Prison Break

To fully grasp what’s going on here, we need to go back to the day before. Leo wasn’t the only one concerned about their imprisonment at The Garden in his group. Natalie and Amber were also trying to come up with solutions of their own in trying to escape. Natalie’s blatant attempt at targeted sexual harassment wasn’t just for show. When she slapped Sophia’s boobs, Natalie secretly stuck a note on her clothes. Sophia, who had to protect her boob would feel the sensation of the folded note and hold onto it. She would read the note after she got back to her room.

The detailed plan was as follows: Sophia would request for a bathroom break, then use magic to put the guard to sleep after they entered her room. She would then follow the detailed map that Natalie had drawn to Claudius’s room. Sophia would once again knock that guard out or put them to sleep. Once Claudius was rescued, he would use his illusion magic to disguise himself as a guard. That way, even if they were caught, the other guards would just think that he is only escorting her to the bathroom. The two would then meet up at Natalie’s and unlock it for her.

Well, the plan only went somewhat like what Natalie anticipated. She didn’t factor in the prospect that Leo would make a fool of himself, drawing the majority of the guards to him as they somehow believed that he’s a threat. This somehow made Sophia’s life a lot easier as she only had to request for a bathroom break, and put the guard to sleep and take their keys. Since the guards were still concentrated outside of Leo’s room, there was no one outside of Claudius’s room. Sophia only needed to just unlock the room and let him out. The two would then head to Natalie’s room, where once again there was no guard. Natalie would confirm that they were outside by saying the agreed upon question: “Are you a pervert?” after some knocks. Now we arrive at where we left off.

“Do you have all your items with you?”- Natalie asks Sophia.

“Yeah, I made sure to pack everything. I hid the guard in the closet.”- Sophia replies.

“You didn’t have to do that, it’s ok tho”- Natalie calmly replies.

Natalie then reaches for something that she had hidden under her bed. She pulls out some long objects and puts them into her pocket.

“Let’s hope I won’t need this. Just in case.”- Natalie whispers to herself.

At the same time, Claudius can be seen rushing down the hallway. He is usually an idiot, but with Natalie’s guidance, he can navigate the winding hallway.

“Left, left, straight, right, left, right.”- Claudius repeats the pattern.

“Hey!”- One guard can be heard from down the hallway saying hi to Claudius.

“Oh no! Oh no! Keep calm, keep calm.”- Claudius thinks to himself as he comes to a stop, waving at the approaching guard.

“How is it going, um, fellow guard?”- Claudius asks.

“Haha, that’s so weird. Didn’t know you were the type to joke.”- The guard replies.

“ABORT! ABORT! GREETING ATTEMPT DID NOT WORK!”- Claudius’s thoughts panics, he forces a fake laugh.

“Anyways. How was the elf girl?”- The guard asks.

“Uh, YES. The elf girl, she is going fantastic. Very healthy, very strong, very fast.”- Claudius replies.

“Hmm. That wasn’t what I meant. I thought you had to leave because she needed to go to the bathroom.”- The guard gets confused.

“Ah yes! Bathroom, yep. She did go to the bathroom.”- Claudius starts sweating under his disguise.

“You are certainly acting strange. Hmmmm. Can I get a closer look at your face? I’m not suspicious of you, but you know. With the whole recent war declaration, we have to follow protocol.”- The guard walks closer.

“Should I run or should I fight? I think I can win if I attack first.”- Claudius prepares himself.

As the guard comes closer and closer, Claudius holds his breath in anticipation. Suddenly, one of the guard’s many rings starts to glow.

“Not that annoying human guy again! I thought we tied him up already. What kind of trouble is he causing again?!? I swear, I can't even have a small break.”- The guard says, turning around in a hurry.

“HOLY! I GOT SO LUCKY! THANK YOU SO MUCH LEO, YOU SAVED ME!”- Claudius breathes a sigh of relief.

“Now I just have to wait for this guy to leave to continue the plan.”- Claudius looks at the guard.

“What are you waiting for? We need all the help we can get, come with me.”- The guard says.

“Me?”- Claudius asks in surprise.

“YES, YOU! Now come with me.”- The guard runs down the hall.

“WHYYYYYYY?!?!?”- Claudius cries under his disguise, running after the guard.

“At least he was too busy to notice that I didn’t have a ring.”- Claudius thought.

Back at the room, Natalie nervously looks over at the clock. It reads: 8:07PM. The two prepared for the worst as it was around the agreed upon time to meet back up at the room. Taking a deep breath, the two step outside the hallway and carefully go towards Amber’s room. The two hide around corners, always checking to see if there were any guards around. They still have to act quickly as they don’t know what time they might be summoned to Vera. Unexpectedly, the hallway is empty, no guards to be seen. Most were summoned to prepare for the battle, the remaining few are all currently dealing with Leo and his shenanigans. As the two get closer to Amber’s room, they freeze. A shadow can be seen by Natalie further down the hall. They stay completely still as the shadow is getting closer towards the corner where they are. Sophia prepares for battle, waiting for what’s to come. The two hold their breath as Natalie estimates the distance, putting up all five of her fingers, signaling the amount of seconds left before the guard arrives.

