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Ch 73 The Treasury? Part 1
🕑 Added 2024-10-20 16:40:17 +0000 UTC"So are we going up or down?" Oberyn asked curiously while casually tapping his spear against his shoulder.
They were inside the caste at the moment, standing in front of two stone staircases with walls on both of its sides boxing it in, the one on the right was going up while the one on the left had steps leading down.
The path the three had taken to reach here had been a complete breeze, as they had encountered not a single pirate on the way.
This probably meant that the clean-up by the young ones was going smoothly, though from the intermittent screams they heard now and then... it seemed that it was still an ongoing process.
"Well... our target is probably somewhere on the upper floors, but..." Jon answered before moving to the left stairs, "Before we go for him, I need to pick up a friend... so let's go down first."
'Pick up a friend?' Oberyn mouthed the question at Gared with a confused look on his face, but the Sellsword Captain just shrugged in answer before following after his young client.
They went down two flights of stairs before they reached the first lower floor, but one look into the corridor revealed that it was a complete dead zone.
There were blood stains all over the floor and dead pirates were lying here and there in front of every other door along the corridor, but the absence of any kind of sound made it very clear that this floor had already been 'cleared' by their advanced team and that they would find no one here.
"Hmm, not this one..." Jon said barely stopping in his steps as he went down the stairs once again and as they had expected only a few steps down they began to hear loud shouting and banging sound coming from the floor, signalling that a fight was probably still going on there.
After a quick glance at each other, Gared decided to take the lead as he was the most well-armoured amongst them.
And it turned out to be a good precaution as the moment the sellsword was on the last step, a spear lunged at his face like a snake from around the corner making him instantly back up...
But fortunately, it didn't turn into a battle from there... as when the assailant finally revealed herself, she turned out to be from their side.
"Oh, it's you, people," Obara said in a mildly surprised tone while lowering her spear.
She was wearing leather armour filled with nicks and cuts, and the colour of the leather had also turned to a muddy brown because of all the pirate blood she had spilt. Her short hair was in disarray and the dried blood on her face implied that she had taken a blow to her nose.
One wouldn't be able to guess that she was the daughter of a prince in a hundred years considering her current condition.
"Obara! How are you doing?" Jon asked, in a tone that was far too cheerful as he came down the stairs.
"Umm, fine." The sand snake answered while looking at Jon strange look on her face, for asking that question considering the circumstances.
"So how goes the clean up?" Oberyn asked as he came to stand beside his daughter.
"As good as it could go, I suppose," Obara answered while wiping a hint of blood from her face, "We faced some resistance on the previous floor with pirates laying ambushes inside a few rooms, but it wasn't anything a few fully armoured sellswords couldn't handle so we were able to clear it with nothing but a few small injuries."
"And this one?"
"Well, we cleared most of this floor easily too, but at the end... we hit a snag," she answered with a somewhat frustrated look on her face, "In fact, that was why I was on my way up to call for you, as we were stuck here and it doesn't look like there would a solution very soon..."
"What snag?" Gared asked with a curious look on his face.
Their victory over the pirates was absolute, they had almost completely annihilated the enemy and except for a few of the younger pirates, number around thirty, who had surrendered and were spared on Jon's orders, there wasn't supposed to be any significant force left on this side, so he was confused about the difficulty Obara had encountered.
"It will be better for me to just show you," she said before turning around and leading the way into the castle corridor.
Gared and Jon looked at Oberyn in confusion but Dornishman just shrugged and followed after his daughter.
They passed room after room with some having their doors broken, some were empty while others had a few dead pirates inside them.
Most of the rooms on this floor seemed to have consisted of a living room with blankets lying around inside as if each small room had been stuffed with a dozen people.
It was only at the end of the corridor that they finally understood the snag that Obara was talking about.
Right in front of them was the final room of the corridor and standing in front of a wide door were ten fully armoured sellswords making the loud banging sounds that they had been hearing so far.
The sellswords were standing in front of the huge sturdy door made of old hardy wood that looked to have been reinforced with iron plating and were taking turns coming up with ways to break through the door but didn't seem to be having any luck so far.
Some were trying to hack with their axe, while others tried to use their hammer, and a few others were trying to bang their way in using a cylindrical make-shift pillar that they had been using as a door breaker so far.
"This is the snag that I was talking about..." Obara explained the obvious, "It is a solid fucking door. We have been at this for almost fifteen minutes but have barely made a dent in the door..."
"Oh! Commander, you're here."
"Hmm..." Gared nodded at the sellswords who immediately stopped what they were doing and made way for the leader, "Perhaps instead of going for the door, It will be easier if we can break the surrounding rock and get to the hinges from the side..."
"If you say so," Obara replied with a shrug, "But from the sounds that I heard coming from inside, it seems like quite a large group is holding on in there, so even if we break in we will need a lot more than just the people currently here..."
'Huh? Were there still that many pirates left alive?' Gared mused but before he could voice his question out loud, Jon suddenly left their group and began walking towards the door confusing all the ones standing there.
"Tell me, have you tried talking to them?" Jon asked with a mischievous smile on his face, "You know... asked them to kindly open the door?"
"Oh, No! Why didn't we think of that?" she said sarcastically while rolling her eyes, "We could have us a lot of time if we had just asked nicely instead of spending so long breaking all those doors before this..."
"You never know... After all, being polite never hurts anyone," Jon said with an amused expression while raising his hand to knock on the door, "Good evening! I am Jon Snow. Can you please open the door?"
For a few seconds, every single person just stood there with a dumbfounded look on their faces then one after the other, all of them burst out laughing.
Most of the sellswords were trying to make a token effort to suppress their laughter since Jon was their client, but Obara, Oberyn and Gared had no such reservation and were laughing heartily.
"Pfft! You don't really think that the pirates inside know your name, do you?" Obara said while trying to control her laughter, "I hate to burst your bubble, Jon but I don't think you're quite that famous yet—" but the rest of her words got stuck in her throat and her eyes widened comically as all of them suddenly heard the unmistakable clicking sound of someone opening the door from the other side.
"Wha-How-Oi! Get back!" Obara shouted in an urgent tone while raising her spear, "There could be an ambush on the other side!"
"Don't worry about it," Jon replied with not a hint of worry on his face, "Everything's fine."
"What?! What are you—"
But it was too late by then as the door was already being opened.
