After a good night's rest, the next morning Rage and Sensei met up with Adrian at the front gate, rumors about their identity began to spread as they heard a mix of whispers and murmurs gossiping as they met up with him.
"So what's on the schedule today" Rage asked as he stretched his arms upwards and cracked his back.
"Well, there is a hideout that we have been monitoring for the past couple of days, the problem is that they are hiding at a small village close to Ironpeak fort and using a nearby abandoned barn right outside the village to keep the slaves before they are shipped to wherever they ship their slaves to" Adrian sighed as he looked past Rage to a group of players clad in dark robes adorned with metal chestplates and a braces in addition to heavy boots.
"Are you planning to infiltrate the village?" Sensei asked Adrian.
"It's the only way, if we go all in, they might kill the villagers and blame it on us, which will make the people of Frostholm completely lose their trust in us" Adrian answered with a frustrated look, "But we have no idea how many or how strong they are since they blend in with the villagers so the plan was that the assassins squad would infiltrate the village and start trailing whoever is going to that barn and kill them before they reach it, that's how we make sure we are getting the slavers not the villagers, the rest of us will be on standby outside the village in case things go south" He continued.
"Hmm, I'll go in with them as well then" Rage said confidently as he took a out a dark cloak and equipped it over his armor.
DUSKWEAVE CLOAK
A dark, flowing garment with a generously sized hood that partially conceals the wearer's face.
"Are you sure about this? don't you need to go back to Oakbrook?" Adrian asked.
"I told you yesterday that I'll help with the slavers, we need to clear them out for the safety of the rest of the players anyways" Rage answered pulling the hood over his face, "Sensei will accompany you then"
"That's generous of you two, it's a relief that we don't have to pretend to be rivals anymore, i always hated that" Adrian chuckled awkwardly rubbing his hair.
"Well, we had to for clout so don't blame yourself" Rage laughed as he turned around heading towards his group.
"Hey Adrian, there's no need for them to know who I am, I want them on full guard the entire mission so we don't make mistakes" Said Rage casually lowering his voice so they couldn't hear him.
As Adrian and the rest of his guild gathered at the front gate, Adrian announced that he hired a professional Adventurer to help the infiltration squad for the day, without objections they set off on Ironpeak Fort's road before they took a turn at an offroad heading towards a giant frozen lake, Adrian and the rest were stood atop a nearby hill concealing themselves thanks to Erik's barrier while Rage and the rest of his squad headed for the village.
Initially they scattered across the village to not draw attention, keeping their eyes on any suspicious individuals that might look like the slavers they already know about, except Rage had no idea what the known slavers looked like, so he decided to conduct his own investigation.
As he passed by a small alley, he heard a cry and a plea for help coming from somewhere deeper inside the narrow alley, he initially thought that someone was getting mugged and decided to pay it no attention since he didn't want to draw unwanted attention at the beginning.
After wandering around for a little bit, he heard the same voice coming from a completely different alley, which raised his concerns, "Maybe they are using children to lure people in and abduct them?" He thought to himself as he leapt onto a nearby balcony jumping on the roof across its street.
His cloak helped partly conceal his presence so ordinary civilians could never sense that someone was jumping across multiple roofs, but he didn't rule out the possibility that the slavers might have a mage, despite how rare they are.
"Help, please!" The kid's voice became clearer as he cautiously leaped from his roof to the next house's.
He peeked into the dark alley that the sound was coming from to see a small girl, with pale skin and deep ice blue eyes, crying for help as three thugs held a knife to her throat, he remembered seeing the same three guys with that little girl strolling through the street earlier, so he was sure that they were using her to abduct the villagers.
Rage decided to cautiously observe for now, he thought to himself about helping the little girl, but he knew that killing the three thugs would lead him nowhere and for the time being he wanted to know whether that abandoned farm was their HQ or not, using such an obvious place would either mean that they are over confident that no one can meddle in their affairs or that they are really really dumb.
Rage noticed a member of the infiltration squad sat atop of the roof across the street from him that had the same idea, he nodded to Rage in understanding as they both sat for around 15 minutes before one of the thugs lowered the dagger he was holding to her throat.
"God fucking dammit, boss's gonna be angry if we don't meet quota" He spat to the floor as he grabbed the little girl's hair.
"That bastard should be grateful that we managed to get our hands on this gem?" The other laughed as he got uncomfortably close to the little girl's face who was crying in fear looking the other way.
"That's right, Frostborn are rare even if they are a half breed, especially children, he should be thankful that we didn't just sell her and keep the money behind his back" The first thug smiled as he dragged the girl from her hair to a nearby hatch in the ground, he opened up the hatch and jumped inside, as one of the other thugs handed him the girl before both of them followed him down closing the hatch before them.
Rage rushed to the hatch as he met up with the other person before he attempted to open it but it wouldn't budge.
"Does it have a spell protecting it?" Rage thought to himself, "Maybe i can force it open with Aura? but that low life could've never had aura"
The other person noticed a small keyhole at the side of the valve used to open the hatch, "They locked it from inside" She pointed it before taking out a lockpick.
After fiddling around for a minute, she managed to turn the valve and open the hatch as they both took the rusty metal ladder down to what didn't look like a sewer at all.
"Well this is interesting" Rage said looking around at a perfectly dug tunnel system that looked identical to the one that was dug beneath Oakbrook's mine, "I'm glad I didn't bring Sensei he still has PTSD from that time" He thought to himself.
"I've dealt with this before, they keep the slaves at a chamber somewhere" Rage whispered to her as they snuck into a nearby empty room.
