Quietly, four shadows crept through the night. Almost no noise escaped us, only the soft clicks of Silva’s claws breaking the quiet night, but it wasn’t enough to alarm any enemies to our presence. The idea was simple, circumvent the outer layer of Undead and Withered Husks in order to get to the inner layer, where the Withered Skulker and possibly the Withered Hunter were waiting. Kill as many of the Skulkers as we could manage, wait for the Hunter to come looking for us, kill a few of those, too, and escape before a wave of Undead and Withered Husks could sweep over us and bury us with the sheer weight of their numbers.

The plan was as simple as possible, based on my investigation's results the night before last, though we had a few contingencies laid out, just in case. We had prepared a few areas with simple traps, nothing overly complex, merely a few tripwires to slow enemies down, plus two points where we had stashed flammable chemicals in easily breakable containers. By running past the right spot and pulling a prepared chord, the container would crash into the alleyway, break and a small amount of Fire Magic would be enough to create a small lake of fire. Nobody knew just how flammable the Undead were, but it might just deter their pursuit. And if not, we had prepared another cask, that one filled with water, just as breakable, only there, I could rapidly freeze the water behind us, creating a slick field of Ice that would hopefully trip pursuing Undead up. Neither trap was incredibly sophisticated but then, we didn’t need sophistication, we needed something that could buy us a minute or two, so we could vanish into the shadows and disappear.

Hopefully, our preparations would go unneeded.

Circumventing the Undead was quite a bit harder in the bigger group. Where I, alone, could make myself functionally invisible, inaudible and undetectable, turning into nothing but a shadow in the darkness, the other three were not as stealthy. Alex came the closest, simply by virtue of size and natural talent, but even they couldn’t quite reach my level of stealth, just due to the difference in attributes and skills involved. Maybe if they managed to gain another fifteen levels or so, diligently putting their points into Agility, Intuition and Charisma, bumped their Stealth Skill up a dozen points or so, maybe created an item to help with concealment, if they managed all that, they’d out-stealth me, but for now? I was the sneakiest of us all.

Lia was trying, but she was still lacking in her Darkness Magic. She had been studying hard, but I had a feeling she was a little weaker than me, when it came to affinity to the Dark, the difference holding her back. She also lacked the physical training I had been given by Mrs Wu, sure, I had tried to impart Mrs Wu’s lessons to her, but there was still a gap in experience that she had yet to bridge.

Silva, on the other hand, was the worst of us three. She lacked the natural talent and inclination, her class didn’t particularly lend itself to quiet pursuits and her attributes were more geared towards physical confrontation, crashing into her enemies head-on and biting their heads off, not quietly sneaking about. I had been tempted to have her remain behind but I couldn’t bring myself to do that. Instead, I had stitched a few Concealment Runes into a bandana and wrapped it around her neck, letting it hang across her back like a small cape. It was powered by my own magic and skill, helping her quite a bit but there was only so much even I could do. It worked, but barely.

Luckily, the Undead weren’t the most observant of creatures, at least as long as one kept out of the range of their life-sense, or whatever it was they used. By now, I was quite familiar with that range, so I could guide the group around it.

Moving past the areas I wanted to avoid took a little longer than planned but we were still easily within our schedule. Unless we decided to go wild and battle within the area for hours on end, or in other words, unless we got pinned down and forced to battle it out, we would be back at our lair hours before dawn broke. The plan was a quick, surgical strike, followed by a similarly quick retreat. Possibly with a second strike, if things worked out as hoped. A prolonged battle, here, deep within our enemy's territory, was something we had to avoid if at all possible.

Just like before, I could use the psychic emanations of our enemies to detect their presence, even as they managed to conceal themselves from ordinary senses. I doubted it would work forever, even now I tried my best to corroborate what my Mind Magic was telling me with the help of my other senses, just to make sure I wasn’t blundering into a trap. It was what I would do if I realised that an enemy was using some innate part of my Magic to hunt me, use that innate part and their confidence that they could find me against them. If an enemy thought they could hunt me by detecting the Darkness Magic I used to conceal myself, I’d show them the lessons Mrs Wu had taught me. I didn’t need my magic to hide myself, it merely made it a lot easier.

With a grin on my face, I prepped the Frozen Shuttle, intending to do exactly the same thing as I had done the last time. Kill a Withered Skulker, hide in the darkness, and wait for a few Hunters to come, only this time, the plan was to kill those Hunters, too.

My Frozen Shuttle cut through the air, trailing a line of glittering frost, and pierced deeply into the Skulker. There was a burst of psychic anguish, the Skulker managing to get a single note of pain out of its mind the moment it died, but it didn’t matter. Not really, the plan was that the Hunters knew where to go, so I was quite happy for the Skulker to have signalled its demise. A quick pull with my Ice Magic dislodged the Frozen Shuttle and a bit of Blood Magic ripped the Blood from the corpse of the Skulker, scattering it all around the alleyway. The thick, cloying scent of blood would make it much harder for any investigating creature to locate the far less pungent scent of the four of us.

With a few quick gestures, Lia, Silva, Alex and I moved into positions around the area where I had killed the Skulker, each of us hiding in a different location. Silva was between some dumpsters, below my own position so I could keep her concealed with my magic, Alex was hiding on a window sill, staying outside of any direct lines of sight, Lia was crouching in a cellar entrance while I was hiding out in the ruins of a building. None of us were easily detected, but all of us had clear lines of attack.

We didn’t need to wait for long, just seconds after the Skulker died, I could feel the Hunters closing in, their presence was easily detectable. And it would remain easily detectable for me until they found a different way to communicate, their psychic chittering was quite similar to a group of people shouting at one another, just that they used a language I didn’t understand.

They had to have been quite close to our position, it took just a few minutes for the first of them to arrive. The misshapen cat started to sniff around, trying to locate what had killed the Skulker, only to come up short. It might have managed to detect the magic in the air, I wasn’t sure, but before it could do anything with the information, more Hunters arrived. Our plan was to wait until there were four of them and to strike as hard and fast as possible, which worked out quite well. There was a fifth Hunter nearby, I could feel their presence, but it wasn’t on us just yet. More of their brethren would arrive at some point, but they were minutes away.

Our first strike was a thing of beauty. Silva leapt out of her hiding place, right when one of the Hunters was in her range, drawing their attention as her fangs sunk deeply into the thing’s thigh, crippling it. At the same time, Lia’s hook chain was flying out, striking one of the distracted Hunters, while I managed to catch a third one with my Frozen Shuttle, adding my own damage to the mix. Alex did something rather unexpected, they demonstrated that they had picked up some interesting stuff and lobbed a small, pressurised canister in the middle of the Hunters, causing the canister to burst. I wasn’t sure just what was spraying out of it, but from the looks of it, none of the Hutners was enjoying the scent.

But they were far from done and now, the battle was on.