Chapter 135 – Escape plan
"What's wrong?" Asked one of the guards, seeing the lead servant's strange expression on his face after pressing his hands to the password panel.
"Elevator. It's downstairs. Someone went to the vault." Said the servant and guards looked at each other questioningly. "Master forbids anyone to go there while we have an event."
"Move back." Said the senior guard nodding to the others and they all grabbed their weapons coming forward to the elevator door.
When the elevator doors opened and they saw that there was no one inside they sighed with relief, but did not put their weapons away, entering inside still on guard.
"Let's go." Said the guard as the group piled inside, instructing the lead servant to send them down.
After a short tense ride, the elevator stopped making a soft ding sound and a guard pushed the door open gazing into the room in front of the vault.
The guard looked at the opened vault door and guards standing at attention at the sides with creased eyebrows before their group slowly left the elevator.
"What's going on? Why is the vault open?" Asked the senior guard, gazing at the vault door guards.
The two door guards outside the safe room looked at each other shrugging.
"Butler Vernon came in just before you. Said he need to check one of the lots on Masters order." Said the door guards with a shrug
"What the fuck are you on about? We just met Butler Vernon upstairs in the mansion, he was looking for the madam." Said the guard of the porter group as they walked up to the door.
"What? Then, who's in the Vault?" Asked the door guard with a shocked face.
"Quickly, stop him!" Barked the senior guard with worry. "You lot stay here." He ordered the porter team servants and then he and his team of guards rushed into the vault followed by the three vault door guards.
They rushed through the tunnel of the vault until they saw the back of the butler in front of them.
"You! Stop where you are!" Commanded the senior guard pointing his sword at the butler.
"What's going on here?" Asked Butler Vernon with a strict voice looking at the weapons pointed at him.
"Who the fuck are you?!" Roared the senior guard.
"Are you mad? Don't you recognize me?" Asked butler Vernon stepping closer to the guards.
"Shut up! We just met Butler Vernon upstairs. Be careful people, this guy is an imposter!" Said the senior guard
"What the hell are you on about? Are you crazy?" Roared back at him butler Vernon then looked at the door guards. "You! You just contacted the Master and he confirmed that I would come here for an inspection. Contact master again, let him confirm my identity."
"He is right. Master approved his access. I will contact the Master to confirm his identity again, " said the door guard taking out the communication device.
The senior guard looked at the two people conversing, feeling strange about how they led him on with their conversation. Something irked him in their behavior.
"Yes! Contact the housemaster while you lot, please look at this light." Said butler Vernon and a bright white flash blinded the four porter team's guards. For a moment their eyes glazed and they stood staring into space as if they were sleepwalking.
"See?" Said butler Vernon a second after the bright white light hit the guards. "Master confirmed my identity. The other man you met must be an imposter."
"Oh? Umm…yeah…I am sorry…sir." Said the senior guard as he came to his senses before others and shook his head trying to clear his muddle head, while other guards still stood blinking with dumbfounded faces.
"You need to go capture that other guy, that disguised as me. I will stay here so that you would not mistake us again." Suggested Butler Vernon implanting a new idea into the muddle-headed guard's brains.
The senior guard looked around with a puzzled expression but did not move. As he studied his surroundings his gaze stopped at the door guard that held a communication device to make a report to the housemaster. He could not place his thoughts in words, but something irked him in this strange situation.
Butler Vernon watched him with squinted eyes seeing the strange expression of the senior guard and then glanced at the door guard before behind the senior guard and gave a quick signal with his eyes.
"What is it? Why are you just standing there? Get moving, we must capture an imposter." Said butler Vernon hurrying the senior guard.
"No...it's just…since when are you the one carrying a communication device?" Asked the senior guard with confusion. "The other guy should hold it and where's the fourth door guard? There's only three of you here," he said, still slurring his words a bit. Then his eyes bulged with realization, but a second later sword pierced his chest as Samantha disguised as the door guard stabbed him through the back, her skills allowing her sword to penetrate through the overly pompous, but poor in protection armor of the guard as easy as cutting through butter.
"Son of a …" Roared another guard coming to his senses from the shock, but was hit with a fire arrow spell sent from another door guard right in the neck and fell to his knees suffocating with his face full of surprise and terror. The third and fourth guards had their heads pierced from behind by two beams that were followed by two whooping sounds coming from the third door guard that the puppet was disguised as, finally ending all four guards within seconds.
