[“…It looks like I found that psychic mage you were looking for,”] Allen said, glancing discretely at the woman in question, whose mental fortifications were coming undone as the anxiety of her particular situation continued to bare down on her. Governor Norbury and Christopher were still talking, the former having taken a very agreeable stance towards getting the slave problem handled as quickly as possible.

Jack sent the impression of a raised eyebrow through the psychic link. [“… Huh? The Governor?”]

Allen adjusted the cuffs of his handsome little butler’s outfit. He gave a mental grin and replied. [“No, actually. Pleasantly surprising. The other woman in here with us, his secretary or whatever, flinched right as you broke that ward. She also has a mental blockade that’s barely starting to break down. Maybe you would notice if you were right here. It’s pretty subtle, but you know, I’m just that good.”]

[“Uh-huh, What’s her level at? Class? You want me to fry her? Do you have any information on the nobility involved in this yet?”] Jack asked, rapid fire.

[“Four-forty, Enchanter, yes, and we’re working on it. This woman’s already contacted everyone she’s working with the moment we walked in. It’s too late for a sneak attack, so fry her good, but don’t kill her, that could make things worse.”]

[“Alright. I just need you to put her off balance for a moment.”]

Jack’s mental voice seemed relaxed, but it was always difficult for a normal person to be sure over telepathy. Allen was not normal though; he had, at various points in his life, spent more time speaking through telepathy than though words. That made it possible for him to pick up on the slightest bit of shakiness in his friend’s mental voice. His first guess was that Jack had been following Meredith’s trail for a bit too long. That woman tended to go many kinds of overboard when it came to the topics of slavery. Especially child slavery.

Allen just hoped there would be some experience left over for his group. He flexed his mind magic, particularly, the Psion Burst skill. Normally, it functioned like a simple wave of purposefully scrambled intent. It was the classic sledgehammer to the brain attack. Allen could do better though. He charged the skill with psions, eating up a measly ten HP, then he used Mental Manipulation to create a conduit to direct the skill and attach a message to it. Similar to the mind tentacles that he had shown Nora, the conduit was a much better version that could be used to transfer other things besides thought, like a bundle of psychic energy that would otherwise disperse throughout the room without any target.

Allen stretched the mental conduit towards the Enchanter lady. She quickly noticed, but seeing Allen’s completely blank and face, and seemingly unconcerned mind, she didn’t react immediately. It was also likely due to Allen’s mental construct being scrambled beyond recognition, like an encryption. Only amateurs make their mental constructs universally identifiable to their enemies, after all.

All mind magic is deception.

That moment of pause was all Allen needed to deliver the payload. His conduit knocked on the outside of the Enchanter’s shielded min, then, before the woman could do anything more than acknowledge its presence, Allen let it rip. A surge of psions rammed straight into her mind, accompanied by a single word, its volume turned up to ear-rape levels by the skill.

[“PENIS!”]

The woman staggered and let out a cry of alarm. Not pain or anything, Allen was only half her level, but certainly alarm. The Governor looked more shocked by the sudden outburst, but it was Jack’s voice that came first.

[“Got ‘er,”] Jack said.

The woman’s body went limp an instant later as her eyes rolled back into her skull. She collapsed to the ground, convulsing and screaming as she clutched her head.

“Alison!?” The Governor shouted, jumping out of his seat, and rushing over to the collapsed secretary, but she had gone limp before he even reached her.

[“What does it look like out there?”] Allen asked the leader of the mercenaries they were working with. The man was standing outside the room with his subordinates and all the other servants.

[“No different than before,”] he replied after a moment. [“Two of the servants left a little too quickly though. Did you do something?”]

[“Yes, we did.”] Allen clicked his tongue. [“Let them go. We’re just getting to the useful information.”]

[“Understood.”]

Allen turned back to meet the Governor’s panicked face. The man looked between the professor and his two “attendants,” and his face paled as soon as he noticed the lack of surprise on any of their expressions.

“What is this?” he asked through a shaky voice, holding up the unconscious Enchanter’s head as foam slid down her cheek.

Allen saw Christopher and Amelia give him a look out of the corner of his eye. “Your assistant was compromised,” he said in a steady voice, speaking up for the first time. The Governor’s eyes snapped over to him, and Allen could practically see the moment he realized the type of discussion they were having wasn’t an interview at all. It was an interrogation. “Our team is already approaching the position where the majority of the illegal slaves in Hillford are being held captive. We need your cooperation to identify and locate everyone responsible so that no one escapes,” Allen added, using his best serious voice.

