Virtue Among Thieves: Chapter 4 – A Far More Experienced Foe

Chapter 4 – A Far More Experienced Foe

“Now, we’re going to be raiding an ancient temple?” I ask the Hydra Roundtable messenger, who is wearing a suit and snake mask.

“To be fair, it shouldn’t be as dangerous as your previous job,” the messenger says.

Right now, my friends and I are sitting in a bar in a small jungle town with no name to it. It’s in the middle of nowhere, and its inhabitants don’t even speak the same kind of English we do, and are having some kind of festive celebration where everyone is wearing a mask, making it perfect for us to wear our masks in public.

“He does have a point there,” Kelly says before lifting her mask to take a sip of her fruity drink.

“That’s true, but it feels like our jobs are just going to keep taking place in more ridiculous locations. What’s next? Are we going to the moon or Antarctica?”

“The Vorfahren are said to be building bases there,” the messenger says.

“Are you serious?”

“Only semi. After what you’ve and the other groups discovered, we think further evidence of our rival, this Paradox Collective and The Malefic, is. Their origins, or at least a base of operations of theirs, is inside the temple we’re sending you to investigate.”

“Can we go to the moon after?” Kelly asks.

“If whatever you find points us to going there. It can be arranged,” the messenger says.

“Yes!”

“Alright, alright. Let’s take this one step at a time and get this done.”

“Thank you. Accomplishing this job will also bring you to the innermost circle of our organization, so be aware that your efforts for us have not gone unnoticed.”

We thank the messenger and go on our way. The Hydra Roundtable has given us disguises of researchers and official government passes to be investigating the ancient temple just in case we are caught. Nevertheless, we have our masks, explosives, and guns in our researcher bags just in case things get violent. From the publicly available knowledge, this temple was built by its native inhabitants and was a place of human sacrifice so that the natives could enjoy a fruitful harvest and favor from their false idols. Whenever I look into the history of places like this, I can’t be thankful enough to the original explorers of this country that they cleared them out or converted them to the one true faith.

The inside of the temple is dark, so we use our flashlights and light the torches with our lighters to better see what’s written on the walls. I’d say the fresh torches are a sign of it being inhabited, but since this place is a tourist destination for tourists, researchers, and explorers, that thought goes out the window. What does count as evidence of who we’re looking for comes in the form of various drawings of the dragon emblem we’ve been seeing, along with drawings of triangles with eyes in them, depictions of devils, and false idols.

“You think this means we’re up against multiple groups or that they’ve had multiple symbols over the years?” Al asks.

“Could be both,” Suzuki says.

“Guys, I think there might be a hidden door here,” Kelly says.

Kelly shows the three of us a bunch of stones that look new and are in the shape of a door.

“What do you think? Do you think we should blow it open or is there some kind of puzzle to solve to open it?” I ask.

“Blow it open. I don’t have the patience for complicated puzzles,” Kelly says.

Al and Suzuki agree, so we take out some explosives, blow the stones away, and blow the metal door that was behind them. There’s no way that no one heard that or we didn’t trigger some alarm, so we put on our masks and arm ourselves with our guns. Carefully going down the secret tunnel, we encounter pressure plates that activate spikes that come out of the floor and wall, make flames come out from the wall, or make the floor fall out from the floor in front of us.

“Of course there’d be stupid traps like these,” Al says.

“I’m surprised we haven’t seen a snake trap yet,” Suzuki adds.

“Easy goes it,” I say as we start to be more careful about our steps.

Unfortunately, we can’t take it easy for long, as a shot comes out from the darkness, hitting Kelly in the face, knocking her down.

“Ah! Why’s it always the face?!” Kelly says as she gets back up on her feet and returns fire.

The four of us are forced to quickly advance and fire into the darkness as we’re being shot at, all the while activating and dodging traps. What makes things even more difficult is that we get shot from behind and have to contend with gunfire coming from both directions. Fortunately, the gunfire from the front stops, allowing us to focus on the attack coming from behind, just as seemingly more people start shooting at us. We walk over the corpses of people dressed in all black gear as we find another hidden doorway, blow it open, and enter a better-lit and more modern-looking area. Before we explore further, we throw explosives behind us, blowing open the floors under our pursuers and seemingly killing them from the sound of falling and dying, and the ceasing of the gunfire.

“What do we have here?” I say out loud.

Looking around, we see modern electrical lighting, altars with human remains on them that look like they’ve had the blood sucked out of them, and various laptops connected to the many wires around the ground.

“Looks like some kind of secret cult sacrificing center,” Suzuki says.

