Sneak in stealthily

“We’re going to sneak in and out, undetected if possible,” Tally hollered back. “Cool!” Quelm grinned, “I’ve never been on a stealth mission before.”

Mi looked betrayed. “What? But my way is better! What’s the point of recruiting me if you’re not going to use my insider knowledge? I’m trying to make things easier for you, Tally…”

“Are you being insubordinate to our master over there, general?” Quelm asked. Mi glared back at her. After a moment’s thought, she rolled her eyes, bit her tongue, and conceded. “Never mind, sorry Tally. Just trying to help.”

Under the cover of darkness, two horses crossed the field towards the camp. The party came to a halt about as close to the building as they dared, and concealed themselves behind a couple of thick trees growing nearby that provided a good marker. The main entrance was around the next corner of the building.

“How do we get in?” Quelm asked.

“Well, I could just walk in the front door…” Mi started, before Quelm reminded her “stealth mission!” Mi took a deep breath.

“There’s a window over there that doesn’t have bars,” Sarah observed, pointing at the only square of light on this side of the prison that wasn’t sliced up with the shadows of metal poles.

“That’ll be the warden’s office, probably,” said Mi.

“That looks like a good place to start then,” Tally said. “We’ll go with that.”

Quelm spent a couple minutes securing the horses to the trunks of the trees so they wouldn’t wander too far, while Mi tried to persuade Sarah to stay behind. “Trust me, you really don’t wanna know what goes on in there…”

“I want to see my grandson,” Sarah insisted.

“Are you sure you’re up to this, though? No offense, but you’re not a young woman…”

“I’m young enough!” Sarah wobbled.

“Guys,” Tally beckoned, “let’s go.” They crept up to the bar-less window, and Tally peered inside. “It’s an office alright,” Tally said, “and there’s no one inside.”

“Stand back, then,” Quelm warned, reaching behind her back for the handle of her axe.

“Stop, stop!” Tally whispered urgently. “We’re supposed to be sneaking in!”

“Oh yeah…” Quelm let go of her axe, disappointed. “Hey, wait a minute… we might not even need to break it. This looks like it was built by humans, right?”

“It’s a captured building,” Mi nodded.

“So they’d only build it strong enough for human standards!” Quelm said. “This’ll be a piece of cake.” She grasped the sides of the window frame with both hands, and slowly prized it out of the wall. There was a sharp cracking and peeling noise, but nothing compared to how loud the glass smashing would have been. Quelm placed the window carefully against the outer wall, and stepped aside to let Tally go first. She gave him a boost to help him climb up into the hole.

“Gaah!” Tally suddenly yelped out loud, and nearly fell back out again. Brim had just jumpscared him by appearing out of nowhere and screaming “boo!” in his face.

“Quiet!” Sarah hissed at him. “What’s the matter?”

“Sorry,” Tally said, “Just…” he racked his brains for a good excuse to have been startled by nothing at all. “Just accidentally let the awareness of my own mortality get to me for a second. Won’t happen again.” Even without turning around, Tally could sense all three of the others exchanging looks as he clambered into the office. The first thing he did was lock the door, then invited the others to follow him in.

“Brim,” Tally whispered, while Mi, Quelm, and Sarah were all distracted climbing over the window frame. “Brim, I need you to not jeopardize everything like that. What if someone heard?”

“I’m a ghost! You can’t expect me not to jump out and say ‘boo’ from time to time. It's good for the soul.”

“I don’t think you’re taking this seriously enough,” Tally scolded.

“Ah, you’ll be fine. If what Mi said about this place is true, yelps and moans are pretty commonplace to hear in this building. Oh! That reminds me, I wanna go see!” Brim ran straight through the wall and out of sight.

The small office was fairly cramped now, with four people in it. It had clearly once belonged to the original warden of this prison, but there had been an attempt to customize it a little by its current occupant. The row of coat hooks on one wall was now being used to hold an ornate decorative sword, over which both Mi and Quelm were fawning together. Hanging behind the desk was a flag, though not belonging to any human nationality.

Sarah hobbled over to the desk and began rifling through the contents of the drawers. “This should be the place to find records,” she said excitedly, “Maybe it’ll tell us where Dave is being held.”

“Dave?” Quelm inquired.

“That’s my grandson’s name.”

“I don’t think those will be much use, Sarah,” Mi told her. “Administration isn’t really our thing. If there are any lists of prisoners in there, they’re probably just leftover from before we took over.”

Sarah closed the drawer and frowned. “How do we find him, then?”

“What we need is someone to interrogate,” Tally mused. Then, with a sound of the lock breaking, the door opened.

Standing in the doorway was presumably the current occupant, trying to enter her office. She looked, gawking, from the people gathered in her personal space rifling through her belongings, to the fresh damage done to her door from opening it while it was locked. Before she had a chance to say anything, Quelm and Mi descended on her, covering her mouth and holding her steady. “Tally! Do your thing, quick,” said Quelm, fighting to keep the warden restrained.

Tally concentrated hard, trying to channel magic into his hand, but felt nothing. Brim was still off on her own somewhere. Brim, Tally thought as vividly as he could manage, I need you! Brim!

Finally, Tally felt the familiar tingle start to build up, and Brim phased back through the wall, grinning sleazily. “Sorry, I was distracted,” she buzzed.

Tally placed his hand on the forehead of the restrained warden, and her struggle immediately subsided. Her eyes rolled back, she went limp in Mi’s and Quelm’s arms. Soon she began laughing uncontrollably as if she were being tickled, and writhing around not with resistance, but with pleasure. Before she knew it, she had become the third member of Tally’s harem.

Mi and Quelm let go of her, and left her to sway on the spot, giddy in the afterglow. Tally noticed the crotch of her pants had become soaked in mere seconds. The power of the supernaturally-induced pleasure was enough to blot out her whole mind for an instant, and she took a moment to emerge out the other side, changed forever.

The warden looked around at Tally, Mi, Quelm, and Sarah, grinning stupidly. “You made me break my door,” she said, then burst into another fit of giggles.

“It’ll take her a few minutes to settle down,” Tally informed them. “Quelm, why don’t you jam the desk chair under the doorknob.”

As Quelm squeezed past Tally in haste to obey, she watched the tipsy warden with some mixture of wonder and embarrassment. Was this what she had been like when Tally did this to her? She couldn’t really remember, that moment had been so fuzzy… Mi, meanwhile, was taking this moment to appreciate the fact that no one had been around watching when she gave into her brainwashing.

“Hey. Hey!” Sarah was reaching up and snapping her fingers in the warden’s face. The warden blinked, trying not to go cross-eyed. She giggled again, quietly.

“We need you to help us find one of your prisoners,” Sarah said, slowly and clearly. The warden blinked again. “No,” she turned up her nose, “I don’t take orders from humans.”

“Let me try,” Tally said, and took Sarah’s place. “We need you to help us find one of your prisoners,” Tally said, repeating what Sarah had said word for word. This time, the warden smiled even wider.

“Okay,” she agreed. She reached out and booped Tally’s nose. “I like you…”