Chapter 57: Infiltration

  Alex moved with a sense of purpose, boots pressing against the packed dirt as he followed the slope downward into the valley. The canopy above filtered the sunlight into shifting golds and greens, and the silence of the forest stretched out ahead of him.

  “We’re getting close. I’m picking up traces.” He pointed forward, down the rocky slope toward a cluster of moss-covered boulders. “I’m seeing aether. Faint, but distinct enough to show up. ”

  With his [Aether Sight] ability, Alex was able to see any of the Kobold’s magic traps or wards from a fair distance away. It wasn’t perfect, as he could still miss them if he wasn’t paying attention, and it didn’t give him any warning against non-magical traps, of which there were also plenty lying in wait. So far he hadn’t missed anything, he hoped.

  The boulders in front of him had the tell-tale azure aura of aether energy clinging to their surface, so he was certain there was at least something going on there. He stepped closer cautiously.

  “Kobold tunnel entrance, ” Obby confirmed. “Camouflaged and probably guarded. I would probably expect posted guards and extra surprises. ”

  Alex narrowed his eyes. “I’ll handle it.”

  As it turned out, the rocks weren’t just hiding a tunnel, they were the tunnel. When Alex reached the first boulder, he knelt and ran a hand along the moss. Subtle lines caught his attention, scratches where claws had pried open the stone, and a section shifted slightly when he pressed on it.

  With a deep breath, he concentrated further on his aether sight. The world shifted again and the illusion faded instantly. Thin strands of runic magic covered the entrance like a curtain of smoke, the enchantment was clever but not clever enough to stop Alex. With Obby’s lessons, [Glyphcraft] had taught him to handle enchantments like these ones.

  “There,” he muttered. “Glyph anchor at the base. If I disable it—”

  “No,” Obby warned. “It’s alarmed. You’d trigger a feedback cascade. Instead, reinforce the illusion with your own glyph. Mirror the pattern and cloak yourself. ”

  Alex grinned. “You really are a smart little pebble aren’t you? Using their own system against them, I like it.”

  “I’m not a pebble. Stop calling me that. And I’m not ‘Obby’, my name is Obsidian. Say the whole thing! ” The rock was mentally pouting in his head. “ Wait! No… my name should truly encompass my many mysterious layers of knowledge and expertise. I will now be known as... Cypher. ”

  “What ever you say Obby.”

  He ignored the pebble’s resulting grumblings and pulled out his stylus tool, etching a quick counter-sigil along with some connecting lines on the boulders in front of him. Afterward, all it took was a small trickle of aether to bring them humming to life. Once activated, the kobold’s veil shimmered slightly and then faded into the background once more like a bothersome fog picked up by a breeze.

  He moved in.

  Silently, he slipped past the enchanted curtain and into the tunnel, finding the interior was crude but surprisingly well supported. Wooden beams and chiseled walls lined the space, glowing faintly from small flames in sconces mounted periodically along the walls. It smelled of dirt, and sweat. He also caught the whiff of something else, a scent that was unpleasant, like burnt copper.

  He didn’t have to travel long until he heard voices echoing ahead, and peaked around the next corner revealed two kobolds, squat and scaled, chattered in a harsh, yipping language which Alex only understood thanks to his ring. One held a spear, and the other leaned on a pickaxe. He clenched his fists, getting ready to charge when Obby whispered.

  “Don’t attack yet. Observe. Listen. ”

  Reluctantly, he obeyed, staying back behind a stack of crates. The kobolds weren’t talking about guard rotations, food or traps, they were talking about the prisoners.

  “Tall softskins dig slow. No strength. But they do what they're told. Chief says keep them alive. Chief wants good miners . ”

  “Miners?” Alex mouthed.

  Obby chimed in realization. “They’re using them as slaves. These tunnels might be a natural aether mine, see the crates and carts over there? The crystals stuck in the rocky ore deposits. They’re valuable. ”

  Alex’s grip tightened. "Then we have a clock. Humans are not very fond of the slave life, they will rebel, fight back, and if they try to go up against a whole village, against their Chief… well.”

