Chapter 78: Day 129 – Shayma (Part One)

They were on the final push toward Duenn, the terrain flattening out as they approached the coast, and everything seemed to be going well enough when Blue’s voice sounded in her ear.

“Um, Shayma? We have a problem.”

“What is it?” His tone sparked a little thread of fear twisting through her gut, because he sounded actually worried. Fears of Tor Kot launching an assault while they were away flitted through her head, along with more outlandish worries. She wasn’t at all expecting what he actually said.

“Your parents turned up on my doorstep and I have no idea what to do with them.”

She laughed. Of all things, she wasn’t expecting that.

“Blue, that’s the opposite of a problem. They’re here! They’re safe! Well, there, but still!”

“Yeah but I can’t talk to them or anything! Giorn is wandering around with a fuckoff huge tree trunk looking like he wants to smash something!”

“Yep, that’s dad,” Shayma giggled. “Don’t worry, he’s a big softie.”

“Softie or not I have to do something to show there’s more than just wilderness around. I mean, they’ll probably find my audience chamber eventually but there’s nobody there!” She had to struggle to keep from laughing harder. Blue sounded so worried, all out of proportion for someone who hadn’t turned a hair dealing with queens and fourth-tiers.

“Just send them to Meil,” she suggested. “They’ll recognize Iniri’s banner. She can tell them what’s going on.”

“Yeah okay that works. I’ll put a portal through to in front of Iniri’s manor. That ought to make it obvious enough something’s going on…” Blue’s muttering trailed off as his attention shifted away. Her attention stayed forward, despite the fact that she really wanted to be back home, greeting her mom and dad. A few days earlier or later and she wouldn’t have missed them! The timing was absolutely just like her dad.

A flash of something made her drop out of [Ghost Step], and it was only after the four of them had emerged into the real world that she realized it was the end of the woodlands. A very abrupt end. While the low trees and scrub faded off just before the coast, they were too far out for that, and a few steps forward showed that a swath of land around Duenn had been cleared.

When she’d last seen Duenn, it was a cramped, sprawling city, half of it ramshackle and the other half overtall, crammed into the point where the Duerre River met the sea. The Duenn that was there now was enclosed by a precise semicircle of wall, straddling a river whose banks had been straightened. While their vantage point wasn’t high enough to see much over the wall itself, the peaks of buildings were visible in neat, orderly rows, sweeping inward to a central tower.

Duenn was no longer mostly bright-painted wood and polished sandstone. It was a stark, featureless white with black accents, as if it had been built from snow and coal. The cleared region outside of Duenn was just as orderly, with the entire span of grass trimmed completely evenly and small trees placed at precise intervals. Even the trees looked entirely too structured, with each one being perfectly symmetrical and identical.

There was no motion from the city at all, and it took her a moment to distinguish Tor Kot’s mantis things from the wall they were posted on.

“That is creepy,” Cheya said, matter-of-factly. Shayma was a little surprised; she wouldn’t have thought the shadow-using [Spymistress] to be the kind of person who’d think anything was creepy. Though she had to agree that there was something eerie about the still, overly-white city.

“I just wonder why Tor Kot hates color,” Annit muttered.

“This is a lot more, well, organized than Meil was,” Shayma admitted. “I don’t think I’ll be able to just slip in and mingle. Assuming there’s anyone left to mingle with.”

“Almost everyone from Meil was at exactly two-thirds depletion, or as close as it could get.” Blue chimed in. “I bet they get some sort of benefit at that threshold, and it explains why everyone wasn’t just fully drained like Yamal. So there’s probably people in there.”

“We should just watch for a few hours,” Cheya informed them. “Perhaps an opportunity will make itself known.”

“I don’t think the edge of that cleared area is the start of the Duenn dungeon, but I think I’m seeing another piece of that ambush spellwork stuff there instead?”

“Um, does that mean the entire city perimeter is alarmed?” Keri asked after Shayma relayed that, eyes wide. “How are you going to get in?”

“I can help Shayma bypass them,” Cheya said. “But only if necessary. It does involve some risk.”

