//Sorry for the inactivity, just been kinda busy the last few days.\
“I see them.”
“See who?”
“Carmine and his goons. They set up camp just outside the city walls. I’m surprised the guards didn’t kill them already.”
Alex and Midna surveyed the surrounding areas from atop a large tower, Alex hanging onto the sloped roof’s spire with one hand.
“Anyway you can get a better look?” Midna asked. “I see something strange out there.”
“One sec,” Alex said. He squinted hard. Surprisingly enough, he was able to get a good enough focus on them from far away. Had his vision always been that good?
“I see…four, five, six, seven of them out there. Carmine and his guys, that assassin guy, and some guy in a gray cloak.”
“Gray cloak?” Midna said. “They picked up another guy?”
“Apparently, lemme see if I can get a better look.” Alex jumped ahead a few buildings, this time on a considerably higher building. “Okay, and…got ‘em. He looks skeletal, almost. Kinda like…”
Alex nearly lost his grip when he put two and two together.
“De Sade?!”
“It’s worse than we thought,” Midna replied. “Last time we saw him was in the mountains, right? And he disappeared.”
“What I wanna know is how Carmine brought him back. Unless…he had someone do it for him?”
“That other Lilithian. He channeled de Sade’s power and brought him back!” Midna realized. “But what happened to him?”
“Who cares? We’ve got bigger problems now that de Sade is back in action. We’re outnumbered by a large margin here, I doubt even with the Twili weapons we’ll stand much of a chance.”
“What about the Shroud?”
“I can’t manifest it through this thick armor. I’d have to take the P.C.S. off to use it.”
“Great,” Midna sighed. “Between another rock and a hard place.”
“Maybe we should get out of here for good,” Alex said. “Leave Asgarnia so more people aren’t killed. I know of some shortcuts through the mountains that’ll take us to Glacia City, and we can possibly hide out there for a while.”
“It would help to know where the Kandarin Capital is,” Midna said. “That way we can plan our route.”
“If only we could steal one of the Commission’s maps,” Alex said. “Then at least we could have something to go on.”
“You know,” Midna said. “That shadow cloak on the P.C.S. never wore off. Combined with the Twili armor, you could just as easily become perfectly invisible for a short time.”
“That gives me an idea,” Alex replied. “But we’ve gotta be careful. Chances are that Hannibal Roth guy, being an assassin, will probably hear us before he sees us, and the last thing we want is de Sade on our asses. We’ll need to lure them away from the other guys. But how?”
“If I can set up some kind of distraction,” Midna said, “you could sneak up and take the maps. I could create a brief, but no doubt attention-grabbing, portal that leads to nowhere. It would draw at least one of them away. How about it?”
“Let’s do it.”
Alex positioned himself behind some trees, well out of the Commission’s sight, and Midna on the opposite side. The soldiers were in the middle of indulging themselves on some deer that Hannibal had trapped. Roth sat motionless and silent, watching the darkness around them, but facing away from Alex. De Sade stood like a statue, obviously in some meditative state. He was facing toward Midna. Hopefully the portal trick would distract either Roth or de Sade and get them to walk away from the campsite for a few precious seconds. He signaled Midna to cast the diversion, and within moments, a roaring vortex appeared a few hundred yards outside of camp, swirling and tossing loose rocks and branches around noisily.
“What the hell is that?” Carmine inquired, sitting up, visibly annoyed by the din. “De Sade, would you go take a look around?”
“Would a dragon swat a fly just because he could?” De Sade hissed, having lost his concentration.
Carmine sighed. “Just go take a look, damn it.” He was in no mood to put up with de Sade.
“Why do I still tolerate you... Very well.” De Sade walked slowly out of the camp in the direction of the portal’s location.
Carmine went back down on his back. “Jesus, it’s like trying to babysit a dragon, all right.”
Alex didn’t bother waiting for Hannibal to leave before he became invisible. He crept as silently as he could into Carmine’s tent, and carefully rummaged through his backpack. Luck smiled upon him, as drawings of the continents and oceans on paper were soon found. His treasure secured, he crept back out of the tent, but not before stepping on a twig.
Hannibal immediately stood up and looked around, his eyes darting all around the campsite. “Something’s here. You hear that?”
“Heard what?” Estacado said in between chewing and swallowing his meal. “I didn’t hear anything.”
“You wouldn’t,” Victor chuckled, “the way you eat.”
Estacado ignored the wisecracking sergeant and went back to his food. Hannibal walked towards Carmine’s tent, where he heard the sound. Upon looking carefully, he found a broken twig, and matted down grass.
“Probably some animal who wandered too close,” Carmine said. “Whatever it was, it’s gone now.”
Hannibal sighed, wondering where Carmine suddenly got his heightened senses, and sat back down in his original spot.
De Sade returned to camp, and went back into his meditation.
“Well, did you find anything?” Carmine asked.
No answer.
“Glad to know you’re so talkative,” Carmine sighed.
Alex ducked behind a large boulder, and unrolled the maps. Midna joined him soon after.
“Score,” Alex said. “Take a look at this. This is where we are now.” He put his finger on the dot about a hundred miles southwest of Vandrin. “And from what this map says, the new capital is…in the arctic region?”
“They’re certainly taking impregnability to a new level,” Midna replied.
“How the hell are we going to cross the ocean? That water’s gotta be below freezing.”
“Let’s worry about that when the time comes,” Midna said. “In the meantime, if we could get towards Glacia, the sea would be just on the other side of the mountains. Now let’s get out of here before we’re spotted.”
“Gotcha,” Alex said. “I know of an old underground entrance near here the rebels used to use. If we can cut through the city to the north gate, they’d never see us.”
“Good idea, but be quiet about it.”
The two didn’t share another word until they were safely on the other side of the city.
“The Glacia mountains are that way,” Alex pointed. “It’s about a day and a half to Glacia City, so we should be there by tomorrow night.”
“All right then. Let’s get moving, we’re burning moonlight.”
