Testing My Luck in the New World

As the minutes steadily dragged on, we maintained a brisk pace through the tunnel to conserve our stamina. With surprise on our side, patience became our greatest weapon. We’d never sneak up on anyone panting like we had just sprinted here.

The glowing ball of Fairy’s Light blinked above my head and slowly faded away before a darkness so deep, even the night sky couldn’t hope to match it.

I fell back against a wall and quietly recast the spell just as Mana caught up to me. After throwing up another set of support beams, I opened my map menu to check our position. The world map itself didn’t change to show I discovered it, but if my compass and the markers were correct, we were only a few feet away from the base of the fort.

I closed my menu and cast Material Destruction again. In a blink, yet another block of soil vanished, as did a chunk of the fort wall’s foundation stone.

Damn… Elane’s good. Even when she could barely see the thing, her directions were still perfect.

“We’re here, Mana. As soon as my spell cuts out, we’re digging up.”

“Big Bro, why didn’t we just teleport to the fort?” she asked, kneeling beside me. “If we’re going to the bottom of the wall anyways, why not teleport there?”

“Because even Yua’s eyes weren’t able to see the wall clearly. Besides, I’d rather not run the risk of someone seeing the light.”

Counting the seconds as we waited for my spell to time out, I checked my mana bar. I pulled a small mana potion out of my item box and poured it down my throat. Our crawl didn’t drain so much mana that my advanced mana regeneration couldn’t handle the load, but better safe than sorry.

“Get ready.”

“Wait, Big Bro. Before we go, can I be in charge?”

“In charge? I thought we were going to be working together.”

“Mhmm, but if you thought it was a good idea to keep that out, I think I should be in charge.”

Brow furrowed beneath her hood, she pointed to my hip – to my sword.

Confused, I pressed my palm against the pommel and moved the whole thing about, looking for damage when what she meant hit me like a ton of bricks.

“It was making noise as we crawled, wasn’t it?”

The belt strap was loose, allowing for a greater range of movement when drawing, but it also meant it dangled freely when I was on my hands and knees.

Mana crossed her arms and nodded knowingly. While I was counting seconds, she must have been counting the number of times my sheath clacked against the tunnel walls.

She must have waited to point this out, hoping I’d notice myself, but we were crawling on dirt, and I wasn’t exactly treating the thing like a drumstick. Whatever noise it did make must have been annoyingly noticeable to a cat-kin. And who knows if there were any of those lurking about the fort.

With a sigh, I swapped my sword for a simple iron dagger that I’d made myself. It was nothing special, but then again, I wasn’t planning on using it to begin with.

“Alright then. Let’s say you’re in charge. What should we do first, boss?”

“Hehehe.”

Grinning mischievously, Mana laid out her plan in surprising detail.

The ball of fairy’s light continued to hover over our heads for about a minute before fading out of existence. With our plans set, we sprang into action.

I pressed my hands to the ceiling of the tunnel and destroyed it, carving out a small hole just large enough for a small girl with a bow on her back to fit through.

Moonlight spilled into the tunnel, soft and gentle, but compared to the darkness, it might as well have been the mad glare of a light house.

Using the light as my guide, I turned to Mana, locked my fingers together and extended my hands to her. She stepped into my palms, and I boosted her up to the opening.

Mana grasped the edge and pulled herself up effortlessly. Apparently, wasn’t just fooling around with all that tree-climbing she does back home.

She took a knee, scanning her surroundings with her eyes, then she closed them and tilted her ears toward the sky. A minute or so of patient listening later, she leaned into the hole and whispered.

“It’s safe.”

Alright, here we go.

I pressed my hands to the ceiling again, destroying another, larger chunk of soil. Gazing up at the stars twinkling in the night sky through the hole that was now wide enough to fit a car, I transformed the soil I’d taken into a compacted set of stairs leading straight up to the wall.

I rushed up the steps and, with Mana watching my back, I pressed my hands against the cool stones.

As planned, we popped out right in front of the recently restored section of wall. The various interlocking stones fit so closely together they barely left any gaps. Again, quality work, but it was no Material Creation. Unfortunately, this meant there was also nothing for any sneaky intruders to climb up.

I pulled a chunk of leftover stone mined from the mountain nearest our mansion and held it against the wall. Shifting it back and forth between the newer and older sections, we agreed that the mountain stone would blend in best with the newer.

With that decided, I pressed a hand to the wall at knee-height and Material Creation molded a sturdy brick of mountain straight onto it, creating the first of what would soon be dozens of handholds. After testing my full weight on it to ensure it wouldn't snap off, I gave Mana a thumbs up and she nodded back.

Creating more holds above my head, I pulled myself up onto the side of the wall. Once I was in place and my grip was secured, Mana jumped onto my back and we were off.

Since I had to climb first to build the path, Mana couldn’t act as a proper scout since I’d be walking – climbing – into danger first. So, she reasoned that clinging to me was the best way for her to scout ahead.

However, when her arms and legs tightened like a pair of vices around me, I knew she was mostly just hugging her way up a very tall wall. She pressed her cheek against the back of my neck, surely to better listen to the night, and not because the distance between us and the ground was steadily increasing.

The wall soared high into the sky, a horizon for the endless night lit with thousands of stars, but it was nothing compared to the great walls of Amoranth. Likewise, Mana's meager weight couldn’t have slowed me down even if the Goddess had blessed me with two of her.

I lifted us higher, one step at a time, silently creating new handholds with each step. Aside from the occasional grunt of effort on my part, there was no noise to speak of, nothing to slow us down. We neared the top in a matter of minutes.

Reaching high to create the next hold, I forced myself to a sudden stop about sixty feet from the top. Mana tugged on my left ear – a silent signal that she’d heard someone coming.

Her ears remained sharp, eyes transfixed on the battlements above, while I was left completely in the dark.

We waited, and waited, redoubling our efforts to keep quiet. Since we were reluctantly granted a chance to take a break, I shifted my grip on my right handhold to flex my wrist. Our combined weight wasn't much of an issue while climbing, but just sitting here holding us up was starting to hurt. The rough texture of the stones we climbed certainly didn’t help the pads of my fingers, either.

As I shifted to roll my left wrist, the target of Mana’s focus finally appeared above us.

A man stepped between the battlements and gazed out over the forest. His head was shrouded by moonlight, but the torch in his outstretched hand brought his face into view. His looks were average by every measure, except where his face was distorted by the thick scar that ran from his right brow up to the top of his head.

Like most of the bandits we’d seen so far, Matteo here didn’t hold any combat oriented classes. He was just a level 8 Hunter with the Bandit subclass. This man and the bow he carried over his shoulder must be how the bandits kept themselves fed way out here – maybe all those traps really were meant for animals?

Either way, that plus one to the bandit roster sent a chill racing down my spine. We weren’t even over the wall yet, and all he has to do is look down and we’d be screwed!

Trying to suppress my annoyance as he cracked his neck, I pulled us closer to the wall so we wouldn’t stand out.

“God, this is boring,” he growled loudly. “Why bother setting all this up if we still have to walk this damn wall every night?”

“Who knows,” another, unseen man replied. “But you heard the boss. Just do what she says.”

“Yeah, yeah… Uggh. So fucking tired.”

Despite their abundant success ingratiating themselves with the city, they apparently weren’t allowed to let their guards down. Looks like this Willomina is the cautious sort.

Hoping to hear more, and waiting to see if one of them would mention our fight atop the church, we were instead greeted by a much more unexpected sight.

Matteo set his torch on the battlement and began fumbling around with his belt. For a moment, I couldn't tell what he was doing until his cock flopped out of his pants. He tilted his head back up towards the stars and began relieving himself.