  “They won’t survive, yes. But take a breath, flash-sack. These kobolds, while yes they’re naturally stupid, but they are not moronic. They know when they are holding on to a good thing, so won’t mistreat your friends. We have time, time we need to look around, and come up with a plan.”

  He stepped back, his mind racing. He needed a plan. A distraction, a map of the tunnels. And, a way to extract eleven people from an unknown number of captors.

  “I can do this,” he whispered. “I can do this. What would Adam do?”

  “Not be a little pansy for starters. Get it together. You just need to be smarter than these lizards, a tall order for you I know, but I’ll help you out too.” Obby’s voice felt far too smug for Alex’s liking.

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  “Okay then, oh genius one, what’s your plan?”

  “Me, I never said I had a plan. I just meant I could point out how stupid any of the plans are that YOU come up with are. Helpful right?”

  Alex sneered and took a deep breath. “Let’s just keep moving around and see if we can’t map out these tunnels. We at least need to know where everyone is being held prisoner, so we can sneak about and gain info, granted its important to make sure we don’t get caught. We might even be able to snag some of those crystals while we are at it”

  “That is… okay what about— no no, you said the don’t get caught part… and the crystals… alright then, that is actually a good plan. Let’s do that.”

  ***

  Alex crept deeper into the tunnels, each step carefully thought through and pointedly quiet. The soft glow of crystal sconces on the walls gave him just enough light to see, but not enough to feel safe. He kept low and moved softly, shadowing the rough hewn walls and ducking behind crates, rocks, and jutting supports when he needed. His heart pounded with tension with each step, but Obby’s calm commentary which ran in his mind kept him focused on the immediate task.

  “This isn’t just a labor mine, ” Obby whispered. “It’s a functioning settlement. A small civilization. So that will help us determine its layout. Things should make at least some sense.”

  He passed by another pair of kobolds, their yipping voices carrying in the still air. Alex crouched behind a rock, close enough to hear them speak.

  “I went and saw prisoners yesterday,” one of the kobolds muttered. “Tall softskins. Two got spirit. One tried biting.”

  “Chieftain say keep alive. Need strong arms. Need tools made. Need more crystal rock.”

  Alex narrowed his eyes, there it was again, clear confirmation that the kobolds were using the captured soldiers as laborers, not sacrifices or prisoners of war. That gave him hope, so he continued moving. After skirting past a guard post and navigating a narrow fork, he stumbled into an enormous chamber filled with dozens of eggs, all swaddled in woven baskets and laid upon beds of moss and heated stones.

  “The Egg Hall,” Obby whispered. “They have a dedicated breeding and hatching center. Carefully maintained. This… Alex, this is not the place you want to be found in. They will be very, very angry to have you in here.”

  Alex agreed with the rock’s assessment. He stepped back slowly, his throat tight. He hadn't expected to feel a flicker of respect for these lizards, but there it was. These weren’t just enemies he needed to kill. These were people, in their own way. With children they cared about and nurtured. It was important that he remembered that.

  Next, he followed the sound of haunting, melodic humming that lured him into a spacious cavern with natural acoustics so perfect it made his teeth vibrate. A half-dozen kobolds were seated in a loose circle at the center of the chamber, each one chanting or striking crystalline instruments with small sticks or claws.

  “The Singing Cavern, ” Obby whispered again. Alex didn’t know why he was whispering, only Alex could hear him anyway. “Spiritual songs are played here, maybe other cultural rites as well. This… ritual is a kind of an oral tradition. I couldn’t tell you what for, Doudra never talked about her home life. You know, she might have had some childhood issues.”

  He watched the musical performance for only a moment before moving on, not wanting to linger and waste time, not with his friends still imprisoned. Eventually, the air changed again, turning smoky and hot just as he entered a chamber that served as both forge and kitchen. A broad, open flame pit burned in the center, smoke rising through crude vents in the stone ceiling. Kobolds were gathered around it, some roasting meat, others shaping tools from raw aetherite ore. All around them there were bins of materials, storage racks, and even a few blueprints scratched onto stacked bark panels.

  “Smokepit and forge?” Alex muttered. “They cook and smith in the same place. Efficient, but… kinda gross.”