The Governor worked his trembling jaw and shot Christopher a glance, not standing up. Needless to say, having his level four-hundred mind enchanter keel over from no visible spell had left him rather shaken.

Then, leaning into his act even further, the professor let out a deep breath and took another sip of wine. “Surely you have documents, Governor. I guarantee you; Rotherham will be very grateful to have your help getting this situation under control, and your oversights might be… forgiven.”

Mr. Norbury sucked in air through his teeth, desperately trying to calm himself down as he set his assistant’s head down on the floor. “Y-yes, I have d-documents. Crime reports, and-and c-complaints. I can also get banking records for-from the major companies in town, city officials… In my office.

With that, Christopher stood up and buttoned his coat. “Let’s get on with it then.”

After much pleading on the Governor’s part, Allen picked up the Enchanter and threw her over his shoulder. Then the four of them quickly vacated the room through a side door, following Mr. Norbury. The man looked like he wanted to break out in a sprint as soon as they passed through the privacy barrier, and then at every turn after that. He kept throwing glances back at the woman sagging over Allen’s back like a ragdoll.

The Enchanter wasn’t dead, just brain fried. Her enchantments could run even if she was died though, which was good for not causing panic among whatever group of slave owners she was involved with. For that, Allen was grateful.

Only a few servants had to be shooed before they reached the office. The room was simple in design, and packed full of papers and books. The curtains were drawn and there were a few finished plates of food on the large wooden, paper-filled desk. Two full meals, if Allen had to guess.

Mr. Norbury went straight for a picture frame hanging on the wall behind his desk. Allen almost cringed as the Governor pulled the frame away from the wall on a hinge, then sighed in relief as no safe was revealed. Rather, there was a small medallion hidden behind the cork backing of the picture. The Governor then used the medallion by placing it against a particular spot on his desk, triggering enchantments and opening a secret compartment.

Allen had no idea why he had followed the whole process so closely, but it was still sort of fun. It had been a slow day up to that point. If it would get them closer to bringing every scummy illegal slave owner and child rapist in Hillford to justice, then Allen would gladly sit through as much James Bond spy movie bullshit as he had to.

The Governor withdrew various papers from the secret compartment before he and Christopher started going over them. Allen was content to wait for a few minutes, seeing as Amelia wasn’t in a conversational mood.

Ten minutes were all the time they needed to cross reference the Governor’s documents with the one’s Christopher had brought. As names and addresses were listed off, Allen relayed them to Jack and the mercenaries, the latter of whom he sent off to use their authority from Rotherham to go knock on doors and report back to Jack. He kept the biggest name to himself though.

The Hillford Watch Commander, a man named Norman, or whatever. He was technically also a lower court member in the ESF, which was the equivalent of a Baron.

As for who had forged the Governor’s signature to order a half dozen crates of potatoes, well, she was lying on the carpet in a heap were Allen had dumped her. The varying dubious paper trails proved it.

“Well, Mr. Norbury,” Christopher began, standing back up from the front of the desk and towering over the Governor, “thank you for the assistance, I’ll make sure to put in a good word. Although, I have to suggest you implement some form of continual background checks on your employees, as well as a more rigorous file management system,” he added, patting the sweaty Governor on the shoulder and offering a small conciliatory smile.

Charles Norbury nodded, slinking into his chair.

Allen couldn’t help but grin at how well Christopher was handling the whole situation. He already couldn’t believe the professor was just a simple “independent researcher,” but at that moment, he knew such a thing was impossible.

“You should come with us, we have a guard commander to pay a visit to,” Allen said, turning with Christopher and walking to the door and switching into his set of hooded full plate armor.

The Governor gave Amelia a look, but the Healer only returned a blank stare before following the other two out. Thankfully, Mr. Norbury didn’t require any convincing to come along peacefully.

The central guard office was nearby, and it took less than five minutes to reach it on foot after practically sneaking out of the capital building. The fact that Allen had an unconscious woman slung over his shoulder wasn’t all that subtle, but a combination of him being fully armored and the others looking very official, and the time of night was enough to stop any incident before it started.

“Where is Commander Norman?!” the Governor barked as soon as they walked into the building. There was a large desk at the center, along with a mostly empty waiting area to either side. The whole room looked kind of like a police station, or maybe some place even worse, like a DMV.

