Chương 67: Chapter 68: Sneaking into a heavy fortification

Blur takes one MP per second. I have 1288 MP. That's a little over twenty one minutes, give or take. It forces me to move a bit slower, but it puts my sneak at 52, which should let me move pretty silently through the fortress. The others go around the fortress, to what we're calling the front gate. It's the gate facing towards Elmspire. Realistically, it's probably the back gate, since the other gate leads to a road.

But we're still calling the gate with the road the back gate, and that's where I'm going to try to get in. I could try climbing a wall. I consider it. The walls aren't all that high, maybe about ten feet all around. I can probably jump up and grab the top, then just pull myself over. But the walls are smooth and slick with something that I assume is meant to make them less flammable, but also makes them harder to climb. On the other hand, I'm not sure I can sneak past four guards who are actually doing their jobs.

These guys aren't talking to each other or playing dice or anything like that. They're actually watching the road. They're probably expecting the patrol to come back with the wagons any second now. I think that climbing might be my only option. I wish I had an ability that let me jump higher. I could clear the whole wall in a single leap, and do a superhero landing to try to maintain stealth when I came down. But I don't have anything like that.

I just have a wall of spikes that I need to climb over without anyone seeing me. I could go at the corner, and climb up into a tower. But if I do that, I'd end up having to kill the orcs already in the tower, and I'm not sure I can do that without drawing attention. If I had a weapon that would let me kill one of them in a single hit, I might try it. But I don't have anything like that. So it's back to the plan of climbing over the wall. The trees are cut too far back from the wall to help me.

I might be able to climb a tree high enough that I could jump down into the fortress, but there's no way to do that quietly or subtly. I'd come crashing down, probably hurt myself pretty severely in the fall, and make a lot of noise. So that's out. I could use Distract to make the guards at the gates go investigate a strange sound. But would all four of them move away? Would enough of them move away that I could sneak past the rest? I don't know how good 52 sneak is.

Could I walk right past the guards without them noticing me? I don't think any amount of sneak does that. I mean, I don't turn invisible. Blur does a lot, but it doesn't make me truly invisible. And as the sun has set without the patrol returning, they've gotten a little bit on edge. They're looking for danger. No, I can't sneak past them. Climbing the wall seems stupid, but I think it's my only real choice. I'm going to be heavy though. I take off my armor and put it with my bow into my spatial bag.

I may get killed doing this, and it'll be good to have at least something. Plus, taking off the armor makes me quieter and lighter, which will make it easier for me to jump up the wall and easier for me to climb over it. I leave my bracers and my necklace on so that I keep the boost to strength, but I put my sword into the spatial bag too. I don't know if I'm preparing to die or not. I seem to have warring subconscious desires. Consciously, I don't want to die.

I want to slip up the wall and drop silently down on the other side, away from prying eyes. I want to sneak my way through the fortress until I find a commander's office or a command tent or something like that. I want to sneak through and grab the plans, or a map of the area or something like that. Orders would be good. Something that can prove to Elmspire that they're planning on doing more than just establishing a foothold here. Or even just something that proves that they are establishing a foothold.

Then I'll send the signal for the distraction and get out of there. First, though, I have to go over the wall. I'm about six feet tall. My arms go up about another two feet. That means I need to jump at least two feet just to get to the top of the wall and get a grip. Maybe three feet, just to be safe. That's a hell of a vertical leap. I wish I had some rope I could just loop up there and use to climb over. But this is better, and this will be faster. I hope.

I stand under the wall for a good five minutes, just breathing and psyching myself up. It's a good thing I didn't have the others attack before I got inside. I'd hate to have them fighting while I'm just trying to convince myself to jump up there. I can do this. Three feet is a hell of a vertical leap, but I can do this. I've always been a good jumper, and my strength was never 62 before. In my old life, I used to have a good twenty-two inch vertical leap, I think. That's what I remember from high school.

I can jump up and touch the rim on a basketball court. This has got to be about the same height, right? Of course, I could never grab the rim on the basketball net, but I could touch it. With my finger tips. I can jump higher now. I'm a lot stronger. Like, orders of magnitude stronger. I can do this. You can do this. Take one step and jump as high as you can. If you grab the top of the wall, that's great; you can pull yourself right up. If you don't, then no big deal; we just need to go to plan B. Whatever that is.

I brace myself, squat down a few times, and then bend my legs to get as much power in them as I can and explode upwards. I'm not saying that I jump the whole wall, or that I could with a running jump. But I know I make it more than the three feet I need. I manage to catch the wall on the way down rather than the way up, and I do it with very little noise. Nonetheless, I hang there, holding the wall with both arms, and I wait for a good twenty seconds before I pull myself up.

No one comes over to investigate, and none of the conversations I can overhear falter or change tone. I can't make out individual words, but I'm relatively confident no one saw me catch the wall and no one heard when the rest of my body hit it. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. I pull myself up and over, and drop down to ground level, landing in a crouch. Still no one has noticed me, I don't think.

I move slowly and carefully, half expecting to round the corner and find fifty orcs just waiting for me with evil smiles on their faces. But they aren't there when I step around the building I land next to. I think it's a barracks. It smells like one. The scent of orcs weaves over and over itself, along with a strong scent of body odor and the smell of the oil you use to keep weapons in good repair. It's also the biggest building inside the fortress, by far. And I think I can hear snoring coming from within.

