Entering The Garden

On the night of the raid, there were many gathered inside the strategy room we had met Eliana in. There were various members wearing light armor while a few had heavy armor. One thing they all had in common were the dark robes that went over their armor and a hood to cover their faces.

The previous day, Eliana had separated the members into teams A through F with each team having about eight to ten members. They were all assigned different roles such as rescuing the prisoners, aiding the wounded, or attacking the guards.

Din was in team B along with Tal, Mun, Cyen, the black-haired man we had met at the pub, and two others we had never met before. The team's goal was to allow the other teams to go further inside the secret base by making sure all the guards in their way were taken care of. Basically the team that distracts the guards so that other teams can come in unnoticed.

They weren't necessarily required to capture or kill the guards. Their job was to unarm them so that team C could capture them.

"Before we begin, I think it'd be best to introduce ourselves so that we know who we're talking to in the base," Tal suggested. "I'll go first, I'm Tal and this is my sister, Mun."

Mun waved while stuffing herself with steamed potatoes.

"My name is Din," Din introduced himself with a bow.

"I'm Cyen." She spoke in a tired manner as she leaned against the wall. It seemed like she was using all of her energy to just be able to stand up.

"I'm Alby," the black-haired man said with a quick nod.

"My name's Lewis, pleasure meeting y'all." One of the one's that we hadn't met before said with a wide smile. He had short blond hair with blue eyes. He was one of the few wearing heavy armor and carried a wide broad sword and a large round shield. Both his sword and shield had golden materials, making them look expensive. If it weren't for the dark robe, he could possibly pass as a knight.

The other one we hadn't met wasn't as enthusiastic, she was standing far from the rest of the team. "Chris." That was all she said before she turned away from the group.

Chris had the same blond hair and blue eyes as Lewis. She appeared to be the shortest amongst everyone in the group. She wore her hair in a ponytail while parts of her eyes were covered by her hair in the front.

"Well then, now that that's taken care of. How about the roles in battle?" Tal started, "Mun and I prefer using throwing daggers, but we can use normal daggers for closeup fights. What about you, Din?"

"I have a short sword with me so I can be the one to go in first—"

"How about you leave being the frontline to me?" Lewis suggested. He then raised his broad sword and showed off its glory to everyone. "I'm sure I can handle them better with my sword. I have my shield to assist me as well. Do you want to be right behind me? If there's too many of them at once, I might need some assistance."

Din nodded. "That sounds great! We'll definitely have a better fighting chance with you in the front."

With a chuckle, Lewis placed his sword against the wall.

While slightly raising her hand, Cyen commented, "I'll be at the very back. You'll only be needing me to unlock doors, I'll just be useless in combat."

"I'll be with her just in case of a flank, we really don't need three swordsmen in the front anyways," Alby said while motioning towards Cyen.

There was a moment of silence as everyone waited for Chris to contribute her part.

"Chris, what kind of weapon do you use?" Tal asked, noticing that Chris wasn't planning on answering.

With a sigh, she finally answered, "Darts." She pulled out a metal pipe from under her robe.

"I think that works then. So this is what I'm thinking for our formation. Lewis and Din will be in the front while Mun, Chris, and I will be in the middle. We'll provide backup while Lewis and Din fight the guards. Alby and Cyen will be back just in case we start getting surrounded. Mun, Chris, and I also have the option of helping Alby if it ever gets out of hand behind us."

After waiting for everyone to comprehend his plan, he asked, "Does that sound like a plan?"

"Sounds great," Lewis claimed.

Eliana walked over to the team as soon as we were prepared. "Sounds like your team is set to go, correct?"

Tal nodded.

"Great, the other teams still need a bit to plan, but we'll set off soon. The sun will be setting soon so we must begin as soon as night falls. Just remember, once your team enters the garden, team C will be joining you a bit after."

"Right!" Tal nodded once more.

—As the last gleam of light from the sun finally faded over the mountains afar, our team headed in.

The governor's mansion was located deep inside the city, but a wide stone street separated the mansion from the buildings nearby. The mansion seemed about two stories tall and was inside a gated wall that surrounded not only the building, but also the garden as well. There was a large gate facing the street, but aside from that, there appeared to be no other entrances into the mansion area.

Through the gate, we could see a marble statue of a man, possibly the governor himself. Behind the statue were the front doors to the mansion, guarded by at least five guards. All of the guards were wearing the same heavy armor with a blue and yellow flag imprinted on their chests to show their allegiance to the governor of Newron.

Din and the group were hidden across the street behind one of the buildings. They were currently waiting for word from team A. Eliana was part of that team and their goal was to gather intel on guard positions before the operation. Soon enough, one of the team A members gave us a map of the mansion layout and possible guard positions.

"Let's see, it's just as I thought. There's a high concentration of guards in this area of the garden in particular, right near the center. That must mean the hatch has to be there. If we head in from the west wall of the mansion, we can avoid the most amount of guards," Tal suggested as he was examining the map.

