Chapter 323: Operation Stinky Pig
Ren paced the scullery, her feet making a frantic, rhythmic beat against the smooth stone floor. Left. Right. Pivot. Left. Right.
Bia and Las, the coral and albino snake females, sat perfectly still on a nearby stone table. Their heads swiveled in unison, tracking Ren’s erratic movements back and forth as if they were front-row spectators at the world’s most stressful tennis match.
"Damn it," Ren muttered under her breath as she ran both hands through her frizzy red hair. She stopped pacing, brought her thumb to her mouth, and began anxiously chewing on her thumbnail.
She had less than twelve hours to stage a flawless prison break. If she failed, Vex would be executed in the morning, she would not get the Northern Mountains logbook, and her womb would remain a barren wasteland forever. No pressure at all, though.
Letting out a frustrated, echoing groan, Ren marched over to the center island and slumped face-first onto the cold stone table.
Bia and Las exchanged a deeply concerned glance. They quickly slithered off their perch and approached her.
"Mistress?" Bia asked softly, her pink scales shimmering in the ambient light. "Are you okay?"
Ren turned her head sideways on the stone, letting out a long huff of pure exasperation. "I’m fine, girls. Just a little stressed."
"Is there anything we can help you with?" Las offered eagerly. "We can chop more lotus roots! Or we can go bite whoever is causing your stress!"
Ren blinked, staring at the two earnest reptilian apprentices. A crazy, desperate thought bloomed in her mind. Maybe they could help her? She couldn’t possibly pull off a prison heist alone. She needed accomplices. She needed a crew.
Ren slowly pushed herself up from the table. She looked at Bia and Las, narrowing her green eyes. "Can I really trust you two?"
The snake females instantly stood up straighter, puffing out their chests with pride.
"Of course, Mistress!" Bia declared passionately. "You saved our heads, and the King assigned us to you! Our lives belong to you."
Ren chewed her bottom lip. You generally never heard the words ’trust’ and ’snake’ in the same sentence. But desperate times called for incredibly risky measures. Still, she wasn’t stupid. She spoke loosely, deliberately holding back the major, treasonous details—like the fact that the prisoner was the public enemy number one Fox Shaman.
"Alright, listen closely," Ren whispered, leaning over the table and gesturing for them to come closer. "I recently got a pet. But Syris doesn’t like my pet. He locked it away in the lowest dungeon, and he plans to execute it tomorrow morning. I need to sneak down there and free my pet tonight during the feast."
Bia and Las gasped in perfect unison.
"The King wants to kill your pet?!" Las hissed. "We swear upon our scales to help you free it, Mistress! What kind of pet is it?"
Ren’s brain glitched. "Uhhh." She frantically searched her mind for a harmless, pathetic animal. "A pig! Yes, a little, round, stinky pig. Her name is Porkchop."
Bia nodded slowly, deep in thought. "The King must have grown envious of the pig’s roundness. He is jealous of anyone who captures your attention."
"Exactly," Ren agreed. "So, we need a plan. A foolproof execution strategy."
"Okay, brainstorming session. Go," Ren commanded, pointing at Las.
"I will slither down to the dungeon," Las offered enthusiastically, "and I will swallow the guards whole! Then you can just walk in and take Porkchop!"
"No eating the guards, Las," Ren rejected flatly, crossing her arms. "The goal is stealth, not canabilism."
"Then I shall seduce them!" Las tried again, wiggling her shoulders. "I will shed my skin right in front of them to cause the perfect distraction!"
"Also no," Ren sighed. She pointed to the coral snake. "Bia? Any ideas that don’t involve digestion or public stripping?"
Bia hummed. "The guards at the lowest dungeon are elite warriors, Mistress. They never abandon their posts. However, they usually eat whatever is left over from the King’s table during major celebrations. If we prepare a specific, highly desirable platter of food just for them..."
Ren’s eyes lit up as Bia’s idea began piecing together in her head.
"We can put something in there that will make them sleepy," Bia continued. "There is a patch of Somnus-Weave Ivy growing near the outer wall. I can collect the leaves and get the sleeping juice. If you mix it into the food, you can put them to sleep."
