Waking early the next day, Logan went back to the guardhouse to get his next destination from Quayvan. It was further from the capital, but not enough that teleportation would be difficult.

Teleporting to the next port of call, Logan found a seemingly abandoned building in the woods. Made up of both wood and rock, it was closer to call it a mansion. It lacked glass windows, but creaking wooden panels did let the outside light into the establishment.

Leaving the elementals to guard the exterior, Logan prepared himself for another place to clear of dangers.

With a cast of Invisibility, Logan climbed the side of the building and entered through an open window. Invisible quad eyes scanned the interior as a grand hall beckoned those through the front door. However, it did not beckon alone, several people were pacing the halls and stairwells that connected to the entrance.

Names and histories filled Logan’s log as he used Identification on the people below. They moved around so brazenly for what they were doing. It was lucky that Logan’s Stealth skill combined with being unseen allowed him to see them with such ease.

What was concerning was the number of golems moving with the “researchers”, lizards, dogs, and goblins all made of rock. This number caused worry, as with the Sunsilt Bolts costing far more than a platinum it was certain this part of the AV Club was well financed, but the sheer number of golems told a tale of richer investors.

The AV Club was clearly a criminal organisation, they were murderers and extortionists. But where did this money come from?

Logan spent a few seconds documenting their movements before making his own, this was a good choice to make as he overheard a trio of armoured men move to the front door.

“Spellforce use has been detected outside, could be aberrant monsters or that Devout.”

“Keep an eye on the flanks and forest.”

“You, check on the storerooms.”

Opening the door, they left to the outside and closed them. Logan rotated in the window and followed the three men as they went to the tree line. They weren’t too strong, two level 6s and a 7.

Waiting for them to get a good distance away, Logan followed and climbed into a tree before turning visible again. The three men separated and started to comb the nearby area.

When he saw an opening, the Spellthief leapt from his tree, landed behind a man and placed a hand on his mouth and lower back and chanted, “Wind Grasp”, causing the man’s body to get cuts all over from harsh winds before falling limp but breathing in Logan’s hands.

Softly laying the man down, Logan quickly yet quietly ran around the tree trunks and did the same to the second and third man.

With ways to detect the use of spellforce, Logan wouldn’t be able to hide his presence too well here. However, that meant there was either a diviner or a device in the building to do that.

Stripping the men of all but their armour, Logan had Fahrenheit move them far away and guard them in a lovely little pile. Except for one, which Logan woke up with a weak healing potion.

The man in his weakened state and tied up looked around with fear before ending his gaze on a man with creases under his eyes.

Logan put a finger to his lips and stared at the man, “Answer my questions and you won’t get tortured.”

The man quickly nodded, “How can you detect spellforce being used in the area?”

“We… we have a security room. There’s a detection stone there that monitors spellforce in the forest”, the man revealed with a shaky voice.

“Is that all? No failsafe system in place?”

“Nothing like that!”

“Where is it, parrot?”

“On the backside of the building, the first floor, third window from the left as you look at it.”

“How many people are in that room?” Logan asked as he looked over his shoulder and clicked his fingers.

“We have a Sorcerer looking over the details of the stone, two researchers, and three more guards.”

“Anything else you can tell me that might stall the noose?” Logan asked, intimidatingly.

The man sweated fiercely as his eyes darted side to side as if he could find the answers written on the trees. “I can tell you all about the building!”

“Go on.”

With the interrogation of the man complete, Logan ran towards the building once again and around its side. No sight of oncoming guards graced Logan’s eyes, so it seemed they were giving the three that were sent out enough time to comb the area. Since all classes used spellforce for their skills, it wouldn’t be strange to detect it from them.

Finding the rear, Logan cast Invisibility again and climbed the stonework to the mentioned window. It was closed but cracks in the wood and sides allowed a slight glimpse to the interior.

Warping to the interior, an invisible blast of wind was sent around, shocking the guards, though Logan’s unseen arms flew across the floor as he intoned twice, “Sleep Wall”, filling the sides of the room with spores and sand, causing five bodies to hit the floor unconscious.