"Wouldn't the rest of the guards be alerted anyways when we begin fighting the first few guards?" Mun asked.

"Not if we take them down silently."

"But how do we do that with such a big group?" Lewis asked. "From what team A found, there are only around thirty guards in total, if we draw their attention to us, the other teams might be able to come in to help as well."

Tal shook his head. "That's too risky. Remember, the thirty guards they saw are above ground. Who knows how many they have inside the actual base? If they start alerting the guards down there too early, it'd be way too chaotic to get anything done. If worse comes to worst, they might even take the prisoners hostage or even kill them."

"Y-you're right. Then, how do you suggest we take them out quietly?" Lewis scratched his head at the thought.

"You can leave that to Mun and me. We're trained for these types of job. The moment we take out the guards near the west side of the garden, we will signal for you all to come in."

Surprisingly, Cyen stepped forward. "Here, take this with you, then." She handed him a circular device with two buttons on the side.

"What's this?"

"Press the top button if you succeed, press the bottom if you failed and we have to retreat. I made this yesterday in the case that we might've had to split up today." Cyen explained with her monotone voice.

"What'll happen once I press the button?"

"I'll see which one you pressed on the receiver," she said as she pulled another circular device from her pocket. To show how it worked, she pressed the buttons that were on Tal's device and a dim red light appeared on Cyen's device. The light would either be red or green depending on which button Tal had pressed.

Tal chuckled. "You really have an invention for any kind of situation, don't you?" He gladly accepted the device and then moved towards the west side of the garden.

We all waited patiently and watched over Cyen's device for it to show either one of the lights.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, the lights finally lit up. It was green.

"They did it," Cyen spoke in a low whisper.

The team made their way to the west side of the garden where Tal and Mun were waiting. As we climbed up the brick walls around the garden, it made sense how they were able to sneak up on the guards. Inside the garden were tall walls that had plants twisting through them. There were slight gaps in the wall, but in the dark, it was as good as a solid wall.

"We took down five guards so far and hid their bodies in the corner. No guards should find the bodies unless if they actually go check on that corner. Which I'm sure no one will, since it was probably the job of one of the guards we took out to check that corner," Tal explained proudly. "Now's the tricky part. I don't think there's any other way to get through the rest of the guards without alerting them first. I watched them for a bit, but they don't move from their spot at all. They're also positioned too closely to one another that if we attack one, the others are sure to find out."

"Do you want me to charge in, then?" asked Lewis.

Tal paused for a moment before replying, "Y-yeah, let's go."

As we moved closer towards the center of the garden, we were immediately spotted.

"Thieves! Over there!" some of the guards shouted. "Sound the alarm!"

"How about you just move…" Lewis began as he charged towards the closest guard. He then swung his sword towards the guard, knocking him to the side with great force before the guard could even parry the attack. "…out of the way!"

The brute force of the sword left a dent in the guard's armor. After hitting the ground with a loud clank, the guard laid there motionless.

"Everyone, surround—" one of the guards shouted, but then stopped as he was hit in the neck by something. It was a small, but sharp object that caused the guard to stop in his tracks and fall.

When I turned to see who had thrown that, I saw Chris had her metal pipe next to her mouth. She loaded in another one of the small objects into her pipe and then blew on it while aiming towards another guard. Something about that small object caused whoever it hit to be stunned.

"Here it is! I see the door!" Lewis shouted.

It was just like John had said, the hatch was right next to a bush full of roses.

"We can't go in there yet, there's still too many guards up here! The other teams haven't entered the garden yet either!" Tal yelled.

"You said that if they were alerted, prisoners might get taken as hostages or killed. We have to move now!" Lewis yelled back.

"I… We…" Tal began looking around frantically. There were guards coming from all sides. The lights from inside the mansion were being lit and we could hear voices from inside.

"There's no time for this," Alby stepped in. "I'll stay back and keep them from going in. Mun and Chris can provide me backup. The rest of you just go down. Team C and D should be on their way as well so we just have to hold on until then."

"But…"

"Tal! Now's not the time to freeze! Just go!" Alby grabbed Tal by the collar as he commanded him.

Tal clicked his tongue. "We don't have a choice. Let's go!"

A guard was running towards them, but Din moved in front of him and then swung his sword at the guard. The guard reacted in time to parry the attack, but the power of Din's swing caused the guard to drop his sword at the moment of impact. The guard was stunned for a moment and Din took that chance to kick the guard, sending him falling backwards.

While the guard was on the ground, Din picked up the guard's sword and then threw it away. The guard quickly got up but then ended up running away. He didn't get away far as Chris hit him with a dart and he ended up just falling face forward.

Lewis, Tal, and Cyen had already gone inside the hatch by that time. It was left wide open and a stairway was visible underneath.

"Go after them. Leave the guards up here to us." Alby instructed.

Din nodded and then quickly went down the stairs. It was dark on the stairway aside from the torches that were placed on the walls and it turned almost pitch black once the hatch behind us closed.