BTIV - Chapter 9

A carriage clattered over cobblestone, sharply contrasting with the distant sounds of music and revelry.  Drekt, Leeka, and Trevor sat in the darkness next to them, their backs to a grassy berm that was the only thing protecting them from being seen directly by anyone with a torch.

“The man you had me mark is fifteen paces away,” Leeka whispered “Moving at a fast walk or a slow jog.  That has to be him in the wagon.”

Micah nodded, pulling a cloth mask up from his chin and over his nose.  It wasn’t the best disguise, but it wasn’t really possible to truly hide his unique skill set and weapon style.  If he was caught and things turned into a fight, efforts to conceal his identity would be nominal at best.  Still, with enough money and the backing of the royal family, even the strongest of circumstantial evidence wouldn’t be enough for someone to level a formal charge against him.  Hopefully.

“Are you sure about this?”  Drekt asked in a whisper.  Both of his hands were on the hilt of the cleaver rammed into the dirt between his knees.  “The princess summoned us to the capital, but we haven’t had a second chance to meet her yet, let alone with the empress.  It seems a bit presumptuous for us to investigate one of her senior nobles without their knowledge or permission.”

“It is,” Micah replied quietly.  “But you heard the princess.  They need evidence that Count Arass is planning to betray the empire, and they can’t just take my word for it.  The empress can’t go about gathering it herselves without triggering an internal crisis.  We were practically at an impasse back in Red Sands.  The only way to prove myself is to show up with evidence of the Count’s betrayal.  Something that no one can have any doubt of.  I’ve already produced the list of likely rebels.  If I show up with proof to back up the list, I’m infinitely more likely to get the support of the royal family.”

“But you don’t know for sure Micah,” Drekt reasoned.  “You said it yourself, they’re ‘likely rebels.’  The timeline could have easily changed.  If the Third Prince decided to simply picked different candidates this time around, you could be charging into this party and picking fights with perfectly ordinary people.”

Micah shrugged, listening closely to the creak of metal and wood as the carriage began to slip past their hiding spot.

“At least the Knight I had Leeka tag is suspicious,” Micah said absently.  “I could practically smell the energy from ritual magic wafting off of him.  I’d be flabbergasted if he wasn’t a daemon summoner of some sort, and that’s if I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt.  He felt wrong to the point that I wouldn’t be surprised if he helped to craft one of those symphony things we encountered on the other side of the ocean.”

“Is that just a thing you can do now?” Drekt asked incredulously.  “Look at someone and tell if he is involved in dangerous magic.”

“Kinda?” Micah answered.  “I don’t know how to explain it, but interacting with Elsewhere puts a taint on you.  Even teleportation marks someone’s soul for a little while, and that’s by far the safest form of interaction you can have with the other plane.”

“He has passed us,” Leeka whispered.  “The carriage is still moving away at a steady speed.  It doesn't look like we’ve been noticed.  Now’s your chance Micah.

Micah pushed away from the berm, still in a crouch but prepared to make a break for the coach when Trevor grabbed him by the bicep.  He turned and looked his brother in the eyes.

“Not you too Trevor,” Micah said impatiently.  “I don’t have a big window here, and this is our best chance to infiltrate Count Arass’ manor and reveal his involvement.  I am out of time for doubts.  I need to go now.”

“That’s not it,” Trevor practically whined.  “I don’t want to sit around in the dark waiting.  I’m hungry and I’m sure they have fancy food in there.  Let me come with you.  It’ll be just like old times, a boatload of fun.”

Drekt reached out, clasping his hand around Trevor’s wrist and removing it from Micah.

“The ‘old times’ you’re referring to involved the two of you killing Baron Hurdon’s son,” he said carefully.  “As I recall, that event along with the invasion of the Baron’s mansion drove the man to the depths of madness that ended with him summoning the Third Prince.  We have our hands full dealing with one world ending calamity.  I’d prefer to not knock down the first domino that will lead to the second.”

He cracked a smile, a flash of white teeth in his dark face, barely visible in the starlight.

“At least until we resolve this one,” Drekt continued.  “Only one apocalypse at a time.  Now go, Micah.  The carriage is getting away.”

Micah stood up, checking his status before running after the carriage.

