Chapter 169: Prison Break Pt.1
The walls of the City of the White Tree’s prison stood directly underneath the center of the tree’s trunk, encircling the prison itself. Guards patrolled its walls, and it had but a single guarded gate to enter from.
Lina and Pyri had climbed atop a stack of the nearest residential buildings to get a better view. They were three stories high, right underneath a nearby, low hanging branch of the tree, and laying prone to avoid being seen as they peered over the nearby prison walls.
On all sides, the prison was surrounded by an empty space of paved roads that stretched roughly 15 meters before any buildings were built, meaning the guards could easily spot out anything that was approaching the prison walls from all directions.
The pair had picked a spot that was nearest the gate, so they could watch the process that the guards underwent anytime they were escorting in a prisoner.
The guards were bringing in manacled individuals one, two, and sometimes three at a time. They’d walk up to the gate, and without any words spoken, an elite guard would open the gate and walk out to inspect them, then escort them inside the walls.
Anytime the gate opened, Lina and Pyri were able to lightly glimpse the inside and saw that there was a small gap between the outer walls and the main, single story structure inside. The structure wasn’t very large, though - clearly not big enough to hold the amount of prisoners that the two were witnessing being dragged in.
The prisoners were primarily Dark Elves, but occasionally there were chained Plashrim, Dwarves, and Human NPCs as well. All looked worn down and were wearing torn rags as clothing. It was impossible for Lina and Pyri to discern whether the incarcerated NPCs deserved to be so, though.
“Yep. It’s certainly a prison.” Pyri sighed as she laid on her stomach and peered over the top of the flat roof beside Lina. “I get the feeling we got the short end of the stick on this one.”
“I think Aegis gave us the hardest task because he trusts us.” Lina replied with determination. Pyri looked at her briefly out of the corner of her eye and shook her head to herself with a light smile. “I can move in very quick with shadow dance, I’ve gotten really good at controlling it for rapidfire teleports, but I need to see where I am going or have a sense for where to go.”
“Hm. I don’t think scouting using invisibility will be the play, though. Any sage or magical defense will likely be able to prevent such a basic tactic…” Pyri pondered as she glanced around. “That leaves scrying…” She began fidgeting with her interface.
> “Rakkan, I’m recasting invisibility so it’ll drop off of Snowflake, make sure he’s not standing in front of a window or something.” Pyri said into the party communications.
>
> “It’s ok, he’s sleeping.” Rakkan replied.
>
> “‘Kay’.” Pyri canceled out of her interface.
“Hang tight, I’ll be back in a jiffy.” Pyri smiled at Lina before she tapped her own shoulder and turned herself invisible. Lina wasn’t sure what she was doing, but watched her footsteps as best she could as Pyri invisibly stood up and hopped down from the roof onto the stairwell.
She could still roughly follow Pyri thanks to the party interface helping her keep track of her allies locations, it wasn’t precise though - she only knew that Pyri had moved towards the gate of the prison and was standing idly, waiting for something.
It wasn’t long before that something came along. A pair of two guards marched up to the gate with two manacled prisoners in tow - a Dark Elf and a Human. The standard process occurred where the gate opened, the elite guard walked out to inspect them, then took them inside. Once it’d finished, Lina saw Pyri returning to her, and a few moments later, she reappeared beside her on her stomach and dropped her invisibility spell.
“Easy peasy.” Pyri winked at Lina.
“What’d you do?” Lina asked.
“I got some hair from the prisoners being brought inside, and that elite that keeps coming in and out. Which should we scry on first?” Pyri asked excitedly.
“The prisoners, probably, while they’re still in motion.” Lina suggested with an eager smile.
“Right.” Pyri nodded as she pulled out the human’s hair and focused on it, quickly casting scry. A round sphere appeared in front of the two, outlined by a light glowing magical aura. It was difficult to ascertain what they were being shown in the sphere at first, but once they got oriented around the human prisoner’s slouched movements through the dark stone halls of the prison, it became more clear.
