Malcolm Tent
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Wish upon the Stars chapter 596
🕑 Added 2024-04-03 23:48:45 +0000 UTCWe slipped out of the valley at two forty five the next morning. It was a simple thing to do, we had Anna, Callie, and Bethy with us, and the latter’s domain made what might have been a risky exfiltration easy as pie. We didn’t speak for about ten minutes as we walked the miles between the valley and Spencer’s estate, but when we finally got to the edge of the property, we stopped for a powwow.
“What the fuck was that?” I hissed, spinning on Anna. “I thought they didn’t know where we were. We passed ten different search parties!”
She shrugged. “I said they didn’t know, not that they didn’t care. I didn’t expect them to put in that much effort though.” She glanced at Bethy. “That Domain of yours is damned useful. I didn’t know it worked with stealth.”
“It’s a vampire thing.” Said Bethy casually. “Stealth is one of the powers attributed to us. Vampirism is a flexible and powerful trait. I’m totally awesome at making stuff go whoosh!” She waved her hands dramatically. “And just disappear. Illusions are easy, so I made us all like ghosts.”
I chuckled. “You scare me sometimes.” I told my friend. “But I’m glad you’re on our side. Speaking of which, you and Abel are first up on the docket. Anna will be filling you in on the details, but you’ll be getting us through before we all split up to do our parts.”
Anna nodded, gesturing ahead of us. “This is the weakest spot in the ward scheme. There are detection enchantments, combat enchantments, and a few shields mixed in there, but the foundation for the manor can’t hold an unlimited amount of magic. They already had extensive wards, and while Spencer paid to tune them up there was only so much he could do.”
Reaching into a bag hanging on her belt, she pulled out a handful of powder and blew it lightly. The crystalline sand flared out in a small cloud, and before our eyes landed gently on a series of multi-colored sparks where enchantments were standing. My Eye of Revelation could make out most of them, but there were a few even I hadn’t been able to spot.
“This.” She said, gesturing to the bag. “Is all seeing mirror dust. It’s rare and hard to make. You need to enchant a mirror with truesight, then crush it into powder without breaking that enchantment. The preparation method is complicated.”
Bethy clapped happily. “It’s so pretty. I want some, can you get it for me? I could use to make murals in the air!”
“No. It’s expensive.” Said Anna in exasperation. “But it did its job. You can see the gaps between the wards. Can you do your part?” She gestured to a series of complicated and twisty avenues where we could see space between the overlapping defenses. Some of them were big enough to squeeze through, some of them were the size of a pin. Luckily, that was what we’d brought Bethy and Abel for.
Bethy turned to my mentor. “You ready for this Alice?” She said lightly. “It’s going to be tough.” He didn’t even bother to respond verbally, just nodding, and she closed her eyes, stepping up next to him and expanding her Domain until we were all inside. “You’re up.” She said tightly. “I won’t be able to allow your ability to affect this for long, so hurry up.”
Grinning, Abel raised his hands, spreading them slowly and then pushing them in. Around us a large area of lubricated space manifested, and as he brought his hands together, it compacted, shrinking until his palms were cupped around an orb shaped space and the spatial distortion was perfectly overlaid on the Domain.
Instead of stopping, he continued to compact it, pressing and slowly shrinking US, using the separated nature of the domain and his own spatial powers to slowly warp the area we were standing in. Then he started to push forward. The sphere changed shape, becoming a snake and I could feel a stretch and pull as he slowly slithered us forward.
Shrinking, twisting, turning, I felt like I was in kaleidoscope and a blender all at once, we warped and shifted, the Domain being reshaped and slipping between the wards in a way that neither Bethy nor Abel couldn’t have managed alone. Finally, we touched down in an open space Anna had pointed out, and Abel dropped, wheezing, Mel catching him as Bethy let the Domain fade with a quiet grunt of effort.
“We’re in.” Said Bethy solemnly. We all just stared at her and she pouted. “What? I’ve always wanted to say that. I think I earned it.”
I chuckled. “Agreed. So everyone has their own mission. No need to go over them again, split up and get it done.” I looked at Callie. “Be careful with those straw dolls. Use the shadows to activate them at a distance, because that D-ranker will be on you within a second once that aura pops.”
“I thought we weren’t restating people’s jobs.” She said with a smirk. “I love you too honey. Be safe down there.” She pecked me on the cheek through my mask and then stepped into the shadows, vanishing. Anna went after, with Bethy giving a toothy smile and erupting into a cloud of surprisingly stealthy winged cats.
Abel hunkered down to wait, sheltering under a nearby tree. Mel gave me a nod. “Wish I was coming with you on this.” She said. “It’s right up my alley. But he’s wiped out, and he needs me.”