“As opposed to everything else we’re doing?” Annit frowned at Duenn. “There are people alive over there, but it feels off. All stifled.”

“I’d be more surprised if everything was normal,” Shayma said. The unrelieved white of the walls was almost painful to her eyes, and she couldn’t imagine it was any better for the people actually living there.

They settled down to wait at the edge of the cleared area, watching the roads that went in and out of the city. Shayma took the time to write a quick note to Iniri and her parents, having gotten into the habit of carrying around parchment and charcoal. It wasn’t much, just enough to let Iniri know they’d arrived, to tell her that Sienne and Giorn were her parents and to expect them, and to assure her parents she was safe. More than that would have to wait until the job was done.

Not long after Blue had taken the note and delivered it to Iniri, a trading convoy exited Duenn. Admittedly, it wasn’t like any trade caravan she’d seen before. A distant bell range out and the white walls slid aside, revealing a perfectly square opening into the city, and three wagons emerged. While the wagons were ordinary, they were drawn by one of Tor Kot’s creations rather than horses. White-eyed, hexapedal bug-horse things pulled the wagons, and a mantis sat next to the human driver for each of them. More of the monsters escorted the wagon, spear-wielding cavalry mounted on the bug-horses flanking each of the wagons for a total of twelve.

“Would look like a military convoy,” Cheya observed. “If it weren’t for the trading house crests on the wagons.”

“I wouldn’t want to sneak into one of those.” Even if they could find a trade wagon headed into Duenn, with that many monsters around it’d be hard to get on board. Then there were those gates; she wasn’t sure exactly what was on the other side but she didn’t relish the thought of being stuck there.

“Looks like an airlock,” Blue muttered in her ear. “Yeah I think trying to get in that way is the very opposite of what you want to do.”

“At least [Seeker] is telling me exactly where to go,” Shayma sighed. “We should go closer to the shore. It’s over that way.” She pointed in the direction her [Seeker] compass indicated, somewhere off to the left of the tower and deeper in the city. Even after she got inside there was a chunk of Duenn to traverse, and wouldn’t that be fun? At least the city streets couldn’t have tripwires everywhere, not if there were still inhabitants going about their business.

“That Skill is amazing,” Keri said.

“Yes, well, normally the Class keeps you from getting magic or combat Skills. I’m just lucky Blue broke that restriction.”

“Oh, of course.” Keri darted a look at Annit, who didn’t seem to notice, but Shayma could guess at what she was thinking.

“The Skill I will use on you is called [Veil of Shadows],” Cheya told Shayma as they circled around toward the glint of the sea. “It should let you slip past the spellwork but I won’t be able to hold it for long, and [Ghost Step] breaks it.”

“That’s fine,” Shayma assured her, eyeing the expanse between the trees and Duenn. “I have [Physical Superiority] and that much of a sprint I can do. Besides, [Illusory Presence] ought to help with making it across unnoticed by anyone else watching.”

“Should we wait until night?” Annit suggested, picking her way through the underbrush. Shayma could have pulled them all back into [Ghost Step], but this close to the spellwork she didn’t want to risk overshooting and stumbling into something.

“I can blend in better with people walking around,” Shayma told her. “Really I’m hiding from the dungeon, and according to Blue the best way to do that is just be mixed in with everyone else.”

“Well, it is for me. I would think that the mage-kings have less information than I do but who knows. It’s not like we can take the time to experiment and figure it out.”

Shayma chose not to pass that comment on. It was true that they were all a lot less certain about what they were doing than anyone would like, but there was no use in dwelling on it. Maybe once they’d kicked Tor Kot out of Tarnil they would have the luxury of being methodical.

They were slowed by having to cross another few roads in their trek around towards the shore, but fortunately they had Blue to make that far less fraught than it might have been. He simply put a small tunnel under the spellwork each time, not even bothering to fill in behind him and instead fastening camouflaged covers for either side. Not that they intended to retreat back along that path, not when Blue could teleport Cheya and Keri and Annit and then recall her, but it might save any backtracking and was faster. If Shayma could teleport while she was serving as Blue’s anchor it would have been faster still, but they weren’t that lucky.

