Chapter 5 - A Plan of Action

  5 months and 2 days Earlier

  The Lox was a dive tavern, the type that absolutely didn’t care what you did there, so long as the money you paid outweighed the risk they took by having you inside. Usually this wasn’t the kind of place Cal or his allies would stay, but this job… it wasn’t exactly like their usual work. Of course their usual work had gone south more times than not recently, so it was hard to say what their 'usual work' actually was.

  Still the Lox was quiet and his party, he’d like to say ‘his friends’, but after the way the last few jobs went… Cal let out a long sigh and closed the door behind him. The Lox was quiet and the party didn't need much to be comfortable.

  “You’re back.” Came an annoyed voice from across the practically empty bar. It was Selenia. She was a Drakokin, a humanoid dragon with red scales all across her body. She had no wings and no tail, but was otherwise exactly what Cal had imagined a dragon person to look like when he was a kid. She was the up front fighter of their group, and Cal’s least favourite person at the moment. “And it looks like you’re empty handed, again.”

  “Yes Leni I’m back.” Cal replied. “But I’m anything but empty handed.” He reached into his satchel and pulled out the void bag. “Besides even if I was; I don’t see you out there looking for what we need.”

  “That’s because I think this plan is terrible.” She growled back.

  “What a coincidence. I think your plan is nonexistent. So maybe shut the hell up?” Cal snapped, walking over to the table where the others were waiting. The other two members of the group were Vessidian, their mage, another human who preferred to go by Sidian, and Chell, their scout and locks expert.

  “Enough you, two.” Chell chided them. “We have enough going wrong without us falling apart as a team.”

  Cal nodded and his glare became a smile. He liked Chell. She was only a little person, a feyling - a half fey, half halfling. - but she had a big personality. She made him laugh, not just because she was funny, but because she was such a contradiction. So loud despite her role in the group as ‘the quiet one’.

  Cal placed the bag down on the table. “All right, what did you get?” Chell asked. “What’s the plan?”

  “The plan is the same as we discussed yesterday.” Cal said, pushing a discarded newspaper off of the table and into a nearby empty seat. He briefly noticed as he reached into the void bag that the headline of the paper read ‘Three dead in Underheim robbery’. There was a time when he'd have taken that information and devised a plan to catch the killer, but those times were gone it seemed. At least for now. He discarded the thoughts of the past and grabbed one of the guard helmets from his bag. He pulled it out and showed it to them. “Because Leni is a giant and Chell is the opposite of that, Sidian and I will be wearing the guard uniforms.” He threw the hat to the thinner man, who caught it somewhat inelegantly, and held it on his lap.

  Cal continued to pull items out of the bag, placing them on the table, either near to Sidian or himself as he spoke. “We will take the two of you to the Jail as new prisoners and-”

  “This is stupid.” Leni interrupted. “We wont be able to take our gear with us, what use will we be once we get inside.” She shook her head and crossed her arms. “You should have gotten extra guard outfits that fit us. I know there are guards mine and Chells size.” She blew a puff of smoke from her scaly snout. “Idiot plan.”

  Cal just gave her a flat stare and waited for her to finish. “Are you done?” She didn’t answer, instead she just looked away. “First of all I’ll have all of your gear, that’s what this void bag is for. You’re literally watching me take armour out of it, you think we can’t take your axe?” He shook his head, just shy of calling her an idiot again. “Second it makes no sense that four guards that nobody has ever seen before- especially when one of them is a giant red lizard -" her nostrils flared and her eyes narrowed at Cal when he said 'lizard', "would walk into the jail and just want to go back into the jail cells. For what reason could 4 guards want to just go in there alone?”

  “Maybe we want to rough some prisoner up.” Leni argued, then growled, “And don’t call me a lizard!”

  “And maybe you should stop thinking like a Kortian. This is Vanderheim. They have laws here, ones that specifically protect prisoners- especially the ones who have barely committed a crime and haven’t been sentenced yet. You walk in a jail and say something like that you’ll at best be kicked out.”

  “Leni, Cal’s plan makes sense so far, lets hear out the rest.” Chell said, placing a hand on the drakokin’s arm.

  The big woman sighed and deflated a little, nodding. “Fine. Keep going.”

