Feeling four separate hands press on his back, Deacon heard the last words of encouragement from his friends before they collapsed in the tunnel, entirely exhausted from constantly tunneling – even Bonehead, who didn't even have stamina, looked far more exhausted than what a skeleton should look like.
"Be careful of horses, they could be centaurs in disguise," Jass cautioned.
"Remember to look at the map of the city we sent in the group chat – especially the markers that we placed everywhere," Sam said.
"Stay safe," Esmerelda said softly.
"It's going to be very difficult, but do your best not to be a dumbass," Bonehead jabbed, getting tired chuckles from everyone, except for Deacon, who sent a kick his way.
As Bonehead dodged his kick and a wall of dirt rose from the ground separating Deacon from the rest of the Party, the small mound of dirt Deacon stood on rose, bringing him close to the ceiling of the tunnel and allowing him to dig through the last few inches that separated him from the surface.
And when doing so, he was struck with an earthy, stale scent – something that for some inexplicable reason, took him aback.
After a few tense seconds of lightly shaking his head and focusing on his breathing techniques, Deacon finally broke through the last remaining few inches of dirt and created a hole barely large enough for his index finger to poke through. It's go time, he thought to himself before pushing the tip of his finger forward, seconds before it was greeted with a physical object and followed up by a faint crunch instead of open air. Confused at this, he pressed his eye to the gap, squinting into the black nothing that greeted him. The hell?
Is this someone's hair? He thought to himself in confusion. Am I behind someone? No, Esmerelda would have detected a person if that was the case; someone probably just cut their hair and left it lying on the floor, or it's a corpse's head that I'm under.
Carefully, he widened the hole just enough to allow his slip hand through and touch what it was that was both blocking his sight, as even with a whisp of flame hovering at his side.
Immediately, his fingers brushed against hundreds of dry, thin, and coarse strands. He pinched it between thumb, index, and middle finger – and along with it snapping easily, a yellow dust cloud burst from it. Hay, he realized.
That explains the smell. Dried grass. I'm under a haystack.
He widened the gap further and pushed his entire upper body through, uncaring of the dirt spilling across his scalp and straw rasping against his armor. Fixing himself within the mound and getting his entire body out of the tunnel's end, Deacon remained inside the pile of hay and, without using any mana, focused on his surroundings, listening for any signs of life around, as poking his head out prematurely would either end up with him getting beheaded or blasted in the head with a spell.
After a good five minutes of listening and waiting, Deacon heard nothing other than the sound of wind rustling the hay pile. He heard no horses or centaurs shifting in their stalls or wherever centaurs lived, nor the sound of boots scuffling, just the faint creak of old beams overhead, the dry musk of wood and straw filling his nose.
Slowly, Deacon poked in head through the hay pile and saw that he was entirely alone inside an empty stable. Getting out of the hay pile, he began to brush many strands of straw that clung to his armor and hair.
As his hand twitched up to his forehead to brush away the strands of hay that clung to his sweaty head, he froze.
The headband.
Cold sweat broke across his back as his fingers skimmed over the strip of cloth that was still on his forehead – the bandana of the Undead Kingdom. The one thing that marked him as a member of the Undead Kingdom.
If he were caught with it on, if anyone saw him like this, they wouldn't even ask questions. He'd be killed on sight.
Curling his fingers around the back of the worn cloth, Deacon quickly untied it from around his head and quickly unzipped his Spatial Sling Bag and shoved it toward his Spatial Sling Bag, pushing it toward the zipper.
However, his hand that was holding the Bandana of the Undead could not go past the zipper of his Spatial Sling Bag.
The hell? He thought to himself as his brows knitted.
He tried again and hit the same problem. No matter what he did, folding it, dropping the opened bag on top of the bandana, using a mana string to put the bandana inside it, every attempt ended the same. Each time, it pressed against an invisible wall that barred its entry.
After the seventh attempt to try and get the bandana inside his Spatial Sling Bag, he came to a singular conclusion, The Tower wasn't going to allow him to hide it in such a place; it wouldn't even allow him to move three meters away from it when he'd placed it in the hay pile and tried to walk away from it.
"Crap," he muttered as he stared at the bandana in his hand.
Fuck it, we do it the old-fashioned way, Deacon decided as he crouched, pulled up the hems of his right leggings, wrapped the bandana around his ankle, and covered it back up.
With his bandana properly hidden from sight, Deacon began moving through the straw-strewn dirt of the stable on careful, silent steps until he reached the shadowed door. Pushing it open just wide enough to slip through, he pressed himself into the Lower Bailey alley sprawled before him.
At the far end of nearly every alley, bright lampposts cast their soft golden glow, lighting no more than ten meters before the streets and allies found themselves draped in the cover of nightfall. With them as the only light source around, Deacon couldn't see much – and setting off a flame spell in the middle of a siege at night would've been plain stupid. So, he chose the next best thing: climbing.
Moving quickly and quietly, he scaled the nearest three-story building by using its window sills, metal bars, and any ledge that offered a grip. Rolling over the raised stone lip of the roof, Deacon made his way towards the side of the building that peered over the streets, and in doing so, he caught sight of patrols moving nearby.
The patrols in question marched in various numbers; some moved in duos, trios, and all the way up to ten, all following their assigned paths across the district square. From higher up came the constant thunder of war — the boom of trebuchets, the whistle of ballista bolts, the crackle of spells hammering against the Undead Kingdom's siege lines.