The wall and intervening cleared area proved to be entirely uniform all the way around, and with the entrance gates invisible unless opened there was no difference between their first vantage point and the one Shayma finally settled on. If it weren’t for the nearby shoreline, they wouldn’t be able to tell they’d moved. The only sounds from the city were the occasional pealing of immense bells, though they weren’t marking time so it was difficult to interpret what they meant.

“All right, I think we’re about ready,” she said. “Did you two want to teleport back to Meil?” Left unsaid was that if something really bad did happen, there wasn’t much the two of them would be able to do about it.

“No,” said Keri, before Annit could say anything. “If Cheya has to go in, we’ll need to report it to Queen Iniri. We can just go up the coast.”

“Hmm. What about sailing? Would that be faster than walking?” Admittedly she didn’t know much about sailing herself, and Nivir was landlocked, but Annit might well know considering she was a southerner.

“I...think so, yes.” Annit cocked her head, eyes distant. “Yes, the wind is favorable for that right now.”

“Great! Blue, do you have a small boat of any sort in your inventory?”

“Uh. Hang on. Actually yes, it’s a little riverboat. I don’t know how it’d do on the ocean?”

“It’s better than nothing!” Shayma held out her hand to a clear spot, and a bubble of black swelled and popped to reveal a single-sail boat, still wet from wherever Blue had plucked it and listing to the side. It was small for a boat, but still a fairly large and bulky item.

“Oh, that’s not bad. We can portage that fairly easily. Come on, Keri, I’ll show you how to deal with this rigging while Shayma gets into Duenn.” Annit’s comment seemed abrupt to Shayma, until she took a closer look at the healer and noticed she was nervous and twitchy. She hid it well, but Keri was clearly worried. Worried about her, Shayma realized, as Keri darted over and grabbed her hands.

“Be careful, okay? We’ll be here when you get back.”

“I will be,” Shayma chuckled, giving Keri a hug. “I’ll be back soon. It shouldn’t take that long.” One way or the other, at least. She could follow [Seeker] right to the last cube and grab it without spending too much time wandering the city. If her presence raised an alarm, she wouldn’t be able to evade Tor Kot’s forces for very long, if the Duenn dungeon had perception like Blue’s.

“I’m ready, Cheya.” Shayma turned to the [Spymistress], who nodded and closed her eyes, holding her hands apart as a skein of shadow began to stretch between them. It wove itself into a solid patch of darkness, which Cheya suddenly cast over Shayma and she found herself wearing a cloak of night-black cloth.

“It will only last a few minutes,” Cheya warned. “Good luck.”

“Good luck,” Annit echoed, and Shayma pulled on her own Skills.

[Illusory Presence] changed her Status to Yinnie Prinn, [Messenger], in order to fool any Status or Divination checks, while [Illusion] made her invisible for the actual charge into the city. Not just invisible either, since while that particular sort of illusion was rare it was also one of the ones people put effort into bypassing. She layered on the anonymous, perfectly-forgettable illusion she’d learned from Wildwood Retreat, making it unlikely that anyone who did notice her would think anything of it.

Finally, [Lesser Shapeshifting] altered her legs slightly, so when she sprinted out of the trees she took long, ground-devouring strides. She could feel the whisper of the shadow cloak as she crossed the first spell line, passing her through without actually touching the threads themselves. There were some eight hundred yards left to cover, and she bolted straight ahead, pulling in great breaths as she strained [Physical Superiority] to the utmost.

“Holy wow you’re fast. I didn’t know you could do that without [Ghost Step].” Blue muttered in her ear, but she couldn’t reply, having to save her breath for the air she needed. Besides, it wouldn’t be particularly stealthy to talk out loud while she was running as quickly and quietly as she could.

The shadow cloak protected her against a second line of spellthread, set a precise two-thirds of the way in, and then a third line at the one-third mark, the [Veil of Shadows] frayed and dissolving as she approached the bare white wall. Tor Kot was a lot more paranoid about his protections than Vok Nal had been, but there was at least nothing at the wall itself.

