Everlast Online

25: Breaking In (1)

The plan was simple, Liz and Nina would sneak into the trading firm after knocking out all of the guards.

Kill the unconscious guards to increase their levels.

Find all the information they need and escape.

"Okay, how are we going to be unaffected by the gas?" Nina questioned, the answer was quite simple.

"Here, take this and chew on it slowly before swallowing." Liz handed over a stalk with quite pointy leaves on it, it was a deep red colour, "It's a plant with a potent energising effect, it'll stave off the effects of the brain fog potion."

Liz didn't need one as sleep inducing items were ones resisted by the undead as 'minor mental interference' or something of the sort. 

The 2 were perfectly prepared to undergo this mission.

"Off we go then!" Liz said, downing one of her Chameleon potions and heading to the door Nina had recommended on her inspection of the building. Thankfully Nina had relayed all of the information back to Liz so she knew pretty much what to expect.

Within the building there were 3 entrances:

The front entrance that serves to allow entry to customers. It is located right in the middle of the street and so would be far too open when Nina attempted to pick the locksThe back entrance that was primarily used by the staff. This door led into a breakroom, a breakroom which also served for the guards; hence not the best idea to break in there.And finally, the cellar door that leads into the basement. This was where Nina decided to enter through, it only led into a storeroom she had noticed on her first time looking through the building, minimal guards; but also gave access to the ventilation system: The perfect place to start the attack.

Liz was going in very bare bones, most of her undead were spread out through the city so that they could act as distraction later, and so to make her look invincible during a fight. If needed she could summon them at will, but she felt her plan was well thought enough that they wouldn't be necessary.

"Okay... I got it." Nina whispered before activating her stealth, after having broken into the gang safe she had massively improved her [Lock Picking] skill, making a simple cellar door an easy job.

Thanks to the quality of the building, there was no creak as the door was opened despite the door seeming very neglected, allowing an invisible Nina and a transparent Liz to make their way into the basement.

There were no guards waiting at the bottom of the stair and the room had stacks of crates that made for perfect hiding places.

[Nina: vents this way]

(A/N: Same party, can tell each other's position)

Liz followed Smokey as she made her way behind the stacks of boxes, taking the stealth very seriously.

Nina pulled Liz against a box as 2 men with short swords walked past. It was tense, Liz thankful she didn't have any breathing to stifle, she had very little utility in this situation and desperately needed to get to the vent to utilise the gases.

Kinda wishing I picked #6 in these kinds of situations. Liz complained to herself.

The men found nothing and made their way past the 2 girls quickly, allowing Nina and Liz to reach the vent opening that would allow them to fill the entire building with the Brain Fog gas. Strangely [Lock Picking] also allowed for Nina to remove the cover of the vent so that Nina could place 5 of her vials inside.

"You got the plant?" Liz said, looking over to Nina.

"Go for it." Nina placed the red plant and chewed through the pain, feeling a wave of energy wash over her, some kind of sap or juice coming from the leaves.

Liz nodded and used her miniscule strength to shatter the 5 vials that then released a large amount of gas into the ventilation system.

(A/N: I do not know how ventilation systems work, assume what I explained is correct in this world)

"Good, now we need to take care of the people in the basement." Nina said, there was very little ventilation in the basement, judging by the amount of windows they were likely meant to act as ventilation, even if you couldn't see through them.

"Understood." Liz nodded and began making her way through the floor. She had made many [Brain Fog Potions] and could quickly take out the guards she came across, her potion wasn't exceptionally potent, but there was little the guards could do to stop it as she was the first one to use the specific 'sleep inducing' plant she had in this way; so, while not especially potent the guards could not prevent it from taking them out.

Nina was following a similar strategy, glad that Liz had given her a number of the gas potions. Each of the guards travelled in pairs and were all above level 55, without these potions Nina would seriously struggle to take out both guards as they patrolled in pairs throughout the basement.

In total, Nina and Liz took 4 guards each, coming to 8 for the basement.

"That should be enough time for the entire place to be put to sleep." Liz said, having met up with Nina again, "Let's go."

The girls made their way up stairs and saw that the plan had worked excellently well, many guards were asleep on just the 1st floor; a trend that followed on the 2nd and 3rd floors.

Liz became level 67 while Nina rose all the way to level 54, getting the [Innocent Persona (1) (B+)] skill. She felt that the skill was strange, that while fitting with the thief motif, felt like it had been influenced by the skill Liz had given her, [Decoy] in that they were both very useful and potentially powerful illusion abilities.

[Innocent Persona (1) (B+): Create an illusory cover to alter what people see when they look at you (more ↓)]

This was also Nina's first time getting a skill with more available information, she was even surprised at gaining a B-rank skill at level 50 until Liz told her that every fifty levels you would gain a more powerful ability. Nina decided to look at the (more) tab as Liz finished off her half of the unconscious guards with one of the soldiers she had summoned.

[Innocent Persona (1) (B+)]

[Use light magic to create an illusory barrier around yourself][Barrier will change what other people see when they look at you][Illusion drains mana with use][Quality of illusion scales with skill level and INT][Illusion grants NO physical differences][Illusion can only cover you, it will not make you invisible]<Illusionary barrier is not copied by the skill [Decoy]>

"This synergises well with decoy..." Nina muttered to herself. With her skill Nina could run behind something, then activate both of her abilities to completely throw people off as her pursuers followed the decoy while not even suspecting the, now covered, Nina.

