145. Scouting: Ruku.

Pybyr led me in a different direction than I expected. It looks like Gwaed has changed location. I still didn’t want anything to do with her, but I had no choice at the moment. She had moved to a rundown apartment in the Fisherman's Sector. It was quite the downgrade from the previous apartment. Pybyr was ecstatic to be back with the other bonds. I noticed Sugnwr was missing most of a wing.

“You have downgraded,” I said in greeting.

Gwaed smiled, “This is actually an upgrade from the last place, but certainly a downgrade from the other apartment. I have a gift for you,” she continued indicating the full backpack across the room, “courtesy of the Lore Society.”

I went to investigate it. It was full of books. “Thanks,” I said, poking through the top few.

“I got as many Skill books as I could, and the vault next to the skill book one was interesting. It only had four books in it, all about Advanced Classes. I kept the one on alchemy, but there is one there on the Slave Class,” she seemed very pleased with herself.

“That’s awesome. I will give it a read and pass it on to Wiremu.” I said. I am not a very good actor, and I think it was obvious I was wary of her.

“Your diversion,” she continued, “helped me kill the assassin. The raid on the Lore Society was trickier as they were searching the city for me at that stage. I hired an adequate thief, but after the heist, he was overcome by Joy.”

I was not sure why a joyful thief was important. Did she pay him a bonus even though she thought he was only adequate? “The Captain you sent to me wants to sail in seven days. He can get us out of the city with 24 hours' notice.”

“I have more information on the Enchanters. I pretended to be an Alchemist and chatted up the Military Doctors helping them combat the sickness going around. They are only fighting the symptoms, not the cause, at the moment, I am pleased to say. Abigail is there, and so are her parents. She is not a slave, but they are. There is a dwarven blacksmith, but the other dwarves are slaves, as are the remaining three humans,” she explained.

“So, eight slaves, two free, but working with the imperials. Who is the slave master, the dwarf?” I asked.

“No, it is the Patrol leader in charge. I don’t know who they are, but they should be easy enough to find,” Gwaed said.

“Do you know what they are doing?” I asked.

“From what Esgyn can see, they are modifying the ship with a new propulsion system. The ship is the Seabreeze, and Abigail has been working with the Military Shipwrights to modify it.”

“So Abigail is modifying the ship, and the blacksmith is key to making the parts, and those three dwarfs are probably some of the enchanters from Obalno. How are we going to control the slaves?” I said thoughtfully.

“That is the easy part,” Gwaed stated. “We kill the Patrol Leader, and either you or I take over the slave bond.”

There was no way I trusted her with slaves. I certainly didn’t want slaves. “Can we do that?” I asked. “How do you know we can become Slave owners?”

“Anyone can learn to be a slave owner, and basically, if you have a Class that requires organisation, you can own a slave. That is any of the crafting or farming classes. My Alchemy and Druid classes are sufficient. Your Leadership class is definitely sufficient,” she explained.

“We can’t just break the bond?” I really didn’t want slaves.

“According to that book in your pack, only a Slave Taskmaster can create the slave bond and assign the Slave Class. It takes A Journeyman Level Taskmaster and the owner performing a ritual to break the bond and remove the class permanently. The Taskmaster can also be the owner,” she replied.

“And how do you become a Slave Taskmaster?”

“It is a specialised Class that those with the basic class in Overseer or Administration can choose,” she explained, “It is all in the book in your back.”

“Overseer, Administrator, or maybe Manager?” I said, thinking of Eluf’s brother Sven.

Gwaed shrugged, “Probably. But not us.”

“I want to scout the place. I can do that from offshore,” I said.

“The place is crawling with troopers, especially during the day. Even at night, there are a lot of guards, humans and animals. Wai getting in spooked them,” Gwaed said.

I nodded, “I will go late this afternoon and watch through the evening. We need a plan as soon as we can if we only have a week.”

I went for a rest as it was going to be a long evening. In the early afternoon, I went shopping and purchased a Spear Fisherman's diving suit. It was nothing like our Marine Comando suits, but it was better than nothing. It would smooth your movement in the water, help keep in your body heat and help with buoyancy. I also bought a weight belt, as I wanted to be buoyant neutral. I didn’t want to float to the surface. It would also help me blend into the water. It was also porous, so would only hinder my Permeable Skin a little.

