“There are numerous ways to get through wards. Let’s start with the basics.

Simply breaking through them is the fastest way. Just be prepared to shrug off all spells and traps such a brute attempt might trigger. Yeah, you won’t stay in business for too long if you get in the habit of trying this against something better than hastily created wards.

Then, if you have time and skills required to study runes, you can learn to alter them. If you don’t, just continue stealing from commoners.

The best of us know how to alter the wards without leaving a trace, but for the most, it is only possible against the simplest patterns. The more complicated the array and the more experienced warder, the harder it is to leave no traces.

But before you could even dream of reaching the top skills, you have to start from the bottom and be at least able to slip through the runes.

The wards’ pattern may remain changed indefinitely or straighten itself almost immediately, often activating the defences; it all depends on their quality and your proficiency. Think what changes you wish to make earlier, as in the moment you start messing with an array, the clock starts ticking.

Learn which materials were used to set them up and use similar to bypass them. Do your research, find out what runemakers usually utilise in the area you are working in. Know which contingencies are the most common. Have an emergency plan in case you screw something up.

Remember, the best thief isn’t the one whose plans succeed without a fail, but the one able to salvage a situation in which everything is falling apart.

Preparing a bigger heist, find yourself a help of a wizard or steal find a stack of mana cores. It will allow you a greater leeway to make mistakes. However, it will cut a profit greatly.

Why bother then? Because mistakes happen. Accidentally activated an Alarm? Just retreat and disappear for a while. Set up a Fireball formation? Nasty, but tumble and get over it. Struck in a Wall of Force, however? If you were too greedy you can sit and wait for guards.

Not many know, but wards heavily depend on the balance of ambient mana. By influencing it, suddenly altering the proportions, you can cause minuscule disruptions in their functions. Here your wizard comes in handy!

Sure, he will hate it, as doing something like this even on a small scale can be as taxing as releasing multiple spells consecutively, but it might give you a moment to slip away from the trap. Just enough to deactivate the runes responsible for it and decide whether to continue or retreat.

Looking for more detailed instructions? Contact your local Thieves Guild!

Happy stealing!”

- a brochure confiscated by Utherlight Guards

“So that’s the plan. Any questions?”

“Would they really believe that they were attacked by regular thieves, not a wizard? I and Ion have no chance to pull this out without using magic. Also, it will be really suspicious if Mr Evans disappears at the same time.”

Reria asked dubiously. Ion was listening absentmindedly; he had already discussed with Sae pros and cons and felt convinced that it was the most reasonable way to finish the mess they have started.

“It is not so rare for thieves guilds to hire a mercenary mage or a rogue apprentice to assist them in a heist. As long as you won’t use magic to make something too flashy, it will be all right. Also, with the support of Dorian, Thaleus and few others from the outside, it will look more like a regular burglary. I’d like to leave some traces that would lead to other Houses, but it can’t be too obvious…”

“Still, the sudden disappearance…”

“Well, originally, I planned us to maintain a disguise for a while afterwards, but with all the things that are happening recently, it is far too risky. All because Boewards were stingy to the point of keeping their deceased heir in a public morgue. Who would have predicted this?” Sae hadn’t anticipated her rumours to escalate that much. ”However, it wouldn’t be that suspicious for a necromancer pursued by Church of Uther to decide to disappear on the night when most of its clerics would be busy.”

Sae glanced at Ion disapprovingly.

“Especially after his today’s training session. So far the servants which were assigned to us were probably hand-picked and knew how to keep their mouths shut if they have learned about your experiments. Now it is only a matter of time before the gossips spread around, eventually reaching wrong ears.”

Ion gulped. Now that he thought about this, he interacted almost solely with three or four servants.

Sae continued.

“The question is, whether Silverfords would deem that Evans was so interested in the notes to try stealing them… probably they might. This, however, could even work in our favour. They won’t connect our work with Thaleus’ friends. Moreover, they won’t publicly claim that the necromancer they were hosting stole something from them.”

