[A/N]: Sorry I'm a bit late today, I got sidetracked drawing. I've been art-blocked for, like, the whole week I tried to draw a cover for this. I did manage to make progress, but this is as far as I got.
[ Image ]
This, sadly, also affected my writing flow. That means that I haven't checked this chapter over as much as I would've liked, and since I ain't done with the cover yet, this might be an issue for the foreseeable future.
Also. Orwell. You know, the guy I named Richard, which is the same name as Dick's? Yeah I'll just use his surname from now on. Saying this now just to avoid confusion. This won't last past the next handful of chapters anyway since we'll be moving on to the first proper villain of Symbol of Dread soon.
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Oracle's directions brought Lucian to a house on a quiet suburban street. It was nowhere close to the apartment building that Maxie had given him the address to, where Alec supposedly lived in the penthouse at the very top.
'A hideout, then... probably one of many,' Lucian concluded.
Even in the dead of night, many in the suburbs were still awake. Fortunately, since everything was damn near uniform, the roofs of the houses were all on the same level. With the night sky as his backdrop, Lucian had no problem crossing roof after roof so long as he stayed quiet.
The moment he stepped onto the right house's roof on Oracle's directions, a new notification pinged and formed in his vision.
[ Notice ]
[ Chain Quest, Part III: Digging Graves has been updated. ]
[ Objective [1] has been completed. ]
He gave it an appreciative nod and accelerated his mind to his Mentality attribute's limits, checking the quest's details once more.
– ৹ – ৹৹◎৹৹ – ৹ –
Chain Quest, Part III: Digging Graves
Description: You have ascertained the identity of the one responsible for Tamara Watson's brainwashing, and likely that of many others. Find the individual Alec Rave. From there sabotage his operations and set him on the path to his downfall.
Duration: 8 hours.
Objectives:
[1] Find where Alec Rave is hiding. [Completed].
[2] Hinder at least one facet of his activities.
Rewards:
[1] Success:
• 100 EXP. [Ready]
• Basic Ability: [ Tracker II ]. [Ready]
[2] Success:
• 50 EXP per instance.
• Basic Ability: [ Stalker I ].
Penalties:
[1] and [2] Failure:
• -25% Spirit for the next 24 hours.
• Temporary Cursed Title: "Mark of Shame" for the next 24 hours.
• Temporary Curse: Sight Haze for the next 24 hours.
• No longer possible.
[2] Failure:
• -25% Spirit for the next 24 hours.
– ৹ – ৹৹◎৹৹ – ৹ –
Slowing his mind back down to real time, Lucian snuck around to the edge of the roof and took a peek down the house's backside. There was a narrow street between Alec's house and a nearly-identical one facing away from it. The backdoor had a discreet camera above it, and a second was attached to a nearby lamppost.
Luckily, none of the windows had cameras, and the lamppost camera was fixed to where it was pointed. Nobody was awake in the other house, either.
Lucian inspected every window in Alec's townhouse and found that they all led into empty rooms. He chose one on the first floor, opened it without a sound, and snuck in. Of course, he made sure to shut it quickly to avoid changing the air inside the house.
'Stay where you are,' said Oracle, speaking through his helmet. 'I'll reach out through your gear and try to tap into their devices. Just make sure to stay hidden while you wait.'
Lucian moved toward the room's door and sat down by its hinges. He also drew a taser just in case, and went to pondering his situation.
Either Alec owned this house, or his family did. It didn't matter which; the fact was, they were likely wealthy enough to be sitting on at least a handful of properties. That gave Alec room to shuffle his location and that of his activities. Not to mention any potential locations under his control that weren't on the up-and-up.
That didn't sit well with him. Even if he managed to get Alec that night, Lucian would have to ensure that all of his operations were uprooted before he could move on.
"Done," Oracle said in the middle of his musings. Static filled his ears before muted voices came through. "Revenant, pay attention to this conversation. I'll raise the volume now."
"I already told you that I need more time," said a smooth, even voice, presumably that of Alec. "I was ambushed by a vigilante and needed time to recover. This is why I need to push the exchange to a later date. We're lucky I didn't get concussed, or we wouldn't even be speaking right now. I just want enough time get things back in order on my end."
"That wasn't the deal," replied a voice on the other side, distorted to conceal the speaker's identity. "You promised us three units would come tomorrow. I don't care that you got hurt. You're talking now, and that means you can work, so just fix it and get shit done!"
Alec was silent for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice registered lower. "I don't want to hear that from a grunt. If you won't wait, then I'll just take my business elsewhere. See how your boss likes that."
The distorted voice sputtered, followed by a silence longer than Alec's. "Fine!" They relented, voice shaky even through the distortion. "One extra day, and one more unit. If you can't get that to us, then the deal's off."
"I hear you," Alec drawled. "Now, if there's nothing else, I'm hanging up. I need to catch up on the extra work that you just foisted on me."
The line cut right then, even as the distorted voice scrambled to get in the final word.
To Lucian's surprise, Alec's voice was still clear in his helmet. "Well, there goes my hope of getting more rest... Sandra, you can take a break from fixing my injuries. I've got work to do."
"But—" A female voice began to argue, but was cut off.
"I'll just take painkillers," said Alec. "You've already reset my nose, and we both know metahumans like me heal faster than most. Now, if you'll excuse me... Arnold? How many do we have in the basement?"
"Four," a deep, gruff voice replied.
Lucian could clearly picture the pleased surprise on Alec's face when he spoke next. "Four? You got one without me." He chuckled. "Good job. This saves me the trouble of fetching another one myself... I could also use some recreation tonight."
