Finally, Trevor has begun speaking about the heist of his. Well, if I am honest, the man has only been telling me all of this as a formality. The only reason that I know anything is that my security clearance is lower than his. (Low enough that man is permitted to read my log any time that he wants.) The man has been sharing information with me because he wants to use me as a repository.
It is a common enough practice. When people want to share information, but their security clearance is too high. The only way to share information is to record it in another log like mine. Right now, I am acting as a repository for all the other people in my troop. That means that security clearance is below all three of them. I guess that I should feel pissed off about that. I don't have an opinion about it either way. The head office is right to not trust me this quickly.
The annoying thing about that is that this means both Andrew and Jacob now know more about this mission than me. They have been helping the man in all of this, after all, gathering information for him about the guard house. The man has been keeping the two of them quite busy, so they barely speak with me anyway.
Well, to get to business, the very first thing that I had understood was why the hell the inn was so easy to breach. The damn place did not even have a quarter of the forces of the Bloodfire gang. (And none of the vampires.) There is nothing of value at the inn, other than a few prisoners. All of their forces that are in the outer keep are focused on the guard keep.
Even Trevor and the organization do not seem to know what exactly it is that they are protecting. All they know it is very important to them. They have also been quite careful with its protection. Trevor thinks that it has something to do with the blood moon. (Magic like that would require something powerful to act as the core of the spell)
Now I have no way of verifying that. I don't know what a blood moon is exactly. I have seen it once, but I have not studied it. I have a working idea of how it functions, though.
We have hunted hundreds of vampires, but they were grunts. They can barely cast the most basic blood magic. There is no way that a mere grunt can cast the blood moon. The blood moon is a powerful bit of blood magic.
Well, the group does know some things about the thing in the guard house. They can't confirm any of it, though. All they know about the thing inside the guard house is that it is some kind of a statue. They also know it is covered in odd etchings that are not formation markings.
If rumours are to be believed, it is the statue of an elven god, with traces of divinity on it. The same rumors claim that it is the statue of a demon, though. If it is the former, the clergy of most gods would destroy this fort for such a blasphemy. Even a dead race's divinity cannot be poisoned by the vampires. Then again, knowing that the other side is vampires is enough blasphemy for most clergy's.
Well, there is a pretty unlikely option. This could also be one of the vampire pantheon. The chances of this are very low, though. This place is under the protection of the hexmountain. There is no way a vampire God will enter this place without us knowing. We might not be able to do much about the pirates, but we keep this place clean of everything else.
Still, if that is the case, it is better to be very careful. The vampire gods are supposed to be very powerful, but equally temperamental. All in all, it would be wise not to mess with that statue. Regardless of which it is, dealing with the gods is a messy business.
It is not like we will be able to see it. They have a constant force of soldiers protecting it, and at least one of the captains is always near it. All the forces that they had stationed at the inn have also been directed here.
That reminds me, the organization has managed to get quite a profit due to the prison break. It is almost as if they have been given wings, the way that they have been smuggling people out of the city. So they have finally stopped irritating Trevor about the heist.
Our goal is in the room right next to the treasury (where they have the statue.), in the accounting room. It is the accounting books of the guards containing all of the business deals made by the guards of this fort. Every purchase that has been made by them.
Such information will be quite useful to the organization, as they can do quite a bit with this knowledge. For example, if they were to find out which blacksmith (there must be many.) manages the smithing, maintenance and repair of the guard's weapons. Killing that blacksmith would cause them to stumble for a bit. This would prove quite useful if the guards were to start looking for the organization. They would suddenly find their favorite blacksmith unable to sharpen their weapons.
That is why no blacksmith should go about boasting about this fact in the first place. They can also predict the actions of the guards based on the orders given to said blacksmith. For example, an increase in weapons ordered would mean that the guards are becoming more active. This would be a cue to the organization to calm things a bit. Maybe take a vacation.
All of that is just from the blacksmiths. The record books would contain even more than that. Masons, architects, apothecaries, and so much more. I would not be surprised if the organization could be able to predict every single move of the guards.
