The great ballroom of the Thromium mansion remains a glittering, suffocating prison of gold leaf and whispers, but outside, the thick mantle of night falls across the capital city of Carravin like a heavy woolen blanket. The late afternoon sun, which had previously painted the sky in bloody streaks of amber and violet, completely sinks beneath the jagged western horizon. Shadows lengthen, stretching out from the massive stone foundations of the estate like long, reaching fingers, devouring the manicured gardens and the high, intimidating boundary walls that isolate the aristocracy from the raw wilderness beyond.
Down in the dirt, far from the polished marble and the scraping violins, the reality of the earth is damp, cold, and unyielding.
Onaga clings to the rough, weed-choked ground with flat palms, his fingers digging into the loose topsoil as he tries to anchor himself against an irresistible force. His small, delicate frame—half a head shorter than Aldo—is dragged forward across the gravel anyway, leaving two distinct furrows in the earth. His femboyish appearance, complete with exceptionally smooth and flawless skin that has never known the bite of a blade or the coarseness of a worker's callous, is entirely ruined by the sheer desperation of his movements. His pretty face contorts into a sharp, strained grimace, his soft lips pulling back over his teeth as the coarse dirt scrapes against his fine garments.
"No, I'm not going!" Onaga shrieks, his voice rising in a high, breathy pitch of pure panic as he kicks his legs out, trying to find purchase against a stone. "Why should I participate in your crazy plan? This is madness!"
Unmoved by his protests, Comtois and Hano continue dragging Onaga along the base of the massive perimeter wall. The twilight turns a deep, bruised purple around them as they stubbornly haul their belongings—heavy leather packs and long, wrapped bundles that clatter rhythmically with every step.
Hano moves with a hyperactive, almost exhausting energy, his sharp eyes flashing in the darkness like an animal hunting in the brush. He isn't bulky, appearing far less substantial than Aldo's perfectly proportioned frame, but his limbs are pure, agile wire. He keeps a firm, unyielding grip on Onaga's left wrist, his face entirely flush with excitement. On the other side, Comtois grips Onaga's shoulder. Comtois stands three inches taller than Aldo, his frame significantly more muscular and solid without being overly bulky. His face carries its signature mischievous, goofy look, his broad chest pushing against his formal tunic as he pulls the smaller boy along as if he weighs nothing at all.
"The grand gala is still here!" Onaga struggles, his small hands flailing as he tries to twist out of Comtois's solid grip, his delicate skin flushing pink from the exertion. "I want to stay and enjoy it! There is food! There is wine! There are lights!"
Comtois pauses for a fraction of a second, giving Onaga a sudden, violent shake that rattles the smaller boy's teeth. He looks down with a wide, toothy grin, his eyes glittering with an assertive, unbothered light.
"No, I think you actually have a brain in that pretty head of yours," Comtois chuckles, his voice a playful, booming rumble that he barely bothers to conceal. "So I'm carrying you along specifically to use all the heavy technical stuff Aldo told us to bring. You're the scholar, Onaga. Keep moving."
Onaga twists his torso, his smooth face pale beneath the rising moon as he stares at the dark line of the forest stretching out beyond the estate lines. The leaves of the ancient oaks rustle with a low, threatening hiss as a sudden gust of wind sweeps through the valley.
"Don't go outside!" Onaga pleads, his voice dropping into a frantic, trembling whisper as he grabs Comtois's thick forearm. "On Earth, there are only thieves and petty robbers! But in this godforsaken fantasy world, there are Goblins! Vampires! Succubi! And the unholy Undead! Please, I beg you, if we must do this, at least let us go back and bring real weapons!"
Comtois lets out a loud, mocking chuckle, his broad shoulders bouncing as he hoists a heavy bundle higher up on his shoulder. He pats the side of his thigh with a solid, careless thud.
"What's the big deal, little man?" Comtois scoffs, his goofy expression completely unfazed by the mention of monsters. "We have perfectly good legs to run with! That's the best defense there is."
Onaga's eyes widen to the size of saucers, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps as he stares up at the towering muscular youth.
"How the hell are you going to run away from Vampires and Succubi?" Onaga yells, his voice cracking with immense frustration. "They can fly, Comtois! They have wings! They will look down and see three idiots running across a field!"
Comtois merely shrugs his broad shoulders, his stride never breaking as he drags Onaga another three feet through the weeds.
"Never mind that now, we're already going anyway," Comtois says, his tone entirely dismissive and stubborn as he looks toward the looming shadow of the city wall. "We can't just turn back after coming this far. It would look bad. Besides, if anything dangerous actually happens out there... I'll just sacrifice you to buy Hano and me some time."
Onaga freezes, his body going completely rigid as his eyes lock onto Comtois's face to look for any sign of hesitation. A sudden spike of terror makes his limbs flail with twice the intensity, his small fists beating uselessly against Comtois's solid, unmarred arm.
Seeing the genuine horror on the boy's face, Comtois lets out another booming laugh, waving his hand carelessly.
"Calm down, I was just joking..." Comtois grins, his eyes crinkling at the corners.
Onaga stops struggling, his chest heaving as he glares up at the taller youth through a curtain of messy hair, his rosy lips trembling with anger.
"Is this what you mean by 'joking'?" Onaga huffs, his voice dripping with pure venom. "Your sense of humor is absolutely repulsive!"
From a few paces ahead, Hano snaps his head back. His sharp, energetic eyes cut through the gloom, his body low and tense like a spring ready to release. He raises a single, scarless finger to his lips, his expression instantly sharpening into one of intense focus.
