Ch: 24 Bunker

Edited.

Chapter 24

Bunker

“What about the bugs?” Lily asked, looking down at the still living changeling she had used her Cut Earth on. Aside from the white film over its eyes, the thing's face looked alive. Sickly, she admitted to herself, but alive.

Her first spell hadn’t done any damage to the thing’s head. The spell had started on the thing’s neck, and sliced downwards leaving only one limb, its right arm, still attached to what was left of its torso. The rest of it was lying not far away, totally inert. The dog-like thing was currently waving its one arm at them and snapping its snout at them. Around it, its bottom half was surrounded by a huge pile of maggots. Lily had seen some weird and disgusting things in her life, but this thing was definitely in her top five.

“No idea.” Corbin, the one Blanchet kept calling Real Lily, replied. She was currently standing next to her looking at the thing as well. “Demons are weird. They are almost always put together differently. A pack of them might be similar, but, other than that, no two of them are alike. I guess these changelings carry bugs in them?”

“What are you two doing?” Blanchet yelled at them. He had been just ahead when they were attacked by the dog-like changelings not five minutes after they passed the trucks. “Flame that thing, and let’s go.”

“Amber.” Lily muttered to herself as a reminder, and shook her head before bringing her hand down and letting her spell go. Purplish-pink flames consumed both the changeling and the bugs that had lived within it. The other changelings had already been set on fire, but this one had escaped Garnier’s explosive weapons skill.

She waited just long enough to see the changeling get consumed by torrent of fire before turning around and running to catch up with the group. Corbin hadn’t waited, but Lily had seen Corbin turn and leave from the corner of her eye, so she wasn’t surprised. The other woman had left Lily’s field of vision as soon as the fire streamed at the thing. By the time Lily had finished and turned around the other woman had already caught up with the group.

As soon as Lily rejoined them, Jules tried to hand her the brush with the tracking spell. “I need my hands free.” She told Lily as she pulled out her wand. Lily looked at it then looked back at her friend.

“But I can cast two spells to your one.” Lily protested, with a frown, remembering the fight.

It wasn’t much of a fight. One second they were walking, and the next Toussaint appeared and started shooting to their left. Less than a second later, the dogs had entered her Area of Sight. Lily had cut loose with a Cut Earth and a Greater Flamethrower as soon as the dog-like things had appeared from the bushes. Her fire had consumed one dog, and the other got cut down by her Cut Earth. The six others were taken out by the rest of the group, with Garnier killing the most with his rifle skill.

“My spells are a higher tier than yours.” Jules said while still holding the brush in one hand and her wand pointed downwards in the other.

“You think your spells are better than mine?” Lily asked, surprised. “I mean sure, your Drain Water spell is cool, but you can only cast it on one target at a time. I can do two at a time. Not only that ....”

“We do not argue in the field.” Blanchet interrupted, sounding furious. “Other Lily, hold the damn brush. Jules, you brought her. You control her. We don’t have time for this. In case you two have forgotten, we are here on a search and rescue mission.”

“Sorry, Blanchet.” Jules said, forcing the brush into Lily’s hands.

“I don’t care.” He told her. “Get your head in the game, Jules, or so help me I’ll send you back.”

“You promised to do what I said.” Jules said in a harsh whisper, turning towards Lily. “I know what I’m doing. They know what I’ll do. You are a wildcard to them. They have no idea what you’re going to do. That will affect how they react in a fight. They’ll delay when they shouldn’t, and people will die. I need this, Lily. I need to find Amber. Please, just do what I ask. Please?”

“Fine.” Lily muttered, feeling both embarrassed and angry.

She knew that she had promised, but also she knew she was a better caster than Jules was. She understood where Jules was coming from, but it was obvious, at least to Lily, who could protect the group better. Jules, from what she had seen so far, could only cast a single spell at a time from her wand. That, Lily thought, meant that the woman was limited in combat. Lily knew that the team didn’t know her spells or how she fought, but she thought she and they would be able to adjust pretty fast.

