As they worked on butchering the rat king, I activated Seek Hidden, targeting any traces of the people who had created this thing. If no one had done so I wouldn't get anything, and if there were no traces it would be the same story, but luckily for me neither were the case. As I triggered my skill I focused on my Perception, desperately searching for any little scrap of evidence, and I found something fairly quickly. Specifically, I found a glowing brick.

It wasn't a special brick, it didn't have blood on it, or sport some kind of symbol, or look slightly misshapen. In fact it took me most of the trip over to where it was set into the wall to finally figure out what the hell was wrong with the brick at all. I knelt down next to it, staring for a minute, before I finally realized I was focusing too much on the brick itself, and not enough on what was around it. Namely, the rest of the wall wasn't flush with the thing, not exactly. I levered it out, sliding it free to reveal a gap in the wall.

I slipped a hand into the hole, taking my time to make sure there wasn't a snake or something in the gap, but when I found nothing of the sort I groped around in the cavity for a second until my fingers touched metal. I hooked them around the shape, finding a hollow I could use as a grip, and pulled toward me gently. There was some give, as well as a click, and then I heard a low rumble and a grinding sound as a small portion of the wall popped open, revealing the entrance to a small seven by four foot tunnel.

Callie had followed me over, and whistled loudly when she saw it. "Ok, I know who I'm calling if I ever lose my car keys. That really is a damn useful skill. We never would have found that without knowing it was there." She paused. Actually, how did they even build that thing, it must have been a nightmare. like did they install this whole wall just to add that secret passage?"

I stood up, brushing myself off. "First of all, the only car you have access to is communal, and by majority vote you aren't allowed to even touch the keys. Secondly, I would guess so. This room was probably empty and pretty much ignored before they spawned a giant rat monster in it, so I would imagine getting a construction crew in here wasn't too big of a problem. Though I feel bad for the sleepers that probably did the work, imagine explaining to everyone you know that you aren't sure why you always smell like sewage."

She wrinkled her nose, which was kind of adorable in the mask. "Yeah, I hadn't considered that. Yet another reason to hate these bastards, as if kidnapping and brainwashing kids wasn't enough to put them on my shit list." She whipped her head to me and shoved a finger in my face. "DON'T make a shit pun, it's beneath you." I closed my mouth, trying to appear dignified as I sulked over the fact that I was becoming predictable.

Still, we had our lead, though I had to warn Callie, that it was the last one I was getting us today. "I'm out of charges of my skills for the day. That fight took it out of me in a big way. So we have to be quiet about this. If there's anything down there we can't engage unless we know we won't have problems. You take the lead? You have stealth abilities I don't so you're the better choice to get closer."

The playful look on her face melted into a serious expression and she nodded. "I can do that. Just stick close." She slipped into the tunnel and I followed behind her, careful to walk slowly and on the balls of my feet. I bent my knees slightly, putting all my weight on my back foot as I stepped so I could place my forward steps carefully and slowly transfer the weight over. Then we began the slow and steady trek to the end of the tunnel. Before we left we stepped over to tell the others we were going, but under no circumstances to follow us.

Anything down there that was a threat to the two of us would crush our H ranked friends. They knew that obviously, and accepted the instructions, deciding to hang back and guard the other team. I honestly wished we had brought Cark, we could have used another G ranker to keep an eye on our weaker members. I couldn't wait until those two made it to G rank and our team was a bit more balanced. I needed to focus more on bumping them up than my own grinding for a while.

I made a mental note to ask the two of them if they had ever taken those pills. Ten more points would be a good bump, and them managing to rank up before the big scavenger hunt would probably blend into the background since no one would be paying attention to two newbies anyway. We'd have a much better chance of getting ahead with two more G rankers, and winning would give us all enough notoriety that not only would it explain my eventual jump to F rank, it would explain theirs when I boosted them high enough.

We made our way down the tunnel, me still walking as quietly as I could, and strained our Perception for any sign of people heading this way. I was pretty sure the rat king was more than self sufficient by now, but no harm being careful. We didn't hear anything as we walked. If anything the silence was overpowering and oppressive. Neither of us wanted to talk or even breathe too loud in case we missed something.

