Warsinger by James Baldwin (most important books of all time txt) 📕

“Four patrol teams spotted from my current position. Team One headed north past interior main gate, Team Two location unknown, last sighted eastern interior yard; Team Three location unknown, rotating behind the building complex. Team Four in the sandstriders, currently at exterior gate.” Suri replied crisply. “Interior patrols are on foot and rotate to the front gate about once every ten minutes. If you're at the back, you've got a safety margin of about five min, over.”

“Copy that. Did I ever tell you your radio voice makes me hard?”

I could feel her grin from three hundred feet away. “Sorry, transmission cut. Go again, chief?”

Grinning, I pulled myself up onto the wall and gave Karalti and Vash the thumbs up. Vash cracked his knuckles, then ran at the wall and jumped. He kicked off it and bounded up to the top, catching the ledge with his new metal arm. I jumped down as lightly as I could while he pulled himself up. He took a moment to slap his aching shoulder and curse the pain, then let a rope down for Karalti. I waited anxiously, keeping an eye on the yard, and was just about to split for the coach house to find cover when the pair of them slid down to join me. I spun a finger around and motioned forward, and we dashed into shelter and out of sight as the patrol started to come around - five minutes, just as Suri had said.

“So far so good,” I hissed to them. “Vash, can you pick locks?”

“Do I look like some kind of bastard thief?” he whispered back.

I grinned.

Vash made a face. “Actually, now I think about it… don't answer that question.”

“Hmm…” I studied the door for a couple of seconds. “You know… I think I have a solution.” I did, in fact, have a solution in my Inventory - Aqua Regis, aka the Original Super Acid. Aqua Regis was really good at one thing: dissolving metal, especially iron. We crept over to the intake door, and I used a syringe to draw the Aqua Regis before twisting a needle onto the end. I set the needle into the lock, and depressed it. There was a hiss, and then the sound of bubbling. The lock appeared to bleed as the iron rapidly oxidized and red foam spilled out. I jimmied the handle as the acid worked, until I felt something give and could crack the armored door open.

[You have gained a new Badge: Boil, bubble, toil and... crime? - Creative and illegal uses of the Alchemy skill]

[You are the first player to achieve this Badge. You gain 500 bonus EXP!]

I'd always wondered what those achievement badges had been about. Now I knew.

I eased the door in. Sure enough there were two guards idling in the doorway ahead, currently peering down the hall away from us as sharp screams of agony echoed from a room some distance away. They had their helmets tucked under their arms. I showed the others a count of three, pushed the door in, and pivoted around the corner as they ran in and king-hit both men. Cold iron knocked one out; cold aurum sent the other pitching forward onto his face.

“I LOVE stealth.” Karalti caught the guard as he sagged to the ground, lowering him gently so that his armor didn't crash. “Fighting these guys would be so annoying.”

“Don't celebrate just yet. If Violetta recognizes us, it’s all over.” I equipped my [Dalim City Guard] outfit, replacing my light, sleek Raven Suit with what felt like a collection of heavy tin pans. Karalti and Vash did the same. With our helmets on, we looked like any other patrol group in or out of the jail.

We left the unconscious guards trussed up to each other near the door - there was nowhere else for them - and tried to look confident as we marched down the hallway, past a guard post, and into an open hall. Thick, barred wooden doors ringed the walls on two levels. There was another short hallway right across from us. The screams were coming through a door at the end.

“I don’t like this.” Karalti huffed anxiously, head darting this way and that. “There’s no room for me to transform here if things go bad.”

“Just play it cool. The only people we need to worry about are the ones inside that room.”

“Let me go first,” Vash said softly. “You need space to use that spear.”

“Go.” I let him advance. “Suri, we’ve found our primary. Moving in.”

“Roger that. Let me know if you need a diversion.”

Vash swung around the corner, and almost walked right into Violetta and the captain as the door banged open and they swept out. Her white dress was bloodstained down the front.

“My lady, I can only express apologies on behalf of the Witchhunter General,” the Captain who escorted her in blubbered as he trooped along beside her. “The sage put up a fight when he was brought in, but we had no idea he would go to such lengths-”

“Neither I or Emperor Hyland will accept your excuses,” Violetta said coldly, sweeping past Vash without any recognition whatsoever. “The order was simple: take Mehkhet the Illuminator alive, and keep him alive for questioning. The Mata Argis would never allow something like this to happen. You can be sure that word of your organization’s incompetence will reach the ears of the Sultir.”

“M-My lady, I beg you-”

“Quick. Look like a guardsman.” Heart pounding, I snapped to attention as the pair of them swept by. Karalti did the same, but Vash was right: she wasn’t expecting us to be here, and because we were disguised, my player halo wasn’t very noticeable, if it was noticeable at all. Neither the Captain or Violetta gave us a second glance as they marched by.

“Stop following me around like a whipped puppy, pack the body in ice, and get it ready to load on an