Her guild assembled, Cless looked at her client and asked, "Where are they, Helga?"

"Outside..." She pointed north and pressed her lips together, sadness and dismay stamped across her face.

They got Kate and Shad but there was one small problem. The town gates were already closed. Cless would have to reopen the tunnels.

"Let's use the tunnels. It should take us straight to them."

Cless placed the golem inside and enclosed the stone room the wagon was in stone before going down. Too many things of value in there. She also placed fireball wards around the place. She took two spools of rope for her soon-to-be prisoners. They went down the tunnels and one hour later, connected back with the smuggler's network. She closed the tunnel leading to the catacombs underneath her manor with a thick slab of stone and guided the guild north. It was cramped for Kate but she was enduring it well. Cless was putting Light spells along the way, lighting up the whole tunnel they were going through.

The way north soon changed from a stonework catacomb to a crudely-dug tunnel. Cless could feel some spots where a cave-in was most likely to happen. The shoddy and amateurish passage was a death trap. Without the time to really reinforce and shore up the roof, she just kept a Terrakineis spell active and ushered everyone forward. Worse yet, the air was stale. More than once she had to use a Purify spell to keep everyone healthy.

They walked silently for about a kilometer. Cless could feel the creatures on the surface through [Tremorsense]. First people walking through the night streets, then guards on the wall and it opened up to farm animals, insects, rodents as they moved underneath the farmlands. Another kilometer and no sign of reaching the end. It made sense. Glauchester was larger and required more food. It was a logical conclusion that they would have more farmland around them.

About three or four kilometers of going more or less northward, as whoever dug this skirted around blocks of harder rocks like granites, Cless felt a large group of bipedal creatures ahead. Some of them were kneeling on the ground, a few even lying on their sides. Four hundred more meters then.

"Everyone, get ready. We are approaching our target. Our priority is the safety of the captives, followed by not letting anyone escape. Capture them alive if possible, but take no risks. Kurt, you can use your new weapon if you want. I'll keep a Protection spell on everyone."

Cless used Protection and Blessing on everyone, including Helga. Shad was going to fight this time as well. Too bad she didn't know how to use [Fear Aura] in a way to exclude her allies from the effect. Maybe with more training. She felt it should be possible. Kate, Silverfang, Vic could ignore her aura due to their large Stats. Venaris didn't need to stay inside the area to be effective with her sling. It left Kurt, Shad, and Helga. Wisdom could help but it is the most difficult stat to unlock, she thought.

They moved forward and found another room full of crates. Silverfang sniffed them and nodded. More contraband. Cless pointed at the tunnel on the other side of the room. The smugglers apparently trusted the secrecy of their tunnel system so much they didn't bother with sentries. Or traps. Not that they would do any good with Venaris scouting as they advanced.

Now that they were this close, Cless could count the targets. Ten of them were on their knees or lying on their side, in the middle of a ring of about thirty to forty people. Some of them were going and returning, not that she could tell they were the same, but the circle never had less than thirty people. Worse yet, the tunnel's exit was right next to them.

Cless was considering her options on how to crack that smuggler ring when one person standing up moved inside the ring and moments later one of those that were kneeling fell on their side. Probably a kick or some other blow. They are being tortured.

"Venaris, can you make everyone invisible, please?" Cless asked the gnome.

She nodded and used a spell. "Mass Invisibility." It used almost all the magic Venaris had. "If you attack, the effect ends for you," She warned everyone.

They filed silently out of the tunnel, Cless stayed behind to seal the contraband room with a stone grate. Fortunately, they didn't have too many people watching the exit. Why would they? They were right there, a dozen meters away. They weren't even inside the farm. The tunnel opened well inside the treeline, and as far as the law was concerned, this was no man's land. Cless could see some wagon tracks going off to the west, probably to take the road going away from Glauchester a few kilometers away from the gates and any prying eyes.

Now that they had a line of sight, they could hear what the smugglers were saying.

"Tell us who you sold our goods to, scum!" One of them shouted. The others were talking in a low voice about different subjects but keeping their eyes on the prisoners. Or hostages.

The ten porters Cless captured in the catacombs were the ones in the middle of the ring of people, illuminated by some torches held by the smugglers. Around them some rugged and not very friendly-looking men. Cless could see them clearly because of all the metal they were using either in their armor or the weapons they had in their hands.

Cless changed her shared Skill to [Perfect Might]. She took a glance at Kate and Shad's enhanced Stats.

Kate - Level 81 slemuroth.

Base Stats: - Strength 210 (+11) [510]- Agility: 51 (+7) [133]- Health: 130 (+13) [330] - Intellect: 8 (+7)

Shared Skill: [Perfect Might]

Traits:

[Not Again]: Divide the damage from any source by the number of times you suffered the same attack in the last 24 hours.

[Sleep Dust]: Spread a cloud of sleep dust.

[Enrage]: Goes on a rampage, doubling Strength and Agility for 5 minutes. Fall asleep right afterward.

