Pocket Dungeon 2, page 24
“So, now you understand a little bit of why I have some personal beef with Harper,” I said. “Iris might have been the first person he hurt, but it’s clear based on your own experiences that she wasn’t the last. He’s a monster, and he’s just going to keep hurting more and more people unless we finally put a stop to him.”
“Jesus,” Monty said with a shake of his head. “Yeah, you’re right.”
“So come on,” I said. “Let’s figure out how exactly we’re going to get rid of this fucker for good.”
“Hell yeah,” Monty agreed. “You don’t have to tell me twice.”
“We should also eat some of the pizza,” Iris added. “Before Yasha eats all of it.”
I looked over and saw that the sexy, petite fox-woman on the other side of Iris had already managed to down three pieces of pizza without getting so much as a spot of sauce on her face. It was weirdly hot that she was able to do that while still maintaining her perfect warrior’s physique. She really was the perfect woman, even if she had turned my bedroom into a war zone.
The remaining three of us shifted in our seats to move the pizza boxes about on the coffee table so we all had access. I grabbed one of the bottles of beer Monty had provided along with my slice and leaned back against the ugly plaid material of the couch.
“Right,” Monty said once he was settled with his own slice of pizza and beer. “What do you want to know first?”
“You said that when you were actually supposed to go into the crystals that you had to do it from a warehouse outside of the city itself, right?” I asked. “Can you give us more information about the warehouse and the layout of it? Have you seen much of it? I remember you said you were blindfolded before.”
Monty nodded his head. “Okay, okay, I can do that. They blindfolded me the first couple of times, but by the fourth time I was going into a dungeon, I think they had started to trust me, because they did away with the whole blindfold thing inside the warehouse at least.”
“So, what is it that you can tell us?” Yasha asked around a bite of pizza in her mouth.
“The warehouse itself is pretty massive,” Monty explained. “It’s more like a compound, I guess, than just a warehouse. There aren’t any signs or anything on the outside of the building that distinguish it from any other warehouse, and it’s in a whole area with a few of them. I think it’s like a packaging district or something. I might not have been blindfolded inside, but they still kept me blindfolded on the drive.”
“That’s alright,” I said. “So long as you can tell us about the inside of the building, that’s all we need.”
“So, the place is crawling with guards,” Monty began. “I mentioned that he had a ton of them with AKs back at his record label, well, he has even more of them at the warehouse. They stake out every entrance and exit to the building and there’s a pad with a keycard swipe that has to be accessed before anyone can enter or leave the warehouse itself. It’s all very cloak-and-dagger.”
“Shit,” I said. “We’re going to need to get our hands on one of the keycards somehow. What else can you tell us about the layout?”
“There’s a section of the warehouse that’s blocked off for vehicles, like big black cars that are meant to scare the shit out of people, those types of vehicles,” he explained. “It seems like there might actually be some sort of record distribution happening there, too, but if it is, it’s minimal.”
“Why do you say that?” Iris asked.
“There are lots of big boxes in one portion of the warehouse,” he explained. “I didn’t really get a good look at them, because I was never allowed into that area, but I figured he might be doing something above board in the warehouse, too, just to make sure no one came sniffing around, you know?”
“That would make sense,” I agreed. “Have you seen any warehouse workers there, though? Or has it just been the guards?”
“Just the guards,” he said. “I’m always there at night, though, so maybe workers are there during the day, but I don’t know. Sorry I can’t be more helpful about that.”
“No, no, this is good,” I said. “It’s best if there aren’t any other people around for when this goes down, not if we can help it. What about the room with the crystal? Where do you go into the dungeons?”
“Right, yeah, so whenever they need me to actually go into a crystal, they have a guard escort me back into this empty room,” Monty continued. “The only thing in there is a table with the crystal on it, and there’s always two guards stationed at the room. There’s one inside and one outside. The one inside has to alert the one on the outside for him to open the door.”
“Why the song and dance?” Iris asked with a furrow between her eyebrows. “I don’t get it?”
“I think it’s so I can’t try and get away with stealing any of the gold,” Monty said with a sigh. “The first guard in the room always frisks me to make sure I’m not stashing anything away, and then he takes my loot from me and gets the second guard. I’ve managed to steal maybe one or two coins, and honestly that’s just been sheer dumb luck I think.”
“What’s after that?” I asked. I was impressed in a mildly disgusted way by how much they had this entire exchange boiled down to a science. It was clear to me that Harper had been getting better and better at this fucked-up system the longer he had been doing it.
“Usually, after that, once they’ve made sure I won’t try to smuggle anything else out, the first guard leaves to go drop off the gold to wherever it’s supposed to go, I think there’s some sort of safe,” Monty said. “And the second guard escorts me back to a vehicle so they can take me back home.”
“What about the crystal, though?” Yasha asked. “Do they simply leave it in the room without an attendant?”
“No,” Monty said, and he sounded rueful of the fact. “As soon as the second guard takes me, a team of two guards goes into the room to take the crystal back to its designated safe until it needs to be used again.”
