TVRWS 62 (Patreon)

62: Infiltration

A horse and a chariot were quickly assembled when Voros walked in the mew and came out pulling. As Vivian was done tying the man up, she looked at her vehicle and admired Voros' style.

A formidable black stallion, reminiscent of the grim reaper's steed, stood ready. In contrast, the chariot was small and nimble, accommodating a coachman and two passengers. Voros had meticulously removed any identifying marks from the chariot. With all the preparations made, the only task left was to...

"Ride in!" "Name it!"

Voros and Vivian looked at each other with conflicting interests. The dynamic shadowy duo had their first conflict right after succeeding in their operation.

"Hurry!" Voros said.

"Wait… the ViMobile… No, the Hawk Mobile… dammit! Very cringe!" Vivian struggled to find a good name before giving up in frustration and jumping in the passenger seat.

Voros immediately drove the chariot out, opened the gate, and moved out to the street like the swift fleeting shadows. With the speed of the horse and the perfect senses of the duergar in the night, the chariot moved unhindered in the wide streets of the rich posh area of Archester. Not a few minutes passed before it was driving beside the bank of the Great Ralin.

The destination was north of town to the poor areas of the city, the place where Vivian and Voros first met, the Blackguard Slave Market, or the Black Market for short.

Vivian had the route memorized as it is the route that leads to the outskirts of Archester to the industrial area where the Moore Headquarters is located. Voros followed the direction of Vivian for their alien and complex city and finally arrived at a place where the rotten air that he had been familiar with for fourteen years became familiar all over again.

Fourteen years later, the dwarf looked up at the great towers of the fort-like building as he saw them from outside for the third time now. The first time was fourteen years back and the second was almost two weeks ago.

"Chief." He turned to Vivian and waited for her instructions as he understood how capable she was.

"The investigator said that the ledger he took a look at was inside the main office of the Blackguard's market. This tower right there's the largest, so it certainly is the barracks, we go in there, and we are dead meat."

"Right." Voros nodded and pointed to Vivian the three towers around the building, "That's guard tower… that's store building… that's management tower."

"Good, we want to go to that management tower. It is right beside the street and there are low balconies over in this direction. We don't know what's inside so this will only be a reconnaissance night if the place is heavily guarded."

"Right." Voros nodded.

"Now, take the chariot, hide it in a back alley, and make sure the horse is tied and ready to move once we need it. Meet me here in 3 minutes."

Vivian dropped off and Voros followed Vivian's instruction. As for her, she found herself in a place near a two-story house throwing her grappling hook before starting to climb the wall carefully.

As she did so, she found out that climbing became much easier compared to before when she climbed the mansion's outer wall and the gate of the building where she stole the horse and the chariot. If she had to guess, it is the Novice Thief finally kicking in and doing the things Nadia was capable of in her life.

As she arrived at the top of the roof, she climbed with her physical strength and found a place where she could balance herself. That process was repeated a few more times until she got to the roof of the building clothes to the tower she wanted to infiltrate and started to calculate how to infiltrate from that position.

By that time, Voros had arrived and started looking around for Vivian. Vivian made an unusual bird sound which caught his attention and allowed him to spot her in the darkness of the night. He used the same method she did and scaled the building from the alleys with his grappling hook as well.

"Chief…"

"The chariot secure?"

"Mhm!" Voros nodded vigorously, "Found a boy… gave a coin… looks after it… two coins when get back."

"Let's hope a boy from Watertemple is as good as his word." Vivian said and pointed toward the balcony that was facing her, "You know the layout in there?"

"Mhm!" Voros made an affirming grunt then pointed from top to bottom, "Overseer office… business room… prison for disobeidant… liquor cellar."

"Good. Do you sense anyone behind that balcony door?" She asked since the balcony's doors were not open, Vivian concluded that the room behind it was probably empty but she needed Voros' pair of eyes to scan the place for her with his superior night senses.

"No… staircase only." Voros said.

"Perfect."

The balcony wasn't higher than the roof they were in, it was almost a foot lower in fact. Vivian had an idea how to get in there and she prepared the MVP tool for the night, the grappling hook.