  Cal rolled his eyes and Chell flashed him a ‘what is she like?’ expression that made him smile. He was going to bite back with some sort of sarcastic retort, but the quick interaction with Chell melted the ice of his response. “All right. We’ve got a letter with the governors seal, tonight Chell will un-seal it and forge a letter that indicates that we’re moving the two of you into the Jail as you were unsafe in the Undercity jail you were in.”

  “Any particular reason?” Chell asked, taking the sealed letter from Cal as he pulled it out.

  Cal shook his head. “Anything believable that will get us access to the Jail. Though this letter will be coming with a governors seal so it needs to make sense that the governor is involved. Something to do with a favoured servant or something.”

  “Done.” She replied, placing the letter on her part of the table.

  “We’ll go tomorrow morning at six-thirty just before the guard change so they’re tired and more likely to let us do as we please.” Cal continued. “From what my informant said there’s a door behind the front desk and then in the next room there’s a door on the left where the jails are.”

  “Only two doors for security?” Chell asked, a brow of incredulity rising. “How is it people don’t break out constantly?”

  “That’s what I said!” Cal exclaimed, a little more excitedly than he had meant to. “But, the guard I spoke to said that basically, the people in those cells are drunks and petty thieves, the sort who are out the next day anyway, it’s not worth it.”

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Chell nodded, understanding and motioned for Cal to continue.

  “We’ll take you two through to the cells and then it’s the last cell on the left. Once we get there…” He stood up and placed his hands on his hips. “Well, then we improvise.”

  If Leni had eyebrows they would have shot up. “Improvise? That’s not a plan. That’s a plan to plan if anything.”

  “You know, for once I don’t disagree with you.” Cal admitted. “But it’s the best we’ve got. Any questions?”

  “I… I’m not sure I’m going to make a convincing guard,” Sidian said, speaking up for the first time. When it came to magic Sidian was one of the most confidant people Cal had ever met, but in most other circumstances the mage was surprisingly unsure of himself. He was good at noticing things that other people missed - Cal assumed that it was because deductions and forethought used a similar part of his mind to the workings of his magic - but because of his confidence issues it wasn’t always easy to convince him to mention them.

  “You’ll do fine. There are mages in the guards skinnier than you.” Cal promised him. “And you shouldn’t have to speak, I’ll do that.”

  Sidian nodded, unconvinced and then frowned, scrunching his mouth up and frowning.

  “What is it?” Cal asked, seeing the concern.

  Sidian looked up at him and blushed a little, but replied, “What if guards come in with us?”

  Cal nodded. “Yeah, two thoughts; first we lock Leni and Chell in a cell and hopefully I can convince the guards that they don’t need to stick around. I’m hoping that they’ll have paperwork or something they need to do before shift change. Or, if that doesn’t work then you can put them to sleep or we can beat them up together.”

  “And if there’s a lot of them?” Sidian pushed.

  “There won’t be.”

  “But-”

  “There won’t be. It’s a small jail, even if we alert everyone it’ll be like 4 people.” Sidian opened his mouth to protest again, but Cal cut him off. “But if by some disaster there’s an event for guards there tomorrow then we’ll hold them off while Chell does what she needs to and we’ll be golden. It’ll be a thin corridor, their numbers won’t matter.”

  Sidian considered for a moment and nodded, satisfied.

  “For tonight though, we should all rest up. We’ll set off at about six tomorrow morning.” Cal told them. “Be up and ready by five.”

  Selenia stood up without another word, stretched and walked off to the bar. Calwatched her go and shook his head in annoyance. Sidian got up a moment later, gathered the armour and sword for his guard disguise and wandered off towards his room.

  Cal sighed as he unbuckled his sword belt and pulled it off, laying the sword down on top of his equipment for the job and sat down at the table.

  “It’s a good plan.” Chell said from across the table, pulling out a pair of tool kits and placing them on the table. The first was her lock picks, from which she pulled out a flat pick before wrapping the leather case back up. She held it over the candle in the middle of the table for a long moment and then picked up the letter and began easing the wax seal off of the opening.

  “It’s the best I could think of with the information we have.” Cal said. “They’re right, it’s not perfect.”

  “No plan is.” Chell reminded him. “That’s why we bring the planner with us instead of leaving him back at the base like some groups do.”

