It had only been a few days after the ‘honorable’ duel to the death and the masses were clamoring for more information on the mysterious Arch Mage, Alistaira Crowley and the black ship she had arrived to Ars-Saihar on. Speculation turned into rumor, which in turn evolved into theories both mundane and utterly outlandish. All in all, Alistaira had not exactly done a good job of ‘blending in’, but what else was she supposed to have done aside from allow everything to go tits up?

It was, however, a good bit of public relations and a boon to the other Families that ran the port city. She had ‘convinced’ them to bet everything on her by using a bit of magical mental manipulation, and once the effect wore off the earnings from the bets that they had made were enough to convince them that they had more to be thankful for than upset about. The crew of the ‘merchant’ ship that Darksol had sent (anonymously, of course) were also sitting pretty on no small amount of money. They had long since learned that it would take an act of god to put one of the elites of Darksol in any disadvantageous position and force them to bend the knee, so betting on Alistaira was a no brainer.

Now flush with cash, the nameless ship was preparing to set sail once again. Alistaira had made a name for herself and in the process had secured more funds for the actual mission. She and the ship did not intend to leave for another few days, despite the preparations for departure already having been made. She intended to stick around just long enough to fulfil her assigned duties, and now that the vast majority of the people here had a positive view of her she would need to exert less influence in order to create a few Manchurian candidates, among other knowing and unknowing agents.

…

“Idiots.” Alistaira grumbled as she walked down the city streets. “Don’t any of you have any way of checking my identity? This illusion spell is pathetically weak, but you still can’t even tell it’s there.”

Stopping to weave another few spells here and there, Alistaira Crowley sighed and moved her head around to stretch her neck muscles.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice change of pace. It certainly makes things easier, that’s for sure. However, it is rather disappointing that they can’t even tell that someone has [Lesser Illusion] up. If I was back in Albion before the takeover, I would have had to put up something like [Illusion] or possibly even [Major Illusion] to even have a chance of walking about in the open… Despite the Great War having been more than a millennium and a half ago, people were still overly paranoid about vampires and liches sneaking in. Although, those security measures may just have been leftovers from before the gradual decline of the Confederacy.”

Alistaira stopped her musings and resumed her pace. She had no set destination in mind, she was simply walking around and creating spies and agents every so often. It was rather amusing to her that nobody, even the magic users here, seemed to notice her generous application of magic on random bystanders. So much for the Sultanate being a bastion of safety, progress and learning; they had no defenses in place for something like this, and it almost made her pity them.

As she rounded a corner, she felt the slightest hint of malice from a nearby rooftop. The feeling was only there for a brief moment, but it was enough to cause her to know for a fact that she was being stalked. She wasn’t nearly as oblivious as the rest of the people here, and she knew that if such a feeling came and went so quickly it usually meant that an assassin of some kind had very briefly slipped up and removed their ‘mask’ by accident. She located the individual responsible for the split-second sensation and decided to throw the person a bone. As she moved on, she quietly thought to herself that perhaps not everyone here was so utterly oblivious to the power of magic.

She kept herself in the mass of people that mingled throughout the main streets just long enough to reach a rare open space. A few spells later and the circular plaza was devoid of any people of any kind save for herself and the assassin that had almost certainly realized that Alistaira was aware of their presence. Before the hitman could flee, Alistaira tapped her staff on the ground and a bubble of magical power isolated the both of them, trapping them both inside until either Alistaira lay dead or until she intentionally let the bubble down.

The assassin, realizing that the jig was up, decided to make their presence known (not that it wasn’t already) by throwing a few smoke bombs into the area immediately around Darksol’s premier mortal magic user, but said mage was unfazed by such petty tricks. It wasn’t until her eyes began to water and her nose began to run that she realized that these were no mere smoke bombs, but instead were something akin to the tear gas that the cringy Tin Can sometimes used in his Dungeon traps.

She growled a bit before pushing the gas and the container grenades away with a gust of wind, but while the fumes were no longer actively coming at her she still couldn’t see and had a heavily running nose. Under normal circumstances, this would be a death sentence for a normal magic user, but Alistaira was no mere performer of petty parlor tricks. She let go of her staff and it floated beside her as she unfastened the chain that kept a large heavy tome near her hip. Once released, it too floated near her and, to add another layer of defense and offense, she drew a thin longsword from her other hip and let it levitate as well.

Her eyes were closed as she made several signs with her hands before four extra phantasmal limbs seemed to sprout from her shoulders. Each of these four new limbs began to make more signs, and this was what drove the assassin out of hiding. A loud sound like the clap of a thunderstorm rang out, only for the sound of a lead ball being deflected off of a far more durable metal sword to deny the bullet its target. Another few shots also were struck down by the haunted floating blade before said blade went horizontal and rocketed off towards the opposite direction that the assassin was running. The flying sword closed the distance faster than the black Tiefling could react and only a split-second decision saved the non-human from having their head skewered like a shish kebab.

Now missing an ear, the assassin pulled back and began to search for somewhere to hide, but nowhere in the bubble was safe from the now righteously pissed off Arch Necromancer and that fundamental truth was something that the black Tiefling was going to have to live (and die) with.