“Wizards are not monsters. They are men and women whose wounds bleed like any other. The sole difference is they wield the weapon only a few are given. However, even magic, like all the weapons, follows certain patterns. Through learning them, you learn their weaknesses.

No skill comes without practice. We know that very well. Yet, the gap between a wizard apprentice and an archmage is even greater than between an acolyte and a shifu. Techniques working against one will be useless against another.”

- an excerpt from the Blade; teachings of Lăoshī Tauric

Ion cut off another leather strap from the breastplate lying next to him.

‘It should be enough now,’ Ion stored a long knife into his Spatial Bag.

Afterwards, he began to cast a spell, forcing his body to change its shape. After minutes spent on weaving Alter Self, from the mirror inside his bedroom looked at him a plain, unassuming face of a man. The proportions of his body also changed slightly; making him a little bit smaller and slimmer.

Ion wiped the sweat from his forehead.

Even if his constant usage of Alter Self spell became somewhat more straining recently, to a point he couldn’t help but anticipate the moment he could finally take a break from using it, he was still intrigued by the way it worked.

No matter if he made himself appear taller, smaller, fatter or slimmer, his mass seemed to stay unchanged. There were also limitations to how much he could alter his shape before the spell broke; when he tried to create an additional pair of hands or wished to appear much shorter he suffered a painful backlash.

Also, by making his limbs more muscular, he found out that, contrary to his expectations, his strength was reduced. He deduced that for the spell to alter his look without changing his mass, it must change the connections between and density of his tissues, probably weakening his muscles and bones in the process.

One of his dreams suggested that more advanced Transmutation spells could solve those problems.

Shaking his thoughts away he began to don a dark, lightly padded shirt and pants.

‘To think that Sae would prepare those outfits for everyone… I wonder where she got them…’

Looking at himself again, his face partially covered by a mask, wearing a dark camouflage armour, he decided that he makes a fine impression of a thief. Even if, despite his changes to the breastplate, he still felt a little unnatural wearing it.

Ion focused, creating a little orb of light in his palm.

‘I doubt it would get any better,’ he sighed, playing it a little between his fingers, before moving out from his bedroom.

“She is late…” As soon as Ion entered a parlour, he spotted Reria pacing around nervously, “What if they caught her? Should we try to flee?”

“Calm down, everything is all right,” Ion tried to sound convincing.

With the execution of their plan imminent, he also became slightly nervous. He wondered how many things could go awry. Judging by the ripples their moves left, Ion wasn’t sure whether it would be worse if someone caught them and believed that they were simply thieves in Silverfords’ Manor, or if someone revealed that it was them who were responsible for the whole ‘evil cult’ thing.

‘Magistrate, it was just a prank!’ might not be enough to get away. Still, he couldn’t smile wryly imagining a situation like this.

‘Hopefully, our precautions would be good enough.’

“New shift for vault just entered the manor, we should move out now,” Ion and Reria jumped, hearing a sudden, familiar voice coming from the apartment entrance.

Neither of them heard Sae entering.

The girl looked at Ion and sighed.

“It was such a nice armour, have you really had to destroy it?”

“Do you even have an idea of how hard it is to cast wearing it, even after my upgrades? It was even worse before. Can’t I just use Disguise to pretend to be wearing it? It interferes with my Mage Armour, which I bet provides a much better protection…”

“Of course it doesn’t protect as good as your spell; your ‘upgrades’ removed everything that made the clothes you wear into a light armour!” Sae pointed toward the other girl. “Look, Reria isn’t complaining about casting while wearing it at all!”

“Actually, I believe it is quite comfortable,” she spoke, creating a few lights inside her palm. There was a smug grin on her face.

‘At least Shield still works fine…’ Ion muttered silently.

“And we have already discussed that we don’t want to leave more magical traces behind ‘thieves’ than necessary. And wasn't that you who claimed that illusions are too easy to fall apart while under the pressure?”

Spells like Disguise Self or Invisibility would break instantly if Ion had stopped concentrating on them, contrary to Alter Self, which as a spell from Transmutation school, had also a margin of inertia, before his body reforms back to its natural state, even if it could be painful if done uncontrolled.

“And where are your daggers? Every rogue needs his daggers!” the rogue continued.

“I’ve put them into my bag,” Ion attached a sheath with a one into his belt. “Am I now roguish enough for you, or still to caster-like?”

He spread his hands questioningly.

“And the second one?”

“C’mon, having this one is enough. I can even wield it if you want, but I need a second hand free to cast.”

“But… it is just cool to dual wield…” Sae said sadly. Ion could almost imagine her sorrowful expression under the hood. “Can’t you even try, please?”

“Oh, fine, let’s have it your way,” he sighed and began searching for a second dagger. If she took all that effort to prepare their disguises he could at least comfort her by wearing his in a way she liked him. It's not like he was really going to use any dagger at all.

“Ekhm… shouldn’t we hurry?” Reria interjected. “The array here is almost complete, we were waiting only for you.”

“Reria, why are you so mean? When you were flirting with Heinrich I wasn’t hurrying you.”

“Don’t remind me about this!”

Heinrich was trying to pick Reria up whenever he spotted her in a manor. Contrary to Sae, she didn’t found it funny. Not knowing how to deal with the edler’s son, she resorted to covering herself with Invisibility whenever Ion wasn’t nearby. Because of the man’s apparent crush on her, Sae considered whether they should somehow use him in their plan but eventually gave up the idea.

