NovelKBC B5 Chapter 562: Setting Up the Board, pt. 1
B5 Chapter 562: Setting Up the Board, pt. 1
Julian Flowers walked past the shattered remnants of an oak table that lay at the centre of the underground chamber. Skimming his surroundings with a watchful eye, he resisted the urge to grind his teeth, mindful of the two dozen lesser men that were crawling through the wreckage.
How the hell had something like this slipped past the guard. Damned incompetence — even in the dark alleys of Wyrdshade, something like this would have taken time and resources that should have been suspicious.
Coming to a halt in the centre of the large, domed room, Julian sighed. Staring up at the ceiling, he traced the spider-webbing cracks where flakes of plaster had fallen away to reveal tightly set masonry. The room was garish and crude, with decades-outdated plasterwork, and finishing more fit for a brothel than a stately lounge — but he could admit the craftsmen had been skilled.
Skilled enough they would have been easily able to find more honest work.
The thought struck in his mind as he turned towards the flickering wardfire at one edge of the room. The trash who’d lived here had left gold jewellery on the mantle — though a few gouges in the varnished wood suggested that someone had made off with the choicest pieces during their escape.
This night was a mess. A blatant violation of his domain, occurring in full light of the public. Kanmost’s journals, a lead they had only just uncovered, gone. Ripped right from his clutches, while one of his few trustworthy rogues lay dead and cold.
It was too coincidental — too quick.
The Archivist’s disappearance was one thing: he’d given the man far too long a leash, and he may well have hanged himself with it. The journals, though? Sure, whoever had taken Kanmost could have gotten their location directly from the source — but why move now?
Unless they had somehow caught wind that he had a lead, and they wanted to cut off the trail. All he had were suspicions, but this was all too neat. Too clean.
If it wasn’t for the interference of another party, his enemies would have already cut him off at the knees.
Another impossibility, and more suspicions — confusing ones. Whoever else had been at that house had been strong and capable, but oddly amateur.
Julian started to pace, plaster crunching underfoot as he stepped directly over the cold corpse of a legless man. He barely noticed the thick paste of plaster and blood sticking to the underside of his boots.
As he walked, he let the murmurs of his men wash past him. They were picking through the hideout for evidence, though with a slow cautiousness that irked him. Gods’ scorn, there was already a trapmaster on site; they could at least move with a bit of briskness in the cleared sections.
“Lord Flowers,” Kel said from behind him, striding over from a side passage.
“Kel. What have you found?” he answered, though he didn’t turn towards the man.
“Precious little. It looks like two attackers hit them at the same time as we did — probably were already inside if they slipped our net,” Kel replied, before he nudged the corpse between them with one foot. “Bladed weapon took this one out, but there’s traces of another being hit with some sort of nature-aligned ranged skill. Something to bind them. Almost certainly the same two who hit the house.”
Julian snapped to his second with an expectant look. “They bound one — did we manage to capture them?”
Kel shook his head. “Slipped their restraints before we could break through the traps. This one would have still been alive, but he poisoned himself.”
Julian ground his teeth — another setback. Without a captive, they had very little hope of tracking down the journals before they left the city.
“There must be something else! Two people can’t run roughshod through an operation like this and then disappear into thin air.”
Kel didn’t so much as twitch as Julian raised his voice. Still just as even and calm as ever — great traits to have in a second, but even better for an oathbreaker. Julian took a slow breath, and banished his momentary suspicions. If Kel wanted to move against him, he would have been far more subtle about it.
“We found one more thing. An arm, and a few bloodstains,” Kel added a moment later.
“Show me.”
…
An axe to slay a dragon jutted from the wall, its oversized head caked in drying blood. Another bucket of the stuff coated the floor in a coagulated pool.
Its haft, thicker than a table leg, was splintered — but only in one spot, like it had been hit by a hammer. At its base, where the wooden pole slotted into the mechanisms of the trap, the gearing had been twisted — some of the teeth were shorn fully. Hells, the edge of the axe was pitted and chipped like someone had used it to hack at a block of solid adamant. Enchanted and alchemically treated steel. Broken against someone's body.
Those details interested Julian far more than a bit of blood.
He knew the like of traps like these — over-engineered monstrosities designed to fatally wound even a Silver bastion. A never ending blight. No matter how many redoubts and hideaways they razed, someone always built more — and too many became the graves of good men.
One of the attackers had taken it head-on and lived.
