Jace’s mind raced as Ian led him through the inner halls of the massive fortress. Protection against dragon fire. That meant Draya couldn’t kill the prisoners as they had planned. Esther might be able to do it with acid, but they wouldn’t know to try that before setting off the alarms. Would the alert be silent, only notifying the owners of the stronghold? Would their retreat route be open? Did the fortress spawn extra guards when under attack?
He didn’t have answers to these questions, and unlike in the spy movies, he didn’t have fancy earpieces to communicate with the rest of his team. He had to rely on them to improvise when things went south. After all, he was only the distraction.
As Ian led them deeper into the keep, the halls became less decorated and looked more like mining tunnels. This gave the two trolls additional room to stand erect, and they spaced a little further from Jace and Snowy. The two shamans from outside were also trailing them, and Jace knew any wrong move he made would result in a lightning attack. With his resistance, he doubted it would kill or knock him unconscious, but it would soften him up enough for the two level-14 trolls to finish the job.
As the tunnel grew bigger and bigger, Jace saw a vast opening ahead, brightly lit as if a window was letting in sunlight. They were too far underground for that, and Jace soon realized the reason for the glow.
Ian stopped short as the tunnel led to an expansive room deep in the stone. They stood at the top as if looking into a huge quarry. The walls were smooth and straight and glistening with so much silver that Jace thought a Christmas tree must have exploded, and tons of tinsel had been plastered onto the walls.
“Welcome to the Mithril Palace,” Ian said. He led Jace and Snowy onto a wooden deck suspended above the floor far below. Only the two human shamans followed them on, as the elevator wouldn’t be able to support the weight of the whole group if it included the two trolls. Jace didn’t think about taking advantage of the momentary reduction in firepower. His only spell was lightning, which would obviously be ineffective against the shamans. He had already proven how inept he was at hand-to-hand combat, and, standing on a wooden platform, he wouldn’t be able to access any of his totems.
Ian operated a magical switch, and they slowly descended toward the floor of the massive room over 50 feet below. It was rectangular, 200 feet long, and about 100 wide. Tables, chairs, and couches were gathered in the room’s corners. Raised platforms held walled-off sections that were probably bedrooms or private meeting chambers. A 50-foot-long pool dominated the middle of one side, and Jace saw several men and women of different races going for a morning swim with others in lounge chairs just relaxing. Servants wearing simple tunics walked about serving drinks and food. At the far end, a raised platform held the largest of all the tables within a formal seating area. Just off to its right was a dining room with several characters eating a late breakfast. Jace thought he saw a dwarf among them and was willing to bet it was Brock.
Potted plants, accordion-style dividers, or decorative stone walls partitioned each section. The light source for the massive room was magical, and Jace couldn’t see any individual wards, but it looked like the streaks of mithril in the walls produced their own light, bathing everything in a soft, silver glow. It was an enchanting sight.
After the short descent, the elevator reached the ground floor, and Ian led Jace and Snowy through the center of the room, away from the activity along the edges. It wasn’t as decedent as Drescher’s Lion’s Den had been, and it wasn’t nearly as busy. As far as Jace could tell, most of the unique characters were NPCs, and there were fewer than a dozen. Gracie had told him each PC could have up to five unique NPC companions and one familiar. Of course, you could have as many non-unique NPC employees as you wanted, and the trolls and shamans didn’t count against the total. But those types of characters rarely indulged in pleasures and were more scripted in their behavior. Assuming Ian and Brock had maxed themselves out, there could be ten NPC companions here. But Ian had mentioned someone named Lexi, and Jace saw two or three candidates that acted like PCs as they watched the guests with exquisite interest.
One woman particularly caught his eye as she looked out at Jace from the pool, her head just above the water. She had large cat-like eyes that followed him and Snowy, and Jace quickly realized she had cat-like ears and whiskers too. Snowy saw her and growled at the natural enemy. She rose further out of the water to smile at them, and the orc saw she had leopard spots down her sides with light fur on her relatively flat chest. A long, spotted tail pushed up out of the waist-deep water to wave at them.