He was being led by two new guards down a long winding staircase, deep below the surface of the city. They went down deeper and deeper, the staircase seemingly endless. Eventually, after nearly 5 minutes of descending, they reached a landing with four hallways leading off in different direction, each barricaded by barred walls and watched over by two armed guards.
The two manacled NPCs were split up, taken down different hallways. Now being escorted by only one guard, they approached the barred walls and the flanking watchers opened a small iron door to allow them through. Then, through the door they continued, walking down a long dark stone hallway lit intermittently by dimly glowing lanterns that were bolted to the walls, until finally they stopped in front of the entrance to a large open chamber.
“Clean yourself, then put these on.” The guard instructed the prisoner as he motioned him into the chamber, then handed him a set of folded orange cloth. In the room was a small well at the center with a barred metal drain nearby, and several plain wooden buckets sitting on the rim of the well.
The prisoner NPC reluctantly complied and began drawing water and pouring it over himself. Once he was done, his equipment changed from his plain rags to the basic bright orange cotton shirt and pants that he'd been handed, making him extremely easy to see in his current environment.
As this happened, Pyri carefully angled her scrying view to look at the well and the drain more closely - it went down deep into a dark narrow hole where she couldn’t see the bottom, only faintly hear moving water from within the darkness.
“Hm.” Pyri said as she scratched her chin. She maintained the scrying spell but looked away from it at the surrounding city. “The City of the White Tree seems to have an underground water source that they rely on.”
“Those holes and that drain look really small, but if I could find large enough gaps in where the underground water runs, I can shadowstep through the smaller spots.” Lina suggested.
“That could potentially be a claustrophobic nightmare. Are you sure?” Pyri asked her with a look of concern.
“I’ll be okay, I’m not afraid of small places.” Lina answered with confidence.
“Good. That would be a safe way inside… Next is the issue of locating Mayeria, and getting her out safely.” Pyri replied while thinking about it.
“I bet they separate the prisoner's based on race. Maybe try the other prisoner?” Lina suggested.
“Right.” Pyri nodded as she canceled the scrying spell on the human prisoner, brushing his hair away and switching to the hair she’d nabbed off the head of the Dark elf. A moment later, she’d recast scrying and they watched the Dark Elf, now wearing orange clothing like the human, being escorted down another long hallway.
Eventually he was taken around a corner and found himself in a long hall lined with iron barred prison cells, with runes etched into the walls between each cell that were giving off dim grey glows.
“Do you know what enchantment rune that is?” Lina asked.
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“That’s anti-magic. It’s enchanted on each prison cell, meaning spells and magical skills won’t work while you’re inside a cell. So you won’t be able to shadowstep in them.” Pyri explained.
“That’s okay, I’m a thief before I’m a shadow dancer, I’ve got a lock picking skill. It’s only level 41 but it should be enough.” Lina replied as they continued to watch. The prisoner’s cell ended up being near the end of the hall, and on his journey towards it the two kept an eye on the prisoners sitting in the cells that he walked by.
Eventually, near the end of the hall, they spotted her. Sitting in the back of her cell with her head down, dark black hair covering her face, [Mayiera(Elite) - Level 150] could be briefly seen by Lina and Pyri.
“There, got her.” Pyri said excitedly as she pointed at her scrying sphere.
“Yes!” Lina cheered. “We have a way in, and we know where she is and how to get her. All that’s left is to find a way out.”
“That’s usually the hardest part. Getting into prison is easy.” Pyri rolled her eyes. “Okay, let’s try the elite and see what's going on with the guard's side of things.” Pyri canceled the scry spell again and recast it a third time using the third and final hair that she’d nabbed. “This scry spell is really great. I hope no one yanked one of my hairs and is using it on me.” Pyri mumbled to herself as the sphere appeared.
The elite guard was sitting in an office behind his desk on the upper level of the prison. His desk was covered with parchments that were neatly stacked, with a ink bottle and quill set directly in front of him and a ring of keys being playfully spun in circles using his right index finger absentmindedly as he read a document set out before him.
He continued like this for awhile, doing nothing but reading a document, signing it, then moving on to the next one. It was boring to watch, but eventually there was a low ringing dong sound that echoed through his office which prompted him to stop swinging his keys and grab them firmly in his fist.
