Right now, we are inside the Mayfire castle. As for how we ended up here, I have been stopped from recording that by Trevor. He says that such things are better off as a mystery. After all, with my security clearance, anybody would be able to read my records. The consequence of this information leaking is not something that I can afford.
Not that he needed to. I will be honest here I haven't understood anything about how we got in. All I know is that some very complex magic has been woven here.
Well, if I were to be precise, we are under the castle. After all, we are in the sewers of the Mayfire Castle. Not many people think about it, but it is the perfect place to put a criminal enterprise. The sewer is a relatively safe place that is easily accessible, and also a place that nobody is willing to go to.
A dedicated criminal organization would be able to visit any part of the city in stealth. At the same time they don't need to worry about if some random kid were to stumble on their base. (Well, murder is frowned upon even in a criminal organization. Hiding bodies is costly, and killing kids is something that attracts pitchforks.) Very few people would like to come to a sewer, as you can guess. You just need to make sure to keep whatever guild of sewer cleaners under your control. You have complete privacy then.
The sewers down here must have been expanded by the organization itself. It would take an earth mage a couple of decades to do something like this. It is also not a very cheap endeavour.
It is worth it for the organisation, though. They make full use of these sewers, after all. They have everything, most of which I have not even been allowed to study. One benefit of my low cultivation is that people don't guess that I have a mana sense. (Granted, my mana sense is not at its best. I can still see some things, though.) Let's just say that they have built a guild here that would put most guilds to shame. I have seen an armory, a meeting space and living quarters, and there is much that I have missed.
They have pretty solid defenses, too. The organization should be more than capable of putting up a fight when and if any enemies were to come down here. That might be the Bloodfire gang, or it could be the Mayfires. The tunnels are the dream location for a guerrilla fight. They could simply collapse the tunnels to crush any outsiders. Well, I am sure that they must have less destructive strategies in place. I can see why they are not too worried about the pirates taking over the outer keep. The gang would be stupid to come down here.
Right now, they have given me a room in the very living quarters that I mentioned a while ago. The room that they have given me is pretty clean, actually, (for being inside a sewer) though it is a bit tight. It would have been pretty cozy for a single man. I am sharing this room with Trevor. Andrew and Jacob (they are busy meditating, as usual.) are being given another room quite close to us. Right now I don't know where Trevor is. The man is doing something related to the favor that we owe the organization. Most likely scoping out our target. He has been spending days doing that now.
He has disappeared for entire days at the end. Well, it is not like the man has let me be free. He gave me the records on the Bloodfire gang before he left. I have been spending my time studying these very records. As I am learning more about them, I feel like the Bloodfire gang is a pretty interesting group.
They are something of a mystery to us. They don't engage with the guard corps at all. That is weird in itself. Nobody wants to make an enemy of the guard corps in this plain. Still, all the powers here have fought against us at least once.
This gang has done nothing like that. Everything we know about the gang is recorded from captured members and the victims of the gang. Every significant person in this group is a bit off, is the best way to put it.
Let's start this properly from the beginning. The leader of this gang is a certain figure known as the void. (We don't know what he is called, so void is his title for now.) He is the main enigma of this group. Nobody knows who he is.
He rarely leaves their crown ship and is functionally a ghost. Very few people among those we have captured have seen the man, let alone speak with him. Knowing the nature of pirate gangs, that is very odd. Being so inactive tends to breed thoughts among the underlings. If you are not needed, why are you in the top position?
That is why leaders of pirate gangs are always active. They actively join the raids and always have something of a reputation. That way, any potential rebel will not be able to gather people in support of him.
This one has nothing like that. For all we know, he could not even be a real figure. That is how little we know about him. Still, the man has very strong control over the gang. Based on what I can tell, he has no recorded revolt on his hands. If you know about the other gangs, that is an achievement that very few gangs would be able to claim.
Each of the captains is supposed to be a mage at least at the seventh stage of the foundation stage. A couple of them are even suspected to be at the stage beyond that. (Well, even the head office listens to my master on this point. The name of the next stage is cut out of the recording before being given to me.)
