Alliot and Xue sneak out of the cavernous hideout. Ren follows Hannigan deeper into these caverns. The walls, floor and ceiling are all still packed dirt held up by wooden beams. There are roughly made rooms to accommodate desk work and a few living quarters.
“Done already and that contact still isn’t here. Ah well.” Hannigan says. “I’ll take a nap. Feel free to take a break until I have new orders. You came in with Alon’s crew just yesterday, so if you have any questions feel free to ask any of my guys for help.”
“Okay.” Ren says.
Hannigan begins to walk off. As he does, Alon begins to approach Ren.
“Hey there, sport. Done already?” Alon asks.
“Yep.” Ren says.
“Good. Good.” Alon says. “Now listen. Some of my guys are still having trouble finding their way around. It’s all dark and underground. As someone who’s been working with Hannigan ever since before I got back to the city, I’m counting on you to show them around like a local.”
“Okay.” Ren says.
“Good to hear.” Alon nods along as he speaks.
Alon also walks off. With that said, Ren goes off to look around the enemy hideout with complete impunity. Ren takes the next hour to look around. She identifies every room and all 3 entrances and exits including the one she, Alliot and Xue took to get here. An hour isn’t enough to get a sense for security rotations, but with the day they execute some plan of theirs coming in a day and a handful of hours, there seems to be little point to prepare for a long infiltration. She finds the two armories, the barracks with bunk beds, the canteen, the kitchen, the magic workshop and much more. She even finds a makeshift treasury of sorts. Loose gold coins and a few jewels were stored inside. Ren swiftly used her skill Thieve’s Sleeves to hide them away in an extra dimensional space. After Ren does her work one of the henchmen here rushes in and starts screaming.
“Guys! Georgie from upstairs got knocked out by adventurers! There’s been a break in!”
“Oh shit!”
“Oh no!”
“Well where are they?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are they inside already?”
“I think an adventurer has infiltrated our ranks.” Ren says. “I have an idea. I’ll take stock of the situation. I need everyone to give me their names and crew of origin. Then I cross reference that with the bosses and see who’s missing. Then we find them and find where those adventurers hit our guys.”
“Yeah!”
“We need to tighten security!”
“Alright. Start lining up.”
Ren spends the next hour writing down every henchman’s name in a list. Ren ends up with a headcount of all of the henchmen. Once she is done, she draws a rough map of the hideout. She then places the list of names and the map in a folder.
“I’m going upstairs to get some beef skewers from the street stall.” Ren says. “Does anyone want anything?”
“Oh yeah. I want one.”
“I want one too.”
“Yeah, get me one too.”
“I could use one.”
One after another men and women call out to Ren for a beef skewer.
“Guys, I only have one hand.” Ren says while she points to her arm cast.
At some point, the henchmen let Ren go upstairs. When she does, she indeed goes to get some beef skewers from a street stall.
“Hello!” Ren approaches a street stall.
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“What can I get ya?” the stall worker asks.
“Can you prepare 80 beef skewers with a special sauce I made.” Ren asked while she brought up a jar with a skull and crossbones labeled on.
“Uhh… That’s a bit much.”
Ren pulls out a bag of gold coins. The woman behind the stall looks at Ren, then back at the bag.
“Well, time to work for a living.” the stall worker rolls up her sleeves.
The stall worker got to work on Ren’s large order. While she waits for the stall to fill her order for 80 beef skewers, Ren takes a step aside to place the folder she compiled behind a flowerpot nearby. It is a dead drop. Here, she leaves the folder filled to the brim with enemy information for someone to pick up. Notably Alliot and Xue, who Ren handed a paper mentioning this spot. With the dead drop left, Ren returns to pick up her order and return beneath the ground.
“I got food!” Ren says.
“Nice!”
“Aw sweet!”
“Finally, some real grub.”
All the henchmen rush to grab a skewer. Everyone leaves to indulge in some good street food. Ren takes a single one and walks off. While everyone gathers in the canteen, Ren leaves the canteen to begin her work. She goes off to the room with the ritual circle and the caged chimeras.
“Hey. Where did everyone go?” a henchman asked.
“Oh, they all went to the canteen.” another said. “That red haired kid that came in with you and Alon’s crew got some.”
“Wait, what? She was here with you guys, right? She’s one of your crew.”
“No, she wasn’t part of our crew. I thought she was part of yours.”
“I haven’t seen her at all. So she isn’t with you?”
The two henchmen pause and stare at each other. They’re checking for any hint of a joke, but they find none.
“We gotta tell the bosses about this.”
“Yeah. Yeah. Let’s go.”
The two henchmen move to alert everyone about the concern that they sort of just let a girl slip into their ranks. As they do, they are about to head out of a dirt packed room, Ren turns a corner.
“Oh! Woah!”