“5, 4, 3, 2..”- Natalie held her breath in anticipation.

One! Natalie jumps up, ready to cast a spell with Sophia right behind her.

“What the hell are you guys doing?!?!”- Amber says, trying to whisper loudly.

The three breathed a sigh of relief, almost getting a heart attack. Regrouping, Natalie explained that Claudius was supposed to rescue Amber and bring her to Natalie’s room. Since he didn’t return, they assumed that he was captured and was planning to save him. Amber explained that she didn’t even hear Claudius anywhere nearby. She also had her own plan to bust out as she called over a guard and shocked them using her electrocution. She made sure to keep the voltage low so that she didn't hurt them too badly. She was planning to bust out everyone else the same way, but she didn’t get far before she met Natalie and Sophia. The three can’t help but wonder where Claudius went.

On the other side, Claudius and the guard run to Leo’s room, arriving on the site.

“What’s the situation?”- The guard asks.

“Well… Look for yourself.”- One of the other guards answers.

Leo can be seen inside his room going full ape mode. Even though he was chained to a chair, he somehow broke the chair. He is now standing upright, making weird noises. The four guards, including Claudius, can’t help but just stand there and look at him.

“Are you sure this guy is a mage? How did he break that chair?”- One of the guards asks.

“You haven’t heard? Idiots have superhuman strength.”- Another nonchalantly answer.

“We can either do this the easy way or the hard way. Let’s make this easy, ok?”- One of the guards said, slowly walking towards Leo.

“FHJKWFHWEKJFHWE YOU’LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE! I’LL ESCAPE THIS PRISON!!!”- Leo screams.

“DON’T THINK YOU CAN JUST TOUCH MY BOOTY AND GET AWAY WITH IT!”- Leo follows up as he charges at the guard.

With a sigh, the guard holds up her shield and deflects Leo’s attack. He falls backwards, does a failed backflip and falls on his face. As brave as his attack was, he still needs to consider the fact that he is only a mage.

“CLAUDIUS, DODGE!”- Natalie’s voice can be heard from down the hallway.

Without even a moment of hesitation, Claudius looks to his right and ducks down on the floor.

“FIREBALL!”- Amber, Sophia and Natalie all shouted in unison.

The three fireballs traveled quickly, hitting the two guards outside next to Claudius. They were knocked out instantly.

“WHAT?!”- The guard inside Leo’s room turns around.

“No hard feelings.”- Claudius said as he broke his disguise, tackling her from behind.

She didn’t have time to react and was pinned down on the ground by the 6 arms. The group then ties up all 3 guards together using the chain they tied Leo with.

“You won’t get away with this!”- The guard says.

“Oh, I just did. Heheheheh.”- Leo mocks the guard.

“Bonk” the sound can be heard as Sophia, Natalie and Amber all hit him on the head.

“Well, it's time for a nice nap.”- Sophia said as she cast her spell.

“Impossible! You think my mind is that weak?! There’s no way I….ZZZZZ”- The guard falls asleep.

“Now that we’re all here again, it’s time to get out of this prison.”- Natalie says.

“GUYS!!!”- Leo gives an ugly smile as he tries to group hug them, only to be denied by everyone except Claudius.

“If you guys had waited, I would have been able to find a way to bust everyone out.”- Leo confidently states.

“Totally.”- Amber sarcastically replies.

“Who was the one to be credited for this?”- Leo asks.

“Well I had a plan too, but Natalie’s plan is the one that got us all here.”- Amber says.

“We can celebrate after we get outside. I don’t feel safe as long as we are still in here.”- Natalie says.

“And how do we plan to get out?”- Amber asks.

“Front entrance is a no-no. A lot of the skilled Sanc Gladius members are out there, including Vera, they’ll stop us within seconds. So it has to be somewhere else.”- Natalie ponders.

“This is the second floor right?”- Claudius asks.

Outside the main entrance of the mansion, Vera can be seen in her battle armor. A sea of people stand scattered all around the front yard, awaiting her order.

“We should start getting ready to head out.”- Vera said, standing next to Garnet.

“Understood.”- Garnet said as she gave the signal.

All of the members quickly gathered into a neat group, all standing in front of Vera. Behind her are Garnet, Saura and Zorgis. All of Sanc Gladius’s main pieces have arrived. Everyone seemed excited.

