Chivalrous

Chapter Fifty-Two - By the Sea

"What are they hiding other than themselves?" Xiao asked.

"The maidens, of course." The priest laughed and shook his head. "After all this time, you still don't know what they are doing? The Ravens are ravaged with a disease that needed the blood of Xenon maidens to cure."

"What?" Xiao interrupted.

The priest looked at him smugly. "That's right. Their place of operation is Fisher Island. And of course, there are trials taking place on the maidens, too. It's quite gruesome."

"Who owns the place?" Xiao asked.

"The doctor there is called William Freyer. As for who owns the place, I believe the Anlang Sect."

Xiao fumed. "Them again. How long has this been happening? How many maidens were killed?"

"They dispose of the maidens into the sea without counting it," the priest said. "But I don't think it's been a lot."

Xiao clenched his teeth hard. "Well, how do I get into the pagoda and save them all?"

"All you can do now is to wait until your military and the other knights come. There are too many of them. As for the pagoda, it has traps virtually everywhere. The stairs leading to the pagoda, for example, have traps on the even numbered steps. Then the actual stairs in the pagoda has traps on all the steps so you have to go up by the railing - "

"Then how do the bandits get up and down?" Xiao asked. 

"They don't. It's only the doctor and sometimes an assistant that goes up and down. They can walk around the pagoda blindfolded."

Xiao didn't know whether or not to trust the priest. "So if they took a maiden, they would put them in the pagoda where the doctor lives. And the rest?"

"They will live on the island. There are houses there."

"How good is the doctor at fighting?"

"Extraordinary. Especially with other bandits around."

Xiao nodded. "And do you know the pagoda well?"

The priest grinned crookedly. "I know it well enough. In fact," he rummaged around his bag and pulled out a scroll of paper bundled up, "I have a map of the place."

Xiao snatched the scroll over and spread the pieces of paper out. Sure enough, there were diagrams of different stories of the pagoda - five in all. "And the yard?" Xiao asked.

The priest's grin faded a little and he pulled out another piece of paper. Xiao glared at him before taking that too. The maps were detailed, curtailing every corner of the pagoda. True to the priest's words, there were traps everywhere. Arrows shot out of every single door opened and rotary boards on stairs and random parts of the floor. There were also pits in the yard. In addition to all that, on the top level, the ground could be opened up with a lever and that led to a pit in the basement where anyone standing on the floor would fall into a net and would be shot at with arrows dipped in poison.

When Xiao finished examining the map, he looked at the priest quizzically. "How did you manage to get all this down from one visit?"

The priest cackled. "I took this from the designer of the pagoda, of course. Don't ask who or where he is, he's dead now."

Xiao's eyes widened. "You killed him?"

The priest grinned. "Well, that's that. What else do you need to know?"

Xiao bit his lips to suppress his anger. "Draw me a map of the island itself."

"I have a map of that too."