The golden stream fell less than six feet from us, but Mana watched him like a hawk, completely unfazed. Her face was emotionless, like a predator pretending at being a docile sheep. But still, all it’d take for him to see us was for him to lower his gaze.

Matteo let out a relieved sigh. I shifted our weight onto my left hand and used Material Creation with my right to form a shell of stone around us, hiding us. Hopefully, if he decided to look, all he'd see was a lump in the wall.

We reluctantly listened to the man empty his bladder, his stream cutting out several times along the way. Then the unseen man spoke again.

“When are the others comin' back?”

“Who knows?”

“You think they're bringin' any women with them this time?”

“Do they ever? You heard the boss. Keep your hands off the women…”

“... Yeah, yeah. Oooh, if too many women turn up missing, the whole city will freak. But that doesn’t mean we can't have any fun at all, right?”

“If you hate waiting so much, I know one bitch that'll probably let you fuck her.”

“D-Don't even joke about that. I don't wanna die!”

“Hahaha! Then wait your turn and quit your bitching!”

Matteo’s laughter echoed loudly, cutting off his stream again and again, while the other man’s voice shuddered so hard, I half expected him to feel the sudden need to answer nature's call as well. I hoped not.

It didn't matter how light the girl on my back was, or how little the situation bothered her. Hanging here was starting to make my fingers cramp.

“Hey, hurry it up. We gotta get back to it before they start. You know how boss gets.”

“Yea, yea.”

Unseen and unashamed, we (reluctantly) listened as Matteo gave himself a few quick shakes before stuffing himself back into his pants. We waited, me watching the light of his torch slowly trail down the wall to our left, while Mana listened.

After a few more minutes of hanging, I finally felt the reassuring tug on my right ear – the all clear signal.

I disappeared our protective shell and scrambled the rest of the way up the wall. As soon as she could, Mana released her grip on my shoulders and jumped over the parapet. Keeping low, she drew her bow and slipped silently to the side.

I hefted myself up after her and relief flooded over me. Aside from the cat-girl-shaped weight on my shoulders being lifted, we made it inside unseen.

Rubbing my palms together to soothe the soreness, I was struck by the sight of orange and yellow lights flickering against the interior walls and just how far down these lights stretched.

I’d never climbed anything so tall before. Hell, last time I climbed anything other than into bed, were the trees back behind our mansion when playing with Mana. Somehow, the fact that I’d gone from trees to fortress walls didn’t really hit me until now. I shook my head to clear it of useless thoughts.

After taking a moment to memorize the section of wall we stepped onto, I noticed a distinct tremor making a mess of Mana’s knees as she stared over the edge. It lasted only a second and ended with a gulp – must have been the wind; it was quite chilly out tonight, after all. She turned to me and pointed down the wall where Matteo had gone. I gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze and her tail whipped me forward.

Keeping low and quiet, we dashed across the wall and pressed ourselves against either side of an archway that lead into what looked like a barracks. Inside, rows of cots and crates fixed with bedding lined the right side of the room. Most of it was old, molded and full of holes – unused for years.

However, there were several other signs of recent activity: clothing strewn about, a half empty bottle of ale and a mug left on the floor, and a pair of boots kicked off beside a cot, with the laces still tied. But the candles on the corner table had long since gone cold.

Past this, through the archway on the opposite side was the slow swaying light of Matteo’s torch as he continued down the wall. Beside him, I spied our mystery man from earlier right before they turned a corner.

Antonio, a level 2 Archer, complete with a bow in hand and a quiver on his hip. The wrong hip, judging by how Mana equipped herself.

That’s another new name. How many more are we going to find?

On Mana’s order, we waited, watching as they disappeared into the darkness, leaving behind only the orange glow of their torch as they moved further along the wall. Once they were far enough away, I gave Mana a thumbs-up, only to find her bobbing her head.

Jerking her head as though some invisible force were patting her too hard, she tried to cover her ears but stopped herself. Beneath her mask, I could tell she was grimacing in pain as she slipped past me towards the back of the room where a window facing the inner fort waited.

She hopped onto a crate and nearly shoved her face through for a look. I pressed up beside her to have a look, and to keep her from shaking.

Our window overlooked a steep drop down to a sprawling courtyard. Unlike the hastily repaired walls and the decrepit towers, the inner yard wasn't just lush with neatly-trimmed grass, the same overgrown trees shielding the fort from sight were also snaking their roots up the walls and buildings below. Neat walkways and polished brickwork, all lit by torchlight, provided a surprising amount of cleanliness for what was supposed to be a bandit hideout. More than this, there also had a small farm already planted. The soil was tilled, the seeds sowed, and the fruits of their labor were already starting to grow.

The plants were not the only kind of life. A man and woman sat at a table by the main keep, gambling over a card game by candlelight. Litton, a stout man and a level 4 Farmer was cradling his balding head, while the woman, Caterine, a level 7 Merchant, laughed uproariously as she raked in her winnings. Both were bandits.

Litton was stocky, a bit heavy with the sort of soft muscle of someone that stopped working years before. I assumed the woodcutter’s axe on the table belonged to him.

Caterine, however, was thin enough to say she’d never seen a hard day’s work in her life. And this couldn’t have been any more obvious due to what she was wearing – another inexplicably skimpy set of bikini armor.

Assuming the worst and that her armor might pose a problem for us, I tried to check its enchantment with both the info box and Appraisal, but either because of the distance or poor lighting, they failed.

I opened a small portal back to the girls in the forest and stuck my hand through. After a moment of nothing happening, I made a grasping motion with my fingers. Another moment went by before my palm suddenly felt the cool, smooth texture of polished metal. My fingers locked around it, failing to close completely as the object was far too round. And too large.

Sighing, I smacked Elane’s tit out of the way and, presumably, Yua set the spy scope in my hand. I pulled it back through and pressed it to my eye to check on our new threat.

[Enchanted Steel Armor of Enduring Endurance: Value – 5 gold.]

So, some sort of stamina booster. She must be using the thing in place of a cup of coffee to survive the night shift. It wasn’t all that flashy of an enchantment, but paired with the estoc on her hip, it could be dangerous.

All in all, their defenses so far were pretty lackluster. Then again, with all those pitfall traps scattered across the forest, maybe they didn’t think anyone would get this far.

I tapped Mana's shoulder to relay this and she turned, ears twitching and eyes trying to hide her discomfort. I pointed to my mouth to ask if it was safe to talk, and she nodded.

“What are you hearing?”

“Hammers, I think. Lots of them. Can’t you hear it?”

Confused, I checked the courtyard again, but neither Litton nor Caterine were doing anything other than starting a fresh game of cards. There was very little sound to offend the ear out here, but once I focused, I did hear a repeated thudding somewhere in the distance.

“Whatever it is must be on the other side. Let’s check it out.”

“Kay… But, um, first. I think I noticed something, but I don’t know if it’s important.”

“What is it? Don’t hold back. We need all the intel we can get.”

“Mnn, well… some of the beds in here smell like mating. That one and that one.”

She pointed to two of the beds with newer-looking blankets as she casually started back to the door. I could smell nothing of the sort, but as my wife, Mana was perhaps more familiar with that particular scent than most girls that are twice her age.

And those bastards were complaining about not getting enough action…

“It’s weird,” she said, sniffing the air again. “It kind of smells familiar.”

I said nothing as I followed her back out onto the wall,only for her to silence me with a finger anyway. We kept low and moved swiftly, our footsteps soft on the stone.

