“Fighting a master wizard is an ordeal. Don’t attempt it on your own; there is a difference between an honourable fight and a reckless death. Gather a group of practitioners you can rely on. Find someone able to tend to your wounds. Alchemical potions are a necessity.

Master wizards pride themselves with their extensive knowledge over a school of magic or two. Learn what to expect from them and how to counter it. Their pride makes them look down upon those not wielding same powers as theirs. For every master wizard slain as a result of careful planning, two were defeated because of their arrogance.

Every acolyte learns to watch the hips and arms of their opponent instead of hands, yet against a wizard, it is the opposite. Their movements might be your only warning of what is to come. Where a regular mage requires a lengthy chant, the master wizard might only use a flick of his finger.”

- an excerpt from the Blade; teachings of Lăoshī Tauric

Music was filling the ballroom inside House Faranger's estate. Nobles and other wealthy of Leisha’s Crossroads were mingling together. There was a visible tension between Boewards, Silverfords and Swiftglades but nothing that escalated too far.

Belith was free to enjoy his dance with Gwen.

“What’s on your mind, honey?” the woman whispered to his ear.

“I am just enjoying the moment,” Belith smiled.

Despite everything they have planned for today, his thoughts were drifting towards the suggestion made by Ignatius during the morning liturgy. Would he really have a chance to shape his future to his own liking, instead of following the predesignated marriage in Utherlight?

‘We are entering.’ Ignatius’ voice suddenly sounded inside Belith’s mind interrupting his musings.

Spinning with Gwen, he looked around the ballroom. Joseph and Oda were dancing together. Heinrich, visibly drunk, was trying to stand straight and flirt with some lesser nobles. Conrad was discussing something with a representative from Baaru Consortium. Nothing suspicious.

‘Confirmed. Silverfords still unaware of anything,’ Belith answered, using the mental link Ignatius still sustained.

‘Going silent,’ was the wizard answer and the connection suddenly disappeared, leaving Belith with a small headache.

The song changed and they began another dance. Not even two minutes passed when he noticed Edler Silverford clutching a fist to his chest.

‘Hells, so fast? Their wards are better than we have thought.’

Belith motioned Gwen to approach the edler.

‘After this, I should hire their runemaker.’

***

“Someone penetrated wards of our vault,” Joseph whispered to his wife, feeling the heat radiating from his pendant with a wardstone.

“The guards are surely alarmed by now. Keep calm; remember that leaving the vault is even harder than entering it.”

“I’d like to send a messenger and immediately take back our men from the graveyard.”

“We can’t. What people would say? With wizards supporting our guards there is no way that the thieves manage to escape.”

“Maybe it’s their doings? They might take all the exquisite art I have stored inside. And the dwarven manual.”

“Honey, if it was their doing I believe that the wards wouldn’t even notice them slipping through,” Oda tried to comfort her husband.

“At least I will dispatch Gunther and some of his men immediately, there is no reason for them to stay here in this situation. Heinrich should know where to find him.”

They moved towards their son.

“Is anything wrong?” Gwen approached them. “Edler, you look unwell, I will have a servant fetch you a cold drink.”

She motioned for a cupbearer to come.

“I’m afraid we would have to leave your party earlier,” Oda said apologetically, “It is probably a false alarm, but we believe someone tried to breach through wards of our estate…”

Her calm behaviour was contradicted by Joseph angrily pushing a cure poison potion into Heinrich’s mouths, trying to sober him enough to answer his questions.

“That’s awful, those vagabonds squatting around the city surely are pushing our hospitality too far,” Gwen voiced her concern.

There were numerous reports of refugees stealing from merchants, but so far none of them attempted this on nobles.

“Maybe you could use the assistance of some of our guards?” Belith offered, concern in his voice.

“No need to bother, we will manage on our own…” Oda dismissed the offer.

Joseph seemed to fight with himself for a moment, before speaking:

“Actually, we would be thankful for your help. Just in case the thieves manage to slip through the people stationing inside.”

Everyone was surprised by Joseph’s decision. Even Heinrich seemed to sober up immediately.

It confused Belith. The nobles have suspected the edler to work with the cult, so they doubted he would willingly give their men an excuse to sweep through his estate. They planned to force their ‘help’ onto him.

‘Now we only have to delay the response to give our men enough time to slip away. Everything happened to early. And I have no way to warn Ignatius.’

“I will lead the men!” Heinrich offered.

“I will have a quartermaster fetch you an armour,” like most of Belith’s noble guests he had his sword, but wore only ceremonial clothes, not an armour, “It might not be as good as your own, but we can’t risk having you wounded...”

“We don’t have time for this!” Joseph argued.

“I will send my soldiers ahead, you can join them after preparing. I can’t let my guests wander alone into a danger, what kind of host I would be?”

