Snucking

In all fairness, the team was on a roll. Bardeelus and the ladies went into the ruins with one particular task, and got out of there with more than enough rewards.

They cleansed Erdeta from that demonic possession, attained a lot of knowledge in the meantime, and got out with a new member too. What was a team of three, now was a team of four.

In a sense, Bardeelus was surrounded by three beautiful women, who admired him one way or the other. This felt like a dream, and it would be even better if he was capable of flirting with any of them; He didn't know how to.

That didn't matter for now, the rewards were good enough. Thanks to Driola, they even had a greater task at hand now, and it was solely based on necromancy!

Driola correlated her whole plan to the 'tainted tower'. She knew exactly where it was, and supposedly, this tower acted like a geo-locator, who revealed secret libraries and other important things, which were hidden across the land.

Of course, the tower won't give those secrets away quite easily. It was as big of a task to figure this tower out, as it was to get there alive. 

The tower was dangerous, these lands were characteristically dangerous, so at this point they could only hope for the best. Their willpower alone could get them far, as they were all curious to unravel the wonders of 'pure necromancy', they were eager.

Yet, as flattering as willpower was, it may not be enough. They needed more people, for example, and Bardeelus had a plan for this!

...

"I'm not trying to be an ass, but... this will get all of us killed." Audera whispered.

"Quite likely," Bardeelus whispered back, he was honest. "But I can't leave my siblings with these barbarians, they're my family. It's only a matter of time till they'd get killed here."

Audera sighed deeply, and just continued crawling along. Their plan was good enough, but yet in a way, most things weren't worth risking their lives over, so she was hesitant. She felt indebted to the other, otherwise she'd never agree to this plan.

It was the middle of the night, which was also what kept her going. They could use this darkness as a cover, to sneak around to their heart's content. If it all went well, they'd sneak in and out without anyone noticing!

Driola and Erdeta were waiting outside of the camp. It was too risky for all of them to sneak in here, and they needed Erdeta as a backup plan. If everything failed, she could just swoop in the camp and fly her friends to safety!

Anyway, after they snuck around the first guard, Bardeelus observed the surroundings and thought. "They have fewer guards now? No wonder we kept getting killed, those retarded geezers can't manage shit."

He then had the urge to kill this guard they snuck around, it felt right, but at the end he tried to contain himself. It was important to remain hidden, so it wouldn't be effective to kill anything in sight.

The team of two used the camp's darker areas to their will, and managed to slip by a few tents in no time. Bardeelus tripped and rolled across the ground, not once, but twice, though they still avoided defection. He wholeheartedly blamed some leather bags who were laid on the ground.

Anyway, they made it to Bardeelus' family tent. All three of his siblings lived here most days, unless someone higher in command forced them to move around.

He should've felt at least a little bit happy right now, but no. Something about this approach as a whole, didn't feel right. He didn't hear any heartbeats in there, which was a tad alarming!

Then again, he had to check in there. So he slipped through the tent's leather door, and had a brief look of what was inside.

"Way too fat," He thought.

In one way, he was relieved because if his siblings were here, then the lack of heartbeats would've been problematic. 

At the same time, he couldn't help but worry. Because if they weren't in this tent, then where could they be?

He panicked, and rustled against the tent's exit with a bit of spite! His frustration had its downsides, as almost immediately the man inside the tent suddenly woke up, reached out for a sword, and approached slowly.

"Oh shit," Bardeelus grunted.

He had to remain hidden at all costs, so without even thinking about it, he tried to explode this guy's heart. This decision was merciless, but somehow, his attack didn't work!

"You…" He grunted, "Should've known… I'm yet to hear a beat out of you, metal man."

This was none other than Kutal the Sturdy. He was a hunter, a leader of some sorts too, and without a doubt, an enemy.

Surprisingly, Kutal remained quiet enough, and just whispered. "Came here for your brothers, eh? Pathetic, you're too late."

"Late?" Bardeelus asked, and he felt beyond scared.

The other did not answer back for a couple of seconds, and got back in the tent. He came out after a short while, and rolled an item out.

A brief look at it, revealed what it was. This was a head, and it belonged to one of Bardeelus' brothers. 

"Tim? You killed a kid?!" He shouted, and didn't care to remain hidden anymore.

"Sacrifices had to be made. You escaped, and after that, your little brother volunteered to suffer the consequences." Kutal said, "Honestly I wanted to kill your sister, but we found a better use for her."

Neither of them bothered to be quiet at this point, and for that matter, they were surrounded by a couple of guards within seconds. Both guards possessed magical powers, so any sudden move could get him and Audera killed. 

Bardeelus was still shocked by this decapitated head, he was rendered speechless. Every inch of his being wanted to go berserk and rip Kutal into pieces, but he knew it was impossible; This man was fully coated in iron, and had plenty of days to rest ever since that previous fight!

However, once he peeked to their right, Bardeelus recognized one of the guards. This guard was one of the few mages in this camp, who could shoot fireballs. A dangerous person without a doubt, but not invincible!

Within these waves of sour emotions, he came up with a plan. The idea was to kill everything that briefly resembled an enemy, and to pave a way for this option, he had to play his cards right.

First, he called Audera's name through his thoughts, and requested. "I need you to keep everyone else asleep, for as long as you can. Leave everything else to me, we're burning these fuckers to the ground."

It only took seconds to direct this rage, towards that fire mage. The mage toppled down from some crates, and dropped dead.

This confused Kutal greatly for a couple of seconds, but then he remembered what Bardeelus was capable of. These powers, in many ways, seemed demonic.

Kutal wanted to tear through these 'intruders' right away, but his rage was put to a sudden halt. Audera intervened, and blacked out every enemy's vision; This was an easy, but effective spell of illusion.

In the meantime, Bardeelus killed the only other guard that had surrounded them, and managed to avoid any and all danger. Immediately after, he resurrected both of these guards, and forced them to attack Kutal, who was yet to find his way around.

Sure enough, they followed his command. One guard was shooting fireballs towards this metal-skinned man, and the other guard summoned a lightning strike, which beamed out of the sky!

He knew well that Kutal couldn't handle all of this damage. Recent battles had worn down every fraction of his abilities, so this paired attack was just enough to get things done.

Within these roaring flames, Bardeelus unleashed some attacks of his own. By all means necessary, he wanted to blow this metal-coated man's heart up, which felt more possible now thanks to the paired attacks.

It didn't feel satisfying enough to just kill Kutal the Sturdy. Enslavement, both physical and spiritual, was a better punishment.

"You will tell me where my other siblings are, one way or the other." He thought.