I pulled up to an abandoned house. My instincts crawled that this was a bad place. It was a shit hole in the back alley of a back alley in the middle of a couple of buildings. The place was long abandoned, and I wondered how the Lich discovered this place. It fit the aspects of a Necromancer layer perfectly, and I knocked on the door. One long pause, two short, followed by two long. A moment later, the door opened, and I felt my skin crawl looking at the cloaked individual.
"The leader is waiting for you inside. We have set up a boundary so no one can overhear," the cloaked man said.
I nodded and headed inside with my hand on my dagger in case I needed to fight. But no one showed hostility. I walked in, and the inside was just as terrible as the outside. The Cloaked man followed me in and said, "This way." before he grabbed the floor and pulled open the floor, revealing a staircase. I followed him down and entered what was clearly a large cold cellar. Whatever this house had been before degrading to this point, it apparently needed a very large cold cellar. Turning the corner, I could see the lich cloaked just like I was. They were over a large table with a map of the docks and various knickknacks on the side.
"You are here, Perfect," I heard the Androgenous voice of the lich. "We need to talk. My compatriots and I are having issues staying around. We believe the Guard has been alerted to some of our activities, and we will need to leave the city quickly. We need at least four boats on the way out," The Lich said.
"Four boats is a lot. How about two, and you steal the other two while pirating?" I asked.
"We will see if we can get them on shore. We can go through the supplies and return to you what we don't need. We will need to take a boat that is light on supplies to carry what you have for us."
"Well, there is not that much, but I can understand your point. Right now, you are more or less dictating a plan to me that you need help with."
The Lich turned to look at me, but I could not see their face, "So we are in a bit of an understanding. I have been scoping out things and looking into our targets, and I found all of them. We will be targeting two to four of the ships, and this is where you come in. We need you to go over things with us and see what you believe is possible."
"then how many forces do you have?" I asked.
"We have me as a lich, and the rest are C and D rankers. We have few minions available now as we do not want to draw attention to ourselves." The Lich replied, "All our main forces are in the ships we stole from the Empire."
We were short on manpower, and I had no organization behind me to provide warm bodies to help. There was nothing there to push with, and I could not help but frown. I could not see four ships, maybe even two, as there were too many ships. One was more along the lines of something they could steal. Plus, who was going to...
My mind paused on my last thought and looked at them, "How many necromancers do you have?" I asked,
"Ready to attack, Seven." The Lich said, and I nodded in thought.
"How many minions can you raise and how fresh, or are there any forms of death they can't be?"
"As fresh as seconds ago and two to three a day for those C and D rankers, depending." The Lich said and shrugged, "I can do about thirty if I push myself and have not battled."
I smiled, "I can think of a way to take two ships with minimal effort. Now, you need to tell me which ones are available, and I will prime the ships for you. You, by yourself, will be taking one and the rest another. but we can pull it off for two ships and use your minions to row the ship out to sea." I told her, and the Lich looked at me.
"Okay, if you got us out of that battle at Border City, then you can get us out of this city. We are thinking of this ship and this ship here," The Lich said, pointing at two ships. Their cargo is still being loaded up, and they have valuable spices and various things going to the Empire and the Beasts in the north. And this ship, since they are close," the Lich explained, "This one is carrying a shipment of something expensive, we were told. One of my Minions noticed a crate leaving an Alchemical workshop and was gently placed in this ship. The other cargo is unknown, but the ship is packing up slowly. We do not know why, but it seems this ship is here to order and then pick up things. We believe whatever they are getting is extremely valuable and for a Noble."
Those were two good choices for everything except location. They were in the middle of the docks and in a busier area. "The question was how to get the supplies onto the boat. They are good choices except for their locations. They are in a busy part of the port."
"Simple. We don't take them now; we do it later. They will have new, fresh foodstuffs on the ships, and we don't need a lot. The supplies we asked for can hold for a bit. We can take the ships out and use cutters to take them in, say, a week."
I felt my eyebrow twitch. "Okay, that will also allow you to drop anything off that you find valuable in the ships to send back to us to sell." I replied, wondering about her response, and she paused.
A second later, I could feel Mana move, and I got ready for my energy, but the Lich restrained themselves. "You are right, that is a good idea. We will do that then."
I hated that I had to continue to deal with these Necromancers already. The Lich clearly thought they were in a stronger position right now, negotiation-wise. The sad part was that the Lich technically was. They had two B rankers, and I had two B rankers after one of the Necromancers turned into a Lich, and I got Avery. The ground was even if not in my favor, but the Necromancer did not know about Avery.
But I had to do this for them, basically, for free, and then take my profits from them. They were taking the larger risk overall. In the end, I would be on shore, reaping the profits. My businesses would reap more profits, and I would gain more power.
They were going to be my trash that I threw out as bait to see what I could haul in. The age of Galleys in this world and River barges was uniquely behind that of other technologies. But I was not about to complain when it worked well for the Necromancers and myself. Now was the time to capitalize on their needs.
"Alright, I am in," I said finally, and I heard a sigh of relief from behind me. I could tell the pressure of being in an unknown city with stronger law enforcement was tough on them. Now, let's plan our attack."