The wall was wide with a gentle curve that wrapped around the interior like a noose waiting to be tightened. Though there were no inner defenses atop the wall to hide behind, we were easily able to keep from being spotted by keeping to the far side as we moved.

But the wall itself was long. From afar, it almost gave the impression as being only about as far round as an olympic running track, but it was far more. As it stretched on and on into the darkness, and it was starting to feel like we were slowly creeping along a stretch of highway.

The occasional peek over the wall offered little more than a chance to memorize the lay of the land, and what few defenses they had to bear. After ten minutes of keeping low, there were no new bandits to be noted. There was another expansive patch of farmland, but all that was, was proof these guys were in it for the long haul.

No matter how far we moved, the main keep remained in the center. Roughly three stories tall, I could already see plenty of glassless windows we could sneak through, but Mana had made the hammering noises she heard her top priority.

She slowed to a stop, panting softly as she focused again on the far side of the fort. It was closer now, and no doubt louder. She pointed there, then to her ear, then mimed a hammer striking a nail – or maybe it was an axe chopping wood?

It didn’t matter. Mana slung her bow back over her shoulder and dropped onto her hands and knees. It was when she lifted her little butt into the air like a cat gearing up to pounce that I realized what she was going to do. I’ve been with her a time or two when she goes out to play in the forest, so I know what that pose means. I prepared to run.

She put power into her legs and pushed off the ground. Silently dashing over the stones on all fours, she made it to the end of the wall in no time and waited with a hand cupped by her ear. Not long after, she waved me on and I hurried after. It was all I could do to not question how she manages to run like that, while trying to make as little noise as possible myself.

Almost as soon as I was beside her again, she took off running down the fort’s side wall. I watched her scamper down the line and, like before, she called me over as soon as it was safe.

We stopped at the fort’s north-eastern guard tower, not because anything was blocking us, but because the pounding in Mana’s ears had her hands hovering over them, just barely resisting the urge to shut out the noise all together.

Knowing I could do nothing but support her effort, I rubbed her back. With a shaking hand, she pointed towards the source of it all and my hands fell to my sides. Suddenly, I couldn’t feel my fingertips.

Down below, on the far side of the fort, were two, no… three dozen more people.

All of them were working out in the open, using the moon as their only source of light. They relentlessly swung their hammers, pounding nails into large wooden frames. Others hefted heavy logs onto their shoulders and carried them over to the sawmill before going back to the pile of lumber for more. No less than five of the men working were turning a large crank to work the mill, while four more pulled the freshly cut planks out and ferried them over to a stack of more that were roughly twice my height. More repeatedly and without break took these planks and either began the process of wetting them for bending or started hammering them into frames to build walls. Yet more poured a mud and clay mixture into holes carved straight into the ground to ready soon-to-be bricks to bake in the morning sun. These holes expanded the entire backside of the fort, but the workers were filling them one by one without end and without slowing down.

I was no carpenter, but with one mansion already behind me, I could say for certain that they were building houses. Only, they were doing it in sections. Finished walls were stacked, leaning against the fort’s bricks. Slanted frames for roofs were built in halves and stacked beside them. Finished bricks were stacked with unerring neatness in dozens of man-sized pyramids.

At least ten more full-sized houses were ready and waiting to be slapped together, with more on the way.

I see now… Those cart tracks we found weren’t just from raiding parties, they transport the finished building materials on horseback and build when everyone is asleep. That must be how the church got repaired so fast.

No wonder why Giulio tried to steer us away from this place. They were building the city here, in the fort.

“Well… This isn’t good,” I muttered without meaning to. I just couldn’t believe my eyes. We’d already spotted four more bandits, but I never imagined we’d be up against these kinds of numbers. “Guess Elane finally has her answer on how this city sprang up so fast.”

“Big Bro,” Mana whispered, still fighting the urge to cover her ears. “Something doesn’t feel right. Those people sound… weird.”

“They’d have to be weird to be working this late.”

Who would work in the middle of the night when they can barely see?

Mana’s tail brushed against my wrist and a possible answer dawned on me. Given how thin they all were, it was such an obvious conclusion that hurt to consider.

All those people might be slaves. Possibly beast-kin slaves that could see in the dark, so they could be forced to work the night shift.

I clenched my jaw and pressed the spy scope to my eye and aimed it at the first person that appeared in the glass, a brick worker, and read their info box. A slave didn’t necessarily have to be a battle slave to have a spear thrust into their hands. So, I needed to check them all. We could decide whether to call for backup after, but for now...

“What the fuck…?”

I blinked and rubbed at my eyes, willing the words written in their info box to change, but they didn’t. What was written there was not a name, nor was it a class. It didn’t even have either the bandit or thief tags. All it read was…

[Skeleton]

“Big Bro?”

Sweat dripped from my brow as a sense of dread peeled my eyes open.

I shifted the scope to another worker, then another, and another, but I saw nothing but withered frames and clothes left in tatters from non-stop work. Each and every one of them wore a cloak, a scarf, anything to cover their faces, until finally, I found one carrying a bucket of nails. It walked in our general direction, towards the frame builders. And I saw its face. Or what was left of it.

Beneath its tattered hood, revealed by the moon at our backs, was a sun-bleached skull. It stared ahead, mindless in how it walked, but perfectly aware of where it needed to be. A spider’s-web of cracks spread out across the right side of its reanimated bone, where in the center lay a single, chipped hole – an impact wound. The cracks extended around its empty eye socket, like the fingertips of lightning bolts grasping at the darkness that lay within. Days, weeks, who knows how many months spent toiling under the sun had left the permanent smile it wore dried out, yet eerily preserved in its grim silence.

The skeleton I watched continued forward, its gaze cast straight ahead, but not seeing. It dropped the bucket of nails at the feet of another, retrieved the empty bucket it replaced and slowly lumbered away. Moving like the cogs of a clock, this new skeleton bent down and picked out a nail and hammered it into place. It repeated the process until there was nothing left to hammer, when another set of skeletons came to carry the finished frame towards the stacks of other finished frames.

Every single one of the workers, those things down there was a skeleton.

I tried to blink the image of the mass grave we found in the forest out of my mind, but each and every person I turned the scope on was just as dead. Skeletal remains poke through gaps and holes in their clothing, showing not the lives once contained in their bodily vessels, but brief glimpses of the damage that claimed their life.

The dread I felt doubled and tripled when I remembered Lucielle’s words.

But then those that believed me enough to start looking into what was happening wound up missing as well.

I shifted the scope back to the skeletons, searching for clues that might prove me wrong, but I found nothing that changed my conclusion. The sheer numbers we were dealing with proved they didn’t spawn naturally, which means...

All those poor people… They’ve been reviving their victims just to put them to work.

“Big Bro, what’s wrong? You look pale. What do you see?”

I shook my head. Then shook it again for good measure. I hadn’t considered that the dead were too far for even a cat-kin’s eyes to see.

This may be real life now, but I’ve seen forts filled with the dead countless times before in the virtual world. Just got to ignore how they got here and press on. And pressing on meant I had to let the others know.

First, I used Material Creation to write up a note with all I’d seen so far and sent it to Yua and Elane through a portal I placed behind Mana’s back. They had to be warned first in case any of the dead in those pits decide to wake up.

I then wrapped an arm around Mana’s shoulder and pulled her close into a whisper.

“Don’t be scared, but all those people down there are skeletons. They’re all dead.”

“E..!”

Sensing a gasp we couldn’t afford to let slip, I covered her masked mouth and handed her the spy scope. Hesitant, she took it and had a look for herself. Naturally, as an original denizen of this world, she took the news easier than I did, but that didn’t mean she took the news easily.