"I am thinking of giving it a name, you know?" Vivian said and she started flailing it.

"Hagatac?" Voros suggested.

"Hook… tackle? No. I prefer romantic names." She said and threw the hook as far as she could but as she did so, the hook wasn't thrown right and almost fell to the street.

Vivian hurriedly touched her storage purse and stored it back before it made a ruckus. She took it out after letting out a sigh of relief and wondered how to throw it more accurately this time.

"Here!" Voros said and handed Vivian something that was actually super cool.

He took out a few pieces of his gear and put them together to quickly form a crossbow.

"Thanks." Vivian took that crossbow, which seemed very advanced, light, and collapsible even, then loaded it with her hook and…

Swoosh

It flew a fair distance and landed on the balcony before latching itself to something and becoming very stable. Vivian took the other end of the rope and tied it around a nearby chimney with the help of Voros before they finally had their way in. She tested the rope with her weight and found that the knot and the rope strength were satisfactory.

"Alright, Voros. See you on the other side."

The duergar made a firm nod as Vivian held onto the rope and pushed her body over the edge of the roof to slide with her hands. Thanks to her slash-resistant Anti-Cut Glove, the friction wasn't a problem and soon Vivian hit the opposite wall of the administrative tower of the Blackguards.

As she trained her core body well, Vivian found the support she needed to climb the balcony's rail and slide in without much difficulty.

"That… was exciting." She mumbled to herself as she took her breath and then made a thumbs up to Voros.

The Dwarf made a double thumbs up back and took out a piece of gear which he started shaping so that he could slide on the rope just as Vivian did. What he made looked like a wide wrist cuff and a hook going up with the hand. He then put the hook on the rope and readied himself to slide but just before he did, the rope suddenly disappeared.

Voros was shocked and turned up to Vivian with an urge to shout at her but he saw her suddenly climb the stone rail on the side of the balcony and dangle herself down from it. She then turned to him and her eyes conveyed imminent danger.

Voros immediately hid behind the chimney and sat still while watching Vivian who kept hanging on the rail from outside while back on the balcony, its door was opening.

"And so… I told him he can fuck himself. Stupid, Kobold! Even their Dragons made them slaves. Why was he so upset I threw some insults at him?"

A Blackguard walked out to the balcony and rested his elbow over the front rail while looking back at another one that came after him.

"You know what, Paul? I think you try too hard with those little lizards. Give them a break, man." The second Blackguard that came joined the first, "Have you heard about that last thing they captured, they call it Arjuan."

"The devil thing? Come on, Steve! It looks as fine as an actual woman but I am not into those horns and tails and purple skin. Also, some nobleman wants to buy it, leave it to the nobles and their sick taste."

"Ah! What I would give for a Draconian though! Kobolds look like animals but Draconains…"

"They also look like animals."

"But doesn't the King have one of those Draconians as some sort of… I don't know, concubine, that's the word, innit?"

"Unofficial wife, as they called it in the paper. But what did I just tell you? Nobles and their sick tastes, but then you come to the King… that's a whole different league we're talking about here. Instead of marrying a Saints-devoted Albionese lady, the King went as far as taking a beast for a wife."

"Hey, that's treason!"

As the two blackguards conversed while drinking their beer, a voice came from behind the first blackguard, and just as he was about to turn, a blade went through his neck and splashed blood over the second guard who was at the start of panicking.

That panic was cut short though as a Swoosh passed through the man's neck and a crossbow bolt was sticking out of it.

Vivian retracted Macbeth, the Push-Dagger, from the nape of the first blackguard and pushed him against the second for the two to collapse together.

"As a good subject of the King, I can't allow you to speak such blasphemous words about His Majesty and Lady Shu." Vivian whipped the blood off her blade and turned to Voros who had his crossbow over his shoulder.

Before helping him enter, Vivian still needed to look at what was behind the door before taking her liberty to act. She wouldn't have dared to kill the Blackguard if not for the fact that Voros gave her the okay signal to go and so as she inspected what was behind the door, she found a long stairway going up from the left and down from the right. It seemed as if the building was surrounded by a spiral staircase.

