A Monster Life Ch. 49-51

The stone underneath the end of the crowbar cracked and he shot backwards from the sudden release of the crowbar, and hit the back of his head hard against the wall behind him. He grumbled while he rubbed the painful spot on his head and examined the crack in the stone. This time he used the crowbar to hack at the stone, and after a while a good portion of the grate had been exposed.

'How are you doing, Wolfie?" asked Iphigenia.

Ulric pried his crowbar at the middle of the hacked away stone in the grate. 'I might be able to do it now.' he said, and braced himself against the wall again. He growled as he pulled with all his strength, and jerked hard when the grate gave away slightly. Cracks appeared at the bars still embedded at the stone, and he gave it one more try with all his power before his air ran out. 'Give!' he growled through clenched teeth.

With a series of cracking noises, the grate cracked loose at one side and Ulric shot back again as it bent away. He tried to take a deep breath but he had no air left. He stared into the dark ends of either side of the passage and undid his belt. 'My air has run out. I'm heading further in.'

Iphigenia gripped the side of the boat. 'Wolfie! There might be another obstacle there! Come this way!'

'I think I see a faint light farther up ahead. That's a shorter distance than coming back.' Ulric said as he swam as fast as he could.

Elzbieta strapped on her belt with air bladders. 'I'm going in.' she said. 'We're coming your way, darling!'

Iphigenia grabbed her belt and dove into the water shortly after Elzbieta. 'Wolfie? Are you there?'

Ulric reached the source of the light and swam up into a short passage, and surfaced underneath another grate. 'I made it. There's a drain of some sorts here.'

Elzbieta and Iphigenia soon caught up to him, and Iphigenia threw her arms around his neck. 'Don't take such risks next time, Wolfie.'

He chuckled and kissed her cheek. 'I was pretty sure I would be fine, my love.'

Elzbieta tugged on his ear. and frowned at him 'You have to be more than just pretty sure, darling. We don't want to lose you.'

He smiled at her and kissed her. 'I'll be more sure next time, my dear. All right?'

She gave him a nod, and looked up at the grate. 'How do we pass this one?'

Ulric ran a finger along a groove in the stone. 'I think the grate is set in a ring of stone so it can be lifted. I think I can pry it loose.'

He inserted the crowbar into the groove, and wiggled it up and down long enough to pry it in the crack for a better grip, and forced it deeper into the widening groove until he lifted the stone ring with the grate. A few more jerks later, he lifted the whole thing up and gazed around at the nearly dark surroundings above. 'I think we entered a cellar.' he said, and pushed the grate up far enough to climb out of the water.

He helped Iphigenia and Elzbieta out of the water just before the sound of a door lock alerted them.

***

'Who's there!?' Kaui and Conchim looked up at the guard on top of the wall, holding out a lantern to light the canal. 'What are you doing down there?'

Kaui glanced quickly at Conchim while her mind ran overtime for an excuse. 'Ah, ehmm, we're just fishing.' she said, and Conchim cringed a little, but nodded.

The guard squinted. 'I don't see a net or fishing rods.'

Kaui swallowed. 'Well, you see, we don't really like fish. This way we won't catch any.'

The guard frowned for a moment. 'Ah, okay.' he said and waved for them to move on. 'You can't stay here though.'

Conchim grabbed the pole. 'We were about to move anyway. The fish we don't want aren't biting here.' she said, and pushed the boat forward.

'All right, better luck next time.' said the guard, and continued with his rounds.

***

Elzbieta used her flashlight to look around and illuminated a row of large wine barrels resting on their sides. 'We can hide between those.'

Iphigenia and Ulric followed her quickly in between two barrels and huddled in the space behind them. Footsteps became louder with the approaching light source, and a moment later they heard the shuffling of wooden chairs and the creak of two people sitting down. 'Why are we even down here?' grumbled one man. 'There's only wine and beer stored down here.'

'They just want to make sure no one steals any of it or something else happens to it.' said another one.

The other scoffed. 'I'm sure they can spare some for poor slobs like us. Being a guard doesn't pay all that well in the first place.'

'I know. Even I like to have a drink but we're still paid to do our duty, so we have to do it.'

Elzbieta looked at the others. 'What do we do now? Rush them and fight?'

Ulric shook his head. 'I'd rather not. They could alert other guards because we can't sneak up on them like this.'

'It doesn't sound like they'll leave any time soon though.' said Iphigenia. 'We have to do something.'

Ulric's ear pricked up at the sound of dripping. 'Let me check something.' he said and sneaked to the front of the barrels. A quick peek confirmed his suspicion. The barrel next to him leaked a little into a mug, probably left behind by someone who volunteered to drain the contents ever so often. He gave the spigot a light jerk, turned the drip into a slight trickle, and pulled back to the girls. 'Now we wait.'

