The Insider System

Chapter 240: Stopping The Leak

Lake had been swinging his sword for an hour already and was starting to feel like he needed a break. Of course if he kept taking breaks he would never get done so he just put the thoughts of going to do something else in the back of his mind and kept going.

Slicing forward again Lake felt a wet spray hit his face and thought he had somehow hit someone with his sword when he realized what had actually happened. He had hit a source of water. Realizing how big of a problem this could be, Lake tried to think of a way to fix what he had just done because water was already starting to shoot out of the wall.

"I should have been more careful." Thinking about it now Lake could have foreseen this if he hadn\'t had to keep himself from thinking to make this bearable. Thankfully he had taken so many breaks that he hadn\'t gotten too far yet so even if he had to restart it would only be eight or so hours lost.

Having no way of stopping this that he could think of without getting more information on what he had hit, Lake turned Detector to look for water. Seeing the stream in the wall he was pretty sure he had hit a water pipe and he decided he could probably stop the leak by blocking the pipe further up.

Digging parallel to the pipe for about ten feet or so Lake dug above it and was about to start cutting to collapse the top to block it when he wondered if this was the pipe that brought water to everyone below. It was extremely unlikely that this was the only one but he wouldn\'t be surprised if this was the water for an entire tier of the city.

It would be bad if he was responsible for an entire tier to die of dehydration. He guessed he didn\'t have to leave it blocked. Once he and anyone else got through to the surface he could come back and undo any damage he caused to the pipe. Leaving the water blocked for a day wouldn\'t kill anyone.

Cutting down into the pipe, Lake ignored the splash of water and kept slicing until a large chunk of stone fell down. Seeing the water continue to flow past the blockage, Lake was about to cut more to block it completely when he decided to go look at the flow of water where he was digging to see if this had slowed the flow of water enough that he could leave it like this.

Looking at the leak Lake was happy leaving this much water leaking out if it meant he could keep working and that he didn\'t have to ever worry about unblocking the pipe. With that problem fixed Lake dug around the pipe by going back down his tunnel a bit and slightly changing his direction.

Like this Lake didn\'t have to worry about the rubble not falling down the tunnel. That was really the most important thing about the way he was digging because if he had to start carrying stuff out of the tunnel he would never finish because he would quit. He could barely handle how tedious this process was now.

...

Seeing the entrance to the Light Domain Tiff breathed out in relief. Even with the Temple Head protecting them it had been stressful especially with the Temple Head saying things like, "It\'s too easy." or, "Why aren\'t there more? There were supposed to be more." Hearing things like that made you wonder if something was wrong.

It seemed they had just overestimated how much the Demon Worshipers cared about a little trip home to the Light Domain. That or they hadn\'t really realized who was going to the Light Domain thinking it was just a normal messenger exchange. They had sent plenty of people to kill a simple messenger.

"Don\'t think we\'re safe just because we\'re in the Light Domain. Demon Worshipers are everywhere these days." It seemed the Temple Head didn\'t think they were through the trouble just yet. "Are you saying the Demon Worshipers plan to attack us on the other side of the gate? That doesn\'t make sense."

Dawn was right, it would make it a lot harder on the Demon Worshipers to attack them once they crossed over to the other side of the gate. "You shouldn\'t try to hold your enemies up to logic if there is hate involved." Tiff knew there were deep grudges between the two sides and the Temple Head was saying the Demon Worshipers were willing to do anything if they got to kill a Holy magic user but why make it harder on themselves when they could just attack with a couple of giants now.

Once they were through the Gate Tiff saw the Temple Head walk towards one of the buildings that made up what you could call a town that the guards and people that passed through or were waiting to pass through stayed at night. "Why are we going inside?"

"I Figured we should stay here till I can have some scouts look at the road we\'ll be taking. We keep a few people here at all times to have them keep watch on who and what passes through so I was going to ask them to do it?"

"You mean people other than the guards for the gate?"

"Yes, the people I\'m talking about are much more useful than a normal guard." As they walked in all Tiff saw were normal people wearing nothing that would tell you they worked for the temple but the Temple Head seemed to know who she wanted to talk to right away because she walked over and sat down at a table with two men.

"Hello, how\'s it going?" This sounded like small talk but if two people were important this question could be really important. "Ok, we had to stop twice this week though and that\'s never happened to us before." Tiff would have loved to ask what they had to stop but she could tell they were talking in a way that no one would know what they were talking about on purpose.

They didn\'t seem to be trying to hide their identities though because they were talking to the Temple Head out in the open and it was very obvious to everyone who she was. That was probably why everyone was staring at them and had been since they had entered. "It will probably stay that way for a while but as long as you keep on it it doesn\'t matter. Well listen I need you to do something for me. One of our friends never showed up and I need you to go and see if you can find them."

What they were talking about was a little more obvious to Tiff this time but it was misleading enough that you wouldn\'t know if you weren\'t aware of what the Temple Head was worried about or what they were doing. Seeing the two men head out of the building Dawn was about to talk but the Temple Head beat her to it.

"We should know in a few hours if they\'re still around. Do you two want anything to eat?" Tiff was hungry but she knew Dawn would say yes first and she would just be able to nod in agreement. "You think they have stewed greens? I haven\'t had food from the Light Domain in a while and it was my favorite back when I was living in the Light Temple."

Tiff had never really cared about what she was eating so she was fine with this so when the Temple Head looked at her she nodded that that\'s what she wanted as well. "Ok, I\'ll ask if they have it." As soon as the Temple Head got up from the table Dawn started to talk. "Man, those two from earlier were something. It would take me 100 arrows to hit them once."

Dawn had a skill that told her how likely it was someone would dodge or block her attacks and it took all factors into consideration like skills, spells, and stats so it wasn\'t uncommon for someone to have a good chance but 99% wasn\'t ever seen on normal people. "I can see why they\'re here then."

This was an important place to keep an eye on because the Demon Worshipers loved to try to sneak through so it made perfect sense for the Temple to keep two heavy hitters here to keep any from leaking into the Light Domain. "They said they had it. It\'ll be ready in a few minutes." As soon as the Temple Head finished talking and sat down the silence of the trip returned like it had never been gone.

Thankfully Dawn was here so it didn\'t stay like that for long. "What\'s that spell you used to block earlier?" The Temple Head shook her head and said. "Not a spell, I made it with my own mana so I could see which spell did the most damage to it."

"You wanted to kill the most dangerous first, right?" The Temple Head nodded and Dawn asked another question. "So how hard is it to keep that much mana stable without a formation?" The Temple Head looked a little troubled before she said. "I don\'t think it will be possible for either of you for another 40 years."

Tiff actually felt like she was being nice with this estimate or at least of her. Dawn definitely was better at magic than her so 40 years for her was 20 for Dawn. That being said Tiff didn\'t think she would ever have been able to do anything like that no matter how hard she tried if it wasn\'t for what was about to happen to her when they got to the Temple.