~o~O~o~

 

I had some extra time tonight to clean up this chapter so I thought that I'd post it now instead of waiting until tomorrow evening. Enjoy!

 

Insert standard disclaimer here. The one that reminds everyone that this is a work of fiction. No one is real and any resemblance to someone who is real is just the reader's imagination. This is also a Fan Fiction set in the Whately Story Universe. No Canon characters were permanently harmed in the making of this story. I hope. :)

 

** Chapter 9 **

 

--If your ambush is properly set, the enemy won't walk into it.

 

I bring my PC back up from Standby mode and re-check my email before I start GEO.  My PC seems faster somehow.  GEO takes the same amount of time to load, but the PC is just responding faster to my commands.  Things open almost before I can click on them.  Oh well, I did run a de-frag the other day. Maybe that is all that my PC needed?

 

Whisper is standing there on my character selection page. I think that she is still alive.  Her location is indicating that she’s in Seramis’ Stronghold.  That’s reassuring.  I click Enter World for her and Whisper’s current surroundings materialize on my screen.

 

Whisper looks around and takes in all the dust and broken down furniture in what appears to be an un-used storeroom.   She checks the door’s hinges and decides to lubricate them with a small squeeze bottle of oil from her kit.  She can’t have something as simple as a squeaky door hinge betray her presence.   

 

Whisper places her ear on the door to verify that the coast is clear before slowly and silently opening the door.  The door opens directly into a disused and unlit hallway.  With her thief’s sneaking skills fully engaged, she cautiously steps into the hallway while closing the door behind her.  She doesn’t even leave a dusty footprint behind to betray the fact that she had remained hidden in that room for hours while she waited for her player to take command.

 

Whisper looks up and down the hallway and decides to take a small chance by heading toward the sounds of an active kitchen to help verify her location within the stronghold.  Wrapped in shadow, she observes the maids, servers and chefs engaged in preparing and delivering the evening’s meal.  The sights and sounds of a kitchen if full swing would easily mask even a novice thief. 

 

I know that I just ate, but the smells of fresh bread and meats roasting in the ovens are making me hungry! What?  How can I be smelling imaginary food in the game?

 

>ROV POV Immersion…32%

 

ROV? POV? What in the hell is that?

 

>ROV = Remotely Operated Vehicle
>POV = Point of View

 

Ummm...thanks?

 

Shaking her head with confusion, Whisper activates her in game map to get a better idea of her current location in relation to the rest of the stronghold.  Since she hasn’t explored the interior of the keep, most of the map is fogged over.  However, the map does still indicate that there are three above ground levels and at least one below ground level.  Basically, the map is only able to display what she was able to ascertain during the initial infiltration of the stronghold.  Whisper will still need to explore the place in order to fill out the rest of her map to find the best place to ambush Lady Seramis.  Attacking her where she least expects it should increase the chances of success.  Aiding to that, the sun is setting and the shadows are lengthening in the rooms and hallways.  Twilight and dawn, the perfect times for an enemy assault.

 

From her vantage point, Whisper carefully studies the standard maid and server uniforms, while taking careful note of their general appearance and speech patterns.  It would be poor craftsmanship to perfectly copy their uniform, but have her disguise ultimately fail due to her out of place hairstyle or accent compared to the rest of the staff.  The large variety and numbers of staff that circulate through the kitchen and overall size of kitchen itself indicates that the Lady Seramis maintains a very large household.  As such, she doesn’t want to clone an individual maid, but rather modify her appearance to match what the rest of Seramis’ staff would expect to see.  If challenged, it will be easier to pass herself off as a new maid instead of taking the chance of someone noticing that the person whose appearance she cloned is in two places at once or fails to recognize her own lover in the hallways.

 

Using her observations, Whisper crafts her illusion spell to transform her clothes and general appearance to that of a maid. Her uniform is clean, but shows signs of wear. Her hair now appears to be a light brown in color that if it wasn’t braided would come to the middle of her back. The braid is tight, but slightly unraveled as if from a hard day of labor.  Her hands and nails are also rougher and slightly stained. 

 

Whisper, in her maid appearance, smoothly integrates into the hustle and bustle of the kitchen and follows the path out of the kitchen that the other maids took earlier.  Walking with a purpose and appearing to know exactly where she is going, she is able to find her way into the main linen closet without raising a second glance by any of the other staff in the hallways.

 

Entering the room sized linen closet, Whisper notices a stern faced older woman dressed in an immaculate and pressed maid’s uniform directing another maid to take a stack of table linens to the main dining hall.

