"Damn!" The Captain sounded really worried. "Not as easy as our intel told us. The front door is probably barred, if not even walled. Can you do something about those protections or do we need to abort the mission and request for reinforcements?"
"Didn't you read my file, Captain? I'm the reinforcements." Lith grinned.
After months spent studying the boxes and the countless attempts in breaking their locks without meeting a fiery death, the enchantments in front of him were barely more difficult than beating a monkey at a tic tac toe game.
"I already finished disarming them while I was talking with you. I counted not less than three people from the windows on the ground floor." With the channel open, Lith could speak but not listen, missing all the gasps and swearing that filled the control room at those words.
Lith could see several life forces down in the basement. They were too many and too weak to be guards, making him wonder what kind of mess he was walking into.
'Either there is a Warp Gate in the basement and they are moving a small army or these guys do not smuggle just drugs.'
On his way back he kept looking for windows, grates, anything that could give him an excuse to share the knowledge acquired with Life Vision. Lady Luck didn't smile at him.
When he made it back to the warehouse, Red had done his part. He was filling the blueprint on the board with red dots according to his readings.
"Your intel was completely off the mark." After listening to Lith's report he had given his best to impress his teammates as well.
"The first three floors are almost empty. There are only three people on the first floor, five on the second, and four on the third¡" Red stopped abruptly, wiping off a red dot from the board.
"Three on the third floor. Someone just died. There are also at least twenty people on the underground floor. Are you sure this is really a drug depot?"
At that point, the Captain was the first to question her superiors' judgment.
"Not anymore. I need to call the Headquarters. No matter if the mission gets aborted or not. You both did great and I'll make sure to write it down in my report."
'I can't believe they flunked this so bad. We could have all died in there.' Yerna thought while conjuring a silence spell to prevent the following conversation to be heard.
After a quick call with her commanding officer, she was pinching her nose with her eyes closed, trying to contain her anger.
"I have good news and bad news. The good news is that the HQ agrees with us. This could be too big for a small squad, so they are sending reinforcements from the Association in case something goes wrong. They'll be here in a few minutes.
"The bad news is that since the hostiles are so few and there is such a high number of potential hostages, prisoners, slaves, whatever those people in the basement are, we have been ordered to continue the mission.
"They say our new objective is to prevent the hostiles from running away or get rid of the prisoners once they found out to be surrounded. The even worst news is that since the two of you have been so useful, you have to come with us."
'Still, not a big deal.' He inwardly sighed. 'The ones on the ground floor were just humans, right Solus?'
'Positive. Red cored humans with slightly above average life force. Easy to catch, easy to kill.' After spending so many years with Lith, Solus had little regard for human life. The only exceptions were those who she believed to be innocent or those she grew fond of.
"I have two more questions, Captain." Lith raised his hand again.
"Granted."
"Red, can you detect arrays? I don't mean to sound paranoid, but I'd prefer to avoid any more surprises." Lith was cautious of the content of the third floor, from which Solus perceived a powerful force.
It wasn't a problem for him since he was already on guard and his partner could warn him on time. What worried Lith was being the sole survivor of whatever threat they could find. It would raise too many questions.
"Yes. It's one of the easiest and fastest spells of a Warden." Red nodded.
"It's unlikely we'll find any. A temporary one would imply the presence of a Warden and I can't imagine a mage wasting their talent with these dregs. A permanent one would cost far more the whole building is worth."
"The same could be said for the back door." Lith pointed out. "I think¡"
"Wait!" Red cut him short.
"Another person on the third floor just died and one of the two remaining life forces is fading quickly. What in the gods' name are they doing there?"
"Weapons at hand, everyone." Captain Yerna took out a sword and a wand from her dimensional ring.
"We are about to find out."
Chapter 280 Roll Out Part one
"I still have a question, Captain." Orders or not, Lith had no intention of charging blindly. Whatever was happening inside the building was of no relevance to him and so were the people in the basement.
He was there for the Code of Practice course, the only things that mattered to him were his own safety and the points.
"Just be quick, White." Captain Yerna snorted. "Red, keep me posted if anything else happens."
"Since the mission has changed, what are the new conditions to consider it a success?"
"Kid, do you think this is some kind of game? People are dying in there!" Lith could understand Khran's righteous outrage, yet he found it annoying anyway. The Sergeant was a commoner, probably of humble origins just like him.
Unlike Lith, he had dedicated his life to protect the weak.
'What an irritating guy, always preaching his own ideas. I had hoped for having left this kind of zealots on Earth.' Lith thought.
"So what?" Lith replied. "I took no oath, I'm no policeman nor hero. I'm interested in the mission, not in some nondescript ideal."
Captain Yerna grabbed Khran by the shoulder to prevent another outburst.
"We only need to get in and check the condition of those in the basement. If they are hostages releasing them takes priority. If they are soldiers, we can just blow them into oblivion before moving on the rest of the guards. Is it clear, everybody?"
