Chapter 201 - Break in (2/2)
”Don't worry, the head had already stopped him when he came to know of it. It is just that the idiot had whipped the coastal guard and though he tried to reason with the guard to keep this quiet, he refused. So, he is in the prison for now. Anyway, the main reason for me to tell you this is to keep a lookout for a new job. I heard you know of a merchant in the city. It would be good if we can secure a job there. I don't see the young master, Dominic changing anything soon,” said the guard.
”Sure, will send a message. Thanks, brother,” said the patrolman as he went along with his patrols.
”That is the stupidest reason, I have ever seen for a quest. That is just lazy writing,” thought Balthazar as he began to observe the patrolman.
He moved to the back of the mansion in stealth and he got onto the wall from a tall tree. He found the prison to be a dilapidated stone building of two floors with a crumbling roof. There were no guards specifically on the prison but a pair of patrolmen who moved past its door frequently. ”The first floor is probably being used as a prison,” thought Balthazar.
He could see two option for entering the building. One was to pluck a key from one of the two patrolmen. He had to pickpocket these NPCs but there were all level 20 characters. It would be hard and very risky. If he failed to pick their pocket silently, he could quickly use the poison to put the guard down, but it would raise alarms and he knew that he wouldn't have enough time to get the recording done.
The second was to break into the prison through the second floor of the building. The building looked quite old and this seemed to be the less risky option. He had a rope which he had kept with him from the dungeon Bungar's Keep and he could use it with the piolets to have a way back to the second floor. He had handled far harder situations in real-life before, the only difference is had the tools to make infiltration simple and this time he had to go beyond old-school. He felt that it was downright primitive.
After some deliberation, he chose to go ahead with the second method. He made his way from the walls to the roof of the prison building in stealth. The roof was made of mud tiles with one quarter of it broken. He jumped down the broken room and found himself in the second floor of the building. It was filled with leaves stones and even a few critters were moving around the place.
He moved around the place and looked for a few minutes before he found a broken-down staircase. At the bottom of the stairs, there was a small locked iron gate which prevented entry into the actual prison. He could see the prison cells through the gate and realized that the stairs opened into one of the prison cells.
Most other occupation players would be stumped at this point, but this is a simple task for an assassin. Pickpocketing and lockpicking are the two most commons skills that they practice. The lock sprung open for Shadow on his first attempt and he got in.
He moved through the place in stealth as he observed the various people in the prison. Most of them were in tattered clothes and looked like they have been in the prison for a long time. Unlike the modern-day prisons, the prison in the game didn't have specific designed clothes for prisoners. So, he was sure that the guard could be recognized by his clothes.
He went around looking for the guard but didn't find him. The only place he didn't look was a solid iron door which was at a corner of the prison. Then, he remembered that the deacon inform him that there was a possibility of him being imprisoned in the lower regions of the prison. So, he went to the door and started trying to unlock it.
This door was harder to unlock but after a couple of tries, it opened. He made his way down and found himself in a bas.e.m.e.nt. There weren't any prisoners here. Only a few skeletons and dead bodies hanging from the a few chains. It was a dreary scene which made would make any one imprisoned there feel stifled due to the smell and the bodies.
He doubted that it would be where the guard was imprisoned but thinking of the guards' conversation that he overheard, he thought that it might be possible, if the town head wanted to silence him. He soon found a prisoner alive and in a cage about 4 feet tall. He was sitting slumped his back on the bars of the cage and wearing the uniform of the coastal guard missing his badge.
Shadow crept to him and got out of stealth. ”Hello, are you awake,” he asked tapping the guard with his daggers through the gaps between the bars of the cage. The coastal guard grunted before he slapped away Shadow's dagger.
”Aren't you a bit too early. Had your dinner early today?” mocked the coastal guard. ”I got nothing to tell you idiots. Have heard that the town head and his son are stupid, but this is the worst. I would suggest you to leave this place to find a new job.”
”I think you have misunderstood my intentions. I don't work for the town head,” said Shadow as he pointed to the badge pinned on his chest. ”I work for the temple and was sent to retrieve the supplies that haven't been delivered by you. I went to talk to the lieutenant Bloom who told us about you. After some investigation, I and the deacon came to know of your predicament. Though we can't do anything ourselves due to lack of proper military might, I hope that you could provide me with enough proof that you were imprisoned here,” explained Shadow as he took out the recorder.
”Do you have any token or something that would convince him or your capture. I doubt a video recording is enough for them to attack the town head,” said Shadow.
”I don't have any token. Even if I had, I wouldn't just give it to someone with a badge. I don't trust you enough,” said the coastal guard. ”Still I have been starving here and even if it is one of the town heads tricks, I am willing to give you a recording and something that will convince lieutenant Bloom.”
”There is a broken wooden box over there,” he said pointing to some rubble. ”That was the box containing the supplies. The son of the head broke it and took the merchandize and the note that I had from the lieutenant to the deacon, but there is supposed to be an inventory of the goods in the box which I am sure that he hadn't taken. You can provide that to lieutenant Bloom.”
Shadow quickly went to the rubble and after a minute of shuffling he found the piece of paper with the stamp of the coastal guard headquarters indicating the goods being transported. This was enough proof for him to convince the head that he had at least come into contact with the missing guard or had found out about reason for him to be missing. But it still would serve better as a proof against the town head if it was left here and found the inventory here after they raided the place. If the missing guard was moved, then there would be a lot of trouble to him from the town head and also from the coastal guard if they think that he was misleading them. So, after he took a recording of the place and the prisoner, he asked the missing guard about it.
”This would be better served as proof of their misdeeds if you were removed from this place by the time the lieutenant gets his men here,” said Shadow hoping that he would get some other piece of information.
”Stranger,” said the coastal guard. ”I don't trust you. I have other arrangements and the coastal guard will realize that I was held captive if they come here, but I am not going to inform of those things to a stranger. I only trust my brethren. Move ahead with a recording if you will, you won't get anything more from me.”
It was clear that he wouldn't get any more from the NPC and decided to make his way back. From the first words of the missing guard when he tapped him awake, there is a high chance that someone would come for him in a few minutes. So, he quickly got out of the place as he pulled the gates back into place and made his way out.