<~> Chapter 235"Where is everyone?" I asked. My friends and I led the rge group of former sves through the hallways to where the female sves were presumably kept.

  "I think they're above us," Silva said. "I hear fighting ing from above. I think we're uhe bazaar right now."

  I was going to say something when we heard a scream carry down the hall. "Callik, keep everyone from panig, we're going to look ahead."

  "Ma'am," the bearkin responded. He gave me his er he helped us calm everyone down when we left the cellblock. I was skeptical at first but he was good at ving everyoo stay together. Even the elves and humans were happy to work with the seemingly experienced bearkin.

  We ran down the hall and I felt it before I saw it. Demons. We turned a er and saw a monster with red leathery skin pulled tight over its skeleton. It had lohan normal arms ahat swayed when it turo face me. Blood dripped from its long cws over the guard it had ripped in half and started to eat. It tossed its meal to the side and began to run right for us, the demon seemingly didn't make any sound as it bolted in our dire. Not even its feet on the surface of the floor.

  The first to react to it was Man, a ball of fire shot out from our bae and collided with the demon midstride. It silently gestured as if it howled in pain as if it were reag like a mime. It shook off the pain and tinued running at us barely perturbed, ign its charred and bed skin. Silva dashed forward and thrust her spear right into the monster's ribcage. The monster's chest was tough and the spear barely peed shallowly. Fortunately, the hit did give Silva enough leverage to knock the monster bad force it to eh her, rather than at Man who was already colleg mana for another fire spell.

  Purple motes swirled around Bel before a spray of acid spshed across the demon's skin. The attack retty visibly effective even if we couldn't hear its cries of pain. Its red skin bubbled up and staggered, giving Silva an opening to sweep its feet out from u. No raveled even as the monster heavily nded on its back.

  "Bckjaing," I warned. I drew two cards and threw them, they were a nine and five of spades. Not a whole lot of damage but it was something. The moment the attack cleared Silva did some kind of spinning leap before smming the bde of her spear into the monster's chest and successfully g it in. Before the monster died pletely, Mimi came in and... ate the thing. In a gruesome dispy, her chest opened up vertically and swallowed the monster whole while it was still stunned by Silva's devastating attack.

  [Your party has defeated a blood thresher demon]

  "If there are demons down here, that's a bad sign," Torien said while examining the corpse of the guard. "That thing was drinking this guy's blood." She pulled the guard's keyring off and hooked it to her belt.

  "No doubt the Cult of Amphores is at work," I said.

  "The demons might expin the ck of people down here," Silva said. "If there are demons in the bazaar, we should avoid that pce. I'm sure we would do fi it'll be hard to get so many low levels through there if there are demons running loose."

  "That thing retty hard to kill as well, it looked like its skin was resistant to being stabbed. They would take a while to kill, especially if there was more than one of them," I said.

  Man looked around the hallway. "I don't really feel any more miasma in the air after this one was killed. It seems like this is the only ohat's made it down here so far."

  "We should regroup with everyone else," Bel suggested. "It'll be easier unlog all of the cells with their help and we should be together if another demon shows up."

  I looked down at the body torn into two pieces. "Let me drag the body around the er first, this might freak everyo if they see it."

  "I'll ha," Silva said before pig up each half of the body one-handed before carrying it around the er. There wasn't much we could do about the blood. Afterward we returo the group of escaped sves waiting for us.

  "Trouble?" Callik asked.

  "Some." I pulled him aside and snapped up a quibsp;[Zone of Silence]. "We ran into a demohere, most of roup are demon hunters so we were able to take care of it, but there might be others."

  The man looked shocked. "Why are there demons? And demon hunters? Just who are you guys?"

  "There's a demon cult attag the city aook advantage of the timing to raid the sver's guild. They're trying to start a sve rebellion here but I don't think they're actually ied in freeing ahey're trying to cause mass chaos iy and push the try into civil war."

  He frowned. "Well, if you're on our side I won't pin. You are here to help us escape right?" he asked while fog ily on my face.

  "I swear by Sorsette," I replied.

  He studied my face for a moment longer before nodding. "Fine, I'll believe you. What do we o do?"

  "Mostly the same, we should anize a system to make sure no one goes missing once we collect the first group of women. I'd also rather not have to deal with any of the men doing anything inappropriate, none of us have time for that and I'm not going to be very fiving of that kind of thing."

  He nodded. "Of course, it goes without saying that I won't let any of them act like monsters."

  "Good, let's go. We're almost there."

  I dropped the [Zone of Silenbsp;and Callik got everyone moving again. Quinn hadn't seen this part of the buildi so we had Silva in the front guiding us. I hoped she would be able to help us avoid guards too, but it seems that all of them are missing.

  -- "Silva, if the cult is using demons tet the guards here, do you think there's a ce the records room is unguarded?" -- I asked her through the bond.

  Silva perked up and g me for a moment before turning bad tinuing forward.

  -- "It might be worth cheg out. I don't think we could win against the kind of guards they would leave there but if they were tired from fighting off demons..." --

  I nodded. -- "We'll sider it after we get everyone else out." --

  Silva let her agreement be felt through the bond.

