The echoing sound of birds cheeping woke me up. The forest was as active as ever in the morning. Standing up, I eat some meat jerky and drink a glug of water. After having my fill, I break up my camp inside the small cave. The rest of the firewood put away with the bedroll, I removed the camouflage and alarm formation from the entrance. The formation is rather simple, it has two parts, one for camouflaging and the second for alarming me. Simple. In comparison, an array is more complex and permanent. For example, the formation can be powered by people, but most arrays need an energy source.

The sun is barely up. Perfect for my plan. To be sure, I jog to the location of my bait, make sure that everything is at the right place. Making sure that the group of wolves is around the same place as yesterday, I go back to arm the grenades. The amount of time necessary for the trigger to explode is 30 something minute. A manageable amount of time to count in my head.

Having everything finished, I make my way to the wolves. This takes 5 minutes. There, I wait for 21 minutes, theorizing that the rest of the time is survivable.

I don’t wish to make too much of a noise. Attracting the ambushing fellows ahead of time would prove disastrous. Dispelling shadow concealment, I shoot some arcane missiles in their direction, making sure to hit some of the wolves, but not exactly aiming at their fatal spots. Like their head or heart.

*AWOOOO*

The group of wolves, after registering my threat, immediately begin their chase through the forest. The feeling of being followed is not a very nice one. One wolf came too close to me, nearly close enough to take a bite out of me. As a reaction, I attacked him with minor shock. My rarely used lighting spell. As time went on, it got more and more useless. Back to the wolves. After the first wolf got its share of pain, the wolves somewhat more apprehensive. Our chase followed a similar pattern for the most part. I run, recasting minor swiftness the whole time and when a wolf came too close I cast minor shock. After trying and failing, the wolves came now ingroup, 4 wolves sprinted out of their group, trying to overwhelm me. My reaction to this was a free round of soul shocks. Which scared the wolves quite a lot.

After some time, I was already very close to the valley. My main advantage was that I didn’t get spotted yet. The wolves are silent predators in nature and didn’t make a big fuss while hunting me. Too afraid of bigger and meaner predators being lured through their howles.

*BOOOOM*

A loud explosion rang out. Echoing for a second before the silent tone of the forest took over again. Estimating that I had at most 6 minutes, I made a beeline for the valley. I approximated that they need 2 minutes to reach the spot, 2 minutes to search and find out what exactly happened and then 2 more minutes to rush back. A time I wished to use to slip through their encirclement.

Approaching the clearing, I spot a group of 5 people standing clueless in the clearing. I don’t know why they act like idiots, but I take it. On second thought, they might act as bait. Maybe they wisened up a bit? Doesn’t matter have fun with the wolves.

With that, I sprinted towards them, throwing a flashbang or two behind me, to distract the wolves a bit while I slip away. This wouldn’t have normally worked, but having other volunteers close-by helped in this aspect.

I cast every spell, which prove useful in this situation, shadow concealment, soul shield and more. This whole, time I get bombarded by bolts and some spells. Because of the distance, most missed, and the ones which hit already lost a lot of their power, enough for my enchanted robe to damp the rest. It sill hurt, a bit like getting shot by a paintball gun. Running through this barrage of attacks, I run into the trees close to the other side of the valley. Cursing, or I assume that’s what they did before they came after me. Combined with 5 obvious baits, I saw 4 more coming out of the shadow of the trees, they were the crossbow users. A weapon I haven’t used yet, I find it too obvious and clunky. I much more prefer my self crated hidden armguard. Much more power with poison and very concealed. Good as a trump card, like one the airship.

My full speed sprint helped in leaving my ambushers and the wolves to dance with each other, what it didn’t help with are the branches which happily collided into me since the beginning of my action. From running from the wolves until now. Not feeling safe enough, I continued my sprint. I could of course take a longer road. Not the shortest way I make now. This is for two reasons. Maybe this confuses my followers and this leaves no time for them to set up another ambush. From their ambush spot, I can infer that they had at least a good tracker helping them. Giving them more time this way might be simple suicide. Luckily, they didn’t invent short-range communication yet. What am I talking? That is already there, just too expensive for them to afford.

Completely out of breath, I lean against one of the many trees surrounding me. Yes, my physical qualities got strengthened quite a lot after my repeated breakthroughs after becoming a mage, but that didn’t make me a very fit person. Especially cooping in my room making experiments, magic scrolls and translating. After 2 minutes, I continued. It doesn’t matter how big of a distance there is and whether the wolves were able to stall them. When the lured away group comes back, they would have an easy time dealing with the wolves.