Ren looked at Bia with genuine awe. She made a mental note that Bia was undeniably the smarter, much more tactical of the two.
"That is brilliant," Ren praised. "Okay, here is the timeline. Las, during the peak of the feast, I need you to act as a distraction. Drop a tray of drinks, start a minor fistfight, whatever it takes to keep Syris looking at you and not at me."
Las beamed with pride. "I am excellent at dropping things!"
"Bia," Ren continued, pointing to the coral snake. "You will deliver the spiked food platter directly to the dungeon guards and make sure they eat every last bite. Once they pass out, I will slip away from the feast, sneak down the stairs, grab the pig, and smuggle her out."
Ren slapped her hands flat on the table, grinning at her crew. "It’s a classic Ocean’s Eleven maneuver."
Bia and Las just stared at her, blinking their reptilian eyes in complete silence. They had absolutely no idea what an ocean eleven was.
"Never mind," Ren sighed. "Just stick to the timeline."
Having a solid plan in place made Ren feel infinitely more at ease. The panic subsided, replaced by a thrilling rush of adrenaline. She could actually pull this off.
But then, she looked around the scullery. Her stomach dropped.
She was so focused on planning the heist that she had completely neglected her actual job. She hadn’t even decided on a menu for the grand feast yet!
Right on cue, four burly snake guards slithered into the scullery, hauling large woven baskets and giant slabs of raw meat. They dumped the haul onto the stone tables.
"What is all this?" Ren asked, staring at the sheer volume of food. There was enough raw venison, swamp-boar, and exotic tubers to feed a small army.
"The King has sent invitations to the neighboring territories, Mistress," Bia explained, organizing the root vegetables. "Because the Fox Shaman has many bitter enemies, the King invited the surrounding beastmen from the swamp and the forest to witness his death tomorrow. The feast tonight will host over two hundred guests."
Ren wanted to pull her hair out. ’Two hundred guests?!’
She looked at the ingredients, and then at her sparse collection of cast-iron skillets and pots in her inventory. She was going to need massive boiling vats, hundreds of wooden serving plates, giant platters, and a mountain of spices to properly season this much meat.
Ren opened her System interface, navigating straight to the Shop to purchase the necessary bulk kitchenware and seasonings.
She stared at the top right corner of the glowing blue screen.
[Current Survival Points: 14]
She was completely broke. She had spent the last of her points on the coconut milk for the snake horde earlier. She couldn’t even afford a shaker of salt, let alone a commercial-sized roasting spit.
"System," Ren hissed under her breath, turning away from her apprentices. "I need an advance. A loan. Give me points!"
Ding!
[System: The System does not operate on credit, Host. However, a fun Side Quest is currently available! Completing this task will immediately reward you with an astonishing 50,000 Survival Points!]
Ren’s eyes widened. Fifty thousand points was a literal fortune.
[Side Quest Activated: A Mother’s Meal!] [Objective: Prepare the fish soup for Vara, and successfully feed it to her.]
Ren froze.
With all that was going on, Ren had completely forgotten about Vara.
"Oh, crap," Ren muttered.
She had all the ingredients. The fish were still suspended in her inventory for a few more hours. Cooking the healing soup was no problem at all.
But there was a glaring logistical flaw in this quest.
’I have no idea where Vara is!’ Ren thought, her heart rate spiking. ’I don’t know where his secret cave is hidden!’
[System: A minor obstacle, Host! To locate the secret cave, simply ask the Fox Shaman for directions!]
Ren stared at the blue text, the horrifying realization clicking into place. She understood exactly why this quest was offering such an astronomical amount of survival points.
To ask Vex for directions, she would have to go talk to him.
Right now. In broad daylight.
"Bia," Ren asked slowly, turning to her apprentice with a hollow look in her eyes. "Where exactly is the lowest dungeon located?"
Bia shuddered, her pink scales dulling slightly as if she only just recalled the conditions of the place. "It is buried far beneath the bedrock, Mistress. It is a nightmare to access. The corridor is guarded by the King’s most ruthless, bloodthirsty guards, and the path is rigged with venomous traps. No one is permitted to go down there without the King’s presence."
Ren closed her eyes, took a deep, shaky breath, and genuinely just wanted to scream until her lungs gave out.