"Your skill failed?" Asked Samantha, turning to look at butler Vernon in her door guard disguise after wiping her sword on the dead senior guard's clothes and putting it back into the scabbard
"His level was too high to confuse him well." Answered Noah.
"I see." She said, nodding. "So this memory-wiping skill of yours, it would not be effective on us?"
"Yeah. Your level is a lot higher than this guards so…"
"Too bad," said Samantha with disappointment in her voice.
"Why?" Asked Noah with confusion.
"I was hoping you could erase Dany's memories." She said and turned away, walking in the direction of a cell behind Noah, where Dannyela lay unconscious.
"I am sorry. I can't help with that." Said Noah quietly. He saw what was done to Samantha's friend while she was in captivity. He already thought about this. Dannyela had been tortured for days. But even spending all the mana he had, he could at most erase an hour or two of her memories, which would not help much. Maybe if they used mindbreak, but…that would need much time for preparation. Right now he was powerless to help her.
As Samantha picked unconscious Dany into her hands Noah stored the corpses of the guards into his storage dimension, before walking up to the lizardman's cell.
"If you want to save that mermaid, then you will have to do what I tell you." Said Noah looking at the huge frame bound with chains.
"I swear! Please help me save my lady!" Growled lizardman in his beastly voice.
Noah touched the door with his hand clad in dark corrupting energy and destroyed the lock in just a few seconds, surprising the lizardman and Kate that watched his actions from the side.
Noah entered the cell and corrupted the chain link that locked the lizardman's bounds to the wall.
Lizardman stretched his hands forward asking to unlock the chains on his hands as well but Noah shook his head.
"These stays. It will look too conspicuous if you are not chained."
Lizardman thought for a moment and nodded at him silently.
Then Noah turned to the side gazing at another cell where a gorgeous elf woman gazed at him silently, carefully watching his every move.
Without thinking too long Noah walked over to her cell and degraded the bars entering the cell while staring into her eyes.
"If you allow me, My Lady, I would free you from the bounds." Said Noah without making a move to approach her.
"What price would follow your assistance, human." Asked the elf woman gazing into his eyes reading his every expression.
"I would only ask to not make any ruckus that would endanger our escape plan untill we leave this building."
"That is acceptable. You wont notice my existence. However I do not intent to assist you in your plan. As soon as we get outside, I will get out on my own."
"Alright." Said Noah and walked up to her before carefully reaching to her chains and touching them with his fingers under the elf woman's careful gaze.
A few moments later her chains crumbled freeing the woman and as soon as she was freed she waved her hand and her figure dissolved making her transparent. In a moment she disappeared entirely. What shocked Noah however was that her dot went very faint on his minimap almost disappearing entirely.
Noah gazed into void space where an elf woman stood a few moments ago in surprise before finally getting hold of himself and turned around to gaze at his team.
"Alright, let's go. We don't have much time. The porter team should return soon or it will raise suspicion." Said Noah turning to look at Kate and Samantha.
They walked back to the vault's huge door where they saw Dahlia sitting on the cart with long twines full of leaves spreading from her head like roots toward the ground instead of hair. These twines spread around the floor and Noah could see the bodies of servants among the leaves laying with their eyes closed, but breathing steadily as if they were in a deep sleep.
"You done?" Asked Noah as Dahlia turned to look at him with her emerald green eyes. Her appearance was no longer as human as he used to see the three Dryad sisters. Her face had a green tint and brown root-like patterns spreading across her cheeks like some kind of tattoo reaching her eyebrows and running to her forehead turning to bark-like horns. Lush buds of dahlia flowers with large leaves were covering her temples and the spot where her bark-like horns grew from. Her puffy lips were awash with different bright colors. She looked magical, scary, and dangerous, but also as Noah noticed incredibly sexy.
Samantha and Kate made sharp intakes of air from seeing her appearance, either agitated or intimidated by it, as Dahlia concluded. Yet when she gazed at Noah she saw in him only curiosity as he studied her appearance with interest.
"Yes. I broke into their minds." She answered with a melodious bewitching voice that spread over the room like a song. "They are fully under my control now." She added standing up from the cart. Her legs Noah noticed looked like thick sprouts rather than flesh, yet still look as if they were muscular…and curvy in the hips.
/No, no! What am I thinking?/ Shook his head Noah felt a slight blush coming to his cheeks and was happy that his second skin illusion hid it from everyone.