Especially since she could kill much faster than they could. Well, maybe not as fast as Garnier, but faster than the rest. Still, she knew she hadn’t seen all of Jules’ combat spells yet, but from what she saw so far they were impressive, just not as impressive as the spells she could cast. It wasn’t about whose spells were higher tier than others. As far as Lily was concerned she didn’t fit in tiers like the others. She was just better at casting the spells because she made them. She knew the ins and outs of them far better than anyone else alive.

Toussaint took the lead once more. Corbin followed him, with Jules a few feet behind her. Lily followed her, with Dubois, Blanchet and Garnier behind her in that order. Toussaint vanished not long after he started walking. Corbin launched her bird, and Lily set off another Area of Sight spell.

Lily fell into a rhythm: she set off an Area of Sight in front of the group, then one to her right, and finally one to her left. Once she finished the circuit, she started all over again. She timed it so that by the time the spell in front of the group had died, she was just finishing up on her last spell to her left. That way she could always know what was around them. Well, at least fifteen feet around them. The last attack showed that it wasn’t the best defense but, with Toussaint around, it was okay.

The next attack happened an hour later. Toussaint appeared out of nowhere again yelling, “In the air, one o’clock.”

Two long seconds later Lily found them, thanks to her spell. She saw a large flock of birds that were coming from her right. She might not have done anything if it was just her, since it was just birds, but, after hearing the warning, she had cast Greater Flamethrower with her right hand. While she painted the spell balls she had put the brush with the tracking spell into her mouth with her left hand. She waved her right hand across where the flock of birds had appeared, letting the flames wash over them while she was painting the new spell balls with her left hand in the air. The flames from her first spell set both the birds and leaves on the nearby trees on fire, but took the entire flock out. They were still burning as they fell to the ground. She held her second spell as she let the first go.

As soon as the spell, cut off. Corbin sent her bird to fly over the area. “Clear.” The artificer called out a second later. The metal bird returned to flying closely around the group.

Lily took the brush out of her mouth and started speaking. “Jules…” She whispered. “See what I mean. You didn’t even ….”

“Lily, I love you, but shut up.” Jules replied, interrupting her. She didn’t even turn around when she spoke, frustrating Lily. She didn’t understand why the other woman didn’t get that Lily was the better combatant.

Another hour later, Lily checked her mana. It felt like it was slightly lower than full, but not too far. Her constant casting had made her faster in casting the spell, but other than that nothing had happened. Nothing attacked them, and nothing besides trees had appeared in her spell’s area of sight. She didn’t know what the area was like usually, but she assumed she should have been able to see some small animals running around. So far, she hadn’t seen anything in or out of her spell’s range for a while now.

She had brought it up to the group about a half hour ago, but other than a grunt from Blanchet, she got nothing. Traveling with the group felt odd to her as well. They were quiet. They never spoke other than a few words of warning about this tree limb here or that hole there. Lily knew it was important to keep quiet, but the silence felt off to her. She wasn’t sure why she felt that way, but she felt it anyway.

They were constantly looking around as well. At first it felt fake, like they were showing off. Now, with Lily not spotting any small animals around, it felt too real. She too looked around, but all she saw were trees, dead leaves, and bushes here and there. It made the forest more scary than it already was. The trees had gotten more numerous as they walked and the leaves and tree limbs blocked out more of the sun. It made the area where they were walking much darker than Lily was comfortable with.

“River ahead.” Toussaint said suddenly, appearing out of nowhere again. This time he was in front of them, crouched down. He had his arm out, pointing behind him. The rest of the group immediately stopped and crouched down. Lily followed their actions, slightly slower than them. She watched as Blanchet walked towards Toussaint in a crouch. She had stopped casting to watch.

Jules turned around a heartbeat later with two fingers pointed to her own face. Specifically, her own eyes, then she pointed with one finger towards the forest around them. It confused the hell out of Lily for a moment, then she realized what the other woman wanted. She nodded and started to cast her spells again.

She did sneak a few peeks at where Blanchet and Toussaint were talking between spells, but they were too far for her to hear them. She really wanted to know what they were talking about, but she couldn’t figure it out from their expressions. She could only see Toussaint’s face, but the man looked calm to her. He didn’t speak with his hands nor did he have any expression as he talked. She had no idea what they were talking about.