There was a collection of uniformed receptionists at the desk, all of whom had instantly jumped out of their chairs before the door had even slammed into the wall. One of them also managed to knock something over, muffling a curse.

Allen honestly couldn’t tell if the Governor’s hand was trembling out of fear or anger. Possibly both.

“I-I-uh…” one of the receptionist stuttered. Her eyes flicked over to Allen for a moment, and he just stared back through his faceless mask, daring her to say anything. “…He j-just left, about uh… a half an hour ago… I dunno where, sir!” the woman said, even throwing in a salute for good measure.

Allen met Christopher’s eyes as the professor looked back at him. “That sounds about right; he probably got a tip,” Allen suggested, patting the Enchanter on the back. “Either he went to investigate, or he fled. My money is on the former, but it depends on his level.”

Christopher nodded.

“He is level six-eighty,” the Governor said, almost to himself as he looked away.

“Hah, there’s probably an entrance to the dungeon under this building,” Allen said. “Probably in the basement, maybe the prison.” He gave Mr. Norbury a look. “Lead the way,” he added, chuckling.

The Governor furrowed his brow. “There is no dungeon under Hillford,” he replied, though he was already walking.

“Not that kind of dungeon,” Allen said, sighing.

A few twists and turns later, and the group found themselves in the watch prison. A large section of the basement towards the back of the building. Stone corridors, musty smell, steel bars, and generally unsanitary cells lined the halls, many of them occupied. The handful of guards on duty nearly hit their heads against the ceiling as the Governor stepped down the stairs and into the dimly lit main hall.

“You all, you’re dismissed,” The Governor said, followed by hasty shuffling as all the guards scrambled to leave.

None of them said a word, but there were more than a few who gave Allen and his passenger a suspicious glance. Naturally, he returned all of them with an expressionless stare.

Mr. Norbury turned around once they were alone again. “As you can see, there’s nothing here but criminals and degenerates, least of all a dungeon entrance,” he said, slightly red in the face.

However, no sooner than the man finishing his sentence, Christopher placed his hand against a wall, causing enchantments to light up. A puff of dust blew out from the cracks between the stones before the section of wall swung inward with a dull grating sound of stone on stone, revealing staircase leading down.

The professor glanced over his shoulder. “Recently used,” he said with a shrug.

The Governor didn’t have any comeback, it seemed.

The stairs brought them into a suitably dungeon-like space. A light supplied be Christopher showed a twisting staircase that looked more like it was carved straight out of the earth itself, rather than built. And when they reached the bottom, there was only a pitch black grotto to greet them, immeasurably more putrid than the prison above. There were many forks to take, but only one path seemed to be frequently traveled, so Allen hiked on ahead.

“What… what in the hells is this place?” The Governor asked, looking about as far out of his element as possible.

“Dungeon,” Allen said, and that was the only word said between them for nearly five minutes as they walked through the snaking passageways.

Allen’s experience and high perception made it child’s play to track the correct path forward, even in monotonous caves. It was boring actually; he’d spent weeks in catacombs a thousand times more interesting than a little gray, shit-smelling cave.

He yawned when a low schlorping noise echoed through the darkness, followed by inhuman gurgling and moans of pain. He squinted and thought he could make out a barely moving silhouette laying on the floor ahead of them.

The group moved closer, daggers and magic at the ready, when Allen suddenly let out a sigh. “Oh, that’s what it is,” he muttered.

Christopher shined a light at the shuffling mound in front of them and immediately sucking in a breath. The Governor fared much worse, staggering back and retching in between cries of shock and terror. Allen and Amelia both seemed unbothered, both having seen worse.

The figure was that of a man, pulling himself through the darkness with an arm, or what might have been an arm at one point. It was hard to tell. The man was little more than a grotesque amalgam of his own flesh, twisted and corrupted beyond all recognition. He drug himself along the ground, bleeding from where his body had fused with his armor and itself. Three glassy, bloodshot eyes looked out into the light, unseeing. A monstrous groan left the former human again as a tongue lulled out of the mouth that split the creature’s head in two.

Mr. Norbury vomited across the floor. “W-w-what in the name of the gods!?” he stammered, shaking.

“Meredith did this?” Amelia asked under her breath, not really expecting an answer. Or needing, for that matter.

“Looks like we’re on the right trail.” Allen said.