Chapter 291 Hope at the end of the tunnel

The guards led Dave to a large three stories building. There were a few city guards moving in and out of the building. Criminals were led in chains inside the building. Thankfully, the guards didn’t put any handcuffs one Dave.

The captain led Dave into a small square room. There was a table and two seats in the room. Quite similar to the interrogation rooms in police stations.

The captain gestured for Dave to take a seat, while he sat across from him.

"Am I entitled to a lawyer?" Dave asked jokingly.

"I don’t know what a lawyer is, but I ask the questions here." The guard took a bracelet that had a white diamond in and asked Dave to put it on.

"What’s your name?" the guard asked.

"Kis’ Shtiengbrah," Dave replied. The diamond on his bracelet shone in green light.

Dave understood that this was some sort of lie detector. He had to be careful of what he says.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Nodding the captain asked again, "What’s your purpose for coming here?"

This was a tough question, Dave’s reason in coming here was to capture the city.

"Listen, captain. I don’t know what’s going on in this city, but I really don’t understand why am I being interrogated about why I am here, instead of the fight that happened before." Dave said.

The captain realized that Dave was trying to dodge the question so he said, "We will get to that later, now tell me why are you here?"

"I came here to make some profits and also do some sight-seeing," Dave said.

He wasn’t lying, it was true that he cape to make profits, profits out of the city by killing the king, and sightseeing as in understanding the layout of the city and weak points to abuse for his conquest.

The jewel shone a bright green. Dave wasn’t lying. He smirked that his stunt worked.

"Very well, now tell me what happened exactly, and why did you kill that man."

"Well, I was minding my own business when that man assaulted me. He came at me with a weapon, and I defended myself."

"Defended yourself and ended up killing him?"

"Well, I was really angry, and it was dark, so you know," Dave tried his best to give vague answers not to trigger the lie detector. And it worked beautifully as the green light confirmed his words.

The captain asked Dave several more questions that he dodged beautifully and let him off after giving an apology for the lack of security.

Dave walked out of jail and took grumpy with him. Moving through the city, he heard a grunt from a dark alleyway. It was Bud.

"Bud, you’re back. What did you find out?" Dave asked.

"Pyramid, guarded well. I, can’t enter. Need more information." Bud said.

There wasn’t much information that Dave could take from that. Looking around, Dave saw a large library in one of the street corners.

"Bud, go back and see if you can find anything else. I’ll also look for more information."

Dave left grumpy ’parked’ in the street and entered the library.

There were thousands of books neatly placed on the shelves lining the library walls. A dark-skinned man was tending to the library.

"What can I do for you, costumer?" the librarian asked.

"I am new to the city. It looks like a great and ancient place so I thought to see if there are any good books to read regarding the history of the Pharaoh’s Crypt."

"I am sorry sir, but books related to the history of our city are highly classified. You will need to show me a high level of clearance for me to show you those books."

Dave took out the token from his inventory and asked, "Is this high enough?"

The librarian’s eyes widened before he hastily said, "Give me a second."

He went looking for some books and came with a collection of books from all sizes and colors.

Putting them on the desk, the librarian said, "Here are the books related to the construction of the city. Its history, rituals, and past. I apologies, I didn’t know that there were human generals in his greatness’s army."

"Yeah, I get that a lot, but even humans can become generals if they are strong enough," Dave said.

The token was a general’s in the Ash King’s army. Dave knew he was at a lot of risk for exposing it too many times. But he needed the information regarding the pyramid. And this was the quickest way for him to obtain them.

Dave took the books and began reading.

The contents of the book were mostly regarding war, and the construction and how this city came under the power of the Ash King.

But there were some tiny bits of info that he found quite interesting.

The Cindered, as the book calls them are the race inhabiting the Pharaoh’s Crypt. They were once a free city. Living alone and traded with all the powers in the Underworld. They were prominent in magic scroll making. Their greatest magician, someone that they all called The Pharaoh had created something called the Forbidden Chapter. A book of great power that can bend the worlds law to their advantage.

Dave read through other chapters. They described the power behind every chapter and how they were used. The Forbidden Chapters could litteraly create miracles making what seemed to be impossible quite possible. Dave found various information regarding these scrolls, it gave him a better understanding of the magic this city was capable of.

Even as a neutral city, the power behind the Forbidden Chapter made the Pharaoh City, now called the Pharaoh’s Crypt a target for the Ash King’s Greed.

The Ash King attacked the city ages ago and managed to obtain the Forbidden Chapter after slaying the Pharaoh. But the death of the Pharaoh didn’t mean the end of the Forbidden Chapters creation. A portion of magicians that knew the old pharaoh had escaped with the knowledge to make these powerful scrolls and were making them and spreading them all over the world. Out of spite, they didn’t wish for the Ash King to hoard this power and wanted to give it for all to use.

Dave went to read another book. It talked about the pyramid and its construction. It acted not only as the city’s center but also was used to control the sphynx living outside. The sphynx was a creature that was used for war and needed to be fed constantly. The new king, appointed by the Ash King to rule the Pharaoh’s crypt fed the Sphynx regularly. It was fed the very people of this city.

Dave frowned when he rad the last line. The people of this very city weren’t a threat to the undead legion. It was the ruler and his minnows.

’This’ll make it much easier now. I won’t have to kill anyone else but the puppet the Ash King is using as a ruling proxy.’

Dave read more of the books, one of them gave a detailed description of the construction of the pyramid. A good piece of information caught Dave’s eyes. The inside of the pyramid was like a separate space. It was big enough to hold an army inside. His undead army.

"Now, I just need a way to get to this puppet king." Dave closed the book and handed them back to the librarian.

"Thanks a lot for the books."

"No worries, the librarian said," He sounded a bit nervous, Dave caught on but ignored it for the moment.

Just as he walked out of the library, he saw a dozen of guards standing in waiting for him. Their weapons were drawn.

"Don’t make any sudden moves!" The captain said.

"Hey, I thought we went over all that murder thing?"

"This is not about that, Fake General!"

’Oh shit,’ Dave looked back. The librarian must have informed the city guards about the token. It was only a matter of time before he got caught.

’Damn, I should have taken the books and left as soon as I could.’

"Now, come with us. His Majesty wishes to see you."

"Huh? Say what now?"

"Yes, his majesty wants to know how you obtained General Borak’s Token, I advise you to cooperate, otherwise you will be fed to the Sphinx at the gates," The captain said.

Ironically, Dave wanted to get to the puppet king, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to do so.