Pulling out his manaphone, Deacon found the image of the map Jass, Sam, and Bonehead had located together from their exploration of Dawn's Breath on Floor Five and labeled it with every landmark they could find, along with conversing with others who had completed Floor Five and traded information with them to fill in their own blanks.
And from what he could tell, there are seven wells that decorate their Baileys within Dawn's Breath. Three in the Lower Bailey, which is where he is currently located judging by the state of the buildings around him and the loud booming of objects crashing into the massive walls protecting the city. And there were four in the Upper Bailey.
In order for their plan to work, he would need to poison at least two water wells from each Bailey. He was going to cripple the Holy Human Kingdom's forces and allow the Undead Kingdom the opportunity to breach the walls protecting the Lower Bailey, Upper Bailey, and eventually allow them to breach the Holy Sanctum.
Deacon's eyes flicked to the map, and after pinpointing his current location by using his surroundings and the various alley paths around him, he stifled a curse.
He was nearest to the third Lower Bailey well – the one furthest from the Upper Bailey.
"Fuck it," he muttered under his breath, clicking his manaphone shut and stuffing it back into his Spatial Sling Bag and quickly scaling back down the three-story building he was atop of.
His boots hit the packed dirt without a sound, knees bent, every muscle wound tight as he kicked off the cobblestone sidewalk and pressed himself into the shadows of the nearest alley wall. There's no time for me to be complaining.
As Deacon neared closer to the lamp post that stood at the end of the alley, he was going down and onto one of the many sidewalks, his eyes narrowed as he neared closer to it. While outwardly the lamppost at the end of the street burned like any other oil-fed light, with a copper frame around it that was dulled with age, and with its wick swaying against the wind, it was anything but a normal lamppost.
He didn't need Identify it to tell what it was – he could tell what it was even from 30 meters away.
Its flame, candle, and oil were blessed and saturated with and in holy power, transforming what would be an ordinary lamp post into a holy one.
While normally, he wouldn't feel anything other than a warm sensation envelop him, with the Bandana of the Undead on his person, he began to experience faint, prickling bites against his skin that became sharper with every step he took closer to the lamp post.
They were quite commonly found around the many churches in Floor Zero and were abundant on the North side of the town, where the Church of Ever Sanctity, the largest church in Floor Zero, and the most followed religion in the Tower.
By the time he reached the base of the lamppost, his skin was blistering hot, steam curling faintly from his arms as if the holy light were cooking him alive, even though it shouldn't as he was not an undead, but due to the Bandana of the Undead, he was considered to be one by the System, and as such it was "purging the undead miasma" he had within him. His jaw tightened, teeth grinding, as he unwrapped the cloth from his hand.
Even when taking off the bandana and it lay on the ground three feet away from him, the searing pain of holy power entering his body did not leave.
"…Fuck," Deacon hissed, crouching down to snatch the cloth back up and wrap it back around his right ankle. Staggering back from the lamppost and pressing his back against the cool brick wall, letting the pain ebb as distance opened between them. He rubbed his forearm, steam still leaking faintly off his skin. "There goes plan A for Phase Three."
Turning his gaze back onto the lamppost, his jaw tightened as he then turned sharply and slid into the mouth of another narrow alleyway, one with a slightly dimmer flame in the lamp post at its end.
***
Fifteen minutes later, Deacon crouched behind a quarter-full rain barrel at the edge of the thirteenth alley he'd slipped through, his eyes sweeping across the Lower Bailey's East District Square.
The only signs of life near the well came from a pack of hounds curled in a heap beside the open doors of a bar that looked to be filled to the brim.
Besides those in the bar who were solemnly drinking their beer and talking in muffled hushes, Deacon could see through the candlelit windows that dotted the sides of buildings nearby that overlooked the Lower Bailey's East District Square. With the help of their lit candles behind their curtains, he was able to see their outlined forms moving about their house.
Deacon exhaled slowly through his nose, steadying his nervousness before getting out of his crouch and walking towards the water well like it was just another Monday with his Water Tin in hand.
Upon reaching the stone lip of the well, he tucked the tin under his armpit, and he grabbed onto the twine-wrapped iron handlebar of the pulley with his free hand. The squeak of the crank turning set his teeth on edge as he wound it and the rope rattling as the bucket climbed higher further set him on edge as going off the window glare in front of him he could see the hounds at the bar gates perk up and stare at him.
When the filled water bucket reached the top, he caught it and hefted it onto the edge. In doing so, he angled his body so those in the bar behind him couldn't see what he was doing.
Moving to hold his Water Tin with his left hand, with his other, he grabbed hold of a vial from his belt pouch. Uncorking it in less than a second, he then poured the contents into the bucket in one smooth motion, letting those who could be listening in on what he was doing to hear the sound of water moving.
Once the vial was emptied, he swiftly palmed the empty vial into the underneath of his left bracer as he brought his unscrewed Water Tin to his mouth to take a sip of the lukewarm water within it.
Setting the tin back down on the stone wall with its cap back on, he tipped the bucket back and watched as it fell deep into the well before creating a sizeable splash as it hit the rest of the water below and allowed the poison to mix with the rest of the water well's reservoir.
Grabbing his Water Tin, he stepped away, calm and unhurried, slipping back into the next alley on his path without sparing a single glance toward the bar or the dogs who went back to their sleep.
Three more wells to go.