About ten minutes after their encounter with Weincliff and Grimmel, Elaine, Evan, and Fenix arrived at the Cathedral of E’daga. Its stark grey walls rose high above the rest of the city, and its twelve ash-colored spires looked ominous against the pale moonlight. Colorful stained glass windows featuring priests of that God’s order shone brightly in the light of the moons, and a bell tower could be seen with a single figure inside keeping watch over the city walls for any danger.
“Well, if this isn’t the place we’ll just have to ring the bell and see if the E’daga himself will show us the way,” said Evan. Fenix offered a light chuckle and Elaine frowned. She wasn’t in the mood for jokes after what had happened earlier.
“Let’s just get this over with,” she whispered. “Where’s the entrance? We can’t exactly waltz in through the front door.”
Evan knelt down and looked around for good measure. “I believe the point of a secret base,” he said as he dusted away some of the dirt to reveal a barely noticeable trapdoor beneath their feet, “is to ensure that no one can find it easily.”
“Well, there’s your entrance,” said Fenix.
“Actually it’s an exit in case of emergencies if my intel is correct, and nobody has needed to use it for a long time. It should be the perfect path toward the inner chambers” added Evan with a smug knowing smile. Elaine scoffed, nodded, and opened the door slowly. The old rusted hinge only let out a small squeak as they hefted the heavy door open enough to climb in. A shower of dirt fell into the entryway atop a flight of descending stairs that awaited them inside, and the three quickly headed down it.
Guided by Evan and the intel he had gathered during the last few weeks, they traveled through numerous twisting corridors cloaked in darkness. Indeed, just as Evan had said, it appeared as though nobody had used this pathway for a long time given how silent and dank it was. Eventually, though, they came upon a torchlit room with two guards barring the way to another door.
Keeping to the shadows, Elaine fired off a spell that created wind blades too tiny for the eye to see. The throats of the guards burst open and their blood poured out in torrents before the two collapsed and hit the ground.
“Excellent, two down! You’re as stealthy as ever,” said Fenix with a proud smile. “Now grab those robes before they get too messy! We might need them!” Elaine and Evan grabbed them and Evan used a spell to remove the blood that had already soaked into them. After that, Elaine looked around curious about how to advance from here.
“What now Master?” she asked, breaking the silence around their group. “Do we continue through this door? Or do we find another way around?” Fenix paused for a second and thought about it, then turned to Evan and the two consulted about it momentarily.
“We’ll wait here,” began Fenix, “Chances are good that they’ll send in guards to take the place of the other two eventually. For now, we’ll stand watch and pretend to be guards ourselves.” Elaine nodded, but she frowned as she did so. Fenix knew what he was doing, and both of them trusted Evan’s intel. He might be rather new to the Radiant Corps, but he was still quite skilled and had proven himself trustworthy.
He had assisted them in many missions over the course of the last year and his information-gathering skills had never once failed them. Perhaps in another life, Elaine might not have found him so annoying but alas, as it was she could barely stand him.
Elaine and Fenix put on the robes of the fallen Order members, and while Evan hid his small frame inside the robes of Fenix, Fenix himself stored the two dead bodies inside his Ring. After about an hour of nothing but the steady dripping sounds of water in the distance, Elaine began to grow impatient. Each second that ticked by led them closer and closer to failure or discovery.
As they waited, however, Fenix had begun using his peculiar infiltration spell. She didn’t understand the mechanics of it, nor where he had learned it, but from what he had told her he was able to send his soul from his body and into the area around him. He could even possess people for small amounts of time with them having no memory of the event.
That alone was impressive, as it was far beyond the normal spells of possession that most Conductors knew about and it was far different than simple astral projection as well. As far as she could tell, it was somewhere in between those two abilities. Fenix stood there in a deep trance and Elaine knew that he was checking out the area ahead of them, and finding out anything that would help them in their mission.
Minutes passed, and he finally returned to himself. He shuddered and shook his head as if about to sneeze. Then he turned to Elaine and said, “Two guards are heading this way now, so I didn’t have much time to scout ahead. As far as I can tell, this door leads to another corridor and empties out into a massive central room.
“I couldn’t tell for certain, but I’m sure I felt the presence of several Conductors in there. This has to be what we’re looking for, so we’ll proceed as planned. Shit, here they come! Hoods up! Let me handle this!” he said, clearing his throat and flipping his own hood up to cover his face. Elaine followed suit, and Evan remained as still as possible, ready to move with Fenix.
Just as he had said, two guards came through the door a moment later, right as Elaine had lowered the hood of her robes. The two were utterly oblivious to the danger that now faced them and Elaine readied herself to attack a moment’s notice if need be.
“Alright, Burke, Riles, time’s up. You two can head back in,” said one of the new Order members.
“Under whose authority?” returned Fenix in a gruff raspy voice.
“Lieutenant Aylynah,” said the second member, apparently not noticing what must have been a difference between Fenix’s voice and the now-dead Order members.
“I wasn’t aware that Lieutenant Aylynah was in charge of the guard rotations, has something changed?” replied Fenix.
“She’s not, Admin Zeznik is,” returned the slightly annoyed guard.
“Why the deception?” asked Fenix,
“Riles you fucking moron,” began the guard on the right, “It’s because that dickweed of a King is going to send in troops to wipe us out, we have to make sure their scouts don’t infiltrate our hideout, and only they wouldn’t know who set the rotations.”
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were a spy yourself. But you and Burke are too fucking stupid to pull off something like that. Now, hurry up and go, we don’t have all night you know, and we have our orders!” finished the guard on the left.
At that, the two groups went their separate ways. Elaine, Evan, and Fenix went through the door, and the guards moved to their posts. The heavy oak door slammed shut behind them and they could hear the two new guards laughing and mocking Burke and Riles through the door.
“Master, why didn’t we just kill them? And what was with that conversation? How did you know all of that? It wasn’t in the intel was it?” asked Elaine.
“Because,” began Fenix, “killing them severed no purpose at the moment. As for the conversation, well, I know Aylynah, she wouldn’t bother with something so menial as guard rotations. I needed information, though they weren’t very helpful in that regard.”
Fenix was as calm as always, and Elaine decided to leave it at that. Fenix always knew what he was doing, and this time was clearly no different.