Then Toussaint nodded and did his disappearing trick again. Blanchet turned towards them and pointed towards their left with his entire left hand. Corbin nodded and started walking in an angle in the direction where he had pointed at. Lily didn’t have to look down at her spell to know they weren’t following the direction it was pointing at anymore.

She could still see the silvery white line in front of her, but that wasn’t why she didn’t have to look. For the past two hours the spell had been pointing forward. She knew it hadn’t changed its direction. Frowning, Lily leaned forward and whispered to Jules.

“What up?” She asked the other woman as she kept up the Area of Sight spells.

The other woman just shrugged without looking back. Lily felt an odd tug in her chest as a wave of disappointment flowed over her. She knew she had made the other woman mad, but it had been at least an hour. She expected the other woman to calm down by now. She expected the other woman to say something, or at least least look at her. When she didn’t do either it felt like a far too cold reaction to her for the situation. Were they falling out as friends?

“We aren’t following the spell anymore?” She asked in a whisper, trying to provoke a reaction. The reaction was less than warm as the other woman still didn’t look at her as she walked forward, following Corbin. She just shrugged at Lily’s question. It hurt that she didn’t know why Jules was reacting this way.

It wasn’t long until Lily started to hear the river. At first, she didn’t know it was the river. It sounded like the wind rustling through the trees, but much louder than before. It was only after actually seeing the river in her spell’s area that she understood where the sound was coming from. She squatted down like the rest of the group as Toussaint appeared again. This time he appeared behind Lily, beside Blancet. She turned around to watch them, but Jules hit her on the back, lightly. Turning back she found the other woman pointing out at the forest. She had a very big frown on her face, and Lily didn’t know why. She was still casting her scout spells.

Lily frowned right back and ignored the other woman, turning back to the other two, only to be hit a bit harder on her back. Turning around she saw Jules look at her with a very angry expression. The other woman emphatically pointed towards the forest then poked Lily in the chest. Lily frowned at the other woman as the poke really hurt. Lily shrugged, not understanding what the other wanted. She was still casting her spells.

The other woman pointed with her two fingers at her eyes again, then out to the forest. Lily shrugged to show she still didn’t understand. Jules then reached out, avoiding the spell balls Lily was painting, and physically moved Lily’s face so that she was looking out at the forest. Lily angrily yanked her head out of the other woman's grasp and gave her an ugly look. Jules returned the look with a stern expression, her eyes wide.

“Gather around.” Blanchet whispered somewhat loudly. Lily looked away from Jules and turned to look at Blanchet. He was looking down at his feet, frowning. Lily got a bad feeling as she let her last scout spell fade away instead of setting it off.

“We came this way…” Blanchet continued, “...because I asked Toussaint to find a way across the river. He found a ford we can pass through. I sent him to scout the other side, and he found something. Toussaint?”

“I found the entrance to an enclave.” Toussaint told them without his normal juvenile flair. “It’s well hidden, but not far from the river.”

“Makes sense, if they’re using the river as a water source.” Dubois said, nodding.

“You think Amber is in there?” Jules asked.

“Maybe.” Toussaint told her. “Is there any way to use the brush to find out how far away Amber is?”

“No.” Lily replied. “It just points to whatever it’s targeting.”

“Okay, that rules that out.” Blanchet said. “New plan. We go around the entrance to the enclave and see if it points to it.”

“What kind of defenses are we looking at?” Garnier asked quietly.

“I didn’t see anything too out of the ordinary.” Toussaint replied. “It’s underground, obviously. Single door, metal, but not the rolling kind. More like the ones where it leads down into a shelter. It kind of looks like an old prepper’s bunker. I bet you anything that they have some kind of emergency exit hatch nearby.”

“What’s the plan if it is an enclave?” Dubois asked, tilting his head to the side.

“If it’s an enclave then they’re thieving along the road.” Garnier replied. “I say we blow the door and go in hot.”

“Might endanger any captives.” Blanchet replied, shaking his head. “New Lily, you got any spells to scout the place out?”

Lily bit her lip and thought about it. She didn’t remember creating any spells like that, but she might have. To be sure, she summoned her grimoire and opened it up to a list of all of her spells. She paged through, thinking about it.