  He watched as a younger kobold worked with clumsy hands to carve a crystal down to a fine point, only to drop it and be scolded by an elder. It reminded him of a blacksmith and their apprentice, just like in any other human settlement would have.

  It was interesting, but Alex had to move on.

  He kept track of each turn as he went, each carved hallway, etching a mental map for himself and then adding that mental image to a piece of leather with some glyphcrafter’s ink. He passed by a storage chamber filled with ore carts, where he couldn’t help himself and picked up a few choices crystals in the stacks. There was a dormitory cavern with hammocks made from braided roots and old cloth, and a refectory-like hollow where kobolds devoured roasted cave beasts.

  Then he found them, and his heart skipped.

  One of the side tunnels opened into a dim, wide chamber with a pair of guards wielding spears. By this point in the day they seemed to have gotten bored, one napping with their back against the wall, weapon nearly falling from their clawed grip. The other was busy playing with a set of small objects that Alex guessed were dice that appeared to be carved from bone.

  Behind all this though was a large slope that led into a pit, where he saw them—Devon, Allie, Henry, and the others, haggard but alive. Dirty and tired, but unbroken. Devon was mumbling to himself in the corner, probably plotting escape routes in his head. Allie helped tend to someone’s bruised leg, and Garret cracked a joke that made Peter and Allie laugh, even Henry cracked the barest smile.

  They’re okay. Alex thought, a breath of relief escaping his chest.

  “Better than okay, all things considered, ” Obby agreed. “But the slope is too steep for them to climb themselves. Ah, over there, a rope.” Obby highlighted something in his vision, and sure enough he could see a crude rope ladder sitting on the edge of the pit. Probably how they got the prisoners out each day for labor time.

  “We can’t just bust them out right now though. We need to find an escape route too. Let’s keep moving and see what we can find.”

  It pained Alex, but he knew Obby was right. He couldn’t try to free them just yet. He had to trust they will be okay for just a few more hours at least. He backed out of the prison cavern and kept moving.

  It wasn’t long before they came across something far more dangerous.

  It was a chamber with a wide platform chamber guarded by half a dozen armored kobolds carrying spears, and a platform with a large bone chair and glyphs etched into the stone floor sat at the back of the room. Standing at its center was a towering kobold figure, nearly six feet tall, cloaked in furs and green scales, with jagged black horns protruding from his head.

  The Chieftain.

  The Kobold’s aura made the air buzz, the energy clinging to his body in his [Aether sight] not nearly as strong as Sylvaris, but it was beyond Alex or his friends. He had to be Adept Tier, at least, or maybe even stronger. The kobolds who also stood in the room all bowed low as the figure paced, barking orders in a dialect so dense that even the translation ring struggled to keep up

  “More production. More. Work the soft-skins harder tomorrow. Use pokes if needed.” All the smaller kobolds nodded and murmured quietly in response.

  Alex quickly moved back the way he came, not wanting to risk getting caught so far deep into the tunnels, certain there was more to find. Obby had told him there was even an entire village on the surface, above the tunnels.

  From what he had already traveled, he memorized the path: three lefts, a right, left again, then a straight run past the Singing Cavern, then a fork near the Egg Hall. He traced everything in his mind, the turns, the patrol patterns, the chokepoints. He didn’t have a full map, but it was going to have to do.

  He was certain he’d seen all he could without being spotted, so he turned and made his way out, quiet as a shadow, back at the tunnel entrance. Alex took one last look behind him at the edge of the tunnel. His friends were alive and he had a path, a plan would come next.

  “This place isn’t just a mine or prison,” he whispered. “They've built an entire town, a community. These Kobolds aren’t monsters, I don’t think I can just blow them all up.”

  “It IS a community, and that means they’ll defend it,” Obby replied. “But it also means we have options to use that. It’s just as you said. You’re not fighting beasts. You’re navigating a society. We can use that knowledge to our advantage.”

  He clenched his fists, a new fire burning in his chest. “Then let’s figure out how to beat them without breaking them.”

  He stepped back into the forest outside the tunnels, mind already racing. It was time to prepare for the rescue.