The place was dark, with only a few oil lamps attached to the tunnel walls to provide illumination. Damian was glad he had the ring that improved his senses, so his vision was decent in the dark.
'What is she doing here?' he wondered.
Natasha walked with a confidence that suggested she knew the place well. It didn't look like her first time. But Damian wasn't surprised. She had turned into a suspicious person after asking for the keys, saying that they belonged to her and no one else.
Damian followed her closely, not wanting to lose sight of her. But he didn't get too close, as he didn't want her to notice him, even with his invisibility cloak.
At first, the mines were empty. There were no tools or signs of recent activity. It was abandoned, so why was Natasha here?
Anyone seeing her would think she was up to no good, and Damian was no different. Natasha kept glancing over her shoulder, making sure no one was following her.
'What is this feeling?' she thought, staring behind her longer than usual.
Something inside her was telling her something, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. Damian was starting to get nervous when she turned around and looked directly at him.
'Did she see me?' he wondered.
He was about to attack her if things went bad, but she turned around again, not realizing anyone was there. The fact that she had stared in his direction was probably just a coincidence.
At the end of the tunnel was a door. It was made of wood and had something that looked like a garland hanging from it. A strange thing to have in a place like this.
Natasha knocked on the door three times in a rhythmic pattern. It was clear that this was a code for the person inside to know it was her.
"I'm going in," she said, pushing the door open.
Damian watched from a distance as Natasha entered the room. It looked like a bedroom, and there was a woman lying on the bed, looking sick.
'Who is that?' Damian thought.
The woman on the bed had a similar face to Natasha, and her hair was blue as well. Damian hadn't realized it at first, but she looked a lot like the person he was supposed to kidnap.
'Is it her? No way!' he thought.
He could go in and try to reason with them, or maybe even fight Natasha and win. But what would that gain him? He had to kill Miller, the leader of the Snowheart family, first. That was his priority. Doing something stupid here would only jeopardize his identity.
'I'll stay here for a while,' he thought. 'There's no need to rush things.'
He turned and left.
Damian could stay to listen to their conversation, but it seemed the woman in the bed was very sick, barely speaking, so there wasn't much he would get from their conversation anyway.
There were other things for Damian to focus on, like finding what was behind the other locked doors, and looking for a way out after killing Miller.
He continued his exploration of the locked doors, and almost all of them had corpses, with the exception of two doors.
One of these doors was close to Miller's room, meaning the security there was higher. Damian only managed to open the door and peak what was inside, but exploring it would require more preparation.
'The treasure room!' he thought.
A room filled with treasures! That was a good place to stop by right before leaving the place. As for the other door, what was behind was unexpected, yet exactly what Damian needed!
'There's a cave!' he thought.
It was more like a river passing down the castle. Damian did not follow it but he was almost one hundred percent sure it would lead him outside!
'This might be the escaping route I was looking for!' Damian thought.
The only problem was that the door was far from the throne room, meaning it was also far from the treasure room. Damian wanted to make a stop there and grab the items, but if that meant his life was in danger, then he would not go.
But there was still a long time before his departure, so there was no reason to overthink those things. Damian returned to his bedroom after exploring everything, and tried to get a decent night of rest.
On his way back, a feeling started to grow within him. It was like his instincts were trying to tell him something. So, being the careful person that Damian was, he did not destroy his slime clone but let it sleep in one side of the bed, while he slept on the other side, using his invisibility cloak to hide his body.
It was a little silly if one thought about it, but Damian was not the type of person to ignore his instincts.
In the middle of the night, around 3 am, Damian heard something. A noise coming from his door! The door's handle slowly moved, and a mysterious person walked in.
Damian tried to see its face, but it was impossible because he was covered by his invisibility cloak, and the other person had a hood as well.
'Will it try to kill me?' he wondered.
The hooded person did not take out a knife, but a flask with a green liquid in it!
Damian watched everything as the person hid the flask inside his room in a place he often did not search. The perfect hiding spot. The person left right after.
He grabbed the flask using his mind powers — he did not want to leave any marks on it — and smelled, realizing it was most likely poison.
'Is this person trying to frame me? What is going on here?'
Damian was not liking how things were going, and if someone was trying to frame him, then a crime would soon occur!