It didn't take long for the sound to attract attention in the otherwise dead silence of the cellar, and one of the guards approached the barrel. 'Great.' he muttered and looked back at his colleague. 'Hey, that leaking barrel is leaking a lot more now. What shall we do about it?'

The other one went over to have a look for himself. 'I heard the barrel makers won't be back before tomorrow to replace this thing. Nothing we can do about it.'

The first guard grunted. 'I ain't going to clean up the mess when the wine's spilled all over the floor.' he said and picked up the nearly full mug and replaced it with an empty one. 'Might as well enjoy it then.' He gulped down the contents of the mug and wiped his mouth with a satisfied sigh. 'It's not spoiled, so drink up.'

His colleague gazed at the quarter full mug, hesitated for a moment, then picked it up. 'Only a few. Then I'll alert the others to give us a hand in this.' he said, and drank.

The next mug went under the trickle. 'All right.' said the first guard again and knocked on the barrel. 'It would be a bit too much to drink all this by ourselves.'

The girls and Ulric kept an ear on the amusement and clarity of speech levels at the front of the barrels, and when they deemed those to be far enough apart, Ulric gave a nod and they sneaked towards the guards. He peeked around the corner of the barrel and found the two blathering towards the other wall. Two quick knocks with his armoured fist silenced them until they'd wake up later, terribly hungover, and wondering why everyone had left the estate.

Ulric listened for the sounds of other guards and beckoned at Iphigenia and Elzbieta. 'All right, we can go.'

He put his ear against a large door on the other of the cellar and took a sniff of the less alcohol infused air, and opened the door when there was no sign of anyone in the next cellar holding food and other supplies.

'There.' said Elzbieta and pointed at a double door with three draw bars.

Ulric lifted them off and Elzbieta opened the door far enough for a quick look at the canal outside. Kaui gave her a thumbs up from the boat. 'We're the only ones here now.'

Elzbieta gave her a nod. 'We're clear here as well, come on in.'

Conchim moved the boat silently to the small dock at the supply entrance, and Kaui tied it down before both sneaked inside, and Ulric barricaded the doors again while Iphigenia took a peek into the corridor leading further into the estate. 'All is quiet.'

They followed the directions from Unsar once more and found the narrow stairs leading down to two doors for a couple of storage rooms with old junk, and the locked third one they needed to pass through. Valdys cracked the locking spell easily and a bit of lock picking from Iphigenia did the rest. Another set of stone steps led further down through a circling stairwell, and at the bottom they gazed at the large space, illuminated partially by a few lights sent upwards by Valdys.

Ulric forgot again that he couldn't whistle and flubbered his lips when he looked over the stretch of calm water and the broad and white, short square tower in the middle. 'He wasn't kidding when he said it was large. That must be some treasure packed in there.'

They went up to the narrow and long wooden bridge, drawn up and locked with another spell and key lock, which were only marginally more difficult than the ones from the door upstairs. Ulric lowered the bridge with the cranking mechanism at the side and the party crossed it, until Kaui shouted at the swift, dark green and slimy tentacle snatching her leg.

'Kaui!' snarled Ulric and bolted towards her. With a heavy punch into the squishy flesh, the tentacle let go but more rose and whipped at and stretched out to everyone.

Valdys jumped away but two tentacles snatched her leg and an arm until Iphigenia cut the wiggly bonds in two. 'Just how many are there!?' she said as she danced around another pair trying to grasp her and slashed at those. 'Unsar never mentioned this!'

Valdys threw up several shields while checking the library in her head. 'I think this is a special seaweed monster! It can sink entire ships when they're caught in it!'

Ulric punched and kicked at everything nearing him and Kaui. 'Do you know how to defeat it!?'

'No! Nothing in the books on that!'

'Damned.' he grumbled as he watched the number of squiggly long bits rise up around them. 'There's just too many.'

'Master!' cried Kaui when tentacles grabbed her again.

Ulric spun around to attack but more came up fast behind him and wrapped him up as he snarled loud and struggled against their slippery hold. Kaui gasped when she neared the edge of the bridge, and grasped at the tentacle around her chest.

A flash of electric mana burst at her chest and the tentacle released its grasp with a sudden jolt. It shivered as it sank back into the water. Elzbieta slashed another tentacle in two. 'Kaui! What happened!?'

Kaui shook her head to clear it and gazed at the rings on her index and ring fingers. 'It's the rings for self defence that Isa made for me. I forgot about them but they discharged when I tried to pull that thing away.'

'Great!' said Ulric as he ripped one tentacle in two. 'Use them again on the others! Quick!'