Age 21 [ERROR] / 35

Class/Level Divine Candidate 55

XP 1,245,700/1,700,000

HP 9794/9794

Class Specialty

Chronomancer, Enchanter

Attributes

Body 59, Agility 59, Mind 119, Spirit 118

Attunement

Moon 110  Sun 70  Night 125

Mana

Moon 9955/9955 Sun 9875/9875 Night  9985/9985

Affinities

Time 10

Tier V - Foresight 19, Time Echos 3, Temporal Transfer 3, Haste 16
Tier VI - Temporal Vortex 14, Temporal Stutter 7, Stasis 6
Tier VII - Time Leash 7, Weave of Fate 5,

Tier VIII - Deja Vu 5

Wood 8

Tier I - Refresh 14, Mending 13, Plant Weave 21

Tier II - Augmented Mending 20, Root Spears 14

Tier III - Heal 13, Paralytic Sting 6, Explosive Thicket 13

Tier IV - Regeneration 12, Healing Wave 6, Poison Fog 15

Tier V - Panacea 7, Coma 6, False Life 3

Tier VI - Binding Vines 12, Infest 4

Air 7

Tier I - Gale 11, Air Knife 24, Air Supply 6
Tier II - Wind Shield 11, Sonic Bolt 18

Tier III - Updraft 5, Pressure Spear 15, Sonic Orb 14

Tier IV - Flight 14, Wind Blade 13

Tier V - Vacuum 6

Blessings

Mythic Blessing of Mursa - Blessed Return, Ageless Folio

Skills

Anatomy  10

Arcana   22

-???  1

Enchanting  36

Fishing   2
Herbalism  5

Librarian  5

Ritual Magic  39

Spear   41

-Wind Spear 13
-TITS  22

Spellcasting  51

One level.  Experience came at the same speed, but earning millions of points would never be easy.  He was closer to level 60 and his third specialization, but there was still a major gap between him and where he needed to be.  More interesting was the new addition to arcana.  His status couldn’t make heads or tails of it, but there was something there.  Something new.  An energy that he barely understood and couldn’t quite access freely.

He hurried in a low crouch after the carriage, mouthing the words to Flight.  The coach was carved from rare hardwoods and lacquered until it shown in the uncertain light of the four lanterns swaying back and forth on each of its corners.

When Micah had spotted the knight back in the capital and had Leeka mark him, the man had only had a driver, a young woman, and a single guard with him.  In all likelihood his companion would be in the carriage with him while the driver and the guard sat at the front of the coach, but that didn’t mean that he could be conspicuous.

Micah’s feet left the cobblestones of the road, floating soundlessly to the back of the vehicle where they touched down gently.  His contact didn’t disturb the coach at all, the added weight barely shifting the carriage in between the regular creaking and swaying as it was pulled toward its destination, Count Arass’ estate.

The polished and lacquered wood was cool under Micah’s fingers as he held firm, pressing his body tight to the carriage.  Already he could see the wall, fifteen paces high and made from mirror smooth white stone that marked the edge of the Count’s manor.  It stretched for half a league in either direction marking the edges of the desert and where the lush olive groves and date orchards of the noble’s gardens began.

Murmurs from the front of the carriage filtered back, and the steady clack of the horses’ hooves began to slow.  Micah pressed himself tighter to the back of the wagon, closing his eyes and slipping mana into his bracelet.

It warmed slightly, electrum runes inscribed in the band of gold gleaming in his sleeve as it activated.  He felt a brush of Jo’s presence and brief wash of melancholy.  It was a hint of her blessing after all, carefully drawn from studying her body and mixed with another stealth blessing from an assassin with the water affinity that were imbued into the enchantment.

The combination wasn’t overly powerful.  The sort of blessed that could generate a cloak of invisibility would never consent to let Micah do something as invasive as inspect their soul, but it was still a useful item.

His breath and heartbeat stilled and the shadows around him lengthened.  Even his mana curled back in on itself, no longer radiating off of his body where a scout or oracle could see it.  Micah was invisible to all senses but one.  Sight.

Muffled voices filtered back from the front of the coach as the driver spoke with a gate guard.  The air around him tingled as a spellcaster used a detection spell to search the area before the large metal gate opened with a groaning creak.

Micah smiled to himself.  It was funny really, with the help of the crown and his years of research he was able to put together a magical item that was almost legendary in its ability to conceal him.  Its only weakness was the most common sense that almost all living beings relied upon.

The carriage started moving again with a jolt, and Micah remained absolutely motionless.  The best the bracelet could do was to extend the shadows around him, making it a little harder to notice him, but that was a weakness he could plan around.

