RSTUM 121 (Patreon)

121: Nightingale 3: The Vault

Pillars of smoke rose from various parts of the Iron Alley, but the arsonist was far from his crime scenes and closing in on a wide and low building made fully of gray slabs of stone.

The Smelter House.

This building wasn't only the most important building in the Iron Alley, but the most ancient one at that. According to the stories, this building goes back a few hundred years to the time of a great Smithing clan that made a deal with the human lords of this land. The deal entailed having a large chunk of land where the Dwarves can dig their own dwelling under the surface and work their workshop above for the betterment of the conjoined society of Men and Dwarves.

After many years, most of the Dwarves who were born in these areas became Sun Dwarves, who, unlike regular dwarves, have no sensitivity to sunlight but can't see well in the dark. This meant that the large workshop they lived under became no longer fitting for their needs, and they moved to the streets around their workshop above ground.

This is how the Iron Alley was born and how the old house of the Dwarves turned from their old underground dwelling to a large facility for smelting ore on a very large scale.

But if one were to look at things closely, the Smelter House is one of the most private areas in the Iron Alley. As it is the place where most of the local Dwarves hail from, it is a dangerous smelting factory that goes deep underground and is packed with all sorts of fossil fuel to keep its fires running. For a human to go down that place proved to be a feat of great endurance, and so most of the city's guards no longer do inspections in the Smelter House.

In other words, the Dwarves can conduct anything they wish down there with no regard to city laws. It also happens to be the gathering place of the Hammer's Crew, a band of dwarven thugs and criminals. It also happens to be where the Dwarf Elders keep their enemies locked, and more importantly, it happens to be where Leon is heading at the moment.

"I feel him here." Leon said as he walked above the roof of the Smelter House.

Using the senses of the Revenant Banshee as his radar, Leon could pick up many life auras in the place, one of which is a unique mix of both Human and Dwarf, the life signal that can be that of Boris, his saving target.

But Leon's problems were far from ending at this point.

He may have caused mayhem to strike the neighboring Dwarf powers, but this place in particular is still heavily guarded. Even the roof of the Smelter House had a few groups of Dwarves settling around the place.

Around 15 dwarves, he counted, gathered around various areas on the roof in four groups. Some of them seemed to have been drinking, while others seemed to have been having a serious meeting.

To enter and exit the Smelter House safely, Leon needed those Dwarves gone, and his dagger was unsheathed and ready to harvest lives.

But just at the moment when he was going to let the beast out…

"You bastards! You dare try and swindle me?"

… a huge ruckus came from the nearby street as the powerful voice of an enraged person was heard.

Every Dwarf on the roof immediately moved to the southern part of the roof, where the ruckus was coming from, Leon had to navigate himself out of the way.

"You crazy woman, how dare you sully my good name? Do you know who I am?"

"OH! Everyone, check this out! Someone out here doesn't know who he is!"

The situation seemed to be escalating rapidly, deterring Leon from killing his way in to go on with the subtle approach of sneaking.

He walked right down the stairwell from the roof and found himself on the ground level of the Smelter House, a place where all sorts of industrial furnaces gathered to churn out a melody of molten bubbling.

Seeing these bathtub-sized crucibles of molten metal made Leon shiver from the view, despite the volcanic heat.

Despite being one of the most resistant creatures to fire and their infamous pass time activity of tossing molten metals with their bare hands, the Dwarven metal shapers would still be burned, and so they had these heat resistant aprons that looked like a layer of thin paper-like metal, gloves of the same material, and masks that mimicked the faces of great Dwarven heroes and ancestors.

All Leon needed to do was make use of his short stature and hide his face, body, and hands, as he avoided direct contact with any Dwarf and navigated his way through the open space of the Smelter House looking for a way to get to the lower levels.

Traversing the large Smelter House was soon cut short with the discovery of the way leading down into the ground. Rather than stairs, it seemed like the Dwarves had dug down a smooth passage and reinforced the ground with railways.

Leon knows that the level of dwarven technology is on a level where they harness a lot of machinery and contraptions for daily usage, but they are nothing like the scientific marvels on Earth. This situation is due to the fact that this world is focused on Magic development. As for the Dwarves, the fact that their habitat is underground forced them to be more reliant on mundane science to assist them.

But when Leon heard the sound of metal churning and clashing against itself, he finally heard the sound of something he never thought he would miss so dearly.

Machines, engine roars, and even hydraulic pistons. He could almost feel at home when he was doing jobs in the military factories for a good part of his past life.

But as far as nostalgia goes, it was cut short with the sound of something breaking through the wind towards Leon's head from the back.

Reflexes kicked in, and he evaded the shovel that was flung at him. He let his reflexes run on autopilot and decisively attacked his attacker with a straight roundhouse kick to the guts.

The counterattack was an anatomical surprise to the attacker, who was simply neutralizing a Dwarf that got too close to where he was hiding. No dwarf has this long reach with their legs or that insane ability to bend their body.

It can't be a Dwarf, he realized.

Leon still managed to maintain his disguise as his attacker turned out to be no Dwarf, just a human dressed in all black.

