Gabriel wasn’t sure what to do with this information and Dieb’s unconscious body. If he decided to follow orders, then he should grab it and take it to the prisons as that was the task given to anyone finding someone yet captured, but Gabriel didn’t want to do that.

There was the quite simple option of simply doing nothing and leaving him there, but it clearly was the dumbest choice. Gabriel pondered for a few more seconds and decided that he would first immobilize him as he didn’t know how long Dieb would stay unconscious.

He got all the materials from inside Dieb’s home and then as an extra measure he added a few spells on top in case his knots weren’t tight enough. But staying there and waiting for Dieb to wake up wouldn’t only be a waste of time, it would also make his superiors doubtful of his situation and would start searching for him. When they eventually found him, he wouldn’t have a good time.

At first, he tried to wake Dieb up by talking to him, then he started shouting, but he didn’t even react. So, he tried a more physical approach and started hitting him in certain zones where he should wake up with his actions, but once again Dieb gave no reaction.

He was still careful not to damage him too much because that would certainly ruin the chances of him getting any real information out of him. Heat and cold didn’t work either and neither did the blood accumulating in his head while upside down.

When he did this and observed Dieb’s head get redder and redder he got an idea. Because nothing physical was working, there probably was something mental or magical happening that prevented Dieb from waking back up… he wasn’t dead after all.

Gabriel checked inside Dieb’s head for anything that could be the root of his unconsciousness, but everything looked average inside, just inactive... too inactive, almost as if his brain wasn’t doing anything at all at that moment… but he was still alive. Gabriel was confused and didn’t really know where else to look.

But then a trap against magic he had set up not to get disturbed was activated and he rushed out of the room to fight… nothing. Nothing was there and there hadn’t been anything there a moment ago unless. So, either someone had done something from afar or he had made a mistake on his trap.

Now although he knew he wasn’t perfect, it made more sense that someone else was at fault as throughout all his dozens of uses this trap had never malfunctioned… but that stopped being important once he heard Dieb groan.

At first, he was kind of confused, lost, but quickly gained his senses back. He felt all the damage that Gabriel had caused, even if it wasn’t too much, it still hurt as it all came at once. Gabriel cast something to make him heal faster. After a while Dieb spoke in an angered voice.

- Did you really have to do that to wake me up? Why keep hurting me if after a bit I still haven’t reacted? Are you braindead? – Gabriel opened his mouth to reply but before he could say anything Dieb continued his speech. – And don’t you say that you only did the minimum, I saw you doing me more and more damage! – This made Gabriel stay quiet for a moment, but he quickly had a rebuttal.

- If it was enough then why didn’t you wake up before? Why did you only recover once I was out of the room? – Gabriel kept to himself the magic trap in case it was unrelated, but Dieb quickly disproved this.

- Because I was watching what you were doing to my body! I wasn’t gone I was just in a spirit form! And when I realized what you were doing, I tried to get help to make you stop but something blocked me on the other side of the door! Fuck, why did you have to hurt me so much, even being angry hurts!

Gabriel understood a bit more of what had happened, but it was still mostly a mystery. But now that Dieb was awake, Gabriel started questioning what he was doing just before but only managed to get that it was a message.

Then, he decided that he wouldn’t be worth keeping in secret and told him that he would take him to the prisons unless he proved his worth. Dieb immediately made Gabriel remember about the fire of his home and the proof which hadn’t been burned down as he had taken it away and hid it somewhere else.

Gabriel was now almost completely untrustful of Dieb so he tied his neck to prevent him from escaping, as any attempt of getting away would make the noose get tighter and cutting it would cause a substance which burned skin to leak. All of this was specifically detailed towards Dieb who wasn’t sure if such a substance which didn’t damage ropes but burned skin existed, but decided it was best not to try.

If there had been a chance, he would have escaped but with the current situation he preferred not to try. Support was coming soon, anyways. After a few minutes they still hadn’t reached the hiding spot and Gabriel started turning suspicious but then they hear someone else coming towards them.

- Hey! Act like a dog now! – Gabriel quickly ordered Dieb who at first didn’t but after applying pressure on his neck acted as one.

- Hey, I’m looking for any escapees, have you seen any? – The man asked Gabriel who quickly responded.

- Unless this dog has escaped from someone, nope. Haha. – Gabriel chuckled. – By the way, do you think I can keep it? I mean it won’t have an owner here anymore, so I believe the bosses won’t have any problems with it, right? – Gabriel asked in order to make the illusion of the dog firmer.

- Hmm… - The man reflected for a second and then answered. – Yeah, I don’t think there will be any problems with that. Make sure to train it well! – And he continued patrolling.

Once he was far enough Dieb asked Gabriel how that worked, but he gave a simple answer, an illusion. Gabriel couldn’t do too complicated things, but he managed to make Dieb appear like a dog on the surface, but it would only be a cloaking mechanism, if he had been standing up, it would’ve been much more obvious that he wasn’t a dog.

Finally, they made it to the garage where it was hidden, and Gabriel soon had a paper with certain information. First of all, it had the name of the mercenaries hired and the payment that they got. Part of the orders were also noted, but not much else of use, so Gabriel “kindly” requested Dieb to guide him to the mercenaries’ office and there he would let him go, he would either get the final proof there or he would’ve been lied to once more and would make sure to destroy anything that belonged to Dieb, something which may be more damaging to him that taking his life.

And Gabriel wouldn’t need to focus all the time on Dieb not finding a way to escape, added with his new eagerness to guide Gabriel to the mercenaries so that he’d be freed and possibly try to help some of his allies to escape. Gabriel didn’t care about that now. If it was proven that his boss had been telling the truth, he’d work hard to pay for the losses but if he’d been lied to, he thought that this was the beginning of the payback.

They made it to the large building which made it quite clear what they were, mercenaries, they didn’t even try to hide it and when questioned about this Dieb answered that though they were mercenaries, they accepted quests of two types, public and private.

The private ones were doing on a council because many powerful people have conflicting interests, so any mercenary group hired for their interests has to gain the approval of them to get the mission. Dieb was freed after Gabriel sated his curiosity and our protagonist hid somewhere and watched the people that interacted with the building in any way.

He did this for half a day and would have done it for more if he hadn’t been called by his boss to gather with the rest of his army. Outwardly he was angry at the loss of information but inwardly he was secretly glad because basically nothing happened while he observed.

All of the remaining soldiers were given bad news. The reinforcements of the enemies, the ones that had left the cube, were coming sooner than expected and would reach Destin in about two days. Most of them reacted slightly unmotivated to this as they would have less time to rest, but for Gabriel it was worse, as he wouldn’t have time to search methodically and would have to rush into the mercenaries’ building without much preparation.