He switched his focus to the stray arm at the end of the room. Whatever had happened, both parties had paid in blood and bone — but Julian suspected that only one had truly suffered. Kel had said that some of their men had already tested the broken vials that had been scattered through the halls like confetti. Smoke bombs.
Enough of them that the entire complex must have been choked in an endless cloud of it. Whoever had taken the criminal’s arm had done so blind.
“What’s at the end of the trail?” Julian asked, thoughts swirling.
“Another entrance to the stormways — though a much deeper section. There’s more blood, and few traces of poison. The same kind as what was found on the one missing a leg,” Kel said from behind him.
So the same pair had escaped, and killed off the rogue they’d been following. If they were already inside when his forces had struck, then there was a chance they’d caught the handover.
They might already have the journals. The torn open walls at Kanmost’s house suggested that both parties had been looking for the same thing.
Julian narrowed his eyes — a single face painfully vivid in his mind. Brutish, with those muddied green and gold eyes. If that team was involved, it would certainly explain what he was seeing. He had no real proof: the Ruby Crown made cursory observation all but impossible, and the tails he organised were set to move into place tomorrow. Proof was superfluous. They’d been at least somewhat invested, and they were certainly strong enough.
But why? He couldn’t figure out their angle. If they were good enough to find this place, they were good enough to tail a courier. That would get them the Wellspring without all the attention.
Before he could piece it together, he heard two sets of footsteps approaching from behind. They weren’t guards — he would have heard the jingle of their mail.
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“Ah, there you are,” Lord Steelroot said, pushing his blonde hair out of his eyes. The stark white lighting in the hall threw deep shadows off his cheekbones. Next to the sturdy solidity of Baron Rosenhall, he looked almost skeletal.
“Adrian. Edmund,” he replied, nodding his head at the last two members of his party. He focused on Lord Steelroot a moment later. “Do we have tails ready to go for Kaius and his team?”
“Of course,” Adrian replied. “Why, do you think they’re involved?”
Edmund snorted and ran a hand through his tightly cropped black hair. Julian thought the cut was unsightly, but the man insisted that it was better for his aim. “Of course they are — I still think we should just throw them in a cell and be done with it.”
That didn’t surprise Julian. Edmund had always been decisive — he’d needed to be to climb as high as he had at his station. Still, the fact remained that one Baron Rosenhall would be seen as far less culpable for abuses of station when Julian was standing right next to him. The man had less to lose.
Locking up the guildhounds would be a political nightmare. From everything he had heard, that team had far too much pull with the guild. Plus, there were the more mundane risks — even he had to admit that Kaius and his team were capable. All of them had reinforced all of their aspects — a feat that he and his party had not matched. Then there were the rumours coming out of Deadacre.
If they were even a fifth as strong as those made them sound, it was a strength that could only be achieved by one thing. Honours.
The collateral damage wasn’t worth it — at least not within the city. Regardless of their standing, if Kaius and his team had gotten involved, he refused to let their provocation go unchallenged. Even if they weren’t involved in Kanmost’s disappearance, he’d given them enough warnings. If they decided to try for the Wellspring, it would be their heads.
“Make sure the guildhounds are left unmolested, but keep a close eye. If they leave the city, we will be ready. Better to confront them away from prying eyes. I want every stride of the walls watched too — someone had those journals, and they will try to move them soon,” Julian said resolutely, before he met Kel’s eye. “Ready our support team when we reach the palace.”
Kel nodded.
…
Soft starlight shone through the stormdrain, silhouetting the canopy of an oak that towered high. A circular manhole set into the roof of the drain gave Kaius just enough room to stand up straight. This section of tunnels was low enough he’d had to stoop to move through them.
Kaius was pretty sure it led to a park, judging by the thick bushes that surrounded the drain. Plus, unlike the other grates they’d passed, this one looked poorly maintained. Roots had wormed their way into the stone bricks, and the metal was rusted and pitted. Maybe the overgrowth had made it hard to find for the people who were supposed to maintain them.
He gave Kenva a questioning look, his teammate now dressed in brown trousers and a dark grey tunic instead of her reinforced leather armour. He’d changed too — even without being soaked in blood, walking the streets in full combat gear was mighty eye-catching, especially in the middle of the night.
Kenva shrugged at him. “Let’s just get out of here — I’m exhausted.”
He understood the sentiment. After leaving the hideout, they’d spent hours making their way through the stormdrains. Neither of them had thought it wise to head directly for home, so they’d circled the city — aiming to make their way back from the opposite direction.