 

“Yes, Mistress Saville.” The maid replies with a quick curtsey before she grabs the indicated linens and exits past Whisper.

 

“You there!  Grab some fresh table linens and take them to the main dining hall.” Mistress Saville orders.

 

Copying the previous maid’s curtsey and speech, Whisper grabs the indicated stack of linens and begins to move towards exit the room. The curtsey was less than perfect.   She doesn’t usually need to curtsey to anyone.

 

“Wait!” She hears from behind her.  Wincing with the anticipation of being discovered, Whisper turns to face her potential accuser.   Whisper notes that except for the retreating footsteps of the previous maid, the hallway outside the room sounds empty.  If she has too, she could incapacitate Mistress Saville and hide her under some of the larger blankets in the storeroom. However, doing so would greatly raise the risk of discovery.

 

“I haven’t seen you here before.  What is your name?”  Mistress Saville asks with a mild curiosity that indicates that she doesn’t yet suspect that Whisper does not belong.

 

Whisper curtseys again and this time slightly better. “I’m sorry that I failed to introduce myself sooner Mistress Saville, but my name is Br…Brianna.”

 

“Ahh, Brianna, nice name for a young pretty girl like yourself.  It looks like Mistress Crawford has been keeping you busy with cleaning.” She notes after studying Whisper’s illusionary appearance.

 

“Yes ma’am.  She ordered me to assist you with the preparations this evening so that I might ‘better earn my keep’.” Whisper says with a calculated risk.

 

Mistress Saville smiles. “That certainly sounds like something the old task master might say!  Well, I’ve wasted enough of your time satisfying my curiosity.  Off with you Brianna!”

 

“Yes Mistress Saville!” Whisper says with another curtsey before she turns and exits the room with small sigh of relief.  Now all she has to do is figure out where the main dining hall is located without appearing to be lost in the process. Her original plan was to simply follow the previous maid, but Mistress Saville’s curiosity put a damper on that. Oh well, you know what they say, “No plan survives contact with the enemy.”

 

Fortunately, the sounds of revelry and the smell of fresh cooked food leads her right to the main dining hall where she is able to deliver her bundle of linens to a room that is beginning to fill as more richly dressed people enter the hall.  Taking her queues from the other AI controlled maids, Whisper stands in line to wait upon the patrons.  She busily fills drink orders and keeps water glasses filled with a pewter pitcher as the hall continues to fill and player controlled heroes start to make their appearance.  No one, AI controlled, nor player controlled spares her a second glance.

 

Suddenly, all activity in the hall stops as the majordomo announces to the sound of trumpets, “Presenting Her Majesty, Bandit Queen of the West, Lady Seramis!”.

 

Lady Seramis sweeps into the hall accompanied by four mountain sized guards clad in shining plate mail.  Her aura screams “Queen” and everyone, Whisper included, instinctively bow with respect as she passes and regally takes her place at the richly appointed table located at the head of the hall.

 

Whisper barely recovers from her shock of seeing her target in the flesh, when she is directed by the head waiter to refill the glasses at Lady Seramis’s table.  Adrenalin rushes through her body as she struggles to get her emotions under control.  She manages to appear only slightly nervous instead of ready for a fight as she refills Lady Seramis’s water glass, then turns to leave to refill the now empty pitcher.

 

I wonder what the odds for success would be if I had Whisper attack Lady Seramis right now?

 

>Analysing Critical Event Factors…
>Primary Mission Success...95.7% +/- 3.0%
>ROV Capture...89.2 +/- 2.3%
>ROV Destruction...73.0% +/- 1.5%

 

Okay, this is officially getting weird.  What in the hell is going on here?

 

Lady Seramis’s musical laugh fills the hall as she responds to a fellow player’s joke while the pitcher slips from Whisper’s suddenly nerveless fingers as the fluorescent green words appear to float in the upper left corner of her vision.  Realizing what has happened, Whisper watches as the pewter pitcher appears to fall towards the stone floor in slow motion.  Knowing that catching the pitcher before it can hit the floor is hopeless, she still reflexively makes a grab for it.  That’s all she needs right now.  Every player character in the room will hear the sound of the pitcher clattering on the floor and wonder how an AI controlled maid could be so clumsy. She is surprised to feel the cool metal pitcher resting securely in her hands with only a foot to spare.  Glancing behind her, she is relieved to note that no one appears to have noticed her slip up.