"Name's Elara" She said, "Just for easier comms"
"Valerian" Rage replied as he looked around the room only finding cooking utensils and empty pots.
"They had a cooking party earlier?" He scoffed as he couldn't find anything related to the slavers in the room.
They both made their way out, cautiously following the tunnel before reaching a junction where it split off, Rage closed his eyes using his detection skill, Elara could feel the pulses of mana emanating from Rage as he scanned the nearby area, after a moment he opened his eyes heading towards the right tunnel.
"You can use detection already?" Elara said as she followed closely behind Rage.
"You should really do less talking and more focusing" Rage replied without looking at her only focused on following the mana trail he picked up.
They eventually reached a big chamber, similar to the one he saw back in Oakbrook's tunnel, he quickly grabbed Elara by the waist pulling her into the shadows of a small alcove carved into the wall putting the other hand over her mouth.
In front of them, the three slavers passed by but this time without the girl.
"We're gonna get scolded I'm telling ya" One of them said with an annoyed tone as the other replied "Slavers do what slavers must"
After their conversation faded away, Rage let go of Elara who was blushing as she was completely in his lap, he didn't seem to pay much attention as they both stood up and looked into the room to find a couple of dwarven soldiers playing cards at the back of the chamber.
The chamber was identical to the one back at Oakbrook, divided into rooms that held 2-3 individuals each, with a bell by the entrance where they were.
Rage took out his dagger swiftly cutting the bell's clapper before throwing both his daggers at the two dwarves in the back, both daggers found their targets as the two dwarves lied in a pool of blood on the floor.
"You're a professional" Elara chuckled as she took both daggers out and handed them back to Rage.
Elara took out her lockpick and started unlocking the doors one by one, Rage instructed everyone to be silent as he looked up to find a hatch and a small ladder at the side of the chamber, Elara swiftly climbed up unlocking the hatch as Rage decided to go out first signaling for Elara to get down.
After Elara descended from the ladder, Rage took out one of his bloodied daggers in one of his hands and started climbing up the ladder, he pushed the hatch up and caught a glimpse of some hay that was unnaturally full of blood, upon a closer look he noticed a fresh corpse buried in the hay before he sensed a projectile coming from behind, he quickly ducked down as a bolt passed right above his head as a he leapt outside the hatch taking advantage of the shooter reloading, he quickly dashed into the bolt's direction only to hold his dagger to the neck of someone who was also a part of the infiltration team.
"Jesus christ you scared the shit out of me" Rage sighed as he looked around to find himself in a barn.
"Sorry! We've been keeping an eye on this hatch for a while to catch someone coming out, we didn't want to risk lockpicking it" The hooded person apologized as Rage went back to the hatch and gestured for Elara to send the prisoners up one by one.
"Wait did you find their HQ?" One of the other hooded figures asked.
"No, but we found the slaves chamber, they have multiple hatches across the village so I doubt this is the only chamber" Rage replied as he started assisting the prisoners up.
The infiltration team started escorting the prisoners back to where Adrian is in small groups to not get noticed, after all the prisoners were out of the chamber Rage assisted Elara up before closing the hatch.
"No need to lock it, they'll probably know what happened and relocate, I mean all the slaves are gone" Elara chuckled before she took off her hood.
She was a beautiful young woman around 24, with short blonde hair and dark brown eyes, she was fit so Rage assumed she was an athlete back on earth, "I showed you mine, so show me yours, we're colleagues after all" She nudged him with a chuckle before Rage ignored her and went outside the barn, "Hey!" She called out before quickly trailing him towards the hill where the rest were.
Shortly they arrived at the hill, the healers were tending to the prisoner's wounds as Erik removed the barrier he set and helped the healers, Adrian and Sensei were chatting nearby before Elara approached Rage again, "See that big guy? That's Sensei, he's Highthorn's tank, we got no shot even standing by that guy, i know you're a local and don't know who they are but they are kinda the hot shots from where i come from" She said locking her eyes on Sensei, "And their clan master is literally my celebrity crush, look at this" She took out her purse to show him pictures of himself with hearts and kisses.
Rage was dying in the inside fighting the urge to both burst out in laughter or burst out with embarrassment.
Sensei looked back to notice Rage chatting with Elara before walking towards him alongside Adrian.
"They're coming here! Act normal and don't be disrespectful!" Elara cleared her throat as she stood in attention while Rage crossed his arms and leaned on a nearby tree.
Elara glared at him as she bowed before Adrian and Sensei, "Leader, M-Mr Sensei I-I'm so sorry about my comrade's behavior he's a local so he doesn't kno-" Elara tried to apologize before both Adrian and Sensei bursted out laughing.
"She's trying so hard to defend him as well" Sensei said through his laughter as he wiped a tear.
"Elara wasn't it?" Adrian put his hand on her shoulder, "I heard about what you did with that idiot over there, good job, I've prepared a proper reward for you"
"Seeing you and Mr Sensei is enough boss" She stuttered in excitement, "But please my comrade did most of the heavy lifting It's not fair to reward me alone, I know he was rude but he's just a local" She continued before both of them started laughing again.
"Take off your cloak you dickhead" Sensei said to Rage who just rolled his eyes.
"Do I have to?" Rage said.
Elara was visibly confused as Sensei and Valerian were speaking so casually.
"Fine" Rage said after Sensei stared at him for a moment.
As soon as he removed his cloak, Elara's face turned bright red remembering how he grabbed her back in the tunnel and how she showed him his pictures in her purse, "R-R-U-U-H" she managed to utter before running off.
"Huh, what happened between you both?" Adrian smirked teasingly.
"Shut up" Rage sighed as he summoned his shadowmare.