Gabriel and Dieb moved stealthily through the streets, trying their best not to get caught and everything was going very well, especially with the help of Dieb’s knowledge, who guided them through some secret or hard to find paths.

But their luck couldn’t and wouldn’t last forever and so, after they had traversed about two thirds of the path to the administrative office, they were found. It was a smallish group of eight members, six of them wary, one of them knocked out and another tied up.

- Hey, you! – One of the weary ones called them out and both Gabriel and Dieb stopped on their tracks. – Get over here! – They called and the both of them knew that denying their request would only make the situation worse.

When they were close enough to be recognized, they greeted Dieb and asked him who I was, someone which they didn’t recognize yet and he told them that I was a guy he knew and was helping. The tied-up guy tried escaping while his captors were focused on Gabriel, but he didn’t manage to get out of their grasp, so he also put his attention onto Gabriel… and he recognized him!

- What are you doing!? – The captive murmured to Gabriel, but he acted as if he couldn’t hear him, because it was already suspicious for Gabriel, an outsider, to be inside the cube at the same time of the attack, so if he made any attempt to communicate with the attackers, they would realize it quickly and attack him as well.

Dieb and the guys continued talking for a moment while the trapped was making it more and more obvious that he knew Gabriel, which made the latter get nervous, but after seeing that the guards weren’t reacting, he calmed down. Finally, they finished their conversation and both Gabriel and Dieb were let go… or so Gabriel thought until he was surrounded…

- Nothing personal… but you’re raiding us, and we have to defend ourselves. And to be honest, you should be proud of yourself, your acting was really good. – Dieb told Gabriel while he took his sword out of its sheath. – You must be really well informed to craft such a good cover-up story, alas you didn’t have the right teammates and so they clearly did you good… Though I don’t know why you’d be tasked to steal a document from the administrative office… But one of you will open your mouth and give us the information we need. Now, however, we have to catch you. – Dieb finished his monologue but had ended up giving Gabriel valuable time to prepare.

During this minute and a half Gabriel had already crossed some possible plans out of his mental planning board, such as fighting the five – six, counting Dieb – people that had surrounded him. The place they were in was a T-intersection between two streets and there were two “enemies” on the left and right and one behind him, added with Dieb from whom Gabriel had made distance.

Even though Gabriel maybe could defeat two people hunting him down, he was already quite tired just from being awake and the stealth mission that had failed had also burned his energy, so the four remaining guards would manage to catch him… most likely.

So, he would have to resort to other strategies… specifically cheap tricks! He wouldn’t be able to do much physical nor magical, so he grabbed some prepared smoke bombs to not be seen. Then, he threw rocks at the roofs of different buildings to throw the guards off before entering one of the small buildings nearby without making a sound. Gabriel believed that hiding there would be the best plan as it was both unexpected and it was unlikely that all of the guards stayed behind, especially because he may be escaping through the roofs.

Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

After the smoke had mostly cleared out Gabriel still didn’t move an inch and just listened carefully for any activities outside, but he couldn’t hear anything. Still, he decided it was best to stay calm and put until he was completely sure it was safe. Then, he heard someone talking.

- Yeah, it seems he really left. I was close to betting that he actually stayed behind and hid somewhere over here because we wouldn’t expect it. – Someone outside commented and Gabriel pat himself in the back, mentally, of course, for his self-control.

And then, the two individuals hurried to the roofs and Gabriel could hear them go to search for him, while he was hiding there. For good measure, he counted for five minutes before he left and because there was no sound at all, he casually left the building.

While he was hidden, he had already though of what he wanted to do. Even though if he followed the mission, he would need to exit the cube, the seed of doubt was already planted in his mind and he really wanted to find an answer, so he followed Dieb’s directions to get to the office.

Even though no one had stayed to search for him, it didn’t mean that they wouldn’t be searching for him on the streets, so he still was moving stealthily and hiding as much as possible, but to his surprise, he never crossed paths with anyone… until he entered the administrative office, that was.

There he expected to be met with some basic security but was instead trapped once again and now he didn’t have anywhere to hide. Dieb had convinced one of the guards to go with him to the administrative office where he expected Gabriel to go, and he his guess was correct.

But it wasn’t a random guess at all, in fact he had played Gabriel so that he would go there. First of all, he couldn’t change the fact that the records were there, he had indeed told the truth before realizing that Gabriel was his enemy.

But he knowingly gave Gabriel time while he was monologuing and purposefully commented that he had been tricked by the fake story just to make Gabriel believe that there wouldn’t be anyone close to the offices, while he prepared a surprise to him.

This time there was no talking, instead, as soon as they saw Gabriel get far enough from the entrance, they activated the trap and closed themselves in with Gabriel. There was an exit on the other side of the building, built there for emergencies so if Gabriel wanted to leave it would take time and he would need to beat them both, which might happen, but the ruckus their fight would make the other guards notice and hopefully come to help them.

Right after being locked up, Gabriel rushed into another room, trying to get some space between himself and the one who was attacking him. Gabriel closed the door behind him and created some rubble by pushing different desks and drawers in front of the door while he tried to look for anything that could guide him towards the documents he was searching for.

But there wasn’t enough time and before he found anything, the door and the objects Gabriel had pushed in front of it were flung off with an explosion that not only had created quite a big hole on the wall, but it also started a fire.

Now Gabriel wasn’t only in a hurry to get the information he needed before the other guards came to the building he was in, he also had to race against the fire before it burned what he wanted to find! And added to that Dieb and his ally were attacking him as well…

Gabriel prepared himself to feel pain everywhere as he prepared something that would either knock both his enemies out and give him valuable time to search and run away or let himself fall into their hands, which would happen even if he didn’t use the spell he was preparing.

A light-blue orb of light appeared between Gabriel’s hands, and it was both glowing and growing. His skin’s color was also accentuated, and it shone red. The ball suddenly rose up as did Gabriel’s arms and it suddenly blew up with a white light. Then, Gabriel fell to the ground, drained of his last energy reserves, but started crawling to search the documents that had fallen on the floor, while the fire expanded behind him.

Unsurprisingly, he wasn’t able to find anything promising so he was forced to escape the now falling apart building before he was hurt by the fire. Surprisingly, he didn’t meet any guards on his escape route out of the office. Now, he would leave the cube. He had had enough trouble for one night, he thought to himself while he walked through the empty streets.