Her Area of Sight could penetrate the door and go down a bit as long as she pointed it at the door. It was her most powerful scouting spell. There were others that she had created back when she was still trying to figure out what the wall of light was, but they weren’t as powerful as her scouting spell. One was an offshoot of another spell she created specifically to try and penetrate the white wall of her hellhole. With some time she thought she could adapt the two spells to create a better spell than her Area of Sight.

“Maybe have it controllable.” She asked herself as she thought about it. “Greater distance first though. What else?”

“Lily, we don’t have a lot of time.” Jules reminded her.

“I’m looking.” Lily said not looking up from her book. “My Area of Sight can penetrate the door and go down a bit, but if you give me some time I….”

“We don’t have the time, Lily.” Jules told her. “Not enough to do a ritual, at least.”

Lily frowned at Jules. She sounded funny and had a fake smile on her face. Shaking her head no, Lily continued. “No, why would I do a ritual? There is only one ritual, and that’s the city’s force field.”

“I meant the one where you have to gather ingredients to cast your spell.” Jules said, looking into Lily's eyes.

“Why would I gather ingredients?” Lily asked, still confused.

“Enough.” Blanchet said, sounding angry. “How much time do you need to cast this other spell?”

“I don’t know.” Lily said, looking down at her grimoire again. “An hour or two. Maybe longer, I don’t know.”

“Can you start the spell while we scout around? I want to get a good look at that door.” Blanchet asked.

Shrugging, Lily nodded.

“Toussaint, find that emergency exit. Garnier, with me. Corbin, Dubois, you two babysit New Lily. Jules, do what you can to help the newbie out.” Blanchet ordered.

Lily ignored them as she started to create the new spell. As she did, the world around her disappeared. She opened her book to an empty page and started to write. Adding the spell balls wasn’t really going to be a problem.

If it worked out like she thought it would, then all she would need was one more spell ball. Even the intent that she had to come up with wasn’t going to be that difficult. Well, as long as she didn’t add the controlling feature to the spell. She wanted to create the spell without it first then add it afterwards. That way if she ran out of time she still had at least one spell she could use to scout out the bunker for Amber.

When she finished the intent she flipped the page in her book and looked down at the information she had written down when she was creating both spells. Really, it was one spell and Lily had added two more spell balls to the first. The first wouldn’t be able to penetrate anything. The door would block the spell. With the added spell balls that she had used, she fixed that problem. Now all she needed to do was add a power spell ball to increase the range of her spell.

The problem was if it would fit. If it fit, then the problem became where to put it so the spell wouldn’t fail. She read through her notes on the first spell and thought about where the spell ball would most likely fit. She had to reread her notes twice before she got a good idea where to put it.

“Best place, between the grass smell and the dry eye.” She thought to herself as she wrote her conclusion in her book.

She made sure to write down why she thought it would fit. Rereading her notes reminded her why it was so important to write good notes. When she wrote the first spell she had been in a good frame of mind. Not so with the second spell. It lacked a lot of information that she really needed now. Thankfully, a lot of her questions had been answered from the notes on the first spell, or at least she could guess the answers from reading the information on the first spell.

“Let’s try this.” She told herself and raised her head out of her book. And found herself looking at everyone, who were looking right back at her. They looked like they’d been doing it a while, since they looked annoyed. Also it was dark out.

“Don’t worry, I told them how hard it was learning a new spell, especially a higher tier spell.” Jules said with a soft smile.

“Is it true that you have to call all of your spells manually?” Dubois asked at the same time, but he sounded fascinated.

Lily took a second to think about what they both had said. Was the spell higher tier? She had no idea, nor did she think it would matter as long as she had the mana for it. And manually casting? She only knew how to cast her spells manually. She wouldn’t even know how to begin to know how to cast them with the System's shortcuts.

“No, that’s a lie. I know how to use the shortcuts. It just feels unnatural to do it that way.” She thought to herself.

Shrugging at the Rabbi, she started to cast her spell. “Wait, you’re doing it now?” Blanchet said, interrupting her. “Can it even reach the enclave from here?”

“I thought it would be a good idea to find out if the spell works before we go over there.” Lily said, a little annoyed that he interrupted her.

