So he is at the top of the organization! Sidis quickened his pace after gaining this critical piece of information. He wanted to know more about the trap they were laying for Lyse, but rescuing Egbert was his top priority. If I can escape with His Majesty, then Lyse won’t need to come here at all. Their trap will be for naught. If he could manage that much, all that would remain would be cleaning up afterward and apprehending the enemies—a rather anticlimactic end to the terrorist plot.
Seren and Caldo went down one set of stairs, and Sidis went down another. The steps were difficult for his small rodent body, so he switched back to his canine form. Below, Sidis found four cages of iron bars. In one of them lay a box big enough to hold a large dog, and when he approached it...the lid lifted from the inside, and out popped the head of a white dog.
“Your Majesty!” cried Sidis.
“Oh, Sidis! Am I glad to see a friendly face here,” Egbert said from within his jail cell.
“And I’m glad to see you unharmed,” Sidis responded with equal relief. He was also glad that the emperor was still in his furry form.
“I got careless. I was too successful acting as a dog, and they force-fed me something poisoned.”
Sidis’s eyes bulged. “Are you all right, Your Majesty?!”
“The strong anesthetic led to my abduction, but I’m otherwise fine now,” Egbert assured him as he hopped out of the crate to prove his vigor.
“Then let us get you out of here at once, Your Majesty.”
“Indeed, let’s hurry.”
Egbert accordingly transformed into a ferret to slip through the iron bars before turning back to his dog form. This was, after all, how he was most comfortable. The two of them then headed for the floor above and then back to the shaft where Sidis had entered.
“Please follow this back outside, Your Majesty,” Sidis instructed the emperor.
“Are you certain it’s safe above ground?”
“Yes, your knights and soldiers already have the immediate area surrounded. We suspect this is a Donan hideout, so I shall stay behind and investigate the terrorists.”
“All right. I’ll inform our people the enemy is here. And good luck, Sidis.” Egbert then transformed into a rat and disappeared up the shaft.
“Time to get to work,” Sidis said, pepping himself up.
He decided to pursue Seren as his next objective. The designated hour was quickly approaching, but Sidis wanted to find out what was happening down below. He followed the stairs down again, this time taking the set that Seren and Caldo had earlier. There was another corridor below where, after rounding a corner, Sidis found himself in front of a door guarded by two men.
“I suppose this is where it connects above ground...”
There wasn’t anything resembling an entrance on the floors above, so Sidis was confident about what lay beyond the door. As for the men posted there, they both donned plain, unbleached cloth shirts, dark pants that hid stains well, and swords on their hips. Their faces were unremarkable, neither intimidating nor brutish. Both men could easily walk around town without anyone batting an eye...except that they wore the vacant stares of the enthralled. They either had to be Donans or the prince’s men. In their hands were lanterns which, combined with the lamps on the walls, lit the area nicely. Sneaking through was out of the question.
Maybe I should turn into an insect... No, a single misstep would spell my doom.
Instead, Sidis chose to put the men to sleep. But just as he was about to chant his spell, he felt a force pulling him from behind. He turned around to find himself standing in a black haze with a voice calling to him from beyond.
“Now when did you manage to get out, little guy?” It was Seren, one of the two people on the other side of the haze.
When did they—?!
As surprised as Sidis was, he had no time to panic. Being caught ruined his plans to single-handedly destroy the Donans and their lair. He considered fleeing immediately before they could make a move, and thus made a mad dash for the door as the guards braced themselves upon taking notice of the white dog in front of them.
I’ve got to get past them before they can draw their weapons!
Sidis prepared an incantation to destroy the door as he ran, but when he was a hair’s breadth away, a green light appeared right in front of him.
“Hngaaaah!” he screamed out in pain upon coming into contact with the light. He felt like he’d been struck with lightning that coursed through him. His muscles were unresponsive, locking up and sending him to a slide across the ground. “What was...”
How had the green light appeared so suddenly, then disappeared just as quickly? The fog dissipated, and when it did, it revealed that the floor was now covered in familiar black stone.
“Calm yourself,” said Seren as he approached Sidis to pick him up.
Gaaaaaaah! Sidis screamed again internally. Being caught by the enemy was unbearable, but being held by anyone other than Lyse was a punishment far worse. But Sidis knew that escape would be difficult if he knew nothing about his enemies. He wanted to observe and learn more about them, but he was taken downstairs to a room that shocked the wits out of him.
What... What is this place?!
It was all plainly visible with the lamps scattered on the floor. The room was decked in black stone—Donan stone—and there was a staggering amount of it.
“Good. At the rate we’re collecting the stones, the day will soon come when we can fight back against the Light of Origin,” cackled Caldo, the Alstran prince—or rather, the Donan hierarch.
The stone in the room couldn’t possibly have all been generated by the green light. Some must have been brought in from elsewhere, Sidis surmised, leaving him to wonder how this had come to pass. Even if the collection had begun long ago, Lyse and her monsters hadn’t detected it from the skies. How was it so well obfuscated?
“Keep it coming,” Caldo continued. “We need all that we can get so that we can throw that wench and her knights in here to end them.”
They’re planning to use this all to kill Lyse?
Sidis could hardly believe it, as Lyse would instantly destroy any stone she touched. Still, they would be effective on the knights. If they were all dropped into the same room under the effects of the Donan brainwashing...
Now I understand their plot...