Robin winced as the screams from the nearby building cut off abruptly. There had been a hobgoblin mage in there, part of the most recent patrol the party had lured to Ruprecht’s sphere of influence. Robin wasn’t sure precisely what trap or monster had been spawned in there, but it was clearly effective.

Finally!

Ruprecht’s exultation sounded in Robin’s mind. The bard took it as a sign that the dungeon had managed to successfully absorb one of the mage collars he had been after.

That should be the last of the patrol, as well. Robin sent a pulse of inquiry toward Rerebos, who had been their eyes in the sky, and received a wave of assurance in response. That was all of them.

Back to base, then. Robin brushed the dust from his clothes, not bothering to use [Legerdemain] just yet. He’d pick more up on the way back anyway. Better to wait and clean himself off properly right before entering the hideout.

Robin moved quickly and carefully. There was no telling when another hobgoblin patrol might appear. They had been out in force since he’d last infiltrated the camp. He wasn’t certain, but he thought they were beginning to consolidate their efforts in the area around Ruprecht.

Mixed blessing, that. The increased patrols meant more opportunities for Ruprecht to, well, gather energies and expand, but it also meant more stress on their defences and a higher chance that the party might get caught out by a patrol or patrols that overmatched them.

So Robin doubled-back twice and took care to obliterate his tracks as well as he could. Then he dusted himself off, magically, and stepped into the safe have that was the building at the centre of Ruprecht’s influence.

He was welcomed by the mini-mimic Ruprecht had used to carry himself up to Robin’s tavern. The dungeon had invested heavily in enhancing the little guy with any energy he could spare and now he was not so little any more.

‘Hi Immi,’ Robin said, reaching out to scratch the faux-wood of the mimic’s baseline form.

The thing purred, a deep, catlike sound. Robin had bene trying to teach it to assume a monstrous form that could be used to more convincingly leave tracks. The patrols could use some more distraction, and he’d gone to all that trouble to sow those beast rumours at the camp, after all.

Robin conjured a great panther-like beast with tentacles sprouting from its shoulders using [Visual Phantasm].

‘Come on Immi, imitate the kitty,’ he coaxed.

The mimic quivered in delight and began morphing.

The resultant shapes were horrific beyond describing and would haunt the nightmares of any who looked upon them. Mimics were not meant to copy living creatures, after all. it was definitely outside of Immi’s wheelhouse.

At least it was close to getting the feet right, at least.

While the mimic strained, Robin carefully blocked most of his view with a strategically placed interface window. He’d raked in a nice bit of experience recently, and he had some stats to increase.

It was too bad he was still too low in level to start investing in boosting his attributes with experience. He’d like a bit more dexterity.

Damn and blast it to all seventeen hells!

Robin wasn’t sure which cosmology Ruprecht was referencing, but he was sure it didn’t bode well.

‘Problem?’ the bard asked.

I have assimilated the collars. I understand their functions now. None of which will aid me in understanding, assimilating, and unlocked the mechanisms that seal the lower city away.

‘Not ideal,’ Savra said, ‘but you have at least gained some understanding. That in and of itself is a blessed thing.’

‘Yeah,’ Jhess jumped in. ‘What do the collars do, anyway?’

It is somewhat complex, but I shall simplify for those in the party that do not possess the requisite arcane knowledge.

Drev looked smug and Vance looked very self-assured, so Robin was certain that Ruprecht had been having some very detailed conversations with those two. He was uncertain, however, if his arcane knowledge was in and of itself up to that challenge, and he was just as happy not relying on his [Bardic Lore] in this exact instance. Simple was good. He could start there and make things more complex as needed.

The collars in conjunction with the wands act as a channel for magical energies. I have absorbed three wands and a single collar at this point. Each of the wands has a slightly different enchantment tuned to produce a specific effect. Well, or two. One of the wands was clearly of a much higher quality.

‘That cannot be efficient in terms of magical energy consumed,’ Drev frowned. ‘The effects would be weaker, and you would be able to cast less spells than you would be able to naturally.’

Indeed. Though it is a much more stable way of channeling magical energy.

‘Which makes sense, given what Robin was saying about the mage erupting into a conflagration of wild magic…butterflies?’

‘Yup. Fiery, fiery butterflies,’ Robin confirmed.

This also matches my own experience. The last mage you brought, the one I was finally able to assimilate a collar from, also attempted to cast a spell when deprived of his wand. His first attempt worked, blinking him out of a trap. His second, attempting to blink through a wall, went wild. The hobgoblin mages seem to have an unnaturally high occurrence of wild magic amongst them.

‘And the collars would allow them to channel it effectively, control it,’ Vance noted.

‘It is part of an ancient curse of Tarin-Tiran,’ Savra said suddenly, her eyes distant. ‘Their ancestors were among the army that invaded this place and the city—perhaps a god?—cursed them for their part in the fall of Tarin-Tiran.’

Robin filed that detail away to interrogate with his [Bardic Lore] later. That had to be a part of the story he was here to uncover. If he could find more details, possibly the place the curse had been pronounced…could he learn to replicate it? Or at least fashion a new spell or two out of the knowledge?

But that is not all the collars do. They also contain a control mechanism. Those who wear them live only at the sufferance of the one who holds the key to them all. I cannot replicate the key without absorbing it, but I can see the general shape of its presence in the enchantments I have absorbed. These mages are all slaves to their commander.

‘That fits with what I saw at the camp,’ Robin offered slowly. ‘The mages definitely seemed to be mistrusted—that makes sense given the whole wild magic surge danger—and at the same time were held a bit in contempt—which fits with them being a lower class of citizen, even if they are powerful, magically speaking.’

‘Aren’t all mages second-class?’ Jhess quipped, before ducking the bolt of force Drev flicked at her head.

‘There has to be a way we can use this,’ Robin said. ‘If we can foment a rebellion amongst the mages, maybe by getting them the key, or at least crafting a believable fake they could rally behind…we could seriously gut the power base of the hjuncta!’

Whatever we decide to do, we need to continue luring patrols to us, and quickly. because the collar turned out to be useless for bypassing the gate, I will require far more energies than estimated to get us through, and I don’t know that I could get us through anywhere else. We’ve invested too much here, in this place. I’ve quite taken root. The only way through is here, is down.

‘We can do that,’ Robin said. ‘I can sneak back into the camp and gather some more information while the rest of the party keeps luring the odd patrol to Ruprecht. If I can find the key and approach the mages, maybe we could even cause enough chaos that we could siphon off a large portion of their forces and catch it in Ruprecht’s traps.’

I can endeavour to craft a convincing substitute key. There is no guarantee that I will get the physical shape right, but I should be able to imbue it with a convincing fake aura. You may be able to use it as part of a bluff, if the commanders of the hjuncta have been too careful to reveal the real key to the mages. They may not even know what it looks like, after all these centuries.

‘Unless it is necessary to lock the collars in place,’ Drev said thoughtfully. ‘Though even then, they may not be allowed to set eyes on it. We don’t know enough about the ceremony involved.’

‘I can figure it out,’ Robin said, with a confidence he didn’t entirely feel. [Lesser Mindreading] and some targeted questioning could get him close, but it was a dangerous conversation to initiate in any case, let along one where he was infiltrating a hostile force with as much conformity and homogeneity as this one.

‘We can make it work,’ Jhess sid firmly. ‘I’m tired of cooling my heels up here! I want to get down deeper and find some real treasure! There’s a mansion in Noviel I’ve got my eye on.’

Then what are we waiting for? Go! Fetch me more hobgoblins to fuel my research! The Gates of Tarin-Tiran call!