Chương 108: Book 2 Chapter 60 - The Hideout

Kiara watched the man leave. She hadn't even thought to ask his name. Oh well, it likely wouldn't matter after tonight. Dead people didn't need names. She waited for the door to close behind him, then stood and followed him out. She kept track of where he was with [Magical Sense 4], and easily spotted him once she was outside. She ducked into a deserted alleyway, activated [Invisibility 2], and hurried to catch up to him. Hopefully, he would lead her straight to her missing employees.

After a five minute walk, they passed the Mester Straw Inn, the very place he had told her to meet his boss in two days' time. A block away from the inn, the man entered a shadowy building. With the building being so close to the future meet up point, she assumed this must be the gang's hideout. The building was two stories tall, and looked quite old. The roof was bowed, as if it was slowly caving in over time and no one cared enough to brace it or repair it.

There were gaps between some of the boards, but Kiara couldn't see through them. She didn't know if that was due to it being nighttime, or from something else. The street itself was quiet and deserted. This entire section of Portish was fairly eerie this time of night, and Kiara wondered how much of that was due to this gang's presence here. Maybe people were scared to go out at night in this part of town. If so, she wouldn't blame them.

[Magical Sense 4] failed to get any readings from inside the building, and the man she had been following disappeared from her senses the moment he stepped inside, even before the door had swung shut. Still invisible, she moved closer to the building. As she got close, [Artifact Compass] lit the building up like a beacon. Numerous wards and enchantments lined the walls, windows, and doorways, focused mainly on any point of entry.

She focused on the ones near the door, and [Artifact Sage 3] helped her understand that there were three enchantments there. One was primarily focused on preventing unauthorized entry of anyone not carrying some kind of token with them. It would target the intruder with a barrage of spells, although Kiara wasn't entirely sure what the spells were supposed to do. The second ward she analyzed was a protective ward, tied into the other wards on the walls and windows.

It would protect the building from physical damage, as well as prevent sound or other types of detection from seeing inside the building. This ward was likely what was preventing [Magical Sense 4] from showing her anything inside. The third ward was quite complex, and she couldn't make out what it did or how to avoid it. No matter, she knew that artifact magic shouldn't affect her anyways. She wasn't sure what token she needed to enter without detection, and didn't know how to find out.

Instead, she waited for the door to open again as someone was stepping out of the building, and decided to make her move. She was waiting right there by the door, and quickly slipped inside the moment the other person walked through the door. The intruder prevention ward blared a short alarm, quite loudly, and a hazy, white bubble erupted around her, possibly a stasis trap of some kind if [Artifact Sage 3] was to be believed.

Lightning coursed through the stasis field, and a deadly green gas filled the entire bubble. All of it dissolved the moment it touched her. She simply walked through the trap, waving her arms to dismiss as much of it as she could before anyone could inspect the situation. She didn't interact with anyone else, so [Invisibility 2] remained active throughout.

A thunderous chorus of footsteps came rushing down the stairs, and five tier 2 guards rushed into the room, only to find their ward-induced stasis trap empty and malfunctioning. They stared at it dumbly for a few seconds before one of them spoke up.

"Is it broken?" he asked, scratching his head.

"Must be," another replied.

"Look at the way the mana inside is completely messed up. There's no one here, either."

"I'll go report it to Vance, just in case," a third guard said, to nods of agreement. One of the men came forward and pulled a small metal coin from his pocket, which he pressed to a small panel near the door. The stasis trap disengaged. Kiara realized that must be one of the gang's tokens that would prevent the trap from re-activating. The guards mumbled to each other about the age of the hideout, and how things must be giving out from old age.

Once the stasis trap was reset, they headed back up the stairs in single file, leaving Kiara alone in the entryway. Now that she was inside the building, [Magical Sense 4] was no longer hindered. She sensed three tier 3s on the second floor, including the man she had met at the bar, whose magical signature she now recognized. There were also four tier 2s up there, along with around fifteen tier 1s.

The ground level was a bit more deserted, with only a couple of tier 2s and a handful of tier 1s, all in rooms in the back. There was another tier 3 in the basement, along with four more tier 2s and four mortals. She was here for her employees, and she knew they were mortals, so the basement seemed like the right place to start. She found the stairs and made her way down, maintaining her invisibility. When she reached the landing, she slipped past two tier 2 guards at the bottom of the stairs.

Kiara moved through the hallways, and was surprised at how much larger the building was than she'd realized from the outside. She didn't open any closed doors to avoid drawing attention, but she peeked inside the ones that were already open, revealing either empty rooms or random boxes and crates stacked haphazardly, probably storage of some kind. Stolen novel; please report.

She moved toward the signatures of the four mortals, eventually finding a dim hallway at the back of the basement with rooms branching off either side. There were another two tier 2 guards at the entry to the hallway, but she walked right past them, unnoticed. The doors in this hallway, unlike the wooden ones elsewhere in the basement, were made of solid steel, set into steel frames. She sensed all four mortals and the tier 3 behind one of the doorways. The other ones seemed empty.

