A way out

After waving goodbye to Vanessa, Jay and Arya soon were engulfed by darkness to the front and back. They had traveled only a few dozens of yards to that point, but as even the big cave had already been getting darker, the entrance to the passage was no longer to be seen.

It was then when Arya looked back over her slender shoulder.

"You know, you're way more shady than I'd ever expected… But I somehow like it!" A.

"Thanks'a bunch! I like you too. But speaking of being shady, I have another plan in mind with you." J.

"Oh, I'm curious! Does it include some intimacy as well?" A.

"Later on may be, but first I need you to hide before we reach Millshire. I ain't entirely sure if all went well, so it's best to play it safe. I don't want you assassinated the moment we enter Millshire because you are a witness.

Should my plan work out, I only need you to show me the place where you wrote the letter to Arathor and you get out of this unscathed… more or less." J.

"What do you mean by unscathed? I did nothing wrong!" A.

"Yes, but if your mother looses her peerage what about you? But like I said, maybe we can fix that as well…" J.

Arya only asked where he was thinking of hiding her afterwards, but he didn't answer and only stated she would see later on. They needed to concentrate as the passage was anything but easy to travel along.

A few meters after they ended their short conversation the path split, but after a single glance, Jay saw the other way led into a cave where tools got stored. This one would probably be used as a storage for goods that got smuggled in later on.

Taking the other tunnel, it went straight a slight slope up for about hundred yards, when suddenly the two of them found themselves standing in front of a wall. On the right side, there was a roped ladder leading close to five yards up and once they climbed it, the passage again went on for a while.

They encountered two more of those artificial cliffs, probably meant to keep visitors away. While the last went upwards again, the second cliff was the other way around and even the ladder was rolled up.

After a while of following the tunnel, they came to a wooden door that was locked from the inside. After passing it and walking up another winding slope for a few minutes, Jay and Arya finally saw light.

Walking a step faster as both of them were happy to get on the surface and bath in the sunlight again, the moment they stepped out of the small cave-like entrance, they got a surprise though.

It had not been daylight they saw, but the moons that got reflected by the sea in the starry night.

Jay extinguished the torch as the light of the moon was quite enough to see something and the darkness enabled him to use (Night Vision). Additionally, it was best to not give away their position as he still had only a rough idea as to where they had ended.

Taking a small and winding path down towards the beach, Jay helped Arya out who was not that practiced with walking in such a terrain.

Leading her by hand, it took some time to reach the beach but it was no real issue.

Once there, he summoned his horse for faster travel what got Arya completely startled. Saddling up and reaching her his hand, Jay pulled the light woman onto his lap and they started to ride. He didn't speed up the horse too much and while holding an arm around his neck, Arya looked up to his face and kept watching him until he looked down and they got eye contact.

"You really know how to make a girl fall for you…" A.

After smiling wide at each other she got closer and even leaned onto him as it was really getting cold without clouds.

Jay though used the moonlight to keep looking for points of orientation as he needed to relay the location to those he would send to the mine later on.

Arya asked what he kept searching for, right when he spotted their next destination.

Atop a steep cliff to their right, Jay saw the small abode he had been looking for.

Passing it and following the beach taking a wide turn to the right, they rode up a path once they had traveled through the bay that lay between two relatively big mountains. Once they arrived at another, slightly wider path leading left and right, Jay took to the right and sped up the horse as they rode towards the south again.

The moment they rode through the small gate on the plateau, Daphne Stillwell came out of her small house and greeted them. She had seen him long before even still down on the beach.

As Arya looked at him irritated, Jay explained who she was and helped her dismount, then jumped from his horse as well.

Without wait they got led into Daphne's house and together sat at her table. What followed was a short narration of how he ended there and his request to hide Lady Arya.

Stillwell didn't think twice and agreed, to what Jay stated that the young woman could tell her the reason why Millshire and especially her mother didn't help but even attacked her.

With a hung head, Arya did just that and apologized on her mothers behalf, but Daphne only answered she mustn't do that as she did nothing wrong herself.

The background of the bandits did Jay tell her himself while Arya sat at the side in silence. He then explained he would leave after a short rest and the two of them would have to wait until further notice.

Jay stated that he might not be able to come in person, so he showed her a small ring with a green gem that he would give whoever comes to notify them.

After a mug of tea he asked Arya once again if she was all right, to what she nodded with a smile, and then he left the house.

Calling forth his horse, Jay mounted it and rode full throttle through the night. Even if he hurried, the way to Millshire would take him at least two hours, even more at night.

Like he had guessed before, Jay had to slow down on some passages as, even if he could see nearly normal at night, his mount did not. When he closed in on Millshire he dismissed his horse and closed in on foot.

The moment he got within sight, he even activated hide and like this was about to sneak into the city.

But at last minute he remembered there possibly were magic items and barriers able to spot him once he enters the city. Turning around once again, Jay went back into the fruit plantation and incinerated some loose wood there. He then rushed over to the other side of the road and waited.

As the guards rushed over to look what was going on there, Jay wore one of the red bandanas he had plundered in the mines and slipped inside the city when no one was watching.

Like this he should have been safe even if someone watched or mechanisms preventing sneaking in were active.

From behind the city gate, Jay chose the route through the slums and while mapping the city in his mind, passed around the sparse patrols there. In no time he arrived at his target location, namely the mines warehouse.

It got a bit tricky to not get spotted once he was close, but thanks to his (Hide) skill it was not that much of a problem. As long as he kept a certain distance to them, no guard noticed him at all.

A bit confused as he had been sure there would have been another guard stationed here after he killed the last, Jay walked over to the door and knocked…

knock, knock-knock, knock-knock, knock, knock

Then he heard steps inside, followed by a silent male voice. He recognized it instantly and answered the question who was knocking.