“B-But…” Her tail and ears dropped in unison under the weight of our situation. “How could they be so mean? Those people should be resting now, like Grandma and Grandpa.”

“They will, soon,” I said, rubbing her back. “But first we have to deal with the people controlling them. Which means we need to finish our mission. If you can’t keep going…”

“I can do it,” she said quickly, taking another look through the scope. “I’m ready.”

“Then I need you to look down the wall from here. We need to confirm how many guards they have up top before we go down there.”

“Okay. Wait here.”

Mana put the scope sideways in her mouth and scurried around the corner, through the empty guard tower and appeared again on the other side, peeking around the doorframe. She held the scope to her eye for about a minute before popping it back into her mouth and running back to me.

“There aren't anymore, but those males from before are coming this way.”

“They must be the only ones walking the walls, then. We need to move.”

“Mnn… Come with me.”

She thrust the scope back into my hands and I stashed it away in my item box as she took off in another four-legged sprint back to the other side of the fort wall we'd just left. She stopped near the corner guard house and waved me forward once it was clear.

“We can go down here,” she whispered, pointing to the rounded corner where the two walls met. “This should be the furthest spot from the males and… the skeletons. Nobody should be able to see us.”

A quick glance over the wall showed me nothing but soft grass to land on and plenty more overgrown foliage to keep us covered. The thin stocks of their soon-to-be wheat patch acted as a buffer between us and the skeletons making bricks on the other side of the courtyard.

“Good. I’ll go first.”

Wanting to speed things along, I touched a hand to the edge of the wall and activated Material Creation. In the blink of an eye, a thick, braided rope appeared and attached itself directly to the stone. There were no knots to speak of and nothing to tie it to. It almost looked as though the wall had spontaneously grown a single strand of hair.

I gave it a firm tug to make sure it could bear our weight before letting the rest of the rope fall out of my item box and over the wall. It stopped short, leaving a good six feet or so from the bottom of the rope to the ground. Satisfied, I grabbed hold and threw myself over the edge.

Quickly, I rappelled down, kicking off the wall once I reached the end of the rope. I landed somewhat ungracefully on my feet and gave Mana a thumbs-up. To my surprise, she glanced over the edge only once before tossing herself over as well. She slid down as fast as gravity would allow until she ran out of rope and dropped into my arms. Once she was off the wall, did her shoulders relax.

I gently set her down and crept to the edge of the wheat field. I knelt and pressed the spyscope pressed through the stalks to check on the skeletons. The poor eyeless husks were now the only things that could have spotted us, but they showed no signs of slowing in their work.

“You want to look everywhere, right?” Mana asked.

“We can’t leave any stone unturned.”

There was no way we could call this infiltration a success unless we came back with every iota of information we could. And I wasn’t risking our lives for half-measures.

“Okay,” she hummed, taking in our surroundings.

From ground level, the main keep cast an even more imposing shadow when set against the hellfire torchlight the undead servants worked under. The walls were rugged, weathered and peppered with spots of mold everywhere where the scars of war weren’t blocked by building materials. A series of jagged crenellations that would have offered scant protection for any archers perched on the roof, now looked like a crown of thorns against the backdrop of the night sky. Narrow arrow slits punctuated the higher sections, their dark openings offering us no chances to peer inside.

The keep’s three main towers were even more worrying. Twice as massive as the walls themselves, the remnants of battle damage and years of neglect left even the most intact of the three towers looking as though they might topple over on us at any moment. The base of what might have been a fourth remained etched into the ground, but its appearance had been lost to time as its parts were likely repurposed weeks if not months before.

Mana took all this in, her eyes darting back and forth with purpose, leaving me to watch our backs. The plan she came back with ultimately had her tail falling limp.

“I think… I think we should look at the tower first. Then the big building in the middle.”

The only tower still capable of housing anyone, let alone protecting them, was the one nearest us. Just like the one whose middle was now half gone, it was connected to the upper levels of the main keep by a single overarching bridge.

The relief from acrophobia was short-lived, but she’d decided the bridge would make for an ideal entry point to the main keep.

I nodded along and rubbed her back again as she tried not to tremble. With no other way in but to climb, I searched out a window facing the fort’s outer wall that was around five-stories high. A simple climb, but her perseverance could only take her so far.

“Maybe you should leave the climbing to me,” I whispered. “I’ll find a safe place to teleport you up with me.”

“N-N-No…” she muttered, teeth chattering. “Someone might see the light out here. I can… I can do it. Just give me a minute.”

Just when I thought I’d turn and find her trying her hardest to catch her breath, she wrapped her arms around my middle and squeezed me as tight as she could. Almost tight enough to have to worry about the slave spell rebounding on her.

“Mana, we don’t have time for this.”

“I-I know. We’re just, mnn…. We’re waiting for those males on the wall to pass before we move again. Right?”

Somehow, she still managed to tighten her grip on me. She was practically straddling my knee for support, I could feel her legs shaking just at the thought of the climb ahead.

“Right... We’re just waiting for them to pass.”

“Don’t tell Big Sis.”

“I won’t.”

I hugged her back and guided her closer towards the wall, into the shadows. Choosing to see this as more proof that she was serious about proving herself, rather than her being scared, I kept watch as she recharged her willpower.

Keeping true to her word, even though her word was a hastily-made lie, once Mana’s ears perked up and she turned her attention to the wall above, she let go. The patrol had just passed us.

Mana took a deep breath and zipped around the edge of the wheat field before dashing towards the tower.

I trailed close behind her and we made it to the tower without any sign of being noticed. Using the same method as before, I started climbing, crafting handholds along the way and Mana jumped on my back.

Despite being twice as tall, the climb up the tower didn’t take twice as long as the wall had. Perhaps this was due to me wanting to spare Mana the mental torture as she nearly strangling me to keep from falling. Or maybe it was because climbing openly up the side of a tower in enemy territory, where we could easily be spotted by anyone inside the fort, or anyone keeping a watchful eye on the place over in the forest – who could say? Not Yua, that’s for sure.

We made it to the window in a matter of a few minutes and, though she clearly wanted to just dive through the window and be done with this, Mana carefully peered inside before issuing her verdict – a tug on my left ear and a silent finger to her lips.

There was a bandit inside, we needed to be quiet.

I lifted us a little higher and, once she was free to do so, Mana quietly slipped in through the window and drew her bow, aiming an arrow at the far side of the room. Ignoring the fatigue building in my arms, I grabbed hold of the window sill and climbed in with her. Stepping as quietly as I could, I checked on Mana’s target.

It was another bandit, this time a level 2 Potter named Ulla, who just so happened to be very visibly female. She lay sprawled out on the room’s only bed, wearing nothing on her flesh but a pair of loose, dirty panties that were almost the same color as her auburn hair and a blanket that covered only her midriff to keep the night chill away. Her modest mounds rose and fell with the same casual rhythm my girls would exhibit when deeply asleep, but she was a heavy snorer – maybe this was why she was up here all alone.

Mana nudged her bow at her, asking if she should take the shot, if anything to keep her from waking and catching us. I thought about it for a moment, but shook my head and pointed to an empty wine bottle on her nightstand. She’d clearly gotten drunk and passed out. She wasn’t a threat.

I waved Mana off and she lowered her bow. We really couldn’t afford the bandits finding any dead bodies or missing persons before we’re ready to fight. It’d just put them on guard.

What I did do, however, was use telekinesis to pull Ullla’s sword from her bedside and stuff it deep into my item box. It was nothing special – just a dull hunk of steel that had clearly been neglected – but it was enough to weaken their fighting force, even if only a little. And in a fort full of bandits, literally anyone could have stolen it.