I took Wai with me. He wouldn’t enjoy it, but I didn’t want him staying with Gwaed. It would help him level. We slipped into the water by the fishing boats and swum out to sea, keeping underwater. I didn’t push it but swam at a steady pace. With the suit restricting my Permeable Skin, it wasn’t quite keeping up with my oxygen usage. It still more than doubled my Oxygen Efficiency Skill time. Wai was doing OK. He was clinging to me, and his Permeable Skin and Oxygen Repository was keeping pace with his oxygen usage. He was using energy with the Purifying Water Skill to expel the salt. I used it too, and Permeable Skin definitely increases the contaminants in the body.

Once I was well to sea, I angled toward the Navy base. I tasted the water. The Tasty Skill is like the Olfaction Skill on land. It is a sense of smell underwater. Closer to the shore, all I would have got was the waste and garbage from the town and ships. Out here, there was less than that. I wanted to get a taste of what might be out here to stop spying. My Sonar was finally getting the distance I was used to rather than being blocked by structures.

The main way to detect intrusions was to patrol the waters with bonds and other trained creatures. Usually, there is a boat with a squad also patrolling. With both Wai and I using Purifying Water, we are leaving a trail of waste that could be picked up by a bond. The tide is on its way in, so I hope our waste will mix with the city waste. It is not something that had been of concern before now.

The Empire is mainly made up of humans, so I hopefully won’t have to deal with Mer. The object is to look and not be discovered. To that end, I stopped using Purifying Water and Permeable Skin, relying on my original Oxygen Efficiency. Wai left very little waste compared to me.

The Enchanters were at the far end of the base. The cliff behind them curved around and met the sea, marking the base's end. On top of the cliff was a fort and a watch tower. I sank back underwater as there were people around with high-powered perception skills. The best place to observe while remaining unobserved would be at the base of the cliff under the fort. I wouldn’t see further than the starting edge of the blacksmith area, but it was enough for now. There were a lot of soldiers around. Most were directed to helping, but quite a few were guards. The ship was crawling with workers. The Seabreeze was smaller than the trader we came here in. There was a single main mast and a smaller forward mast. We call it a Schooner in Kirghiz, I assume it is similar here. They are not the fastest ships. I caught glimpses of Abigail working on the ship. They looked like they were preparing for a trip.

Could I use the Schooner to get the enchanters away? A schooner of that size would have an optimal crew of twelve but could probably run with four or five crew if they knew what they were doing. I waited till darkness fell and the workers went in for the evening meal. Only the soldiers on guard duty were out. I swam underwater to the schooner Seabreeze. I could see where it had been repaired as I swam under the hull. Poking out from the back of the hull was a strong rod with a fan attached. Was this part of the new way of moving the ship? I tried moving the fan, and it rotated. I could see how it would cut the water and move the water back, or rather the ship forward. It was rather ingenious. I guessed the enchantment system would rotate the fan as it had to rotate continuously.

I wondered if the smuggler Captian would loan us the crew to sail this ship. It is more likely he would slit out throats and steal the ship, especially if this enchanted fan system worked. Could we use it to get away from here and then scuttle it? That seemed a waste, but it would stop them from testing the system. We either need to take the ship or blow it up. Blowing it up would be easier by far. In fact, the easiest option was not to rescue anybody but to blow everything up and leave. I have an excellent chance of escaping by sea, meeting the smuggler Captain, and sailing for Obalno. We will call that Plan A. Every plan thereafter will be more difficult and complex.

In order to get the enchanters out by sea, we have to kill the Patrol Captain and the guards and then escape by stealth with no alarm being raised. The likelihood of that happening is close to zero, although it would improve if we had a diversion. If an alarm is raised, we would need to move fast, ahead of any pursuit and get out from the range of the cannons in the fort. Then we need to avoid the Navy ships forming a cordon for the inspections. If we were still afloat at that point, we would be chased by the Navy, with bonds in the air and slave-powered oars. They have already caught this schooner once before, so we would need something faster or a Captain with Skills. Plan A has a lot of advantages

Before I make a final decision, I would like to talk to the two non-slaves there, Abigail and the blacksmith. If they are working for the Imperials and will just yell for help, then we will go with Plan A. Abigail will probably insist on not leaving without her parents. How did she get taken in Obalno without anyone raising the alarm? Did she go willingly? I can see a situation where the assassin blackmailed her with her parent's health and freedom. She is probably gullible enough to believe them. It is stupid but possible. I don’t have any skills for reading people, but my Mental Perception is reasonable, and my Ocean Sense can sometimes help.

I waited and watched. The guards changed at about 11 pm, and there seemed to be an increase in patrolling animals. I wasn't getting in there unnoticed. I have up at 2 am. Plan A is looking better all the time. Time to see how much of that fire alchemy Gwaed has left.