“Jesus,” I said. “This is almost worse than Fort Knox.”
“I know.” Monty sounded glum. “Do you see how fucked I am? Until you guys came along to try and help, I was sure I was done for.”
“Wait,” Iris spoke up. “You never said anything about seeing Billy. Is he going to be at the warehouse? Because if he isn’t, why are we even doing any of this?”
Monty pressed his lips into a line and took a long swig of his own beer, as if he needed it to bolster himself for what was to come next.
“He wasn’t there the last few times,” he said. “But I know he will be after the ninth dungeon, the next one I have to complete.”
“You’re certain?” I asked him.
“Positive,” he said. “I found out after those guards beat me up, before you and Yasha found me. Harper wants to talk to me personally to make sure I’m still… ‘dedicated.’”
“And that’s when you think he’s going to try and kill you,” I finished.
“Exactly,” Monty said. “And I might not have much to live for, but I don’t really want to die, either, so I’d like it if that didn’t actually happen.”
“I can’t say that I blame you,” I joked lightly to try and make the mood in the room a little less dire. “You said before that he has an office at the warehouse, didn’t you?”
“Yeah,” Monty confirmed. “He has two guards with him outside the office at all times. The safe for the crystal is actually in his office, too. I don’t know what else is in there, if there’s anything at all, but I’ve seen the crystal get put inside it before.”
“Alright, so there’s at least six guards we’re going to have to deal with directly,” I said. “The two that guard the room while you use the crystal, the two that come in afterward, and the two outside Harper’s office.”
“Not to mention all of the others that are roaming the facility and keeping watch on the perimeter,” Monty added. “When I said this place was like a compound, I definitely meant it.”
“So how are we going to get inside the warehouse?” Iris asked. “Are we going to try and go into the crystal with Monty? Are we going to sneak into the building?”
“We’re going to go through the crystal,” I said.
“That’s what I thought,” Iris said. “I just wanted to be certain I was on the right page.”
“And you’re sure you guys can actually meet up with me in the crystal?” Monty sounded concerned.
“I’m positive,” I told him. “I trust Trog, the man who gave me the information on how to do this, with my life. He knows the dungeons better than anyone I’ve ever met, and Iris was trapped in one for fifty years, and Yasha trained her whole life to fight in them. If he says the information he gave me will help me connect with someone else in the dungeon, I believe him.”
“I trust you,” Monty said. “I just hope you’re right, because I don’t know if I’ll make it out of another dungeon alive if I don’t get help. I barely made it out of the last one in one piece. I have no idea how you were able to last for fifty whole years…”
Monty looked at Iris with awe written clearly across his face, and the blonde woman looked down at her lap, as if she was embarrassed from the praise.
“I didn’t fight,” she said. “I managed to hide.”
“Don’t let her downplay it,” I said. “She did something I don’t think anyone else would have been able to do. It wasn’t a level one dungeon, either. She had been trapped in a level four dungeon, and she managed to survive with no equipment, preparation, or training.”
Iris’ cheeks flushed red at the praise, but I was more than happy to give it to her. She deserved it after everything she’d been through.
“So, we will meet up with Monty inside of the crystal,” Yasha said. “And we will help him finish the dungeon without being slaughtered. But then what is our plan, Wes?”
I pursed my lips and thought over everything we had discussed so far.
“We’re going to have to be really cautious with our timing,” I finally said. “Monty, do you know the exact time frame that the guards operate on?”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“You said the first guard frisks you to take the gold, alerts the second, and then they will take you to see Harper,” I said. “But what about the second set of guards? Do you know how long after the second guard escorts you from the room that they show up to get the crystal?”
Monty furrowed his brow and scrunched up his nose in thought. He waffled his head from side to side as he seemed to struggle to find an answer.
“It usually takes somewhere between three to five minutes, I think?” he finally answered. “It isn’t exact. But there is some dead time when there isn’t anyone in the room. It’s not very long, though. Do you think that will be enough?”
“I think so,” I said. “But we’ll have to err on the side of less time. The last thing we want is to emerge from the crystal and appear right as the set of guards are carrying the crystal.”
“Or worse, when the crystal is put inside the safe,” Iris muttered.
An idea struck me then. “You’re going to have to cause a distraction.”
Monty’s eyes widened. “Me? A distraction? Why?”
“Because we need to keep the guards from coming and getting the crystal for as long as possible,” I explained. “You need to do something that is going to get all of the guards’ attention in the area, so even the second set of guards that are going to come and take the crystal get swept up in whatever it is you’re doing.”
“But what should I do?” Monty looked baffled as he stared at me and waited for some sort of answer.
I hesitated for a moment, and then it hit me. “You’re going to try and steal the gold.”
“What?” Monty shouted. “I’m going to what?”
I held my hands up to calm him. “Let me finish. What is your relationship like with the guard who escorts you out of the building? Is it usually the same guard, or is it someone different each time.”
Monty paused and frowned. He reached up to scratch his head before he answered. “It’s usually the same set of guys… I know them pretty well by now, like, I don’t think I could call us friends, but we definitely know each other.”