It was bright enough to her mana sight that she didn’t dare try using [Ghost Step] to go through it, but it was only about twenty feet up. She shifted her legs again, just slightly, and leapt when she reached the base of the wall, springing up over halfway before using [Ghost Step] to teleport the rest of the way, grabbing onto the wall and flinging herself over. The wall was narrow enough that her momentum cleared the whole thing, giving her a glimpse of the white-and-black ramparts before she began to plummet toward the empty streets below.

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Her panicked flailing caught a lintel as [Luck] twanged, telling her in no uncertain terms she’d overstretched her Skill, jerking her to a halt a few feet above the street’s surface, and only once she’d stopped did she realize that the twenty-foot drop wouldn’t have been dangerous at all. Not anymore. She still hadn’t gotten used to being the level she was.

“Oof, dungeon-self does not like you being in contact with another dungeon.” Blue’s voice was reassuring, the liquid sound of his attention soothing her alarm. It was better than cutting off completely, or turning into that strange hiss when he’d lost his mind during the assault on Meil. She made a questioning look, knowing he could see her, before using [Ghost Step] to teleport through the side of the building and onto the second floor. Only then did she relax the invisibility illusion, her ears flicking as she waited for any sound of alarm. Not that the mantises made any sounds.

“There’s a good amount of ANATHEMA rage,” Blue explained. “The overlay hasn’t pinged me yet though so I’m guessing it doesn’t officially count as contact yet. Anything weird on your end?”

Shayma took a moment to assess herself. None of her Skills seemed to be bothered; [Seeker] still pointed in the same direction. The only thing she could sense that was off was the slow deflection of the Depletion field, like a faint miasma all about her. It slid off her, unable to touch, and made her question exactly what the immunity meant.

“Everything seems fine,” she whispered, still listening for anything to indicate alarm while she oriented herself.

It seemed she was in someone’s bedroom. Unoccupied, thankfully, and while it wasn’t stark black-and-white like the exterior walls something about it bothered her. It took her a moment to realize it was absolutely neat and tidy. Far too neat for someone to actually be living there, despite the personal mementos lined up on the desk. On top of that everything looked utterly pristine and new, from the wooden floor to the bedsheets, which of course made some sort of sense if it was all dungeon-made. Still, at least Blue’s offerings looked normal, not spotless.

She peered out the window, looking down at the street outside and wondering where everyone was. Though she could probably travel through the city by using [Ghost Step] to go building to building, she was worried about attracting the dungeon’s attention, not the monsters’ or even that of the populace. For that purpose, the closer she stayed to other people and the less she used her Skills the better off she was. Even if the streets were deserted now, there had to be people somewhere.

A bell rang from somewhere deeper in the city. Doors opened, and the people she was looking for flooded into the streets. She had to restrain herself from simply dashing outside, keeping in mind Cheya’s advice to study the street before trying to mingle. Despite her Class title, she wasn’t too knowledgeable about stealth and infiltration just yet.

As well she did, because when she looked closer absolutely everyone had a colored armband on. Almost all of them were red, little bands of cloth about their left arm, but there were a few that were green. That wasn’t so hard to mimic with a brief application of [Illusion], and to judge by people’s garb her light adventuring outfit would fit in just fine, but she’d have to keep a close eye out for any other odd little details. Hopefully there weren’t very many more, because just the anonymous illusion was rough on her mana, the drain outpacing her regeneration slowly but surely. It’d be hours yet before she was spent, and Blue could always supply her with tayantan juice, but she didn’t want to be caught out with low resources.

Already this was very unlike Meil. That city had been half-manic, half-fearful, but Duenn just seemed off. She opened the bedroom door, sneaking downstairs and passing through a sundries shop before stepping into the streets. There was traffic enough for her to blend in and head in the direction that [Seeker] sent her, walking along perfectly straight and white-paved streets.

She caught snatches of conversation as she made her way in the right direction as best she could,all of them entirely mundane conversations. Of course, it wasn’t like anyone would actively say anything against Tor Kot in a dungeon-controlled city, and they were used to the decor by now, but still seemed wrong to simply gossip about the way some noble’s daughter was dressed.