Close to instantly after stating his name he heard heavy things getting moved and the next moment the door flung open.

Like he had guessed it was Bogus that had reacted to him, just then standing with a sword pointed forward in the door. He dropped it when he recognized Jay and instead pulled the youth inside.

The warehouse had gotten pretty cramped after all the slaves Jay had freed had kept their word and waited for him.

Only one thing seemed to have transpired as a certain small, dark haired woman with a slight asian touch stood in the middle of the room and was watching him.

It was Kearnen that had taken care of them over the last days.

After a short greeting, the two of them sat together on some crates at the side and she asked Jay where he had come from as she had kept on watching the mine for him. He then explained what had happened and gave a small report.

Jay was surprised to hear from her that she already got in contact with Stoutmantle. He would be marching over to Millshire with some of his troupes and then be waiting in front of the cities gates within the next day at most.

That said, the first sun rays already shone into the warehouse, signaling another day had begun.

To that Jay inquired how she had been able to communicate with him so fast and learned they used postal birds in this case. Those ware rarely used in this Kingdom, but every bigger settlement at least had some for emergency communication as magic tools were not affordable for most.

Next he explained his plan for anything that would follow and made a guess as to what was going to happen once he openly got back to Millshire.

Looking over the people in the warehouse, another question came to Jay's mind.

"Why are there so many people still here? I thought we had planned for you to guide them out and hide them in the slums…?" J.

"Well, it turned out that most of them can't leave the perimeters of the mine due to orders from their owner. The rest denied to leave if the others couldn't and decided to stay.

Only those with families outside or who were with children in between the slaves here and able to leave, I hid in the slums..." K.

Kearnen also asked if he wanted to check on them, but he neither had the time for that, nor did he want to endanger them of getting found.

They then called Bogus over who was still standing at the door that they had hurriedly barricaded again after Jay entered.

As he had arrived next to them, they proceeded with telling Jay's plan for Bogus. He was to pick a few capable men and arm them with whatever they could find if they weren't already. They would have to protect the slaves alone for a while as Jay and Kearnen had their own tasks to attend to. Things would most certainly get troublesome in the near future.

Once they finished their talks, Kearnen left the warehouse through the backdoor and Jay helped shutting it thoroughly again.

After they were done with that, Jay turned around and went towards the mine once again. This was the only way he could go back to Millshire without arising suspicion.

Once he was back in the sparsely lit tunnel leading down, Jay fist went towards the side passage and checked if any more miners had come back again. After finding none and even checking down until the first big cave, he went up to where he started again.

This time he took the main entrance at the top end of the wide hole.

Heaving the thick plank he used to barricade the door to the side, Jay swung the door open and took the miners loitering around there by surprise.

Two of the normally lazy men rushed in on him with their pick-axes while the last one hurried towards the wide gate at the far side.

Jay held back as good as possible while knocking them out, though both men ended with some broken bones from one hit each. It took him nearly no time to get rid of them, but as the other man had stood quite far away, he still had managed to push the gate open and run outside.

The moment he got into the open, the man managed to shout out "Attack! We have Intruders!!!" while waving his arms.

Stumbling over the rough pavement and due to his burly figure falling forward, the men slid over the wet ground. It seemed to have been raining this night.

Jay walked after the man that, once hurried back to his feet, only managed two more steps until he stumbled again. Crawling on all four, the miner tried to gain distance from Jay. The youth himself had gotten surrounded in a wide circle by the guards by this time.

As they pointed their weapons towards Jay but none of them dared to come close to him, it took a few moments until a man that seemed to be the guard captain stepped through the encirclement.

While Jay listened to the mans claims of him attacking the workers and arresting the young man, latter only rose his hands up and played to give up.

Glad he had stored his weapons away and was only wearing a shirt, Jay got searched for weapons once and then led towards the big mansion. It was of course not the main entrance they took, but a small door in the basement on the back, facing towards the mines.

Jay nearly got thrown down the stairs leading into the dimly lit and wet basement. Along two relatively narrow hallways he got led into a small room with two doors. The sleek stone walls and the single table with three chairs, two on one side and one opposite to that, remembered Jay of interrogation rooms he saw on TV back in his old life.

After he got sat on the single chair, the men chained his cuffs to the table and left the room to the left where they came from.

Alone in the sparsely lit room, Jay waited for a while until he heard movement and voices from the other door. The moment the door flung open, Jay hurriedly placed his hands back on the table.

He had played around with the cuffs out of boredom and due to his strength he unintentionally had broken off the left one.

Laying his arm on the broken cuff he hid it from the two people that entered the room.

And those two were no one else but Lady Brittany of Millshire in person, accompanied by the suspected slaver Lady Kendra.

The moment they stood before Jay, the two of them showed clearly faked surprise on their faces.

But the first thing they did was asking the Soldiers if the youth was chained and then they ordered them to shut the door.

Only then did both of the women gracefully take a seat opposite to him.

Jay used this chance to guide their talk in a way they at least couldn't have him killed off instantly. To his question why he got attacked the moment he came back from the mine, the blonde Kendra's eyes got sharp, but not as sharp as her voice when she answered.

"The poor miners you attacked said otherwise though! How comes you claim they attacked you when you not even got a single scratch on you?" K.

"The fact they survived their ambush is proof enough. I had no bad intentions and now they tell lies and claim I attacked them? I didn't even have a weapon on me!" J.

It was obvious to him the two women didn't believe him. After they looked to each other and then back to him, Jay knew the questioning would go on until they had him cornered.

As his life depended on this situation and how he played it, he had to find a way to talk himself out of it...