Evelyn sat on the floor, close to the window of the room, and tried to get to grips with what she had just seen. We can't possibly fight that many. She quietly pulled off the overly long cloak that had been hiding her face and stuck it in her backpack; if they did have to fight at least she wouldn't have to do it while wearing that thing, and she held her wooden staff tightly in her left hand. At this point, she didn't care if someone in here recognized her, and she knew she'd have a much easier time fighting in her comfortable red wool dress.

“So, they have a warehouse full of abominations.” Bertrand said quietly. “Does this change our plans?”

“They have at least two warehouses full of them, if not more.” Richard whispered back. “The memory only came back to me when I saw this one, but the warehouse by the Inn is full of the Warped Men also. That also explains why they stayed there and didn't run and hide like I expected them too.” He shook his head, “It doesn't change anything right now. We still need to get Jehan and get out of here.”

Evelyn raised the charms one more time in her hands, and they pointed up and through the wall to their left, pointing in a V shape. “She's very close, and on this floor; probably in the room to our left.” She put the charms back away. “That's the last time I'm going to be able to cast a magic trace. If you still want me to have enough mana to fight at all, I need to save the rest of it for that.”

I probably shouldn't have used so much mana earlier. Why did I waste so much burning through that door? Was I trying to show off what I could do or something?

“Stat book, page 2” she whispered. Her stat book appeared in front of her and flipped open to page 2.

Name: Evelyn

Race: Human (6)

Class: Mage(4)

Scribe (3)

Age: 19

Strength: 11

Dexterity: 13

Constitution: 10

Endurance: 11

Intelligence: 17 (18.7)

Wisdom: 14

Perception: 11

Charisma: 15

HP: 74 (Max: 74)

SP: 40 (Max 83)

MP: 30 (109)

MP regeneration: 14%/hour

Divine Class: Acolyte of Ikar (3)

Humor: 35

Cunning: 113

High Stakes: 147

Divine favors:

Seeker of hidden truths (Cunning): bonus to research into secret, lost, or forbidden knowledge. Increased chance of learning secret, lost, or forbidden knowledge, skills, and spells.

Divine spells (2 casts per day):

The Gambler's Blessing (High Stakes): Has a chance of improving the outcome of a risky action you are about to take. Most effective when you were about to do something very clever or very foolish or both.

Special traits:

Education (basic): +5% to effective intelligence

Education (magic, incomplete): +5% to effective intelligence, +10% to training spells

(For class and racial traits, see page 3 and 4 of stat book)

Skills: (See Page 5 for current skill levels and more details)

Magic sight (Mage)

Spell control (Mage)

Fire magic attunement (Mage)

Wild magic attunement (Mage)

Reading (Scribe)

Writing (Scribe)

Melee weapon (staff) (General)

Pathfinder (forest) (General)

Sewing (General)

Cooking (General)

Tracking (General)

Trapping (General)

Survival (General)

Planting (General)

Harvesting (General)

Spells: (see page 6 for more details)

Force push (general) (2)

Gust of wind (general) (2)

Create water (general) (2)

Insight (general) (3)

Trace magic (general) (2)

Candlelight (fire) (6)

Create fire (fire) (6)

Fire manipulation (fire) (4)

Fire bolt (fire) (5)

Fireball (fire) (2)

Fire divination (fire) (3)

Wild Surge (wild magic) (1)

Wild disruption (wild magic) (0)

Ok, 30 mana left. Should be enough for a quick battle at least.

Harry quietly spoke, “I'll check it out and see if I can figure out if Jehan is in that room with her.” He carefully and silently opened the door and while staying low, so as to be out of sight of anyone on the ground, he carefully moved towards the room to the left of them.

He returned a minute later. “Yes, he's in there. I could hear people in there, it sounded like they were asking him questions, and I could hear him answering. Couldn't quite make out what they were saying, but he's clearly in there.”

Richard nodded. “Ok. We know that at least the enchantress is in there with him, there's no way we're going to do this quietly, so let's do it quickly instead. We kick in the door, rush in, and take out whoever is in the room, probably the enchantress and a few guards. Hit the enchantress with everything you have fast, don't give her a chance to open her mouth if you can help it. Remember, Jehan might be charmed, so don't be surprised if he tries to attack us too.”

This plan has more holes in it than I could even list. Odds of us taking down a high-level enchantress before she gets a spell off are...low. We don't know who else is in the room with them; probably at least some guards. And if we do manage to win somehow, how do we get Jehan, who might or might not be fighting us, and get back out of here when the warehouse is full of abominations.

But there probably isn't a better plan. And I'm not leaving without Jehan.