The streets were confusing, and if it weren’t for her internal compass she thought she’d be lost. Not because they were poorly laid out; in fact they were in something Blue called a radial grid and rigidly ordered, but because every single building looked identical. They didn’t have any little details to set them apart, aside from shop names and discreet numbers at intersections. Still, she didn’t run into any major issues until she reached the next ring in, where she tried to circle around and make for where the cube was, only to find that the street paving turned from white to green.

Only people with green armbands crossed that line. Nobody with a red band so much as approached it, and considering the apparent importance of the bands she didn’t want to recolor hers where anyone could see it. She let the flow of people carry her past the intersection as she looked for a good place to duck into, only to find her path blocked by mantis-monsters.

After a brief spike of terror she realized they were blocking everyone, cordoning off one of the roads to clear the way for an open carriage. This one was obviously dungeon-made, considering its sharp black and white lines, and bore a young woman looking out at the crowd with the haughty sneer only the aristocracy could manage.

Unlike everyone else, she had a pink armband, very clearly showing it off as bug-horses pulled the carriage along. In toward the tower at the center of Duenn, she realized, edging back from the cordon. She didn’t want to give any of the monsters a chance to realize she didn’t quite fit.

“I can’t believe Trissa got picked to be a dungeon-wife,” one of the women said to her companion, who nodded in agreement. “I’m so jealous!”

“I hear that the Tower has all the luxuries the mage-kings have ever thought of. Magic foods, farseeing portals, beds made of clouds —”

“— which you’d be using a lot,” the other woman butted in.

“Well, I have heard the stories. Can you imagine?”

Shayma hurried away. She didn’t really need to hear that gossip. If nothing else, she was quite familiar with the topic of the conversation. Though it made her a bit nauseous to think of a Red dungeon, since unlike Blue they needed monsters. All the mantis monsters wandering about were probably birthed by the “dungeon-wives” and that creeped her out. Though not nearly as much as people coveting such a position.

She was still wandering the streets when another bell sounded, and this time everyone who had been strolling or peering at shops started rushing around, the streets beginning to empty as people headed back into homes or businesses. Shayma followed the flow, heading into the nearest building and ducking past the proprieter to hide in the back room. Surrounded by leather and shoe molds, she swapped the red armband for a green one and lurked in the cobbler’s shop as she waited for more bells to ring.

“Well this is all nice and dystopian,” Blue muttered. “Color codes? Armbands? Controlled traffic? This guy really has put some effort into it. The worst part is it sounds like people don’t mind.”

“I’m sure that anyone who spoke out against it is long gone.” Shayma kept her voice low. Anonymous or not, she definitely wasn’t supposed to be in the shop. She kept an eye out of the small window, watching as a troop of monsters marched down the streets. So far she hadn’t seen anything different from the three types of mantises and the bug-horses, but she wouldn’t expect to see any elites anyway.

“Hmm, patrols too,” Blue observed. “Yeah he’s had a couple years to work on this? Between Depletion and whatever weird mind magic Red Core dungeons get it doesn’t surprise me Duenn is subjugated.”

“But if it’s subjugated why all the...weird stuff? The colors and the bells?”

“Oh, it’s all about control. There’s no way people are as sanguine as it seems, or if they are, it’s because they don’t get the opportunity to have any sort of thought. I’d say it’s unstable but these things can last a surprisingly long time without any kind of magic.”

“...sounds like you know a lot about it.” It was a strange sort of remark, especially the qualifier about not using magic.

“Stories mostly,” Blue told her. “I’m sure you’ve got stories about kingdoms failing for one reason or another. Hubris or poor judgement, that kind of thing. I just happen to know some of those stories that seem pretty applicable to what’s going on here.”

“Any of those stories have any useful insights for me?” The squad of monster soldiers passed by, patrolling the empty streets, and turned a corner. She wondered if the monsters that patrolled the green section of the city were also white or if Vok Nal had made them green too.

