Chapter 144 – Find the culprit
Brianna appeared out of Noah's mind realm as soon as their group reached the trees of a small forested area, bringing with her Dryad maid Zinnia and two sleeping giant spider monsters.
"You want us to ride that?" Croaked Kate, her voice suddenly betraying her.
"Oh, don't worry. These two are the most loyal ones. As long as Noah or I are nearby, they will not harm you." Said Brianna with a smile.
"So they will try to eat us if you two are not around?" Asked, Kate, however, only received a bright smile from Brianna.
As they talked, Zinnia woke up the two monsters that were slightly agitated finding themselves in an unknown area, but quickly calmed down seeing Brianna.
"Alright then." Said Brianna clapping to bring everyone's attention from two giant monsters that slowly picked themselves up from the ground and now stood on their spider legs above everyone's heads. "Kate and Danyella with me. Noah and Samantha on the second spider."
"Why do we separate?" Asked Kate worried.
"As I said. They will not harm you as long as one of us is with you." Answered Brianna with the same smile.
"Don't fret, Kate. They helped us too much to try to harm us now. And this is just a giant spider. We hunted them before."
"Yeah. In a team." Muttered Kate.
"Just get on it." Said Samantha annoyed.
Kate huffed out a heavy breath and carefully walked up to the spider at Brianna's side. She readied herself and was about to climb on it when something dawned on her. She looked back and saw Samantha watching her, still standing in the same spot away from her spider ride.
"Hold on. Why am I the first one to climb?" Asked Kate peering at Samantha that moved her eyes away in embarrassment. "Oh, you traitor. You just wanted to make sure that it's safe!"
"Khem." Coughed Samantha. "But it's safe right?" She said coming over and handing Danyella to Kate, then she turned and walked up to her own ride with no worry now that she was sure the spider would not attack, all the while feeling Kate's peering at silently, which brought a smile to her lips.
Noah and Brianna gazed at each other and smiled silently before climbing on the spiders after the girls.
"Ok. Hold on tight." Said Brianna and then the two giant monsters moved through the forest like a wind.
*****
"Doonpine, you damn bastard! You dare to go against me?!" Screamed the owl-masked person gazing at the treefolk looking back at him calmly.
"All I did was save your miserable life. But if you want to lose the time I gifted you, by yapping your mouth, don't blame me." Answered Doonpine.
"What are you talking about?" Asked the person in the owl mask, calming down just enough to listen.
"Don't you see? The dungeon core is almost depleted." Said Doonpine pointing at the barely shining crystal pillar in the center of the cave. Small cracks spread through the pillar, starting from the central crystal.
As the owl-masked person looked at the crystal he clenched his fist, anger returned to him in full force.
"What happened to it? Why is it not restoring when this bitch pours so much dark energy into it?" He asked, pointing at the barely alive woman kneeling on the ground with a tired look on her face. As soon as the owl-masked person saw that there was something wrong with a core, he ordered the enslaved dungeon master to pour her energy into it without stopping, but no matter how much she drained herself, the core kept cracking. Only after Doonpine made a hole in the ceiling, opening a wide hole for city guards to enter, did the cracks spread slow down.
"Creating an exit, I allowed the person responsible for core destruction to escape. Now that this person left the dungeon core is no longer drained at a crazy speed. But I was too late. The core is too damaged to function anymore. We have a day, maximum two before all energy within the dungeon disperses and walls will crumble."
"Someone did this? Why didn't you kill him?" Exclaimed an owl-masked person.
"Killing him at the spot would have taken just enough time to drain the dungeon. We would have been buried by the rubble before we get the chance to get out." Answered Doonpine calmly.
"Who? Show me!" Said Owl masked person with fury. Someone dared to ruin his plans?! He will pay! The whole dark association is his enemy now!
Doonpine lifted his hand and one branch bent and cracked creating a figure of a man. A clear face of Butler Vernon gazed at them from the wooden statue.
"That son of a bitch! He isn't just a servant! Who the hell is he? How did he do it? He must be working for someone. Could he be the government's dog?"
"That I am unaware of." Said, Doonpine.
"We don't have too much time. Are you going to stand here until city guards come?"
"What do you suggest? There is only one exit now."
"Unless we make another one. The walls are too weakened. I can break through them. If we make a hole, right there…" said Doonpine pointing at a corner of the room. "We will be able to escape to the sewers, and escape from the city before they reach the core."
"Tsk." Voiced an owl-masked person. "Fine. But don't fuck with me. Remember I hold both of your lives in my hands." He said, accentuating his words by raising two hands, one of which held an object looking like some wooden heart with vines instead of veines, pulsing with slow measured heartbeats; the other was a dark crystal from which dark ghostly tendrils spread in the direction of the kneeling woman but became transparent at some distance, becoming totally invisible when they reached her neck.
