Logan waved a hand over himself as he spoke, “Clean”, the blood of a hasty room-clear peeling away from his person and effects. The speed granted by his Haste spell earlier had ended but was just enough to clear the alchemical lab that had almost been alerted to his presence.

“It is only going to get harder”, Logan thought to himself as he looked around the main hall, opening the door and handing the unconscious bodies to his elementals.

A click of his fingers didn’t show any hasty movements in the rooms he could scan, nor did his eyes or ears pick up signs of danger.

Looking at the closed doors, Logan spun a dagger in his hand and narrowed his four eyes in a hunter’s gaze.

Some time later…

Logan span a ring of keys on his finger as he left a door to the main hall, the room behind him devoid of life and the building lacking in sound. He had faced a few issues here or there, but nothing worth mentioning to his employer.

Checking his objectives, the Spellthief had done quite a bit so far.

“• Capture at least 10 AV Club members alive. 10/10

• Allow less than 5 enemies to flee. 0/5

• Successfully kill 30 targets without alert. 30/30

• Win with 10 days remaining. 14/15.”

Taking the ring of keys, Logan fidgeted with another door before finding it was already unlocked. What was with this lack of security? With a seemingly absent mind for noises, the force here had put a lot of faith in the stone up top keeping them safe.

Opening the door, Logan bent backwards so fast he had to stop himself from slamming the back of his head on the floor. A large swathe of bolts rained from the doorway in his direction.

Rearing himself back up, Logan saw several wall-mounted crossbows that had aimed for his doom all spent. A defensive measure set up for improper access to the door? Whatever it was, Logan didn’t want to wait too long in this spot as it could have sent alarms ahead.

Running ahead, Logan cast Invisibility and Haste to make his way through the basement floor of the building. His cautiousness paid dividends immediately as he saw several people in cloaks and leather armour charging in his direction. A quick scan showed them to be levels 4 through 9.

“So bunched together, how thoughtful”, Logan thought to himself. There had to be a higher-up here with more power to back up this place’s size.

Waving an invisible hand forward, Logan chanted, “Sleep Wall”, filling part of the hallway with spores before his unseen body warped to the other end as he did the same motion, “Sleep Wall”, completely covering the running force in the yellow sanctuary.

A measly two MP plus one of his rings easily took out a large squad without pain or time. The level gap, combined with the difference in attributes, meant it would be easier to scale a mountain than to resist the sleep effects.

Not to be heartless, Logan moved between the unconscious people and began to carve at their necks so that they couldn’t be woken by others. His hasted body made this a quick endeavour, though he made sure to keep an ear out for anything else approaching him.

With possible crucial time spent, Logan recast his duo of spells to explore the hallways.

Spying a teleportation circle in the far distance, Logan saw two magi chanting whilst inside of it. Warping into his centre, the slowly appearing man burst outwards a torrent of wind and slashes as she cut down the two chanters before the circle could be activated.

Sliding on the floor, Logan glanced over the circle for a second to check it hadn’t been used yet. Thankfully it seemed the people using it weren’t too adept. However, his eyes locked on the others in this room. Four mages, four Fighters, and two Knights aimed weapons and anger at the Spellthief.

“Come Forth!” one of the female Knights yelled.

Logan felt a surge of anger well up inside before it dissipated quickly, resisting the effect was rare, but less so with his level.

Logan warped again, appearing behind one of the mages, grabbing their shoulder and chanting, “Flame Grasp”, igniting the man quickly in fires before he fell to the floor with smoke billowing from his unconscious body.

“Fucker! Come Forth!” the male Knight commanded as he saw his ally’s skill fail.

Logan again felt rage, but this time it overcame him. Warping towards the Knight, the opponent looked behind himself as he brought up his shield to nothing, Logan had warped to his previous front.

Throwing a hand forward with an underhand serve, Logan chanted, “Flame Shot”, bashing a ball of fire into the back of the man’s head. After a sweeping kick to knock the Knight off his stance, Logan caught the falling foe and chanted, “Lightning Grasp”, shocking the Knight to death.

The hold over Logan’s emotions was removed as the target died, darting his eyes to his side, his vaskt eyes spied a sword coming his way. Ducking down, Logan dodged the attack, placed a hand onto the floor to move into a cartwheel and warped away as he stared at another mage.

Slashing at the hand of the female Sorcerer, Logan halted her spell cast before grabbing her face and intoned, “Wind Grasp”, cutting her to unconsciousness.

A burst of fire and ice came towards Logan from the two remaining Wizards but with a spin and draw he cut apart the spells. While his weapons took damage, it was better they did than him. Spinning them around further he threw them at the mages who jumped to the floor to dodge them.

A quartet of Rushes came at Logan as the Fighters got into the fray, seeing their numbers dwindle too quickly. Logan jumped high, dug a blade into a crack of rock in the ceiling, and threw his hand down, “Sleep Wall”, causing all four to fall on top of each other asleep.

Logan’s movements became slower as his buff of Haste came to an end, something that made this kind of engagement so much easier. But, his MP was running low at this point. He wagered he didn’t need it any more for what was left.

“General's Charge”, was yelled by the female Knight as she charged with the outline of a yellow lion head over her.

Logan attempted teleportation, however, the spell failed to cast, “The damn mages!” With that thought he drew up two daggers and stabbed them into the visage over the shield.

Shockwaves were sent over the metal, hilt, and into the Spellthief. Cracks formed all over the daggers as they were shattered, they weren’t designed to stop such an attack. Forming fists, Logan punched into the last portion of the skill to lessen its effects as best he could.

