Damian and Darrow already suspected that the castle was huge and mysterious. After what they had seen and experienced yesterday with the mists, they knew this place had to be old, which was not surprising to see the mistcurvers, a guild of mages, snooping about.

  They followed the two Mistcurvers deeper into the castle, and it reached a point where the two brothers were beginning to get tired of the whining of the two Mistcurvers.

  Since the two Mistcurvers looked and sounded fatigued and irritated, Darrow eyed Damian, and he had an idea. Darrow looked at Damian and gave him a smile that activated his [Walking Mirage] skill.

  If he expected to get a jump out of Damian, it could be said he succeeded. His [Walking Mirage] skill allowed him to cast an illusion that looked like someone he had been looking at for some time.

  Damian stepped back, and his eyes widened, while Darrow, now in the image of one of the Mistcurvers, smiled.

  This was the skill he had got the night after the fight at the noble's ball, and being a rogue with a [spy] class, it seemed the skill was fitting for him. After all, with his class, he needed a way to disguise himself.

  “What is that… how did you?” He began, but the look on Damian’s face told the rogue that he had not been expecting that.

  “It’s my skill. Quickly, use it. I have an idea,” Darrow whispered.

  To copy a skill through their shared class, Damian and Darrow both had to use the [Skill Imprint] ability they possessed. Sure, using their skills and abilities was like thinking of a word and activating it. But using this skill was different. It was like putting your hand in a bag and looking for a square out of the many shapes.

  The old skills were easy to find, but the new ones took some time to recognise.

  Their appearances changed to a perfect Mistcurver disguise, the only problem being that they had the faces of the two men they were following.

  Darrow had a plan for this as well. He sped out confidently, and he called out to the other two similarly dressed figures. The key was they had to keep their faces hidden, and without a torch in the dark, crumbling corridor, that was much easier to do—or so they hoped.

  “You there, the master wants to see you upstairs,” Darrow said, and the Mistcurvers turned, whirling, on their approaching forms.

  One of them turned and pulled out a dagger. The other turned, and his fingers glowed with runic magic. Darrow and Damian didn’t flinch, nor did they hesitate in their approach. They had to show the two Mistcurvers that they thought they were in no danger, that there was nothing suspicious going on.

  “And who are you?”

  “We have been sent down here to keep looking as you two talk to the master,” Darrow said in his disguise.

  “Looking for what?” the man asked, and thanks to Damian’s [Spy’s Intuition] skill, he knew this was a trick question.

  “Whatever do you mean? We are here only to offer our aid to the young noble lady.”

  “Then come closer,” the man said. He wanted to look at their faces.

  “Excuse us, but have you looked at your hands?” Darrow said, and the two men looked at their hands.

  One hadn’t dispelled his magic. The man Darrow was talking to had his dagger still out, flashing in the dim light.

  “Oh… sorry about that,” the man said, putting his dagger back under his robes, and the mage dismissed his magic.

  “Well, we could do with some air. This whole place is crumbling,” he said, but he noticed they still didn’t step any closer.

  “We should get going,” Damian said, and without missing a beat, Darrow made to move past them. The key here was not to look directly at the faces of the other two men.

  And when they got past them, they continued on without looking back. One of them turned to look at the twins in their disguise. He narrowed his eyes, but he just couldn’t tell what was wrong.

  They turned around the nearest corner and waited. Damian kept quiet and let Darrow finish listening for the sound of the two Mistcurver guild members leaving.

  “They’re gone,” Darrow said, and his disguise vanished. Damian let his disguise fall away as well, and soon he started heading deeper into the dark tunnels that lay abandoned beneath the castle.

  The air grew colder the further they went. The walls seemed to be changing and cracking constantly as the corridor they passed through widened or narrowed inconsistently.

  “This place must be centuries old,” Darrow felt the walls. He scrunched his nose up and wiped the dirt off his hand.

  He did not see the wall shift and move, but Damian did.

  Damian took a step forward, moving to touch the walls himself, and Darrow pulled him back just in time as the walls gave out, and the ceiling collapsed.