The Sorcerer within the centre, looking over a large black stone rhomboid, darted his head around at the sound with a golden pocket watch in hand. Logan appeared behind the man with a hand around the Sorcerer’s mouth and the other digging its nails in his back.

“Keep silent, move your head in answer”, Logan demanded.

The Sorcerer nodded, Logan could feel sweat soak into his gloves from his opponent’s face.

“Did you send out an alarm?”

No.

“Are there any fail safes to this room being taken over?”

No.

“Will people come into this room?”

Yes.

“Can anyone else use this device?”

Yes.

“Wind Grasp”, Logan chanted, cutting the Sorcerer to an unconscious state without using Backstab.

Softly laying the man on the floor, Logan gave a weak punch into his back.

“MP Thievery successful, you have drained 8 MP”, a window explained to Logan who had finally tested out his new skill on an opponent.

If he had spent the time to rest up and recharge his Backstab skill, he could have stolen more, but he had enough MP for the rest of this place in his mind.

The first thing that Logan wanted to look at, was the pocket watch. Quickly grabbing it, Logan sighed in relief that it hadn’t vanished like so many before it had.

Fitting in the palm of his hand, the pocket watch had a golden exterior, the inside had inlaid within it a black gem. Using Identification revealed quite a bit about the device’s uses. It was a multi-purpose magical item. From recording audio and visual, as well as translating spellforce information, the device could also connect to others to be used as a sort of phone.

If anything could be related to this, it was like some sort of PDA or tablet. It was known as a commwatch, and as far as Logan could tell it didn’t have any form of teleportation abilities, at least this one didn’t.

Pocketing it for later, Logan identified the large scanning device next. It was around 3’ tall and had varying edges to it as if it were part of a mountain. Notations of all the varying colours shifted on different parts of the construct. Without some form of translation, the stone was unusable, most likely requiring the use of a commwatch.

The spores in the corners of the room had finally died down, allowing Logan to pick up the bodies and chuck them out the window to his elementals to catch, strip, and move to a side. They would be asleep for almost three hours, more than enough time to clear out the building of any more haters.

Moving to the door that led to the main hall, one floor above the ground, Logan clicked his fingers to ping through the keyhole and detail his mini-map with information.

Several dots filled in the grey space, it didn’t seem like the noise of people hitting the floor caused any sort of commotion. But, Logan had to be wary about those who would come here.

Scanning the movements of the people again, he wouldn’t have to worry about further use of spells if there lacked any more detection devices. He would leave it here for now though, if someone saw it was missing as well as the people, they would be all the quicker to sound an alarm.

No experience showed itself to Logan yet, he was now in a dangerous situation, so it would wait till he was done. There were many numbers to add to that total.

Sorting out the adjoining rooms first, Logan turned invisible again and exited the security room to get a better eye on the hall. Most of the inhabitants had found the way to their destinations, a dozen or so lingering around for discussions or having other places to be.

Entering the room next to where he started, Logan closed it behind him as he found a small alchemical layout. The alchemists paid no mind to the door opening, focused fully on their work. This allowed Logan to get behind each of the five men and women to drive a dual-wielding knife strike into each.

With their corpses absorbed with Essence Absorption, Logan became invisible again and moved to another room.

The next was a bunk room with several beds stacked to the ceiling, several guards and researchers resting mostly quietly. A duo were writing notes in their books on a table in the middle of the room, though both died to a Wind Grasp from Logan who appeared after both were softly put on the table.

Logan then moved between the beds and slit the throats of the sleepers, an easy enough culling of the numbers without issue.

An unseen invasion into another room revealed another alchemical configuration, quickly dealt with as the first.

With enough time spent clearing out the first floor, Logan noticed a grouping of four people heading up the stairs in the direction of the security room. Climbing the bannister to the ground floor, Logan’s whirring visage was close to the team.

“I heard a Devout is meant to come here?”