He then stood up and made his way out of his office down a short hallway, and stepped out of the central building of the prison through an iron door and walked across the open space between the building and outer walls. He gave a head nod to the guards on the wall, to which they nodded back and began opening the gate.
From there, Pyri and Lina could see the elite guard not just through scrying, but from looking behind them off the side of the roof in the direction of the prison where he stood in front of the opening prison gate.
He slowly walked out to inspect a Dark Elf prisoner that was being brought in by two guards.
“What is his crime?” The elite guard asked the two.
“Theft. Minor.” One guard replied.
“Witnesses?”
“One of our own saw the crime and caught him, multiple civilians back up the story.”
“Very well. Come with me.” The elite motioned the NPC to follow him through the gate, while the two escort guards bowed and turned to walk away, leaving the area around the prison.
Once through the gates, they were drawn back closed behind them. The elite guard escorted the prisoner into the main building where another guard was waiting, and handed the prisoner off to him before going back into his office.
“I think I can get the attention of all of the guards on the upper level with a good distraction. If I time it to when the gate is open, I should be able to keep it open for a bit while leading the guards away. The time window might be really small, though.” Pyri suggested.
“Okay.” Lina took a deep breath as she looked Pyri in the eyes. “I’ll find a way into the prison using the underground water tunnels. I’ll get to Mayiera and lock pick her out, and we’ll wait until you say the gate is open.”
“Once it's open, I’ll start my distraction to draw their attention away and keep the gate open, and that’s the time frame you’ll have to get Mayiera up those stairs and out of the front gate. The staircase was long, though.”
“And there was another set of bars at the base of it I’ll need to get through.” Lina nodded.
“Maybe you oughta start your escape as soon as I spot prisoners approaching the gate, so that you’ll already be closer to the top of the stairs by the time the gate gets opened.” Pyri suggested.
“Good idea.” Lina nodded back.
“But… well…” Pyri hesitated.
“What is it?” Lina asked.
“Seems a bit too easy. Kagil’aktos mentioned to watch out for a shadow dancer warden. We haven’t seen her at all. She might show up and be a problem.” Pyri replied.
“I think I’ll be okay. I’m also a shadow dancer, and I’m really good at my class.” Lina replied with a confident nod of enthusiasm which drew a smile out of Pyri.
“That you are.” Pyri replied. “Okay, let’s do it.” The two stood up and began scanning their surroundings, and it didn’t take but a few moments of looking for Lina to spot out a well in one of the nearby intersections of the city, away from the prison.
“I’ll go in through there.” Lina said while pointing it out.
“Here, lumina.” Pyri tapped Lina’s dagger hilt, causing it to begin to glow with white light that was barely noticeable due to the glowing tree above them. “So you can see down there. Good luck.” Pyri nodded. With that, the two separated. Lina hopped down from the top of the buildings to get back on the streets below and made for the well, following along under one of the glowing white branches that hung above the paved road.
Once she arrived at the intersection, she tried approaching the well as inconspicuous as she could. The light of the branch hanging above was too bright to allow her to simply shadowstep into the well, so instead she waited patiently for an opportunity to jump into the dark grey stone well.
NPCs were passing through the intersection intermittently, by themselves or in small groups, and some riding atop carts and wagons that were being pulled by short-legged, stony plated creatures with long snouts with [Barrock - Level 80] sitting above their heads. It took a surprisingly long time for Lina to find an opportunity to jump in the well without being noticed, but she managed to find a short time window where all the NPCs nearby were facing away from the center of the intersection where the well resided.
She’d been so focused on getting into the well, though, that she hadn’t considered what would happen afterwards, and immediately went into a freefall down the narrow circular hole.
A rope hung down at the center which Lina prepared to grab onto at any sign of a bottom, utilizing the light of her dagger hilt now to see the walls around her. She fell for an uncomfortably long time before she’d even begun hearing running water, and upon hearing it immediately reached out to grab the rope.