There are five captains of the Bloodfire gang, each of whom holds a certain duty in the gang. Naturally, the first among them is the hunter, who is charged with recruiting new people into the gang
He is the very first captain to join them. The reason that he was given the title of hunter is that the man is a very skilled headhunter. They say that he is the person who recruited the other four captains of the gang. Where he found such talented figures in the soldar plains, do not ask me. Such people are always in pretty high demand, especially here in the soldar plains.
He is something of an enigma himself, though not as much as his master. He mostly roams about the soldar plains looking for new people to recruit. The only time that he ever really seems to enter into action is when he is procuring bodies for the demon. (About whom I shall speak in a bit.)
Based on what we know of him, he is supposed to have a decent number of troops under him. He is also supposed to be pretty strong personally. We can't really verify that, though. He has a single brawler called the Ghost's Path and three patrollers under him. (Well, with how much the patrollers are used, these numbers are not going to be precise.)
Then we have the archer, the person who is charged with scouting and patrolling in the gang. You can naturally guess why that is the case. As I must have already mentioned about him, the man does not tend to miss his shots. He must have destroyed many ships in stealth, even without his brawler. Most ships are not durable enough to stop a shot like that.
Right now, he is the captain that I am the least worried about. He is supposed to be pretty useless if he is pulled away from a cannon. Now that I am in the Mayfire Castle, he is not such a major threat. He has already done all the damage that he can do to me. The other captains are more of a threat now.
He has a single brawler, the shadow and almost all of the patrollers that the Bloodfire gang controls. He is supposed to have at least twenty patrollers under him.
After him comes the demon. Well, the demon is not an actual demon, thankfully. A demon this close to the hexmountain would have caused too much chaos. Demons are not good for business.
He is suspected to be a contract cultivator, though. One that gains access to cultivation by the path of blood sacrifices or even soul sacrifices. I can speak about them, but I will do it later since I have to speak about the information that I have gotten over here first.
A demon cultivator is going to be much harder to fight. They tend to be more durable and have more tricks in their bag. Thankfully, I have a certain amount of experience in fighting such enemies from my time in the legion. You never should underestimate anything of the demons, though. They are always capable of pulling out something that would surprise you.
His duty is protecting the crawler of the Bloodfire gang, a ship known as the Red Whale. Other than that, he is supposed to have a brawler called the Hidden Blade and ten patrollers under him.
The fourth captain of the Bloodfire gang is the warrior, who is the most famous member of the gang. He is what people would think of when they think of a leader of a gang. Quick, both in temper and movement, the man is supposed to be the greatest warrior of the Bloodfire gang.
He is supposed to be a berserker and specializes in close combat. The man is also the most violent of them. He is also the one that we have the most records on, which shows just how much he tangles with other ships.
He controls a single brawler, called the Bloody Crystal. He is also charged with combat duty in the gang. That means that he is supposed to attack any person who might pose a threat to the gang. This could be rival gangs or our patrol ships. This ship has also destroyed the largest number of ships in the gang, based on our research.
Finally, we have the snake. His duty seems to be to do whatever is necessary. He has been known to take charge of patrolling, fighting or any other odd job. There is nothing particularly unique about the man.
The only thing of note is that the man seems to be a poison mage. (That is a very rare profession here.) He has a brawler under him called the Viper and four patrollers under him.
Right now, the void and at least two of the captains are supposed to be in the inner keep. This is something that Trevor told me, though I can't tell how he knows this. There is a lot the man doesn't tell me. He doesn't know who these two captains are, though.
Right now, the archer is doing the work of maintaining a defensive line around the castle. There is supposed to be a captain at the guardhouse. This is the very place that we need to sneak into to find the ledger. The only thing I know about the place is that the gang is doing something very weird there.
As for which captain might be at the guard house, I don't know. Even Trevor doesn't know who this could be. Well, I will deal with whoever it is soon enough. Finally, the demon is going about the place, looting all the merchants in the city. That is very weird because he is the only person in this pirate gang behaving like a pirate in this place. I wonder what is the other party's goal.