I couldn’t tell if the new skill perk had worked. I’d tried focusing it directly on Ophelia and the connection I had to her, as I didn’t want to pull at the strings I’d just attached to Yen if I could help it.
She had enough to sort through right now without suddenly feeling a need to move toward me.
I focused my attention once more and cast the skill. [Commander’s Call]. The skill didn’t mention any kind of mana or stamina cost, which was strange since all my other skills of the sort did. But, I decided not to question the System’s “blessing” too much.
I let my focus drop and then climbed back down into Ophelia’s room.
Sil was waiting inside, his back pressed against the wall next to the door.
“Any luck?”
“Not sure. I guess we’ll see.”
He raised an eyebrow but didn’t push any further.
I started to leave the room but stopped, closing the door before me. “It’s probably best if I just put this out there, but I trust that you won’t tell anyone else. Understood?”
I looked over at him, and he gave me a small nod.
“I used a skill that I have. Because I was the one that granted Ophelia access to the system, I’m able to… communicate with her in a way. It’s not direct, I don’t think—I really don’t know how it works at all, to be honest—but it’s supposed to be some kind of way to give her commands.”
He looked off to the side, as if listening to someone whispering in his ear. “Does she have to listen to them?” He asked a moment later.
I shrugged. “I have no clue. The skill says I can beckon her toward me, and that she’ll receive a buff when she comes within 20 meters of me. But, other than that, I’m in the dark.”
He nodded slowly. “And Yen?”
“I have the same connection.”
“That’s…troubling, Aria. Do they know?”
I shook my head. “Maybe? I haven’t told them. I don’t intend to use it. I just thought it might help here.”
Sil ran a hand through his hair, brushing it back. When his eyes met mine again, they had a coldness to them. “You should tell them.”
“Let’s see if it even works first. Maybe she’ll realize it on her own.”
“Aria…You said that Felix was acting directly on Aurelion’s orders before, right? And that these kids you recruited said he’s been more controlling lately, yeah? What if he has the same System you do, and he can do the same thing?”
“I’ve thought about it, but I don’t know what you want me to do here, Sil. I need allies. I need people with System access if I’m going to stop the [Hero] and the false empress. I can’t do it alone.”
“But enslaving people?”
My voice grew hard. “I’m not enslaving them. I haven’t forced any of them to accept the System or the benefits it brings.”
“But did you lay out the full story? Did you warn Yen that this was something that might happen?”
I shook my head again. “I don’t think I need to. It’s not important. I’m not going to use it beyond this.”
“That’s a lot of trust for them to put in you without you even giving them a choice…” He let the accusation hang in the air.
I almost bit back a response, anger flushing through me. There was part of me that knew he was right. But the other part of me—the one tired of floundering and constantly reacting to everything else around me—knew that using the System to my full advantage was my best opportunity for success.
I thought about the way Felix had looked at me before, when he’d been more of a friend and an ally. Then I thought about the way he’d looked in that alley when I’d almost had to kill him to send a message to Aurelion.
I wasn’t sure that his System shared similarities to mine. But, considering the title that Felix had in that moment, it seemed likely they had some kind of connection. Whether that was good or bad I couldn’t say.
I decided to ignore the accusation. “Just keep it to yourself,” I said as I opened the door and stepped into the hall.
Sil murmured something from behind me, but I was too far away to hear it properly. It didn’t matter, as long as he kept his mouth shut everything would be fine. Right now, I needed to sleep.
When I awoke a few hours later, I had a small meal of stew and bread in the kitchen and then met back up with Sil. He still seemed a bit upset with me after our conversation earlier in the day, but he didn’t push back on it at all.
We left the inn behind and headed out into the city. We had the network looking for Ophelia, and with any luck, the [Commander’s Call] would send her wandering back to the inn. I still didn’t have much faith in that one, but I didn’t say so out loud. I didn’t want to bring the topic back up.
Instead, Sil and I made our way through the city toward the Northern District.
Before Ophelia had gone missing, looking into Captain Seytrough of the city guard had been my next objective.
He was clearly connected to all of this somehow, and understanding what part he played might give me a better idea of what Aurelion and the others were doing, too. Or, at the least, what kind of connection they had with the guard.