Deciding it best to end the trickery there for now, I gestured towards the stairs and Mana lowered her bow, always happy to move closer to the ground.

Besides Ulla, the tower was perfectly empty, so we made it down to the bridge with ease. The only roadblock we faced was the door to the keep being locked, but I easily bypassed this by cutting the handle itself off the door with material destruction. Careful so the door didn’t creak, I let Mana in first before closing the door on us and restoring the handle to its rightful place.

Mana held up a hand and I stopped moving. In her newly restored calm, her ears flicked diligently, searching the keep for noise.

We were in the heart of enemy territory now, I wouldn’t have been surprised to find it jam-packed with bandits, but then Mana lowered all but one of her fingers.

I stared at the digit, openly confused, but all she did was shrug and start walking further inside.

She must not be able to listen to the entire building. It was at least as big as Elane’s mansion, if not bigger, and with plenty of walls to block her senses. Trusting that this was the case, I followed at her pace, stepping only where she stepped to avoid the ancient floorboards creaking.

We’d started on the second floor, but Mana quickly brought us to another staircase and started up without hesitation.

Just when I thought she was taking me to the person she’d heard so I could study them, the third floor ended up being empty. A line of rooms stretched down a surprisingly long and well-kept hall, where it veered off down another hall.

Many of the doors to these rooms were left ajar, but just as many ended up needing the good-ol’ disappearing doorknob trick before we could take a peek. More so than the barracks on the wall, many of the rooms showed clear signs of habitation; wardrobes packed with clothes, fresh bedding, food stuffs left out for easy eating, various bottles of alcohol and many a trinket whose price tags Appraisal suggested were likely bought with the five-finger-discount.

Clearly, these people were living fairly comfortable lives with ill-gotten gains, but I decided to leave a more thorough inspection for later. I wanted to focus on why Mana brought us up here, since the place was empty. And speaking of Mana…

I picked myself up off the floor after searching under a rather lavishly-decorated bed and found that I was all alone in the room. Tip-toeing back to the door, I peeked back out into the hall and found Mana at the end of the rows of rooms, sniffing a large door.

Suppressing the urge to ask my little bottomless pit if she found the kitchen, I joined her at the door.

“Something in there smells weird,” she whispered.

“Good weird or bad weird?”

“Mnn… Can you take out your coin purse?”

Confused, but willing to play along, I did as commander Mana asked and opened the drawstrings of my purse. She shoved her nose straight into it, took a whiff and then pushed the bag away.

“It smells kind of like that, like metal, but it’s way more.”

“More? Oh… I see.”

I couldn’t help but smirk. Given the state of the other rooms, I was half expecting this to be where the bandit’s leadership slept – presumably the Hemomage. But it didn’t matter. If it smells like coins and the scent was strong enough to steal Mana’s attention from the floor beneath us, it can only be one thing.

“A treasure room. Strange.”

“Eh?”

“This must be where they keep the valuables they’ve stolen. Coins and stuff, you know?”

As expected, Mana didn’t look all that impressed by the concept, but I had to actively reel in my desire to go plundering in enemy territory. Looting the enemy base comes after it’s cleared.

Still, I figured we’d find it eventually, I just didn’t think it’d be so easy. But since we’re here, why not take a look? Maybe just a peek? Since Mana felt secure enough to talk, the room was most likely empty and, who knows, maybe we’ll find the staff they stole from Lucielle.

With Mana’s assurance that there was nobody inside, I floated my hand up to temporarily remove the brass doorknob, but stopped just millimeters before touching it.

[Trap Detected.]

Figures…

“Big Bro?”

“It’s rigged somehow. Can’t risk opening it. But… maybe I can disarm it.”

Dropping softly to my knees, I pressed my cheek against the floorboards and looked through the gap under the door. Unfortunately, the trip wire or pressure plate I’d been hoping to render useless with either Material Creation or Destruction was nowhere to be seen. Instead, in their place was the dull, green glow of a magic circle made of pure light that hovered just above the floor.

I didn’t need to be a genius to guess what it meant.

“It’s some kind of rune trap that’ll likely detonate if we step on it. We’ll have to come back another time.”

Figures there’d be magic like this, too. I’d like to believe that triggering it would do nothing more than alert the caster to our presence, but the green lightshow suggested trouble.

“But why not just take the wall away and go in? We don’t need the door.”

“Because I’d rather not bet our lives on guessing whether it’s a landmine or a proximity mine. For all I know, just entering the room might cause it to go off. Not to mention it’ll probably make noise.”

“Eh?”

Mana tilted her head, visibly confused over what, to her, must have been new words. Guess Mochi only taught her about non-magical traps.

“I’ll explain later,” I said, pointing to the door. “Was that the only reason why you brought us up here?”

“Mnn… I thought I smelled Sword Guy, but the scent wasn’t very strong.”

“No surprise there.”

Living the triple lifestyle of a bandit, a guard and a one-woman playboy sure must be tough on Giulio. He probably doesn’t visit too much. Perhaps I should be happier that he added sword instructor to that list.

“Let’s just move on.”

Leaving the treasure room for the time being, we headed back downstairs and completed our search of the second floor with nothing to show about it but more empty rooms, most of which were so barren, the dust didn’t have anything to cling to.

There was a library of sorts, likely used to house maps of battle strategies, books full of local history and other such things military officials would keep around, but sadly, it’d already been picked clean. The bookshelves lining the walls were completely empty. A shame, really. I was really hoping for some history books about this world.

Waiting atop the staircase leading down to ground level, we were once again forced into silence. The person Mana detected earlier was still moving about and causing enough of a racket for even me to hear.

A warm glow spilled through an open door, over the edge of the landing to cast a soft amber light that waved and shifted around the long shadow that stretched across the floor, almost like someone was batting around the logs in a fireplace with an iron poker.

The shadow’s arm moved side to side in a constant motion that brought out a repeated scraping of a metal ladle running along the inside of a pot. Another arm sprouted from the shadow and reached for something unseen by the light before adding it to the mixture. Soon, the scent of burning wood was overpowered by fragrant herbs.

And were it not for Mana’s pushing her hand under her mask to wipe away her drool, I might never have guessed the shadow was cooking.

We stayed rooted at the top of the stairs, unable to tell from the man’s shadow if he was facing us or not. We were at an impasse, and the clock was still ticking. I was about to suggest looking for another path to the first floor when the light of the hearth inside began to dim and the shadow stopped moving.

“Where’s the damn… Tch. Gonna have to have bonehead cut more firewood. How many times do I have to tell it to keep me stocked up?”

The shadow set down its ladle and started to move along the wall, slowly receding until it vanished all together. A few seconds later, the sound of a door opening and closing had Mana hurrying downstairs.

I followed her into the room and, surprising me yet again tonight, she didn’t so much as give the pot hanging over the hearth – or its contents, or the meats, breads, cheeses, herbs and spices left out on the table beside it – so much as a glance. Instead, she ran us past the kitchen and down another hall. We had to wrap this up before that shadow’s owner came back.

Mana stopped in front of a door, pressed her ear to it for a second and then pulled it open. Beyond it was another hall leading straight through the rest of the floor. She was on the move again, stealthily rushing down the hall, where she stopped in the middle and gave the keep a good listen for several long seconds.

She turned back to me with a smile crinkling her mask.

“There’s nobody else in here.”

“You sure?”

“Yup!” she said, letting her usual happy tone slip before covering her mouth.