"You sure about that?" Arnold questioned. "You're on a pretty tight deadline..."
"That just means I have less time for leisure later," Alec replied, "and I don't plan on getting any once I've started. I can enjoy myself first."
"Eh, suit yourself..."
Lucian stood up from his spot and dusted his pants off. "Oracle. Do you have eyes on whatever's happening in the basement?"
"No, sadly," Oracle replied. "The only cameras here are around the front and back doors, plus the living room and kitchen. It's very bare-bones."
"Makes sense if it ain't their main hideout... they probably have more in other places," Lucian grumbled.
"That's likely the case. For now, focus on the here and now. I connected to four radios earlier. Though I have their numbers, I can't quite pinpoint their locations. Regardless, they're supposed to be laying low, so we can safely assume that's the most they have. Worst case, there's probably one or two more."
"Alright. I'm moving."
Lucian made for the window and climbed up the side of the house again. He reasoned that if there were cameras, there was likely a monitoring system. Since he saw nothing in the house itself from the windows he'd peeked through, the only places such a thing could be were either the attic or the basement, and the latter was already in use.
'Bingo,' thought Lucian, peering through the attic's window.
He could see through the window that someone was sitting before a pair of screens that barely illuminated the attic. He turned on his goggles' night vision setting and scanned the rest of the room. Having confirmed that nobody else was inside, he turned it off.
Arming himself with a taser gun, Lucian opened the window slightly. This caused enough of a change in the atmosphere that the figure sitting before the monitors turned without thinking. With his arm already past the window, Lucian shot at the figure's unarmored legs. They seized up and convulsed, limbs straightening such that they shot to their feet, and their body ultimately tipped forward.
Lucian fully opened the window, jumped in, and caught them before they could fall. Gently lowering them to the floor, he poked a pressure point at the base of their neck, and they went unconscious without much fanfare.
[ Combat EXP: 10. ]
[ Next level: 585. ]
As he moved to close the attic window back down, Oracle spoke. "Where did you learn how to do that?"
Chuckling, Lucian replied, "Oh, I ended up in Tiber while I was homeless. Got picked up by some monks at some point, and I stayed with 'em for a few years."
When Oracle failed to respond for a few moments, he said, "Well, okay. Not what happened. But I did make a few friends while I was drifting for a couple years. They taught me how to fight, and I learned that from them."
Oracle hummed, but didn't say anything else.
Lucian continued his work with a grimace. Before moving on to the rest of the house, he searched the unconscious watcher's body. He emptied their wallet and stole a couple of magazines when he found that they were compatible with his guns. Since he wasn't staying long, he didn't bother tying up the watcher he'd just dispatched.
Turning to the attic's hatch door, he pushed it open just a crack. There was nobody on the side he could see, and he lowered it fully. Before descending though, he made sure to check the other side through the extended ladder—one guard was moving curiously towards it.
"Hey, Rod? What's goi—"
Lucian slinked down the edge of the hatch and shoved a taser right up to that guard's neck. He convulsed like his unconscious ally upstairs, and Lucian knocked him out in much the same way as well.
[ Combat EXP: 10. ]
[ Next level: 575. ]
'Should be two downstairs...'
He looted only some money this time—the guard was armed with a rifle.
Only the first floor was left now. Peeking down the top of the stairs showed him three people, all visible from his vantage point due to the floor's open layout.
There was one woman in the kitchen, pacing anxiously across the floor. One guard sat by the front door in the living, and another watched the back door which led out from the kitchen. The pacing woman was the same one that was with Alec when Lucian rescued Tammy.
'That must be Sandra Rave. She might be a reluctant participant in all this, but she's still complicit. She's getting captured too.'
Now that he'd taken out half the guards and Alec was busy in the basement with his right-hand man, Lucian was cleared to forego subtlety. This time, he pulled his gun and shot at the kitchen's fluorescent ceiling light—the only one that was turned on—and plunged everyone into the darkness. His natural night vision was much better than that of anyone else present, giving him an extreme advantage.
Even without Full Cowling active, he rapidly closed the distance between himself and the guard by the front door. They were the only one that could bring light back in short order. Once he'd knocked them out with a hefty backhand, he fired twice at the other guard. The bullets hit center mass and struck body armor, which gave him enough time to close the distance again and knock them out as well.
[ Combat EXP: 20. ]
[ Next level: 555. ]
By that point, Sandra Rave proved quick to recover and used her phone's flashlight to illuminate the house. She froze upon seeing the Revenant, hunched over the fallen guard, clad entirely in black with a shock of white on the lower half of its face.
With shaky hands, she drew a pistol—worse than her old one—and aimed. "Stay where you are!" She stammered. "Don't do anything, or I swear I'll—!"
Lucian cleared the gap between them with one leap and grabbed the gun. Sandra managed to shoot, but the bullet went wide and hit drywall.
At that moment, more gunshots rang out from the direction of the basement. Luckily, [Danger Sense] warned Lucian of that, and he had already pulled Sandra down with him and knocked over the dinner table as cover.
Soon after, the sound of tearing flesh and snapping bone filled everyone's ears. Lucian stood up and grabbed Sandra, then flung her towards the door.
"RUN!" He yelled, and shot at the swelling figure of one Arnold Orwell.
[ Rescue EXP: 10. ]
[ Next level: 545. ]
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Didn't feel like cutting the fight partway and this chapter's already getting pretty long, so I'll end before it can start and the whole thing happens next week. Hopefully I'll be done with the cover by then and my writing flow gets back to normal.