“My father’s soldiers will surely also help, I will notice him immediately,” Gwen left them to search for Darius.

“Heinrich, send Gunther and our soldiers immediately too. We will follow with everyone else after preparing. I will have those bastards trying to steal from me skinned alive,” Edler Silverford’s voice was brimming with anger.

***

Sae carefully approached the shelf. Even if everything inside looked safe, she maintained vigilance. After her blunder with the illusory doors, which were probably coupled with a subtle mind-affecting compulsion she decided to triple check everything before touching.

She had found nothing suspicious; no runes, no mechanical traps. Nothing that could activate itself when a book is removed. Reria also confirmed that there is no illusion inside the room.

Not finding any more excuses to waste time, she removed the manual from the shelf. Nothing happened, and after a cursory examination, she was sure that the script in her hands was the same she and Ion have exanimated many times before.

She gave it to Ion and looked around the room once more. The sculptures and paintings could be worth something, yet were too big to fit into Ion’s bag. Shrugging, she took the remaining books, they will check their contents later.

“Now let’s break to the opposite room!”

“Do we have enough time?” Reria was concerned.

“Of course. Look at all those riches, they are just a door away! And this ward is almost the same as the one here. It will take only a few minutes…”

Her words disappeared inside a loud rumble which echoed through the corridor.

“What was that?” Reria looked suspiciously.

“As if something exploded… maybe one of our wards was triggered?” Ion asked. “We’d better move out now.”

Sae sent a longing gaze towards the room filled with weapons.

“Okay,” dejected, she led them out.

They easily avoided all the traps on the way back.

Sae was passing through the door back to the outer part of the vault when she suddenly rebounded.

“Aw!” she massaged her forehead.

She began inspecting the air in front of them. Her hands were touching an invisible barrier.

“What's going on?” Ion asked.

“Looks like we are trapped in here,” the rogue answered, “I guess you don’t know Disintegrate?”

They shook their heads.

“As a rule of thumb, the weakest point of a wall of force is the regular wall next to it. Grab pickaxes and we will dig ourselves a hole in the wall!”

“No way! There are wards strengthening the wall too. We are struck down there forever!”

“Just kidding, calm down!” Sae tried to soothe Reria seeing the girl starting to panic, “Time to put your magical skills to use. What type of mana is predominant here?”

Ion wondered for a moment. Perceiving the proportions of ambient mana was one of the necessary skills to properly manifest any spell more powerful than a cantrip. At least if one wished to have enough mana to cast more than a handful of spells during a day.

“Earth mostly. Darkness and water too, albeit in lesser amounts.”

Sae began hastily drawing a pattern of the runes on the ground.

“Try to increase the amount of light and fire mana for now.”

“You can count on me with this,” Reria visibly relaxed, having a task to do.

Ion observed her for a moment and decided to join in, not sensing any noticeable difference in the proportions of ambient mana. It took him a moment to notice that Sae’s runes were leeching most of the mana they've been releasing.

Releasing one’s own mana in such way was not only very inefficient but also taxing. Soon Ion and Reria were drenched in sweat.

The wizard was starting to doubt the idea when Sae spoke again.

“It should be enough; my runes won’t hold much longer. Now focus on earthen mana, try to drain it, hold it or whatever you wizards are doing with the ambient mana to get rid of it..”

They did as she ordered. It was similar to meditating, slightly restoring their mana reserves. It was a nice change, as their previous task left them with less than a half of it.

“Now I will count from three and release everything you stored inside the runes. That will give us a moment to cross the forcefield. Three…two…one….Now!”

Sae touched one of the symbols and immediately rolled forward. For a split second, Ion felt a sudden wave of heat washing over him and a quick flash of light which left him momentary blinded.

Both he and Reria also managed to pass through.

“Free at last!” Reria exclaimed.

“By the Abyss, what’s going on?” Before Ion’s sight adjusted back to a faint light released by the cantrip he still sustained, he heard Sae’s surprised voice and heard a sound of swords being unsheathed.

****

Getting into the main building was trivial. They stealthy moved through the main hall… or tried to, as Kyle was able to clearly hear each step made by the cleric who assisted them.

He looked at Aya, who shook her head in understanding.

‘At least try to move silently. Maybe Uther won’t notice his cleric trying an unlawful craft,’ he messaged the man, who sent him an angry glare.

‘There are things that have to be done for a greater good,’ was his answer.

‘Fanatics…’ he sighed.

They heard a sudden, rumbling noise from somewhere outside. They stopped and looked at each other. Not seeing any signs of alarms they nodded in a silent agreement and proceeded further.

They descended to the basement. Kyle and Aya readied their light crossbows, ready to silence vault guards at the first notice.