His transportation produced light, but none of it actually shown into the space immediately against its back.  The supports that the lanterns were on blocked direct line of sight to the spheres of gas and flame, giving the appearance of a well lit exterior all while not actually illuminating the narrow shadowed space where he was hiding.

Behind the carriage, the gate closed.  Four guards, three in armor and one in the white robes of a spellcaster chatting quietly beside it.  Like he had thought, the party had dozens if not hundreds of guests.  Even if they were under explicit orders to closely search each visitor, the knight Micah was following was a late arrival.  The dry desert night was cold, and the blessed must be bored to monotony by their repetitive tasks.  It was hardly surprising that they only gave the wagon a visual once over before inspecting it with magic.  After all, usually air magic detection spells were significantly more effective at scouting and searching than something as fickle as eye sight.

They rumbled onward, through carefully cultivated gardens and past marble fountains that must have cost a fortune to keep filled.  Finally, once the gate was out of sight, Micah cast Flight for a second time and pushed gently off, letting the carriage move on without him as he drifted slowly to the ground.

Micah quietly jogged behind an olive tree.  He doubted that the knight’s guard would be looking behind their vehicle, especially now that they were safely on the Count’s land, but he wasn’t going to risk a mission as important as this on a guess.

The carriage clattered onward as Micah looked up at the manor itself.  Four stories and built from marble, it was an imposing sight as it loomed over the desert.  In his previous life, Count Arass had been a regional power broker with a number of interests in the northern provinces that bordered Pereston.  When the attack came, he had been one of the first to betray the Emperess and undermine the provincial army.

He had also been one of the first loyalists sacrificed by Baron Hurdon to power man’s floating citadel.  The Third Prince might manipulate humans into supporting it, but that didn’t mean that it actually cared for them or intended to fulfill their requests.  Its goal was a Karell bereft of life and order.  Once the laws of nature were finally eroded by contamination from Elsewhere, it would destroy the entire planet, consuming its essence to become even stronger than it already was.

Micah’s bracelet was glowing warmer around his wrist as it struggled to accommodate the amount of mana flowing through it.  He hadn’t timed exactly how long the item would last at full power, and he wasn’t exactly keen on testing the enchantment’s durability.

He took off, floating toward a second story balcony overlooking a field of roses.  Detection spells flowed around him, trying to find either a physical presence through tactile searches using air magic or the mana presence from a spellcaster.  His bracelet began to heat up more, to the point where it was beginning to singe and burn the flesh of his arm.  Still, Micah didn’t touch down just yet.

Instead he reached out with his senses, using the power of the crown to locate alarms and enchantments that protected the balcony and the crystal doors that led to the manor itself.  One by one he redirected or temporarily disabled them before landing soundlessly on the marble patio.

His gloved hand pushed the doors open, letting them swing smoothly open on an unlit parlor.  Micah took one step inside before his arcana skill practically began screaming at him.  The entire building was infused with ritual magic and the taint of Elsewhere, hardly surprising given that the Count had used daemons to undermine the provincial armies in a previous life, but still, the scope of what he was feeling surprised him.

Short of Micah’s brief stint inside Elsewhere itself, he couldn’t think of a time or place where the sensation had been stronger.  Even his fights with the Third Prince’s avatar or his interactions with the daemon’s dread symphonies, all of it paled in comparison to the overwhelming stench of otherworldly power.  It was almost like standing in the aura of a luoca.  He could feel the barriers between Karell and the other plane stretching thin, almost to the point where Micah could reach out and touch the mists themselves.

He deactivated the bracelet before it could overload and harm him.  The crown would still tell him where active spells and enchantments were, and that would have to be enough for the time being.

Then Micah left the room, making his way toward a nearby staircase and traveling upward.  Every thirty or so seconds he would stop, using Dakkora’s artifact to modify the flow of magic around him to prevent the building’s automatic defenses from detecting his presence, but slowly and surely he made progress.

Of course, there was no way of knowing that he was moving toward the right target.  After all, he was simply searching blindly for evidence that the Count.  Right now he was moving mostly based off of intuition and the distant sensation of enough magical energy to make a room on the fourth floor shine like the noonday sun.

Below, on the ground floor, Micah could feel ordinary levels of magic as powerful blessed that made up Sandrovok’s nobility and knighthood milled about.  A chamber orchestra was playing a waltz as they undoubtedly danced and networked, making connections and trade deals under the pretense of enjoying themselves at a party.