“Look at these papers and stone tablets with their dragon emblem on them,” Al says as he waves around what he’s talking about. “These are written in some weird language I don’t understand.”

“We’ll have them translated when we take them back,” I say.

“This is definitely a sacrificing center of some kind. Look,” Kelly says.

Going over to where Kelly is, we see a dark pit with dozens upon dozens of bodies of blood-drained corpses, some of which are children.

“Yeah, this place needs to be blown back to Hell,” Al says.

“Say no more,” Suzuki says as he starts to plant explosives on the pillars around us.

It’s then that the whole temple starts to shake. Parts of the wall start falling and some of the ways out get blocked by debris.

“Wow. A ye old self-destructing temple,” Kelly says.

“Let’s get out of here!” I say.

The four of us run through the temple, dodging the falling ceiling and advancing against more of the temple’s defenders as they fight against us, even as their people get crushed. Thankfully, the pressure traps aren’t activating anymore, and we have enough explosives left to blow our way out when we have nowhere else to go. As we exit into the fresh air, the temple collapses from the outside, making us sprint as fast as we can down the stairs and away from the temple.

“If anything, we can thank them for doing part of our job for us,” Kelly says.

“They probably had more dark secrets in that temple that they didn’t want to see the light of day,” I say.

“We should have plenty of their secrets with us. Let’s just hope that our friends can translate them,” Al says.

Heading back to the Hydra Roundtable hideout, we give them the files and tablets we found and are told to wait inside the hideout for further instruction. After a bit of waiting, we are invited into a dark room for our promotion and to be informed about what was found through what we retrieved. We sit at a roundtable with two people sitting ahead of us, their faces obscured by the darkness of the room.

“So, what would you like to hear about first?” one of the men in the shadows asks.

“Our promotion,” Kelly says.

At the same time, I say, “What you found on the tablets and files.”

“Heh, which would you like to start with?”

Looking at me, Kelly says, “What Ace said.”

“Good, because that’s marginally more important for you four,” the other man in the shadows says.

“What you found was written in several ancient European and native languages,” the other man in the shadows explains. “They talk about their rituals and the gods they sacrifice to for worldly riches and influence.”

“Some of the notes also mock the people who read them. It seems like they anticipated that the temple would be raided and made notes where they flaunt their influences in criminal, business, military, and political industries, and how they’re a cult older than the founding of the Chimaera States.”

“Do we stand a chance against them?” Suzuki asks.

“If we make the right moves, we do. They don’t care about the fact that we know about them and have ruined their plans in certain areas. They have their sights set on the next presidential election so they can have the Chimaera States for themselves.”

“So, what do you want us to do? Steal the election for you?” Al asks.

“Yes.”

“Heh. Yeah, alright…Are you serious?” Kelly asks.

“Yes, we are.”

“And who will be president instead of their candidate?” I ask.

“We will,” both men in the shadows say.

“And you are?”

“Well, part of your promotion has granted you the information you’ve been seeking, Ace. You will now know who runs the Hydra Roundtable.”

The two figures in the dark are illuminated by the lights turning on in the room, revealing them to be Vincenzo and Cesare Campione, two of the most influential mafia bosses in the country. Vincenzo is dressed in his typical black and gold suit and has blue eyes and black hair. His brother, Cesare, is dressed in a grey and blue suit and has green eyes and blonde hair.

“I should’ve seen this coming.”

“What makes you say that, Ace?” Vincenzo says.

“You two use snakes as your symbol and are sometimes called the Quartiere Cavalieri or Neighborhood Knights; therefore, making it fairly plausible that you’d found an honorable society of criminals we call the Hydra Roundtable.”

“Good job in deducing that, Ace, but what do you think? Knowing who we are and our intentions, does that stop you from continuing your service for the Hydra Roundtable and us?”

I look at my three friends and say, “Since I know that you’re truly men of honor like you say you are, I guess it doesn’t affect me in the slightest.”

“What about the rest of you?” Cesare asks.

“I don’t care who I work for as long as I get to have fun and punish the right people along the way,” Kelly says.

“You’re bosses of my family, and brothers to me, as a result. My loyalty is to God and to you,” Al says.

“If working with you is like working with my family and Al, then I don’t see an issue with it, especially with what’s at stake,” Suzuki says.

“Agreed. So, are you ready to steal a country?” Vincenzo asks with a smile on his face.

The rest of my friends smile at me, and we all say yes.

“Let’s get this done,” I say.

Heh, to think everything we’ve done would lead us to here, taking a country for men of honor. Well, it’s better to be in their hands than those of the cultists we were fighting. God help us in this great task you’ve given us.

 

The End