Triple Strength

278. Training Exercise: Tabitha

What a pile of troll shit. It looks like I might be doing extra chores this week as the army has come knocking on the gate. Ruku has gone to talk to them. The others here are watching different areas. I am on the south side, closest to the storage areas. Wai, Ruku’s salamander bond is central, and Tāoke is to the north near Wiremu’s cave. Dusk is in the stable, and Nyx is outside the fence. Astrid and Trassig are central with prepared first aid kits.

I can only hear parts of Ruku’s argument from here, even with my Hearing Aid. He seems to be insisting they have legal authorisation from the city before they can enter without permission. Whoever is in charge seems to be trying to intimidate him into letting them in. They would not even attempt that if they knew he was a Major in the Royal Kirghiz Commandos. I don’t think there is much that can intimidate Ruku. He barely reacts to my Intimidating Aura.

Suddenly, Nyx sensed something, and my chores were safe. The front gate approach was a diversion. Or maybe it's not a diversion, but they are trying both methods. The object is not to stop them from entering but to make sure the things we want to be kept secret stay secret. For example, I would be annoyed if they found my smuggling base.

There were five, no, there was a sixth person. The sixth person will be the one to watch. Before we need to worry about what they might find, they first have to make it into the quarry past Wiremu’s traps. I had Nyx keep track of them. I know Wiremu has decreased the lethality of the traps, but I think he forgets that people are not as durable as he is.

Of the six, only four made it into the quarry. That does not mean they are safe from Wiremu’s traps. It is like he has this extra sense of where people are going to go, and he puts a trap there. I didn’t bother telling Astrid about the two that didn’t make it into the quarry. They can crawl away with broken bones, and the puncture wound didn’t seem fatal.

I followed the two that were near my end of the quarry. Tāoke followed the one near him, and Wai tracked the other. One of my two was getting pretty close to discovering the hidden smuggler storage. I used Distract and Shadow Manipulation to get his attention, and it must have worked too well because he fell into one of Wiremu’s pit traps. I know Wiremu had removed the poison, but he was not going to survive with a stone stake through his guts. I had Nyx signal Astrid she was needed. I know we could just bury him, and nobody would find him, but it is better if nobody dies. It shows goodwill on our part.

This was good for me because I was now free to concentrate on the sixth person. The only decent one among them. She had some sort of Skill like Wiremu’s Sense Treasure or Kelda’s Sense Hidden, as she found all five of the hidden dummy caches we created to distract people with those skills. She did end up with a broken wrist from not properly disabling one of Wiremus traps.

I am curious whether she is supposed to search and leave or stay as an assassination attempt. Surely, an assassin would come at a different time than the others, as one person getting caught would trigger a thorough search of the quarry. I guess when you are in the army, your orders don’t always come for a specialist in your field. We will see if she finds somewhere to hide or tries to leave.

Dusk alerted me to a person searching through the stables. He also seems to have some sort of skill for finding hidden places. He is looking at Dusk and wondering if he can get into the dummy cache we hid in her stall. I reminded Dusk not to kill him, but broken bones are fine. She saw Wai darting across the stable roof, so this was his interloper, and I told Dusk to leave him to Wai, who would be communicating with Ruku.

I think the soldier who was sneaking into Dusk’s Stall had been warned she was not a regular horse, or he had a sense that was warning him. He was being very careful, but the temptation of a hidden compartment guarded by a special beast was too much. It was obviously something worth the risk. If he gets it back and opens the trapped box, all they will find is one of Wiremu’s Stone knives. His stone knives ticked a lot of the boxes. It will trigger a Skill looking for Weapons, or Spiritually Enhanced Weapons, and a Skill looking for Spiritual material. It is hidden and protected by both Dusk and traps, which will trigger a lot of other skills. It probably won’t trigger something like Wiremu’s Sense Treasure as the material is valuable, but not greatly. Slipping a gold coin in the box should ensure that triggers.

He crept into the stall next to Dusk’s and jumped up onto the wall between them, aiming to slip down behind Dusk to the hidden cache. When he hit the stall floor, Dusk wanted to lash out with a hoof, but I had her wait. He crouched down, and it took him forever to disarm Wiremu’s trap. He made these ones easy to disarm. He said it helped his Decieve Skill and the Forgery Class.

The guy eventually disarmed the trap and pulled out the container. Just as he was about to jump over the stall wall, I gave Dusk permission, and she lashed out with her rear hoof, catching him in the lower leg and shattering it. He fell over into the next stall and lay there for a bit. He limped out and found a stick to use as a crutch and left Dusk's senses. The rest is up to Wai and Ruku, but letting him go would be the best. He will probably leave straight away now as he has his treasure and has taken serious damage.

All of a sudden, Trassig came into my awareness area carrying a piece of paper. I could read it even though it was closed in his mouth. Astrid wanted Dusk to help move the injured idiot. I signalled to Dusk, who came out of his stall and trotted away. As soon as Trassig saw Dusk, she turned around and led her away.

My girl was entering Mayakku’s workshop and looking around. There was nothing important there. She found the entrance to the safe room. She is good, but we did expect that. Is she going to leave anything there? No, she is going to hide and wait. It is an assassination attempt. It's probably just a demonstration to show we are not up to protecting Mayakku.

I have many options here. They have shown what they are capable of. I guess it is my turn. She was tucked into a corner of the safe room and just got comfortable, so I used Distract to whisper into her ear. “You did well Captain Lee, but I can’t let you stay here.” Having ID on a job like this is a basic mistake, even deep in a hidden pocket. She was looking around, trying to find me. “You did well to find all five caches, and as compensation, I will let you keep the five gold coins.” I gave her a poke in the back with Shadow Manipulation to show her I was serious. There was only a solid wall behind her when she looked. She made a decision and stood up and raised her hands in a surrender sort of move.

“Come up top, I think you are needed at the gate.” She came carefully looking everywhere. I had moved outside and waited for her there. Mayakku had disabled the runes blocking the spiritual energy in her workshop, or I would have struggled to do all that from a distance.

She sensed me before she came out. I am not sure how, but I was no longer hiding, and she couldn’t sense me before. I was following her carefully, but I was fairly sure she knew how outclassed she was, and that was the message we wanted to send.

“You are not going to tell me how you did that, are you?” She asked.

I just shook my head. I used my hand to direct her toward the gate, and she started in that direction. Dusk approached with the injured man draped over her back, which only left Tāoke’s one unaccounted for.

“He fell into a pit trap,” I explained. “He has been fixed up but will need a healer as soon as possible.”

When we came in sight of the gate, Ruku sensed us on his Sonar and started to open it. The lieutenant he was arguing with shut up when he saw the captain and myself.

“Get the healer for Johns,” Captain Lee said. “My senses caught the healer finishing binding a leg as Ruku got Johns off Dusk’s back.

All of a sudden, there was a scream and the sound of running feet. Panicked running. A young man came in sight, white as a sheet and running for his life. Ruku opened the gate wider, and he just ran straight past and just kept going, disappearing down the road. Nothing was actually chasing him.

“Well, that is interesting,” I said. “I wonder what he saw? Anyway, that is everybody accounted for. I hope you have all had a good training exercise. If you come back, things won’t be so easy.”

Ruku then shut the gate on them, and I heard the captain giving the order to return to the base.

I turned to Ruku, “Do you think we should charge them for the training?”