And all of this is while considering the guards to be angels, without a hint of corruption. The organization would be able to control quite a significant chunk of the guards. They would simply do this by threatening the more corrupt folk of the guardhouse,
If the organization gets its hands on this information, the guards will be theirs in months. With how scared Trevor is of them, they should be able to pull off something like this easily.
It would certainly give them quite the edge in this city. It would be enough to make them solidly grounded in this fort, I tell you. With how much they have spent on building this sewer base of theirs, that has to be their goal.
Well, wanting it and getting it are two different things. The guard house of the Mayfire castle is a simple structure, considering all things. It is built of the same kind of rock as the walls of this fort. That makes it quite indestructible and quite resistant to any head-on assaults.
The only benefit is that the building is not peppered with as many traps as the walls of the fort. If that were the case, there is no way that we would be able to sneak into the place. The guards of this place must be majorly non-mages. If we are discovered, the mages won't be far. They are more than likely to set off these traps themselves if they were placed here.
The guardhouse is pretty heavily guarded. That is even before considering all the extra people who would be standing guard in that area now. Firstly, sneaking up to the building is itself going to be a significant problem.
The entire thing is a box, refreshingly simple compared to other such buildings. The treasury and the accounting room are near the northern side of the building.
Surrounding the guard house is a moat, which won't do much against an enemy charge. It is certainly going to make sneaking into the place very hard. If we were to be detected en route, we would be shot to death. (Oh yeah, the guardhouse also has all the weapons of the guards in the place. So, the Bloodfire gang is pretty well armed as well.)
Even if we got into the building, there is the issue of patrols. The treasury is right next to the accounting room. The place is quite consistently guarded by the Bloodfire gang. Getting detected by the enemy will mean not succeeding in the mission.
Even if I can hold them off, that would lead to the third hurdle in this matter. That would be the formations guarding the books. It won't be anything hard to break, but it is still going to be a challenge, especially since I have to do it so quietly. If I were to fail with it, the best-case scenario is that it would alert the enemy. I don't want even to think about the worst case.
All of this is the case when I am not considering that they must have a possessed vampire up there. Their presence will make everything ten times harder. As for how we are going to manage this thing, I have no idea. All of the planning I have left to Trevor, and the man is even less forthcoming about his plans than I am. Let's just say, I will discover what is about to occur at the same time as you.
Trevor assures me that stealth will not fail us here. He tells us that we will sneak in and out of the place without being chased by anybody. I certainly hope that stealth will be enough. I don't think that I will survive another fight. (Especially with a possessed vampire.)
I mean, I was not sure about fighting a captain even before. I lost the will to fight them after finding out that they could be possessed by higher vampires. The particular point has become clear after the fight with the possessed demon.
The lady barely had any blood mana from the possession ceremony. She was also in an incompatible body. (It is supposed to be an entire science to look for bodies to possess.). Even with these disadvantages, the lady managed to own me. The only reason that I managed to beat her was the burial ground. This time, whoever is up there will have way more mana than me. I also have nothing like the burial grounds to help me out. (Even if we managed to get him to the burial ground, his possession would be stable. The soul won't be leaving the body as easily this time.)
On top of that, I will also have to deal with those grunts as well. Especially the lady from whom I have stolen the rock sword. They must certainly be a part of the forces there as well. As for my physical condition. I am completely healed now. Right now, my only worry is my ankle. It has healed, but the damn thing is still aching. The pain is not particularly intense.
It is a small stinging sensation, which I can ignore almost all the time. The problem is that the wound is supposed to be fully healed, and it is not supposed to hurt. The only reason that this might be an issue is if my ankle has not been set properly in the healing process. If that has happened, the only way that I can set it properly is to rebreak my ankle and heal it again.
The process is about as pretty as it sounds. I have seen troop captains in the legion cringe in fear of having to do something like this. For now, though, I will leave it as I have a mission to complete. If the injury is still there, I will have to break my leg again.
Screw it, I am done recording. Why do I always get such depressing thoughts?