“So why even pretend? Can’t Ion simply use his creepy minions to activate all traps on the way to the vault? It would be faster than you trying to disable them.”

“Without anyone noticing us on the way in? Impossible,” Sae shook her head. “We would have to fight all the way in and out. I have no delusions, we will be eventually spotted by someone, but the later, the better. Actually, I want some guards to actually see thieves, but just regular thieves, who utilised a good occasion to make a heist. No need to keep feeding the rumours that are already causing panic. Also, I doubt that people recommended by Orryn and Darmud would take it well if they have learned that they were helping a necromancer...”

**Three days later**

With the first lights of a dawn, a young, well-built, golden-haired man in white robes trimmed with gold reached a top of a podium just outside of the graveyard. He waited until the crowd gathered in front of him silenced and spoke:

“As Uther blesses us with the new day, so shall we, by His power, bless this grounds. Revel, children of light, as from this day onwards, the mortal shells of those who have already joined our Lord shall become free from necromancers’ blight.”

“Thanks be to Uther!”

The crowd answered. The cheers subsided and the high priest continued. Most of the gathered were piously listening to him, yet there were few exceptions.

“Would you believe that Alexiel is almost seventy years old?” Ignatius whispered. “Uther surely wants his High Clerics to retain a youthful appearance. Who knows, maybe the deity still wants him to plant a new life sometimes? Look at those all young priestesses staring at him with reverence…”

“As if you were much younger than him,” Belith fought with his grin. “At least now I know why you were sticking to that hag priestess for so long, you surely thought that this would be the only woman who wouldn’t apparently age faster than you.”

“You hurt my feelings, Belith. Believe it or not, but Lydia has really changed after attaining the position of a head priestess. And were you suggesting that I am old, my friend? If you won’t start training seriously again, I’ll outlive you without any problems.”

It was common knowledge among nobility that through rigorous training one would extend his natural lifespan. Not to a degree by which wizards could, thanks to constantly exposing their bodies to mana, but still noticeably. Riksian nobles, even those without elven blood in their veins, with almost a century on their shoulders, but still in a relatively good shape weren’t unheard of. Although, they often also supported themselves with various alchemical potions.

“You’ve been slacking since your parents decided to personally lead our forces against orcs.”

“Having to take care of everything on my own isn’t helping. The Elder quickly got bored with ruling and left all businesses of the House in my hands.”

Belith still remembered finding a short note from the Elder telling him that he had a very important research to conduct and doesn’t know when he would return.

“Master always had a habit of disappearing from time to time,” Ignatius shrugged; after all, he was the apprentice to the old wizard. “It only means that he trusts your skills. And you have me to lend you my assistance.”

“After this Hallowing business… hopefully, the things calm down enough so we could return to our daily spars.”

Belith sighed. Not only family businesses were taking his time recently.

“That’s Belith I know! You must stay in shape, after all, you wouldn’t want to disappoint Gwen. She would surely be present today, and many people already heard the rumours. Why won’t you make this official?”

“What? For how long?” He didn’t expect Ignatius to know about his affair.

The wizard only smiled in an answer.

Belith’s mood darkened.

“You know as well as she that I will end up marrying someone from House Diuventh.”

“It’s not so certain. It would end with you moving to Utherlight, cementing the alliance between your Houses and ascertaining the support from capital… but nothing more. Contrary, by marrying Gwen, even considering that she is Darius’ daughter from his previous marriage, with enough effort, you might merge your houses. With Lawketts’ wealth and connections backing yours, it would bring you almost to the position which House Cloyd attained in Windhelm. Securing the alliance through a marriage with House Diuventh can wait until your parents return from the campaign. To think that after all those years your father finally made his wife pregnant again… especially while they are still on the frontlines… that’s not how responsible parenting should look like. But your future sibling would also fit the role. Or even your own child, there is no haste with this, at least as long as the orcish threat is contained…”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Their talk was interrupted, as the High Cleric, much louder than earlier, spoke:

“Now I ask you, children of Uther, who would join our efforts? Who would keep the forces of the night away from us? Who would stand vigilant, to let the resting place be blessed?”

