The Runic Alchemist

The beastman removed top part of his robe like attire and spread his wings in the serene moonlight, if the situation wasn't tense Damian would have loved watching the magical creature take flight.

With a jump the beastman flew straight up making minimum noise and landed on top of the wall, looking back once he tied a rope at the top and kicked the rest below.

Then he took off high under the moonlight to get the better picture of the situation inside, he was at an incredible height though and what he could notice would most likely not be clear enough, however they could not risk him getting any closer. There were many guards on duty in the headquarters.

With the help of rope one by one everyone climbed the wall, there were some complications with Anthony but their bald leader pulled him up along with the rope at last. Splitting up in three groups, one in the leader alone another with two dumbos who had explained the plan to Damian and last in which Damian and Anthony were together, then they headed in from three different ways.

"Keep as much quite as possible.. You go last and stay a little further than us, you have to save the kid..."

Damian nodded at their bald leader and together with Anthony went crawling from wall to wall as sneakily as possible till they were behind the main building. The main headquarters was five stories big and completely made out of stone. It was really impressive construction project considering the age they were in, but they also had magic to replace the modern tools so it wasn't that rare.

Standing completely still behind the building Damian extended his mana sense to it's limits and tried to sense as far as possible.

He could feel all mana signatures in half the building and going up for three stories, there were people sleeping in their quarters everywhere but fortunately Damian found one place where no mana signature was present, either someone was not in their bed yet or the room was empty on purpose.

It was a room just like the others, this one had the window shut tight. Damian took out one of his basic scroll and activated it. Five solid water blades came out of the blue runic magic circle one by one and before they would go shooting in a fast speed as they were programmed Damian connected his mana strings to them and took control, keeping them hovering around him.

With minimum sound Damian guided one sharp water blade to get in between the gap of two wooden window doors and pushed it from below to the top.

The iron hinges were in the middle, the blades were not sharp enough to cut iron but it could pull the hinges off of the wooden window with enough force. Finally the window opened and revealed bars of iron covering the whole window frame. Damian had guessed that's how it would be, it would be too easy if it was just a wooden window with weak hinges.

For others this might be the a hindrance but for Damian this was nothing, retrieving another scroll from his storage this one much more premium looking, Damian opened it and pointed inside the room which looked like a some kind of storage room with things lying around and activated it.

A black runic magic circle appeared in front of the mana beast-skin parchment and connected another point in space which was 10 meters ahead of it.

Damian had succeeded in at least applying the [Wormhole] spell on the paper with pre-entered distance, of course it made the spell crippled in fight with it's slow activation and predictable opening but it had many more application in which Damian was happy to use it as such. Wasting his mana for no reason was not an efficient thing to do.

Damian entered the hovering purple glowing wormhole and Anthony surprised as hell behind him also came in hopping. He must be confused as hell, but Damian was not going to explain his secrets to the guy.

Damian wouldn't even be here if he didn't see himself and his siblings from the orphanage in the maimed kid. He had no love for strange drunkards.

Inside the store room Damian slowly opened the front door and peeked outside, he immediately noticed four guards on the other side of the rectangle building floor and other four moving mana signatures he could sense which were much closer. Damian closed the door and breathed in for a second to think a way forward.

Damian and Anthony were on the ground floor but according to their intel there was one more floor beneath this one which had the holding cells for infamous criminals who were supposed to be judged or were waiting for execution captured by knight guards who kept the city safe.

Observing their pattern of movement which was simple enough with no variations, Damian thought of the simple plan of just waiting for nearest four to turn their back and walk sneakily and hopefully the four in the distance won't be able to see them clearly just as Damian wasn't able to see them.

Being real sneaky and walking carefully and silently making no sound Damian and Anthony waited for the perfect opportunity and just as it came they left the storage room and walked slowly while ducking down behind the two guard who were patrolling and kept on going behind them just like that with their hearts beating faster than horses, being real careful and sweaty profusely.

The intense situation continued for Damian's life's longest 4 minutes till finally the guards turned at the corner and Damian and Anthony went downstairs and breathed in for their life. Damian did not even realize he was holding his breath till now.

The underground also had four guards patrolling and two watching over the cells Damian guessed from the mana signature that he could sense from the stairs.

Almost all knights were Enlightened rank so their mana energy was pretty noticeable, of course there were much more first rankers in the rooms sleeping and other civilians with no mana energy at all too which were most likely staff who managed the building and the prisoners.

Damian tapped lightly on heavily breathing Anthony's hand to gesture him to stop wasting time and get going. Damian also took few steps forward when suddenly he notice two mana signatures that were not supposed to be there.

One was a first ranker just like him but a very familiar one and another was the biggest mana energy signature in the whole building, Damian did not notice it because it was on the other side of the building before. Right now they were right on top of Damian somewhere on 4th or 5th floor. Those were reserved for commanders and high ranking knights only.

"What the hell are they doing here...?"

The burned knight Sir Galen Thorneborn was not supposed to be here. Who the hell goes back to their job right after getting blasted alive..? He should be on his lands, being healed playing with chickens or something.. Or whatever nobles did in this age to pass time...

'And the freaking brat.. Why was the prince of Faerunia sleeping in knight's headquarters...? Hell.. Runes and ravens..!! This is really going to shit and we didn't even begin yet...'

This had become a 80% riskier than it was a minute ago. It's just a miracle that the handsome knight was not here with his nephew or Damian would serious loose all his marbles. Getting them out of his mind Damian breathed in and walked on. They were still in their rooms, they don't know anything, Damian consoled himself.

It's only a failure if they make serious ruckus here and everyone chases after them. Damian regained his composure and focused on the underground floor. Normally people did not have mana sensing capabilities, so if he could just sneak in silently and sneak out with the kid, it's all going to be fine. There was no need for fighting, this was a stealth mission.

And just as they reached the underground floor below Damian heard a sword slashing and two men dropping on the ground without making a sound, blood spurting out of their necks. Another two were standing on top of them with their swords bloody and eyes glowing as if demons from hell come alive.