He couldn’t know for sure if all of the guests in the manor were spies or turncoats, but given the taint of Elsewhere on the knight he followed to the estate, Micah suspected that the majority were.  At the very minimum, all of Count Arass’ supporters were clearly in league with the Third Prince.

Micah ducked into a doorway, activating the bracelet again as soon as he made it to the fourth floor.  A guard wearing a tuxedo and with a rapier at his belt walked by.  As much as the man looked like one of the spoiled courtiers on the ground floor, Micah could see from the scar on his face and the way the soldier carried himself that he had actual combat experience.

After letting the man pass, Micah counted to five, ensuring that the warrior would be out of sight before he continued toward his target.  He spent that time layering himself with spells.  If all went well, he would be able to use the crown to avoid detection, but at the same time, Micah hadn’t had much interaction with the Count in his last life.  By the time he hit the front lines in the war against Pereston, the Empress had already personally driven him out of Sandrovok and into Pereston where the Third Prince sacrificed him.  Micah had no way of knowing precisely what powers the man had.  Things had gone smoothly so far, but if they were to go wrong, this was the moment when his fortunes would turn.

The room had one guard standing outside, but she didn’t stand a chance.  Even without casting Haste, Micah would have been able to overpower her before she sounded the alarm, but with the spell in place he was as fast as a blur, closing the ground between them and slamming his spear into her face with enough force that the point pushed clean through, pinning her to the stone pillar at her back for a half second before he withdrew the weapon with a wet squelch.

He took a moment disabling the enchantments on the wooden door before he tried the handle.  Unsurprisingly, it was locked, but that was hardly enough to slow Micah. His arm bulged as he twisted the handle and pressed his shoulder into the center of the door.  With a metallic ‘crunch’ the door jolted as Micah’s high body attribute shattered both the lock and hinges.  Gently he lifted the door, shifting it to the side before he stepped into the room.

It was a study.  A pair of fancy couches sat on either side of a long, rectangular rug.  At the foot and head of the tapestry stood a large fireplace, silent and dark, and a desk that took up almost the entire wall.  Lining the study itself were bookshelves and paintings.  All items that looked incredibly valuable in their own right, but the dense ball of defensive enchantments around the desk hinted that his true quarry lay there.

Just as Micah began the complicated process of unraveling the spells that protected the piece of furniture’s drawers, a flash of green light stole his attention.  Glancing up, Micah saw that the grating in front of the fireplace had been blown away, revealing a roaring green flame with what appeared to be a mans’ face visible in the jumping and dancing fire.

“Ah,” a male voice filled the room.  “So you’re the one that killed Mari.  Very impressive for one of the Empress’ lackeys to make it this far.”

Micah ignored the man.  If he spoke, that would give the Count one more clue.  Right now, all the man knew for sure was that someone had infiltrated his manor and killed one of his guards.

“Aren’t you curious as to how I detected you?” The face in the fire asked.  “I’m surprised at how powerful your stealth blessing is.   You’ve managed to evade more defensive enchantments and scans than the vault of the central bank.  Still, you couldn’t stop yourself from killing my guard, and their lives are tied to mine.  I could feel it the moment you snuffed her out.  An amateur mistake if I do say so myself.”

Micah reached down, grasping hold of the handle to the desk’s main drawer.  He’d managed to disable most of the damaging enchantments.  All that was left was the alarms and defensive wards, but at this point, secrecy was no longer a major concern.

“All of my guards and guests have their lives tied to mine,” the other man sneered.  “That’s how I know you aren’t someone I invited.  Rather, you’re an interloper.  A pest trying to-”

The drawer flashed with white light as Micah ripped it open.  The entire manor filled with the shriek and clamor of alarms, but Micah didn’t pay them any mind.  Instead he reached past the shattered lock to grab a stack of letters, all bound with fine twine, the only contents of the drawer.

“Fine,” the fire snarled.  “Be that way.  I told you that all of their lives were mine.  Now seems as good a time as any to make use of them.”

The fire winked out.  If it hadn’t been for the grill, twisted and slightly melted and sitting on its side on the carpet, it would look like it had never been there.

Then, a wave of eldritch energy washed over Micah, and his arcana skill screamed a warning.  The entire building pulsed with ritual magic, enough that it almost felt like he had been transported to Elsewhere itself.

He took a step toward the window, planning on breaking out and using Flight to escape.  The entire building shook, as if there had been an earthquake, and Micah’s eyes widened.

The marble wall that formed a massive circle around the estate was glowing green, runes that had previously been invisible burned with terrible purpose, channeling tremendous energy toward… something.