Dragon's Tale 79

I stood still for a moment, not allowing even a muscle to twitch as I carefully grabbed some mana, creating a cloak around my body with great care. Yes, since the active wards were targeted inward, sneaking through them was easier, but that hardly meant it was a trivial achievement. 

The magic field stayed centered on me as I sneaked toward the building. The field had two aims, to create an effect close to invisibility by creating a variable illusion around me that tried to match the background, and to block my magical presence at the same time to prevent the wards from picking the flickers of magic. 

For most mages, maintaining a constant cloak of magic around them, strong enough to prevent detection by wards while also achieving a physical effect would have been exhaustingly challenging, but for me, the only part that was challenging was to suppress my natural magic, keeping it in a level that could be hidden by the cloak. 

Especially when I felt a sudden warmth in my heart, flooding my body like an avalanche of solid fire, begging to be let out. I bit my lips, trying to suppress the sudden surge, considering whether I should go back rather than take such a big risk. 

However, after a while, I decided to continue. I had no idea how long a sudden surge would last, and under the implied blackmail of that mysterious sorceress, delaying the visit was rather ill-advised as well. 

So, I seized the source of my mana, suppressing it to the best of my ability as I continued to walk, a move that was as safe as trying to climb a mountain with my eyes closed, but I didn’t have any other options. Even waiting there until my control got better was not an option. Four guards were still on the window, watching us, and as much as the illusion effect I had cast was convincing, it wasn’t exactly a permanent solution.

Especially with the attention they were displaying.  

Something was really wrong with them, I decided as I threw a glance at them. They were watching the garden carefully, so carefully that they had no signs of boredom. No chitchat, no banter with the other guards, no smoking as a distraction. 

No wonder the other guards were unsettled by their presence. The fact that they were able to maintain such a level of concentration despite not having any reason to do so was not something close to reasonable. 

Unfortunately, that particular mystery had to wait until I could bypass the security. So, I carefully arrived at the edge of the building. 

Interestingly, despite all the protection measures, there were still several windows on the building, allowing me a better access point than the main door, which was no doubt protected by several guards from inside. I couldn’t help but wonder about the reason for that. 

Though, considering it was in the middle of the estate, maybe those windows existed to prevent the building from completely destroying the mood of the garden. It wouldn’t be the first security risk that was created to look better. 

Almost invisible, it wasn’t exactly the biggest challenge to avoid the attention of the guards to arrive at the building. However, as I finally stood next to the wall, I didn’t try breaching through a window immediately. After all, the active wards were still in place, making a breach dangerous.

First, I needed to deal with the observer. 

I pressed my hand against the wall, letting my magic slowly infuse into the mana flow of the ward. It was hardly a simple achievement, requiring a lot of mana and control at the same time, delivered through a careful application. Normally, gathering the required mana to deal with such a big ward was a challenge, but it was when my sudden flare of magic came useful. It was much easier to gather the required mana. 

I stood there almost five minutes, slowly creating an outer later around the ward, thin enough to avoid triggering any kind of alarm, like I was trying to sneakily ride a mad stallion. A mistake, and the whole structure of my spell would collapse against the ward, possibly raising all the alarms in the process. 

But that was a risk I needed to take. 

I was able to create the full web, and with the success, I slowly started to search for the control node, where the unlucky mage responsible for controlling the wards was connecting with the structure. I continued to channel until I found the access point before I started gathering my mana, turning the web into a stab, creating the magical equivalent of a thin needle. 

“Sorry, bud,” I murmured even as I let the spell go, and felt the wards flicker. 

The moment I felt the flicker, I put my hands on the wall, using magic to quickly climb the second floor with the assistance of magic and unlocked an empty window, slipping inside. I had apologized, because what I had done essentially targeted the mind of the controller. I didn’t use a needle as an excuse by accident. It wasn’t a deadly attack, or just a distraction. A magical equivalent of poking someone’s shoulder with a needle to get their attention — through turning a deadly attack when the target was juggling a dozen magical axes. A moment of distraction was enough. The wards would handle the rest. 

I expected him to collapse at a minimum, at that was assuming he stayed alive. Not that I allowed that to slow me down, of course. The more time I spent outside, the more likely it was for the guards to catch my presence. 