“Uh, hey kid.”
Ren wordlessly pulls a dagger from her arm cast. Both of the men go wide eyed.
“Oh shit.”
As Ren rushes them, the henchmen scramble for their own weapons. Ren thrusts out with her dagger. Her target handily dodges it and steps away from Ren. In that moment, Ren uses a skill.
“Dark Step.”
Ren suddenly appears behind the man who already steps back. He essentially steps back into Ren’s dagger. Ren just pushes the blade deeper in. She then pulls the dagger out with a violent wrenching motion. She then uses his hip as a step to climb higher and stabs at the man’s neck from behind.
“Woah! Wait! I surrender!”
The other henchman says.
“Drop your weapon.” Ren says flatly.
The henchman then drops his weapon. Then Ren stabs him.
“Ugh! What! But I-” the dying henchman stammers.
“Yep.”
“But why?”
“The voices told me to.”
Ren then violently rips the dagger from the man’s chest.
“How, did you know?” one of the henchmen asks.
“Know what?” Ren asks back.
“That we were going to tell on you.”
“I didn’t know that. I just need your meat to poison the chimera.” Ren says.
“What?”
“I’m going to cut you into chunks for the use of the feeding ritual for the chimera. Then I will poison your meat and then feed the chimeras with your poisoned meat.” Ren tells him her grim plan without any emotional inflection.
“Y- you can’t be serious.” the henchman says.
“I am.” Ren says.
Ren swiftly stabs the man again until he goes still. Ren then sets off to begin her grim plan. She drags the two corpses over to the ritual circle a few rooms over and leaves a trail of blood. Clear bloody drag marks note that something horrid has happened. Ren takes the bodies to the ritual circle. She draws Warumasa from it’s scabbard and starts to clumsily cut the men’s bodies.
“What the fuck are you doing with me?” Warumasa asks.
“I’m cutting some meat.” Agnoir says.
“Well, use that puny dagger you have the girl carry around.” Warumasa says.
“No. You’re a longer blade that can cut more and deeper.” Agnoir says. “It’s not like I need clean cuts. Just chunks that the brainy guy here can work with.”
“Just cut the meat, demon.” Apherward groans.
“Just use the dagger. I don’t want to have all this stale blood on me.” Warumasa groans.
“Just bare with it. We just need a few slices.” Agnoir says.
“No! Stop! Now!” Warumasa whines like a demonic child.
Ren starts using a strange ritual to force feed the chimera poisoned meat. Now that everything is set, Ren takes another look around the hideout to double check and make sure everything is sabotaged appropriately. Everyone in the canteen was dead and foaming at the mouth. The strange ritual had poisoned all the chimera, although the poison only seems to weaken them. The poison Ren had hastily prepared seems to only be uncomfortable to the chimera. Sadly, the three individuals who seem to be in charge here do not appear to be present inside. Alon, Kanady and Hannigan are nowhere to be seen.
“Aw.” Ren says in her flat tone of voice.
It is unfortunate, but Ren can only collect every loose document noting whatever plot this conspiracy was involved in or forms of evidence. With the voices in her head satisfied, Ren begins to light the fuse to the dynamite. She returns to the surface with what little she could find and waits by the dead drop she noted to Alliot and Xue. When someone does arrive, it is Alliot arriving alone.
“Ren!” Alliot gasps. “You okay? You escaped the hideout.”
“Yep.” Ren says. “Did you already pick up my dead drop?”
“No.” Alliot gives her a confused look. “You… you left a dead drop?”
Ren looks over and picks up a flowerpot. There was the folder she left as a dead drop was still there.
“Oh.” Ren says. “Well, I got lots of documents, but the bosses weren’t there.”
“Oof. Better luck next time, Ren.” Alliot says. “But you killed everybody, right?”
“Yep.”
“Nice.” Alliot gives Ren a thumbs up.
Hours later, Ren told the same story to everyone at the adventurer’s guild, including the guildmaster Crane Baross.
“You what?” Xue Long shouts.
“I killed everybody and took a briefcase.” Ren says.
“Why?!?!” Xue shouts.
“Because I wanted to kill everyone and I already stole all their money. They were going to figure me out in time.”
“Gods.” Xue sighs. “And the bosses of this conspiracy?”
“They weren’t home when I killed everyone.” Ren says.
Xue nurses her face in her hands. Meanwhile Crane nodded along with Ren’s explanation.
“Not the ideal outcome.” Crane Baross says. “But I admire your spirit."
“So what now?” Alliot asks.
“This Kanady woman was a noble.” Crane says. “We know her address. As for Alon and Hannigan, I imagine that they will be keeping a low profile. So, we keep an eye on them. As for Kanady who is clinging to her gaudy mansion here in the city, we’re absolutely going to be investigating her.”