So, all Evelyn said was “Be careful. If she's an enchanter with some levels, she's probably loaded with lots of magical items she's made. She could have almost anything; necklaces, wands, enchanted clothing. Good news is, unless she's also a Mage, she probably can't quickly cast combat spells other than that enchantment magic; she might be able to confuse or restrain us with that, or try to charm us, but she probably can't kill us directly with magic in combat, enchantment magic isn't good for that.”

The five of them crept out of the room as quietly as they could. They stayed close to the wall and walked in a low crouch, with Harry leading the way and the rest imitating him. From their position they were low enough that they couldn't see any of the abominations on the ground of the warehouse, which hopefully meant anyone down there wouldn't be able to see them. If there had been anyone walking around on the catwalk they probably would have been seen right away, but fortunately there was not. The room they were headed for was in the corner of the building and was larger than the one they'd been hiding in, with doors on two sides going to the catwalk.

As they got close, Evelyn could hear voices in the room.

“...I think that's all we're going to get out of him tonight.” A woman's voice said, frustrated. “He's still holding something back, but he's putting up a great deal of resistance, and I don't want to risk exhausting my mana.”

“We already have men on the way to the house he told us about,” said a low male voice, loud but with an unhealthy sounding rasp. “I hope that anyone who knows anything will be there. We only need to keep this a secret for another 24 hours, and then everything will be in position.”

“The sleep charm on his forehead should keep him unconscious until I can recover my mana. I will get through to him eventually,” she said.

Evelyn whispered. “Ikar, I ask for the Gambler's Blessing. Please aid and guide the foolish thing we are about to do.” She felt the divine blessing settle on her, unsure as always if the unpredictable blessing would actually help or not.

At that moment, Harry kicked in the door, and the five of them came rushing into the room. Evelyn was the second one in, with Harry to her left, Bertrand rushing around to the left of Harry, and Kateryn and Richard to her right. Evelyn raised a hand and began to channel her mana into fire and cast a fire bolt as her brain quickly processed who was in the room.

The room was a large office, most likely one that had previously been owned by someone important based upon the quality of the mahogany furniture in the room, all of which had been pushed off to the side. There were three soldiers in guard uniforms, with swords on their sides.

Behind them was a beautiful woman who Evelyn immediately assumed was the enchanter. She was wearing a short blue skirt that Evelyn immediately recognized had runes of some kind sewn into it, and she had multiple necklaces and charms hanging around her neck. Next to her was Jehan, unconscious, sitting in a chair with a leather belt covered in runes wrapped around his forehead. In the back-left corner of the room was a narrow staircase going down to the lower level. A few feet to her right was another man. He was wrapped black robes, and had a long, narrow face with a crooked nose, but most notable was the dark aura that seemed to warp light around him.

The corrupted mage is here too. I don't think we've got a chance fighting against both of them. She didn't let the thought distract her and continued her spell.

Before a moment had passed, Harry had fired an arrow at the center of the woman's chest, and Richard had thrown a knife at her. Both projectiles somehow missed, the arrow seeming to veer off to her right and the knife veering off to her left. Harry drew and fired a second arrow, and this one also missed, veering off and almost striking the sleeping Jehan.

Evelyn finished her spell a moment later. She turned the mana into fire mana almost effortlessly and directed it with just a few rapidly spoken words and a gesture. The bolt of fire streaked from Evelyn's right hand directly into the center of the woman's chest, and...vanished. The woman smiled, rapidly tracing a pattern in the air.

“HOLD,” she said. Suddenly Evelyn felt her feet rooted to the ground, unable to move. Bertrand had started to rush toward the guards on their left flank but he was suddenly frozen as well; all five of them were suddenly frozen in place.

Evelyn activated her Magic Sight and could clearly see the various runes on the many magical items the enchantress was wearing. Some of them she recognized; one of the woman's necklaces had a rune on it that Evelyn recognized as a “protection from arrows” spell, which could deflect normal ranged weapons away from her. She wasn't sure what the runes on the woman's clothing were but suspected they would protect her like armor. There was a bracelet on her left wrist, with glass baubles, that stood out as especially magical, but Evelyn couldn't begin to guess what that might do. One thing she could easily recognize was the rune on a jade necklace the woman was wearing around her neck; it was clearly a version of the same fire protection rune that she had taken from the soldiers. Unlike a quick rune on a piece of leather though, this was a very precise rune, with more complexity and depth added, carved into a rectangle of pure jade.

Those leather fire protection amulets might have failed after 3 or 4 fire spells, but this one could probably absorb a hundred without failing. I can't beat her this way.