  We finally reached the closest women's cellblock. The most noticeable thing immediately was that it was signifitly rger than the ones for the males. The difference was almost two to one in size. The cells were also doubled up on each side of the hallway meaning there wouldn't be a lot of room to stand around in the cellblock this time, we would have to funnel everyo into the hallway with everyone else.

  I gestured to Bel and Silva. "You two should help me check the sves and unlock the colrs. No one under ive fifteen-hundred karma." They both nodded. "Grab some of the higher-level people to help back you up."

  I turo Callik. "You keep everyone anized in the hallway a up the group system I talked about. We o keep tabs on everyoh us so we tell if something is happening."

  "What do you wao do boss?" Quinn asked.

  I frowned. " you use your skill to scout out the other female cellblocks? Don't go aloake... that guy and that guy." I poio one of the stronger elves and a strong looking ox beastfolk. "Would you three mind going with them?" I asked Torien, Man, and Mimi.

  Torien shook her head. "No, that's fine. I'll make sure we don't run into anything." The twins also have the [Demon Hunter] title so they'll be able to detey nearby demon miasma. And Mimi could read karma if necessary.

  "Okay everyone, let's get started," I said. The three of us split into different teams with some of the higher-level people so that we could check everyo before releasing them. This first block was all female beastfolk with det levels so many of the women were just as strong as the men we had saved. Not all of them looked... mentally okay, but there weren't any fights or issues with most of them. Thankfully none of the women we ran into were lower than that ive fifteen-huhreshold but some of them made it close, especially some of the ones wearing crime sve colrs. I already khat some of them might not be the best people, but I didn't think they would be as dangerous as that guy who had ive four-thousand karma. Either way, none of them caused any problems as we made our way through the much rger female cellblock.

  The bigger problem was that roup had more than doubled after releasing all of the leveled beastfolk. It was being more and more challenging to mahe entire group of people even with the help of some of the higher-leveled women helping. roup made it down the hallway a back up with Torien and her group who had already started releasing the beastfolk women level ten and under. Mimi had been sing them but most of these women were simple vilgers and young craftspeople so none of them were particurly dangerous in the first pce. To my relief, that horsekin that had been b me earlier was reunited with his wife so I wouldn't o worry about more of his grumbling. It also turned out that many of the higher leveled sves were retives of these girls so little family units started f among the groups. While we were w through this cellblock, the entire building shook again. It had been a while but whatever was happening upstairs wasn't over.

  Once we left this area the group was almost entirely unmanageable. I couldn't even see the people in the back of the crowd anymore. We o get out of here soon, but I still didn't know if the bazaar would be a safe area to flee to. I decided to pull Quinn aside and ask for his help. "Quinn, are you able to check the area above us and see if the bazaar is clear? There might be... monsters up there right now."

  "I'll look," he said before leaning against the wall and closing his eyes. While he did that I put up another small [Zone of Silenbsp;around us so that no one else would freak out if he firmed what I thought he might see there.

  Quinn's brow became damp with sweat. "I'm almost there, it's harder to move through such thick walls. Okay, I see the surface... There's something big out there. Is that?... It's a demon! We 't go that way!" He opened his eyes and staggered a little bit but I caught him before he fell over.

  "roup is made up of demon hunters. I'm mostly worried about everyone we're freeing. If the bazaar isn't safe then we just o find a different way out."

  Quinn gave me an uain nod.

  I dropped the silence spell and regrouped with my friends. "We 't gh the bazaar. I didn't see it myself but Quinn says that it isn't safe. We'll o find a different way out. Maybe blow a hole through a wall into a different part of town. Then we o figure out where to go from there."

  "What about the library?" Bel asked. "Sorsette gives people sanctuary, actually any of the temples may take them."

  I scratched the base of my horn. "I don't know about other temples, not all of the gods are against svery and I don't know whies. That wasn't something the brief I read covered. Sorsette's tower looked rge enough to shelter this many people but they might refuse if they knew everyone here are runaway sves."

  "If Sorsette's library refuses them, we take them back to the elven embassy. It isn't much farther," Lorrie in. "I'd bet most of the elves following us would rather escape that way anyway. With everything going on, I'm sure the embassy would be happy to ferry people out. Whatever is happening up in the bazaar, it means that there is a full blown emergeno one would be able to tell the differeween sves and normal citizens esg, except for the clothes..." she said gng at one of the skimpy outfits the women were wearing.

  "Good enough for me," I said. "Between the elves and the library we should be able to get everyone somewhere safe. I'm sure a lot of them will run off once we're iy anyway. There's just the human and elf womeo release and then we find an escape route."

  The entire building rocked again, and cracks suddenly formed in some of the walls nearby. The explosions seemed to be getting bigger.

  Saine

  Hello! Uh oh, demons are loose. This whole infiltration po be going a bit differently from what everyone expected. Rather than adding to the huge riot everyone Lilith is freeing seems to be cooperative so far and the guards are few and far between. With demons popping up here, it seems like there's a lot happening up top. I hope you ehanks for reading.

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