I was so happy to hear this news, I decided to leave that little slip out of our after-action report. We'd been at this for over two hours already and the night was starting to weigh on my eyelids and Mana’s tail was already wagging with giddiness over the idea of getting to return after successfully completing her mission. However, we weren’t done yet.

“I still need to check out their cook. Then there’s one more place we need to check and we can get out of here.”

“Kay.”

After checking all the rooms just to be safe, and with a little extra pip in our quiet step, we hurried back down the hall and into the kitchen. It shouldn’t take much longer for the cook to return with the firewood and we needed to check him out. The only question was; where can we hide to do that?

The fire in the hearth was beginning to darken, but it would soon be full of life again and a quick glance around the room said there weren’t many places to hide where its light couldn’t reach.

Hiding under the table would surely end with me getting caught and subsequently stabbed by one of the butcher’s knives spread out on the table.

There was a large cabinet that looked big enough to fit us, but it was full of food and herbs. And it’d be too obvious if the crates in the corner were moved so we could fit behind them.

“Could you lift us up there?”

Following Mana’s gaze up to the ceiling, towards an intricate network of support beams that stretched across the room like fingers to brace the upper floors. The lattice of beams would provide a good amount of coverage, but I could tell from down here that their wood was dry, withered and untrustworthy. Seems the bandits had forgotten to renovate before they moved in.

“I don’t think those can support both of us,” I said. “They’re ancient.”

“Mnn. Then just me. You can just use that shadow spell, can’t you? You know, the one you use to look up Big Sis’s skirt when she’s cooking?”

“… I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

I have quite literally never done that… Yua has no problem playing the Naked Apron Game with me, so abusing the Shadow Cloak spell like that is legitimately not even necessary.

Mana tilted her head, her big blue eyes soft, cute and somehow morally accusing without her so much as furrowing her brow.

But she did have a point.

I wrapped my telekinetic fingers around her waist and hoisted her up into the air. She grabbed hold of the nearest beam and threw a leg over it before climbing to her feet. Ducking under higher beams and around the ones in her way, she quickly hid herself amongst the woodwork as best she could. Her petiteness made this an effortless task. Once she was in place and had her bow at the ready, I searched for a hidey-hole of my own. Following her misguided idea, I decided magic was my best bet.

All I’d need for the Shadow Cloak spell to work were shadows, which were plentiful thanks to the dying flame in the hearth, but whichever shadow I chose would have to stay put after the cook added more fuel to the fire. Some shadows will expand while others will disappear completely. If that happened, I’d be kicked out of the spell and caught. It’d also have to give me a clear view of the guy.

The only issue was that there weren’t many spots that filled both these needs as the floor space was mostly empty.

“Let’s see… The size of the shadow shouldn’t matter, so…”

“Big Bro, shhh!”

Holding a finger to her lips, Mana pointed repeatedly at the wall. Her ears were sharp and tall under her hood as her eyes traced the movements of someone I couldn’t see. The cook was back.

My eyes ripped across the room in search of a place to hide, but still found nothing that would guarantee safety, nowhere I could vanish without a trace.

The footsteps Mana heard echoed outside. The floorboards outside creaked beneath the weight of two people.

Shit! Guess I don’t have time to be picky.

I grabbed the table cloth pinned under the food and pulled it lower, not enough to be noticeable, but more than enough to extend the shadow it cast. The creaking grew louder and the door knob started to move. I pressed my foot down on the table’s shadow and cast Shadow Cloak.

The shadows began to ripple as if my foot broke through the surface of a stagnant lake. The door slowly swung open as my field of view rapidly sank downwards. Unseen and unfelt hands reached through, grabbed my ankles and pulled me through the floor and into a realm of sheer darkness. It felt as though I were suddenly in freefall, until, just as quick, there was nothing. No resistance, no gravity, no pain, heat or cold.

The edges of my sight blurred, merging seamlessly into the darkness that now enveloped me. The kitchen had become shaded by a thin veil of inky-black darkness, but I was too late. The door had already swung open.

Stood stock still in the doorway wasn’t a man, but a skeleton wearing the ragged remains of what once was a modestly-fine set of merchant’s clothes. So tall it needed to duck to avoid hitting the frame, its thin, boney arms were piled high with chopped wood, but not high enough to cover its eye sockets. And it was staring straight at me.

At least, it appeared to be. Its hollowed skull was turned straight at me, like it had just caught the tail-end of my transformation. With no teeth to grit, I quickly readied myself to spring out and blow both it and the cook away with Rock Throw.

Mana readied her bow, but the dead thing showed no signs of alarm. Or any reaction at all, really. It just stood there, watching, until a heavy boot slammed into its backside.

“The hell are you doing standing in my way?”

The skeleton slammed into the door, firewood spilling out of its hands. The logs scattered across the floor, one rolling right over my head, obscuring my vision.

It no longer looked at me. It didn’t seem to be looking at anything as it fell onto its hands and knees with its sockets pointed blankly at the floor. It almost looked like a slave prostrating itself before its master – if its master was the door.

A thick, muscular man with deeply-bronzed skin that looked almost black in the darkness grunted as he stooped to pick up a couple pieces of wood before kicking the rest out of his way. He stood, rolled his eyes at the prostrating skeleton and started towards me.

“I know you ain’t got a brain, but show some damn sense, would ya? Now, pick all that up and put it where it goes.”

Showing no signs of having noticed either of us, the cook, a level 6 Fighter and level 10 Baker named Blaise Lafoix, made his way back to the hearth and tossed the wood in. He spent only a handful of seconds adjusting the fire with an iron poker before he set it down and moved to the table. As he did, the silvery war hammer he wore on his hip swung into view and, suddenly, it was the only thing I could see.

Long of handle and with one thick, skull-piercing spike on the back of the head, it was no dwarven hammer, but thoughts of exploding trees and deadly poisons stole my full attention anyways.

“What the hells taking so long?” he said, and I nearly jumped out of my shadow. “Put ‘em over there.”

He threw a thumb over his shoulder at the right side of the hearth, where a thin metal rack lay barren. The skeleton was still kneeling in front of the door, picking up the logs with slow, almost mechanical movements. Its sockets remained fixated on its task, like it’d already forgotten I was here.

Grumbling, Blaise moved out of sight, past the log that covered the right side of my vision. I suspected he returned to his cooking pot when I heard something thick plop into the broth before the ladle started scraping again.

Soon enough, the remnants of fire lapping at the new firewood started to catch, quickly engulfing it. The light filling the room gradually grew brighter. I watched, my non-existent heart palpitating as I waited to see if I’d have to make a drastic move.

But nothing happened. Blaise continued to cook, periodically switching between the pot and the table to chop ingredients he’d then add to the broth. The skeleton quietly continued collecting the wood, its bones creaking louder each time it added another log to its arms. And, more importantly, the flames had taken complete control of the logs in the hearth and I was not forcefully kicked out of my shadow.

Seemingly just as confused on why the skeleton hadn’t made any moves against us, Mana slowly eased up on her bow, but didn’t stuff her arrow back into its quiver just yet. Unfortunately, our little spying mission had been put on hold. Neither of us could budge from our spots until these two left the room.

I resigned myself to waiting. Mana, however, took her chance to get comfortable. Perhaps a little too comfortable. Slouching back against one of the braces, she parted her knees and quietly pulled the leg of her shorts hard to the side. Wishing I could tell her to stop before Blaise could see anything he wasn’t supposed to, I was forced to roll my non-existent eyes as she then proceeded to fan herself down there.

I suppose hiding so close to hearth wasn’t her brightest idea.