 

That felt weird! I think that I am playing too much.  I swear that I could feel the cold metal of the pitcher on my hands. How is this happening?!?!

 

>ROV POV Immersion…55%

 

Empty pitcher once again securely in hand, she exits the hall and returns to the kitchen under the guise of seeking a refill.  Whisper isn’t sure what to make of the strange function she somehow triggered, but now would be the perfect time to take advantage of the distraction caused by the party to find Lady Seramis’s quarters.  Spotting a broom and a dust pan in the kitchen, Whisper trades in her water pitcher for the perfect tools of a diligent maid about her duties. 

 

As a cleaning maid, Whisper scouts the second floor and as her map starts to fill in, she quickly reaches the conclusion that this floor is primarily devoted to administrative functions.  She has only seen one guard on the second floor, and he appeared to be sent to retrieve a ledger book for someone in the main hall. Lady Seramis’s quarters must be on the third floor. 

 

Ascending the stairs with the weapons against dust in hand, she passes unchallenged by the two mail clad guards standing sentry before an ornate and expensively carved set of heavy looking wooden doors located just past the top of the staircase on the right hand side of the hallway. Whisper manages to steal a glance at the doors as she walks past and is just able to make out a carved woodland scene. They just have to be the doors to Lady Seramis’s quarters.

 

The hallway continues twenty five yards further with three evenly spaced plain wooden doors on the left before it ends with a T intersection. There are no further doors on the right hand side of the hallway that Lady Seramis’ suite enters into.  As she continues down the hallway, she stops briefly in front of each door on the left hand side of the hallway and pretends to sweep up a stray bit of dust.  The guard’s attention to her doesn’t even flicker. 

 

“I’m just a maid going about her duties. Nothing to see here, move along.”, she chants to herself.

 

Her mantra seems to be effective. The guard’s heads remain fixed alertly forward as she attacks the imaginary dust bunnies hiding in the doorframes of each door in the hallway.  She uses that distraction to covertly check the locks on the doors.  Finding them all locked, she reaches the intersection and after consulting the map in her head, she turns to her right and disappears from the guard’s line of sight. Once again, there are no doors on the right hand side of the hallway.  Lady Seramis’s suite is pretty large. There are three doorways on the left and ahead of her and three more doorways behind her.  Whisper continues her sweeping and door checking pattern and finds the first two doors to be locked. 

 

The third and final door in this wing yields to her inspection. The door opens into a small room that contains a single bed on the left hand corner.  Entering further into the room, she carefully closes the door behind her and discovers a small closet built into the left hand corner nearest to the door.  She presses her ear against the door to listen to see if the guards are going to investigate her entry into the room.  After five minutes pass without interruption, Whisper decides to drop the maid illusion as she equips her mask to inspect the room using the mask’s night and magical vision. 

 

She feels surprised when her mask doesn’t appear the change how the room looks.  She pulls it off and on a few times and nothing changes.  Why does the light in the room look the same with or without the mask?  She knows it works.  Wait a minute, she can see just fine. Oh yeah.  She is so used to running around in human guise that she’s not used to her natural elvish night vision.  The star and moon light that is coming from the two narrow window slits cut into the walls of this corner room provide plenty of light for her to see by.  She shrugs and puts the mask on once again for the other bonuses it provides her.

 

Whisper finds that a medium sized three drawer dresser with a mirror stands opposite of the bed in the right hand corner. Judging by the basic furniture and lack of any personal effects, the room must be a spare guest room.  A fine layer of dust covers the furniture.  The room appears to have not been used as a guest room in awhile. The head of the bed rests against the northern wall.  A small dresser in the right hand corner with the window slit between the bed and the dresser.  It would be a tight squeeze, but she thinks that she will easily manage to fit through either window if she has to escape the room and climb down the outer wall. Immediately to her right is a chair and between the chair and the dresser in the corner is the eastern facing window slit. 

 

She notices the faint glow of a magical ward guarding the window wells and the door lock. Inspecting the eastern window slit first, she finds what appears to be a standard alarm ward meant to be triggered by any life-form larger then a pigeon that attempts to enter the room from outside the window. However; exiting the room via the window should not trigger the alarm.  The magical wards woven into the door lock are confusing.  The ward isn’t attached to an alarm or even a trap, but it appears to allow the door to be unlocked by anyone with the right key phrase.  It looks like she is lucky that the door was left slightly open by someone.

 

Ahh, it must be a pass code to allow the maids to clean the rooms. She wonders if it was Lady Seramis, or someone on her staff, who thought to create a magical version of what is now a standard system in any modern hotel in the real world.

