Hugo woke up in the middle of the night, went to the bathroom and almost went back to sleep. At the last moment, his sleepy brain remembered he had something to do.

The walls.

Both of them in fact. He needed to get over one, and save the other. A daunting task. He briefly considered not doing anything, this wasn't his problem after all. Still, he knew that dozens would die if he did nothing. He wasn’t sure he was up to the challenge, but he had to try.

The first step was leaving his room without waking Oskar. His roommate was a light sleeper and he didn’t want to have to explain why he was leaving in the middle of the night. A glance outside showed that it was around the first bell. He hoped he wasn’t too late.

Stealthily, Hugo slipped out of bed and walked to the door. He carried his shoes until he was out of the room so he wouldn't wake Oskar. The cool night air helped him wake up as he walked towards the closest wall.

A quick check with his Mana Sight revealed that the entire wall was warded. Just as he expected. He bet that if anyone tried to climb the wall, it would set off magical alarms. The idea that his academy was built similar to a jail was a bit disconcerting. Not really a surprise though, he bet a lot of schools were like that.

In order to save himself time and mana, he started his first foot sized platform high up. Then he ran and jumped up to reach the first step six feet high. He immediately made a second step as high up as his legs would reach. As he stepped on the second platform he recycled the first. He made a third step. Then another, and another. He was glad for his extra physical stats that let him conserve mana.

He was steadily making progress, climbing up the air with his eyes on the top of the wall. He cursed the designers of the academy walls, twenty five feet tall was honestly overkill. Eventually he made it to the top of the wall.

Mental exhaustion almost made him make the mistake of stepping down on the top of the wall for a break. Luckily he thought to check it with his mana sight before he did, and saw that it was heavily warded. In fact, the wards extended another five feet up. He would have to make two more steps to avoid the alarms.

A quick check of his mana showed that he had to be more efficient on the way down. He dropped down, ten feet at a time, and made it to the ground without incident. A quick glance around showed that no one had seen him, so he walked off to a side street. He was tempted to run, but that would only make himself look more suspicious.

Once he was far away from the academy, he did end up running part of the way. The sun had set hours ago, and he didn’t want to miss the saboteurs. Catching them in the act was the whole point of sneaking out tonight. Plus, he wanted to save the life of the runic inspector.

When he arrived at the southern wall, he realized that his plan of blending in with the other students was doomed. There weren’t as many people on the wall tonight. There were perhaps a third as many people now as there were before. If he walked up there now, he would surely be noticed.

Walking back into the shadows of the alleyway, Hugo tried to come up with a new plan. He looked around, frustrated. He was so close, but didn’t dare get closer. Less than a few hundred feet separated him from his goal, but if he hung out on the wall, they would question why he was there.

He looked up. Maybe he didn’t have to get closer. The apartments in the narrows had been built so close to the walls that he could see the control runes just fine from here. He just needed to make sure he wasn’t spotted by nosy neighbors while he was at it.

Climbing up the side of the building was much easier than he had thought. Poor building construction and his soulmarked stats combined to make it a breeze. He could have taken the stairs, but didn’t want to risk being caught in his school uniform by someone that would tattle on him.

The rooftop was mostly empty, just a rat in the corner. There was a door leading down into the building but nothing else. The rooftop had a small edge, two feet high, and he hid underneath it. People walking the wall could see him just as easily as he could see them so he needed to keep hidden.

No one so much as glanced his way for hours. They walked the walls, not even going up and down the stairs near the control rune. The only one that even had an idea that he was up here was a rat hanging out on the other end of the rooftop.

Waiting was boring, but it was all he could do at the moment.

Hugo peeked over the edge of the roof again. Still nothing. He wondered why it was so quiet. He thought that the monsters attacked in unending waves, he hadn’t realized that there were long lulls in the action like this.

Bored, Hugo looked around the rooftop again. That rat was still there. That wasn’t normal rat behavior. At this point, it was clear that this rat was controlled by the fox gang. He bet they were keeping tabs on him because he looked like he was there to do something nefarious.

They didn’t want him horning in on their territory.

An idea came to him. As long as they knew that he was there, he might as well include the fox gang in his plans.

“Hey rat, come here,” Hugo whispered.

The rat stayed where it was, not moving. Hugo crept a little closer and said, “Come here rat. I need to show something to your bosses.”

It scurried back a few steps and turned to look at him. The animal act was very convincing. If he didn’t know that rats were usually much more scared of people, he could be convinced that this was just a simple rat in front of him.

“Quit pretending, I know all about the shadow controlled rats,” Hugo said. When it continued to ignore him, he shook his head and said, “Whatever. Just listen. I know that there are some people trying to sabotage the walls. I don’t know for sure, but I think they are from a foreign government. Maybe Deva, I am not sure. Anyway, tonight or tomorrow night, they are going to sabotage that big control rune up there. We need to stop them.”

The rat cleaned its whiskers and turned away from Hugo.

“Come on. You can’t ignore this. It’s bad for business. If the walls fall, everyone is in danger and it will kill your people too. And cut into your profits.”

Now it was clear that the rat was ignoring Hugo. It even went to the other side of the rooftop.

Frowning, Hugo returned to his vigil. Occasionally, he would activate his mana sight and examine the two story control rune. It was actually kind of interesting. The mana was fed into the control rune from a source underground. Then it filtered that mana into eight smaller runes, and those runes went into eight smaller runes themselves.