"Both of you need to shut up, focus, and look ahead right now," Hano commands in a sharp, rapid-fire whisper, his agile body shifting smoothly behind a thick patch of briars. "The main city gate is directly in front of us."
The three boys slide into the deep shadow of an old stone buttress. Ahead of them, the massive timber-and-iron gates of Carravin loom like a pair of giant black teeth shut tight against the night. Heavy iron bolts lock the structure in place, and the faint, rhythmic footsteps of guards can be heard pacing along the battlements far above, their torches casting long, smoky amber light beams down into the dark ditch below.
Comtois creeps to the edge of the stone wall, staring up at the sheer vertical drop of the smooth masonry. He scratches his head, his face twisting into a heavy, irritated grimace as he sizes up the obstacle.
"Are we going to abandon the mission entirely, or are we expected to climb this damn wall?" Comtois complains, his voice a low, gravelly grumble. "There isn't a single handhold on this whole stretch."
Hano crouches low, his agile fingers brushing against the base of the wall where the stone meets the soft, rain-softened earth of the ditch. He lets out a short, quiet snicker, his face illuminating with a confident, arrogant smile that displays his absolute lack of fear.
"Maybe if we had high-level magic, we could have just climbed straight over it like ghosts," Hano whispers, his eyes darting along the foundation line. He reaches behind his back, his hands wrapping around the cold iron handles of two heavy trenching shovels strapped to his pack. He unlatches them with a sharp clink and tosses one directly into Comtois's chest. "But it's alright. We don't need magic. We have shovels. Let's dig through."
Onaga lets out a long, agonizing sigh, his head dropping into his smooth palms as his shoulders slump in utter defeat.
"Are you kidding me?" Onaga groans, his voice a faint, pathetic whisper against the wind. "We are going to dig under a military fortification with manual tools? This is your grand strategy?"
The night continues its slow, silent march across the sky. The moon remains a thin, silver crescent—a waning sliver of white light that offers barely any illumination to the world below. The sky is a vast, velvety expanse of absolute black, dotted with cold, unfamiliar stars that seem to blink with a distant, uncaring intelligence. A cool summer breeze sweeps across the plains of Thromium, rushing over the high stone battlements and hitting the sweating, dirt-stained faces of the three young men gathered in the deepest, darkest corner of the outer ditch.
A long, exhausting period of time passes in near-total silence, broken only by the rhythmic, organic sounds of labor.
Schluck. Shuck. Thud.
They are shoveling. Shoveling, shoveling, shoveling, shoveling without a single moment of rest.
Comtois works like a machine, his muscular, solid back flexing beneath his dirt-streaked formal shirt as he drives the iron blade deep into the heavy clay, throwing massive clods of earth over his shoulder with an assertive, unyielding rhythm. Hano moves with frantic, blurry speed, his agile frame twisting and bending as he clears the loose dirt away from the expanding hole, his sharp eyes constantly tracking the lip of the pit. Even Onaga, despite his endless complaints, is forced into the dirt, his delicate, smooth hands gripping the rough wooden shaft of a shovel as he weak-heartedly clears the smaller stones.
The hole is deep now—a dark, yawning trench that plunges three feet beneath the lowest foundation stones of the city wall, smelling heavily of damp loam, decaying roots, and old earth.
Onaga suddenly stops, leaning heavily against his shovel as he wipes a thick streak of dark mud across his forehead, his smooth skin smudging black in the moonlight. He stares at Hano with a look of sudden, profound realization, his jaw dropping slightly.
"I can't believe you three were actually planning a literal coup without informing me!" Onaga exclaims, his whisper harsh and intense as he glares through the darkness. "An actual military infiltration, and you keep me in the dark until we're knee-deep in mud?"
Hano pauses his rapid digging, leaning his forearm on the handle of his shovel as he lets out a quiet, breathless chuckle that shakes his thin shoulders.
"That time we discussed it in the barracks, Aldo saw you objecting so strongly that he thought you were actively licking the Establishment's polished shoes," Hano grins, his sharp eyes mocking the smaller boy playfully. "He figured you'd run straight to the Duke if he told you the details."
Onaga's rosy lips pout instantly, his face flushing with an angry, defensive heat as he stomps his foot into the loose dirt.
"I didn't!" Onaga huffs, his chest heaving beneath his soiled tunic. "It's just that... I thought it was too risky! We are teenagers with no political backing! One wrong move and we're on the chopping block!"
From the bottom of the deep trench, Comtois doesn't stop his frantic labor. His shovel bites into a thick tree root, severing it with a sharp, resonant crack that sounds like a breaking bone in the quiet night. He throws a heavy pile of wet clay directly past Onaga's boots, his goofy face dripping with sweat but filled with an unshakeable confidence.
"It's alright, members of Company 204, just keep digging," Comtois says, his tone grand and mockingly authoritative as he puffs out his chest. "Be deeply honored that I, the official captain of Company 205, am cooperating with you low-lifes from 204. My labor doesn't come cheap."
Onaga rolls his eyes so hard it looks painful. He drops his shovel entirely, crossing his arms over his narrow chest as he leans against the damp stone foundation of the city wall.
"If we are going to freeze out here all night, tell me what Aldo's actual plan is," Onaga demands, his tone turning serious. "What are we looking for under this wall?"
Hano shifts his position, his agile limbs climbing up the side of the earth wall to look over the lip of the trench.
"He said we need to explore the terrain," Hano explains simply, his voice low. "We need to know every hidden path, every blind spot in the guards' patrol routes, and every physical entrance into the river basin before the army moves."