“Easy, girl,” Jace whispered to his wolf. “Stay by my side. If you attack, half a dozen people will respond, and I won’t be able to protect you.” They passed the pool, and Jace tried to focus on the other people present. Humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, and a few more exotic creatures lounged about, studied scrolls, or ate food. Jace saw few weapons, but half a dozen trolls were stationed around the room, and every area they passed through could be attacked by at least two of them at a moment’s notice. Jace also saw several mages sitting on elevated platforms around the room. And while it looked like they were studying and talking, he imagined they could respond immediately with attack spells if needed.
Their trip through the room ended in the far corner at the dining table. Sure enough, the head spot was taken by a tall dwarf. He had a close-cut beard and none of the exaggerated features standard among the often-comical race. Thinking of the live-action Tolkien movies, he presented himself more like Thorin than Gimli. When he stood to greet his guests, Jace saw he was well over five feet tall.
“The legendary Jace Thorne,” Brock said as he dismissed several of the NPCs at the table. Only a human priest stayed. Ian moved beside his cohort and took a seat, immediately reaching for pastries and fruit in the center of the table. “I didn’t expect they’d send you,” the dwarf continued. “Are you a sword for hire now, or do you work for the FBI permanently.”
Jace didn’t respond, and Brock didn’t really care either way. “Did you bring my money?”
Jace guessed that Brock had a magical way of observing the front of his stronghold and had already eavesdropped on the conversation with Ian. He didn’t want to rehash the whole thing. “As you know,” Jace said, “my government doesn’t negotiate with . . . kidnappers.”
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“Just say it,” the dwarf laughed. “Terrorists. You think I’m a terrorist. I have caught a criminal financing a human trafficking operation within my country. I have detained him along with three international accomplices. Now I am offering a peaceful way to release them, and that makes me a terrorist. From what I can tell, you kill people over loot and are labeled a hero. What kind of world do we live in?”
Before he could answer, Jace stiffened as motion to his right caught his attention. The cat woman sauntered up to the table. Snowy growled but stayed close to her master. The PC cast the wolf a playful glance and did a full-body wriggle that threw water at the two guests. She had morphed just enough into a human that her womanly curves and facial features dominated her appearance but kept enough feline so that a light coating of fur covered her body and didn’t trigger Jace’s nudity sensors.
“What kind of world, indeed?” Jace commented.
Brock frowned at the new member at the meeting. “Lexi, put some clothes on.”
The woman offered her leader a feral snarl, but a moment later, fur covered her more thoroughly, and her chest flattened to that of a leopard. Her feet transitioned into paws, but her hands maintained their five-fingered dexterity. She sat at the table and reached for a piece of fruit, her spotted tail in constant motion behind her.
{A druid, most likely,} Gracie advised. {By level 10, a druid can shape-shift into their chosen animal several times a day. By fifteen, the transformation is more customizable. She is level 18 and can move freely between her human and animal forms, taking the advantages of either, but only for a certain amount of time per day. At Level 20, it can be permanent, and she can start to increase her animal abilities.}
The dwarf sighed at his companion’s naturalistic approach and turned to Jace, who was multitasking. He listened to Gracie’s information, tried to determine Lexi’s motivation, was still thinking of a way to alter his plan, and needed to start negotiating with Brock.
“So, if you don’t have the gold I requested, what do you have to offer? The level 50 Crystal?”
“That item is priceless,” Jace argued. “Would it be enough for the release of all four?”
The dwarf laughed. “You still think we are negotiating for all four? Hyun-Woo isn’t going anywhere,” he named the South Korean. “As for the others, I might consider trading the crystal for one of the Americans. The dwarf, perhaps.”
Jace shook his head. “You know the crystal is more valuable than that. Besides, I have other items that would probably interest you more?”
“Where are they?” Brock asked, knowing full well that Jace’s inventory was empty.
“Your associate didn’t trust me with them, and they were left upstairs,” Jace offered.
Ian turned to his partner with a mouthful of food and shook his head.
“The treasure room?” Brock asked.
Ian nodded and swallowed. “I’ll not be killed by one of his clever traps. We aren’t as stupid as Drescher was.”
Brock considered this and nodded. “Very well. We shall return upstairs after I have finished eating. Please, have a seat. Enjoy the food. I can get something for your wolf as well.”
