Even though they had slowed down significantly, as there wasn’t anything directly hunting them, the group was still quite tired. They found their previously treaded path as a miracle, because during their escape from the pride they hadn’t marked anything, causing a short anger from their comrades, but what had happened was history and right now getting out of this maze was more important.

So, when they coincidentally found the traces left by them while wandering around more or less aimlessly, they felt their hearts calm down but just for a moment. Because so much time had passed, the guards on the gate of this place might have woken up and alerted other people, so they had to prepare for resistance.

Smartly they had marked the first few turns differently and when they were three turns away from the entrance, they decided to organize themselves and plan this final step of their get-away. When all was said and done, they put their plan into motion.

As expected, the guards were standing again, and the door was locked. When the five chosen members who were wearing the special clothes came closer, they smelled them and opened the door, opening enough space between them to smell them as little as possible.

Underground Kupi, Gabriel, Arabelle and the rest hadn’t reacted this way because the whole place reeked, but because the air was relatively fresh out there, they reacted strongly to the difference in smell. Seeing the chance, they immediately got to work and started attacking the eight guards which were separated into two groups.

One was of five and the other of three and they decided to use the element of surprise against the five and it worked splendidly. Three of them were already out of the fight before they realized what had happened.

The other two finally reacted and called for help for the other three, which immediately got closer to attack these ill-smelling individuals, but because they had distanced themselves from this group when they made it to them no guard was left to fight.

They had to fight three versus five if they wanted to win, but one of them didn’t resist the desire to escape but when he did, two of the escapees followed him and took care of him while the other three fought the more mentally trained guards.

Even so, they were defeated, but they gave Kupi and two other spies a run for their money, especially after being hurt below, although they were the ones with the better physical state of them all. Now, with the coast clear, they called for the rest of them, and they climbed the stairs out of the dungeon and closed it off.

Now they could escape the mansion which wasn’t so hard because many of the guards on smaller halls or on the garden were still incapacitated. But even after leaving the mansion they didn’t stop. Only when they got to the smallish restaurant did they finally take a breather and process everything that had happened.

It had been a rough few days for Michael Neumann, the lord of the mansion. Not only did he have to control his nerves from any form of excitement throughout the whole conversation with Gabriel and his operation to get him into his mansion, but he also had been having trouble on his job.

He was reprimanded because he “spaced out too much” and he didn’t help others enough. This wasn’t the first time his boss had called him for that, but this time she seemed more serious this time, mostly because it had never lasted so long or was this serious. But he couldn’t help it!

On the first day, the plan was coming to fruition while he was at work and the mystery of whether everything had gone according to plan or not was eating him from the inside. Luckily, he finished his work early that day, so immediately after his time was up, he rushed to his mansion only to be let down with the lack of news.

So, he went to his study to pass over his plan once more, to make sure everything went well but he was cut-off by one of his servants with great, wonderful news. The boy had been caught! But he was out cold, and they wouldn’t know when he would wake up.

Not missing the chance to act on it, Michael went to see him immediately and scanned his head for any marks of magic which would show that his mind had been controlled or changed by someone else, but there wasn’t anything there.

This was good news for him, because this individual right in front of him could very well be the one who had controlled the other one’s mind and so he could get information from him either by force or through conversations.

But he would rather let him wake up on his own to see how it would react and then assess the situation. He chose this because he believed that by letting it sleep, he would show his not-so-ill intentions and make their relationship start a little less bad.

Also, he believed that it wouldn’t take that long for it to wake up, so waiting a few hours more or less wouldn’t really make a difference and he could check his plans to see whether they were fool-proof or not.

What he did not expect was that it didn’t wake up even after three days of total unconsciousness. Well, maybe it had to do something with them giving it food for it not to die, because that’d be the worst possible outcome, more so after all the time and resources he had already invested.

When he finally woke up Michael was exhilarated and decided to go immediately, while hearing his servant carefully. It seemed that his nice treatment wasn’t well received or received at all by his “guest” as he had bit one of his guards.

After discussing their deal, Michael was tired and decided it was time to call it a day, so after ordering the guards to be extra careful that day, he went to his room and rested. That went well until he was woken up late at night or early in the morning by someone knocking loudly on his door and calling his name.

Michael’s face went a transformation from being slightly angry from being disturbed so late to worry as he heard what happened and he ended up with rage and a hint of disappointment. They had escaped and there wasn’t anything he could do.

Well, he could try to bring the girl to him again but knowing the human mind well he knew that she would be restrained either by force or by healing her mind. He could just hope that the tip the male had given him was true, because it was the first lead he had found in years and the gods knew that he would do anything for his daughter…

Inside the hidden room of the restaurant the group lied down on the floor on different poses while some of the members that stayed behind treated their wounds. They had already given the report and explained how they had lost two of their members.

Poco then performed a ritual for their parting of this world which lasted a few minutes and then they listened to Gabriel about what had happened. Afterwards he got his hands to work on assessing his sister’s situation which luckily wasn’t that dire.

Yes, it was going to take time and yes, it was complicated, but he would be able to get his sister back in prime condition, although some memories of this time might get lost, but it was a sacrifice he was willing to make. Not that there were important memories during this time.