PART 2

In a slow jog, I made the rest of the journey. It took me another 4 hours to do so. Something I used twice the amount of time previously. This time I was faster partly because I already got used to the terrain and the dangers, second and the more important reason is that I am fleeing from my pursuers. I jogged for 50 minutes and made a 5-minute break.

An hours before I arrived at the outskirt of the tower, I hear a someone sprinting behind me. Looking back, I see an unarmored individual following me in a full sprint and he is approaching fast, he should only take another 6 minutes or so to catch up to me. Not enough time to reach the outskirt. He is wearing not a lot. Seeing strap marks on his skin, he most likely ditched his armour to follow me, his job is to stall me, so that the other have any time to catch up. To test the waters, I haul a normal arcane missile into his face. The missile flies the whole distance and hitting somewhat off into his chest. At least it should have, when it got absorbed into a barely visible bubble.

“Shit,” I say to myself. He is carrying one of those pesky barriers. The same one I wear. So my next best action is to overload it. I throwback all of my remaining grenades and flashbangs. Not a lot 5 combined, hoping to destroy the barrier.

*BOOOOOOOM*

Most of the damage gets absorbed. Veiled in the smoke and dirt flying through the air, I make something that the guy sure won’t ever expect. I turn around and sprint with the remainder of my power towards him. I also charge two dark hands, a spell with very limited uses until now. Perfect for a situation like this. Confused, and a bit out of focus, the squire looks into my direction. Needing a second to realize what I am about to do.

A second too late for him, unfortunately. When his brain caught up with the events, I have already mauled both of my hands into his body. At the end of the day, I can say that I won this fight, but hitting someone, who is a lot more stronger physically is not fun. He went down, later finished by me with a violet mana loaded arcane missile, ending his short life. I resumed my run with hurting hands.

Yes becoming a mage made me stronger, but my strength is nothing compared to that fellow, I got really lucky that the got shocked by my audacity to go into close quarters with a knight.

This episode exhausted me quite a lot, but I needed to continue. That he was so close by scared me a bit. My situation would become very dire if more squire came running. The barrier generator I put away, so at least they can’t use it again me. And those generators are very very expensive. Like even expensive for me, who made a lot more money than most through magic scrolls. This might have been their trump card and whoever this barrier belonged before is going to be royally pissed. Not my problem though.

After jogging for another 40 or so minutes, some building came into view, some very small animal farms. Some guards moved around in pairs. Now I am at least somewhat safe.

One of the team approaches me to question me. Before they could reach me, holding my knee, out of breath, I show them my badge, when it lights up, the guards leave me be. Unfurling, my hair, leaving anything which might have caught itself in my hair onto the ground. I also change my robe behind one of the small shacks. Then nothing stopped me from going back into my room. For some amusement, I waited around for some time longer.

Sometime later, a bunch of people follows me out of the forest. They are even more unfurled then me. Some even have branches stuck in their robe. It was a comical sight to see. I looked extra hard to not forget it. They glared at me quite hard after finding me leaning onto one of the shacks. Looking rather normal. Laughing aloud, I went on my merry way.

Later I planned to meet up with Nelton and ask how exactly they found out about my small venture. Which in itself is a small problem, the Tower is rife with gossip and finding out about it isn’t too hard. The question is why they were so obsessed with killing me. Most likely the news of me killing that guy came out and now they are out for revenge. Whatever reason, them coming after me with close to two dozen people is very very unlikely. And if I can get some benefits out of this then why not? I never said that I am some kind of justice warrior.

+++++++++++++++++++

In a dark room, somewhere on the tower compound, Nelton and another figure, most likely Allister are meeting.

“This is going to be a headache,” Nelton said.

“Why, he killed Joe, and Isaac sends his men after him. Not our fault.” Allister said.

“that is unfortunately not that easy. That guy is smart, he will know that there was some problem on our side.” Nelton nursed a headache while replying. He can already foresee the head each he is going to get from his future patron. Why the hell is Allister such a dimwit sometimes? None of the two apprentice leaders are any good. At least Allister is only a dimwit occasionally, while Isaac offends and is arrogant left and right. Both bad options. At least Osric is until now very competent. Ans most importantly, he is an inventor. Fighting power is important, but making a strong organization is difficult with only martial power. Something those two idiots don’t get. You need the ability to invent stuff. Making products only available inside your organization. Why do you think that the three major powers are this strong? League has strong individuals and a load of privatized planes. Elements has a load of rare and special spells, so they have a lot of diverse talents. And the technos have artificers and builder. Stuff others can’t build a power on. They are a neutral bunch anyway.

Nelton lamented, then left the room, tired of this conversation. Unbeknownst to him. Allister sends him an annoyed and somewhat angry glare