Clenching tight around the bars of the grate, Kaius heaved up. Rusted bolts gave way with a snap, showering him with chips of stone. Tossing the grate to the side, Kaius quickly clambered through, and gave Kenva a hand up.
For a minute, both of them searched their surroundings — alert for any sign of the guard. The grate had been far noisier than he would have liked, but yanking it open was far better than burning his last charge of Fractured Warp.
The only thing he heard was the rustle of leaves as a stiff wind rolled through the copse. They were in a park. A small one — he could see the streetlights filtering through the trunks in every direction.
Fitting the grate back over the drain, Kaius kicked some loose leaf litter over the edges of the seam — he’d cracked the stone.
“Guards,” Kenva said, tapping his shoulder before she nodded at a gap in the trees.
A pair of them were walking down the street, one of them holding a lantern. Thankfully, it seemed like a routine patrol — the houses here were large, and most had true gardens in front of their entrances, rather than the cramped courtyards he’d seen closer to the wyrdwall.
“Let’s just wait for them to pass.”
They crouched down, hiding in the bushes as the men passed.
While they waited, Kaius mulled over the last few hours. The job had gone poorly — they’d been utterly out of their element, and had suffered from more than a little bad luck besides. Even Kenva’s early overeagerness wasn’t truly to blame for what had gone wrong. Sometimes things just went sideways.
Despite that, he thought they’d done well. They had a journal, which was something — but more importantly they had a location.
Plus, forcing himself to act outside of his comfort zone had been good for his skills. Kaius focused on his Status.
**Ding! Class Skill Notifications Consolidated!**
** Infused Glyph of Felmenia has reached level 228 > 230!**
**Ding! General Skill Notifications Consolidated!**
…
**Rapid Adaptation has reached level 258 > 259!**
…
**Sergeant’s Insight has reached level 257 > 260!**
…
**Tempered By Dissonance has reached level 244 > 249!**
…
**Truesight has reached level 252 > 255!**
…
**Spellblade’s Harmonic Control has reached level 255 > 256!**
…
**Greater Regeneration has reached level 268 > 272!**
…
**Moment of Flow has reached level 241 > 242!**
…
**Brotherhood of Ichor and Animus has reached level 267 > 268!**
Kaius frowned at the single entry to his Class Skill gains.
He knew it made sense — most of them were still capped until he could evolve them, and he’d made no use of Drakthar or HellbladeInvestiture — and thank the gods things hadn’t been so dire as to force him to use Hymfocus or VOS. It was a good problem to have, but he couldn’t deny he was eager to progress and unlock more abilities to work on.
At the very least, the little practice he’d been able to squeeze in at the Guild’s training halls during the week they’d visited Aanthrast had brought Drakthar to level two-seventy-five — it wouldn’t be long before he got to pick another spell.
He was surprised at how little Rapid Adaptation had grown, considering the absolute onslaught of affliction-focused explosives that the rogue had used. Even if most of them had been weak enough for his Vitality to power through them, quantity had to count for something.
Still, the gains he’d seen by taking a surprise axe to the chest had been far more respectable. Nearly a full ten levels split between Tempered by Dissonance and Greater Regeneration was almost enough to make him want to take a few more hits like that on the chin. Of course, the second he started trying to game the system like that, his gains would plummet. Still, a man could dream.
Everything else was in-line with what he expected — racing through smoke and trap-filled halls had been a good work out for all of his sense-focused skills.
Kaius still wanted more, especially if they were going to bring a fight against an Onyx-affiliated Gold. That rogue had proven that preparation and experience could mean a lot in a fight — and he had no doubt that someone like Brokenlight would be even more vicious and unpredictable.
Hopefully their journey through a high-mana zone would come with a few levels: he was only twelve away from evolving Mystic’s Rend. It was a core part of his kit, and his best way to spend his unbound free mana in a fight. Ideally, he’d get something efficient, that he could leverage for reliable extra damage, though he couldn’t exactly weigh up the choices he had yet to receive.
Kenva tapped him on the shoulder. He blinked away his notifications.
“They’re gone,” she said silently.
“Shall we, then?” Kaius replied.
They crossed the park quickly, and hopped a short wrought-iron fence to stroll down the street like they were on a simple nightwalk. With the hilltop ducal palace looming over the centre of the city, it was easy to get their bearings and make way for the Crown. Porkchop and Ianmus were already there, up and waiting.
Despite the late hour, Kaius knew it would be a while yet before they managed to get any sleep.
They had an expedition to plan.