“Uh, don’t stand out. You’re more likely to be in danger of discovery from the populace than the masters, since people have been trained to report anyone suspicious. I’m not sure how much that applies here since we’re dealing with a dungeon but...yeah, good call on that armband thing.”

“Hmm.” She was abruptly more aware of the fact that she was in someone’s workroom, and even with the anonymity illusion on they’d be upset to find her here. With that in mind she snuck back out of the room, noting that there were actually several people in the cobbler’s shop, chatting away. Under the circumstances, she had to wonder if they were simply stuck there like her, waiting for the bells to sound so they could move on to wherever they were going.

For the moment she lurked in the stairwell to the second floor, which was effectively identical to the first house she’d entered, eavesdropping on the entirely mundane conversations. She had never known that there was so much to talk about between leatherworkers and cobblers, nor that people could be so animated discussing the finer properties of leather.

It took quite a while for another bell to rescue her from a discussion that had rapidly gotten far too technical for her to follow, and she estimated that the people of Duenn were given perhaps an hour to walk around, fifteen minutes to get themselves off the streets, and then half an hour where the streets were clear for whatever reason Tor Kot wanted them clear.

“I bet there’s a curfew too.” Blue said, his thoughts following the same lines as hers. “It’s probably a good idea you didn’t wait until dark.”

Shayma nodded agreement, slipping out the door while the owner of the shop was still distracted by the leatherworker and making her way toward the green section of Duenn. She kept her senses open as she stepped over the line, but either any alarms were beyond her ken or people simply didn’t expect anyone to fake the armband colors. Or just weren’t brave enough to.

The buildings in the green section were significantly larger than the ones in the common areas, though still of the same style. Square, gabled windows, peaked roofs, metal signs, and absolutely no decoration. The last wasn’t entirely true for the green section, since not only did they have the luxury of buildings that weren’t entirely identical, but shops had custom signs and some buildings had plants or statues on landings or porches. The streets, of course, were still perfectly clean and clear and immaculate.

If she weren’t so worried about looking completely normal she would have spent all her time gawking, but even without doing so she caught some odd signage from the corner of her eye. Things like top-quality dungeon-meat or dungeon-made cloth, as well as a few places that supposedly catered to the monsters themselves made her feel like she’d stumbled through into the heart of mage-king territory. It was just so very strange.

The large shops gave way to purely residential dwellings as she followed the road deeper into green territory, feeling far more conspicuous with the lighter traffic but keeping her stride purposeful. Cheya and Blue both had told her that the most suspicious thing was acting suspicious, and just looking like you knew where you were going was the most important part of infiltration. With [Seeker] she absolutely did, and according to her Skill she was very close, enough that when she turned right at another intersection she spotted the building where the cube was being kept.

This one was a third type, a large sprawling residence that Shayma would count as a mansion, complete with a manicured front lawn. She even recognized the type of grass there, though it was pale green rather than blue-green, and figured that the entire thing was dungeon-grown. Unfortunately she had no idea how she was going to get in, because she didn’t have any plausible excuse to walk up and knock on the door. She didn’t even know who lived there.

“You’re going to have to break in, probably.” Blue said as she turned to skirt around the mansion, following the street. Big as it was, she had plenty of time to try and spot the best place. Or actually, she didn’t, as the sudden sound of a bell meant she had only a few minutes to get off the street.

There weren’t any entrances to the mansion that Shayma could see other than the front one, which was strange but so was everything. A short wall and a few feet of laws separated the mansion’s walls from the street, but the walls themselves only had windows at regular intervals, without even balconies or porches. She was going to have to [Ghost Step] inside, and hope for the best. Just as soon as there was nobody around to spot it.

The streets were emptying quickly, though, so it was only another minute or two before she simply hopped the wall and [Ghost Stepped] into the building. For this she pulled the invisibility illusion back on, despite the fact that her mana was starting to feel alarmingly low, and it was well she did because the library she landed in was occupied. It wasn’t occupied by a human though.

