Chapter 285: Infiltration

Elara’s boot crunched against a rock.

“Who goes there?” a man’s voice called out. In the cavernous expanse of Erandur, the sound echoed oddly, enhancing the very slight quaver that the man was trying to hide. A bit of uncertainty, perhaps.

Maybe even fear.

Elara certainly hoped it was fear - and if it wasn’t, she was sure that it certainly became that as she walked closer to the source of the sound. Not that the man was hidden in any way. He positively shone in the darkness, the wind-aspected mana that suffused his armor and weapon limning his figure in a whitish glow.

To anyone else, it would probably be an intimidating sight. Especially with the other two figures that stood beside him, each just as brilliant as the first. But to Elara, it meant less than nothing.

Not while she was wearing her stolen set of armor.

As she moved closer, Elara let the enhancements on her plate pulse, the shadowlike metal setting itself alight with an eerie glow that, despite its apparent illumination, wasn’t all that illuminating in truth. The black-purple light all but disappeared into the shadows around her, making it quite clear why the one who’d once owned the armor had been known as a Shadowguard.

With a further effort of will, the effect stretched itself slightly further, wrapping around the sheathed blade at Elara’s side and the pack strapped across her back, preventing them from slipping through her increasingly ephemeral form. Elara still wasn’t sure how it all worked, given that Orken’s own nullsmith hadn’t been able to decipher the methods that were used in its creation even after some time to examine the gear, though she was sure - after everything she’d seen and heard since coming to Erandur - that the ability to turn the effect on and off was due to the xenlite embedded in the chestplate’s center.

The malleability of the effect might have been due to the same, but maybe not. Elara was sure that, despite her feelings about Virtun and the things that they had done, they were more skilled than anyone she’d ever met when it came to manipulating mana captured from Cores. Even the White Tower’s equipment, just as enhanced by xenlite as her own stolen set of armor, didn’t have the same sort of control to it. The armor and spears that Valera captured had been tested thoroughly; they could turn off and on, but the strength of the effect never truly changed and couldn’t be stretched. Not like Shadowguard armor could.

The guards stiffened, their question answered without any need for a verbal response.

“It’s that missing Shadowguard,” one of the guards hissed. Elara doubted that she’d been meant to hear it, but she’d already used her mana-enhancement’s body control to shift her hearing far beyond what was natural.

And while doing that was as painful as it always was, she could always just choose not to feel that pain. The others had initially disapproved when she’d mentioned it to them, but practicality had eventually won out. With the Little Guardian’s increased control over the area, she would never be far from healing if she needed it.

Her ears - and her brain, too, as it clearly had some connection to her ability to interpret so many sounds at once - would recover. Was recovering, even; she was still within range of the nearest Guardian Statue, her [Little Guardian’s Focus] warm against her chest.

Which was one of the main reasons for her current mission in the first place.

“Where in the Skies did she even disappear to?” another hissed back, still under the impression that Elara couldn’t hear them. She didn’t disabuse them of the notion, approaching the gate slowly enough to allow them to talk - and to run through her mental list of tasks one more time.

There wouldn’t be much room for error once she made it inside.

The first thing that she needed to do was get in. Nothing else mattered if she couldn’t pull that off. Luckily, she didn’t think it would be a problem. The guards were nervous at her approach, but not in the way that someone spoiling for a fight would be.

They were still whispering to each other, holding a conversation beneath their breaths. It wasn’t all that useful to hear. Mostly wondering what she’d been up to, complete with wild speculation that grew more and more outlandish. Her favorite was the idea that she’d been stuck napping beneath increasingly large piles of monster corpses, absorbing their blood for power - and that, if someone stared at her beneath her helmet, they’d see the trapped souls of those same dead monsters in her eyes.

Elara had a feeling they were competing on who could come up with the most absurd story.

She tried not to laugh. As horrible as the things they’d done were, their conversation humanized them. And, by the end of the day, they would probably be dead. Those waiting in the darkness behind her wouldn’t accept anything less.

But that wasn't Elara’s duty. Her role lay elsewhere. And it began with getting inside of the mines.

Elara reached the gate.

“I hear you’ve been having problems,” she rasped. She wasn’t sure why she did that, except that it made her sound more powerful and mysterious. Maybe the strange stories bandied about by the guards had gotten to her. Also, her normal voice sounded just a little too nice. Not intimidating at all. “I’m here to take a look. Make sure everything will be ready for transport when the deadline hits.”

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After a bit of hesitation, one of the trio decided to speak. “I’m not sure where you heard that, ma’am, but everything is going according to schedule. You’ll have your xenlite soon enough.”

They didn’t want to let her in. Unsurprising. But, at the same time, they were anything but belligerent. Elara decided to push them.

