The Insider System

Chapter 327: Dark Turn

"Which fortress would win in a fight in your opinion." Donny and Keel had eventually given up on waiting outside of the room Rigbis was planning their future in and gone outside to look at the city. From up here on the mountain they were able to watch as the flesh tendrils crawled and gathered into a massive ball of skin in the center of the city which was what he was guessing was the other fortress Keel was asking him to decide between.

"Theirs. I would say it was closer if ours wasn't out of mana but I think the fact that theirs is still moving makes it win if the two were to fight." Donny knew Keel hadn't actually meant which would win if they fought and was actually asking if they would be able to hold the fort if they were attacked but Donny felt it would be funny to give a dumb answer.

"What about the people, which group would win?" Since there were others around Donny couldn't let them hear his real opinions on a possible fight so he said. "We would if they came here to attack us. The fortress is strong even if it's out of mana since the people with Metal Affinity have access to Metal mana again."

Donny made sure to say this loud enough that everyone would hear how confident he was in protecting the fortress in a battle. Everyone had seen him and Rigbis getting the fortress into shape so they knew he was a Metal Mage with quite a bit of skill who could make formations so his confidence should be pretty convincing and word should spread.

"Donny Rigbis has called for you." Donny had to stop himself from saying 'Finally' when he heard this because it really had taken way too long for Rigbis to get into contact again. To him it didn't make sense to let the one person who knew about the fortress' secret to roam around unsupervised but he guessed with the fact the fortress was probably listening and watching everyone Rigbis would be fine with him telling people since it would give him away as a traitor if it was to happen.

Still Donny wished he had been allowed into the meeting because he felt they would have already decided on who to send to look for food which would make it so he would have to convince them to replace the person they had chosen with him. "I'll see you later, Keel."

Climbing back down into the fortress Donny quickly arrived in front of the room Rigbis had been holding the meeting inside and walked in. He was surprised to find Rigbis alone and it made him wonder what they were about to talk about and if it would be another secret. "Hello Donny We don't have much time before the others return so I need you to listen."

The Way Rigbis started confirmed this conversation would be another secret like he had expected. "Alright go ahead."

"I need you to round up these three people without anyone noticing. The fortress has marked them as suspicions and I need you to see if it's true before you kill them. Get rid of the bodies by putting them in a wall or something." Donny hadn't expected to be asked to kill people but if they did turn out to be traitors he had no problem with doing this job.

"You want it to be a secret because if any other traitors are still hidden they'll figure out the fortress is still active and go back to hiding, right?"

"Yeah, if there are others they'll probably notice them going missing relatively quickly and figure out what's going on but we might get lucky and hear them talk to each other about it or something." Donny nodded and was about to leave when he realized he would need to somehow figure out if these people were traitors or not so he asked. "How am I supposed to figure out if they are loyal or not?"

He really didn't have what could be considered a skill to get secrets from people and had to just rely on the actions of others like everyone else so it would take a while for him to get to the bottom of this if he didn't have any help. "Ask them to drink this so they can go on a secret mission for me. If they say no to the loyalty curse there's a good chance we can't trust them. I know it isn't ideal since innocent people would say no as well but if they've been able to get past all of our detection methods we have nothing else to use against them."

Taking the small dark vials from Rigbis Donny tried to think if this was really ok to use as a detection method or not but quickly remembered the fortress had already identified some behavior that made them suspicious so it wasn't like it was out of the blue. "Alright I'll get to work finding the three of them. Is the fortress going to help me find them?"

With a list of names he would have no problems finding the tree people even if the fortress was pretty big. Especially if the fortress knew where he needed to go. It could just fluctuate a small amount of metal mana to lead him directly to them all. "Yeah I'll have it make it easier on you to find them but nothing big because I don't want anyone to notice it helping you."

After Rigbis said this Donny left the room before anyone else returned to hear what the two of them had talked about. As he stepped out he got his first clue which was the floor below his foot moving slightly in the direction of one of the hallways in front of him so he walked towards it guessing that was the direction of the closest of the three people.

A few more turns like this and Donny was walking down a hallway that had rooms people were living in. He thought about stopping to ask about the names on the list but he didn't want anyone knowing he had been looking for the three exact people that were going to go missing. It was unlikely someone would know who lived next to them anyway since they had just gotten these rooms so he was better off relying on the fortress to tell him when he passed the right door or person.

As he was passing the fourth door he felt the floor point him towards the door slightly and stopped before knocking. After a few seconds the door opened and Donny saw a short lady he recognized from his team he and Keel had been in charge of. Looking at the list for the first real time he took the time to read the names before asking. "Can I come in?"

Her name was on the list so he knew he was in the right place. "Sure, what's this about voice captain Donny?" Donny didn't start talking until he was in the room so no one would hear him ask her to drink the loyalty curse. Once the door was closed he started his spiel to see if she was going to live past this meeting or not. "Commander Rigbis asked me to go around and ask people who we think would be useful on a secret mission if they would be willing to take the Loyalty."

Donny could see the unwillingness start to appear on her face and cut her off before she said no and he was forced to get rid of her by saying. "The Temple is able to get rid of it in the future once this is over and there's a heavy reward as well. This isn't really a request either so I'm sorry if I made it sound like you could say no Jehna."

After hearing this any normal person would have about an 80% chance of saying yes so Donny felt alright in killing her if she still refused. "I'm sorry but I can't risk dying on this secret mission. I have a son so even if you have to throw me in a cell I wont drink it."

Donny couldn't help but wish he hadn't let her finish because he knew he would remember the time he had to kill someone who might or might not be a traitor for the rest of his life. His mind was made up though. Using a small amount of mana to open the floor beneath Jehna's feet. She was gone and turned into minced meat before she could make a sound or figure out she was being killed so he hoped the speed at which it happened made it painless.

With her gone he took the time to get rid of her belongings in the same manner so that if anyone came looking for her they would think she had moved rooms for some reason. As he was walking back into the hallway he could tell no one was even paying attention to him leaving and knew no one would ever know what he had just done except for him and Rigbis.