“House Boeward will!” Emil, clad in a ceremonial plate answered, eliciting a battle cry from the soldiers behind him.

“House Faranger will!” Belith also stepped forward, his retainers acting similarly.

“Lawkett family will!”

“Silverford family will!”

“Swiftglade family will!”

Few other minor merchant families also answered the call afterwards.

Alexiel nodded approvingly before addressing to the crowd for the last time.

“And you, who supported the sacred efforts with your prayers and donations, revel! Praise the name of Uther, show that you are not afraid of the darkness and its servants because after every night, there is another dawn!”

“For there is another dawn!”

The high priest finished and a long procession of clerics and knights of Uther followed him to the graveyard. The forces of nobles arranged themselves into pre-assigned positions and began their watch.

The citizens, many of which were inspired by Alexiel’s speech, began celebrating. What began as a small stream of revellers, started to quickly grow in size, as more and more townsfolk who was earlier horrified by rumours about the presence of the Cult of Horned Rat, threw themselves into the forgetfulness that only festivals, music and alcohol could offer.

Even refugees still living outside of the city joined in the planned two days-long celebrations; some of them used it as an opportunity to earn money doing odd works around, many others just hoped to pickpocket from revellers. Town guards were getting busier with each passing hour, as numbers of drunken people on the streets increased.

At first, they were really watchful, afraid that the 'Cult of Horned Rat' would try to strike at any moment, but as the time passed, they were forced to focus on another threat. They had to contain the chaos caused by a hastily organised event. Some of them decided to ignore their orders and joined in the party, but most endured; sure, they cursed nobles and Church of Uther – albeit the latter more silently – for coming up with an idea to organise something like this, but kept their watch.

As for the nobility, their guards maintained a cordon around the graveyard, leaving clerics to do their prayers inside. Whereas most of their forces would have the honour to keep the guard during the whole ceremony, the nobility themselves would only assist them for a few hours during the first day before moving on to attend a ball organised by House Faranger.

****

“Seriously, this place creeps me out,” Reria felt goosebumps prickling her flesh as she looked at unmoving creatures contained inside cages.

The sight of undead was freaking her out even when she refrained from using the enchanted sight granted by Ashara.

“I thought that you got used to them over the past few days,” Ion answered.

Since the sorceress joined them, they have added numerous runes in both laboratory and their apartment. One of the most notable additions was a pattern Reria has engraved; the one responsible for releasing a Fireball.

Well, to be more precise she set up a skeleton of the ward and Ion had to use all his skills to not let her pattern blow up to their faces. Creating magical traps with someone who had almost no idea how to do so was sure dangerous. Not that he was that well versed in the topic himself – most of what he knew was the result of him layering numerous wards during the last week – yet, if he had known before how clunky Reria could be when creating runes, he would have suggested starting with setting up something relatively harmless.

Not that Ion would tell her this now; he knew that Reria could get moody sometimes. Ion needed to stay on the good terms with her. He hoped to convince the girl to inscribe him the spell on a parchment later, so that he could learn it himself. Even if he had managed to develop a working variant of Coldfire spell recently, it still wasn’t a magic he could reliably use more than once during a fight without suffering from a painful backlash.

“But they are starting to smell now,” Reria plugged her nose.

“You can say! Earlier, when I kept them alive for longer, that was a reek! You have no idea how much mess and faecal can a wild beast produce every day. Keeping this place clean with Prestidigitation was a nightmare…”

Ion glanced at the four owlbear cubs, three vargrs and one boar. Eight undead creatures. He wasn’t able to control more than that number currently.

The boar pushed against iron bars opening the cage it was in.

“What are you thinking, why their cages aren’t locked?” Reria screamed, hiding behind Ion.

“What for?” He tilted his hand and crouched as the monster approached him. “It’s me who controls them.”

Ion reached into his bag, producing a small bottle.

