The Mission

It was the day of the mission, and Alric felt terrible, putting aside the terrible inn's bedding, something else kept him up. The scroll that Cherry handed him. Although feeling like a ticket to his goal, it also felt like a lump of bricks. It weighed heavily on his mind. Becoming a knight is one thing, but helping a Black Guard? He doesn’t even want to think about the consequences. Even if he does, he doesn’t think he could!​His legs carried him to the meeting point. It wasn’t hard to find the palace since the only fortress-like structure in the city lay in the middle of it. He took another look at the map and moved to the west side of the structure. Once there, he stood in the open, looking around for Cherry. He should be here by now. Where is he?“Psst! Hey, stupid! What are you doing standing there like that! Get low!” ​Alric heard a familiar voice as he crouched. Looking back, there Cherry was hidden in a bush in his usual attire, only this time he was carrying what looked to be an Aether Contraption of some sort. ​He quickly shuffled, albeit awkwardly, to where his partner was and rendezvoused with him. There Cherry quickly put a finger over his mouth, and handed him a hood to cover his face. Alric put it on and immediately felt like a criminal.​“You made it. Good. Now, listen up. Keep your mouth shut, follow my steps. Really. Not a word or we're dead.” Cherry’s whisper had a bite to it, harsher than Alric ever heard before. ​Alric just nodded, since he’s so out of his element right now. Once Chery received his acknowledgement, he got up and ran for the side entrance of the map. ​He held up the contraption and stuck it to the door. The device whirred for a bit before releasing a burst of Aether. The Aether turned to fire, and it ate through the door, melting the steel door. Everything was melted down, and the device served its purpose, dropping to the ground.​The whole process took less than 5 minutes, and no sound was heard. Alric was impressed by the device's construction. Cherry motioned for Alric to follow him inside, and the two ran inside the fortress. ​The two ran following the map he had until they reached a room with a steel door. Cherry took out a key and unlocked the door. Inside was a musty room with dust everywhere; it seemed to be an unused storage room. Cherry breathed a breath of relief, and it seemed the hardest part was over.​“Are we okay?” ​“As okay as can be, haven’t had any mishaps so far, and the guards aren’t on rotation. The mission should be completed without a hitch.” ​Cherry took out another device and a scroll. He tinkered with the device, seemingly to get it ready for something while also opening the scroll, revealing it to be a map. The map has the same notes on it, but with some scribbles, like how much money everything would be worth after taking, and another note saying, ‘more muscle plus 16,000 gold.’ ​“Cherry, what's this note?”​Cherry waved him off while still being fixated on his device, “Don’t worry about it.”​After a few minutes of silence and tinkering, the device let out a hiss, releasing steam. With the press of a button, the device started whirring, and with another press, it stopped. “Okay! I got it working.” Cherry double checked the map before stashing the device and the map back into his pockets. He got up and briefed Alric again on what needed to be done. “After this, we’ll go do the target and extract as many items as we can. Then we would need to go to the evacuation point on the south side of the fortress, leading to the back exit near the waterways.” ​Alric nodded and tried his best to remember the steps. It seems simple, but he’s still afraid of messing it up. “Got it! Pick up stuff, follow you to the exit, and then?” “Then we continue until we’re away from the fortress. I have a place to stash the items.” “Stash?” “I mean uh- Storage! Yeah, for storage and extraction later by a different team.” ​Alric shifted his eyes, but Cherry was already up and heading towards the door. The two left the room, and with a nod, they ran towards the target. The footsteps of the two rang through the empty halls of the fortress. It seems there really were no guards at this time, as Cherry mentioned. ​‘I wonder why, though.’ ​After 5 minutes of running, they finally found the target. It was a big iron door with many locks and hinges. Cherry took out his device and put it dead center at the door. With a push of a button, the device started whirring, and Cherry evacuated from the door. The whirring kept getting faster until the device eventually exploded, throwing the door open. ​Cherry balled up his fist in victory and ran towards the room. When Alric laid his eyes on the room, his jaw dropped to the floor, eyes popping out of his sockets. It was a vault of treasure! Gold, necklaces, jewelry, everything you can think of is here. Cherry also had the same reaction, quickly looking around the room, he spotted some boxes and knocked on them. The boxes were empty, and he hauled two boxes to Alric. ​“Al! Extraction starts now! Put as much gold and riches as you can into these two boxes.” “Understood! What will you do?” Cherry took out a small piece of cloth from his pockets, which expanded into a really big sack, “The same as you, bucko!” ​The two got to work, swimming in gold and riches, trying their fastest to fit everything into the container they found. It took them a short time to fit all the gold inside the containers, and even then, it looked like they barely made a dent in the vault of treasures. The two huffed through their hard work and shared a high five after everything was done. Cherry helped Alric stack the two boxes, and Alric carried them without issue. ​“It’s great I have you with me, otherwise I’d have to make multiple trips,” ​“Happy to be of service, shall we go?” “We shall! Let’s go!” The two walked out of the vault and jogged to the south side of the castle. The halls were musty and dark, only lined with a few torches. The two jogged with no problem until they reached the waterways. The waterway was a straight line filled with paths from all over the fortress. It was a straight line, and they jogged even faster. They were about to make a clean escape when suddenly-​THUD​Cherry bumped into something, or someone. He dropped his sack of gold, scrambling to put everything back in, not even acknowledging the person in front of him. After he finished, he scrambled to get back up and saw the person in front of him. It was a tall man with long hair covering his face. He wore an all-black leather armor under his black cloak; the man practically blended into the background. ​“You were the person at the Smiling Solari!” Alric exclaimed. ​The man tilted his head at the statement. Then his eyes widened in acknowledgement. ​“The pair of thieves, I remember.” The man said. ​“We’re not thieves!” Alric shot back, heat rising in his voice. ​Cherry flinched and panicked, trying his best to get Alric’s attention while making sure the gold stayed intact. ​“Alric, no need to yell-” ​“We’re Black Guard Knights here on an extraction mission. If there’s a thief here, I bet it’s you!” He pointed at the man.​The assassin shifted his eyes in confusion, “Do you realize what you look like right now? Besides, Valtheris doesn’t have a Black Guard, I would know.”​Alric’s eyes widened. There were no Black Guard Knights? He refused to believe it, not because it’s not logical, but because of what it implied. If this weren’t a mission, then he’s been complicit in a crime, and he can’t bear to accept that fact. He had been tricked by Cherry. ​“Don’t listen to him, Al! He’s lying! Also look-” ​Cherry pointed at something between the man's arms. It seems to be a wand with a shining stone on top of it. It looks really ornate and ancient, with engravings all over it. ​“He’s stealing an artifact! We have to stop him-”​Alric dumped the gold and stared straight at Cherry, voice icy. The stranger eyed the boxes now on the ground. “You lied to me.” ​Cherry let out a sigh; his earlier expression of cheerfulness had muted into something darker. He dropped his sack and threw it onto the boxes with great accuracy. The assassin lingered, holding the artifact tighter to see what would happen.​Cherry threw his hands up and scoffed, "Yeah, that's a real shame, Alric. But we're almost done, so I'm out of cares to give."​He did a quick swirl, and at the end came out with an aether converter pointed at Alric and a crossbow at the assassin. With an apologetic look, he said to Alric, “Really sorry about this, bucko.”​Alric’s eyes widened as he braced for impact, as a gust of wind hit him, blowing him away. The crossbow bolt flew at the man, but he was able to dodge it without any issue. Immediately, tensions rose as the three men were ready for combat!