Vivian returned to the balcony quickly and tried her best to toss the hook for Voros until he caught it. He then hooked it to a secure part of the roof and slid all the way to the balcony to join Vivian who had the rope secured from her side as well.

While he was crossing, Vivian started taking care of the corpses. As they couldn't be left here in the open, she started tearing their shirts and blocked their wounds from bleeding further. She even made sure to tie those torn cloth pieces like bandages and was done with the job the moment Voros stepped onto the balcony with her.

"The bodies?" Voros asked as he pointed at them.

"We will start moving downstairs first. Make sure to bypass the prison area and dump the bodies in the cellar. I assume it is not heavily guarded, right?"

"No."

"Good. Let's get to it."

Vivian and Voros came to an agreement and headed inside. With hand signals, Vivian headed down first and inspected the situation. The so-called prison was a circular room on ground level with cages all over and a guard was stationed on the other side of the room which seemed to be the main entrance to the prison.

Seeing that most prisoners in the cages were already sleeping, Vivian signaled to Voros, who was carrying the two corpses over his shoulder to quietly follow and without alerting anyone, they started heading underground for the cellar.

As with all liquor cellars, that place was closed with lock and key. Vivian, who was eager to flex her lockpicking skill and Theif trait, made short work of the lock and opened the door without a squeak.

"Such a well-greased door! I love well-greased doors!" She exclaimed as Voros walked in, dropped the bodies, and made another double thumbs-up which Vivian returned to him.

This was starting to be his favorite move it seemed.

"Let's go up, the top floor is our aim. I've seen a balcony above the one we came from which means we can use it to get down." Vivian said to review things before asking, "Do you know any other way of going in or out?"

"No." Voros shook his head, "Prison door, business door… lead to market."

"Can't say I hate a place with little entry points. Leaves you with less than what you expected."

With their initial plan set, 

Voros headed up first and Vivian followed him. Not long after that, they found a spacious place with a lot of offices and people's noises.

"That's the place we came to when we freed you." Vivian recognized the interior, "We came from the other side though."

"Deals rooms… guards come here… celebrate with girls…"

"That's why the place smells, I guess." Vivian watched the hallway that led to those rooms where the guests of the Black Market were supposed to be received and thought of something but kept it to herself and turned to Voros, "Let's go upstairs."

"Mhm!"

Voros agreed and the two climbed the spiral stairs again and avoided a few Blackguards taking down the stairway by finding another empty balcony to hide in. Vivian discovered that this balcony is on top of the one they came from and it can be an exit as well.

With a second exit secure, she pressed forward this time ahead of Voros. Where they arrived after that was the top of the administrative tower of the black market and it was mostly empty save for one office that had light and voices coming from within.

"Search quietly, we're looking for a library or something that has records. If you can't find any, we will converge at the last office."

Voros and Vivian split up left and right. What she found was a kitchen, a high-class meeting room filled with all sorts of luxury furniture, a small armory with an iron door, a few empty offices of the Blackguards' higher-ups, and finally, the last room at which they converged.

Voros shook his head for Vivian indicating that he found nothing like what they aimed for. This leaves one last room to look through and there's someone in there but since this is the higher-ups area, they better be careful since some very strong people may be in this place.

The best course of action now is to try to scope the place from outside and see if those people in there are staying or leaving.

Vivian took the lead carefully and inspected the door's keyhole as it was wide enough to let her see through. She was careful, very careful and her stealth action was amazing even to the standards of Voros, who is a duergar, but just as she was about to approach the door, Voros acted right away and grabbed Vivian by her mouth and pulled her to the side behind a small console table.

By the next instant, the door opened and someone looked outside right away. While Vivian found the man's appearance very familiar as he looked to his left first, once he turned to the direction where the two were barely hiding, she already had her tactical umbrella's stealth canopy deployed.

But now she could see his face and her being was shook to its core.

Why is he here?

"Something the matter, Lord Edmond?" A voice came from inside the room.

Edmond Black stood over the door as Vivian's eyes met with his in the most chilling moment she had since transmigration.