Eat And Grow 5 (1/2)

Lylandros never wanted much out of life. Just to become really famous and get all the ladies. A simple, straightforward dream. But that was then, and this is now. Thoughts of fame and fortune were so far removed from his consciousness that he questioned if he really had them in the first place.

“Oy, twiggy,” came a voice from outside his cell. “The cap’n will see you now.”

Lylandros meekly got up from the pile of hay that served as his bed for the night. Not like he could fall asleep anyway. His night terrors wouldn’t let him. The horrifying scenery of that girl he sort of liked exploding all over him was still fresh in his mind. He remembered it vividly like it was yesterday. Although that’s not really surprising considering that’s precisely when that happened.

He ambled over to the iron bars that made up his cell door and put his hands through a gap in the vertical bars. The guard on the other side then cuffed the elf’s wrists with solid iron shackles connected by a short, thick chain. Lylandros pulled his wrists back inside so that the guard can unlock and open the cell. He then roughly grabbed the shackled elf by the arm and almost literally dragged him off.

This all happened so smoothly and methodically, onlookers might have mistaken it for a well-rehearsed play. It was just that, like most small-time hoodlums, Lylandros was no stranger to being locked up. His captors would insult and manhandle him all the time, so this treatment was nothing new.

He was actually glad to be in here. It was safe and quiet. They even confiscated his soiled clothes and armor. The elf would probably never see those again, but that was undoubtedly a good thing for his peace of mind. Right now the only thing he was wearing were rough, ragged trousers that did little more than preserve his dignity. The brown cloth was so rough and riddled with holes that it wouldn’t be a surprise if these pants were sewn together from old potato sacks.

The armed guard roughly escorted him through the damp, rat-infested dungeon. About a dozen tiny jail cells much like his own dotted the dark corridor. Wall-mounted torches illuminated the thick walls made out of hewn stone. Intermittent cries from the other prisoners could be heard echoing around him. Lylandros and the jailer eventually reached the steep staircase that was the only way in or out of this depressing place. They climbed up out of the dungeon and into the keep proper.

The walls looked pretty much the same, but at least there were windows here. Lylandros was guided through several corridors, up some more steps and finally arrived at the office of the local guard captain. His escort rapped twice on the thick wooden door. After hearing the “Come in,” he opened it and dragged his prisoner inside. He then threw him roughly onto the floor.

“Hey, come on!” complained the captain. He was a slightly plump, balding man that was way past his prime. He stood up from behind the heavy desk in the middle of the room. “Don’t do that! You’ll stain the carpet!”

“Sorry, sir,” said the guard. “This one was rather violent yesterday, so I-”

“Enough! I don’t care! Just put him in the damn chair so I can interrogate him.”

The grunt replied with a simple “Yes, sir,” before picking up the scrawny elf by the armpit and putting him in the simple wooden chair next to the desk. The captain eyed the prisoner up and down. He looked like your typical hoodlum elf - lanky, hollowed out face and several scars from various stab wounds. He was certain he had whip tracks over his back as well, but that was unimportant.

This particular street rat had entered this city yesterday afternoon. Well, ‘entered’ was perhaps too strong a word. He ran up to the city gates covered in blood and started screaming something about explosions, brains and a ‘horrible monstrosity.’ Since he caused a disturbance and refused to calm down, the guards at the scene subdued and incarcerated him.

It was the same day that the big incident at the nearby dungeon complex was discovered. Captain Reeves knew better than to assume it a coincidence. Although it took some time for him to go through all the reports, his experience told him this elf and the disappearance of his patrol were somehow linked.

When the 5 man unit failed to report back on time, Reeves had sent in a contingent of 30 guards to look for them. And they had made several extremely worrying discoveries.

First they found four piles of clothed ashes. Former adventurers by the look of it. The dog-tags recovered from the remains revealed their names as well as which guild they belonged to. Using that information, the guards then learned these four were on their way to the Yellow Zone of the complex. That meant they weren’t total newbies and were between Level 5 and 10. Otherwise they would have stuck to the Green Zone or moved onto the Red Zone that went up to Level 15.

The second clue the investigation uncovered was on the way to the quarantined area of the Green Zone. The walls and floor of a particular tunnel were bathed in dried up blood. Dead monsters and their bodily fluids would be absorbed back into the dungeon as a form of mana recycling. This meant this particular blood came from those outside of the dungeon’s influence. And judging by the bloodied pieces of armor that had been discarded all over the place, it came from Reeves’s patrol.

The third and perhaps most worrying thing was that the quarantine itself had been breached. His guards brought back the circular portion of enchanted steel that had been neatly cut through. This degree of precision and power was way beyond everything the veteran officer had ever seen. The dwarf responsible for putting that grate together claimed it would take something that was well over Level 70 to make that sort of cut.

Or someone, Reeves thought to himself. Several high-leveled elven terrorists were still at large. This sort of sabotage was clearly within their abilities and lined up with their MO. He theorized they had heard about the appearance of a Sweeper and cut it loose to spread terror among the populace. The captain estimated the Sweeper itself was a threat between Level 20 and 30. If it were any weaker, it wouldn’t be able to kill that Necromancer or take down five of his guards at once. If it were any tougher, it would have broken through the steel grate with sheer force within days rather than two weeks later.

And now, this suspicious elf was in his office. His background check revealed he joined his guild as an initiate only recently. That was good enough reason to assume he wasn’t the one who sabotaged the quarantine. After all, things like adventurers ‘hiding their true powers’ was impossible. The organizations known as guilds had all their members undergo routine Appraisal inspections to track their growth and progress. If a Level 70 no-name appeared out of nowhere and offered to join a guild, it would cause a huge uproar. They definitely wouldn’t leave such a person as a mere initiate - doing so would be disrespectful to their more senior members.

Still, Lylandros’s guild refused to tell Reeves anything other than the elf’s rank within their organization. All guilds collected and recorded information concerning the Jobs, Attributes and Skills of all their members. However, that was kept strictly confidential. Requests to release that data to people like Reeves were reviewed on a case-by-case basis and usually declined. It wasn’t unheard of for adventurers to become criminals, but their guilds needed more than mere suspicion to comply with such demands.