“We aren’t hungry,” Jace replied. Snowy looked up at him and managed to put a contradictory look into her eyes. The wolf was always hungry.
“What about your companions?” a voice purred at him.
Jace turned to Lexi, who decided to join the negotiation. Her voice was deep and rich, reverberating through him. He was sure it was laced with mana and prepared himself to fight against a Charm spell.
“Would you consider trading any of them for our guests?” she continued.
Jace didn’t know how to reply at first and was too mesmerized by the exotic nature of this woman. Her face was primarily human, but her nose was the wrong shape, splitting her upper lip into a constant snarl. Her teeth were too sharp behind her thin lips, and when she talked, it looked like the careful enunciation of an animal from the live-action Lion King. Besides her appearance, Jace wondered about her motivation in this exchange. She was much higher in level than the other two men and appeared to be all play and no business. Though, by the nature of her question, he guessed she played this game for the experiences, and many of the unique NPCs lounging around this Mithril Palace were likely hers.
“My companions are worth more than the one million gold you are asking for,” Jace finally replied.
“So, you value them more than actual humans?” she had finished eating an apple, but instead of dropping the core on the table, she tossed it into her mouth and chewed.
“I didn’t say that,” Jace argued, but he could see where this was going.
She stood and sauntered over to him. The awkward shape of her primarily animal legs gave her mostly human hips a tantalizing sway as her tail swished about. “So, you will trade one of them straight up for a prisoner? The honorable Jace Thorne could do nothing else, could he? It would be horrible to tell those tortured souls in our dungeon that they couldn’t go free because someone valued their virtual girlfriends over them.”
Jace was momentarily speechless and was saved by a sudden reaction from the priest at the table. “Dragon fire!” he said, standing from his seat. Jace had been waiting for the alarm to go off, and as a shaman attuned to the magic in the stone all around him, he felt the pulsing spell through his body like the beat of a bass drum.
Brock and Ian exchanged concerned looks before turning toward the priest. “Noyamon, an attack now?” Brock asked. “Why weren’t we warned earlier? Didn’t the shamans see it coming?”
Lexi heard the commotion but didn’t take her eyes off Jace. “So, you did bring your companions to trade,” she said softly, showing more insight than the other men. “How thoughtful.”
“Only one?” Ian asked. “From which direction?”
Noyamon, the priest, shook his head, and his eyes rolled into his settings as he talked. “No direction. The attack came from inside.”
“It has already broken through our defenses?” Ian cried. “Impossible.” He stood from the table and looked at the shamans that had followed him from upstairs. “Give me a status report! What do the guards say?”
Jace turned to see one of the shamans roll his eyes into his head and then report back a moment later. “Two are unresponsive. They cover positions three and four. The others are reporting no dragon activity. Nothing in the skies. Position five did see . . . something but wasn’t sure. Perhaps an intruder entering at position four.”
“That faces the city,” Brock said. “A dragon would attack from the mountains.”
Lexi sighed. “And a guard would be sure if he saw a dragon creeping about position four, you fools!” She turned to regard them. “You two are so concerned about Jace tricking you that you were blind to the fact that he already did. He has a girl who can throw dragon fire. And I doubt she is alone.”
Brock turned to Ian, but the elf raised his hands in defense. “It was just him and the wolf, I swear. He brought no one else in. Unless they climbed the cliff or flew in, but that isn’t possible without us detecting them.”
“We are talking about Jace Thorne,” Lexi said in an even purr. “He specializes in the impossible.”
Brock was finally on board. “Incapacitate them,” he said to the priest. Noyamon turned to Jace and Snowy and held them fast with a Hold spell. Both characters failed the save and stood still.
Lexi crouched down and got eye-to-eye with Snowy. “Don’t worry, puppy,” she said as Brock and Ian organized a retaliation effort to track down the intruders. “You are going to like it here. I promise.”
Despite the spell, Snowy growled at the cat woman. Lexi only laughed, a sound that came out as half-purr, half-snarl. As NPCs ran toward the elevator to the upper levels of the fortress and mages began casting protection spells and transporting others out of the room, Lexi retreated to the table and sat back in a chair to watch the chaos unfold around them.