The House Sandstrike villa occupied a small hill located next to a secluded beach. Anna, Leroy, Cally, and I observed it from another hill about half a mile away, hiding amidst so bushes. Lord Dominic and Kiki remained behind in Eastwatch. The forr because he wasn't suited for this sort of thing, and the latter because she didn't want to be separated from her master.
It was a beautiful area. The beach was shaped like a broad "U", with most of it covered with white sand. The villa was located at the bottom of this "U". The nearby plant life flourished, making the area feel vibrant and full of vitality. In the distance, I heard the sound of gentle waves lapping upon the shore. The sll of sea water filled the air.
It was nightti now, well past midnight. Despite that, it still remained warm out. Light from the crescent moon shone down, giving the area a mysterious and romantic atmosphere. The water seed to shimr underneath the moonlight, while the white sand almost glowed.
I could see why House Sandstrike built a villa here. This place was gorgeous, and I wondered what it looked like during the day. It was the perfect place for a relaxing vacation away from the hustle and bustle of House/Clan life. After Anna and I got married, we needed to go on a honeymoon in a place like this.
I could imagine it now. Swimming and sunbathing during the day, lounging around and enjoying so wine during the night. Ooh, what about a barbecue party? Now that sounded fun.
Not to ntion the sex. Let's be honest. Anna and I had a very physical relationship. If we vacationed in a place like this, away from everyone else, we wouldn't be able to keep our hands off one another. Not that I was complaining.
After indulging in fantasies of honeymoon bliss for a few monts, I shook my head to clear my thoughts. I could daydream so other ti. Right now I needed to focus on the task at hand.
The villa itself was rather modest, by House standards at least. It was a small, single story building built from white stone. It looked open and airy, perfect for comfort and relaxation.
From my vantage point, I didn't see any sign of the prisoners or Lord Benicio. Then again, I hadn't expected to. Lady Isabel didn't strike as the careless sort. While this area was secluded, there was always the chance that so random wanderer might co across this place.
While silencing witnesses was always an option, it was best not to have that complication in the first place. In Lady Isabel's shoes, I'd hide any prisoners deep within the villa just to be safe.
A small white stone wall surrounded the villa. It was there less for protection and more to mark the villa's boundaries. However, I sensed several defensive enchantnts in place. While not on par with Lord Dominic's mansion, the villa was still a heavily defended location. It could hold off an enemy force long enough for reinforcents to arrive.
Several people wearing the uniform of House Sandstrike retainers guarded the villa. Sentries oversaw every possible approach, while roaming patrols covered any potential blind spots. Unlike the rest of the area, the hill upon which the villa sat was clear of any vegetation, giving the guards clear lines of sight.
Altogether, it would be difficult for intruders to enter the villa. The defensive enchantnts made a frontal assault unfeasible, while the sentries and patrols made sneaking in almost impossible. Well, unless one had invisibility enchanted items. However, even then, we would still have to get through the defensive enchantnts sohow.
Thankfully, the blueprint that Lord César gave us detailed everything, including several ways to infiltrate the villa.
After observing the villa so more, my companions and I crawled down the hill, taking care to make as little noise as possible. The moonlight provided just enough illumination for us to navigate our way, thanks to our sharpened senses. A regular person would've been almost blind.
At the bottom of the hill, near a dirt road, waited Arturo. He stood near a dozen or so carts and carriages. We gathered them as part of our preparations for this raid, with help from Arturo and Lord César's people.
While a dozen carts and carriages seed like a lot, we wanted to be as prepared as possible since we didn't know how many prisoners there were. Even then, I was worried that we hadn't brought enough.
However, we had no other choice. Gathering this many carts and carriages, without attracting Lady Isabel's attention, proved a headache. Not to ntion, getting the carts and carriages out of Eastwatch without alerting our enemies also proved difficult. However, we managed it in the end.
"How does it look?" Arturo asked after we joined him
I shook my head.
"The villa is like a fortress," I said. "Without the blueprint, it would've been impossible for us to sneak in undetected. We'll have to use the escape tunnel."
House scions were a paranoid lot, and rightfully so. Even in a place like this, a villa ant for vacation, House Sandstrike put several contingencies in place. One of those contingencies was a hidden escape tunnel located underground. It was enchanted so that Earth wizards wouldn't be able to find it. That was how my companions and I planned on entering the villa.