This part of the city was similar to the Western District, in that many of the wealthier people of the capital called it home. However, it was also closer to the palace itself, which meant it was home to the barracks that the city guard used.
“Are you sure you can do this?” I asked Sil. He’d donned the guard uniform he’d taken at the clinic several weeks before.
“I might not look like any of them, but that should hopefully be to our advantage.” His hair had changed colors—from its usual white to a stark black—and his eyes were now dark brown as they stared at the gate that led into the barracks.
“Lilan’s people said that Captain Seytrough’s office is on the fourth floor of the western building,” I reminded him. “I’m going to take the sewers and come up at one of the access points inside the barracks.”
Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!
“I’ll find it and open it,” he agreed.
While the barracks was likely one of the more secure places in the city—the chances of anyone willingly wandering into a place stuffed to the brim with men and women waiting for a chance to make you regret your choice—it still needed access to the sewers. Unfortunately, they were smart enough to bar the entrances so nobody could come up through them.
“Let’s get started then,” I said, patting him on the shoulder.
I watched him wander into the street, making his way to the gate as if he was reporting for duty. The guards at the front gave him a look and then waved him through.
Well, that was simple, I thought as I turned and made me way deeper into the alley we’d been hiding in. I found the nearby sewer entrance and clopped down the rusty ladder, my boots sinking into the murky water below.
I’d decided to wear an all black outfit today, the tight leather vest pulled against my chest, and it wouldn’t provide any real protection if I got into a scuffle. The boots were leather, too, though the merchant I’d purchased them from—and older woman in the Eastern Quarter’s market—had sworn they were resistant to water. Unlike the first clothing I’d purchased from here when I’d first awakened in the city, these hadn’t provided me with any System buffs or messages.
I checked the timer counting down to the end of the System’s restriction as I walked through the tunnel.
System access restricted.
Access will be restored in…
12 hours and 31 minutes.
Less than a day. That was good. I wondered what would happen when the restriction lifted. I still wasn’t sure why it had become restricted, it had simply stopped offering me updates once my quest about the [Hero]’s arrival had updated.
Perhaps his arrival had something to do with it?
Even if it had, there was still the fact that the System’s impotence meant I couldn’t progress. I was stuck at Level 8, as I couldn’t accept any new quests if it didn’t offer them. It made me question whether the System had actually been trying to give me another chance to defeat the [Hero] and save my people, or if it was just playing a cruel, cosmic joke on me.
I followed the sewers until they reached a junction, then I turned right. If the plans I’d looked over were correct, then the ladder up to the barrack’s access point should be just ahead. I reached it within a few minutes and began the climb up the ladder.
The door groaned above me as I reached up for it and then Sil was staring down at me. He held out a hand and then pulled me up, shutting the hatch afterward.
“The place is mostly dead, it seems. I ran into someone who told me that most of them men are out on patrols or sleeping. Seems the lockdown is running them ragged.”
“That should hopefully make our job easier.”
Sneaking into the city guard’s barracks in the middle of the evening was probably not the best idea. But I hadn’t wanted to risk the guard being tighter in the streets around the place once the sun was down and lock down officially started.
Sil and I hurried through the empty courtyard, careful to keep an eye out for any passing guards. There were sentries up on the walls that surrounded the place, but they all had their backs turned to us. Some of them shifted, as if bored and trying not to fall asleep, but none of them turned to note our presence.
I’d only brought daggers with me this time, so hopefully we didn’t end up in a larger fight, as my skill with the daggers still hadn’t increased despite how much I’d had to rely on them over the course of the past several weeks.
The western building was a large, square-like structure made of stone. I couldn’t see any wood on the building anywhere, and it rose up from the courtyard like a tower, looking out over the barracks. It was five floors total, though the top part of the building looked like the stones were newer—less worn by time.
“Looks like they’ve been expanding,” I noted to Sil as we moved toward the door into the building. “Hopefully his office is still on the fourth floor.”
Sil grunted in agreement and we moved into the building, following the hallways and stairs up to the third floor, where we were forced to take cover in a small room off to the right of the stairs as voices echoed down from above.