“Okay, okay. Just finish the wards. In meanwhile I will set the explosives.”

Ion handed Sae few small pouches he had stored for her.

While Sae was working with explosives, Ion and Reria were making the last adjustments to the formulas of the wards enveloping their room.

“I am done here, how about you?” Sae asked them after a while.

“We’re also ready,” Reria spoke. Ion nodded to her words.

“Okay, then follow me to the vault,” Sae touched the door, but before opening them she turned and gave a last longing look to the room. “Damn, I gonna miss those pillows.”

Ion and Reria covered themselves with Invisibility spells and followed her.

Sneaking through deserted, dimly lit by starlight corridors was entirely different than evading scores of servants just a few hours earlier.

Ion wished to cast Darkvision to see better, yet was earlier told by Sae to try to conserve as much mana as he could. Having to fuel all the wards today, they have already used more than they were able to regain during a short meditation in the room.

Ion expected a servant to stumble on them at any moment, even if he knew that most of them were already given a leave to attend the festival. Sometimes, he spotted Sae signalling them to stop moving, probably listening to some noise that only she heard. No matter how much he tried to catch a sound of something that might be relevant, the only thing he heard was the clatter made by townsfolk outside and the sound of his own heart beating.

Finally, they began descending to the main floor.

There, Ion spotted two guards, standing just out of the building’s entrance. The men were facing the opposite direction, yet as they wished to arrive down to the basement unnoticed, he became painfully aware of every creak and squeak the floor made under his steps.

After what felt like an eternity to him, they left the stairs and took one of the side corridors. It headed further down, towards the vault. Just in front of the familiar entrance to the warded area, another two guards were sitting by the table.

They have already planned how to deal with them.

“I rise,” one of the seated figures spoke.

“Call,” the woman answered.

They looked to be fully focused on their game. Still, not wanting to accidentally alarm them, Ion stick to the plan. He crouched in the shadowed corner and began to whisper an incantation. Due to him gathering mana, the Invisibility spell broke. It was a calculated risk on their part.

“Did you hear that?” the woman reached for her sword, looking around. Her eyes slipped past Ion’s position; apparently, Sae’s armours really helped in hiding in the shadows.

“Trying to distract me? I wasn’t bluffing this time! Show what you’ve got!”

The man, not caring to turn around to check what agitated his partner, started to throw his cards to the table when Ion whispered the final word. The guard’s hand suddenly stopped in mid-air. Similarly, the woman also froze, her face looking towards the corridor Ion’s group arrived from.

Only the frantic moves of the guard’s eyes were hinting that she was still conscious. Panicking, as suddenly most of her muscles stopped responding. Within moments, from the corner of her mind, a creeping fear started spreading, as the realisation dawned upon her. She couldn’t force herself to take a breath nor sense her heart beating. She felt the fear of imminent death, of suffocating.

Hold Person was a very nasty spell, more so for someone who was affected by it for the first time in his life. Ion knew from his own experience; after all, he decided to test its effects on himself soon after learning it.

As far as Ion knew, it was magically cutting off most of the sensory sensations from the body as well as interfering with conscious control over most of the muscles.

Looking at the guard’s chest, it was easy to see that in fact, she was still breathing. Quite fast at that, probably due to stress.

Sae approached paralysed victims of Ion’s spell before they could break free from its effects, quickly pouring a solution from a small bottle onto a cloth.

‘I could have guessed that she would use my healing potions like this.’

Considering the amount Sae poured before placing two cloths on guards’ faces and lying them on the ground, it would take them a long while to awake. Much longer than Ion could ascertain if he had decided to use his Sleep spell.

She left two darts in the exposed parts of their necks.

“Paralyzing poisons are more commonly used than spells. Let’s make it look more like that.”

The guards taken care about, Sae began scrutinizing the entrance to the vault.

“Well, I’ve already checked it before and still can’t find anything suspicious here,” she removed a small inscribed stone from one of her pockets; it resembled devices guards used whenever Ion was ‘deciphering’ the manual inside. “I made it a few days ago, even tested it while we were let inside. As long as I activate it every few minutes, the wards of the outer part of the vault would stay dormant. So for now, the only thing I need to do is to pick that lock.”

Sae pressed one of the runes on the stone and touched the door with it. Ion could feel a small shift in ambient mana as some of the glowing symbols engraved on them dimmed. Sae sighed with relief, took a lantern from the guards’ table and began working on the lock.

“Weren’t you sure that it would work?” Ion asked.

“There is a big difference between knowing something and actually testing it,” Sae answered, inserting another rod into the lock’s mechanism.

Ion observed the focused rogue.

“Are you always sticking out your tongue when picking locks?”

Sae immediately hid it.

Did she blush? Ion couldn’t be sure in the dim light.

“Just try not to bite it if you activate a trap.”

“Oh, shut up.”

Ion chuckled.

“Ok guys, I finished setting up a small alarm around the entrance to the corridor,” Reria appeared. “It should give us some warning if anyone goes this way.”

She tilted her hand, puzzled.

“Did I interrupt you in something?”

“No, you are just in time!” something clicked and Sae pushed the door open. “Now keep close to me, and don’t touch anything unless I tell you to. And create a magical light, it would be easier than using that lamp inside.”