"Does everyone rember the plan?" I asked, looking around. "We sneak in, find the prisoners, and escort them out without alerting the guards."
My companions nodded. However, Arturo frowned.
"Wouldn't it be simpler to kill all the guards?" he asked.
Arturo gestured to a group of Awakened who stood nearby. They were Lord César's people, which he sent along our way for backup.
"We have enough people to mount a surprise attack," Arturo said. "Taking over the villa shouldn't be a problem."
"Yes, you're right," I said. "However, I want to avoid killing the guards if at all possible."
Arturo was right. It would've been simpler to just kill all the guards. However, I decided against that idea for two reasons.
First, the guards were likely Lady Isabel's thralls. They had no choice in the matter, which made reluctant to take their lives unless necessary. I wasn't against killing the thralls if there was no other choice. However, it was an option of last resort.
Second, after we defeated Lady Isabel, the thralls could beco real House Sandstrike retainers, after we freed them of course. Our overall goal was to ensure Eastwatch's survival. Bolstering House Sandstrike's forces would go a long way towards fulfilling that goal.
I knew from personal experiences that Lady Isabel's thralls weren't weak. They were Third Star martial artists, or Third Circle wizards who specialized in internal magic. They could elevate House Sandstrike's overall strength, assuming they decided to join after we freed them.
To that end, I asked Lord Dominic to create a simple enchanted item for us. In essence, it was a sleeping bomb. It worked like a smoke bomb, but with sleeping potion instead of regular smoke.
After last night, I realized that while I was good at killing, I didn't have many non-lethal options. I didn't know if I would encounter another hostage situation, or sothing similar, so I wanted to be as prepared as possible.
According to Lord Dominic, the sleeping bombs were crude, but they would work for now. He intended to create a more refined version later.
"Are you sure?" Arturo asked, pulling back to the present. "I don't want us to fail because you're feeling squeamish."
Anna crossed her arms and glared at him.
"It's not a matter of being squeamish," she said. "It's a matter of practicality. We want to avoid Lady Isabel's attention for as long as possible. Killing a villa full of her people would accomplish the opposite of that."
Arturo snorted.
"And stealing her prisoners away wouldn't?" he asked.
"If we do it right," I said. "Lady Isabel won't notice for a while. Even a single day can make all the difference in the world."
Arturo opened his mouth to say sothing, before he closed it and shook his head.
"Fine," he said. "You're the boss. We'll do it your way."
I nodded, before gesturing in a certain direction.
"Co on," I said. "Let's go and get this over with."
The reason why we chose to observe the villa from this particular hill was because it was close to the escape tunnel's entrance. After walking for a few minutes, we stopped in front of a short oak tree. It was fake, but it looked like a real oak tree. Without the blueprint, I wouldn't have noticed anything amiss about it.
Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
After making sure this was the right tree, I found the second lowest branch and pulled it down. I heard a click, and a mont later, a low rumbling sound filled the air. The ground at the base of the short oak slid away, revealing a stone staircase. It led to a stone tunnel that headed in the direction of the villa.
"Alright," I said. "Leroy, you stay to guard the entrance with Arturo."
My bodyguard was unhappy about this, but nodded. We discussed this several hours ago, before we even left Eastwatch. While I trusted Lord César and Arturo, that trust only went so far. If either one decided to betray us, we'd be fucked. Leaving Leroy behind was insurance against that.
Not to ntion, each invisibility bracelet only worked on a total of three people. Sure, we could use more than one, but using the sa one ant we could all see and communicate with each other.
With Leroy watching our backs, I activated my invisibility bracelet before the rest of us entered the tunnel.
The tunnel was dark, its walls rough and bumpy. There weren't any glowstones to light our way. I already felt uncomfortable in underground spaces in general, and the tunnel's darkness exacerbated my discomfort. At least it wasn't cramped. Otherwise, I might've gone a little mad.
Thankfully, the tunnel didn't curve or turn in any way, making it impossible to get lost. We just needed to keep our hands on the walls to make sure we were going in the right direction. However, the darkness did make it difficult to keep track of ti.