If I had something that could block a door, I'd barricade the door that leads to the barracks, trapping all the orcs not currently walking around the fortress in there. We could probably take the rest of them. And I might be able to get those inside with Mab's Rage, weakening them all severely before they got out the door. Plus we could set up outside the door and force them to come one at a time. I need a spell or something that will block off a door. I don't have one, though.

And when I sneak around the building, there isn't even something I can throw in the way that will slow them down. A good plan, but we can't execute it. Stick with the original plan. Find the commander's tent. Or office, if there's a permanent building. I duck back into the shadows every time I hear or smell an orc come near me. Some of them pass close enough that I could reach out and touch them if I wanted to, but none of them seem to see me. Certainly, none of them react to me.

I move slowly, keeping an eye on my MP. It's draining steadily, but I think I've still got ten minutes before it runs out. The problem is, if I let the spell keep running, I won't have enough MP left to cast Mab's Rage. It's an awesome spell, but it is hella expensive. My sneak has already gone up to 27, which means it's effectively 54 right now. Can I afford some time with it at 27? I'm going to have to if I want to be able to cast anything else. My MP is down to 712. I need 500 to cast Mab's Rage.

So that leaves me with about three and a half minutes of Blur that I can keep using. And I still haven't found the commander's office yet. Once I get there, I can turn off Blur and just rely on my natural sneak skill, provided there isn't anyone there right now. I do find it, more or less in the middle of the fortress. It's a tent, and all the walls are rolled up, preventing there from being any kind of privacy. Awesome. By which I mean shitty as hell. If the walls were down, I could use them to help hide me.

As it is, I'm going to have to move over open ground to get there, and there will be nowhere to hide while I'm in the commander's tent. If that wasn't bad enough, the commander's tent isn't empty. It has the commander in it. The orc major is standing around the very map I want to steal, talking with two orc captains. I can't steal the plans while they're standing around talking about them. This is bad. Really bad. I stand in my hiding spot, maybe a dozen steps from them.

I turn off Blur to conserve magic points, and do my best to listen to what they're saying. They're speaking in their own language, but the words come to me clearly as if they were speaking English. Or Elvish. Or whatever language we speak in this world. Point is, I can understand them. They're concerned that the patrol hasn't returned yet, and are debating whether or not to send out another patrol to go looking for them. The supplies are important, but "the secrecy of the base is paramount.

If we have been found out, we need to know." The two captains grunt and nod in agreement, but one of them seems hesitant to send out another patrol.

"We need to keep our strength here, in case we are discovered," he says.

"The elves will attack us if they know we're here. We should prepare and defend. Maybe send out a scout to find the patrol."

"No, we must send out a larger patrol," the other captain says.

"If something delayed the first patrol, let us send greater numbers to assist them, or to avenge them. If the elves know we're here, they'll try to ambush us. Let's send out a group ready for an ambush, and turn it on the knife ears." I assume knife ear is a slur for elves. I know it has been in various video games.

"Send scouts," the major says.

"And close the gates. Prepare for battle." I'm not going to be able to sneak into the tent with the three of them there. Even if the two captains leave, the major looks like he's going to stand there and brood for a while, to look over the orders and the maps and figure out what the next move should be. I could wait until the captains leave with their orders, but then the gates will be closed and it will be even harder for my friends to create a distraction.

"Yes sir," the captains say, snapping off a salute. That seems like as good a signal as any. I cast Mab's Rage, then immediately reactivate Blur. I'd like to say that chaos ensues, but it doesn't.

"Attack!" one of the captains shouts.

"Man the ramparts! Close the gates!" Go! I send to El, still watching the major. He does finally leave the tent, grabbing a huge glaive and moving towards the back gates, probably assuming that the strongest attack will come from that direction. I move into the tent and start grabbing things from the table indiscriminately. Maybe I got all the plans, maybe I didn't. Maybe I got some orcish poetry or the softball team sign up sheet. I don't know and I don't care.

I just grab everything I see and stuff it into my bag. Then I start making my way back to the wall. My MP runs out just as I get to the wall. I can hear sounds of battle, and I know that Mab's Rage is doing its thing. I'm moving around, so they can't find the epicenter of it, but I think I'm getting most of the orcs in the fortress with it. They're pouring out of the barracks now, woken from their slumber by the sudden storm of ice shards and cold breezes. It's a shame the spell isn't going to kill any of them.

Climbing the wall on this side is much easier. There's a whole platform to walk on just six feet off the ground, allowing guards to walk the walls. From there, it's easy enough to jump the spiked wall and land down on the ground. I think I twist my ankle a little bit, and I take 10 damage to my actual health, but I keep myself from making any noise. My sneak goes up another point, and I make it out of the fortress right around the time Mab's Rage dies down.

More notifications pop up, but I don't have time to look at them. I'm out! I send to El. Then I send it to Ash too. I'm not sure how much attention El is going to be paying to her messages while she's in battle. Her class is battle rager, after all. She's probably raging right now, and not paying attention to things like tactics. She's just cutting her way through the enemy. An enemy that I weakened. Did I weaken enough of them? Are we going to be able to take out the whole fortress?