The unit nodded in unison.
"Okay, then let's move. We need to be fast. There is no way to get to the back door unnoticed, so prepare for a warm welcome."
"Actually, there is." Lith waved his hands in the only fake magic he really used. He opened a Warp Steps leading straight into the alley, in the last covered spot before their destination.
Many people flinched in amazement. For non mages, dimensional magic was something straight out of a fairy tale.
"Today's our lucky day, people." Captain Yerna was grinning from ear to ear.
"Change of plans. My team and Khran's will take point and assault from the back. The rest of you will remain on standby until we check on the prisoners. On my command, surround the building. Red, with me."
The others followed her through the Steps. Each unit was comprised of five people, leaving ten officers in the warehouse to close the perimeter or act as backup in case of need.
"You really are a d*ck." Khran stopped for a second before stepping through the dimensional corridor.
"Yet the gods know how much I'd like to have one like you on every mission."
Once on the other side, the Sergeant conjured a shroud of silence around them before asking Red for an update.
"Another life force disappeared. Now there's only one person on the third floor."
"Damn!" Captain Yerna cursed. She had hoped it was some kind of internal strife, but three deaths in such a short time frame didn't fit the scenario.
"What about the guards on the ground floor?"
Red focused for a second, checking twice just to be sure.
"There are none right now, but someone is coming down from the second floor. One person."
"Arrays?" Lith asked.
Red handed to the nearest officer a red mana crystal he was using as a focus. Without it, casting another spell would cause him to lose control o
f the Life Detecting array.
"I can sense something on the ground floor. It's inactive at the moment." The unit inwardly cursed as one while Lith pondered on Red's words.
'This means that neither Life Vision nor Solus can detect latent arrays. I need to learn the array detecting spell as soon as possible.'
"What does it do?" The Captain asked.
"No clue." Red shrugged. "Never seen anything like this."
"Great. Let's finish this before we have to find out."
Yerna took out from her dimensional ring what looked like a clump of clay, sticking it to the wall near the door. It created a thin air dome, silencing the area within a ten meters radius.
The team entered the building, activating a new clump each time they neared the end of the air dome, generating a corridor of silence. It allowed them to speak and move while remaining undetected by the inhabitants of the building.
"At least the layout of this place is as we know it." Khran cursed. Maybe it was because he knew they were potentially stepping on a minefield, but since they had entered the house the Sergeant had an eerie feeling in his gut.
"The door to the basement should be on our right after the next corner. What about the person you mentioned earlier?"
"It's closing in slowly. It should come from there." Red was pointing to the left branch of the t-shaped corridor.
The Sergeant put a clump of silence clay on his hand while three members of the units aimed their wands in the direction from which they were expecting the enemy.
"Shoot only after I do!" Khran instructed.
The figure of a woman popped out of the corner. She was dressed in a brown sweater and cargo pants. Lith noticed she was young, couldn't be more than twenty years old. She was walking while spinning some odd handcuffs on her index finger.
Sergeant Khran generated a powerful gust of wind from his hand, propelling the clay towards the girl's face. Despite the surprise attack, she managed to dodge it by rolling on the ground, taking out a wand from the back of her pants.
She screamed for help, but the clay was never meant to do damage. Lith could see her lips moving without emitting any sound, like watching an old silent movie. The same happened when streams of lightning made her slam against the wall in a seizure.
Khan objective was a silent kill all along.
"Hren, take care of the body and clean the scene. Red, stay with him and warn Hren if anyone else moves." Captain Yerna tapped on her ear to remind him of the communication earpiece in case he needed to contact her.
The unit moved forward until the door to the basement.
"White?"
"Locked and enchanted." Lith replied using Invigoration to study it. It was a very crude pseudo core with only two mana pathways. Not strong enough to block someone determined to open it, but enough to slow them down.
"Seriously, what do you usually do when you don't have a forgemaster?"
"We mourn." Khran's reply didn't sound like a joke.
"Klaatu Barada Nikto." Lith's fake magic word generated several tendrils of darkness that made short work of the pathways. Without something to contain its energies, the pseudo core faded away with a crackling sound.
Lith took point to search for more traps, but there were none. The wooden stairway led them to a cellar six meters wide and ten meters long. Contrary to the run down look of the rest of the building, the room was clean.
Behind a simple steel grille there were over twenty people of different gender and age, laying either on the ground or against the walls. They were all shabbily dressed, their appearance suggested they had spent most of their lives on the streets.
Yet they appeared to be well fed and in good health. There was no trace of dirt in their clothes. The weirdness of the scene didn't end there.
Chapter 281 Roll Out Part two
Lith signaled to those behind him to stop, scanning the place with Life Vision.
'What the f*ck? I can feel the lingering presence of healing magic emanating from them. I can even smell traces of soap coming from their bodies. Someone has been taking good care of them, but why?' Lith thought.
'Maybe I can answer that.' Solus felt there was something terribly wrong there.