The woman smiled, tracing a new rune in the air. “Now, gentlemen, if I were you I would stop firing arrows and throwing knives around. You seem to have TERRIBLE aim, and you wouldn't want to strike your friend here, now would you?” She smiled. There was certainly a kind of truth in what she said, one of the arrows had almost hit Jehan, but the impact of here words were more than they should have been.

A suggestion spell. Evelyn recognized. Harry suddenly looked unsure and lowered his bow.

I'm only going to have one chance at this.

Evelyn carefully turned the smallest part of her mana she could into a tiny bit of wild magic and trying to follow the description she'd read in that book about how to create a Wild Disruption, she carefully threaded the wild magic into the fabric of the jade amulet the woman was wearing. The wild magic intertwined with the runes of the amulet, and Evelyn could see the runes start to warp and twist as the wild magic subtly changed them. She fed a little bit more into the wild disruption, trying to aim for about five mana's worth of wild magic into the spell. The runes seemed to twist and dance to Evelyn's Magic Sight skill.

If that worked right, then maybe the jade amulet will fail to protect her now if struck hard enough with a fire spell. It might not work at all, or maybe it'll explode or something. One way to find out.

Evelyn guessed she had about 20 mana left, give or take. She turned every bit of mana she had into fire mana, all at once, and put it all into an Empowered Fire Bolt. That was more mana then she had ever tried to put into a Fire Bolt spell before, and there was a chance it might fail or cause a backlash, but she thought she could manage it, and Jehan was too close to her target to risk casting a Fire Ball.

The bolt of flame flew out from Evelyn's hand, larger and brighter than any Fire Bolt she had ever cast before. It struck the enchantress directly in the center of the chest, right where her jade amulet was hanging. The Fire Bolt vanished, but something was different this time. A bright light seemed to shine from the amulet, brighter and brighter, and strange cracks seemed to appear around the outside of it. Evelyn watched, fascinated, until Richard put a hand on her shoulder and shoved her to the left, and she fell sideways.

Just as she fell, the jade amulet suddenly shattered in a burst of light, and a massive blast of fire ten times brighter and larger than the one Evelyn had cast came rushing out of the ruined amulet, directly back in her direction. Smaller sparks and balls of fire shot out in many different directions.

If Richard hadn't pushed me out of the way, that would have gone right through me.

The blast of fire tore through the wooden door behind them, and Evelyn could feel the scorching heat as it passed by her. It continued and spread out as it traveled, a huge wave of fire striking the far side of the warehouse, starting fires across the building. Some of the sparks landed on the wooden floor, starting smaller fires, and the area around the doorway was burning as well.

The enchantress, angry now for the first time, made another gesture with her hand and pointed at Evelyn. “SILENCE!”

Evelyn had continued falling and crashed into the ground with her left hip before falling onto her back. Every part of her that touched the ground was now unable to move as she was held by the hold person spell, and now she could feel that she was unable to speak, which would have prevented her from casting most of her spells.

Not that it matters, I'm out of mana anyway.

The man cursed. “Ice spray!” he shouted, and a spray of ice from his hand extinguished some of the small fires around their feet. “Lillian, can you control them while I put these fires out, or do you need me to put them down first?”

The enchantress nodded. “Don't worry, I have them under control now. The girl just surprised me, I think she's that wild mage the Duke was looking for, but she should be safe for now.”

He nodded and cast another ice spray at the fires around the door before running out into the warehouse. Burning timbers had begun to fall from the ceiling.

Lilian smiled again, a harsher smile this time, and looked back at the five of them. Evelyn was lying on the floor, unable to move or speak, with no mana. Harry had lowered his bow and didn't seem sure what to do next. Bertrand had drawn both of his swords but couldn't move, he was as rooted to the ground as any of them, and Kateryn also didn't seem able to move.

“Anyway, my friends here wouldn't want to hurt me anyway, even if they could, would you my dears?” Lilian said, making another gesture.

Evelyn could feel the suggestion hit her, and any desire to hurt Lilian faded.

“Good. Now, Richard, my pet, are you still in my thrall?”

“Of course,” Richard said, a faint smile on his face.

“Excellent. I free you from your Hold. Why don't you walk over here to me, protect me from anyone else who might try to hurt me, and tell me everything you know. And then you can help me kill your friends. Except the wild mage of course, the Duke wants to recruit her.”

Richard smiled again, and slowly started walking over to Lilian. Evelyn’s heart sank; with her magic sight active, she could still see parts of the charm spell clinging to Richard, as well as the new spells Lilian had just placed on him. The charm spell wasn't complete, Richard had broken parts of it, but she could see that at least some of it was still working.

She lay there on the wooden floor, unable to move, with no magic and no voice. She smelled the smoke of the warehouse starting to catch fire and tried desperately to think if there was anything else she could do.