A Snake's Den

The room was huge. It was impressive to think that the thieves dug out this entire area by themselves. A project like this must've taken quite some time and manpower. Kies walked down the uneven stone staircase which was dimly lit by a few torches lining the walls. The moment he made it to the bottom, a terrible stench flooded his nose.

"Ugh!" Iris and Wompa both pinched their noses when they also reached the bottom. The entire place smelled strongly of animals. Kies raised her hand and had the winds lift one of the torches off the hinges of one of the walls and bring it to him, being careful as not to extinguish the already fading flames. He lifted it around and saw that the walls were lined with steel cages.

*Growl!* The noise surprised the two girls and they went back up the stairs a bit. Kies went over to the cage where the sound came from and found a huge beast peering back at him. It lunged at him, slamming its body into the bars. The cage rattled violently and the beast tried to swipe at Kies with its long claws but couldn't reach him. It growled again, warning Kies to back off before repeating to the dark corner of its cage, away from the light of the torch. Kies moved his arm around and discovered that there were around thirty or so cages, all of which contained a vicious beast of some sort.

Kies didn't recognize any of these beasts and so he had no idea how dangerous they really were, but judging from how intimidating they all looked, these were all apex predators. As for how the thieves managed to get their hands on something so dangerous, he had no idea.

Kies moved his torch back to the first cage containing the beast that tried to attack him and approached it. With one hand on the torch, he lifted his sword with his other hand, using the winds to aid him. He then pointed the tip of the blade at the beast who glared at him through the cage, watching his every move.

"Sorry about this," Kies apologized to the poor animal. Even though it didn't do anything wrong yet, Kies had to kill it so that it couldn't get loose and go on a rampage.

Just as Kies was about to thrust his sword into the beast's head and kill it in a swift blow, he heard a whistle and jumped away, dropping his torch as he did so. An arrow landed into the stone wall beside him.

"Hoodie!" Iris and Wompa ran down the stairs, but Kies waved them off, telling them to stay where they are.

Kies turned his head towards where the attack came from and saw a silhouette of a person hiding in the shadows. "Not bad," a smooth male voice complimented him for dodging the arrow. He fired another one at Kies who batted it away with his sword.

"Who are you!?" Kies demanded from the man.

"Who do you think?" The man hopped down from his perch high up on the walls. He landed on the floor somehow without breaking a bone despite dropping down from several meters.

"You're one of the thieves," Kies guessed. Iris and Wompa joined Kies and raised their weapons, getting ready for a fight.

"Thieves? What a petty thing to be called. While we do steal, that's not our primary purpose." The fire from the torch flickered, revealing a part of his face as he walked into the light. He held up his right hand to reveal a tattoo of a snake. "We're the Black Fang," the man told the three.

"Black Fang? What a cliché name."

"Well, I wasn't the one who decided it. I didn't even have a say in it..." he mumbled. "Anyway, that's enough talk. I need to kill you all here and catch up with the rest."

"And what makes you think that you can kill us?"

The man chuckled. "Please. You're three kids. Compared to the royal guard that came down a few minutes ago, you're easy to deal with," he said, referring to Rui.

"So you hid like a coward when she was here and waited for someone else to come..." Kies summarized what the man basically did.

Kies wanted to provoke the man with that, but it didn't seem to have an effect on him. "You can say what you want. Only a fool would choose to fight her. And also... I'm a criminal. Who cares about morals? I kill anyone that gets in our way." The thief raised his bow and fired another arrow at Kies without warning.

Kies raised his sword and deflected the arrow with the flat of his blade. When he lowered his weapon, he saw that the thief was gone.

"Up there!" Iris pointed up the wall. The thief somehow managed to get all the way up there up, in under a second.

"In all honesty, I wasn't planning on killing you guys. I avoid killing children, but since you wanted to kill our beasts, you leave me no choice," the thief shouted down at them. He drew two arrows and fired them both at the same time.

"Iris, Wompa, move!" Kies yelled at them. The two girls rolled away as the arrows hit the ground where they had been a second ago.

"Stay still, I promise I'll make this quick and painless!" The thief fired off another wave of arrows, all of which were aimed at Kies. He lifted his sword and blocked the incoming arrows, a couple scraping his cloak.

"..." Kies lowered his weapon and looked up at the thief who was nowhere to be found again. He heard a laugh echo the walls somewhere above them. This thief was too nimble. They were already fighting at a disadvantage since the thief was using a bow and they were using swords and other melee weapons, but to be fighting in the dark as well? This wasn't going to be an easy fight.

Arrows rained down on them, forcing the three of them to constantly be on the move. Several arrows almost hit Iris and Wompa and Kies had to blast them away with his magic before they could. Kies muttered a curse. This was not good. He could bring the entire place crashing down on them with his magic, getting rid of both the thief and the beasts down here in an instant, but that wasn't a good idea. It would also bury them in here and they were pretty deep under the ground.

"How do we hit him!?" Iris asked Kies.

"I got it. But I need you two to fend for yourselves for a bit," he told the two.

"Okay!" Iris and Wompa ran away and found a small section under the wall where they were safe from the arrows. After seeing that they were safe, Kies held up his hands and created a powerful updraft. Since the thief was constantly jumping around up there, he could just knock him out of the air with this. The winds flew up and smashed into the ceiling, causing rubble to fall down, but somehow the thief wasn't hit by it.

Kies waited for the thief to fall down but instead, he heard his voice yell out in surprise. "Sh*t! You're a mage!? I'll be d*amned!"

"Ha, if you think you can get me with your magic, think again. That won't work on me." Kies raised his arms and called the winds again, but this time, he ordered them to surround the thief. The winds located and wrapped around the thief. "That won't work." Kies felt the wind around the thief suddenly disperse for no apparent reason.

"What?" Was the thief a magic user as well? Kies didn't know any other way that the thief could have dispelled his magic. *Zzzsh!* Another volley of arrows flew at Kies and he blocked them all with a wind barrier. Also, how many arrows did the guy have? Kies didn't see that he had a quiver on him, but somehow, the thief seemed to have hundreds of arrows on his person. Something was definitely strange here.

"Iris, can you shoot a fireball up there!?" Kies called out to Iris, requesting her aid. He needed to see just what was up there.

"On it!" Iris held out her hand and yelled, "Fire!" A flame flared into existence in her open palm and flew out towards the ceiling. As it traveled, it lit up the walls, revealing wires and ropes dangling from the ceiling along with racks of arrows lining the walls. The fireball brushed by the thief as he was swinging across to the other side.

"Close, but not good enough!" The thief returned fire and shot an arrow at Iris. Kies extended his arm and used his winds to intercept the arrow before it could hit her. A jet of wind blasts the arrow out of the air, splitting it in two just as it was about to hit Iris. It was a very close save.

"Thanks!" Iris and Wompa move away from their cover now that it has been exposed.

"Keep firing your magic at him!" Kies told Iris.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." Kies' idea was to have the two of them bombard the thief with magic and force him down onto the ground where he would be at a disadvantage.

Kies and Iris both fired magic at the thief. With their combined attacks, it was impossible for the thief to dodge it. But, the plan didn't turn out the way that Kies wanted it to. When their magic attacks were about to reach the thief, both of them suddenly dispelled again.

"Huh? What happened?" Iris didn't understand why her fireball disappeared just like that in an instant.

"So he is one..." Kies unhappily mumbled.

"What are you talking about?" Iris asked, looking at Kies and trying to figure out what he meant by the 'thief was one.'

"He's a mage."

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