Suddenly, my full field of view returned to me as the log covering my face was slowly lifted into the air, revealing the skeleton's dry, cracked face where it hovered a mere two feet from my own. Its empty sockets looked back at me, showing no signs of thought whatsoever. But as it placed the log on top of the pile in its arms, I noticed a large gash in its spine, likely the remnant of whatever, or whomever, killed it. The wound was so deep, it was apparent that whoever struck the final blow, really enjoyed taking their time slitting this man’s throat.

Unbothered by this revelation, the skeleton stood and stepped over towards the hearth and dumped its burden where it was told to. It then quietly returned to stand beside the door, where it stayed, like a butler awaiting their master’s next order.

Said order didn’t take long to come after Blaise ladled out a bite of stew, gave it a taste and nodded.

“Hey, bonehead. Food’s done. Go get the others.”

Mana stopped fanning herself and re-readied her bow just in time to join me in watching as the skeleton didn’t move an inch.

“I said get the others. Ya stupid… Ugh,” Blaise groaned, palming his forehead. “Why can’t that bitch make these things smarter? What good is a slave if all they can do is chop wood? Might as well throw you in the fire. Hear that? You’d be more useful as kindling.”

Grumbling aloud, Blaise moved the pot off the fire and onto the table before rounding it and heading towards the door. I tensed as he walked towards me, a deep, aggravated furrow bending his brow as he wiped his hands on his apron.

Images of my sneak attack on Tama collected in my mind, leaving me wondering if I could do the same now with the dagger on my hip.

However, I was saved from making the choice when he stepped directly over me. Instead of giving into my more violent thoughts, I sincerely thanked the Goddess above that he wasn’t playing the naked apron game.

With another heavy boot to the hip, Blaise toppled the skeleton to the floor.

“Get outta my way,” Blaise grumbled as he stormed out of the kitchen.

The skeleton slowly returned to its feet, creaking even louder than before, but it continued to stay rooted, like a sentinel waiting for us to show ourselves.

Damn… We managed to get rid of one set of eyes, but now this. And if he comes back with the others, our chances of getting caught are going to skyrocket.

“… Ngh.”

Before I could start to think of a way out of this, Mana straddled the beam she sat on and leaned down, extending her bow towards the skeleton’s head. Straining to reach, she poked its skull just hard enough to make it move. Slowly, it looked up at her.

I jumped out of the shadows and prepared to cast Rock Throw and obliterate its skull, but the skeleton faced forward again just as slowly before the stone in my hand could fly.

After a moment or two of the skeleton doing absolutely nothing, I turned to Mana.

“What the hell are you doing?!”

“Big Bro, I don’t think it cares about us. It definitely saw you use your magic, but it didn’t tell that male.”

As if to prove her point, Mana reached lower, waving her bow in front of its face. Its lack of muscles and skin meant it was always expressionless, but as she tried to draw its attention, it looked utterly vacant.

Her recklessness after hours of diligence nearly had my heart pounding through my chest, but then Blaise’s comments on the thing gave me an idea.

“Maybe it only reacts to simple commands. Or maybe it really does nothing but chop and carry wood.”

Mana tilted her head and watched it for a moment or two before, “Hey, bonehead, go chop wood.”

Without pause, the skeleton turned and started walking towards the door. My hand shot out to block it before it could reach the door.

“Don’t chop wood. Don’t chop wood!”

Thankfully, it heeded its new orders and gave up on Mana’s. The profound light-headedness I felt when I let out a relieved sigh nearly knocked me off my feet.

“What’s wrong?” Mana asked, still hanging upside-down.

Apparently, the thought that the bandits might notice the skeleton performing a task they didn’t give it might look suspicious never entered her mind.

“Don’t worry about it. We need to get out of here before he gets back.”

I pulled her down off the beam with telekinesis and we bolted upstairs, out the door we entered from, over the rails of the bridge and climbed back down the side of the tower as fast as we could.

As soon as Mana said we were in the clear, we snuck back behind the main keep and hid behind one of the piles of bricks. It was quiet, no signs of alarm ringing in Mana’s ears and the skeletons filling in the brick molds were still silently completing their tasks.

“Why are we stopping?” she asked.

“We have one last place to check, remember?”

“But isn’t this enough?”

For want of getting Mana back out of here safe and sound, I wanted to say yes. We’d searched the fort from nearly every angle and found plenty more than what we thought we would, but that was still only nearly. Something was telling me we weren’t done. We still haven’t found everything we were looking for.

“No. We can’t leave until we find their leader.”

I may have hoped that the large room in the keep was hers, but whose it was didn’t matter. What we needed to do was prove Willomina really retreated back here that night. And, other than that magic circle potentially being her doing, we haven’t seen so much as a trace of her.

I’d already considered the possibility that we had only just missed the Hemomage and that she had joined the other bandits on another trip to the city, but I had to have proof she was here for one simple reason: if this wasn’t her hideout, then where the hell is she?

“Eh? But where are we going to look?”

Mana whipped her head back and forth in search of a building we might have missed. I tapped her on the shoulder and pointed across the courtyard to the collapsed tower. About the width of a full-sized modern house, it was hard to miss, but Mana tilted her head anyway.

Excluding the two towers that were completely unusable and the tower inhabited by that right slob of a woman, we’d checked the fort’s exterior, the main keep, the barracks, and I even took a quick peek in the blacksmith’s hut on our way out of the keep, but she wasn’t in any of them. That broken mess of stone was our last best bet.

“Why there?”

“Their leader clearly wants to keep a low profile. So, why not keep it in the one place nobody would dare look?”

The tower was an absolute wreck, a jagged skeleton of what once must have been imposing. From down here, it looked as though the whole structure should have crumbled decades ago. Its battered walls sagged and canted at impossible angles, looking like they’d give way at any second.

Whatever it was that punched through these walls all those years ago had scattered the brickwork across the cracked courtyard. The remaining fragments, weighed down by what was left, arched and twisted into ruinous shapes – fingers of stone that continue trying to pick up the pieces. Many of the gaps left between these were large enough to swallow men whole, and yet, the tower still stood.

I wouldn’t be surprised if a mage was involved in its upkeep, but with an inexhaustible crew of carpenters and builders working around the clock, it’d be easy to assume it was left like this on purpose.

It was the perfect place to hide, simply because nobody would want to enter a building that looked like it might collapse on them.

“Let’s check it out. My gamer senses are tingling. There’s definitely something there.”

“Gamer? You mean that video-game-thing Big Sis keeps getting mad at you for talking about?”

“Don’t worry about her right now. I’ll explain later. Here, just look at that gap right there for me.”

With a look that said I know I’m probably supposed to be mad, so I’ll be mad, Mana squinted at the hole in the rubble. Pretending I didn’t notice her look, I cast the Mind Vision spell on her for only a second, got a good black-and-white look at the shaded interior of the tower and cut the spell.

Angling my spell deep inside the shadow so its light wouldn’t attract attention, I cast a miniature portal into the base of the tower and ushered Mana to crawl on through. I followed close behind and cut the spell as soon as we were both through.

We saved ourselves the risk of being spotted dashing across the courtyard, but once the spell’s light faded, the faint torchlight the skeletons worked by just barely saved me from an all-consuming darkness that nearly stole the sight of my own nose. The only thing I could see clearly was her.

“What do you think?” I asked, willing Mana’s outline to appear, only to find her looking up at me. “Anything here look odd or out of place?”

“Out of place?”

“Yea. Anything that looks like it shouldn’t be here.”

“Mmn… Gimme a second.”