 

Whisper checks under the bed and in the dresser drawers in case a previous tenant accidently left something valuable behind and finding nothing but dust, she turns her attention to the closet. It is during her inspection of the closet that she finds her second surprise in the room.  She finds a hidden trap door built into the floor of the closet.

 

Consulting her map, she realizes that the trap door must enter into the administrative room that contained all the ledger books on the second floor.  Comparing the dimensions of her current room to the dimension of the room below with the stronghold’s geometry reveals the strong possibility of a secret passage hidden in the eastern wall of the room below.

 

This must be an escape route for Lady Seramis, but how would she get out of her suite if the only doors are the ones guarded by the staircase? Whisper decides that she needs to inspect the empty wall that borders Seramis’ suite.

 

Listening at the door and not hearing anything, Whisper cracks open the door and peers down the hallway.   The hallway is still empty, so wrapping herself in shadow, she steps out and slowly inspects the wall for the secret entrance that she suspects must be there.  The faint outline of a secret door reveals itself under her expert inspection of the apparently smooth wall directly across from the guest room.  She is disappointed that she is unable to find a way to open the door from this side, but it makes sense that a secret escape door would only be able to be opened from one way.

 

Oh well, I guess I will just have to enter her suite the hard way.  Whisper returns to the secret escape room and silently closes the door behind her. 

 

She readies her climbing gear as she re-inspects the wards guarding the eastern wall’s window slit. Not wanting to take her chances that the ward will not activate by her exiting the room via the window slit, Whisper’s left hand grabs the ward’s magical line from the top of the window slit and pulls it down like a window shade to create a gap that she can pass through without disturbing the ward.  While holding the ward down with her left hand, she steps over the ward in the tight confines of the window slit and with the ease that would make an Olympic gymnast jealous. She reaches up with her right to find a handhold outside of the room.  Finding a secure handhold with her right hand, she steps fully out of the room and while standing on the outer edge of the window frame with her tip toes. 

 

Whisper is invisible with the shadow of the roof’s overhang directly above her. Glancing down, the stone pavement of the inner courtyard three stories directly below her looks intimidating.  Even with her thief’s falling skills, a fall from this height could hurt. Facing the window now from the outside, she gently pulls the ward’s magical lines back up into its original position to reseal the window’s protections.

 

With the bypassed ward back in place, she reaches up with her left hand and grabs a hold of the roof’s edge.  She feels pleasantly surprised that there are no drain gutters on the roof.  The standard flimsy tin or copper gutters found in most city buildings are prone to making noise and breaking when you need them the most.  Finding the roof edge strong enough for her needs, she reaches up with her left hand and hangs from the end of the roof with both hands.  Bracing her feet against the outer wall, she then pushes off while pulling up strongly with her arms to perform an impossible backwards flip to land quietly on her feet on the top of the roof.

 

With her pulse now racing, Whisper smiles with satisfaction as she crouches and silently pads along the edge of the roof until she is directly above what should be the first window that enters into Seramis’s suite. 

 

>ROV POV Immersion…68%

 

Should I be ignoring that?

 

From her current position, the roof slopes up at an easy thirty degree angle to its crest.  Three small chimneys are evenly spaced along the roof’s crest, while a large chimney is set against the southern edge of the roof.  Consulting her map again, the larger chimney must be used to heat Lady Seramis’ rooms, while the smaller ones must be for some of the other rooms on the third floor.  Laying on her belly, she holds onto the edge of the roof and lowers her upper body so that she can inspect the window frame for wards and traps.

 

Wow!  The wards protecting this window blind her for a second before she is able to tune her perception downwards to account for the magical power emanating from the wards.

 

Hmmm, this could take awhile.  She feels disappointed as she mulls over her options.

 

“Ho Ho Ho” Whisper devilishly grins as she pulls herself fully back onto the roof and pads over to inspect the chimney that must lead into Seramis’s rooms below.  Opening up her magical perceptions again, she is able to make out a ward of some sort glowing faintly below.  The initial opening is large enough for her to fit down. Additionally, the chimney appears to get wider as it drops further down and into the fireplace below.  While the chimney will be confining, there will still be plenty of room for her to maneuver and deal with the ward before she opens the damper to enter Seramis’s rooms.  She wrinkles her nose from the smell of the soot coating the inside of the chimney.  This has got to be a fire hazard! Has this chimney ever been swept?

