The Alchemists were dressed in dark cloaks, spells for camouflage and distraction coating the threads to give them their best chance of success. It was one thing to break into the royal palace to release a prisoner, but it was quite another thing entirely to do it without taking any precautions for their continued existence as being marginalized only by their own people and not be hunted as wanted criminals by the royal family and all of the fire-breathing dragons associated with them.
The group made quick work of the door, smearing a putty across it that quickly burned through the surface. A spell still blocked the entrance even once the first barrier was gone, however, so they quickly had to figure out a way to break it. The group looked at the only unarmed member and called for Greta to come forward. A goggled Alchemist stepped up to the entrance and threw a green powder at the invisible barrier. It smoked at first and the others looked at it in alarm, but she calmly explained that dragon spells had a tendency to run hot but her powder could still work perfectly fine. It slowly cooled as promised and individual glyphs and numbers appeared in green typeface like a sheer screen. She stroked her chin, looking at the icons and muttering to herself, then she pulled a small, charm shaped like a door off a chain filled with other tiny doors on her wrist and slapped it on the spell. "I think this backdoor is exactly what we need to get past this particular spell," she said. The letters of the spell flickered uneasily and some of them started to break into pieces before the spell gave up, and the letters washed away to fill the entire spell screen a deep green with an error message popped up on it. She poked at the message and dragged it away, and finally the spell dissolved fully and they were able to break through.
They walked into the cell. She was still curled under the covers of the bed, moping, and hardly noticed them come in. The invisibility and silence spells had done their job a little too well.
"Hey, Alyss," Darien called out to her. He poked her in the side as he had done so many times before at home. Sadly, it wasn't working on her there.
"Hey! Wake up! We are running against the clock here!"
She groaned and turned over in bed. The retrieval team looked at each other, then silently came to an agreement. They yanked out the covers, and she tumbled out of the bed.
"Whazzamatter with you," she demanded of them, bleary eyed. They hushed her and shoved a bundled of clothes at her, which she reluctantly put on. "You aren't any good at magic so we made a look--away suit for you, but you'll still have to be quiet and do your best to be sneaky to help it do better. No one had time to weave spell threads so all you've got is a jumpsuit that had the spell put on top of it. It isn't an ideal solution, but it will have to do for now."
She grumbled and showed her agreement, and they went out. Two of the Alchemists had to hold her by the arms and haul her out, but eventually she woke up and became cognizant enough to realize they were trying to help her escape, so she became more obedient and started to actively participate in her escape. They padded along through the exit to her chamber and sneaked through the prince's private chambers that were attached to them. They made lefts and rights and opened door after door, but somehow none of the doors or rooms were the way Alyss remembered them from her earlier tour, and she was no help to them at all in trying to navigate out of there. Finally, they stopped in a minimally furnished sitting room where they could clearly see the door they had come in from moving. Alyss ran to it and frantically opened it, again and again, and always it spit out into another room marked with the prince's round seal of a red dragon encircled by three red dots on a white field. There was no mistaking it, none of the doors they had used so far or were likely to find would ever let them leave Aeron's apartments within the palace, let alone the palace itself.
The spell cracker walked up to the enchanted door and went to work cracking its security. Unlike the repurposed guest apartments Alyss had stayed in, however, this was the heart of the prince's private quarters and he demanded the utmost security in his own rooms to reduce the risk of malcontents rushing him while he was relaxing in his pajamas. This door did not appreciate having someone try to spell crack it, and it made its upset known by releasing a blaring alarm that was projected through all of the palace grounds. Greta slapped her backdoor on to the protesting door and it finally killed the alarm, in the process revealing that the actual entrance with the spell removed opened onto a hallway they needed to get out. They started running along it.
Alyss had forgotten to warn them of the golem cupboard, however. When they passed by it, the golems stored inside turned on and activated their intruder alert sequence, which was even louder than the door's.
The Alchemists looked at each other in alarm. Alyss was the first to dash forward again. "What are you doing? Run!"
The alarms rang in their ears as the rest of them rushed forward after her. The security systems in the halls had been activated and darkness was everywhere, pierced by frequent points of light popping up and moving around the place to disorient them. They pumped their legs and their arms and pushed to go faster and further as they started to hear the sound of a set of feet pursuing