Doonpine only nodded before turning around and drilling his branch-like hand into the dungeon wall, creating a hole. Then the wood crept into the hole starting to widen it by crumbling rocks. Soon a wide hole that could fit a person was made in the dungeon wall. A few more moments later a long tunnel was carved through the shattered rocks of the dungeon wall.
After that, the treefolk beast moved to enter the hole followed by the owl-masked man and the woman that was picked up from her knees by other wraith-possessed assassins.
Once they exited, Doonpine crumbled the rocks closing the hole behind them and they walked through the sewers leaving behind the crumbling dungeon and abandoning everyone who was left inside.
"You two!" Said the owl-masked person turning to the group of wraiths and possessed assassin women that were left alive after the attack on the dungeon master. "Go and find this Vernon. Kill him at all cost!"
Two wraiths that were floating in the air with their host bodies left dead in the dungeon from a fight with Mother Wraith, went to the wall and seeped into stones, passing through the ground as if it did not exist. Physical objects were no obstacle to the pair of ghosts.
*****
Shades swirled in the corners of a bell tower of a church as a group of people covered in black attires morphed into existence from the dark corners. Four women that appeared out of the shadows, with their faces fully covered, safe for the eyes, walked up to the wide portals of the tower and gazed down at the commotion that was happening in the city dimly lit by the glowing orange sun.
A few streets away from the church that they hid in they could see the Holywell street surrounded by the platoons of knights and a huge tree branch breaking through the paved road, opening a gaping hole in the ground that now became the new entrance to the Black Market dungeon. A few more streets away from that spot they saw broken roads with wide cracks splitting them like some kind of roots. These cracks spread over the roads and to the walls of the tilted houses that were on the verge of collapsing as if the ground underneath that street started to sink down, threatening to swallow them whole.
The sun had almost completely set, elongating the shadows over the streets, yet it was still unnaturally lively outside. Unlike any other day, crowds of people continued to loudly move through the city in the evening gloom. Even though the disaster occurred in the middle of the day, the city guards still continued to evacuate the citizens from the areas with a threat of collapse, their work was slowed down by many disputes with richly dressed people that did not want to leave their belongings behind and clogged the streets slowing the evacuation to a snail pace. Even in the face of crisis merchants put their wares above the lives of others.
Just as the women gazed at the scene of the disaster in the distance, one of the houses made a wide cracking sound and collapsed in a huge cloud of dust. As its bricks hit the ground, sending a quake through the ground, a domino effect began with one building after another starting to break apart and fall down. However, that was not the end of it, as the ground itself began to sink further down and soon the whole street sank down with a thunder-like rumble and a huge cloud of dust. Luckily the whole street was already evacuated by the city guards that reacted to this disaster with unnatural quickness when the disaster just happened.
As the cloud of dust finally settled clearing the view, the four women saw a wide hole in place of a street that was there just a few moments ago. The whole street just vanished in a pit as the dungeon's cavern that was underneath it collapsed under the weight of the ground.
"What the hell is going on?" Asked one of the shadow squad women. "How could a dungeon suddenly collapse like that? There were no signs."
"I have no idea." Said another woman. "The dungeon must have been dried out somehow."
"Strange coincidence, it happening today of all days." Said another woman.
"If it is a coincidence at all." Said another woman as a new shade swirled morphing into a fifth woman, making the other four women turn to look at her.
"So what's the orders, cap?" Said one of the four women looking at their team's leader.
"On Her Holiness' orders, we are to stay in the city and find out as much information as possible. Find the culprit and who is connected to this and how this happened. She also does not believe that this disaster is coincidental. She suspects that the culprit that broke her divinity class magic could be responsible. Find all the leads on his identity and information on the ability he holds."
"What about the targets that we lost?" Asked another woman.
Shadow squad captain sighed.
"We would have to find the leads on our own. The targets are somehow connected with the being that broke Saintess' divinity magic, so the risk of it warding off her divine search spell is high. She might simply waste divine skill for nothing and she is wary of wasting it again as there are more pressing matters right now. All her attention is on the coming war with the demon realm."
"Damn. Finding any leads with our shadow search in this kind of fucked up situation is like searching a needle in a haystack." Said one of the shadow women pointing at the scene outside.
"I know." Answered the captain. "We might be able to find something if we rely on that Royal Investigator's skill. His ability of truth search is above ours. We will split up. One team spy on the investigation they are conducting, and the second will conduct our own investigation. This church will be our base for now. I have discussed it with the bishop here. We will be provided with the living space among the nun monastic cells under the cover of visiting nuns."
"Tsk. Pretending as nuns again." Said one of the women as they all started to untie the ribbons on their clothes changing the styles of the dresses and taking off the face covers. A few minutes later there were five nuns in clerical clothes, only black clothes. With a bit of magic manipulation, their clothes quickly changed color making them white, the five women now looking no different from any other church cleric.
"Let's go." Said the team captain, making sure everyone looked good.