/She does look thick, not gonna lie,/ said Ugy in his head. /We should taste the honey from that flower bud…/ he managed to say before a strange sound of /ghabaagh/ came out as the last thing he uttered before going silent, no doubt being interrupted by the jealous Nightmare Spider girl's smack.
"Good. How well can they function while under your spell?" Asked Noah aloud.
"They will be just as usual, only very obedient." Answered Dahlia gazing into Noah's eyes as if she saw through his thoughts before turning away and turning back to her more human-like appearance.
"Thank you for your assistance as well, Mr. Purrils." Said Noah looking at the cat monster.
Mr. Purrils just shrugged slightly as if it was no big deal. All he did was help Dahlia hide in the shadow of the room, covering her and himself with black mist and ambushing the servants when they stayed behind unguarded.
"Alright, wake them up then, Dahlia." Said Noah turning to the dryad and a few moments later all servants stood up from the floor in silence with their faces totally emotionless. "Let them gather the lot's that they came for." Said Noah nodding satisfied with Dahlia's hypnosis skill, and servants silently moved toward the vault with a carriage.
"So what's the plan?" Asked Kate.
"We will walk out of here under the disguise of the porter team and find a way for you three to sneak away. I and Brianna will take over from there and shuttle back and forth a few more times to buy time for you to get as far away as you can. We will regroup at the warehouse where we met Theron. Right now it is empty and will serve as a safe gathering place."
"You sure we would not be seen through with this disguise?" Asked Samantha, lifting her hand while gazing at a small round metallic medallion-like looking object that she held.
"As long as no one touches your face, no one will see through your disguise. It's not only changing your face and voice but even your smell, so even a werewolf would not see through it." Said, Noah.
"Holy crap. This thing is awesome. I thought you were messing with me when you explained it earlier, but it really can change appearance and voice so well. If it can also change the smell, then this is just too incredible. What kind of artifact is that?" Asked Kate, holding a similar round metal object in her hand as well. "I don't feel any magic energy from it, yet it gives such a miracle-like ability. Where did you get it? How does it work?" She rattled with questions as her magic theory interest was piqued.
Mr. Purrils glanced at the round objects in Kate's and Samantha's hands but did not comment on it. The only thing that gave out his interest was that his cat ears perked up listening attentively.
There was a similar object in his village inside the dungeon that he came from. The very same that he got from Noah when they met at the ball in the Vespertine mansion a few days ago. Just like them, at first, he thought this was some kind of joke when he did not feel any magic energy from it but was taught otherwise shortly after when the highest-rank spider monster - Arachna named Priscilla suddenly appeared in the middle of their village scarring their whole clan shitless. So he carefully listened to what Noah would answer while pretending to be uninterested. He knew that Priscilla used that object to appear inside their village, but now this same object showed absolutely different abilities. Could an artifact really be enchanted with so many abilities? At least he never heard of anything similar.
"It's not an artifact." Said Noah scratching his cheek and surprising everyone. "It's an enchanted object that allows me to use my skill over a distance. It's just a lump of metal as long as I don't use my skill on it."
A few days ago, when he discussed his abilities with Tessa and the girls back at the Threadweaver mansion, they came up with an idea to use his newest skill "Establishing connection" on an object and see what he could do with it. Which resulted in the creation of this medallion-like object.
At first, he found out that his skill quickly "evaporated" from an object, making him lose connection with it after a short time, however, with Tessa's boundless knowledge of magic theory they quickly found the cause of that problem and how to solve it.
The solution was quite simple. They needed a material that could accumulate a magic power and then coat it with another material that would resist that magic power's dispersion. Luckily Tessa had a few magic crystals and a tungsten rod in her craft room, which allowed her to create a few experimental objects just before they went to the ball organized for the girls by their aunt Cassandra. They were pressed for time with the preparation at that time, so Noah was not able to experiment on it much before throwing a few prototypes in his item pocket and going to the ball with the girls.
However, when he spied on Mr. Purrils at the ball, Noah suddenly had an inspiration, and gifted him one of these objects, partly as a simple experiment to see if he could use it later as a way to teleport into a dungeon where Black Mist Cat clan lived and partly out of pity. Back then he listened to the problem that Mr.Purrils begged everyone to help him with and decided that he might be of help to him if this object performed as wanted.
With the combination of his skills: "establishing connection", "he who lives in dreams" and "he who hears the call", Noah gained an almost miraculous ability to teleport through the dream realm toward the object that he connected to.