The air down here slled musty, making it clear that no one had been through here in a long ti. In fact, it was possible that we were the first people to use this tunnel since its creation.
Unlike above, the tunnel was far enough underground that the air felt cool. After enduring the heat and humidity of Eastwatch for more than a week, I found it rather refreshing.
Anna, Cally, and I remained silent as we walked down the tunnel. We didn't need to. Thanks to my invisibility bracelet, we could talk without being overheard. However, none of us were in the mood for banter or small talk.
After walking for what felt like a small eternity, but was likely less than an hour, we reached the end of the tunnel. At this point, Cally risked pulling out a small glowstone to illuminate our surroundings.
The tunnel ended in a smooth stone wall. According to the blueprint, there was a door here. However, without said blueprint, it was almost impossible to open the door from this side. I an, that made sense. This tunnel was ant as an escape, not an entrance.
In order to open the door from this side, we needed to find a series of hidden buttons and press them in the right order. However, an alarm would ring out if we got even a single one wrong, so we needed to be careful.
Cally held up the small glowstone while Anna and I searched our surroundings for the buttons. There were five in total, and it took us a few minutes to locate all of them.
"Ready?" Anna asked, her voice just above a whisper.
I nodded, feeling a bit nervous. If we pressed the wrong button, or if the blueprint that Lord César gave us was inaccurate, we'd fail before we even began. However, there was no room for hesitation, so we pressed the buttons without further ado.
After we pressed the last hidden button, glowing lines appeared on the smooth wall, revealing the outline of a door. A few monts later, it swung open on its own, revealing a cellar. I breathed a sigh of relief. So good so far.
Cally put away the glowstone, before we entered the cellar. It was a large open space, with doors leading to other rooms. It slled of earth. Unlike the tunnel, glowstones embedded in the walls filled the cellar with dim light, so we could see just fine. A nearby stairway led upstairs.
Stacks of crates, as well as furniture covered in thick canvas tarps, filled the cellar. I opened one of the crates and found that it was full of dried vegetables.
To my dismay, there weren't any signs of Lord Benicio or the other prisoners.
"Let's search the other rooms," I said. "If we don't find anything, we'll head upstairs and search."
Anna and Cally nodded. The three of us spent the next several minutes searching the entire cellar. Unfortunately, we had to stick together to maintain the invisibility bracelet's effects. That was the downside to using one to hide multiple people. We couldn't split up.
However, during our search we saw nothing amiss. We found no hints or clues that could lead us to the prisoners.
"Nothing," Anna said, shaking her head.
I pinched my chin and frowned.
"Maybe the prisoners are in another part of the villa," I said.
"Or," Cally said in a sardonic tone. "Maybe the prisoners aren't here at all. Maybe Lord César was wrong." She paused. "Or maybe he deliberately misled us."
Anna and I glanced at each other, before looking at her.
"Let us search the rest of the villa before we co to either of those conclusions," I said. "This villa is well defended for a reason. Even if the prisoners aren't here, perhaps we can still gain sothing from this."
Cally mulled it over for a bit before shrugging.
"A fair point," she said. "Let's search upstairs."
The three of us headed upstairs and found ourselves in a well stocked kitchen. The sll of herbs and spices filled the air. We left the kitchen and searched the rest of the villa. We had to be more careful this ti around, since there were guards patrolling the interior of the villa as well as the exterior.
As expected, the guards all sported the sa lifeless, statue-like expression. Thralls.
My companions and I took care to avoid them as much as possible, slowing down our search efforts. The invisibility bracelet was a powerful enchanted item, but there was no point in taking unnecessary risks. Complacency was a bad habit to form.
The villa was luxurious and well-appointed. In fact, the furniture and decorations were even a step above those in Sandstrike Castle. It appeared that when Lord Sandstrike imprisoned Lady Isabel here, he ensured that she wanted for nothing. Or maybe Lady Isabel redecorated the place after she regained control of House Sandstrike.
Despite a handicap, it didn't take us long to search through the whole villa. It wasn't that large of a place. However, we found nothing. We even took a second look around, to no avail.
The three of us headed back down to the basent so we could talk.
"Perhaps Cally is right and the prisoners aren't here," Anna said, frowning.
I frowned.
