Page 52 of I Ran Away to Evil 3
The after effects from using [Oracle] were still annoying me.
The nausea was worse than the headache, but the hardest part was trying to wrench myself out of the mindset of the person I’d become for those four minutes. At least Julia was a good person; some chosen of the gods made my flesh crawl. My [Oracle] abilities could only link me to a god’s chosen that I’d actually met—which was why I’d had no idea untilthis momentthat the Keeper of Fate was walking around in a plot panic trying to undo my expertly crafted story deviations.
Parts of her plan made no sense to me, like turning people into frogs. Or how she was going to attack everyone at the wedding if the wedding was cancelled due to anabsent Julia? The craziest part was how close we’d come to each other but never actually met, like the time she’d destroyed the bridge my house was connected to. I’d been sitting at my table, happily folding pastry dough around spiced apple slices and shaping them into a galettewhen my entire house had started shaking. Pink magic had warred with my teal one, and then a notification had told me that my bridge link had been severed.
It’d takenallof my effort to move my dimensional home to another bridge and catch my dishes at the same time.
Now, I was finally going to get to meet the woman …afterI took the time to down two advanced mana potions.
This entire area was highlighted yellow on my map. The green dot was moving through a building to my left, so I decided to search the storage bays on my right. How? I did what any decent video game player would do in my situation.
I cheated.
I’d been living in this world forfiveyears … and more specifically, I’d been living in the Dark Enchanted Forest. Any fool who’d read anisekaishould know the drill by now!
[Appraise] and Hero’s Spatial Ring was a broken combination and I’d gathered hundreds of random useful items.
I pulled out a Juliper petal and slipped it under my tongue.
[You are under the effects ofJuliper Petaland will remain Invisible until it is removed or the petal dissolves. The duration ofJuliper Petalis equal to lifespan before harvest.
Time remaining: 00:13:46. One-time use item.]
I walked straight down the road, moving as quietly as I could. Inhuman Dexterity for the win.
Suddenly, a swordsman raced by me, going so fast I felt my hair rustle from their passing. No one else on the street seemed to notice the figure rush through the port gates.
“Hurry it up!” an elf with gray skin and black hair called out to the four hired hands packing the last wagon. “Alice is on her way back from the guild, and we need to be ready to head out as soon as she gets here.”
“Two more trips,” a panther beastman called out, having just dropped his crate onto the back of the wagon. “One for the rest of our cargo and another for the decoy.”
“Who’s staying behind to deliver the letters?” a second panther beastman asked. The pair looked like siblings, though the second was shorter by a hand length.
“No one you know.” The elf frowned. “Now silence. We aren’t the only ones using the port gate today.”
“Evan’s crew says they might be delayed until tomorrow,” the taller beastman said.
I slipped through the open storage gate while they were talking. I was going to just assumethe decoywas about Julia, and that anyone sent down to the docks to find her was going to get ambushed. Something to worry about if I didn’t find the countess in time to call off the search.
Once inside, I searched the main bay for any larger crates. I found nothing, but the back wall had three doors. One was open, and a lizardkin was loading up sacks into a cart. Figuring the other two were also smaller storage rooms, I moved to the middle door and pressed my ear to it.
My forty-three Perception detected no one inside. I would have heard their breathing; I could hear the blood running through veins if I concentrated hard enough. It was unpleasant, so I usually chose not to.
Moving to the last door, I was with Luck; there was heavy breathing beyond.
My Rogue skills were nonexistent, but I could potentially use acid slime, or maybe just break the door off its hinges with my Strength. There was the chance it was guarded with magic … but at this point, I took a gamble and just tried the handle.
It was unlocked.
The only thing in the room was Julia, unconscious and chained to a wall with Veralyn’s Enchanted Restraint Manacles. She didn’t have on her usual armor, instead wearing a thin-strapped shirt showing off her muscular frame and heavy leather pants with pockets sewn just above the outer knee. Her midnight-black skin had a sickly sheen to it, but she looked otherwise uninjured.
I checked the inner handle of the door before I closed it behind me and shook my head when the storage room was unlocked from the inside as well. Not the most secure for keeping a highly skilled prisoner.
Someone trusted in Fate a littletoomuch.
“Julia?” I knelt down and touched her on the arm. The half elf was sitting, legs sprawled out, back against the wall, and hands up as the manacles attached to a ring overhead.
She didn’t wake up, the countdown on her status debuff still in effect.