“So, no.” He replied. “What are the chances that someone over there somehow picks up that you’re casting a spell right next on their doorstep?”

“It’s a neutral spell.” Jules said, coming to her defense. “They are notoriously hard to detect. It’s why they are the best defensive spells out there. Add in some Runic spells and you’ve got some powerful, mostly undetectable spells.”

“So is it safe for her to cast the spell?” Blanchet asked, looking at Jules. “You willing to bet Amber's life on it?”

Jules’ expression turned angry, but she didn’t look away from him. “If anyone can cast a spell like that, then it’s Lily.” She told him, sounding just as angry as she looked.

“Fine, go ahead.” Blanchet said, sounding oddly calm.

Lily shook her head at the byplay, not understanding what was going on, or if there was anything going on. Deciding to ignore it, she started once more with her spell. Looking at her grimoire to familiarize herself with the intent first, she read over what she had written. Nodding to herself, she started painting the spell balls in the air. When she came to the part where she added the new spell ball she held her breath. To her great relief, the spell chain held together. Still, she still had a few more to go. It was only after the spell chain remained stable with the last ball that she let her breath out. Setting the spell off got her several familiar notifications.

You have created a new spell. Name your spell.

Do you want to name your new spell Underground Area of Sight

Do you wish to share this spell with the rest of humanity?

She absently clicked yes as the spell spiralled downwards into the ground below her. Right away she knew the spell was different from the original Area of Sight. For one thing there was a ball that shot out of her hand when she set the spell off. The original spell had it appear fifteen feet from her. Second, the ball didn’t explode over the targeted area like the original one did. This one spiralled around and downwards below her. Her sight came from the ball itself pulsing out mana whereas, with the original spell, her sight came from the falling mana particles.

The spell gave a much larger range of sight than the original one. Unlike the original one, where she knew about things as opposed to seeing them in the spell, this one gave her a mental image sort of like a TV which widened as the spell spiraled downwards. It gave her a very large field of vision just under her feet as the spell focus dropped downwards. The vision got narrower and narrower until all she could see was about five feet at the far edge of the spell, which was pretty deep. It went down much further than she had intended.

Picking up her book from the ground, she started to write her thoughts on the spell. Mostly how it worked out like she hoped and how it didn’t. The biggest thing that surprised her was how deep it went, and how the spell spiraled instead of exploding like she intended it to. Not that she wasn’t happy with the results, she was, it was just that she hated when spells didn’t go as she planned them.

It should have exploded, and she was unsure why it didn’t. It wasn’t the first time that what she had planned hadn’t happened. It wasn’t anywhere near the first time a spell worked, but in an unexpected way. She liked her spells like Greater Flamethrower that came out exactly like she had planned them to.

“Did it work?” Jules asked, sounding odd. Looking up from the ground she saw that Jules was eagerly waiting on her answer.

“Yup.” Lily said before continuing on writing in her book.

“Thank goodness.” Jules replied, sounding relieved. Then she turned towards Blanchet again. “So we are a go?”

“Now?” He asked, sounding surprised.

“It’s dark, and people tend to be sleeping now.” Jules said really fast. “We have Lily cast her spell, and find out where Amber is. See if it’s safe to go in hot. Otherwise, we sneak in the backdoor that Tossaint found.”

“Jules…” Blanchet said, sounding reluctant. “... let’s take this slow and steady. We need more information before we make any plans. I don’t want to go in half-cocked and get Amber killed because we didn’t plan things out.”

“Okay, let’s do that then.” Jules said, sounding like she agreed with Blanchet, but then she continued. “Send Lily in. Cast the spell, and then we make a plan. But, if Amber is in any danger we go in tonight.”

“Jules.” Blanchet said in a soft tone.

“We go in if she’s in danger.” Jules repeated in a much stronger tone of voice.

“Fine, but this isn’t a suicide mission.” Blanchet told her. “I want to hear it from you.”

“I’m not looking to die.” Jules replied, but Lily noticed she had looked away at the last second.

Blanchet sighed and rubbed his face. “This is why I didn’t want you coming with us.” He told her. “No matter how much I wanted you back with us, I knew this would happen.”

“I won’t endanger anyone here.” Jules said, looking up again.

