God of Trash

As both of them had expected, Lira was waiting for them by the time they reached the bridge outside the library. Not only waiting, in fact, but swimming loops in the water and spouting it out her mouth out of utter boredom. As they approached, she flipped over in the water to face them. “Took you long enough. What was a pair of young mages doing all alone in the woods that could’ve taken them so long, I wonder?”

Mouse blushed. She shook her head and waved both hands. “N-not that!”

“Organizing the logistics for my hostile takeover of the Empire’s weak snack food market, obviously. What else would a couple of young mages do?” Rhys posited, as if he didn’t know what she was hinting at. He nodded. “Come on, show us the way to Ernesto’s lab. I’m excited that we finally have a lead on Straw, and I don’t know how long we have this Academy to ourselves, so let’s keep moving.”

Lira harrumphed and reluctantly climbed out of the water, once more raising her umbrella over her head. “This way. It’s not a long walk.”

Rhys gestured for her to lead the way, and they set off through the abandoned academy. Three figures, all alone. A ghostly figure in white, carrying a white umbrella up front; behind her, a bizarre man with long hair and a twisted smile; in the rear, a small woman with glasses who barely seemed to exist at all. If someone had glimpsed their little party, they might well have suspected it was some mythical procession as much as a mortal one.

As she promised, it wasn’t long before they drew up to a large, nearly-windowless brick building. Tiny slit windows peered down near the top of its three-story height, but that was it. A single door opened at the front, built of sturdy metal and firmly locked shut. It was merely one of a great many buildings lined up along the canal Lira had swam up in, and it didn’t appear particularly different from any of the rest of them, save for its lack of windows and the powerful barrier Rhys could sense, woven into the very bricks of the building. He approached and reached for the lock, only for a spritz of blue energy to force his hand back. He looked at Lira. “So… how’d you get in?”

“Rushed it while Ernesto and his boys were getting out,” she said. She walked up and tried the lock as well, only to get rebuffed by the same barrier that had stopped Rhys. “They didn’t have it locked up yet.”

“Well.” Rhys glanced at Mouse. “You wouldn’t happen to have a barrier-breaking technique up your sleeve, would you?”

She blinked, startled to suddenly have everyone’s attention, and shook her head firmly.

“Lira?”

“Not unless there’s water involved.”

Rhys crossed his arms and took a stpe back, taking in the whole building. The barrier was kind-of visible at this angle, a faint shimmer just over the surface of the bricks. If he wasn’t specifically looking for it, he would have missed it, which was probably why the Empire had missed it; either that, or it was the proverbial needle in a haystack, but one of many enchanted and barriered buildings in Purple Dawn Academy, and the Empire had overlooked it or deliberately neglected it as unimportant. After all, many of the houses and buildings they’d passed also emanated low-level mana auras, either enchanted, strengthened, or covered in barriers, but like this one, they’d been left alone.