Chapter 10 Problems Bigger Than A Castle

It didn't take long for the merchant to finish up grading my gun the returning it to me just as politely as he had taken it in the first place.

He looked up and smiled, "I hope you find it good princess, stay safe." I just nodded and walked through the door waving back as I returned to the two perplexed men in the main room.

They had been planning what our next move should be, where we should carry on with our head on brute force approach or if we should change tactic. I felt we should go hard, fast and all-out attack, storm them and surprise them with our fearlessness. It is dangerous with any tactic either way.

Leon piped up, "What do you think?" I looked at him and said what I felt would help us the most in this situation so far, "We should surprise them by going all out, cautious yet strong. Let them see what we can do." Luis looked surprised, but he did nod at Leon as if to say that it was a good idea.

"It's settled; we go head first with a strong assault. Just stick together ok?" We both nodded in agreement.

We walked up to the door and listened. We couldn't hear even a whisper on the other side, I knew it was a bluff they wouldn't let us just walk in just like that. They are just biding their time and waiting to attack us. They may seem dumb but they are not at all.

We slowly opened the door and there was a Ganado with a bow just in front of us, I shot him in the chest twice and he went down fast, not fast enough to stop him from getting a hit in my upper shoulder, I yelled and Luis court me before I fell back wards from the hit. I got my balance back so we moved around the corner as fast as we could and shot the Ganados that were waiting ahead.

We walked down the hall that was on the left-hand side of us and opened the door to find a medium sized room with boxes and other supplies, we took them and opened the door at the end of the room to reveal the way back to where we had first come from.

We walked back through the room and into the main dining room, I shot the bottle on the painting, Leon turned to me and smiled "Great shot, if only I had known sooner… I wouldn't have worried so much." I looked at Luis for a second and then back to Leon, "Well, I have practised a lot in my spare time, only with a BB gun though." I said with a slight chuckle.

I gestured to the door that had just opened, I knew what was on the other side and knew that we couldn't all get in that cage or we will be blitzed by the Garrador, so I looked at Luis then at the door on the left as if to say for him to look in that direction, and thank goodness, he did. Then I moved to the right side of the room and looked at the dresser that was in the corner, Leon went straight for the middle pedestal to the box with the hourglass in it, he took it out and the cage fell around him.

I shot the Ganados that were around the cage and Luis took out the ones his side and the ones in the cage, I then took a shot at the Garrador that was confused in the cage as there were to lots of noise on each side of the room. I hit him Luis would fire, Then I would hit it in the back, once he turned to me Luis would shoot, the beast went down fast.

I kicked the door open for Leon, he walked out and we regrouped, Leon and Luis looked scared, I wasn't I was too full of adrenaline to care, I was ready for the next room. We opened the door to a grand hall that had red carpet running all the way down and around the corner.

We walked around and saw that we needed to jump down and pull the lever, Leon jumped down after me and Luis hesitated, he pulled the lever and then all hell broke loose, the Ganados came out running from the doors either side of the room, they were running towards us and me and Luis made a stand, we shot them down as Leon climbed back up behind us. Leon turned and shot the last one running down the bridge that had just been raised, we ran down it to the other side and pelted it to the right side where we took out the last of them, one with a bow almost hit me again, luckily the bleeding from the last hit had stopped.

They both jumped down and started collecting things, I stood there observing, most of my time in social situations were spent doing this very thing, but this was different, very different somehow.

I felt this connection with something in the room, but it wasn't Luis or Leon, it was Ramon's left hand, not right that we see later, no, left hand all in black watching in the shadows from far across the room and they hadn't noticed it, I didn't look at it only grew aware of its presence. I knew what it wanted to know and it would get closer, it wanted to know where the sample was and Luis had it on him.

I jumped down and Hugged Leon, "Thank you for getting me out of that room by the way!" I said to him cheerily, I turned to Luis and hugged him, "Thank you for sticking with us!" I said just as happily as before, but this time I patted him on the back while slipping the sample from his back pocket, the patting on his back served as a physical distraction from the sensation of the sample being removed, I placed it in to my leather jacket pocket as I walked past him to what looked to them like I was looking in a vase. As they turned away I saw its eyes on me, so I moved my jacket to make the sample visible to the creature in the shadows just beyond the window of the door.

I knew now Luis was safe, as he would be able to show there was no sample, he patted his pockets and cursed under his breath, "Shit! I had the sample! I better go back and check it isn't there." Leon looked worried and said, "You shouldn't go alone." Luis sighed "It's my problem, not yours." He walked off as Leon nodded as if to say ok, he said he wouldn't be long and I knew he wouldn't cause he wouldn't find it and the creature was no longer stalking him, it was looking at me.

Me and Leon climbed the stairs at the back of the room and walked through the door and across the bridge to go into the new hall that had stair and a right turn, we walked up and the door opened behind us, Luis came through.

"Not there, nothing there in fact." I smiled and said, "We will find it, you just gotta calm down."

We all walked around the corner to see that Will was standing there proud as day with a huge grin.

"Hello strangers, wantin' some new things or upgrades?" We nodded and came closer, we handed over guns and watched as he worked his magic. Once he was done we headed through the door behind us. Leon and Luis went on ahead, Will was looking at me funny, "What is it?" I asked as I was getting worried, He replied with a look of concern and honesty, "I know you have it, princess, I don't mean it as a threat, I mean cause it is dangerous havin' something like that on yourself without them knowing. I don't want it off ya, you can count on that, but you should tell one of them, sweetheart." I looked him in the eye and said: "If it stops them from dying then so be it." He looked back in awe "You're a strong one I'll admit, I respect that." I nodded and turned, as I did he was packing his stuff and heading off quickly, he turned and said: "Be careful princess." And winked then continued down the hall he was going down, I was just wishing and praying my plan was going to work…

Chapter End

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