Sil watched from the edge of the room, the door barely opened, and motioned for me to move forward when the area was clear.
Upon reaching the fourth floor, we spread out, checking each of the doors on either side of the hallway. Unfortunately, the rebel informant’s who had infiltrated the guard couldn’t tell us exactly which room was Seythroughs, so we had to figure that out ourselves.
I opened one of the doors on the right side of the hallway, revealing a large space with rows of swords and other items stacked neatly into weapon displays. Many looked to be made of iron, but some were made of a darker metal. One I did not recognize.
I stepped into the room, letting my hand run across one of the darker blades. It was impossibly sharp. What strange material had been used to make these weapons?
The next room was full of crates and barrels. I approached one, pulling my dagger out and opening the top of one of the crates. Several pieces of armor were stored inside. Just like the weapons, some of them were made of that darker metal.
I used [Insight] on one of them, a helmet that I pulled from the crate.
Black Steel Helm - Made from a combination of steel, midas ore, and black dragon scales, Black Steel armor is much stronger than typical iron or steel.
I gaped at the helmet. What was midas ore and how had they managed to blend together black dragon scales? We’d been able to utilize green and even gold dragon scales in applications before, but it had been extremely difficult. Black had proven impossible, as it required too much heat to melt the scales down. More heat than even dragons could typicall produce. We had abandoned most of our plans for it.
I returned the helmet to its crate and pressed the lid back onto it. If I had a chance, I’d need to steal some of this at some point. But doing so today would be reckless. Perhaps we could find information on shipments.
It had to be coming from somewhere.
Sil had continued checking his own rooms. He made a noise from down the hall. I stuck my head out of the room I was in and then hurried to the seventh door down on his side.
Inside, we found a large desk that took up most of the space, as well as several shelves of books that lined the wall. All of the books looked to be leatherbound journals, and I thumbed through one, reading through some of the scrawled lettering inside.
“This looks like our guy,” I noted, pointing to a passage in the journal I was inspecting. It was a series of notes about tactics and maneuvers that could benefit the guard in their patrols.
Each of the snippets seemed to point more toward battle formations than those that would make sense for city patrols, and this particular one had another set of handwriting written next to it.
‘Very promising…’ the words read. They were written in flowing lettering that stood out against the messy scrawls that filled the rest of the page. It was possible that the note next to the formations was nothing, but the revelations I’d found in the false empress’s letters strutted across my mind as I thought about it.
I tucked the journal into my satchel and pulled down another one. This one was mostly ramblings, though I did see a few mentions of the construction of the fifth floor almost being complete.
“Looks like we were right,” I told Sil, who was going through papers and maps at the desk. “That fifth floor is newer. I wonder what they built up there.”
I returned the journal to the shelf and did my best to make it look as if the other one wasn’t missing. I was about to pull another one down from a different shelf when Sil called me to the desk.
I walked over, looking down at the maps he had spread across the desktop. Some of the maps had extra details written ?on them, with parts of the city circled or marked out. A grid-like pattern had even been drawn across most of it.
“Search patterns?” I asked, looking down at it.
“Looks like,” Sil agreed. He ran a finger across one and pointed to a building with a large X drawn through it. “Isn’t that where they burned that building down at?”
“I believe so,” I said, looking at the surrounding streets. The feeling of immense fear that had washed over me when the dragon had roared flitted back across my memory. I tried not to shudder as I forced the memory away.
“We need a copy of this,” I said, eyeing the rest of the map and its markings. “It could help us find where they are going to strike next.”
“It could. But it could also give away that we’ve been here. It’s too risky.”
I frowned as I continued to look at it. Trying to think of anything that might stand out. There were markings all around The Slumbering Drake, though none seemed to suggest that the guard might suspect that was where most of the rebels were getting into the city from.
That was a relief, at least.
I started to move the map out of the way, to see what the next one held, when something outside caught my attention. A spike of fear pulsed through my body, panic bubbling up inside me.
“Oh no,” I murmured, rushing to the room’s singular window. I peered through the glass, looking out at the courtyard below.
The ground shook slightly as something heavy landed outside. Then a roar pierced through the silence of the barracks.
A roar that carried a wave of nauseating fear with it.