It was clear that they each had a different function, but Hugo couldn’t tell what exactly each rune did. He imagined that it strengthened the walls, repelled magical effects, and repaired itself from damage. It was interesting. Hugo was tempted to study rune work in his free time. But he already had two domains, he wasn’t planning on adding a third. Still, he found the flow of power fascinating.

It was also infuriatingly intact. The wall hadn’t been sabotaged tonight, and dawn was approaching. He hopped off the building and headed back into town. He would get a nap today and try again when the sun set again.

Getting back into the academy was harder than getting in. On the way out, he just hopped the wall and strolled down the hill. But he had waited until the sun was rising to try and get back in. The city had woken up and he was hard pressed to avoid them all.

He knew that a few food vendors would remember an academy student running towards the school grounds if questioned. He would just need to make sure they weren’t questioned later.

He found an unoccupied section of the academy walls, and made a running leap up to the platform he created. He was a little rushed this time though, and almost tipped over and fell off. Thankfully a quick shield placement was enough to arrest his momentum. His heart beating, he quickly made stairs and climbed up the wall.

He was about to drop to the grass within the walls when a student walked by. Hugo froze, assuming he had been caught. But the student walked on by, never noticing Hugo hovering there. People rarely look up.

Getting back to his room in time wasn’t possible, so Hugo just went straight to breakfast. Oskar didn’t even question him about being gone, since Hugo usually got up before he did.

...

The next night found him back up on the rooftop in the narrows. Tonight he was better prepared and had an all black outfit on, with a hood to obscure his face. He was pretty sure that tonight he would catch them in the act, and he needed to be able to get away without being identified. He felt like a character in one of his two copper novels. He should have been excited, but he wasn’t.

He was tired. He had gotten a nap, but it wasn’t enough. Tonight was actually busier than the previous night, if the sounds from the walls were anything to go by. The occasional explosion and monster roar was just enough to keep himself awake.

The rat from last night was there too. Hugo tried to talk to it, but it continued to ignore him. Stupid rat. How good could the shadow domain be if it didn’t recognize when someone important was trying to talk to its animals? The ability must be really limited.

Either that or Hugo was just wrong about the rats in general. There was a good chance that the rats in this city were just brave and inspired an urban legend.

To keep himself occupied, Hugo sketched out a design for a dagger. Mithril was strong, super strong, but he couldn’t create a full dagger with the current size of his mana pool. So instead, he was going to make a dagger that was mostly edge. The center would be a series of triangle supports, but the entire dagger would be mostly air. Even the handle would be mostly empty, just a few spirals.

The whole thing would be incredibly light, and that would make it hard to wield. But it was better than his barriers, which he still couldn’t get to hold an edge. He wrote out the formulas needed for the design, using the grime on the top of the roof. It took him a few hours to get it all right, but he had the time.

Once he was done, he almost didn’t create it. Even this efficient design would probably take about a third of his mana pool. Still, he couldn’t help himself. He had to know if it would work as he hoped. A few moments of concentration later he had a dagger. It was very light and looked like a skeleton of a knife more than an actual dagger. But it worked, and it only used a fourth of his mana pool.

Testing it out, Hugo almost cut himself on the handle. He had made the grip out of a series of wires, and they were very thin. He wrapped his handkerchief around the handle and tried it again. This time it didn’t bite into his hand and he swung the knife around a bit.

He wondered how useful the knife would be in combat with monsters. It might not be strong enough with its greatly reduced supports. Then again, if it did pierce the monster hide, it would make it bleed much more than a regular knife.

Hugo’s musing was interrupted by something actually happening. He had been waiting for this very moment for forever, and he almost didn’t believe himself. There was a man in sentinel armor, standing on the second story landing. It gave him access to the control rune for southwest three. This was it. The moment he had been waiting for. He was going to catch him in the act.

The strange man set down a bag of tools and took out a tool. He touched the tool to the wall and sent out a pulse of magic. Hugo stood up and was about to intervene, when he saw two sentinels arrive and start walking up the stairs. A man and a woman, each wearing high ranking uniforms. Stopping himself, he crouched down to watch. If these two new sentinels stopped the saboteur, then he wouldn’t have to intervene. That would make things easy for him.

The three of them talked for a bit. Hugo was just far enough away that he couldn’t hear the whole conversation, but he could tell they were talking about the runes. They each gestured to the wall in turn, a seemingly professional conversation.

The first man shook their hands and then walked up the wall. Hugo checked with his mana sight and the runes seemed like they were intact. Maybe this wasn’t the saboteur after all. He must have been the runic inspector.

A sudden realization had Hugo hopping off the apartment roof and heading for the city walls.

The two new sentinels stayed on the stairs, discussing something about the wall in front of them. They got out their own tools and started working on the wall. Hugo snuck closer, trying to stay out of sight.

The realization that got him moving was the fact that the runic inspector had died last time around. And he had left his bag of tools there as he walked away. The new sentinels were the saboteurs, he was sure of it.

A quick glance with his mana sight confirmed his suspicions. The mana had stopped flowing. They had done something to keep the wall subtly glowing, but it was clear that they had stopped the enchantments from working.

“Hey!” a shout rang out.

It was the runic inspector. He had come back to get his tools he had forgotten. He stood on the stairs looking at the two saboteurs as they stood there in shock from being caught. Hugo swore internally. He needed to intervene now, or the inspector would die.