April 4, 2005 – 03:10 (Winnipeg Time)
Coralis needed a shower and a drink badly. She didn't want to sit in a meeting room. Above everything, she wanted to go home with Frank.
"The weapons taken by the Shadow Elementals this last December, have they been retrieved?" said High Mage Finnas.
"No. Someone came for them, but did not manage to take them back."
"You should have destroyed them instead of taking them with you. Why didn't you? I would have destroyed them as soon as I touched them," said General Tobly.
"All right, it's time for me to leave. I've said enough," said Coralis, getting up.
"TOBLY! OUT!!" said High Fay Ellya, standing up and pointing toward the door. "We warned you many times. This is not your mission, you do not know what you are talking about. You are dismissed for tonight."
"Elders, in all due respect, she needs to do better."
"No, Tobly, she does not. We did not let you attend this meeting to criticize what she should or should not have done," said High Mage Finnas.
General Tobly looked at him and was about to add something when High Elf Yalor stood up.
"You are crossing lines, Tobly. Blue Thunder is not one to be underestimated, and she knows things you do not. We want to hear what she has to say without you interfering. Out for tonight! We will call you when we need you again."
High Elf Frizzo stood up and tried to get Coralis's attention.
"Please, ignore this fool. I must apologize for his actions. What Tobly said does not represent why we wanted you here tonight and what we think."
Sebastian looked at the scene and didn't know what to think of it. He watched General Tobly leaving the meeting room, and he wished he had a mind-link with her, just so he could tell her 'This is so much beyond flyball, sister'.
"Right. So, no one got them back, but we found out about their South African compound through the one person who came for them," said Coralis.
"Do you think the person who came for them mind-linked the others when he or she got caught to warn them it was a trap?" said High Elf Frizzo.
"Yes, we knew it was a risk and kept him in a warded cage, so he couldn't be tracked and wouldn't be able to tell the others where he was. We wanted to know who was behind the weapon-forging, and that's why we went for that plan. Ultimately, we found where their trading hub was," said Jourmol.
"While me, Alejandro and another shadow member handled their workers, what you saw, Jourmol and one of our members who had also been captured by them led the other prisoners to our platform, and the other two searched the compound with our mission lead. They found a lot more djinn mystical weapons there, and they portalled them elsewhere."
"They also found where our stuff was kept, but didn't find much of anything else."
"How did you know that only one djinn was behind the weapon-forging, and not the workers you killed at the weapon factory in December?" said High Mage Finnas.
"They were djinn mystical weapons forged the traditional way. We found vials of essence and blueprints there. Even if we had killed the djinn whose imprints were in the weapons, someone from the same bloodline would have been sent for them. If the workers we killed would have had their essences in them, someone blood related to one of them would have been sent. Right after we freed our members and the others who were kept prisoners with them, one of our members killed the djinn we captured," said Coralis.
"The person coming for them was a bloodline relative of the djinn behind the weapons, and we think that he mind-linked the one whose essence was in the vials," said Jourmol.
"Your new prisoner will probably mind-link them too," said Panjik.
"It's what we are hoping will happen and why we took him to a compound they knew. We want the people he works for to find out where he is, and lure them there. Note that I'm only telling you this because General Tobly isn't here. I do not trust him to keep this information to himself and not blab it to the wrong people, even if unintentionally," said Coralis.
"Blue Thunder, thank you for freeing Agent Jourmol Pinq and for letting us watch tonight's events. We want to know, how did you and Alejandro Salinz escape?" said High Elf Ellya.
"They held us captive without our binds, probably thinking they are what gave us our abilities. The entire time we were there, we denied being witches, and we figured they would watch and analyze footage from the cameras afterwards. Our jailbreak had to appear to have been done by humans."
"Was the information sent by your posse useful?" said Sonylla.
"Very. We knew the cuffs were all using the same universal key and that the cell doors within a block were using the same one, but there wasn't a universal one to unlock all doors within the jail. We also knew the cell doors in our block didn't use the same key as the ones where their other witchy prisoners were held."
"The other prisoners they had captured, were they all witches?" said High Elf Yalor.
"No, four of them were humans. Over the past few days, using the polystyrene foam from the bowls of our food rations, we crafted what looked like universal keys and hid them in our underwear. We had our back against the camera when crafting them, and we shredded the rest of the bowls so they wouldn't suspect anything."
"That explains the additional beatings you got," said Sonylla.
"Yes, but it was worth it. When we enacted the plan, I coated the silver around the cell door locking mechanism with polished iron using a small amount of elemental energy so we wouldn't burn ourselves opening it. I didn't want the people who would analyze the footage afterwards to be able to detect any change of colour tone on the bars, so I also matched the colour."
"That's smart. Coating doesn't require the same amount of energy as fully transforming the metal, especially when you're not an earth elemental," said Panjik.
"To open our cuffs and the cell doors, we used crafted keys and made it seem like we knew how to pick locks. We weren't sure if they kept our stuff in their subbasement storage room, but we had to check. The quickest and most efficient route to the storage room was through the ventilation system above the ceiling. There was a trap in our block, so we climbed in it, shifted to our animal forms, and I spelled my paws so I wouldn't make a sound. Alejandro rode on my back so we could move quicker."
"Seems you did find all of your stuff in there," said Frank, noticing she wore her ring under a layer of blood.
"Almost, we didn't find our binds. We also found blood samples and reports from us. Alejandro falsified them to make them look like human blood before they find someone who could interpret the blood reports. He also falsified those taken from the coven there."
"They took blood from you?" said High Mage Finnas.
"It seems so. Probably when we arrived there, while still unconscious. We warned the others that we had our sticks but would have to leave our binds behind because we couldn't risk getting to another storage room: it would take too long, and we couldn't get caught. We returned to the ventilation conduit and headed to where the coven was held. I removed the silent step-spell before jumping down to wake them up, hoping the cameras had sound."
"Did they also torture them?" said Sonylla.
"Yes. We gave them the keys we used for our cuffs and unlocked their cell doors the same way we did for ours, but we used a different key for the doors. When done, I returned to the ventilation conduit and exited across the block door. We wanted to be seen using several keys and made it look like I had to try more than one to unlock the deadlock and the lock on the handle, to make it believable, so we made more than needed. We crafted them all differently, so they would look different on camera."
"If they saw you using the same foam key on all locks, they could then use the camera footage to claim you aren't human and that witchcraft must have been involved," said Sebastian.
"Precisely. We also intentionally broke a few keys in some locks. Their cell block was next to the hallway leading to the stairway giving on a back exit, so from that point, we went straight for it. I stood guard while Alejandro unscrewed the alarm sensors on the outside door, and he made sure the magnets would stay stuck together. Once outside, we told the coven to run to the road and which direction to go. We walked in the opposite direction and once out of camera range, we took off."
"Your plan was efficient, but thankfully they didn't move forward the execution time without warning," said High Mage Finnas.
"It took us 45 minutes to get out of there, which was longer than we were aiming for. We hoped the information we had on the night guards' routine was still valid and that they didn't have a different one that night. We figured the jail administration would review and analyze all camera footage when they noticed we escaped, so in front of every camera we stopped by along the way, we took a few seconds to wave and smile at it."
Sebastian, Emery and Sonylla chuckled.
"Had they come to our cells with a gun before we executed our plan," continued Coralis, glancing at Frank, "trust, they would have ended up fighting among themselves over an empty one."
"Your plan was well thought-out and keeping you isolated in their subbasement made it easier for you to escape. What would you have done if your sticks wouldn't have been in that storage room?" said Panjik.