  “This place is actively dying, like a disintegrating artifact,” Damian said as he looked at the collapsed rubble.

  "well you may be right about the fact that its an artifact, otherwise they would not have let this castle stand," Darrow said.

  Everyone knew that castles were a thing of the past, and they were taboo in most cities. But more than that, no [Architects] or [builders] would go against the law and build one.

  that, and the many noble rivals who would make the whole bureaucracy of the matter a nightmare. All this was true unless you were as powerful as the [Warlord] or any high-level individual.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Apart from that, castles were all replaced by estates and mansions, and this was because architects who built them had to follow the blueprint set down in the law.

  They took a detour into another corridor, and they reached a section lit faintly by runes. The floor dipped downward toward an older substructure.

  “Don’t touch anything,” Damian said. He heard the sound of dripping water, then took a step forward and froze. The water he stepped into reached his knees, and he looked down to see more water.

  He tried to take another step, but a massive stone wall stood before them, and he felt Darrow bump into his back.

  “Ah, great. Another blocked path, and I’m wet,” Darrow looked down and tried to shake the water off his hands.

  Damian remained silent. He just grumbled. He looked up at the unremarkable wall, at its plain, smooth, and untouched surface, and he felt the hum of magic.

  He tried using [Mana Infusion], and the wall flared brightly with magical runes. He frowned and narrowed his eyes. The magic was familiar to that of the barrier outside, and his eyes widened.

  Just as he thought it was over, the castle wall moved forward, closing in toward him. Damian jerked backwards in shock, and his eyes widened. The entire structure had just shrunk.

  “We can’t get out,” he muttered, and his hand tracked the wall as his breath quickened.

  The only way he could see of getting out of here was to fight the monster. They had tried that before, and they had barely hurt the creature.

  Darrow put a hand on his shoulder. He tried to calm him.

  “Well, I guess we have to kill it. We’ll get out of here,” Darrow said.

  —

  “You’re free to go,” the Mistcurver guild warrior wearing steel armour said as he pushed them out into the courtyard.

  They had just been let out of the dungeon—or more accurately, they had been let out after they had quietly put themselves back in. This was after they had escaped the first time.

  Damian rolled his shoulders and rubbed them while Darrow followed, stretching out his arms and twisting his torso to release the tension in his body.

  The courtyard was noisy, and from the looks of it, there was something happening.

  Damian looked around, and he scanned the packed courtyard. They stepped aside from the wagon, they stood by and watched a half-elf in sturdy robes crawling from beneath a wagon he had been sleeping under.

  They watched as the lanky half-elf blinked against the dim light of the sun before he looked at them, then around, looking for something or someone else. The half-elf muttered something incoherent, and then he walked over to a familiar-looking tiger-man and started complaining.

  Damian’s attention was then pulled to another section of the courtyard where a tight crowd was gathered. It was chaos, but more organised—the kind you found around gathered adventurers.

  Members of the Mistcurvers guild stood around the crowd with arms crossed, and children peeped over some wagons while others looked out from on top of the wagons. There was even a kid pretending to fight with a stick he held.

  “Get him!” one person from the crowd shouted, and the sound the crowd made shifted from oohs to jeers pretty rapidly.

  It wasn’t long after that that Rellina made a path straight for the pair of them. Thovak wasn’t too far behind, along with two other warriors from the Mistcurvers guild.

  If Damian had to guess from what he had seen the guild master do in his attempt to search the castle, he guessed that the two additional guild guards were present to watch and report back to the man up top.

  She came to a stop in front of them. She turned her head to them and nodded to dismiss them. The two guards hesitated, then reluctantly stepped back.

  Damian just raised an eyebrow at her. Then she spoke.

  “So, did you find what you were looking for?” she asked, looking from Damian to Darrow.

  “We did,” Damian shrugged, but Darrow interpreted the question differently. Basically, she knew what they had been up to.

  “How did you know?” he asked.

  “This is my castle. I can tell anything that happens inside it,” she said, her voice low and somewhat harsh.