This was the first idea he had back home and he only experimented with teleporting toward the object. But a few minutes ago he realized that this was not the only use this object had. Having an established connection with that object allowed him to use a second skin illusion on anyone that touched it with their skin, changing their appearance just as he changed his own.
This allowed Samantha and Kate to disguise themselves as the gate guards tricking the porter team guards enough to ambush them without giving them a chance to raise an alarm.
The only catch was that, his skill could only change appearance, not the clothes people wore, so in his hurry to explain his plan to the girls he forgot tactfulness, resulting in a mishap where he ordered them to strip and earned himself a few slaps.
At that time there was no time to close back the vault door as it moved quite slowly and they had no password to open it as well. So they had to find an excuse for why the door was open. He decided to trick the guards into that he had master's approval to be there, just as he tricked the door guards. Only he needed to separate the group as trying to trick the whole group would be too taxing for him.
With his homework folder that could store anything, Noah could instantly put away the corpses into his storage and strip them off their armor and clothes in an instant. But girls would have to undress and change clothes quickly enough before the elevator went up and down bringing the team of guards, that would raise an alarm as soon as they saw the enemy. All these thoughts swirled in Noah's head in an instant and he had no time to explain his plan well, resulting in him simply saying "strip" out of nowhere.
Luckily his own disguise also hid the two burning red slap marks on both cheeks.
Well, it sounded like a solid plan if only not for the fact that guards met the real butler Vernon just before coming here and the senior guard's resistance to confusion ruining it.
"I see, " Said Kate. "So as long as we have this in our hands you can use your skills on us even if we are far away from you?"
"Well, more or less." Answered Noah.
"Is this how you found us in the forest?" She asked gazing at Noah with squinted eyes.
"No. That…was a bit different." Said Noah not wanting to dwell too much on the topic. He did not want to give out too much information about his skills. Samantha knew him as a tamer and that's the story he was sticking with.
Making Dahlia, Mr.Purrils, and Brianna appear aligned with this cover quite well as they were all non-humans so he could explain their appearance with a summoning skill. All other strangeness of his abilities would be putting that cover under suspicion.
He also did not mention that as they touched the object with which he has established a connection, he could peek into their system status screen, allowing him to see their levels, professions, skill list, and ability level.
Basically, he knew their topmost secrets, from their weaknesses to their exact hips and breast size.
And why did the system screen have to be so detailed? Well, it was something that no one other than the owner of that screen would see. So no one ever questioned it. After all that screen was absolutely private…or at least it should have been this way until they touched the thing that both women held in their hands with quizzical expressions while studying it.
Damn, his Ugly bastard system gained more and more ways to intrude on people's privacy, breaking all the norms of this world.
/Hold on. Could it be that this side effect is intentional?/ Suddenly wondered, Noah. /Who am I kidding here? Of course, it was intentional./ Concluded Noah with a sight. Even if Ugy, who very suspiciously kept silent at the moment, would swear he had nothing to do with it, Noah was not going to believe it. Somehow this side effect was too good to be a coincidence.
"You said we are going to slip out alone? What about you?" Asked, Samantha. Was it a slight worry in her voice that Noah and Kate heard?
"I have a way to slip away unnoticed. You don't have to worry about me. If everything goes well I will be at the warehouse before you." Reassured Noah with a confident voice, so Samantha only nodded without questioning him any further.
"Alright, I get how we are getting out of this mansion, but what about the dungeon itself? Once the alarm is raised the exits will be blocked right?" Asked Kate thoughtfully.
"We will wait in the warehouse until the panic begins and slip out of the dungeon with the crowd. Then go after your friend Lilly and that son of a bitch Theron and his cronies."
"They are not in the dungeon?" Asked Samantha with surprise and a slight panic in her voice.
"No. They left shortly after unloading the two of you in the warehouse." Answered Noah.
"But you know where they are?" Asked Samantha hopefully.
"Yes. They are traveling somewhere south of the city. I am spying on them with my skill. She is alright no one hurt her. You don't have to worry." Reassured her Noah, seeing the worry in her eyes.
"Wait, did you say there will be panic in the dungeon?" Asked Kate, raising her eyebrow in a questioning expression.
"Yeah. To get out of the dungeon we would need a huge diversion. So I will create a dungeon break." Said Noah making Samantha's and Kate's eyes go wide with shock.