“Claudius, do you still have any charcloth left?” asked Aeneas.

Claudius rifled through his satchel for a few seconds and came out victoriously with his tinder box.

“Excellent!” said Aeneas. “Claudius, light these things up. Lucius, set up our climbing ropes!”

Claudius struck the steel against the flint and lit the charcloth on fire. Then he embedded the charcloth in the twisted rope of one of the ballista’s torsion springs. Meanwhile Lucius had tied their climbing ropes to a crenellation at the edge of the ramparts.

“You two, get out of here now!” said Claudius “I need to finish setting fire to the rest of the springs!”

“I’ll stay and back you up.” said Lucius.

Aeneas made his way over to the ropes and began to climb down the fortress wall. Once he reached the bottom he looked back. The walls of the fort were illuminated with fire from the burning ballistae. Smiling with the success of their mission he looked around taking in his surroundings and then started to make his way back to the camp. Once back at camp Aeneas was so exhausted that the only thing he could think of was sleep. He made his way to his Contubernium’s tent and fell asleep.

When he woke up in the morning he tried to remember why he was so tired. Then it all came rushing back to him. He fell back onto his bedroll as if he was hit by a wave. He remembered all that had happened the previous day- the high risk mission being assigned to him, and how way the mission had gone in an unexpected way.

Then it occurred to him, he needed to see if Lucius and Claudius had come back yet. He wondered if they had made it back safely. He started to become worried for his friends.

He rushed to the tent of the Legate to get the update on his fellow mission members. The tent was guarded by a Praetorian guardsman.

“I need to talk to the Legate at once!” said Aeneas.

The Praetorian popped his head through the tent flap and said a few words that Aeneas couldn’t quite make out. The Praetorian came back out.

“The Legate will see you now” the Praetorian said. Aeneas entered the immense red tent.

“Ave!” said Aeneas to the Legate as he saluted.

“Congratulations on the raid” said the Legate as he returned the salute.

“Have Claudius and Lucius reported back yet?” asked Aeneas.

“Not yet” replied the Legate grimly. “Our watchmen reported two figures climbing down the wall a few minutes after you returned, however they never returned to camp”.

“Have you sent out search parties?” asked Aeneas.

“Yes” replied the Legate. “We found almost no trace of them”

“Almost?” asked Aeneas hopefully.

“All that our scouts recovered was the sheet of paper.” answered the Legate as he picked up a small square of paper off his desk. “It has the legion insignia on it but the rest is in rune script that we don’t recognize”

The Legate passed Aeneas the piece of paper. Aeneas studied it for several minutes.

“Sir, we need to talk.” said Aeneas grimly.