Hold – Aya signalled and bent to the ground. Kyle looked around and mentally whistled.

‘Someone really has thought that any decent thief fails to notice this ward? It’s Garl’s joke!’

They quickly disabled the ward and continued.

“What the…” Aya mumbled, seeing the post empty and the vault door open. They carefully sneaked forward, examining two bodies on the ground.

“Darts,” Kyle crouched and looked at the wound on the woman’s neck. He cursed after checking for a pulse, “They are still alive, so there is no way to tell how long ago someone attacked them. Some kind of poison, either from darts or that cloth, must be keeping them asleep.”

“Someone has beaten us here,” Aya inspected the wards of the outer vault door, “Either they were masters in breaking the wards or they had something resembling a control stone.”

“We must abort the mission,” Kyle stood up “If they’ve triggered the alarms this place will be swarmed by guards in any moment.”

“We can’t leave now!” the cleric walked forward, “There is no telling what vile artifacts the cult have stored inside!”

“You are free to stay if you wish to,” Aya looked at them, “I won’t risk my life for a lost cause.”

“You’ve promised!”

Suddenly a short flash of light filled the vault area, only to disappear a moment later.

Kyle and Aya immediately took cover, crossbows at ready.

“Free at last!” they heard woman’s voice.

Still trying to remain hidden they adjusted their position to get a clear line of sight inside.

“By the Abyss, what’s going on?” they heard another voice. For a moment Kyle saw a faint humanoid silhouette brandishing her weapons, yet lost the sight of her as a faint lumination that was released from somewhere inside the room disappeared.

Now the lamp on the guards’ table was the sole source of light. Not wanting the adversary to have an advantage, Kyle used Mage Hand to push it down, dousing the flame.

“We were meant to steal from here today, what is Thieves' Guild thinking allowing someone else to perform a heist in the same time?” the same voice ranted, “The clamour outside, was it yours doing? We had to retreat before being able to steal anything of value! Someone is going to pay for this!”

Kyle tried to pinpoint the voice’s position, thinking intensively.

‘Thieves Guild, in Leisha? The closest thing would be an organisation supported by Swiftglades and Silverfords, but it would never send someone to steal from them.’

“What have you found?” the cleric almost shouted in excitement, “Any traces of vile rituals? Weapons of darkness? Tell me!”

“If some tasteless sculptures could be considered evil than sure… as for weapons, because of you, we had to leave a whole armoury containing enchanted weaponry behind us!”

There was a clear resentment in the voice when she mentioned leaving loot behind.

Kyle communicated with Aya using a Message again.

‘Any idea how many of them?’

As a shadowdancer, even a complete darkness wasn’t totally obstructing her sight.

‘Three. I think I can vaguely spot two of them near the walls, but I have totally lost sight of the last one. Also, I heard the man’s voice murmuring something.’

‘So he’s a spellblade, like me?’

‘Probably.’

‘Should we try to kill them to find out what they stole?’

‘Leaving without anything valuable, after already seeing something seems really fishy to me.’

“I can relate with you, my child. Seeing the authorities ignoring the threat that befallen onto the city, you’ve decided to deal with it on your own. Help us retrieve those weapons. Your innocent sight might have been fooled into not recognising them for what they really are.”

‘Innocent sight? Is this guy serious? Where Lawketts have found this cleric?’

‘No idea… But with him being still alive I believe we have a range advantage. Shooting at him would be so easy.’

‘And with him standing in the middle of the entrance there is no way for them to try sneaking on us unnoticed.’

“Yeah. Sure. It is exactly like you said,” a slight confusion quickly disappeared from the voice, “But why don’t you try on your own? The inner ward is almost completely disabled, just look out for illusory doors spreading on the corridor; only the fifth pair of doors is real. Just let us get out,” there was a plea in the voice, “Or maybe you can flee with us, better to not waste any more time here.”

‘hmm… Stalling here can only cause problems.’

‘Together, even if someone spots us we might have a better chance to fight off guards.’

'We may try getting what they stole after sneaking out from here.'

Kyle messaged the priest after agreeing with Aya.

‘Don’t you think her idea is reasonable? Let’s do as she says.’

‘True, just let them go and quickly break into the vault,’ an answer came.

‘What? She clearly wanted us to leave together!’

‘Of course not. She suggested us to… no way!’

The priest suddenly spoke out loud, with anger.

“You think that we fall for your mind tricks? You are no better than those heretics living here! The sacred flames will cleanse your souls!”

“Look out!” other female’s voice shouted.

A bright streak of light left cleric’s hands and exploded inside the vault.

‘Uther's balls. Joint operation with an amateur. No amount of gold would convince me to try something like this again,’ Kyle thought.

If they had any doubts whether alarms were triggered, now they could be sure of it.