Yet, my sudden hurry proved useful, because soon after I had arrived at the room — thankfully empty, used as a storage room filled with guard uniforms — I felt the wards flicker once more, and it turned active once more. “Fuck,” I murmured, and for two reasons. 

First, I was effectively imprisoned inside, because the same trick couldn’t be copied from inside the wards — the whole point of using active wards. 

The second reason, I didn’t expect the mage responsible to regain control that easily, even assuming he managed to avoid all side effects. The much likelier option was to have a second mage waiting in the wings, taking control the moment the first one failed. 

Which was certainly excessive, even to keep a sorceress a prisoner. 

At this point, the answer was not too far away, I decided even as I pulled my magic tighter against my body, letting a sliver slip under the door to work as a detector. I sensed several rooms were occupied with sleeping people, though with a number that surprised me. As I expanded the detection range, I had managed to identify four guards that were watching from the windows, but to make things worse, they weren’t the only ones that were awake. 

Eight other guards were patrolling the corridors, which was another suspicious security choice. Noticing one of those patrols was about to pass near the corridor, I waited in the room, watching from the keyhole, realizing that, even when they were patrolling in the corridors, they were extremely serious, which highlighted their weirdness even more. 

Interesting choice, I thought even as I waited for the guards to pass, using the time to put one of the discarded uniforms on, before lashing into action. Before I started searching for the sorceress, however, I first moved to one of the rooms that the guards were using as barracks — my subtle detection spell still active to prevent any kind of ambush. 

I trusted my battle capabilities, but killing the guards was not an option, because of the sheer number of guards in the building. The number of sleeping guards surprised me. I had expected a few dozens at most, but almost every room was being used as barracks, and I could easily detect hundreds of guards sleeping.

Ominous.  

I timed the movement of the patrols before dashing between hiding spots, until I stood at the entrance of one of the barracks, which allowed me to examine the magical presence in the rooms without using my own magic — which I tried to minimize to stay hidden. 

I found a subtle magical effect in the room filled with sleeping guards. It was not something I had ever seen before, but I was competent enough to understand the general idea behind it. At a glance, it felt like a permanent healing ward, but it wasn’t targeting blood or muscles. It reminded me more of a painkiller spell, but more complicated, targeting the brain in a way I didn’t understand. 

Yet, the lack of emotion the guards displayed, along with their noticeable lack of emotion, suggested quite a bit about the potential effects of the ward. 

How very interesting, I thought as I continued down the corridor. As much as I was interested in the completely novel application of spell, it was too complicated to be unraveled in a few minutes. And I wasn’t exactly in a location to freelance. 

Instead, I started poking around the ward once again, though this time not directly to avoid triggering, trying to find the control location, which, I was unhappy to note, was not above ground. Carefully, I started climbing down the stairs, happy to see that there were no guards between the floors, but that only lasted until I had arrived at the ground floor, only to notice there was only one basement entrance. 

“Damn,” I murmured as I stood at the corner, realizing I needed to do something else. Luckily, I had already changed into the guard uniform, cast an illusion spell on my face to make me look like one of the guards patrolling upstairs, then I went to the entrance once more. 

I walked to the entrance like there was nothing out of the ordinary, ready to unleash a sleeping spell as I passed through the entrance. In a different place, I would have kept the sleeping spell as a precaution, but here, the moment I noticed the first guard opening his mouth, I had cast the spell, distracting all of them at the same time. 

It was not something I wanted, as once they woke up, they might as well be suspicious, but it was the best among the several horrible options. At least, it was not as efficient as killing them.  

The power of the active ward was much stronger in the basement, dancing aggressively enough to make me glad I didn’t try to dig a tunnel inside. Instead, I took a note to identify the location of the control center before I started walking down more — avoiding two more patrols in the process — before I had come across a secondary ward, one that I was able to bypass much easier since it was not an active ward. 

And I had found myself in a cell. A very luxurious cell, but a cell nonetheless, housing the certain sorceress who blackmailed me here, who was still awake. 

“Good morning,” she said as she noticed me, a small smile on her face as the illusion didn’t trick her even for a moment — which, considering she was a sorceress, was hardly shocking.