Four energy balls rushed out from his staff and sped towards the three sentries keeping watch at the back fence of the warehouse. When the bolts hit them, they were still unaware. The ambush produced extra damage.
When they came to their sense, another Magic Bullet dashed along and hit the one further out. While the closest one saw a shadow suddenly appeared in front of him. The shadow made rapid multi slashes that took out his life which was already damaged from the ambush.
The second sentry who managed to pull out his weapon, found that the shadow that had felled his comrade, had come to his front, all the while shooting standard range attacks from the staffs on his left hand to the other comrade behind him.
He tried to cut the shadow with his hand axe, but the shadow brushed it aside with his sword. He then felt as if he was struck by an ox. His body bent as it flew backward and crushed the sturdy fence, its lifeless body bounced from the impact and landed on the ground.
The third sentry who had been continuously blasted by magic attacks, was too disoriented by the attacks that by the time he could get a better view on his assailant, two of his comrades had already fallen. He panicked and decided to turn tail and ran.
Jack couldn’t let him notified the other grunts at the front of the warehouse. He used standard magic attacks and shot at the running guy’s leg. Luckily his shot was accurate enough, it hit the guy’s leg and made him tripped. As he fell to the ground, Jack caught up to him. He then thrust his sword on the guy’s exposed neck. The blood spurted out from the neck as the guy lost his life from the thrust.
After all three of the sentries were dead, the fight ended and the three bodies conveniently turned into dust, erasing the gore away, leaving only a few coins on the ground. Jack picked up those coins. He then checked his radar, making sure the sentries at the front didn’t make any move. They didn’t, the ambush at the back had been completed in an instant, leaving the sentries no chance to warn the others. Those at the front were unaware of the disturbance at the back.
From his radar, he could check that there was a heavy concentration of dots at the center part of the warehouse. But the empty area between the warehouse and the fence was empty. They might be having a communion or meeting or whatever the hell a cult was doing at this moment.
This was good, the fewer people wandering around, the less chance he would be spotted. He went to the small door on the fence. If it was locked, he had no choice but to jump over. The fence was rather high, but he thought it should be doable with the degree of strength and dexterity this game body of him provided.
The door wasn’t locked, so he would leave the testing of his fence jumping skill to another time. As his radar had indicated, the space inside the fence was devoid of sentry. He proceeded to sneak to the side of the warehouse building. Many windows lined up the side of the warehouse, some were slightly open. He came to one of them, then opened the window wider and sneaked inside after making sure no one was around. He could hear chanting and talking not far away. He slowly approached the source of the sound.
The interior of the warehouse had several side rooms formed by wooden partitions. When he came through the window, he came to one of this room. Outside the room was a hallway, there was a large opening at the opposite partition which opened up to the center of the warehouse, the voices came from there. He came to the opening silently while staying close to the partition, and peaked inside.
There were several people in black robes kneeling down on the floor facing an altar. On the altar was another black robe person wearing a deer skull hat, giving him an eerie vibe. Jack used his God-eye monocle to scan the guy.
Priest of Phobos (Elite Human), level 25
HP: 24,000
The heck! Level 25? Jack was flabbergasted. There was no way he could survive fighting that guy. But then again, the point of the quest was to investigate the cult, not eradicate it. Now that he had confirmed the people here were indeed part of the cult, he could proceed to find out more information. He also scanned the audience who were kneeling.
Acolyte of Phobos (Basic Human), level 12
HP 1600
The acolytes’ levels were more reasonable, but there were too many of them. This was definitely not the quest where he simply barged in and killed everyone. Stealth was a more crucial factor here. As he continued observing the communion inside, he found that there was not much going really. They were just chanting with unintelligible language.
After a while, Jack decided that he couldn’t get any more information just by watching them doing their ceremony. He backed away and decided to check the side room one by one, see if he could find any more clues about the cult and their purpose. After spending several minutes going from room to room, he came out empty-handed.
As he was at a loss of what to do, his God-eye monocle picked up on traces of footprint again. He approached it and found out that they were continuation of Amy’s mother’s footprints that he had followed on the street outside. The footprint took him through the hallway, to the other side of the warehouse. It went into an opening that had stairs that went down.
He followed the stairs down to a large basement. There were three doors on the wall facing the stairs. From his radar, he could see that two of the doors had one occupant each, however, they were represented by white dots, which indicated that they were neutral NPC. Also, the footprints went to the left door, which was one of the two doors that had a white dot.
He walked carefully towards the door, afraid that fast movement might trigger some traps or alarms. Once he arrived at the door, he put his hand on the door knob.
Shit, it’s locked!
Maybe he could try breaking the door? The communion up there was separated by one floor. And they were chanting quite loud, so they shouldn’t be able to hear noise from down here. Resolved to take the risk, he brandished his Storm Breaker, and sent Power Strike to the door. The strike crashed onto the door, but he was sent back due to recoil force. The door was completely fine.
“Dumbass, doors and chests in this world can’t be broken by brute force you know,” Peniel mocked him as she reappeared.
“So what do I do?” Jack asked.
Peniel flew around observing the door. “There is a keyhole. You don’t happen to have lockpicks, do you?”
“No, I don’t.”
“We should make that a priority next when we get out of here. Well, if you can’t lockpick, then your only option left is to find the key.”
“Where?” He asked.
“How should I know? Don’t just expect me to give all the answers. Try searching around the room!” She said as she flew looking around the room.
Jack also started walking and observing the basement. It was a simple rectangular room. The stone floor was half-covered by hay. Probably the room was used to store farm products or kept small animals in the past. There was a small desk accompanied by a lone chair at one corner of the room. Jack approached it.
The desk was empty, but at the wall by its side, there were several hangers that were normally used to hang keys or coats, but it was also empty. From the look of the setting of this room. This basement was probably where the cult held their captives, and this desk was where the warden was supposed to be while watching the captive cells. But where was the warden?
As the question surfaced in his mind, his monocle again lighted up. It showed some process in analyzing the hangers, some texts appeared saying ‘key for cells’, and then it highlighted another set of footprints going from the desk and back up the stairs.
Peniel whose soul was linked with his could see the footprints as well. She came to him and said, “I’m not going to comment anymore. Let’s just go and follow the footprints, cheater.”