She and Liz began looking for information they could steal. Liz really just looked around everywhere, but Nina was following a hunch from her [Thief's Instinct] skill, she was in her element here. This led her to a locked door on the 3rd floor.

Nina got to work but it was quite a difficult lock to get passed, but when she did it opened up into an office. One with an incredibly nice desk, but also a very fat and very conscious person sitting at it; one staring straight back at Nina.

[Jarrien Gaul (49) (NPC)]

Nina didn't wait for even a moment before throwing one of her arrows at the man.

Shit I need more potions. She thought, rushing forward as the man had not been instantly killed, though there was now an arrow in his shoulder.

[Nina: live one 3rd floor]

[Smokey: understood]

Nina understood that the brain fog wasn't especially powerful, so this man likely could wake up his guards should he get to them. Nina couldn't allow that.

The man scrambled to his feet and took an ornate sword off the wall, pointing it towards Nina. But Nina smirked.

He's an amateur. She thought, it was clear that this guy had some kind of merchant class, nothing that could pose a serious threat to her. Though she did lament her lack of actual attacks, most of her skills were passives and those that weren't were illusions.

Wait. Illusions. Nina came up with a plan.

All she needed was to stall but she could do better.

"What do you want?" Jarrien asked the intruder, she didn't answer so he pressed further, "Tell me what you want! Do you have any idea who I work for!?"

He practically began yelling, but the girl didn't even flinch.

"I know exactly who you work for, that's why I'm here." Jarrien tried to pull away as he heard a voice in his ear, but found he couldn't move on account of a knife at his throat.

A teleportation skill!? No!... Jarrien's mind crumbled as he watched the stoic girl in front of him disappear. An illusion!

"I-If you know who I work for then you should know what's going to happen to you if you don't let me go." Jarrien stammered, looking for any way out of the situation he was in.

"Can-it fatass, tell me his plan or I'll cut you into pieces." Nina snarled behind him, cutting slightly into his fat neck.

Jarrien's mind span, but even he couldn't think of a way out of this. As an [Operator], being a higher ranked class than [Merchant] all of his skills were tailored towards selling and buying, his only combat skill was [Self-Defence] that slightly improved his ability when defending himself, but not nearly enough.

The fact that none of his guards had already come was a sign that they weren't going to come. 

I've only got one chance. He thought. I'll have to go underground for a bit, but at least I'll be alive.

"Look, I don't know much. He didn't even tell me where the tunnels were, all I know is th-" Jarrien stopped speaking as blood burst out of his mouth and he began writhing in pain, all of his senses shutting down.

Nina was getting information when blood erupted from the man's mouth and he began silently screaming on the floor. Nina attempted to help, but she couldn't even tell what was going on.

Eventually, he stopped moving entirely but Nina was no closer to understanding anything.

"Hey, I'm here." Liz said finally showing up, "I was looking through the basement... The hell's this?" 

She pointed at the dead man on the floor. Nina crouched down to get a better look, taking a peek inside his mouth to see it was completely decimated. His tongue and throat had been ripped to shreds and was full of blood.

"I don't know, I started getting some info from him and he collapsed in a writhing mess." Nina told Liz what had happened, up until she had gotten Jarrien in a chokehold and began demanding information.

"Looks like Kilgard's got a failsafe in case of snitches." Liz said, "You get anything?"

"Nah, he was cut off before he said anything of importance." Nina responded, then she remembered exactly what he had said, "Wait, he did mention something-"

Before the 2 of them even spoke a system message went off:

[«WARNING» KINGDOM Quest: <Archduke's Plot (I)> has updated]

[Plot: You have taken out one of Archduke's pawns and acquired some cryptic intel. As his dying words, Jarrien Gaul attempted to speak about what the duke needed, accidentally mentioning 'the tunnels', but what does this mean?]

[Updated Goal: <Gather information of the Archduke's Plot (5/???)>]

(A/N: Wanted to make it clear that updates only come when they are recognised. This is one example, but Liz also only got the bandits' manpower increase update when she began questioning the lack of bandits attacking her)

"Tunnels..." Liz muttered, "Why has it increased by two though?"

"Maybe seeing what happens to Kilgard's 'pawns' counts as important info." Nina speculated, this seemed like a logical explanation for why finding out about the tunnel counted for 2 pieces of info. They then turned their attention over to the office, hoping to find something of value.

Nina and Liz agreed that this is where documents would be stored and Nina quickly found something.

A payment for some undisclosed product, one that was then bought by someone under the name Darlig.K; another anagram.

This was a lead certainly, but not enough for the girls to gain any more information; but it seemed they were running out of time. It took them 3 minutes after Jarrien's death to find the sales record to Darlig.K and now danger approached.

"COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR. WE HAVE YOU SURROUNDED." A loud voice came from outside and when Nina looked she saw that the entire building had been surrounded by knights, "YOU HAVE 1 MINUTE TO COME OUT PEACEFULLY BEFORE WE STORM THE BUILDING!"

Nina could see that the leader of the knights, an older, grizzled-looking man with very little hair remaining on his head was speaking with sound enhancing magic, but worst of all:

[Isaac Hal (112) (NPC)]

They were in no way able to take out someone like that.

"Shit! What do we do!?" Nina called out, turning to Liz. Liz appeared unfazed as she looked at a bookcase, "Smokey! We need a plan."

Nina remained ignored as a skeleton soldier appeared and pulled the bookcase to the side, revealing what seemed to be a safe.

"I have a plan." Liz said, "But first you need to open up this safe."

Liz looked right in Nina's face and somehow she could tell the tiny woman was smiling brightly behind her mask.