Her outline cut through the darkness, like white chalk lines on a jet-black canvas, but I could still see the determination in her face. She moved with purpose, twisting, turning, passing over rubble in search of an outlying clue. Her gaze flicked up and not a moment later, she leapt into the air, only to land on something that sounded like scaffolding when it wavered beneath her. Perched upon this slightly elevated position, the pointed ears of her coat made her outline resemble a certain caped crusader as she silently surveyed the area.

Suddenly, her outline stiffened and she carefully dropped back to the ground before darting past me. I saw her lift her hand, fingers sliding along a flat surface as she probed the darkness. The bottom of the tower was spacious. I expected this to take a while, but then she turned to me.

“Big Bro, this wall is fake.”

“Really? Like an illusory wall?”

“Illus…? No, I mean it’s made of wood, but it’s painted to look like bricks.”

Bingo.

“Show me.”

Wading through the rubble, I held my hand out to her outline and she took it, directing my palm onto the wall in front of her. It was cool, smooth, clearly painted, but the paint was not so thick I couldn’t feel the undulations in the wood beneath. Nothing like the rough face of handmade brick.

“But why leave this here?” Mana asked, her hand running across the wood. “A human wouldn’t even be able to see it.”

“Oh, Mana,” I tutted. “You may know your traps, but I know my gaming tropes… Er, don’t tell Yua I said that.”

“I don’t get it.”

“What I’m saying is that this thing here, is hiding something. So, let’s see if we can move it.”

I slid my hand along the wall until my fingertips slipped behind it. Gripping it firmly, I first tried to slide it out of the way, but ended up having to lift and move it with Mana’s help.

“See anything?”

“Yup. Woah. You were right. There’s a door. There’s bars on it, too.”

A smirk spread across my face, and most definitely not because I now had more proof that my gaming experience wasn’t as useless as Yua thought.

Still, weary of another rune trap, I moved towards the door first and had Mana place my hand on its handle. The cold metal of its make stung pleasantly against my palm, and, thankfully, no notifications appeared. No traps were detected.

I took a breath to savor the moment. We were so close to completing our mission without the enemy so much as catching a hint that someone was on to them. And more importantly, we were both about to come back with perfect scores, proving to the others we weren’t a couple of screw ups.

Unable to hide my joy, I pulled the handle and… the door didn’t budge.

“What the…”

I pulled again and again, but nothing. I tried turning it, but it wasn’t even a knob to begin with.

“Of course it’d be locked.”

“Can’t you just make the lock go away like you did before?”

“Not if I can’t see it. Besides, I’d rather not risk this place collapsing on us.”

Removing just part of a door likely wouldn’t result in the whole thing crashing down, but that wasn’t a coin I was going to flip unless I had to.

“Can you see any other way in?” I asked. “Maybe there’s a window we can squeeze through?”

“Mnn… Nope.”

“Shit…”

“Oh, but there’s a hole on the bottom of the wall.”

“That works too. Show me. I’ll head through first and make sure it’s safe.”

“You can’t. You won’t fit. You’re too big.”

“Okay, then could you slip through and try to unlock the door for me?”

“Nope. But maybe Lucy can.”

“… Good idea. Let’s ask her.”

Ignoring her hopes and dreams of that lazy cat being able to unlock a door without opposable thumbs, I pressed my hand to the ground and activated the Summon Familiar spell.

Suddenly, a brilliant flash of violet erupted from my fingertips, so bright in the darkness it forced me to blink and cringe. The light spiraled outwards, quickly taking on the shape of an intricate, shimmering rune, before darkness punched a hole in its center, filling it with a black void so dark, even the night seemed to pale in comparison.

Then, from out of the void, something emerged. A great and powerful arm ripped through and into our reality. Its tiny, razor-sharp claws dug into the stone floor as it pulled itself out. Its eyes glowed with a terrible hunger, rendering its every movement sleek and predatory. It was a creature of pure nightmare, a remnant of an abyss so deep, nothing could ever hope to stare back.

But as the creature stepped fully into view, and as the violet hue of the rune began to fade, Lucy the simple house cat stretched herself, as if just waking from a nice nap.

The light faded completely, almost returning Lucy’s body to the darkness. Although, that was mainly due to her black fur blending in a little too well.

“Meow.”

“Lucy, we need your help,” I started, taking a knee in front of her. “See that hole? I need you to crawl through and scout ahead for us like last time, okay?”

“…”

“…”

I received no response, not that I ever do. The sound of something shifting softly before me reached my ears, but with what little light I had to see by, I couldn’t tell if the cat had moved or not.

“Mana… What’s she doing?”

“Mnn. She curled up in a ball. I think she’s trying to go to sleep.”

Uggh… This friggin cat.

“Mana, could you…”

“Mhmm. Lucy,” she said, her outline stooping to pet the cat’s head. “Can you go through that hole and scout ahead for us?”

And again, without further ado, my cat, my familiar, the little black ball of fur I’d raised since she was a kitten, lifted herself back onto her feet, and granted me the grand honor of being able to see her again - but only because a small cast of the Fire Ball spell illuminated her as she stretched.

Sighing, I cast Mind Vision on her and closed my eyes. In a heartbeat, I sank low to the ground again, but this time everything turned black and white as I stared up at Mana’s smile.

“Meow.”

Meow? Meow my ass. Would it kill you to listen to me at least this once when we’re moments away from success?

“The hole’s right here,” Mana said sweetly, pointing to a spot just right of the door. “Just go through there, walk around for a while and look for people, please.”

“Meow.”

Lucy started towards the hole and, after giving it a sniff, she ducked and started through. She made it about halfway before the hole started to narrow and she got stuck. Then, suddenly, Lucy unstuck herself and started sliding right on through – likely after Mana gave her a push. After that brief hiccup, she made it to the other side without issue.

The cat peered forward, seemingly diligent in following Mana’s orders, but all there was, was a long staircase leading deeper underground.

Keeping my eyes closed, I took a seat on some rubble and gave the honor of completing our mission to Lucy.

Our dear feline continued down the stairs unimpeded, her path illuminated only by strings of moonlight that cascaded down from the failing brickwork up above. Her movements were about as swift as one might expect from a cat, but the way her head bobbed each step had my stomach doing flips by the time she reached the halfway point. And by the time she made it to the bottom, I was on my back.

At the foot of the stairs, the corridor stretched forward only in only one direction, and so did she. After a brief detour of me having to watch Lucy chase a rat that came to investigate, only for it to escape by squeezing through a crack in the wall, the cat eventually found that the path expanded into a much larger chamber.

Tall walls of deep grey stone soared upwards, supporting a ceiling that would have been lit by a single chandelier, had its cheap iron arms and half-melted candles not been blanketed by cob-webs.

Carved into the stone along these walls were several small rooms, each blocked by thick, black iron bars.

“Is this… a prison?”

Ignoring all this, Lucy stopped, lifted her chin to sniff the air, then continued down, in a straight line, past the pile of empty buckets in the room’s center, and past these cells to find another door.

Seemingly unbothered by this gap in her stroll, Lucy stared straight up at the barred window near the door’s peak and jumped onto it. Just barely managing to catch herself, she forced her way through the slim gap in the bars and dropped onto the other side.

She continued down another hall, this time leading us straight into a dead end where she stopped in front of a single cell that’d been purposefully set aside, far from the rest.

It was there, hidden away in the darkness of a room at the very back, behind a set of bars so thick it didn’t even look like they’d fit in my hand, that we found someone.

Sitting there, staring vacantly up at the ceiling as though the night sky were painted there, was none other than Willomina DeBlanc, the Hemomage.

And she was chained to the wall.