“Yes, you will.” Blanchet replied, sounding sad.

“I’m good to go.” Corbin suddenly said. “Come on, it’s little Amber. We got to go.”

“I’m good, too.” Toussaint said a second later. “I still owe her for accidentally walking in on her that one time.”

“You did it on purpose.” Jules replied, but without any heat in her tone.

“I too would like to go sooner rather than later.” Dubois told them.

Lily followed along as everyone looked at Garnier. He smiled and shrugged. “I’m always up for killing things.”

“Psychopath.”  Corbin replied softly, but without any rancour.

“Fine, we go tonight.” Blanchet said, sounding tired. “Jules, please don’t do anything stupid. Amber will need you alive, not dead, after all this.”

“I’m not going to do anything stupid, Blan.” She told him. “I promise.”

“Fine.” Blanchet said after a few seconds of staring into Jules’ face. “Toussaint, take New Lily as close to that door without being seen as you can. Other Lily, do your thing and get out. Kill the spell if you think someone will detect it. The rest of us will wait on the other side of the river. We will not go unless we have a plan. If we need to, we will wait until tomorrow night. I will not risk us or Amber because we went in half-cocked.”

“Agreed.” Corbin said, giving Jules a hard look.

“Agreed.” Jules said, sounding reluctant.

The ford was a wide but shallow part of the river. The water was roughly ankle-deep for most of the way, but there were parts where it was knee-deep. There were lots of smooth stones that showed up almost brightly under the moon’s light. The current was strong, but manageable. Oddly enough, the current was stronger and faster where the river was deeper and less where it wasn’t. Trying to figure out why occupied Lily’s mind until they reached the other side.

Toussaint became visible once more once they reached the other side. Lily was glad that her boots were water-resistant, even when the water was above her shoes. She had a clear memory of walking in a river once in rubber boots, thinking they would keep her dry. Unfortunately, the river that time had overflowed the boots and they filled up with water. She had been a kid back then, but it was still a very clear memory.

Toussaint remained visible as they left the rest of the group behind. He showed her where he wanted her to walk and added a few tidbits on why. “When tracking, people track roughly boot to waist high. We look for broken and bent foliage. We only look for tracks on the ground as a last resort.” He explained, when he told her to gently move a branch out of her path instead of trying to push her way through. Once past the riverbank and the thick brush, he had her walk beside him in the tall grass so as not to leave a trail.

“If you walk behind someone, you create a deeper trail.” He whispered to her. “Walking side by side does two things. One, it doesn’t break so many grass stalks, and, two, it can confuse a low-tiered tracker into thinking it was a large animal that passed by instead of humans as we tend to walk in a single file line when trying to hide.”

“And a higher-tier tracker?” Lily asked, as she carefully raised and lowered her feet like he had taught her.

“Then it won’t matter what you do.” He replied. “There are many ways to track someone with magic. I know a guy who can track you by the aura you leave behind. No way to hide that. Quiet now, we are getting close.”

Lily looked around at the field they were walking through. The grassland seemed to go on for maybe a half-mile, she found it hard to judge, and ended with a line of trees in the distance. Other than the grass, which was about knee-deep, it looked like there was nothing sound. Then Toussaint started pointing out trails in the grass. They went every which way all around the field. She thought he was pointing out people's tracks until he bent over a bit and mimed walking on four legs. Then she realized that they were animal trails.

She would have never found the enclave’s entrance if Toussaint hadn’t been with her. It wasn’t that far from the river, and she was walking around looking at the trails when he stopped her to point at something. At first she thought he was pointing out another animal trail, but she couldn’t see any. He gently pulled her down then pointed again.

This time she spotted it. Through the grass, she saw a small vanilla-colored cement block with a triangular shape. It blended in with the grass and it was almost invisible from standing height. Near ground level, it stood out much more clearly. She stood up a little bit to get a better view and saw that the top of the door was covered in grass, camouflaging it.

She bent back down next to him as she waited for him to tell her what to do next. To her surprise and confusion, he wiggled his fingers at her. Confused, she tilted her head to the side and kept looking at him, hoping he would be more clear with what he wanted. He gave her an ‘are you stupid’ look then wiggled his fingers again.