“Well, that’s not something I thought I’d ever see.” Shayma had to agree with Blue. There was a maid cleaning up the remains of a lunch there, but not a human. It was one of the mantis-monsters wearing a tailored maid’s outfit, the dress’ hem swishing about four taloned feet as it worked. It paused for a moment, head swiveling on its too-narrow neck as it seemed to sense Shayma’s presence, and she held her breath, crouching down next to the bookcase and holding her illusions as close as she could.

After a long, long moment the monster maid returned to straightening up the endtable it was working on, and Shayma slunk around the corner to break the line of sight before releasing the invisibility. Her mana was nearing empty, but hopefully she wouldn’t have to keep up the illusions much longer. At least [Illusory Presence] cost so little she could keep it up forever.

The house was evidently occupied, but considering its size there were a lot of empty rooms. She crept along until she found an unlocked door and squeezed herself into a closet, hunkering down. She conjured some lukewarm tayantan juice from her [Phantom Pocket] and drank it down, feeling some of the mana flow back into her with a sigh of relief.

“How close was I to no mana?” Shayma kept it to a whisper, barely audible even to her.

“You were at thirty-something. Now you’re at sixty-eight. You get more than most people from it, which I guess makes sense?”

She grimaced. Higher-level people could track their mana far more accurately, especially once they got higher tier versions of mana manipulation, but she wasn’t there yet. Hearing the numbers just drove home how close she was to running on empty. Admittedly she wasn’t completely mana-oriented, and things like [Ghost Step] ran off of stamina, but without mana she’d have to drop her illusion and that would certainly be a bad thing.

After a moment of listening to ensure there was nobody in the hall outside, Shayma slipped out of the closet and continued following the direction of [Seeker]. It seemed her goal was on the second floor, but it took her some time to find the stairs because there seemed to be only one staircase. A massive, double spiral staircase rose through the center of the mansion, from the basement all the way to the roof, which was unfortunate for stealth.

Several other monsters were going about their business, a few in dresses and one in a suit, which was bizarrely more disturbing than just the naked, combat version. One was even sweeping, which was so incredibly mundane she just wanted to stop and stare. Instead she slipped into the shadow of the staircase, pausing as one of the human inhabitants of the manor swept down from the third floor, complaining loudly at his companion.

“I don’t care what Julius says. We are in the best position our family’s ever been and it’s because of Tor Kot. He can whine about whatever losses he likes but one step further – just one step, mind you – and I’m reporting him. He’s only a third rank citizen, so let him see how he likes that!”

“Of course, sir.” An obsequious servant replied, this one human. “I will carry the message next interval.”

“Ugh,” Blue said. “Collaborators. Not the reluctant kind either, it sounds like. Cerae Llyn, level forty-six [Flame Hussar]. Something to pass on to Cheya I guess.”

Shayma nodded, though the name didn’t mean anything to her, and waited for the two men to leave the stairwell. Only then was it finally, finally clear, and she raced up to the landing, [Awareness] as well as her enhanced senses straining to make sure she didn’t run into any of the silent-as-death monster servants. [Stealth] was getting a good exercise, keeping her footfalls almost entirely noiseless and reducing the strain on her [Illusory Presence].

[Seeker] pointed her down one hall, then another, making her backtrack as she took a wrong turn and ended up in a drawing room instead of wherever the cube was. When she did find the correct room it was obvious, because the thing was full of treasures. Magic weapons and shields hung on the walls, sculptures and pottery were displayed on stands, and the bones of some giant bird were suspended from the ceiling.

There was additional spellwork here, something different from what she’d seen out of Tor Kot but probably still a kind of alarm or protection. It wrapped around the various displays but left enough room for her to tiptoe past. A faint noise made her crouch behind a table, and a shadow passed by the doorway but didn’t come in. With [Promise] she didn’t need any light, fortunately, so there was nothing to give her away.

Once she was alone again, Shayma crept to the back of the room. The cube was in a display case, mislabeled as an ancient puzzle-box from Ir. It was protected by glass and spellwork, but she had the perfect set of [Skills] for that. She pressed her fingers against the top of the case, brushing the cube itself with [Legerdemain] and pulling it into [Phantom Pocket] before letting out a long breath. She had it.

Then a bell began ringing inside the house.

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