“I knew this was a solo op for me.” I said with a smile. “Don’t sweat it. I’ll make sure everything goes as planned.” Waving, I turned and tapped into Callie’s Stealth, her Perception letting me make me way unseen. Past the wards no one would be looking for sneaking, so unless someone tripped over me I should be fine. Fortified positions were the worst for anti-stealth, according to Anna, because they got used to relying on preventative measures like wards and didn’t do regular sweeps.
Despite that, I still had to be careful. A long, slow walk into the manor, Eye of Revelation letting me slip by the sparse wards inside. They may not take security seriously enough, but it wasn’t nonexistent. We’d gotten our hands on the blueprints, and I knew exactly which way to go, so with a bit of careful stepping (sometimes on the ceiling with State of Grace) I eventually made it to a door that led to the basement.
Unlike us, Spencer didn’t have access to wishes to magically build a whole town in a month. He might have been able to pay to have it rushed, but it would take away from his funds for hiring soldiers. Instead, he’d reoutfitted this building, and we’d been able to get nearly up to date blueprints and then tweak them with wishes so we knew all the details.
Slipping through the door, I made my way down into the dark, easily able to see with my Eye of Revelation. The basement was actually pretty nice, but I knew where to go, so I avoided the finished parts, heading to the back to a crawlspace that took me to a room under the finished floor.
The whole place was full of running water, acting as a sort of sewer culvert, with multiple pools of water draining in and then back out. I couldn’t smell anything, but that might just be my mask. Walking out onto the dirt floor between the six stone troughs where the water poured in, I looked around, noting multiple pillars in different positions.
Counting them, I came to one in particular. Putting a hand on it I closed my eyes and activated Pit of Despair. I had to shape it, altering the dust so only specific parts of the pillar came out. We knew exactly where Spencer would be, but I had to carefully execute this part of the plan in order to roust him to the area where Bethy was setting the traps we’d prepared.
Forty five degrees, two feet up at an angle. Apply a bit of poison fire. I moved on to the next pillar on the list. Same thing. Slight modification that wouldn’t bring it down, but would weaken it. The contractor we’d hired to do the math on this had been given a wish and paid with his memory, but none of us understood construction enough to do it ourselves.
After weakening the six pillars indicated, I walked over to the steps, climbed up and then hung down from the crawlspace to get line of sight on the area in the middle of the dirt. Taking a long, slow breath, I focused and then created a pit of despair in a very precise spot I’d measured out with paces.
The ground warped, and I lifted the dust out with my Dust Construction, pulling it to me where I used it to create a new makeshift pillar near my hatch as I’d asked the contractor to plan out. I didn’t want to end up screwed along with the people that were about to be caught in this.
There was a shift in the ground, dirt moving and buckling, and then there was a loud crack, then another, then four more as the weakened supports gave out in exactly the right order, and a full fucking QUARTER of the house collapsed into a giant sinkhole. Not even waiting, I booked it, taking the entrance out of the basement opposite the collapsed section as I headed for the dining room where Bethy was waiting.
I felt a shift and Callie appeared next to me, grinning. We didn’t speak aloud, but I checked in on her mentally and she flooded the bond with excitement and triumph. She’d planted the dolls to draw off the D-ranker, as well as compromising the wards in a few key locations that would confuse any leftover defenders trying to react.
We hit the dining room at a dead sprint, finding Bethy waiting for us with Luggage out to defend her. She still looked exhausted, clearly having used up a lot of energy arming everything. On the far end of the room I could see a busted wall where a section of flooring had slid at an angle bursting through and setting up an entrance directly into the room.
The whole place was covered in dust, and I waited cautiously as Spencer and a squad of E-rankers made their way carefully toward us. They couldn’t see the traps, but clearly one of them had some kind of danger sense of their own, because they stopped on the edge of the floor section ramp without touching the tiles of the room.
Spencer grinned, clapping slowly. “Very nice.” He said sincerely. “I expected you to hole up on the defense, but you brought the fight to me. I can only assume that little collapse was supposed to injure me?” He spread his arms, showing off a glowing golden vest. “Because it might have, if not for my defenses.”
We’d known about that, but the traps to deactivate his defensive artifacts were in the room itself, so we’d need to bait him out.
“What can I say.” I told him with a shrug. “Crushing usually works on insects.”
His smile tightened, before he waved my comment away. “Oh well, these are your last words. Go on then. Feel free to say what you like. Maybe you have some speech locked and loaded about how I’m a monster, I’m sure Camden has told you plenty.”
“He has.” I agreed. “But I don’t really need him to tell me what I already know. In fact, I just realized I don’t need to have this conversation at all.” He gave me a politely quizzical look, and I grinned back before looking down and triggering Pit of Despair. As he dropped onto the floor of the dining room, I flexed Dust Construction, creating a dozen spikes that I sent slamming into his guards at random just to sew confusion.
When his feet landed, there was an explosion of magical force as the golden light of the vest faded, and Spencer’s eyes went wide as he stared down the formerly active defense…and that was when all hell broke loose.