“Know each other well enough to bet on them not shooting you on sight if they think you’re stealing?” I asked.
“I really don’t like this plan,” Monty mumbled, but it was clear he was thinking over my words. “I don’t think they would shoot me. They don’t really like Harper, either. I know some of his goons are just well paid, but the ones who work directly with the crystals and stuff, they’re like me. He’s got dirt on them. It’s the only way he seems able to trust people with the crystal.”
“Perfect,” I said. “So you cause a distraction with the gold, and you make it a big one so every guard in the area comes running.”
“When should I do it?” he asked.
“Wait five minutes, starting as soon as you get out of the crystal,” I said. “As soon as those five minutes are up, you cause a scene, and the three of us will come out of the crystal.”
“I think I can do that,” Monty said, and he seemed almost sure of himself.
“What do we do from there, though?” Iris asked.
“While the guards are distracted, we have to get to Harper’s office without being seen,” I said. “I don’t want to have to hurt anyone who isn’t Harper unless we have to, because like Monty just said, it seems like most of these guys are in a similarly bad place.”
“Not all of them,” he piped up. “Most of us are all screwed over, but Harper’s closest guys? They’re something else entirely. Those are the guys who beat the shit out of me the other day. They’re just as bad as Harper himself. I saw one of them even shoot someone once. I wasn’t supposed to see it, but he shot a guy point-blank for not delivering enough from the crystal. It was fucking brutal, man.”
I paused. “Okay, so, our targets will be only Harper and his personal guards. No one else gets hurt long term.”
“That is much less fun,” Yasha said. “But I understand. You are a better person than I am, Wes.”
I grinned. “Not all of us can be so vicious.”
Yasha preened at the compliment, and her ears fluffed up in delight.
“I’m terrified of her,” Monty said to me.
“That is the correct way to react,” Yasha informed him.
“Annnyway,” I said to get the conversation back on track. “We’ll take care of Harper and his personal guards, but we will have to be quiet about it. We don’t want to attract any attention to what we’re doing, or else more guards might get dispatched to the area.”
“So how are we going to do it, then?” Iris asked.
“You could always shoot him,” Monty suggested.
“That sort of defeats the purpose of being quiet,” I pointed out.
“His office is in a secluded part of the warehouse,” he explained. “I can draw you some diagrams.”
It wasn’t a bad plan, but I had a few questions. “How are we going to get our hands on guns? You said the guards all carry shit like Ak-47s, those aren’t exactly quiet.”
“You could bring them into the dungeon with you,” he said, like it was the most obvious thing in the entire world.
I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “Guns work in the dungeons?”
“Ah, not quite,” Monty amended sheepishly. “After my first dungeon where I nearly died, I decided I was going to bring a gun in with me next time, but when I got it into the dungeon, it just wouldn’t work. I thought maybe there was something wrong with the weapon itself, but I tried it once I got out and there wasn’t anything wrong with it at all. I think it’s just something about the dungeons that keeps the bullets from working.”
“Interesting,” I mused. “I think that’s a good idea, then. We could enter the dungeon with weapons on us and then just leave them in the equipment room to take with us once we leave.”
“But how is Monty going to escape?” Iris asked. “If we take care of Billy and no one hears, it’s only a matter of time before the guards escorting Monty show up with him, and then what?”
“Do you know anything else about the warehouse that could help us?” I asked Monty.
He paused and furrowed his brow as he thought. “Yeah, I think I do, actually. I can draw you guys some maps so you know where all of this is, but there’s a set of generators that power the lighting and stuff in the warehouse. If you knocked those out, it would get really dark really fast, and I think I would be able to make a break for it before anyone could get the backup generator on.”
“That sounds risky, but if you think you can do it…” I trailed off.
“Hey, you guys are doing the hard part,” he said. “I can run.”
“But where would we run to?” Yasha asked.
“The car bay,” I said. “If we can make it to the vehicles Monty mentioned, we can use one of them to get out of the warehouse, right?”
“That should work,” Monty agreed. “I can draw a map to that, too, and then I can meet you there. You guys can grab one of the keycards we need to leave after taking care of Harper’s personal guards, too.”
“We’ll have to make sure we bring things like gloves with us into the dungeon so we can bring them out with us,” I said. “That way we don’t leave fingerprints on anything. I don’t want us to be connected to this warehouse at all.”
“I do not have fingerprints,” Yasha said.
Her statement led to a lull in the conversation as we all seemed to take that in before moving on without acknowledging how fucking weird that was.
“So,” Monty said loudly. “We steal one of the cars, use the keycard to escape, and then what? And how are we going to steal a car?”
“I can hotwire,” Iris said, and wow, if that wasn’t a sexy sentence.
My eyebrows shot up as I turned to look at her. “You can hotwire a car?”
“You underestimate how dull Ohio was,” she said with a wicked little grin I desperately wanted to see more of.
“I’m impressed, but that doesn’t quite work in this situation. Most modern cars, or all of them probably, have to have the key fob nearby before they can turn on,” I said. “Which means we will probably have to try and find the keys to one of them.