 

This could be the dirtiest entry I’ve ever made! She smirks and tightens up the hood that hides her hair and neck, then she double checks all of her armor fasteners to try and minimize the amount of soot that can get under her clothes.  Her very expensive shadow silk armor should repel all the soot and come out of the chimney clean.  Her gear is another problem though.  Except for her dagger, she decides to transfer all her external belts and gear into her small bag of holding until she is out of the chimney.

 

Whisper pulls out her shadow silk climbing robe and secures it to the top of the chimney via a small grappling hook. Then, like a spider descending from its web, she enters the chimney head first to rappel down while trying not to brush up against the chimney walls. 

 

Oh yeah, and not make any noise too.  Piece of cake!She smoothly descends into the chimney.  Reaching the wards, she discovers that they are very old and are designed to keep cold air from entering into the fireplace from the chimney.  Essentially, the ward is only a draft protection ward.  The ward would be pretty handy to have during the winter months, but nothing for her to be concerned about.  However; It does make her wonder why the fireplace would need a damper since the ward would take care of that function.

 

Oh well.She shrugs as she carefully opens up the damper from the outside.  With the damper fully open, Whisper is able to drop through and peek into the room from the upside down vantage of the open fireplace.  A stack of dry logs are setup inside the firebox, ready to be lit to provide warmth to the room. The room is silent and appears to be empty.  There are a fair amount of items emanating magical energy scattered about the room, but nothing that resembles a magical guard or alarm system setup inside.

 

Rotating the rest of her body down and out of the chimney, Whisper lightly stands on the top of the logs as she pokes her upper body back up into the chimney.  With a deft flick of her wrist, the rope flexes and snaps upward just enough to release the grappling hook and cause both the rope and the hook to fall down into the chimney for Whisper to soundlessly catch.  Dropping back down into the fireplace, she then closes the damper and steps out cautiously into the room clutching the hilt of her dagger in her right hand with the blade hidden against her forearm.  Turning a full circle counter clock-wise while crouching in a ready stance, Whisper takes in her surroundings.

 

Looking up, the mantle contains an elaborate porcelain vase decorated with a tree pattern done in bas relief using earth tones.  A framed portrait of a red headed woman wearing queenly attire hangs on the wall above the mantle.  The woman resembles Lady Seramis, but looks younger.  A small stack of logs are neatly stacked in basket to the left of the firebox and fireplace utensils are to the right.  Continuing her circle from the fireplace, there are two windows on the east wall of this room with a comfortable looking leather couch and coffee table setup in between. An open set of French doors directly opposite of the fireplace open into what looks like a bedroom.  To the left of the French doors is a small desk and chair.  Then, lining the entire western wall of the room is a large book shelf from floor to ceiling full of books.  Some of the books radiate a magical residue.  Whisper’s eyes narrow with the thought of how much those books might be worth on the open market.  Finally, she reaches the double doors that provide the main entrance into Seramis’s suite.  A large and heavy wooden bar stands at the ready just inside and to the right of the doors.

 

Confident with the fact that she is alone in the room, Whisper pads through the room and enters the bedroom through the French doors.  She finds a large canopy bed setup to the left of the doors along the west wall with a makeup dresser and highly polished mirror to the right as she enters the bedroom.  A large walk in closet full of dresses and shoes takes up a significant portion of the bedroom’s northern wall and the window that she initially inspected from the outside on the eastern wall of the room.  

 

Entering the closet, she quickly spots the release for the secret door and feels assured that she can use it when it comes time for her to make good on her escape, she turns and re-enters the main room to decide where the best spot to hide for her ambush might be.

 

Hmmm…the doors are constructed to open inward and with the heavy wooden reinforcement bar in place, the doors should take at least ten minutes for someone to chop their way through.  If she is able to drop Lady Seramis fast enough, she might have enough time to bar the doors before the guards arrive.  Doing that, she would have more than enough time to make her escape via the secret door or by climbing out the window.  If she hides beside the doors, the door itself would help conceal her presence.  That is, unless Lady Seramis has the other door opened instead.  It is a 50/50 chance either way.  Maybe Lady Seramis likes having both doors opened at the same time when she makes her entrance?

 

Reaching her decision, Whisper grabs and inspects the door bar.  Satisfied that she can pull off the illusion, she carries the bar over to the couch that is against the eastern wall and silently slides it under the couch.  Then, walking back to the doors, she stands were the bar was resting and silently casts her spell.  When done, there is only a reinforced wooden bar standing in her place.