When it was obvious she still didn’t get it, he pointed downwards then wiggled his fingers once more. This time she got it and nodded to show that she did. He put his hand over his face and she saw his shoulders shaking. It took her a second to realize he was laughing.

She summoned her grimoire and reread her spell. Once she was comfortable with it, she cast it once more. The spell spiralled downwards showing her the bunker below her feet. The bunker door led to a staircase that went down at an angle for roughly fifty feet. At the bottom of the staircase was another door, this one thicker than the one on the surface. Just beyond the door was a large room that had furniture in it, plus a lot of what looked like plants.

On the far side of the large room was a hallway that went sideways to the next room. There were four other rooms that could only be reached by the hallway. Finally, at the end of the room to the far left was a smaller tunnel that led almost across the field and disappeared from her vision. A couple of things stuck out to her. One, the place was filled up with what looked like plants and what might have been moss. The other thing was that there were six people below her. She couldn’t make out what they looked like as they were too far away, but only one was sleeping by themselves in a room to the far right.

Lily let the spell go and it kept on delving deeper into the ground under the bunker. The bunker was only one floor so all she saw below it was dirt and more dirt. She looked up as the vision faded and saw Toussaint looking at her with the moon’s light shining on his face. She nodded to him to say she was done. He nodded back the way they came, but led her in a different direction than the way they had come. It was a roundabout way, but eventually they got back to the group.

After explaining what she saw to the group, Blanchet had questions. “You sure they were all sleeping?”

“No.” She replied. “They were all lying down. I have no idea if they were sleeping.”

“No one in the first room, right?” He asked, looking down at something only he could see.

“Yup.” Lily replied.

“Big door, though.” He mumbled softly. She didn’t answer because she didn’t think he was talking to her.

“That long tunnel that goes beyond what you saw. Is that where the emergency exit is?” He asked Toussaint.

“Sounds like the same direction.” The ranger replied.

“Best way in will be the back door, then.” He told them. “It should be far enough away that if we have to take the door down hard, they shouldn’t be able to hear it.”

“Unless they have a magic alarm set up.” Lily said when no one spoke up.

“Can’t use magic unless you have a System.” Blanchet said dismissively.

“What if they’re outlaws?” Dubious asked. “They could still have access to their skills, they just can’t get new ones.”

“That’s why we have two casters in our crew.” Blanchet replied. “They better be able to find any magical traps or alarms. Otherwise this is going to be a very short rescue.”

“But you saw Amber, right?” Jules asked, sounding anxious.

“I couldn’t make out anyone’s faces.” Lily replied, repeating what she had said earlier. “I only know that the room on the opposite side of the hallway from the emergency exit has only one person in it. The room next to it has three people, and the room after that has two. The last room near the emergency exit is empty.”

No one said anything for a while. Blanchet looked off into the distance, not saying anything, and Lily got the feeling that no one wanted to interrupt his thinking time. She watched as the group looked at each other, but no one spoke. Then Blanchet came to life.

“Garnier, Corbin, as much as I want you both with us, someone has to watch the main entrance. Keep your eyes peeled. There might be more people around and they might not all be inside the bunker.  Corbin, keep that bird of yours in the air watching for the odd thief coming back. The rest of us, we take the emergency exit in.”

“I’ll lead, with Other Lily behind me. Jules, you follow after her and keep people from popping up behind us. Toussaint, you stay outside and make sure no one sneaks up on us. You all have your emergency bracelets on. Break them if anything happens.” Blanchet told them.

Lily looked around and saw that everyone was checking their wrists. They all had, including Jules, a thin copper-colored bracelet on. She looked at her own naked wrist and then up at Jules. The other woman saw her look and Lily thought she saw a guilty look flash over the other woman’s face.

“You’ll be fine.” She said gently, “You’ll be with the rest of the group. Someone will always be within sight of you as long as you stay with the group.”

“If that’s everything?” Blanchet asked, looking around at everyone in the group. No one said anything in return.

“Let’s take this slow and safe. Check your angles, no shortcuts. It’s not just your life on the line. You die, then you risk Amber's life as well.” Blanchet told them, looking around at each and everyone’s faces before moving on.