DF212 - Taxi Connection (Patreon)

“Wake up, boss. We got problems.”

Anton jerked awake. He was a light sleeper. Normally, he was able to be on his feet just seconds after he was awoken. Tonight, though, he found himself… tangled.

“What is it?” Suliel asked, from atop him.

“I’m not sure, but I saw something that looked a lot like Princess Elara all trussed up and slung over someone’s shoulder.”

Suliel slipped off of Anton, staring at something that wasn’t there.

“That does look like her,” she conceded. “Where was this?”

Anton tried to sit up, but Aris was still sleepily clinging to him.

“‘Nother five minutes,” she mumbled, “Unless you want to go again…”

“The smuggler’s tunnel underneath the castle,” Kelsey answered as Anton disentangled himself from Aris’s grasp. “I sent a guard to check on her room downstairs; he should be getting back to us in a bit.”

“The tunnel?” Anton asked, still getting up to speed. “I thought that was out of your influence?”

“I stop at the gate,” Kelsey agreed. “But I installed some security cameras to keep a lookout.”

“What’s a camera?” Anton asked.

“Something that lets her see outside,” Suliel answered. She tossed Anton’s shirt to him, and he snatched it out of the air.

“Thanks,” he said. “Pants?”

“Oh, I don’t think those are entirely necessary,” she replied with a giggle. Despite her words, she’d found them by the time he put his shirt on.

“So we’re checking her room… do we know who took her?”

“No one I know,” Kelsey replied.

“It was hard to make out,” Suliel said, “But I think it might have been the woman that Zaphar brought.”

“Calis?” Anton asked. Suliel nodded.

“Where are they now?” Anton asked as he put on his pants.

“Probably out of the tunnel by now,” Kelsey answered. “I moved fast, but I only noticed them when they went past… and it’s not such a long tunnel.”

“Could you have stopped them?”

“Only by sending out the ravening hordes… just checking, that’s still on the “don’t do” list, right?”

“Right,” Anton confirmed. “Thanks for not letting the hungry dead loose on my town.”

“It’s no problem,” Kelsey said with a shrug. “So, the tunnel leads out to that cave, and it’s low tide, so my guess is they’re on a boat now.”

“So, she was working for the Tiatians?” Suliel speculated. “They’re the ones with ships in the water.”

“We’ve got at least one ship in the water,” Kelsey said thoughtfully. “We’re pretty high up here…”

She moved over to the window and pulled out a boxy thing that hissed.

“Breaker, breaker,” she said. “This is Dark Master calling Blue Runner. Over.”

The box hissed.

“Do you really need to use those ridiculous phrases?” Suliel asked.

“It makes the magic work,” Kelsey said. The box hissed a few moments more before speaking with Tyla’s voice.

“This is… Blue Runner. I copy, though I’m not sure what. Over.”

“We think that someone has docked a boat at the smuggler’s cave,” Kelsey said. “Can you check it out? Over.”

“You do know it is dark right now?” Tyla asked.

“You can see in the dark, though, right? And you’re supposed to say over. Over.”

“I can, but can you say the same for the sailors on this boat? If they were using lights, we would have spotted them already. Over.”

“Maybe they can see in the dark, too? I don’t know,” Kelsey said. “Just check it out, would you? Over.”

“I don’t know where the smuggler’s cave is,” Tyla said. The volume of her voice dropped. “Do you know where the smuggler’s cave is?”

Her voice returned to normal. “We don’t know where the cave is. Over.”

Anton leaned closer. “It’s to the east of the harbour, about half a mile. Over.”

“Uh…” There was a pause, doubtless caused by Tyla consulting the phrasebook she had been given. “Roger that, Big Daddy.”

Anton glanced over at Kelsey, who had come up with all the terms.

“Well, you’re big, and you’re gonna be a father,” she said defensively. “I’m just thinking of the future.”

Anton just shook his head and gestured at the box.

“Right, so you can do that, Blue Runner? Over.” Kelsey asked.

“We can look… I am not keen on getting too close to the cliffs… and the cave is supposed to be difficult to see from the sea, is it not? Over.”

“Just look for a boat hanging around,” Kelsey said. “With or without lights. Over and out.”

“We should get downstairs,” Anton said. “Suliel, can you get Aris up and dressed? We’ll meet up at the study.”

Suliel nodded and started shaking Aris, who was still asleep, by the shoulder. “Wakey wakey, dear.”

Anton didn’t wait, but headed downstairs for his report.

*

“They’re both unconscious, but uninjured, sir,” Kered, one of the guards assigned to this shift, said. “Probably an alchemical potion.”

“Those aren’t easy to apply,” Anton noted. “And illegal besides.” He would have to have a word with the town alchemist and see if he’d provided Calis with anything.

As for the application, Anton recalled that the Thieftaker Class often received some variant of Bind Person. It was a powerful Trait, but limited in that it only worked on people, not animals or undead. Some versions only worked on criminals, which—as the Barony was in rebellion against the Crown—the entire town probably qualified as.

Reassured that his men would recover, Anton entered the Baron’s study. His study now, though he hadn’t made much use of it. All his correspondence thus far had been done on the dining room table, so his current tutor could look over his shoulder and correct him.

Calis hadn’t bothered closing the false panel at the back of the cabinet. Anton sighed at the sight. At least she didn’t seem to have rummaged through his papers.