  “You know what the Mistcurvers are doing in the castle, right?” Damian asked.

  “Of course I do,” she said, glancing briefly at the two guards standing next to Thovak.

  “And you are okay with this?” Darrow tilted his head to the side.

  “No.” Rellina shook her head. “But the Mistcurvers won’t find what they are looking for,” she said.

  “Are you sure?” Damian asked, arching an eyebrow.

  “They would need someone high level to find my vault, and even then, I have two people watching that corridor,” she said, and Darrow frowned, scratching the back of his head.

  “The assassin and your familiar,” Damian pointed out. After all, he hadn’t seen them around the courtyard filled with adventurers or the inner castle filled with some of the refugees who had decided to work there in return for safety.

  A moment passed before Darrow spoke up again.

  “So… how can we help you?” he asked, scratching his cheek and looking a bit hesitant to ask, knowing that she was the closest person to knowing what sort of class they both had.

  Rellina didn’t hesitate. She went straight to the point that she wanted to make.

  “Will you help me kill the creature?”

  Damian exhaled as if to answer, but Darrow spoke instead.

  “You can wait for the gold ranks to get here. They will kill it, you know,” he said, but Rellina shook her head.

  “I know, but I want you two to help me do it,” she said, almost whispering.

  Darrow scratched his cheek. He frowned, then glanced at Damian. The duelist just shrugged, and Darrow rolled his eyes.

  “Uh… whY...? is it the bounty you want? Sure, ten thousand gold is a lot, but—” he started, but she interrupted him.

  “I leveled the last time I used my skill while you two fought it. Sure, the gold will be good, but I am looking to level. You both heard what the spirits said.”

  Damian started, but Darrow interrupted him.

  “That’s too dangerous,” he crossed his arms, and she narrowed her eyes at him.

  “Remember, I know your secret.” Darrow looked down at her and narrowed his eyes at the mention of their class.

  “No—” he began, but she cut him off again.

  “For your sake and my sake, you will be free to leave and get my scepter, and I will help my people,” she said.

  Rellina watched him look at Damian. Then he sighed, and his shoulders sagged.

  “So what’s the plan?” Damian began to ask, stopping when he noticed the figure approaching them.

  The sound of hard steel steps against the courtyard cobblestones suddenly came to a stop, and a shadow fell over them.

  Darrow and Rellina turned, and standing beside them was a tall young goliath. She had red hair bound in three thick bands, and her skin had a blue tone to it, which was telling of her ice giant heritage.

  “I am Ursa, daughter of Inor, Scion of the Third Chair of the Brassthrone,” she said, hitting the left side of her chest with her right hand.

  Rellina didn’t pause. She was caught off guard, but she reacted in kind.

  “Rellina, Lady of the Realm,” she bowed, and Ursa, the half-giantess, nodded to her.

  “How can I help you?” Rellina asked, and Ursa gestured toward the twins.

  “I wish to speak with them,” the half-giantess said, turning to Damian and Darrow, while almost missing the sight of Rellina’s eyes widening briefly.

  Darrow stepped forward. He cleared his throat and gave the goliath girl an elegant bow—or at least it was as elegant as he could make it. He took Ursa’s hand and kissed the back of it.

  “And I am Darrow. This is Damian,” Darrow said, lifting his head and trying to make himself look posh.

  Ursa flashed at the rogue’s audacity, and Rellina’s eyes widened even more. Then the goliath cleared her throat suddenly and pretended to ignore what had just happened.

  “I want you to join my hunting party,” she said.

  Darrow hesitated. He looked around at the courtyard and pointed to his chest, wondering if the young noble goliath had picked out the right person, to which she just nodded.

  “We are… why us?” Darrow stammered, but Damian was not obstructed in the same manner.

  “My lady, it’s dangerous to actively hunt this creature,” Damian said carefully.

  He glanced at Ursa, then at Rellina, to see what she had to say about another noble coming to ask for their help.

  Ursa folded her arms. She wasn’t angry. She was surprised that she was going to have to convince them to join her in hunting the beast.