The rope burned on her hands for a moment, but dealt no damage and she was able to slow her fall rather quickly before hitting or seeing any sort of bottom. From there, she put her feet on the walls of the well and hopped down lower and lower, slowly, until finally the light of the lumina spell on her dagger began to illuminate the clear flowing water below her.
It wasn’t moving very quickly, and there was a mechanism built around the base of the drawing rope to prevent it from being dragged away by the water, with a metal bucket hanging off the bottom of the rope.
Lina got as low as she could with the help of rope, then oriented herself to make sure she went in the direction of the prison. Luckily, the prison was leading in the direction of the water’s flow, so with a final deep breath she hopped down into the underground river.
The water was waist deep for her, but the gap between the top of the tunnel and the top of the river was miniscule, forcing Lina to crouch down into the water and get completely soaked as she began traversing the tunnel. The worst part was the temperature - the water was freezing and immediately caused Lina’s teeth to start clattering together.
As badly as she wanted to start shadow stepping through it, she needed the light on the dagger to see where she was going, so was forced to tough it out. It wasn’t long before her crouch-walking through the waterlogged tunnel led her to an intersection where another flowing river joined in with hers and the water began to speed up.
It was only then that Lina realized that the wells around the city were likely linked up through a maze of tunnels, and it wouldn’t be so easy to locate the prison. She began utilizing the party interface to keep track of Pyri’s location above her through the earth, relative to her own, and that helped her get a sense of what direction she needed to go in. She at least knew that there were no wells between the one she’d jumped in, and the prison, so the first hole up would be correct.
Sure enough, after wading through the water for a few dozen meters, she came across an opening in the roof and stood up straight, stretching out her legs and getting her torso out of the chilly water.
Another rope was dangling down with an iron bucket hanging on the end of it which Lina quickly grabbed and began to climb, pulling herself out of the water. Luckily, thanks to it being a simulation, it didn’t take long for the cold chill from the water to leave her despite her armor being soaked.
She continued to climb up the rope a long while until the upwards tunnel began to narrow, eventually closing in to a point where it was only wide enough for the bucket to pass through.
> “I think I’m here… can you cancel the lumina spell?” Lina asked through the party interface.
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> “Yup. I can. Are you sure, though? Once it’s gone I can’t recast it, and you’ll be in the dark.” Pyri confirmed.
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> “I’m pretty sure.” Lina replied hesitantly.
>
> “Alright. Canceling it.” Pyri replied. A moment later, the glow around Lina’s dagger left her, and she was surrounded by complete darkness.
“Here goes nothing.” Lina whispered to herself after climbing as high as she could. Using her shadow dancer skills, she felt out the highest point of shadows above her that she could jump to, and did it. She teleported from the lower well, to the space above the well, bypassing the narrow section that was preventing her from climbing through.
She wasn’t sure exactly where she’d end up, but was relieved when the stone chamber around her looked familiar.
It had worked - she was in the washing room of the prison. A brief moment of excitement filled up inside her, knowing the plan was going well. But that excitement was quickly replaced by anxiety when the fact settled in that she’d just broken into a prison. She took a deep breath to collect herself, listening in for any possible sounds, but it was completely quiet.
She could see the door leading out of the chamber and the barred walls flanking it. It was locked shut, but Lina knew she could easily shadowstep through the bars.
She approached them as quietly as possible, now having a dim glow of light being sourced by the lanterns on the wall out in the hallway. Once close enough, she peered down the outside hallway through the bars in either direction, confirming that there were no guards nearby.
> “I’m in the prison, and no one seems to have noticed me.” Lina explained through the party interface.
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> “Awesome, you guys are a lot sneakier than Aegis. He couldn’t even get into an Apothecary without being noticed.” Darkshot joined into the conversation.
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> “Those guards had it out for me.” Aegis grumbled back.
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> “Guys, keep the communication clear, this is tough stuff. Getting inside was just the easy part.” Pyri snapped at the two of them. “The next part is much harder. Find Mayiera without getting caught.”
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> “I’m on it.” Lina replied before closing out her interface, clenching her fists and taking a deep breath.