She tried opening the door, but it was locked securely, and no amount of pulling, pushing, or twisting yielded any result, even with her augmented strength levels. She could try slamming her body into one to see how securely the frames were mounted into the walls, or even punch her way through one of the walls, but she didn't want to draw attention. Instead, she locked onto the signal of the man she'd met earlier in the bar, and made her way up to the second floor to find him.

She patiently waited for him to enter a room alone, which took about fifteen minutes, then she slipped in behind him and silently shut the door. She dropped her invisibility while his back was turned, then grabbed him by the arm and whirled him around to face her, slamming him into a nearby wall. His eyes went wide with surprise and fright at the sudden assault.

"I'm taking my people and leaving," she said with as much bravado as she could muster.

"Give me the keys to those doors in the basement." His face quickly drained of blood as recognition dawned on his face.

"Y-you? Wh-how are you here?"

"They keys," she said, holding out her hand expectantly. He nodded hurriedly and fished a ring of keys out of his pocket.

"H-here, take 'em." She snatched the keys from his hand, surprised by how easily he had given in. She wasn't complaining though, trying to find the keys on her own would have been a pain. She turned and hurried from the room before he could come fully to his senses. With a bit of luck she might be able to get downstairs and get her people out before this guy raised the alarm. She activated [Invisibility 2] the moment she left the room, and moved to the basement as quickly as she could without making a racket.

When she got to the locked steel door, she tried one key after another until one slid smoothly into the lock. She turned it as quietly as she could, still hoping to avoid drawing the attention of the guards at the end of the hallway. Once the lock clicked open, she cracked the door and slipped inside, shutting it behind her. With her invisibility active, the people in the room couldn't see her. To them, it would have looked like someone on the outside opened the door slightly, then shut it again.

One of the men sitting inside, the tier 3, said softly, "Huh. They must have changed their minds. Maybe they forgot something and they'll be back in a bit?" The other prisoners ignored his comment, barely glancing at him. They looked mostly scared and worried about the situation they had found themselves in. Kiara realized now that dropping her invisibility might startle them, causing them to let out shouts of alarm.

Even if she revealed herself successfully without raising a racket, she hadn't yet considered how to get the prisoners past the guards to the outside without them being seen or apprehended. So far she had only planned up to this point: getting to the hostages to see if they were okay. The mortals looked unharmed, at least physically, which was good. She couldn't say as much about the tier 3. She only now realized that he was a prisoner here too, rather than a member of the gang.

His face was covered in bruises, and one eye was swollen shut. His left arm was held close to the body, as if something was broken or dislocated and it needed a sling. His shirt was tattered and scorched, revealing burn marks underneath. Honestly, he looked to be in pretty rough shape, and she was impressed he had the energy to comment on the cell door opening. He was a young man, probably about her same age, early twenties.

There was a teenage boy, probably about fourteen, who looked as if he'd been crying for most of the night. Kiara didn't blame him, the poor kid. Two of the hostages sat closer to each other, a young woman Kiara's age and a man about the right age to be her father. He was wearing a blacksmith's apron, so she assumed those were her two employees. The final prisoner was a man in his thirties, dressed quite nicely, probably a merchant of some kind.

She wanted to take some time to think up a really solid plan to get them out of here, but realized she didn't have time. That man she had confronted upstairs would soon alert the others, if he hadn't already. It was looking more and more like she might have to fight her way out of this one if she wanted to get the hostages out safely. She wasn't complaining. In fact, a grin slowly spread across her invisible face.

She didn't want the fight to break out in this small cell, as the mortals inside were likely to get injured or killed in the process. The hallway outside might work in her favor, since not too many people could come at her at once, but it also limited her own ability to leverage her faster movement speed... Eh, it was probably a worthwhile tradeoff. Before she could come up with a concrete plan, the cell door swung open once again, this time fully. All three tier 3s from the second floor were standing outside.

"Ah, they're back," the tier 3 sitting in the cell said, mostly to himself. The tier 3s in the hallway shot him a glare, but didn't focus on him. Their gazes swept the room.

"Did anyone come in here?" the middle one asked roughly. The hostages all shared a confused look, then shook their heads.

"The door was unlocked, how did that happen?" they asked. The injured tier 3 in the cell nodded in their direction.

"You opened it like twenty seconds ago, then shut it, and now you just opened it again. Is your memory that bad from the beating I gave you earlier?" Kiara raised an invisible eyebrow. He was clearly the one who had taken the beating, and he was taunting them? Bold.

"Shut yer face, Choppy!" The right-most tier 3 said. He was a large, burly man, easily a head taller than the other two, with arms the size of logs. He nodded to the middle man.

"You're lucky Vance here is so kind hearted, or you'd be dead already after all the crap you've pulled."

"Quiet, Tank," Vance said from the middle.

"She must have realized she didn't have time to get them out and hid somewhere else down here." He turned to the left-most man, the one who had met Kiara at the bar.

"Dasor, check the rooms on the left. Tank, check the rooms on the right. I'll double back and see if she slipped past us somehow." Kiara hurried out the door before they could shut it, pressing herself to the wall as she slipped by, to avoid making contact with any of them. Once it was shut and locked, she smiled. The prisoners were about as safe as they could be behind that door. Time to finally make a ruckus.