Fragments of a Broken Timeline [Book 3]

Ch.33 Two Sides of the Same Coin

"Okay, Salim, we know that Decibel has "The Panther" somewhere in that tower, but trying to go through the palace itself would be impossible. Luckily, this carpet shop is going to save us the trouble." Bentley explained to the raccoon after he had set out on his mission.

"Ah, yes, Honest Hassan's Carpets! He owns many, many shop, but he's not so honest, trust me. In fact, we used to run a flying carpet scam where he would pretend to be--"

"Kind of pressed for time here!" Bentley cut Salim off.

"Fine. Please, continue..." Salim waved his hand.

"So, according to my diagrams, the shop is connected to the tower. There's a vent system on the side of the building, and all you have to do is crawl through the vents, which will lead you straight into the shop. From there, you can make your way through the shop's interior to the tower!"

"Hmph... You make it sound so easy... I would like to see you crawl through vents when you are my age!" Salim complained.

"Talk to you inside the shop. Good luck!" Bentley gave a thumbs up before disconnecting.

This caused Salim to roll his eyes as he tucked away his binocucom. "I am not going to enjoy this, that much, I do not need a genie to tell me..." He moaned in annoyance before heading for the shop.

After managing to shimmy his way through the hole in the wall of the shop, Salim crawled out of the crawlspace and stretched his arms, both of his shoulders and his back popping in the process. "Ugh, I am far too old for this! I wonder if this Bentley will have me jumping through hoops next..." He grumbled, approaching a basket with a pole leading up to the ceiling.

However, this basket also seemed to be filled with various cobras, but for someone like Salim, he wouldn't have to worry about any of that. After grabbing onto the pole, Salim closed his eyes for a moment before dashing up the pole, quickly hooking his cane onto another pole with a carpet draped over it before grabbing the chain of the chandelier and hoping onto the nearby wooden platform, where he felt his binocucom going off again, pulling out the odd device he wasn't used to using.

"Wait... This room doesn't match my blueprints! It must've been renovated recently!" Bentley panicked. "Give me a second to figure this out..."

"Oh, by Aladdin's beard!" Salim exasperated. "Do you not know that rule #37 in the Thieves' Handbook is, "Expect the Unexpected. Foresee the Unforseen. Predict the Unpredicitabke?!""

"Keep your turban on... Look, my sonar readings are showing an old passageway through a cave system beneath the floor. Let's see..." Bentley began furiously typing for a wuick moment. "Mass of payload... Angle of icidence... Relative humidity... Divide by two--got it! Salim, if we can drop that pallet of carpets in the far corner, it should smash a hole in the floor straight through to the caverns below!"

""We?" It seems that I will be doing all the work!" Salim folded his arms.

"How about we just talk when you reach the passageway?" Bentley said before disconnecting.