Shad — Level 49 male crystalback drillmole (1,057,355 / 1,081,000 Exp)

Base Stats — Strength: 49 (+13) [121] — Agility: 71 (+7) [151] — Health: 54 (+11) [125] — Intellect: 15 (+7)

Shared Skill: [Perfect Might]

Traits:

[Mega Drill]: Once every 10 minutes, increase digging speed by 5x for 1 minute.

[Glittering Shards]: Decrease hit chance of sight-dependent attacks by 30%. Imposssible to use stealth.

How much does five hundred Strength hurt? Or one thousand if an enraged Kate was to enter the fray. Shad was below the required two hundred and twenty-three points to even function inside her aura.

She took a deep breath and spoke in a low voice her plan.

"Kate, Silverfang and Vic, you are coming with me. We are running straight into them and breaking their formation. I'll trigger [Fear Aura] when we engage. Engage the ones that don't get paralyzed by the aura. I will make sure they can't run in all directions but one. Kurt, Shad, and Venaris will stay on the lookout for runaways. Remember to avoid killing but stay safe." Everyone hummed their agreement. They were invisible and body language was not a thing right now. "Moving out." She whispered and they went on the rescue.

Cless ran and slashed the back of a smuggler's knee. She wasn't expecting but the sword sliced through the limb, severing it. She barrelled through them as her invisibility waned. Planting a foot solidly to halt her momentum, she activated [Fear Aura]. Everyone whose Level plus Strength plus Intellect fell below the threshold for resisting Frederik's Skill cowered and suffered a five-second paralysis effect. Five of the smugglers didn't and instead suffered a hit to their reactions. Four of them were strong men-at-arms types and the fourth wore a fur robe and held in her hand a fancy staff.

She kept these five in her line of sight but didn't move. Her job was another. Containment.

"Spike Wall!"

A wall of barbed earth spikes sprouted from the ground, raising two meters tall and promising a skewering death too any that dared cross or climb it. One side blocked.

The smugglers moved to engage her. The woman with the staff was casting a spell, unfinished because the fear effect was slowing her down. She never got to finish it. Her hands were suddenly drawn close to her body and her voice stopped as a brass-covered thick snake tail appeared around her and over her mouth. Vic's torso towered over the woman's head, one hand holding a dagger in front of her eyes and brought the female spellcaster down as her legs couldn't hold the weight.

A muffled whimper and the sound of them falling down was all the others heard.

The two on the left screamed as invisible claws rendered their arms useless and a silver-furred werewolf appeared between them, towering over the already large men. Silverfang sunk his teeth around the largest one's shoulder and ravaged the join as he shook his head and tore both flesh and armor away.

Cless was raising the second spike wall behind Vic when the other two smugglers that were still moving got within striking distance to hit her. They never did as their legs were brutally yanked back and their bodies turned upside down. Kate appeared behind them, holding the two men by their calves as if they were two rag dolls. She stood up and ignored as one of the thugs sliced her side, focused on using the two humans as clubs to pound the very ground. She let out a savage roar that could cause the same effect as Cless' own aura as the two unfortunate smugglers found that their bones were less sturdy than the ground.

"Whoever runs, dies!" Cless warned as the primary effect of her aura faded. She turned the aura off.

Silverfang howled and Kate screeched at them to help the intimidation attempt. With the third Spike Wall in place, a few of the smugglers decided to try their luck and run for the tunnel. The first one of them flew back and landed on his back in the middle of the still crouching porters. Another screamed in agony and changed directions as a glittering critter pounced his face and tried to claw out the man's eyes.

A cry from a bird of prey froze the last two runaways in place. A shadow swoops down from out of their light sources' reach and both men fell down, a flash of green and bloodied metal hanging from its legs all the others saw before whatever took them flapped and mightly rose back in the dark of the night.

"Try to run, and die. Drop your weapons and get down on her knees!"

She closed the cage with the fourth Spike Wall anyway. With another spell, she left an opening. The five that tried to run away were brought back by Helga and Venaris. Shad dug a shallow hole to hide in next to the gap and Kurt was probably hiding in a tree.

"Heimdall!" Helga ran to hug her brother. "Are you hurt?"

"I'll be fine, sister. Who are these people?" Heimdall, one of the porters asked. Good to know that she could really make people forget stuff. She never got to really test it with fully hostile parties.

"Bind everyone but these ten that are unarmed," Cless ordered. "I'll heal them so they don't die."

They went around, tying the smuggler's hands in a string with the two spools of rope. She wasn't expecting them to keep bound for too long. The spellcaster, the only woman in their group was gagged as well. Can't leave a caster able to speak. The others decided to keep their mouths shut as the ones that dared to threaten or speak lost a few teeth to angry furred clawed monstrosities.

"Thank you, guild master!"

After they finished restraining the smugglers, Helga, her brother Heimdall and the other nine porters came to greet her.

"It is fine. Are you all unhurt? I still have lots of healing spells for you. No?" She giggled, dispelling some of their tension. "Well, could I ask you to go to the room where the contraband is stored and wait for me there? I would like to have a private conversation with these scumbags here."