Chapter 62: Different Crowd

The warehouse district sprawled along the eastern docks like a collection of rotting teeth, each building more decrepit than the last. Nacho arrived two hours before the scheduled meeting, his Apex Senses sweeping the area in overlapping waves that painted a picture no normal eye could see.

Something was wrong.

He counted the guards first. Fourteen. Not the eight Vance’s intelligence had suggested. And these weren’t the kind of hired muscle a nervous noble would surround himself with. No fidgeting. No wandering attention. No sneaking drinks from hidden flasks or complaining about the cold. These men stood at their posts like statues carved from discipline, their eyes tracking every shadow with the mechanical regularity of professionals who’d done this a thousand times before.

Vex’s people. Not Daven’s.

The distinction mattered more than most would realize. A corrupt noble’s bodyguards were bought loyalty, which meant they could be bought by someone else or scared into running when the situation turned ugly. But these were true believers, the kind who’d been trained from childhood to serve a specific master and would die before betraying that service.

Combat Precognition hummed at the edges of his consciousness, already mapping attack vectors and escape routes without being asked. Three entrances. Two blocked by patrols. One accessible through a second-floor window that faced an alley too narrow for the guards to monitor effectively.

[Combat Precognition active. 47 potential engagement scenarios identified.]

[Threat Assessment: Elevated. Recommend caution.]

He found a vantage point on a neighboring rooftop and settled in to wait, his tentacles coiled invisibly around his torso like armor made of darkness. The night air carried the smell of salt and rotting fish, familiar scents that reminded him of his early days in the ocean, before he’d become something that oceans feared.

A flicker of movement caught his attention. Vance and her team, approaching from the west, keeping to the shadows with the practiced ease of people who’d done this before. Four figures total, just as she’d promised. He recognized the Inquisitor by her posture, that rigid spine and confident stride that screamed military training even in silhouette.

Nacho slipped off the roof and intercepted them in a side alley, appearing from the darkness so smoothly that one of Vance’s people nearly put a crossbow bolt through his chest.

"Easy." He held up his hands. "Same team."

Vance’s eyes swept over him, and he saw them widen slightly as her Talent picked up on his changed power signature. Whatever she saw made her pause mid-step.

"You’re different."

"Long story. Tell you later." He jerked his chin toward the warehouse. "We’ve got a problem. Guard count is wrong. Fourteen instead of eight, and they’re not Daven’s people."

"Vex came prepared." Vance’s jaw tightened. "She knows something’s off."

"Or she’s always this careful." Nacho shrugged. "Either way, the plan stays the same. I go in first. You wait for my signal."

"What’s the signal?"

"Screaming. Probably mine."

Before she could argue, he was gone, melting back into the shadows and making his way toward that second-floor window. His body moved on autopilot now, Combat Precognition and Phantom working in tandem to guide him through gaps in the patrol patterns that shouldn’t have existed but did.

The window was unlocked. Sloppy. Even professional guards made mistakes when they got complacent.

He slipped through and dropped into what looked like a storage room, crates stacked floor to ceiling with goods that probably weren’t listed on any official manifest. His feet touched the wooden floor without a sound, and he took a moment to orient himself.

The main floor was directly below. He could hear voices through the boards, muffled but distinct enough for his enhanced hearing to parse.

Time to make an entrance.

He found a stairwell and descended, emerging onto a catwalk that overlooked the warehouse’s central space. And there, gathered around a table piled high with coin and ledgers, stood his targets.

Lord Daven was exactly what Nacho had expected. A soft man in expensive clothes, the kind of person who’d never worked a day in his life and resented anyone who suggested he should. His hands shook slightly as he counted gold coins into neat stacks, and sweat glistened on his forehead despite the chill.

Lady Vex was something else entirely.

She stood apart from the table, watching Daven’s nervous accounting with the patience of a predator who knew her prey couldn’t escape. Middle-aged but ageless in the way powerful people sometimes were, with iron-gray hair pulled back from a face that might have been carved from marble. Her eyes were the color of dirty ice, and they missed nothing.

The guards formed a loose perimeter around them both, positioned to intercept threats from any direction. Two of them stood closer to Vex than the others, and something about them made Nacho’s Danger Assessment Talent twitch with warning.

[Warning: 2 targets detected with unusual energy signatures. Possible defensive artifacts.]

Mental resistance. Of course she’d have countermeasures.

He filed that information away and stepped off the catwalk.

The drop was thirty feet, more than enough to shatter a normal person’s legs. But Nacho wasn’t normal anymore, and he landed in the center of the warehouse like a comet striking earth, his Sovereign Tentacle manifesting the instant his feet touched stone.

Then he activated Sovereign’s Domain at full power.

The effect was nothing like what he’d experienced before. Where his original tentacle had been a pond, this was a tidal wave, invisible force radiating outward in all directions and pressing against everything it touched. The air itself seemed to thicken, becoming honey-slow and heavy with potential.

[Sovereign’s Domain active. Target resistance reduced by 50%.]

[14 hostile targets detected. Initiating threat assessment.]

Most of the guards staggered. Their faces went slack, their weapons dipping toward the floor as the Charm effect washed over them like warm water. One of them actually sat down, a confused smile spreading across his face as his conscious mind lost the fight against sensations it couldn’t understand.

But two of them didn’t.

The guards closest to Vex remained standing, their expressions tight with strain but otherwise unaffected. Nacho could see the glow of artifacts beneath their collars, amulets or talismans designed specifically to resist mental influence.

[Warning: 2 targets detected with mental resistance artifacts.]

[Sovereign’s Domain effect reduced to 15% on protected targets.]

Well shit.

***

A/N: Sorry for the late upload, wasn’t home.