The Insider System

Chapter 288: Passing Time In The Fortress

Donny wasn't sure how long he had been waiting for the scouts to exit the meeting they were holding inside the command room but he was starting to think it wasn't going to end anytime soon. He wasn't really supposed to be out of the room his team was in either unless he had been called by Rigbis so he was starting to think he should go back.

On the off chance something bad happened he could see him being out of the room by himself for so long really being a problem. Starting to walk away Donny kept stopping and looking back thinking he would get lucky and the meeting would end as he was walking away but turning the corner with still nothing he just walked all the way back to the room.

Opening the door and seeing that the group he had broken up last time had reformed in the corner, Donny walked over to see if it was the same person causing problems again. If it was he wasn't sure what he would do about it but he thought maybe it would be good to get them away from anyone that was willing to listen to him by sticking him into the corner permanently.

Pushing a few of the people in the group out of the way Donny looked into the center to see the same guy from earlier was the one who was causing the commotion. Donny didn't even listen to what the guy was saying and started to talk over him. "All right that's enough, the rest of you go and find something else to do." Seeing he had startled the guy into shutting up, Donny grabbed him by the shoulder and said. "If I see you do that one more time I'm going to have to do something about it. You're going to cause a panic over nothing so if you think what you're doing is helping it isn't."

Donny didn't really want to threaten the guy just yet so he left the punishment vague in the hopes it wouldn't come to him ever actually needing to say what he would do. "I'm telling you there's something going on with the other team." Seeing the guy still hadn't gotten it though his head Donny was about to isolate him away from the others by making him stand in the corner like you would do to a child.

He didn't think throwing this guy into a jail cell was necessary just yet so this would be all he did for now. "Listen I'm not saying I don't believe you could be right but I need you to stand over there for a while until I say you don't have to anymore."

Donny didn't like how weak the punishment came off since it wasn't a real deterrent but he didn't want to make the rest of the team think he was going overboard with the treatment especially since he didn't really know how many of them were friends with this guy.

Them all turning on him while they were stuck here was about as bad as them panicking and drawing their weapons on someone because both could lead to a fight. "Are you putting me in time out?" Donny could tell the guy was insulted but just shrugged and said. "For now. With Keel in a meeting I don't think giving you a real punishment is appropriate. I just don't want you whispering something while I'm not looking."

"Alright fine I'll stop." Donny thought about it and decided to let the guy off. With him here he really didn't think it would happen again since both times he had seen it had been when coming back into the room. "Ok well forget the punishment then." After he said this Donny walked back towards the rest of the people so they could resume the training game they had been trying to play when Kell had told him he could wait in the hallway.

"Donny the meeting is over and the scouts said they had the time to talk to you for a bit before they went back out." Hearing Keel's voice Donny looked towards the door to see him standing there waiting for an answer. "Ok I'm coming."

He still really wanted to ask the scouts about the thing to see what the one they had found looked like exactly. He really wanted to know if it was the same one and if it had moved somehow or if it was completely different.

The one they had found had two different sets of clothes on the two bodies so he felt they might be able to tell if it was the same one if he asked them about the clothes. "This is Donny, I'm sure you have at least heard of him before so I'm not going to do a real introduction." After Keel said this he walked back towards their room which Donny was fine with.

He was actually happy someone in charge other than him would be looking after all of them. Turning back to the scouts Donny started by saying. "Sorry about not waiting. I didn't want to be away from the team for too long and I don't think any of us expected for your meeting to last that long."

"It's fine, so what did you want to ask us about?" Seeing he didn't need to do any more small talk he guessed these three were on a tight schedule so he cut to the chase. "I wanted to ask about the clothes that the thing was wearing."

"Lets see, they were both wearing armor but it wasn't the same, one had gold trim around the shoulders but the other was too lacking in detail to really tell you anything about it. Just classic plate armor." Thinking back to the five people that had been trapped by whatever it was that they had found, Donny had to think this description matched two of them.

If these things made more of themselves it would follow the classic Demon Worshiper strategy of fighting where they turned your own army into more enemies as you fought. That meant from the five people that had been trapped there would be two more of those things out there that someone could accidentally find.

It made him wonder what happened to the fifth person though. They weren't there when the scouts got there and they hadn't come back to the fortress so the thing definitely did something to it. His best guess would be that they had been turned into a regular undead that was out in the city somewhere looking for people to trick or if they were the mindless type, kill.

"Alright thank you, you've been helpful." After a brief goodbye from each of the scouts Donny headed back to the room to talk to Keel. With this new information nothing would really change for them right now but it was good for them to get word to Rigbis that this was the purpose of the thing that had trapped their people.

Seeing Keel hadn't actually done anything with the people in their team and was instead just sitting at one of the tables silently Donny started to wonder what the meeting he had just gotten out of might have been about. He decided he would ask after he told him about the fact the people who were trapped got turned into more of those things.

"Keel, I asked the scouts about the clothing that the thing was wearing and it seems it was our people that had been turned. I know it doesn't really do anything for us to know that I just figured you could mention it to Rigbis next time you see him."

Keel didn't give him much of a response which made him want to ask what was wrong even more. The news he had just given Keel wasn't something most people could just ignore so he knew whatever was on Keel's mind had to be important whether it be bad or good. "Can you talk about what the meeting earlier was about?"

"No but you'll hear about it soon enough." Seeing Keel go back to staring at the table after he said this Donny started to get worried. This kind of confirmed that whatever was going on was bad and there might be nothing they could do about it if they weren't sounding the alarm now.

Hopefully it was something happening far away that they couldn't do anything about and not something that would be unstoppable that there wasn't even a point in trying to fight that was coming to kill them all. Done with Keel Donny looked around to see if that guy was keeping to himself like he had said he would.

Not seeing any large groups formed in any of the corners he figured it was fine and took a seat before realizing it was time for them to switch who was sleeping. Getting up he called the names of the people who got to sleep next and told them to wake up someone and take their place.