“Bring the ‘guests,’ here.”- Vera said.

“Yes, my leader.”- One of the guards replies, running inside the building.

“BOOM”, a loud explosion can be heard on the west wing of the building.

“ENEMY ATTACK?!?”

“WHAT WAS THAT???”

Sanc Gladius’s members all got confused, looking over to their left. The bright light emitted from the explosion briefly lit the night sky.

“It’s not an enemy attack. Calm down.”- Vera understood the situation.

“I knew it! I should have assigned Saura to watch over them instead of those guards.”- Vera thought to herself, looking over to the side of the building.

Five silhouettes can be seen leaping off from the open hole. Breezes of wind appeared at the bottom, breaking their fall. The five sprinted straight away from the mansion towards the wall.

“AFTER THEM! DON’T LET THEM ESCAPE!”- Vera ordered.

“DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THEM!! THEY OUTRAN THE WHOLE ELQIUM GUILD BEFORE!!”- Vera shouts.

The members quickly sprint after them, but all weren’t prepared as they didn’t expect to be chasing someone. Leo’s party had a great head start as they caught Vera off guard, running up to the mansion wall.

“This wall is immune to magic. We can’t break it.”- Amber said.

“Then we’ll jump over it.”- Leo quickly replies.

“For an idiot, your brain does seem to be working at an important time.”- Amber laughs.

Sophia quickly casts Ionus, creating a wall and sending the five up to the top of the wall.

“Nice!”- Claudius says.

The five leap over, once more breaking their fall using Gentle Wind. They continue taking advantage of their greatest skill, running. To their surprise, after getting some distance away from the wall, it opens up.

“YO, THAT’S CHEATING.”- Leo shouts.

Sanc Gladius members run through the opening, trying to catch up to them. Luck was on their side, as they managed to run enough to make it to the residential area.

“This should slow them down a bit. It will be way harder for a big group like theirs to navigate the small streets and alleyways.”- Natalie said.

“You can try to run all you want, we have eyes everywhere in the capital. Hiding is futile, turn yourself in right now!”- Vera’s loud voice can be heard, broadcasted by some kind of magic.

“We are so close to getting out. You think we’ll give up right now???”- Amber said in frustration, knowing that Vera can’t hear her.

The moment they enter the residential area, the group take a sharp left turn, running into an alleyway. Even though they are in a hard-to-reach part of town, they know that inevitably Saura would catch up because of her dexterity.

“What do we do? Now’s the time if anyone has any ingenious ideas.”- Leo asks.

No one could come up with a solution as they were all in a hurry. The five stare at each other in silence.

“Well, standing around isn’t one of them. We’ll figure it out while running then.”- Leo suggests.

The sounds of Sanc Gladius’s rouge class members are approaching closer, with Saura taking the lead.

“I really, REALLY didn’t want to do this, but it looks like I have to.”- Natalie said out loud, hesitating as she was making a decision.

“Ok, whatever. Follow me.”- Natalie said, gesturing to the group.

They all have no choice, running after Natalie. She takes multiple turns, swiftly navigating the streets like she knows it to heart. Leo can catch glimpses of Sanc Gladius’s members jumping around on the roof, trying to find them. Soon, they arrive at a dark alleyway with a mysterious wooden door.

“Ok Amber and Leo. Since you guys are already wearing cloaks like me, you’ll be fine. Just remember to keep your hood up at all times.”- Natalie said.

“Gotcha.”- Leo and Amber reply, pulling up their hoods.

“Claudius should be fine here. Sophia, you’ll have to wear a hood also. We don’t have one on hand but I stole a curtain in my room, this should be good enough.”- Natalie said, pulling out the curtain from her bag.

“Wrap this around yourself, remember to keep the hood on.”- Natalie readjusts the curtain, making sure it worked .

“Ok.”- Natalie said, taking a deep breath.

She pulls out a necklace from her pocket, the item that she got from under her bed. The crest at the end of it is made of steel. The symbol is of three magical staffs in a triangle, with a magic circle at its center. She walks up to the door, knocking three times and asked:

“Do you guys happen to be selling any tomes?

Within a few seconds of waiting, a voice can be heard replying:

“We do, not the kind that you mages would want though.”

“Show me, help me change my mind.”- Natalie answers.

The wooden door creaks open, a hooded figure can be seen peering outside. He takes a look at Natalie and seems to be shocked, swiftly inviting her in.

“Your compatriots, I assume?”- He asks.

Natalie nods her head, letting Leo and everyone else go in first. The man seems to be very happy seeing Claudius, a void creature, which is something normal people would be terrified looking at. He casts a spell on the bookshelf inside the room, and a secret passageway opens up.

“May the Gods bless you.”- He said.

“May the Gods bless you too.”- Natalie replies as she goes down the tunnel.