As we approached the end of the tunnel Callie slowed down, putting a finger to her lips. We approached the wall and she leaned in to press her ear to the brickwork. I followed suit after she gave the go ahead, closing my eyes to focus on my hearing as I strained to pick up any sound over the noises of running water and through stone. Unfortunately we just heard echoing footsteps, and I realized we wouldn't hear any talking because the puppet master didn't need his sleepers to communicate, he was controlling them all.

Callie realized the same thing with a grimace, and gestured for me to step back before slowly pushing on the wall. Nothing. She felt around a bit, hands scanning over the bricks until she noticed one that wasn't exactly flush, and just like I'd done she slipped it out, fumbled around in the gap and then paused. She looked up at me. "Any chance they won't notice the rumble from this opening?" I cursed silently. She was right. These doors were loud. No way even the sleepers would ignore that kind of noise.

We retreated from the wall, trying to figure out what to do. "We need to see what's on the other side, but if we open it they'll know. What other options do we have." I kept my voice a whisper like she did, trying to make sure we wouldn't be overheard, though given the distant sound of their steps it wouldn't be an issue. "You have any skills that let you see through solid objects?" My mask had some neat tricks, but sadly X ray vision didn't seem to be one of them.

She shook her head. "Nothing. Maybe some way to muffle the sound? I could create a wall of shadows around the section that opens up and make it thick enough to act as a baffle? But that would be obvious even to sleepers. Is there a way we can take the door off without it being obvious? Maybe your inventing skill would let you figure out something? Enchanting is out for today because you used up your charges otherwise I would say maybe some kind of noise cancelling enchantment."

I hadn't ever considered using utility enchantments in the field like that actually. It was a brilliant idea, and I stuck in my back pocket for a rainy day. Granted I would only be able to do minor enchantments without active materials to use, but regardless for a short term solution to a problem like this it would be perfect. I stared at the wall before something clicked. "Hey what about sort of a variation on what they did? You could use your shadows to carve out the grout and then remove a single brick. We could look through without making a big racket or giving them a chance to notice us."

Callie brightened. "That's a great idea. Hold on. Let me figure out the quietest way to do it." She bit her lip in though for a minute before nodding, then walked over to the wall and held out a hand. A four sided tweezer setup was formed from shadow in her hand, and clamped down on the brick. Once she had it held in place she conjured a tiny rotating brush in one hand, and then started it up, letting the spinning slowly and quietly wear down the grout around the edges. She let it spin for a while, slipping it around the edges to detach the brick, before slowly and deliberately pulling it out without scraping the now exposed edges against the wall.

She gestured me forward, my mask providing better night vision, and I leaned in, looking through the hole to see a veritable army of H rankers. I didn't see many G's maybe one or two, which seemed much more reasonable, but it still wasn't an ideal setup, especially not with the two of us already weakened from fighting the rat king. But with my higher Focus I would be able to remember all their faces, and it would probably give me a solid lead on who to watch out for at the academy. I might be able to hire someone to follow them and try to find a lead on the puppet master.

I crowded into the wall staring through to try to get a decent view of all the Ascendants down here. I saw a few I might have recognized from the crafting hall, and a few that I'd seen at the tower, there was a solid spread of people around that just looked like they were normal everyday Ascendants who worked jobs and wore civilian clothes too. But none of them were the ones that caught my attention. Nor were there G rankers who were working alongside them as equals, all under the thrall of the same master.

No, what really caught my interest was one large form in purple. A familiar form of someone I knew, and someone who knew me, and more importantly knew about my abilities. Skanda towered over the forms of the other H rankers, and I winced at the realization that the puppetmaster knew how I used my powers now. Since he was clearly an enemy of dads that wasn't a big change, but I was glad I'd started removing memories, because that could have left me open to some problems later.

I was pretty sure that the memory removal would work fine, since I didn't think he was taking over them when I was around. Based on the interaction we had in the WCP it would be obvious if he had been. With no memory and the geas in place he probably wouldn't even know if I'd granted a wish for another sleeper much less what I'd gotten. That meant he didn't have up to date information on my abilities which was good or anything close. Despite all that though Skanda being a sleeper meant one very serious thing. The Heartrippers weren't just in the school, they were in the freshman class. I was pretty sure this scavenger hunt was going to be a doozy.