“You want me to go first?” Kelsey asked, peering down the shaft. “I’ll shine a light for you.”

“Sure,” Anton said, suppressing the twinge he still felt at the thought of Kelsey leaving his presence. He turned to the corridor outside, where Suliel and Aris were approaching. Aris was wearing her armoured duster, and her guns were slung on her hip. Anton winced.

“I’m fine!” Aris said, correctly interpreting his expression. “I’m not even showing a bump, I haven’t suddenly turned into glass!”

“I’ll stay up here,” Suliel said. “I can start the investigations and have a check run on the rest of the guards. If there’s anything else going on tonight, we’ll be ready.”

“Good,” Anton said. That, at least, he could agree with. He looked at Aris. His every instinct screamed at him to keep her out of danger. Reason, and the memory of a very loud argument, told him he was being overprotective.

“Fine,” he said reluctantly. “I can use the help.”

Aris nodded firmly, pleased with the result, if not the process. “You can go first,” she conceded.

Anton looked down. Kelsey had made it to the bottom and was shining her torch up.

“All clear!” she shouted.

It might have made sense to bring some guards with them, but the three of them constituted about a quarter of the barony’s military strength. If there was a force down here that they couldn’t handle, a few Tier Two guards weren’t going to help.

“Looking good!” Kelsey commented as they passed her gate. She played the torchlight over the carved stone.

“Are you… admiring yourself?” Aris asked incredulously.

“Why not? I don’t get a lot of appreciation for my architecture. Look at this carving, how it stands out from the tunnel wall. It’s heavy and forboding, without resorting to edgy.”

“Is edgy bad?” Anton asked, without stopping to look at the features she was pointing out. He was fine with having the conversation, as long as it didn’t slow them down.

“Edgy is kinda the default when you’re an undead tomb,” Kelsey explained. “I have to work really hard to avoid it.”

“That doesn’t explain what it is,” Anton said. “Something about exposed blades?”

“Ugh, it’s hard to explain to someone who has actually killed people,” Kelsey complained. “It’s like… pretending to be the sort of person that kills people.”

“You do kill people, though,” Anton said. “And why would somebody pretend to be a killer? To scare people off?”

“No, to get laid.” Kelsey paused, trying to think about the rest of her answer, which gave Anton a chance to stare at her in disbelief. Pretending to be a murderer to get girls?

“And that’s the problem, really,” Kelsey mused. “My architecture tends to look edgy because I do kill people, and that’s what an Edgelord would want their castle to look like.”

“I… see,” Anton lied. There were Edgelords, now? He reminded himself that asking Kelsey for explanations never went well.

“I think we’re getting close to the cave,” Aris said, saving him.

Sure enough, the sound of crashing waves announced the end of the tunnel. The only thing stopping their exit was the iron gate. Calis seemed to have jammed the mechanism.

Anton glared at it before pulling the gate free and dropping it to the side.

“I’m going to have to seal this tunnel off, or replace the gate, or something,” he said.

“I can get some guys in. If my Avatar is here to control them, I can get some decent work done. An electrified gate with some more cameras, maybe. Or wall it all off. The real problem is the other branch, the one that leads into town.”

Anton nodded. He would have to do something about that. There was a secret way into his castle, and one of the entrances was in the middle of town, with no one to guard it.

“Anyway, is there any sign of a boat?”

“Just one,” Kelsey said, and pointed with her torch. The Whiskerwind was sitting about two hundred yards out to see, her engine idling as she slowly patrolled past the cliff. They saw Kelsey’s light, of course, and quickly adjusted course to take them closer.

“Any sign of them?” Anton called out when they got to within about thirty yards. It felt odd, shouting out of a smuggler's cave in the middle of the night, but this was his life, now.

Rather than answer immediately, the two figures on the aft deck consulted with each other. The one who had the wheel—Anton thought it was Cheia— shook her head, and the other one took a running jump.

That one was Tyla. Anton was reminded that she had the boots of jumping as she flew in a graceful arc all the way to the shore. She landed lightly on her feet and bowed.

“There have been no signs of other boats. The only lights are further out, and the moonlight is sufficient, we think, for us to have spotted any boats running without lights.”

“Then how did they get away?” Anton asked.

“May I borrow the light?” Tyla asked Kelsey. She handed the torch over with a shrug.

Tyla shone the torch on the cliff face, moving it methodically until she stopped and made a small, satisfied sound.

“Do you see?” she asked.

“See what?”

“A line of footholds,” Tyla replied. She moved the light slowly in a line, pointing out the similarly shaped holes. “And… here. The algae was scraped off recently.”

Anton couldn’t see the difference, but he took Tyla at her word. There was a path there, even if it was difficult and treacherous.

“You think that Calis took that path while carrying Elara?” he asked.

“You could do it,” Tyla answered.

“Well, sure.” Anton jumped up and let his Spider Climb attach his hand to the cliff face. The slippery algae didn’t seem to make much of a difference. “I didn’t know Calis was that capable.”

“She was Zaphar’s partner in crime,” Tyla offered. “She wouldn’t be useful to him if she weren’t capable. Where is he, by the way?”

“He’s out scouting.” Anton looked at the barely visible path, calculating how they would traverse it. “With any luck, we’ll run into him on our hunt.”