m not sure… hopefully our Necromancer friend can shed some light on this for us.”
We both look over to the gloomy fellow in dark robes chanting quietly to himself while pointing his hand towards the two bodies.
“Man those types always send chills down my spine.” The guard captain says quietly.
“Your telling me.” I agree.
After five minutes or so, finally something happens. The two headless corpses begin to shake violently.
They then slowly rise off the floor. At first the rate of ascent is slow, only about an inch or so at a time, but each minute they grow further and further from the ground, until they are 5 feet off of the ground.
Another minute passes, and finally the bodies drop to the floor and the Necromancer stops chanting.
The room is so quiet you could hear a pin drop, and just as I’m about to ask if it worked, both bodies spill some sort of blue smoke into the air.
The smoke shapes itself into the form of two faceless bodies.
“Yes, master.” They both recite in unison.
“Answer that man’s question to your best abilities.” The Necromancer says pointing at me.
I nod to him, but he ignores me and walks away.
The two… things, walk up to me in a robotic fashion.
“Uhm, ok, first, who killed you?”
“A large Janin wielding an axe.” They answer in unison.
“Do you know his name?”
“No.”
“Was there anybody with him?”
“Yes.”
“Who were they?”
“Young and thin human male, older and larger human male, very old fox-man, and giant four-armed Korlok male.”
“Young human male you say? Describe him further.”
“Black hair, skinny, wielding a worn down sword on his waist, medium length nose ridge, average eyebr-“
“Wait. You said he has a beat up sword? Your sure?”
“Very much positive.” They both say.
“So it must be related to the kid… hey captain, who did you say owned this place?”
“Uh let’s see…” He ruffles through some papers, “Aha, a Korlok with the name of Delorie.”
“What’s his background? Anything of note?”
“Says here nothing special, born on the east side of the city as an orphan, became a chef at awakening… now that you mention it, it’s odd how little we have on this guy. Almost every business owner in the city has had some sort of run-in with trouble at some point. Thieves and drunks are our main arrests after all, and this place looks like an easy enough target for both…”
“When did he buy this place? What’s the deed say?”
“One sec… says he never bought it, it was given to him buy… Stegar and Co. about four or five years ago.”
“Hey, wasn’t that the company that got outed as a Kingdom controlled shadow entity a few years ago.” I say skeptically
“Yeah I think so, nasty stuff. Plenty of innocents went down because they had some sort of relation to them.”
“Could this whole thing be kingdom related? Maybe they’re trying to get the kid out of here and take him for themselves… I have heard some rumors about an underground Kingdom poaching operations that’s been going on for a couple hundred years now… could those rumors be true? And if so, why would they bring him here?” I say to myself while my mind runs a million miles a minute, putting my hundreds of intelligence points to good use.
“Get guys to search the whole building, I want this entire place flipped inside out.” I tell the captain.
“You got it.” He says walking outside towards the rest of the guards.
I begin a cursory search through the building. I walk into the kitchen, every upstairs guest room, the main dining hall, behind the bar, everywhere. Nothing obvious is wrong at first, but I can’t shake the feeling that something is missing.
“Where’s the cellar captain?” I ask.
“Cellar? I don’t think this place has a cellar.”
“No cellar? At a bar? Fat chance of that. There’s got to be a cellar somewhere, and I’ll bet whatever it is we’re looking for is down there with it.”
I once again do another lap through the building, this time being more thorough. I check under every floorboard and in every nook and cranny. I use my skill Investigator’s guidance to lead me to where I want to go.
Finally, I find it. Behind the oven is a switch flush with the wall. When I press it, the whole oven moves, revealing a staircase underneath.
“I want guys in there NOW! They could be hiding in there as we speak.” I shout.
My order cause the guards to go into a flurry of motion, with tens of soldiers entering the staircase, with me following close behind.
The staircase, rather than leading to a cellar, leads to a long tunnel. I travel through the tunnel, using my skill Eye for Detail to inspect every inch of the place.
Eventually I reach the end, and above me is a moved floor tile. I jump up and out of the tunnel, and I find myself in the jump pad travel point, along with the several other guards that went in before me.
“Holy shit, the Kingdom is poaching talents from the Empire!? How long has this been going on? How many planets and city are they doing this on?!” I ask out loud to the captain.
“I don’t know, but when the Empire find out about this, the Kingdom is gonna have hell to pay.”