  “I really wish part of the plan didn’t include ‘improvise’.” He sighed, sitting forward and reaching for his sword, which he pulled free of it’s scabbard.

  Cal’s weapon was, at a glance, a typical long sword. It had a two handed handle, a very angular, patterened cross guard and pommel that spoke of it’s dwarven craftsmanship, and a long blade. But on a closer inspection the blade looked wrong. It was thinner than most blades like it making it seem like it might break with a strong attack, but the rippling pattern across the metal spoke quietly of a secret.

  Mithril, lighter and more durable than any other metal. It might have looked wrong, but it was a good, strong blade. Cals sword was quick and sharp, but still stood up to heavy attacks, so long as Cal could hold the weight behind it.

  He took a cloth and pot from his satchel. He opened the pot and dipped the cloth in, soaking up some weapon oil before beginning to work the oil into the blade.

  “I love your sword. It’s so pretty.” Chell said, pausing her work while the newly unsealed seal dried again, to watch him and his weapon.

  Cal smiled and held the weapon up so that one of the few rays of sunshine that managed to find it’s way into the dingy tavern played across the blade. Wherever the light reflected it created a rainbow, a quirk of the special metal. The blade was double edged and completely straight, though just before the tip it expanded out about a centimetre before coming to a point, making it look as though someone had added a diamond to the end of the blade.

  “Did I ever tell you how I got it?” Cal asked.

  “You did.” She grinned. “We’ve known each other for, what? Five years now? Adventuring together for six months?”

  Cal nodded. He wanted to shake his head and say it must have been less time than that, but she was right. It had gone by so quickly.

  “Hey Cal…” Chell asked, a slight sadness in her tone. “If this all goes well, and you get your share what do you plan to do?”

  Cal brought the sword back down to continue to oil it, but tilted his head to the side to look at her. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean…” She eyed him for a long moment, then shook her head and brightened a little. “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.” She turned back to her kits, returning the pick to her set and opening the other kit, her forgery tools. It was a larger box with all different inks, types of pen and quills, and lots of types of paper.

  Though he was still concerned with Chell’s statement, Cal continued oiling the sword, but watched her.

  She took the Governor’s letter out of the envelope and started going over it. First she felt the paper with one hand while feeling through the pieces in her pack with the other until she found the right thickness and quality. “Medium lower quality.” She noted to herself, pulling out a sheet.

  Next Chell started looking the letter over, first at the type of writing and ink colour, then at any special insignia that were there. “I don’t have this exact green, but the people in the jail won’t know.” She decided, pulling out a green ink pot as well as a red and blue one. She then pulled out a pen rather than a quill and placed it down. Finally he watched as she started reading the letter. She was looking for writing patterns and special remarks.

  As she read her brows raised higher and higher. Cal frowned, “What is it?”

  “It’s… luck? Providence?” Chell answered, offering him the letter.

  His frown deepened and he took it. The letter was an order from the governor’s aid to refuse all new inmates until further notice, and that all current inmates would be moved to the west Jail while they investigated a string of recent escapes. Cal groaned and hit his head down onto the table, barely missing the guard's sword.

  “They didn’t get the message, Cal, it’s fine.” Chell told him. “We’re moving tomorrow morning, they wont have time to begin their investigation.”

  Cal sat up. “Maybe but we have to hope that nobody from the shift tomorrow talks to anyone higher up, or from the west jail in that time.” He sighed. “It’s just another risk I’d rather we weren’t taking.”

  “It could be worse; they could have gotten the letter.” Chell reminded him.

  He nodded. She was right, but… it still wasn’t great. He had no idea when the letter was sent, the investigation would be any day. Cal handed the letter back to her and she began her forgery. He just hoped that Leni didn’t see it. He didn’t need to give her another reason to second guess him.

  Cal sighed again and went back to working on his sword.

  The two of them sat there in the empty tavern chatting and working until the sun began to set and patrons started to appear. At which point they collectively retired to their rooms, though Leni stayed up drinking for a while longer.

  As Cal laid down to sleep he stared up at the ceiling, thinking back over their last few jobs. How each one had gone south despite their planning.

  He cursed, then sighed and absently reached up towards the sky which he knew would be dazzling with stars beyond the roof of the inn, and said, “please don’t let this one go bad.”