Chapter 3

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"Ok, if my intel is correct, the elevator should be right around this next... Bingo!"

They'd walked past a few rooms already, mostly research areas, and laboratories that in themselves had many beautiful and unique artefacts. However, the prize they had come here for was kept deeper down in the library's archives, where only the most valuable and dangerous items were stored.

And now, almost as if he owned the place they were attempting to break into, the thief took a confident stride through a pale yellow corridor, stopping briskly in front of two large elevator doors.

"See Dave, nothing to worry about." Jack smiled widely, his grin smug as he punched his colleague in the arm.

The younger man, however, didn't share his enthusiasm, and so he questioned, "doesn't this seem a little easy," gesturing to the long corridor with its limited security. "I mean you'd think a library filled with ancient mystical artifacts would be a little more... secure."

And well "yeah" the other thief paused as he considered his friend's words. "But according to my source, they have serious problems with people breaking into the place on the regular. Yet no one has done a thing to fix it. At this point, it's practically a running joke how easy it is to break into this place, even the government could do it."

"Really?" Dave questioned again, however, this time with a little more hope in his voice.

"Seriously man, don't sweat it." Jack chuckled as he slapped the other man on his back, before jovially pushing on the elevator's call button. "We've got this far without issue, so the rest should be a cakewalk."

"Fine. But I still think we should air on the side of caution. You don't know what changes they might have made since the last couple of break-ins."

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The team stood still in the large clearing in front of a fast-running river, the majority of them gazing across its murky surface, brows furrowed in thought. Looking at it, it was clear that the river was too wide to leap over and too deep to wade through, and that left the librarians with a sudden problem. Because, from what they could see, there was no clear way around the water, but if they turned back now to find an alternate route, they would lose all the progress they'd made thus far.

If only they had...

"What about that?" Jake called out, pointing confidently over to where a large tree had fallen over. Its trunk looked sturdy and thick from where he was standing, easily strong enough to take a couple of people's weight. "If we can somehow shift this, we can use it to walk across. What do you think Baird?"

"Maybe..." The guardian pondered for a moment, looking at the tree and back to the river before she spoke again. "It certainly looks big enough, and there's a slight indentation in the river bank where it would lodge quite nicely... But the question is, can we shift it?" Studying the ground the log lay on, Eve picked up some soil and let it slip through her fingers as a frown marred her face. "I mean, it looks rather heavy, and the bottom half has already sunk pretty deep into the mud."

"I guess but it's..."

"I bet as a team we could manage it." It was Cassandra who spoke up, forestalling the historians' less enthusiastic words of encouragement. "It's worth a shot at least, right?" She then smiled at her Guardian showing all her glee and excitement in its beam, before receiving a smaller but also warmer smile in return.

"Sure why not."

And so, with that statement, and a quick nod from the ex-nato operative, Eve and the librarians began pulling and pushing on the log.

Well, two librarians did at least, the third, however...

...

...

"Come on, Ezechiel." Baird tried corraling her youngest team member into helping them, after a few minutes of fruitless attempts. "We need all hands on deck if we're gonna move this thing."

"Uh, no thanks"

"Leave him, Baird." Stone shouted over, his hands holding firm on the slimy yet rough bark, as pulled with all his strength. "He wouldn't help even if one of us were burning and he had the only hose."

"I resent that. I help plenty, thank you very much."

"Yeah, doing what exactly?"

"Uh, lots of things. I just know where my skills best lie, and heavy lifting ain't it."

"Please, Jones." The guardian tried again, this time with more pleading in her voice to try and appeal to the thief's more caring side. "We need to get back to the annexe as quickly as possible. I'm afraid that whoever sent us here is breaking in as we speak."

And it seemed to work, as the young man stomped over to them moodily, but not before mumbling something quietly under his breath.

"I'd like to them try."

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There was a loud rumble as the two thieves scurried out of the vent hatch, before falling to the floor about twenty feet below. And a large ball of fire flew through the air just after them, barely missing their heads by an inch.

"That was close." Jack laughed breathlessly whilst brushing the embers of the other intruder's arm. The landing was hard on their bruised behinds, and by the state of their scorched and torn clothes, it wasn't the first mishap the pair had encountered. "Guess they beefed up their security a bit. Lucky I got us out of there in time"

"LUCKY!" Dave snapped, hitting the man off of him as he pulled back his burnt sleeve. "I DON'T CALL GETTING PELTED WITH MULTIPLE FIREBALLS IN A TIGHTLY ENCLOSED SPACE LUCKY!"

"No, but escaping multiple fireballs in a tightly enclosed space is, so look for the positives."

Still, the older man's words didn't seem to penetrate, as his colleague continued to pace up and down the hallway, muttering loudly to himself.

"I mean, Jesus, what kind of evil genius is coming up with this madness? First, there was the access panels."

...

After prying the front metal plate of off the access panel, Dave was about to attempt a manual override of the building's inner security system, however, he was stopped when a large current of electricity pulsed through his body. This of course caused him to twitch and spasm uncontrollably until his friend dragged him away into relative safety, leaving the 'what turned out to be decoy' cameras to run.

...

"Then the doors."

...

With the electrical burns dealt with, and most of the twitching stopped, the two thieves made their way further into the library's depths, only to find a number of doors surrounding them, that had no signs on them to describe their contents. And looking at the schematics didn't help any, because the source hadn't ventured down this far, only to the first couple of levels and the annexe.

In the end, the pair thought it best to guess which one was correct, knowing they could always turn back later if they came to a dead end.

I mean, it's not like the rooms would have anything dangerous in them. You know, like a Porte Ricon goat monster, or a hoard of ten-foot spiders... Or even a sun, maybe.

No that would be ridiculous.

...

"And don't even get me started on the display cases." The thief winced. "Who the hell makes a lock plate that requires humming a song to open it? Like some damn video game... IT'S JUST INSANE!" And with that last shouted rant, the man continued to pace, this time quicker and with more heavy panting.

"Damnit, will you calm down for a moment." Dave turned around at his friends' words, glaring at him with indignation in his eyes, as he waited for Jack to talk again. As if anything he could say would actually excuse all this. "Look, it's not like we haven't done this type of thing before."

"I don't remember lava pits, or great big sea creatures in any of our last heists."

"True..." Jack paused momentarily, giving himself time to think of a reason to make his partner stay. Because honestly, he couldn't do this without the other man, he needed the man's technical skills, plus a second set of hands when they finally found the large and bulky object. "But with greater danger comes bigger rewards, you know that." He then grabbed his friend by the arm, careful to avoid the bite mark, and started to drag him down the hallway. "Now come on, I don't know how far the orb sent those librarians, so they could be back any time."