"I'm not so sure," I said. "This villa is the perfect place to hold prisoners. It's secluded and completely under Lady Isabel's control."
Cally shook her head.
"Even so, there should be so indication that prisoners are here," she said. "However, there are none." She gestured to the crates filled with food. "Unless you count these."
I nodded. While Lady Isabel stole vitality from others, she needed to keep them alive until then. Well-fed prisoners provided more vitality than starving ones. At least, I think that's how it worked. I wasn't entirely sure.
"If the prisoners were here, where would they be?" I muttered. "We searched through all the rooms in the villa." I paused. "At least all the ones shown in the blueprint."
Anna snapped her fingers.
"What if Lady Isabel made so changes and added rooms that aren't on the blueprint?" she asked.
I nodded. That had been my thought as well.
"If the prisoners are here, then that's likely the case," I said. "We just need to find these hidden rooms and gain access to them sohow."
Cally looked around the cellar.
"Do you think they're around here?" she asked.
After thinking about it for a mont, I shook my head.
"No," I said. "We've been here for a while, but not a single guard has patrolled down here. It's clear that they don't consider the cellar important. I doubt the prisoners are here."
"Maybe that's just a smokescreen to trick people into thinking that," Cally pointed out.
"What would be the point?" Anna asked. "The chances of any intruders making it this far are already pretty low."
Cally glared at Anna.
"You and I both know how paranoid demon worshipers can be. Many tis, they make things needlessly complicated." Cally looked at . "We once fought a demon worshiper who created an elaborate labyrinth hidden beneath a restaurant and used it as his hideout. However, it turned out that his real hideout was located in the restaurant's attic. The labyrinth was just a ruse."
I blinked at her a few tis, before I looked at Anna for confirmation. She nodded.
"Lady Isabel isn't a demon worshiper," I pointed out.
Cally scoffed.
"That isn't the important part," she said. "Lady Isabel is a vengeful and paranoid woman who eats demons. Even if she's not a demon worshiper, she's as insane as one, if not more so."
That made sense, in a twisted sort of way.
"In that case, let's take another look around," I said. "We'll leave if we don't find anything. I don't like the idea of leaving Leroy alone with Arturo for too long."
Anna and Cally nodded. The three of us searched through the cellar again. This ti, we decided to take a risk and split up. This ant that Anna and Cally wouldn't be hidden by my invisibility bracelet. However, we didn't have much ti left to spare, so we decided the risk was worth it.
As I searched through the cellar again, a part of wished I could ask Aurora for help. As a spirit, my familiar could just go through walls. Finding the hidden rooms, if they existed, would've been child's play for her.
Unfortunately, Aurora was still asleep inside my body. When she woke up, she'd be more powerful than before. However, until then, I just had to make do without her.
Still, thinking about Aurora gave an idea. If there were hidden rooms in the cellar, unless their entrance was air tight, there had to be so kind of air flow going on. What if I spread my mist throughout the cellar and used that to find the hidden rooms?
Then again, what if Lady Isabel dug a ventilation shaft directly into the hidden rooms? That way, she could make an airtight entrance without suffocating her prisoners. However, that ca with its own drawbacks. Besides, even she wouldn't be that paranoid.
Would she?
I shook my head, before I rejoined the others and told them my idea. They agreed that it was worth a shot and kept watch on the stairwell. If one of the guards noticed my mist, we'd be found out.
After Anna and Cally were in place, I took a deep breath before I breathed out a thick white mist. I opted for [Concealing Mist] rather than [Freezing Mist], since I didn't want to freeze my companions.
The thick white mist soon filled the entire cellar. I could see through it just fine because it was my technique. However, most people would feel disoriented from the cellar's dim lightning combined with my [Concealing Mist].
I searched through the cellar again, looking for any unusual movents from my mist. At first I didn't see anything. However, after a little while, I noticed that a minuscule amount of my mist was flowing into a crack located on the floor in one of the cellar's rooms. The crack was so thin that if it weren't for my mist, I wouldn't have noticed it at all, even with my sharpened senses.
I grinned. It looked like Cally had been right. There were hidden rooms here in the cellars. I rejoined my companions and brought them over. They examined the crack before nodding.
"Great," Anna said. "Now, how do we open it?"
Reviews
All reviews (0)