So all I had to do was escape this place, take a quick jaunt about town, and then sneak back in again. All without being detected.

The first order of business was to see if we were actually being observed. We spent the rest of the day cooling our heels and closely inspecting the walls, floor and ceiling, looking for a hole or a crack or a magical crystal. We found nothing. In that time we were served food, at which point it became clear that they’d considered the possibility of someone invisible escaping. Two guards stood directly behind the servant, blocking the door with their bodies. We all affected not to notice.

When night came, we extinguished the lights all at once - enchanted light crystals, probably a hundred years old - to see if there were any cracks that led to lighted rooms. Either they were wise to that trick, or there just wasn’t anything.

“It’s not that surprising,” Cloridan pointed out. “This isn’t a specialised cell, it looks like a regular guest suite where they’ve added a lock to the door. And the guy said he just needs to keep you out of circulation to see if that makes the guy in red go away.”

“I suppose,” I said. Maybe I was being too paranoid. “Well, there’s no time like the present for getting out of here.”

“And how are you going to do that?”

I’d had time to think of a plan while we were stuck in here all day. So I pointed to the window, one of three that the suite possessed. Everyone looked. It was big enough to fit through, but there were two problems.

“I think the bars will be a bit of an impediment,” Cloridan pointed out. “This place is [Crafted] too high for us to just tear them out.”

“Plus it will make too much noise,” Kyle pointed out. “You can’t make the wall invisible can you?”

“No, but I think this will be just as good,” I said and pulled out my old dagger from its hiding place.

“Were you carrying that under your dress?” Felicia asked, scandalised.

“I’m more interested in how she got it out,” Cloridan mused. “Have you had a hole in all your dresses?”

“Focus people,” I said, including Kyle in that. He hadn’t said anything, but he was blushing furiously. “This is dark-steel, can you use it to cut the bars?”

“Ah, right,” Cloridan said. He thought for a moment. “I think so? We won’t know for sure if we try - but it will at least be quiet.”

“What about the drop?” Felicia asked. “We’re five stories high!”

“She might be able to walk off jumping down, but there’s no way you’re going to climb the wall back up again with your skills.” Cloridan agreed.

I grimaced. Cloridan was responsible for training my non-magical skills, so he knew better than anyone how lacking they were.

“I thought of that as well,” I said and cast [Phantasmal Object]. One cubic metre can make for a lot of rope. I didn’t come close to using my allowance, but I thought this should be plenty of length. “I’ll go down on this one, and cast another for you to lower down when I come back. Putting strain on it will reduce its lifespan, so I only want to use each one once.”

“I should be used to this by now,” Cloridan said, picking up the rope and running it through his fingers. “But [Illusionist] isn’t supposed to be a utility class.”

“And [Rouge] isn’t supposed to metalworking, but here we are,” I said brightly. “Better get cutting.”

After some discussion, we decided to cut the bars out entirely. There was some concern that if they cut one end and bent it, it would come out of the masonry. We were going to have to fix the bars when we were done, unfortunately. I had a few ideas for that, but the worst case was I replaced them with [Phantasmal Object]. That would give us a day to make a run for it before it was discovered… not ideal.

The cutting went smoothly, and it wasn’t long before I was clambering out the window. To Cloridan’s delight, and Felicia’s shocked disapproval, I was wearing a Phantasmal costume.

“It’s as real as it needs to be, it's not going to go away if you stare at it,” I said to the pair of them.

Felicia sniffed, “He hardly needs to be concerned about that, when what you’re wearing is as indecent as that.” From Cloridan’s grin - and Kyles averted gaze - she probably had a point. What I’d conjured up was my version of a ninja suit: a one-piece coverall in very dark grey. To my mind it wasn’t very revealing - everything except for my eyes was covered after all. But it was more close-fitting than my leather armour, and I guess it was stimulating some imaginations.

“Whatever,” I said, shrugging. “I’m going to be invisible for the whole thing anyway.”

I made one last check to make sure I’d gotten everything in place. I put a Phantasmal version of me in one of the beds, pretending to be sick if anyone burst in while I was gone. The second rope was ready, so all that remained was to lower myself out the window.

The streets of Talnier were much as I’d left them the day before: quiet and heavily patrolled. It was easy enough to fake another Jürgen sighting. Once I’d scouted out the location, he could scuttle around until he was seen, then climb up to a roof to escape. Once line of sight was cut off by the roofline, I could let him disappear.

I left the guards searching the area and headed home. There were a few things I wanted to pick up.

“Mmph!” Cutter said, or tried to when I woke him up from sleeping under the kitchen table.

“How’s it going there, kid?” I asked, releasing him. I’d cancelled my invisibility and the room was being lit by a dim light spell near the floor.

“Miss Kandis! I knew you’d get out!” he exclaimed, “There’s no way they could have held you!”

“Thanks for believing in me,” I said. “But I’ve got to go back, so you haven’t seen me, understand?”