Kaui gave him a determined nod despite her heart racing in fear, and pointed the two tiny rods on top of the rings towards the nearest one, and pressed her thumb on the side of the ring on her index finger. Another flash shot from both rings in the direction she pointed at and mini lightning hit the wiggling limb. It jolted and withdrew like the first one.

With growing confidence, she attacked more until all the tentacles began to retreat with cheers from the rest of the party. Ulric gave her a kiss in her neck from behind. 'Great work, my love.'

She blushed and pride filled her chest while they hurried towards the tower and the heavy door at the base.

Iphigenia and Elzbieta kept a watchful eye on the water while Valdys unlocked another spell, and allowed Iphigenia to do her kind of magic again to open the door.

They stared at the mostly empty space with a couple of dusty racks and two overturned and equally empty and dusty crates. 'This is it?' asked Conchim.

'What are you doing here!?'

They spun around at the voice from outside and pointed their weapons at the old guard. He dropped his sword in surprise. 'Oh! Excuse me.' he said and picked it up. 'You startled me for a moment there.' He held it up again. 'Now, as I said, what are you doing here? Only the heads of the family are allowed in here.'

Ulric gestured behind him. 'To do what? Admire their rare dust collection?'

'That's not dust! Those are the family treasures!'

Iphigenia raised an eyebrow. 'A bunch of boxes with air, and lots of nothing stacked on the shelves?'

The old man cleared his throat. 'What are you talking about? Of course not!'

Iphigenia stepped aside. 'Look for yourself then.'

The others stepped aside for him to have a look inside, and with some hesitation and keeping his eyes on all of them, he moved closer to have a better look into the dim doorway. He stood breathless with his mouth open when he realised the supposedly jam-packed secure storage was not what he'd always believed it was. 'How..? You picked it clean?'

Elzbieta pulled on her skirt. 'Do we look like we have such large pockets?'

The man moved closer again, his eyes fixed on the emptiness in front of him. 'But they always came here saying they had new additions to their fortune.'

Ulric scoffed. 'More like subtractions. Did they ever show what they supposedly brought?'

With weary eyes, the man looked up at him. 'They always kept it secret and moved it in locked chests for security reasons.'

Ulric nodded. 'So, the family that alleges to be so wealthy has actually nothing to show for it. I bet they have a lot of loans and open tabs right now.'

The man looked down and frowned lightly. 'There have been more visits from a secret delegation in the last year or so.'

Valdys looked up from the artefact in her palm. 'It's pointing towards the sea now, if I'm not mistaken.'

Ulric laid his paw on the man's shoulder. 'Could it be there has been someone down here recently?'

After a moment, the answer was a nod. 'The oldest head of the family took his guest down here yesterday.'

Ulric looked at the others. 'It might have been here, then taken as payment or something. We'll have to locate it again.'

Valdys nodded. 'Indeed.'

Ulric squeezed the man's shoulder gently. 'We're sorry to see the family has been a fraud for so long. It looks like you'll have to find other work now.'

The man nodded slowly. 'I need to tell the others.' he mumbled, and shuffled tiredly as he left.

'We should leave as well.' said Elzbieta. 'This will likely turn into a riot and all the servants and guards taking anything they can with them as they leave.'

Everyone was indeed up in arms and running about the place. The clueless members of the family watched in horror when their last possessions were taken by the angry mob, and the guilty heads hid in fear. The girls and Ulric stayed vigilant, but no one bothered with them and they left the estate through the wide open front gate along men and women carrying full sacks and chests.

'Let's see which direction the artefact points to when we are at either side of the city.' said Valdys.

***

Valdys looked at the distant horizon where the line between the sea and the sky faded away. 'Out there, and quite some way off.'

Ulric gazed at the faint lights of a few ships in the distance. 'So, it went on a ship for sure.'

'I don't have any experience being out on the sea and I guess none of you either, so we'll have to hire someone to take us.' said Iphigenia.

Elzbieta nodded. 'We'll have to ask around.' she said and looked at a fisherwoman unloading her small boat. She stepped up to her. 'Excuse me, would you know someone we can hire to take us out to sea?'

The woman looked back at her. 'I know a few people.' she said, and put down her net to face Elzbieta. 'Depends on where you want to go.'

Elzbieta pointed at the horizon. 'That direction, and it might be far.'

The woman's eyes widened and stepped back. 'You mean Red Cove!?'

Elzbieta glanced at the horizon. 'What's Red Cove?'

The woman sighed. 'Of course, you're not from around here. You might not know.'

Elzbieta nodded.

'It's a pirate stronghold. The only ones who go there are pirates, or unlucky people.' She shook her head. 'You won't find anyone going there voluntary.'

Elzbieta looked back at the others. 'Do we risk going by ourselves?'

Ulric hummed in thought. 'Too risky. I think we'd better buy some eye patches, practice saying arrr, and try to infiltrate as pirates.'