What sort of situation was this? Leon had neither the time nor the luxury to fight behind enemy lines, but he was also short on information regarding his attacker. Was he some kind of Dwarf ally of something?

That problem was easily solved with a simple…

"Read!"

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[ Osborn ] < Lv.31 Human Rogue >

Talent: B+

Skills: Blades, Athletics, Stealth, Marksman, Perception

Magic: [Wind Magic (C)] [Martial Arts (B)]

TitleS: [Osborn the Shadow] [B rank Mercenary] [Monster Slayer] [Killer]

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This wasn't a Dweef ally; it was a mercenary who snuck inside the Smelter House, just like him.

Osborn felt a sudden chill of goosebumps running under his skin and a really uncomfortable feeling towards Leon's eyes. If it wasn't for the fact that he is a calculative assassin, he would have flown into rage immediately.

"You are no Dwarf?" Osborn spoke.

"Never heard of half Dwarves, intruder?" Leon replied and acted as if he was going to retreat and call for help.

"Alright, shorty. Half Dwarves aren't welcome in the Smelter House?" Osborn replied with a grin.

His grin, however, was met with the razor edge of a throwing knife that he avoided with a hair's width.

"Careful with the sharpies!"

As Osborn tried to take it easy and quietly, Leon's next attack was throwing the dwarven thread apron at him to cover his vision, Osborn couldn't react well after losing a bit of balance to the throwing knife.

Still, an assassin knows how to handle a situation of this kind, and even though his vision was blocked, Osborn made sure to stay mobile and not get entangled with an apron that was thrown at him.

Even though that judgment was sound, his opponent was already on the next move. As Osborn tried to reestablish visuals over his opponent, that opponent was long gone.

"Sly bastard!" Osborn was taken by how that opponent pulled a fast one on him but he can still handle it unless…

"Intruder! He's over here!"

… that would happen.

Osborn turned around right away as the voice came right from behind him. Still, he could see or sense no one other than the mild motion of Air Mana.

"Where?"

"Hurry!"

"It came from the coal silo!"

A group of Dwarves started to gather from all directions, and Osborn was surrounded before he could even run. Feeling irritated, the assassin knew that his job was about to face a critical failure if he didn't act quickly, so he stepped back in the shadows and got ready to escape this place for now.

As for Leon, he was up above Osborn the whole time. He used "Double Jump" to latch onto a wooden beam and used Air Magic to make the vibrations of his voice travel somewhere else to make a source of noise.

Seeing Osborn retreat and the Dwarves gather, Leon too had to make a run for it and headed deeper into the Smelter House.

After a short while of dodging the Dwarves and descending another level underground, Leon discovered what can be described as a large hollowed space underground, where he discovered what can be called an underground keep built with large pieces of dark stone.

This made Leon wonder whether this hollowed space was constructed by the Dwarves or was it naturally formed. Either way, it seemed like an integrity hazard for the city above, and he wasn't sure if the human lords would be happy with such a large underbelly existing under their city.

"He is here; is that his signal?" Leon asked.

"It is deep in that vault."

"Vault?" Leon looked at the building and made an understanding face, "That's one way to look at it."

Rather than being a Keep hidden underground, which would serve no purpose in terms of warfare, a vault is more reasonable since the only thing visible in that building is a gate and a wall.

No towers or roofs could be seen in this huge cave, which meant that the gate was the only way inside, not to mention the Dwarves that stood guard on the gate.

This was a very difficult situation. A gate and a number of guards with no visible hint on how to enter or exit the target location.

But such a puzzle wasn't hard to solve. Like all vaults, this one has to have ventilation and drainage systems since it is impossible to have one without the other.

On top of that, since the Smelter House uses too much oxygen, this underground area beneath it must have a really well made ventilation system to support anyone residing underneath.

It was just a matter of finding them and exploiting their weaknesses.

Leon made sure to stay hidden near a few rocks using the Chameleon Cloak and asked Rhyme to send the three Will o' Wisps she commanded into various parts of the cavern to find those ventilation tunnels. It didn't take them a couple of minutes before they returned to him with a network of tunnels that extended above the cavern where artificial currents of air were traveling.

Funny enough, he was standing right under one of these tunnels. He then used "Aero Detection" in order to get a sense of the size of that tunnel.

"Fantastic!" Leon smiled as the size of that hidden tunnel was almost enough to make an adult crawl through, let alone teeny tiny Leon.

All he needed was to make sure he was safe to move without being seen before Double Jumping, then creatively create a small barrier under his feet to double jump again, and here he was almost 7 meters up in the air, grabbing on the edge of a rock while using his dexterity to its maximum.

A few seconds later, he was already in the tunnel and crawling on his arms and legs to move through it.

Using a Will o' Wisp, he navigated through the dark tunnel to bypass the vault's wall. While it felt like he was crawling through a dangerous maze, he had the advantage of Rhyme and her Wisps, which can bypass solid matter and explore the impossible for him.

Now, he is finally inside the Dwarven vault, which he will learn later as the Locker, a place where they keep what they really want to hide tucked away under an impossible combination of locks and traps, a combination that will be introduced to the one and only Black Cobra.