“You got it! What’s the plan?”

“Right now, I just came back to pick up some things and make sure you were alright.”

“I’ve been fine,” he said. “They never searched the place or nothin’, and I’ve got money to eat from my share of adventuring.”

“Good,” I said and headed over to where the safe box was. The light, and Cutter, came with me. “We should be back in a day or two, try to stay off the streets as much as possible, and stay out of trouble.”

“No problem,” he assured me, as I opened the box, and took out the Firegem. “What are you going to do with that?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Because I never took it, it was never here, and neither was I. Got it?”

“Got it, boss!” he said enthusiastically.

“Now get some sleep, I’m out of here.”

A blacksmith’s shop tended to be quite well secured. They generally sold weapons and armour, and that stuff was valuable. The workshop area tended to be much less so. Oh it was all kept behind a barred door, but it was also well supplied with windows. Like most windows in this town, they were fortified with bars, but I could look right through them.

It was easy enough for my invisible self to [Phantasmal Entity] a man inside to un-bar the door. I didn’t stay long, what I needed was just lying about the place. I left a gold coin to pay for my depredations, which should surely puzzle the man.

My illusory version of Tom bowed as I left and barred the door behind me before fading away. Utility mage, eh? I thought. It does seem to be turning out that way.

Headed back, I could hear guards shouting. At first, I thought they were still chasing my guy, but when I got to the street they were on, they were pointing at the sky.

There were lights up there. As I watched, they came closer and I could see that they were being held by griffin riders. They had an assortment of weapons and shields, all glowing golden. The guards seemed quite excited, and it sounded like they thought they were going to be under attack. But the procession slowly circled the town, and made their way down to where the Rider’s Academy was, just like every other griffin rider I’d seen.

Flying at night though? That seems dangerous.

I moved on. Kyle dropped the rope when I flashed a signal, so all I had to do was walk up the wall while he pulled me up.

“Did everything go well? Is Cutter alright?” Felicia asked once I’d clambered in.

“Yes, and yes,” I said. “He’s fine, and the guards should report another sighting in the morning - assuming they don’t get distracted by the late-night griffins.”

“I want to ask about that, but we should probably seal up the window again?” Cloridan said.

I looked over at the severed bars and sighed. “Yeah, we might not get a chance if they free us first thing. I’m going to hate myself if we have to cut them open again because the guards’ report isn’t believed or something.”

I brought out the items I’d liberated from the blacksmiths. A crucible, tongs, some heavy gloves, and some scrap metal. After casting a [Static Illusion] over the outside of the window to keep the light from attracting attention, I started heating up one end of the bar with the Fire gem.

“I thought you didn’t get [Craft (Metal)] skill,” Felicity said.

“I didn’t, but I did watch a video on welding on YouTube,” I said. This job wasn’t going to be up to that guy’s standards - or anybody’s, but hopefully it would pass for a while.

When the end of the bar was orange, I used [Phantasmal Object] to put a… cast on the stump at the top of the window and had Kyle jam the bar in there. I’m not sure if ‘cast’ was the right word in metalworking, but then I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of this as a technique. The idea was to wrap the heat-softened metal in a cylinder, so when it was jammed up against its mate, they bonded instead of deforming. I had no idea if it was going to work.

“Oh, it popped,” Kyle said. “But it seems to be stuck? And… I unlocked [Craft(Metal)]?”

“Keep holding it in position, until it cools,” I advised. The heat from the metal was intense enough to do damage to the Phantasm, and it couldn’t take much. “Once it's done, we’ll do the other bar.”

Once it had cooled, I could see… it actually had worked! Oh, it wouldn’t fool anyone examining it. I could clearly see the line where the steel had been joined, and it didn’t look as strong as it should be. But it held, and I didn’t think anyone using this room would know to be suspicious.

Of course, there was a good centimetre of clearance at the bottom end between the two ends. Between my crude cutting tool and even cruder welding, the bar was now much shorter than the gap between the two stumps.

But this was what the rest of the equipment was for. Putting the gem and half the scrap metal in the crucible, I turned the heat up even further, melting the steel. Feeling the heat coming off the gem, I started to appreciate just how wasteful I’d been using this to heat water.

Once again, [Phantasmal Object] came to my rescue. This time it formed a mould around the gap, and I carefully poured the liquid metal in.

I hope this works.

It… did, mostly. The Phantasm didn’t last long, but doing damage had apparently cooled the outside of the metal down to a solid. I wasn’t sure that was how physics… normally works, but I wasn’t going to complain. I quickly cast it again in case the metal melted again. This time it lasted longer - I guess the heat was no longer so intense.

Competency displayed with [Craft(Metal)], Level 1 awarded

For gaining a skill level you have been awarded 1 XP

I guess the system approves.

“Okay,” I said, too tired to avoid using that word. “Let’s get the other one done and then we can get to bed.”

“Um, Kandis?” Felicia said questioningly. “What are we going to do with the equipment in the morning?”