Trent told me to tell him everything my water card could do. I explained that if I wanted I could inundate our entire house and explained the water balls I could make. We went outside and I shot a small one at a tree branch over twenty feet away. The water hit the branch so hard it snapped in half at the collision point and the loose part fell to the ground.

It took a while for him to truly come to terms with what we were about to do. But I soon noticed a sparkle in his eyes as they shone with one of his bright ideas.

Satisfied, we left the property, went around the lake into the workers’ district and took the quickest route to the banquet hall. No one from Big Tree ever took walks at night after the incident of the four guys who broke into the chief’s house. We did see a few people from Little Rock still tidying up their homes. Some had big gaping holes from burnt wood that had to be removed after the bandits set their homes on fire, so Trent and I could see right into them.

“Why are we going to the banquet hall?” I asked.

“If we’re doing this, we’re doing it right.”

The banquet hall had natural gas, which the village used as an emergency fuel source. Trent wanted to grab the whole tank and use it for an explosion.

It wasn’t an original idea. The bandits had done it to us first. That’s how they were able to destroy so many buildings so quickly. Trent wanted them to get a taste of their own medicine.

With any luck, a fire would spread and we could rescue Matilda during the big commotion.

We found the tank in the large supply room. There were two, but we’d only be able to take one. It was a metal container as tall as a person with a precision faucet and a red skull painted on it to mark danger.

“And just how are we supposed to sneak around carrying this?”

“We’re not.”

I blinked fast. “…What?”

“We’ll get a night patrol to take us there. During the attack, the bandits had several small metal containers that they used for explosions. Likely natural gas, too. If we pretend to be suppliers on a delivery, we could be let inside. We say it was an urgent delivery and we couldn’t get a horse in time. We could use the lift, we’ll say.”

“They’d find my spellcard during the search.”

“They don’t search their own.”

“Huh?”

“Iskariot. Friend of the king. It’s a word known only by Holy Knights. If I say it, they will trust us.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Why do you know something like that?”

“My old master.”

Trent started blabbing a little about his past. Trent was born and raised in this village sure, but before I was born, hell before he came back and settled down, he was an apprentice clergyman. Because he was smart and capable, he was assigned by the church as an errand boy to serve the Holy Knights’ general, Uglas Sinbad, which was an alias for his real name: Reno Iskariot. His master said to use his name if Trent ever found himself in a pinch.

So that’s how he knows Casselberry, too.

“But still. Won’t we be found out after they confirm no one asked for a delivery?”

He shook his head. “I gave it some thought. If the bandits really are at Casselberry, then the Holy Knights are working with them. It’s the only explanation.”

The Holy Knights working with the bandits….

It wasn’t a big leap in logic, but I was surprised I hadn’t connected those dots.

That would explain why the bandits were never caught despite making all their attacks at night, which was when the Holy Knights made their most active patrols. I mean, I was caught just a few minutes into wandering outside the village.

Then again, I didn’t have a spellcard for invisibility.

It wasn’t a certainty that the Holy Knights and bandits were holding hands over a campfire and drinking their asses off on stolen ale, but it was a possibility. Was it right to trust Trent’s intuition on this? I wanted to just sneak inside and smack people with water balls, but Trent’s idea was miles better if his logic was correct.

“What makes you so sure they’re working together?”

He sighed. “I’ve had a suspicion something was wrong when the margrave refused to give any support to Big Tree. If his finances are strained, then maybe he’s paying the knights less. Maybe they’re turning a blind eye to crime for a cut. I’ve heard the Order hasn’t been the same since my master died.”

“That’s a lot of maybe’s.”

“And the biggest maybe is the clue you brought me. All we have is maybe’s, Alster.”

He had a point. I nodded. “Alright, what do we do now?”

Trent looked around the storage room for a goo-like substance used as an adhesive and found it on the third level of a wooden shelf. Then he went to another room and grabbed a few items. One was a single match less than half the length of a finger and came back. When he returned, he pointed to his mouth. He had glued the match to the roof of his mouth to make sure he’d have a flame source when the time called for it. It was insurance. Finally, a flammable piece of string. He laid it all out in front of me on the ground and beckoned me to sit.

The plan he explained was as follows: attach most of the string just inside the faucet with just the tiny end of it sticking out. When no one’s looking, Trent pulls out the match and lights it. Then, we run like hell. Metaphorically.

He cut up the size he was going to use and we tested how long it took for the flame to reach the end. A piece that was two inches long took twenty seconds to burn. If we used a longer one, we’d have enough time to avoid suspicion, too.

All we had to do was open the faucet slightly and light the string and then kaboom. Trent said the tanks they kept in the village were highly pressurized because there was just that much gas in them. That was why they didn’t keep anything flammable in this room.

“You’ll carry the tank, Alster. It will be easier to explain you’re my assistant.”

I picked it up for practice. It was a lot lighter than I expected. Most of the weight was just the metal container after all. I didn’t know if I’d be able to walk that far with it. But Trent was planning to get caught as soon as possible.

Maybe I’d get a skill for carrying shit and get stronger, too.

Once we prepared everything, I picked up the tank and we set off. Ret and Bico, the two stooges that stood guard let us pass without question thanks to Trent being there with me.

Good. Now I won’t have to knock them out.

Yeah, maybe it was a good thing I’d made Trent my assistant in this scheme.