“You’d be surprised, the sort of whispers that can reach you, sleeping beneath a pile of dying monsters,” she responded dryly. “You see, I’ve heard that you lost the xenlite. That, with the deadline so close, you’re in a rush to make the quota. That you won’t make it in time.”

“We -” one of them tried to cut in, visibly trembling. A funny thing, given how well-equipped they were, covered in enchanted armor and wielding equally enchanted weapons.

“You are going to let me in,” Elara interrupted, holding up her sole working hand to forestall the man. “And I am going to ensure that these whispers I’ve been hearing are unfounded.”

Had it been able to act as it willed, her heart would have beaten furiously.

Had it been able to act as it willed, her voice would have trembled.

Had it been able to act as it willed, her stomach would have twisted.

None of them did. Elara kept a tight reign over them all. Her heart was steady; it had no reason to change its beat, because she allowed herself no fear. Her voice was confident; it had no reason to tremble, because she allowed herself no uncertainty. Her stomach was absent of butterflies; it had no reason to revolt, because she allowed herself no anxiety.

In the same way, the trio obeyed - because she allowed them no other option. The gate swung open. One of the men peeled off to escort her, leaving the other two behind to continue manning the gate.

As she followed him into the mines, letting one hand press firmly against the gate in passing and phase momentarily inside of it, she heard the two remaining guards start to whisper to each other again.

“Skies, I think I just about pissed myself. There’s something wrong with that one; I can feel it in my bones.”

“...do you think that soul thing was true? I didn’t get a good look at her eyes. Not sure I wanted to.”

“...I don’t want to know. I really don’t.”

“...as you can see, things are moving along. The mines are as productive as ever. More so, even,” the man said, motioning towards the group of workers - if workers was really even a proper term for them.

It wasn’t.

Elara’s lip curled, taking in the sight. The miners were chained to each other, and to spikes of metal in turn. The metal spikes, driven directly into the ground by means of hammer and attached to a ring, kept the miners from moving too far - and, meanwhile, the connections to each other kept them from moving too quickly.

An unexpected motion, made strongly enough, could send the entire line toppling.

The man, an overseer of the mines - though Elara knew that the position must have been new for him, as the Little Guardian had so recently wiped out the entirety of the mine’s normal overseers and guards - misinterpreted the curl of her lip for disagreement, rather than the disgust that it actually was.

He blanched, stammering to reassure her. “Rest assured that, by the time the deadline arrives, the quota of xenlite will be met. I dare say that it might even be exceeded! Though, obviously, any trade deal for additional material would have to go through my superiors. It’s all over my head, you understood,” the man babbled.

He was nervous.

“...I see,” Elara said, allowing the anxious overseer to infer whatever meaning he wished. “And how are you ensuring that this…productivity remains so impressive? I would hate to find out that you overestimated your ability to motivate your miners. I’m afraid that it wouldn’t turn out well for you, now that you’ve gone so far to assure me.”

She pulsed her armor’s mana again for emphasis, letting the wisps of purple-black serve to underline the seriousness of her words. It was an aggressive turn of conversation, but Elara hadn’t been left alone in the entire time that she’d been in the mines, and she needed to find out more about whatever hostages were being kept. A few of the miners glanced in her direction, chains clinking.

If looks could kill, both Elara and the newly appointed overseer would already be dead.

Somehow, in defiance of the very limits of his physiology, the man grew even paler. He stammered, an odd thing for such an otherwise intimidating man. Around them, the guards within the room stiffened, fingers tightening around their enchanted spears.

Eventually, the conversation led to the place she wanted, though it did so in fits and starts that Elara could have easily done without. First, the man claimed that he and his men were simply good at their job; that their effectiveness alone was enough to ensure the captured miners’ productivity. Then, when that explanation failed, he referred to the sheer number of miners; and it was true, there were likely far more of them then there would originally have been, with so many captured recently. But Elara wasn’t looking for that answer, and made him try again.

Finally, he admitted to the hostages. It was an odd sort of admittance, reluctantly done not because he was truly ashamed of the act, but because he simply preferred not to risk any chance that Elara would disapprove. Though, given what she knew about the Virtun delegation’s history in the area - and the way that the locals seemed to react to them with a constant state of fear and wariness, as if they were dangerous and unpredictable monsters - she doubted that the man believed it was actually much of a risk.

That didn’t mean he was eager to lead her to them. But, in the end, he didn’t have a choice. Everything that was happening had come about due to the White Towers’ fear of the coming Virtun delegation. So, in a short matter of time, Elara left the miners behind. They would keep for the moment. It was far more important that she find the very thing that was holding them back from providing any form of resistance.

And, from there, she could start to change things.

From inside her pack, more than enough pre-attuned [Little Guardian’s Totem]s to outfit every hostage and every miner tumbled about, mixed with enough seeds to form a fortress. And, as soon as she got the signal out, that fortress would begin to sprout.