They were supposed to take this last distribution point down quickly, but Sage wasn’t in the mood to sacrifice even more soldiers for quick results. Unfortunately, that put them into a conundrum. They were now in something of a hostage situation. The Slavers could use their ‘merchandise’ to threaten them, which puts them into a terrible negotiating position. While their other option is to storm in with force which will likely lead to the deaths of not only the ‘hostages’, but many of his own troops at the same time. They were already prepared for them when they arrived, and their initial assault would have simply been the same as storming in now. The only difference would be that they would have suffered more soldier casualties, while if they attacked now there would likely be very high numbers of slaves murdered.

It seems I’ll have to reveal one of my tricks again to solve this one.

With the siege in place, Sage linked up to a common housefly and flew it into the enemy compound. The War Falcons had a few birds in the area doing some surveillance from above, but this compound was very tightly filled with buildings. They couldn’t see much of what was going on inside them without landing on window sills. Worse yet, this group of Slavers seemed to love birds, and caught any that came too close. The tiny fly flew from one building to the next, giving Sage a glimpse of their contents. Or at least, that’s what he was aiming for. The fly could only see a few yards away from itself and its vision was extremely blurry. It couldn’t make out much more than shape and motion. He didn’t get much information before the fly itself got slapped to death.

Heh, no wonder we always use Spirit Insects.

He was trying to choose something that was the least intrusive to use as a spy, but a normal bug was just far too useless in that regard. Instead, he brought out a Chameleon Mantis and matured it while also stunting its growth as much as possible. Most of the spirit insects would grow larger and larger as they became more powerful, so there was only so much he could do. Even so, he kept it at the size of a palm which made it just barely reach the strength of a rank 1 cultivator. That made it the equivalent of a world class athlete back on earth, but nothing much in comparison to real cultivators.

Sending in his new spy, it took a little more effort to go undiscovered because of its larger size, but at the same time it could hide much better because of its color changing skin. Since they had the place under siege, he could take his time mapping out the interior of the compound and marking the purpose and occupants of each of the buildings. After a couple days, the little Chameleon Mantis had traveled through the majority of the buildings.

The largest building was the most interesting, and depressing. It was three stories tall, and the first floor was a large guard house. The second floor was packed with jail cells, stuffed to the brim with captives. The third floor was dominated by a large hall where the leader of these Slavers held court, along with some private rooms for himself and his upper lever cronies. It was there that Sage saw where all the birds were going to. The leader was an extremely hairy man, everywhere except the top of his head had a thick layer of black hair, all of which he kept slicked back and overly oiled. It was not a pretty sight later when he saw women being forced to apply the extreme amount of oil to his whole body. In the hall, the oily man held constant feasts, his table always covered with dozens of different poultry and wild bird dishes.

Poor guy doesn’t even know about Fried Chicken.

After surveilling the place, Sage thought they were far too calm for people who were currently under siege. That led him to investigate further and that was when he found their supposed source of confidence. The majority of the compound was built as a giant trap. During their initial attack, Sage had only seen them use pit traps and start an ambush using many hidden tunnel entrances. With more time to investigate, he realized that was just the tip of the iceberg. The whole fort was made out of a dozen different layers of traps. As sleazy as the oiled up Slaver Leader was, he seemed to be a genius at planning traps.

There were underground tunnels to launch ambush attacks from behind, and deep pits with murderholes in the sides of them. Then the men in the tunnels could stab spears or fire arrows into the pits to finish off anyone who fell in. The buildings above were filled with booby traps like falling spikes and collapsing rooms. The roofs were connected by walkways and had firing posts as well as methods to disconnect the connecting bridges quickly. The alleyways between the building had moving spike barricades to separate groups or push them into small kill zones. They even rigged the gutters of the streets so it could quickly distribute oil to be used for walls of fire.

Most amazingly was that a large area around the large central building was rigged to collapse. Once it was done, there would be a good fifty foot wide pit all around the central building. That wasn’t even the end, the walls of the compound were set up to spill inward and knock the outer area of the compound into the huge pit that would be created. The place was a giant death trap. It was no wonder they cared so little at the moment about the siege. They probably thought it was only a matter of time until the Jade Horde got bored and rushed in to their deaths. Sage also used a Warp Worm to scout out the extent of their underground preparations and it was then that he learned some of them must be experts with earth related techniques. All the tunnels and collapsing systems were only the tip of the iceberg.

There were multiple stairways, ramps and even chutes that led from the large central building deep underground to what he could only describe as a reverse labyrinth. The huge labyrinth had a central entrance room and then it branched hundreds of times in a classical maze style, with countless dead ends, and at least a dozen true exit tunnels. Anyone trying to chase people through the maze would have a terrible time doing so. Especially considering the maze was also rigged up with even more traps. It was truly an exhausting amount of preparation.

I think I would really hate the person who made this place if I didn’t actually admire them.

It was just too bad that the person who created all these traps and defenses would never be able to suspect the oddness of Sage’s abilities. He quickly laid out a plan and called a meeting of the officers, explaining the general outline of the plan, but not a full explanation. He wanted to limit the exposure of his secrets as much as possible. There would definitely be doubts and questions formed after this operation, but they would merely have to become rumors. He wasn’t going to give them any concrete information.

That was how six centuries, a full 600, men of the Jade Horde found themselves standing in an empty clearing. They had no idea how they got there. They were all ordered to march into a large tent, one that was draped in complete and utter darkness. They were commanded not to resist as an illusory array or some sort fell over them and they all slowly fell asleep. Later, when they awoke they found themselves in a large clearing surrounded by thick hedges. Their commanders told them to maintain position and wait patiently. Things were going exactly to plan, and they only had to wait at ease, despite the difficulty of doing so in such a mysterious situation.