Playing With The Puppet Master

12

"That's the stronghold?" Adrien asked. A lone stone tower stood off ominously in the distance. It was something out of a story book. Lycan swarmed in and out of it. We took slow, steady steps around the perimeter of the tower. There was a less guarded back door made of steel. A horse emblem was engraved in the center of it. "They must have stolen stuff from Heisenberg," Adrien commented as she pointed toward the door. "That's his family crest." I slowly nodded as I pulled out the rifle and looked through the scope. There were not that many lycan roaming around in the actual stronghold.

"So...lycan have proven to be more active as nocturnal creatures. Getting them through the day would be the best bet. For now, we need to see if they have any sort of scheduled pattern for protecting this. You may want to get comfortable. We are gonna be in a tree for a while." I helped Adrien up the tree and two of us sat on high branches. Adrien was the lookout while I kept watch on the pattern of the lycans. For the first few hours, it was as if they did not have a plan at all. And then I noticed that a titanic sized lycan always jutted up from the roof of the tower every hour on the hour like clockwork. If the ones down below had no real pattern, the one up above did. He must watch them to make sure they do something useful. There was also a five-minute window every hour that the door remained unmonitored. I blew out frozen vapors as I grabbed for my rifle and focused the scope along the perimeter of the woods. Few scurried around during the day. Either I took out too much of their dayshift employees or they just preferred to sleep during the day was irrelevant right now. Regardless, they were short staffed at the moment.

"I think we can get in," I whispered down to Adrien. She glanced up at me, snow lacing her shoulders and stuck to her hair.

"You think it's warmer in there?" Her voice shook as she asked. I nodded. "Let's get to it then."

"Alright, take your time getting down." The two of us were slowed down due to stiff, frozen muscles. When Adrien plopped into the snow, her legs gave out underneath her. I stifled a chuckle as I plopped down beside her and landed on my feet.

"Not. One. Word." Adrien growled as I offered a hand. I pulled her up and she brought out the gun. I kept mine at my back and stared out. We bounded up one by one till we got to the edge of the tree line. Both of us remained behind tall trees as the lycan walked on through. Some hissed at each other, others clawed at each other. I shook my head as they went along. Our window opened.

"I'll go first." I ran before Adrien could protest. I trekked across the snow. The tracks caused me to irk a bit, but I had to hope the lycan were as stupid as they usually acted. With all the different treks, there should not be a problem. I made it to the door and pulled it open. Nothing stood at the other side. I slipped through the door and kept it cracked open for Adrien. She slipped through a minute later. A blast of warmth overtook us both. We stood close to a broken-down staircase and an elongated hallway.

"So, what's the plan now?" Adrien asked.

"Stay low, stay quiet, and map it all out." I pulled out my map and drew in the unlocked backdoor. I put that paper back and grabbed a small notebook and drew along the hall that we walked down. Four doors staggered across each other and led out to something that looked similar to a main hall. No lycan was on this floor. Adrien and I stared at each other as I put the book away. We stayed around the edges of the main hall. Circles of open hallways stacked around us and up to the roof. There were four levels above us. I groaned to myself. This was going to take a while. We walked across the hall and into the next continued hallway. There were four more doors staggered and another broken down staircase. When we got to the next set of stairs, I decided to open one of the doors. When I opened it, I noticed a huge blast furnace and about twenty lycan sleeping around it. I closed the door as a few stirred and grabbed Adrien's arm. We trailed up to the next level. Adrien and I opened the doors slightly as we walked by and noticed the same trend. There was always a blast furnace and about twenty-thirty lycan sleeping on the floors in each room.