'All these people have only two things in common. Each one of them is older than twenty years and has at least an orange core.'
'What?' Lith was bewildered by her words. So many people and no one with a red core was something impossible to achieve by chance. Not coupled with their age. Twenty years was the threshold of a mana core natural evolution for non Awakened one.
"Is there something wrong?" Yerna asked.
"Everything is clear. The grille is just a grille. Why no one is trying to escape?" The more Lith looked at them, the more the cellar reminded him of pigpen instead of a prison.
Yerna walked past him, placing her hand on the keyhole turning it into an icicle before crashing it with her fist. She only needed to smell the breath of one of the prisoners to answer his question.
"Ophaz. They keep them dosed." Ophaz was the name of a plant from which it was possible to extract the drug her team had been following for weeks. At low dosage, it induced a feeling of euphoria while at higher dosage it caused the user to be in a catatonic state.
They would still be able to move and talk if interrogated, but their mind was clouded by the drug. They had no memory of themselves or will to fight.
"It's the latest form of slavery. Once you give someone the first dose, it turns them into meat dolls."
"Do you want me to cleanse them?"
"Gods, no. This is a blessing in disguise." The Captain shook her head.
"Best case scenario, they would freak out. This way they are meeker than sheep. It will only take one of us to get them to safety. Can you..?"
Lith sighed, opening a Warp Steps back to the control room. The prisoners moved sluggishly, mindlessly obeying the Captain's orders.
"What do you make of this, Captain?"
"Aside from a few exceptions, they are too bad looking or old to have any value as slaves, even for a fighting arena. Judging from the state of this place, they have been here for a while.
"Only the cost of the drug necessary to keep them meek for so long makes the whole operation unprofitable. They have been nurtured for some reason I'm unable to comprehend." She then ordered the units outside to lock the perimeter.
While Lith and the Captain were moving the prisoners, a couple of members of the unit performed a quick search of the cellar. They discovered a few small crates containing packets of drugs ready to be sold and several big crates.
The latter contained luxury furniture ready to be shipped.
"What the heck?" Hren was flabbergasted.
"One of these things is worth more than I earn in a year!"
"Seems we arrived just in time." Khran had a brooding face.
"Those people were the last batch of whatever they are doing. The ringleader has packed their stuff and is ready to leave."
Sweeping the first and the second floor took them less than a couple of minutes. With Red telling them where and how many their targets were, it was like shooting fishes in a barrel. At each floor, Red would always detect the same inactive array.
While moving through the various rooms and corridors, they could see that unlike the ground floor, the rest of the house was still completely furnished. Everything from the paintings to the tapestry was very valuable, but they were assembled with no taste.
It seemed a patchwork made by a color-blind art connoisseur.
'Ugh! I have never seen anything so tacky in three lives.' Lith thought.
'Whoever did this would put the Mona Lisa beside a Pollock, with some piece of junk modern art in front of them both. I'm no expert, but that's enough to deserve to be hanged.'
'Bad news.' Solus chimed in. 'I don't know if it's the same array Red sensed on the other floors, but there's one active on the third floor. I don't know its purpose, but I can tell you it's something powerful enough
to blind my mana sense.
If not for Red, I couldn't tell you how many people there are up there.'
"Wait, something is wrong here." They were moving in a single column and Lith was right behind the Captain, making it easy for him to stop the unit's advance.
"I can feel the hair on my neck standing up." He lied. According to Mogar's superstition, it was a common phenomenon in presence of powerful magic. In reality, it was just a reaction in front of impending danger, completely unrelated to magic.
"I thought I was getting paranoid because it's all too easy." Yerna nervously touched her nape.
"What about you lot?" Fear spread like a disease, soon everyone shared the same feeling despite being calm until a second prior.
"Red, check the next floor."
"Gods protect me!" Red yelped after obeying the Captain's order.
"White is right, there is something very wrong here."
'Of course, I am. Right, Solus?' Lith inwardly grinned. She didn't reply, limiting herself to a retching thought.
"I don't know what kind of array we are about to face, but I can tell you this. It's very powerful, it spreads through the whole house, and it feels¡"
Red extended his consciousness trying to probe deeper in order to understand the nature of their enemy.
"It feels twisted. The spell is rooted from the light element, but the magic flows backward. It's hard to explain." Red was now drenched in cold sweat, his stomach was twisted into a knot.
"Are you sure there's only one person left in the house?" Captain Yerna could feel the tension rising, her instinct was telling her to walk away.
"Besides us? Positive." Red nodded. "It's right in the middle of the last floor. Hasn't moved since I cast the spell."
"An array this powerful could make our numbers irrelevant. The hostages are safe, there is no reason to walk into a potential trap. Let's get out and wait for the reinforcements to arrive. This is above our paygrade. The Mage Association can deal with this much better than us."
They walked back along the silence corridor they had created, quickly reaching the ground floor again. A blinding light erupted from under their feet.
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