With a massive swing from the Knight, she sent the last of the visage away from her shield and into Logan’s body, hurtling him into the stone wall of the underground.

Logan could hear a clear crack in his back as blood pooled in his lungs and shot out his mouth.

“Critical Hit sustained. 100/188 HP remaining”, a warning played in his head.

“Swap”, the knight called out as she hopped to the side, revealing the mages behind.

“Flame Shot, Frost Shot”, they both chanted, letting loose heat and frigidity together.

Logan’s four eyes reflected the dazzle of red and blue as they exploded around him in a steamy mess.

“Activate the circle!” the Knight ordered as she ran towards the explosion that slowly dissipated.

The mages took the command and ran towards the circle.

As the knight came to the steam she swung her sword downwards into it, however, instead of hitting flesh she had it stuck fast in rock as she chipped off the top part of a wall of stone that had a large hole in its centre.

“No!” she cursed as she turned to look at the circle.

Logan let go of his grip, the two mages falling to the floor as their bodies smoked similarly to how he would have, if he hadn’t used a quick Gaia Wall to block most of the combined barrage on him.

“How the below did you not get stunned?!” the Knight ordered for answers.

Logan knew that General's Charge had a stunning effect if he failed a saving throw, he was just lucky he reduced the damage of the attack enough to also lower said effect.

“Wouldn’t you love to know? I must thank you for that combo though, it stopped their concentration on blocking my warping”, Logan mocked.

Logan had to push the warning of his low health from his mind, while he was able to block some of the spells, it only reduced the damage. He was now at 62 HP.

The Knight started to sweat, she knew the man in front of her was dangerous, and that was why she wanted to leave. But he was in the way of the only exit that could save her. Looking at her sleeping allies, she drew her sword arm back and began to throw it at them.

“Necromantic Skystrike”, Logan chanted, causing tendrils in the air to wrap around the Knight’s arm and halt her throw. It dealt her 60 damage and healed Logan a solid 30.

The Spellthief did it again and again, draining the woman of all she had left before she fell to the floor, Logan was mostly healthy again.

After a quick sigh, Logan punched the backs of two Sorcerers to gain back some of his MP, before using it to hasten his steps again to speed through the rest of the basement.

Even more time later…

Logan walked back to the main hall with a weak body, sweat rolling down his face as his clearing of the mansion was finally complete. So many researchers begged for mercy, with a few more guards, but they were all to die. Their prayers meant little when their statuses revealed crimes that put them in a noose.

Plenty of the rooms were on fire, as Logan set them ablaze to remove all traces of research and production.

Looking over two bolts in his hand, Logan had their glistening glow reflect in his eyes. They were of a dark-silvery hue with a shifting lava centre. Identification confirmed them to be the Sunsilt Bolts, and while highly expensive, he was tasked with destroying them.

Breaking off the tips and placing them within two of the boxes provided, he threw one upstairs into the security room and one into the room underneath it on the ground floor.

Leaving the building, Logan didn’t look back as it exploded behind him in showers of silver and the chroma of the sun. Collapsing in on itself, the building became a pile of rubble with experience numbers slowly rising from around the wreckage.

“Level up! Gain: 8 HP, +1 Str, +1 Agi, +1 Con, +1 Int. You have 1 attribute point to spend.”

Unlike Marcus’s jump in experience, Logan had received almost eighteen thousand from just this one building. Though, he did take on many more foes in a short period, some higher level than he would normally hunt down.

While his quest could have rewarded more experience on top, it seemingly hadn’t been completed. This mustn’t have been the end of hunting down the Sunsilt Bolts, there was that teleportation circle to deal with too. “This isn’t the main base”, Logan calculated in his head.

Returning to his captured AV club members, Logan looked at the magi he had apprehended from the room in the basement he had carted over. They were bound to spill the beans on where to go next.

A thumping in Logan’s forehead spoke the beginning of spell fatigue, he’d be getting a lot of rest back in Gauntlet after ferrying all the remains.

Dismissing his summons, Logan pulled out the black stone he took from the security room before leaving and hugged it under his arm. Clumping up eight of the survivors, Logan placed a hand on the top of the pile before he began his teleportation route.

Apparating within the Gerro Guardhouse, Logan stumbled somewhat as the pain in his head increased, reflexively grabbing his forehead.

Jirango got up from his desk showing signs of worry, “Logan, are you alright?”

Logan replied painfully, “Yeah, just fatigue. I got people for interrogation. They should have another base somewhere. Quayvan might want to talk with them too.”

Jirango looked over the pile of almost awake people, “We’ve got a wing assigned for this lot. I’ll contact the vampire to get him to come over”, he then pointed at the rock that Logan was barely holding onto, “And this?”

“A security device. It tracked spellforce usage in an area, was combined with this”, Logan continued as he held out the commwatch, “See if you can look through its history. It might grant further details.”

“I’ll contact some magi. Will you be waiting here?”

“I need to do one more trip for the rest of the captives”, Logan revealed.

“At least take a sit and a sip, before you go”, Jirango pleaded as he handed his mug of water to Logan.

The Spellthief drank some of it as he sat on a nearby chair, after a minute he went out to get the rest.

With everyone in containment, Logan wanted to go sell off their gear, but instead, he walked back to the Meek Moat Inn. Getting a flannel soaked in hot water, he placed it over his face and had a nap.

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