Ludwig began thinking up a plan on how to proceed, but regardless of what he does, he cannot move as long as the champion is still inside the lizardmen base. He kept his eyes peeled to see if he could find any more advantages.
For now, he was standing on top of a small cliff overlooking the entirety of the lake, it wasn’t steep enough to be any risky and was just high enough that he couldn’t be spotted. It will take him about ten seconds to climb down, but what next?
From his left side, he could go all the way down behind the brushes and get to the two captured students. But he couldn’t set them free immediately, since they had heat signatures of their own, they’ll be easy prey. Ludwig, being a cold dead skeleton didn’t have any, and it was the closest thing to stealth and invisibility he could get against these Lizardmen.
As for the cave, the two, champion and the queen who seemed to want to have some more private time together. Well, at least the female Lizardman was, the Champion was unmoving in front of all her attempts to drag him back to produce more lizardmen, but his gaze was focused on the horizon that just turned fully dark.
The champion hissed more times and shoved the Queen away, he pulled up his spear from right next to the cave and howled almost, a mix of a screech and hiss with a deeper tone.
The lizardmen around him all stood up, their gait slow and steady, and their eyes focused on the champion who hissed one last time and then bolted forward.
Of the ten or so lizardmen, eight of them rushed behind the champion, leaving only two lizardmen who stood guard around the desolate looking base.
‘Good,’ Ludwig thought, but that was only for his personal situation. After all the direction the champion was heading to was the base of the nobles.
Ludwig deep down didn’t want useless harm to happen upon the students, especially the group that was with him. But he couldn’t be too magnanimous and empathetic towards them. They refused to listen to him, and now they’ll reap what they sow.
‘Sometimes having this non-emotion thing works.’ Ludwig thought.
He knew, that he ‘needed’ to feel something for his classmates being decimated by monsters. But no matter how he tried, he just couldn’t help it. There was nothing in his heart, though he had no heart.
Ludwig began enacting his plan, which was pretty simple, he immediately ran down the cliff making sure to be as quiet and stealthy as possible.
[You gained {Low Presence}]
The notification scared Ludwig as it popped out of nowhere.
He quickly glanced at its content.
[{Low Presence} passively decrease your presence and lowers the attention of all entities in your immediat surrounding of yourself.
‘Usable,’ Ludwig muttered, though it wasn’t a [Stealth] skill, it was still a good thing to have, and was useful in this situation.
Ludwig had reached the ground level and was right behind a low bush, the two lizardmen had been doing small walks to survey the surrounding, but they didn’t venture too far off the cave. At least they didn’t approach the side with the prisoners.
Ludwig glanced their way, they were awake now, seems like the cry of the Champion. They were trying to find a way out but the cage they were stuck in looked too sturdy to break. The two of them were also tightly bound with ropes.
Ludwig approached the cave stealthily, making sure to keep his eyes peeled for all and any dumb cliché twigs and crusty tree leaves that create too much noise.
Once he reached the cage, “Hey.”
The two students were startled but they didn’t cry out or anything.
“What are you doing here?” one of them asked, she was a short-haired girl, who looked to be about the same age as Ludwig, she had a gash on her thigh that was covered with some makeshift bandages.
The other person was a frail-looking noble who seemed too terrified to speak.
“You’re the scout guy, also what’s up with that mud all over you?” she said.
“Yes, I’ll tell you in a bit, but keep your voice down, tell me why didn’t you get out?” Ludwig asked.
“How?” she asked.
“Well, did you forget that you’re a student of the Black Tower Academy? You could have set this cage on fire…”
“Yeah, we tried that, and this is the reward,” she pointed at her thigh, “They hate fire.” She said.
‘More like it makes them blind because it’s bright.’
“Right, come closer, let me remove those ropes,” Ludwig said as he brandished the ceremonial sword.
“Then what, the cage is too tough to break, It’ll make too much noise,” she said.
“These logs are also bound by rope, all you need to do is cut it,” Ludwig said as he separated the ropes by slicing through them with the sword.
“Listen,” Ludwig said as he pushed one of the logs making the cage to the side and leaving a small opening that they could crouch under and leave. “The lizardmen are basically blind unless you have a heat signature. So you see that bunch of mud there from the lake waters,” Ludwig said as he pointed at a soggy-looking patch of dirt near the cage.
“Cover yourselves in it, and don’t give me the ‘I’m a noble’ I can’t do that, or talk about stupid dignity and shit, you’ll die if you don’t do it,” Ludwig explained.
“No point in crying about honor if all is left is bones, you heard him Tommy, we’ll use the mud, get dirty,” the girl said, “What about you?” she asked.
“Me? Oh I’ll go check on the boss and see what’s up, you guys need to lay low for the moment once you leave the cage the lizardmen will go on a frenzy trying to find you,” Ludwig advised.
“You’re using us as bait?” the frail-looking noble said.
He wasn’t completely wrong, “You rather stay here then?”
The boy stuttered but couldn’t find a reply.
“Be a good lad and go after you camouflage yourself a bit,” Ludwig peered over to the cave. The next part of this plan is going to be difficult.