“No, ‘was’ meant to. She got dealt with.”

“Who even found out about this operation?”

“Kill enough vampires and the nest falls outta the tree.”

One of the women opened the door and she called out, “Relief is here.”

Logan lined up the hallway as he rotated his arm towards the group, “Sleep Wall”, a torrent of dandelions flowing over the group as they fell to the floor.

A clanking of metal and shifting of leather and chain caused a few heads to turn to the first floor from the ground.

“Someone fall over, up there?” a man called up.

Logan quickly grabbed the legs of the sleeping foes and dragged them into the security room and called out, “Yeah, damn rug.”

With a creaking of the door closing, it seemed his bluff was taken as no more discouraging motions were made on his map.

By this time, Logan’s Backstab charges were coming back, he didn’t need to use too many of them on the weaker people here. Even better was the sight of another Sorcerer in this grouping. Logan hit their back twice to drain another 16 MP to build up his supplies. He didn’t deal enough damage to wake them up, so another round of tossing out the window had one of his objectives completed.

There wasn’t much more of the first floor to clear out. A few hallways with deadends and three more rooms, but it was becoming “dead” up here. Logan quickly checked the final rooms, but they weren’t being used outside of storage space. The next step was clearing the ground floor.

Six researchers were still there, with a golem each. Too many for a stealthy takedown, the golems required around two Grasps to kill without Backstab damage included, and he’d become visible after two of them. Without a respiratory system, the golems made of rock weren’t susceptible to Sleep either.

Thinking over how he could approach the situation led to the people below talking and looking around.

“Hey, isn’t it quiet?”

“Yeah. Didn’t the relief team go up? Where’re the others?”

“Shit”, Logan cursed in his head. Drawing up the frozen lord edge, he chanted, “Infuse Wind, Haste”, before leaping off the bannister to the ground floor. Waving his left arm to the right and left he intoned twice as he became visible, “Sleep Wall.”

Bodies hit the floor as two lizard golems jumped at the Spellthief. Spinning around, Logan dove his dagger into the back of the rocky beast, dealing 15 physical damage, 15 ice damage, and 13 wind damage. With the other hand, he grappled it and spoke, “Wind Grasp”, exploding its stomach outwards with 117 wind damage.

Stepping forward, Logan let out two slashes at the other lizard and picked at its throat with the other hand, letting loose another Wind Grasp to remove the central mass.

Three golem dogs came charging through sand and dandelions in leaping bites. Logan kicked off the ground and forward somersaulted away as the golems collided with one another.

At his back was a goblin golem, a club of earth ready to slam his back but met with a dagger instead as Logan spun it around himself.

Deflecting the blow, Logan let out a few slashes at the rocky goblin before diving his hand into the wounds and chanted, “Wind Grasp”, exploding another golem to pebbles.

Logan stepped backwards towards the dogs as they jumped again, causing them to fly over his head as he ducked down, dropped his dagger, and pulled two of them into a slam on the floor.

Keeping his grip on the two golems he chanted twice again, exploding parts of their bodies with wind before letting go to finish them off with his whistling blade.

The last dog opened its mouth as Logan anticipated a bark for aid, if the sound of combat wasn’t loud enough, throwing his dagger straight into its throat it could only let out gurgled noises.

Running after the blade, Logan drew up a Bowen dagger to slash at the final dog golem before finishing it off with more wind.

Reclaiming his artefact dagger, the Spellthief darted his eyes around the area at the nearby doors and corridors. The fight wasn’t quiet, though it wasn’t overtly loud either. His dagger mostly made scraping sounds against rocks, while the Wind spell was mostly whistling too. It was the explosions of rock that would have caught someone’s attention.

Logan’s eyes glanced over the opening of a nearby door, a woman draped in an alchemist’s robes came walking out without worry. Either the walls and doors were thick, or their work created enough noise and garnered enough attention to make his work go unnoticed. At least until she saw the scene in the hall.

The spinning dagger thrown at her halted any warning.

--- *** ---

More to do.