It was one of the alchemical mixtures which Sae bought in the city. According to her, exposing it to fire or breaking the glass would cause it to explode, burning everything in the area. They expected to have to buy many of those, to Sae’s chagrin; apparently, they were fairly expensive.

The rogue was very glad when they learned that together with Reria Ion might be able to set up Fireball traps.

“Even expensive inks for runemaking are cheaper than those,” the rogue had summed up, deciding to only buy four vials of alchemical explosives.

Ion cut through the boar’s flesh, placed the vial inside the wound and closed it with Life Transfer.

He ordered the undead to return to his cage and stored everything of value into his Spatial Bag.

“Ok, let’s activate the array and leave.”

Reria closed her eyes for a moment. After opening them, the glow of runes scribed around intensified. Without the help of her enchanted sight, she wouldn’t be able to work on anything more complicated than a basic Alarm ward. With it, however… she really felt that it allowed her to learn quite a few things from Ion. She had to admit that he wasn’t a bad teacher.

They infused few runes they have prepared earlier with mana, then connected them with the rest of the array. Now, should anyone force their way inside, all spells will be discharged. In a case no one enters, the array would trigger itself nonetheless. Not due to them placing special contingencies in place, but because the mana required to fuel a whole array was already causing a strain on it. After a few hours, some of the runes will become unstable, beginning a chain reaction.

“That’s why you don’t want an amateur to ward your house,” Ion mused when they finished.

“What did you just say?”

“Well, hopefully, this will be enough to destroy everything that might be used to divine our location later.”

“You know it’s hard to find a reliable Diviner… And I can’t imagine using anything from here anyway,” Reria glanced around. Maybe undead could be used to trace Ion, but the connection between them would be severed after few hours if he doesn’t refresh his control over them. “The apartment is what we need to focus on.”

“Yeah, and the array there is even bigger, so activating it will take a little longer. Hopefully, the laboratory explodes around the time we would require a distraction. I also armed wards in the garden while training with Lara and Sten this morning…”

“What have you made them do today?”

“Well… I needed them running around, so we simply went with dodging fire bolts and magic missiles.";

With servants still being afraid of wandering around areas where Arienne had set up her wards, no one should activate them accidentally. Ion couldn’t help but wonder what spells she used in her wards that they were still feared after all these months.;

“So that’s why they were so exhausted when I saw them on the corridor today…”

Ion shrugged. It wasn’t even that long run. Apparently, after Lara and Sten had joined the guild, they weren’t doing enough physical training.

“Let’s move out and pretend that we are leaving the manor.”

They left the laboratory heading towards the gate. It was an early evening; there were still some servants doing their job before heading back to houses. Or more probably, joining the festival, judging by suddenly interrupted conversations when they have passed them.

‘Well, it seems that Sae was right,’ Ion thought. ‘Earlier, I was simply esteemed as a wizard. Now they are just afraid.’

“Where the fuck are you goin… Master Evans?” the guard paled and changed his tone, recognising Ion. “Forgive me, sir, in those clothes I took you for a servant trying to slip away earlier.”

Both Ion and Reria used Disguise Self, to make their clothes appear plain and unassuming. Reria, as she was unable to learn the new spell so quickly, had resolved to using one of the scrolls Orryn gave her.

“No offence was taken. Keep up the good work,” he answered, passing through the gate.

“Master… are you maybe going to join the festival?” the second man gathered the courage to ask.

“Why not?” Ion smiled, “Everyone needs a break from time to time.”

The guards shivered seeing the necromancer's careless grin.

Soon the mages disappeared in one of the alleys. As the closest tavern was a few streets further, moreover was quite expensive, most of the townsfolks celebrated in different areas. Thanks to this, they’ve found an empty street in just a few minutes.

Ion chanted a spell and disappeared. Reria activated her Eldritch Sight looking around.

“You should hide this robe. It leaks so much mana that it is easy to notice even from under the illusion.”

“Really? I’ve never noticed.”

Soon after enchanting the robe, Ion casted Invisibility spell on it, before trying to find it with Detect Magic, but other than a hard to place faint illusory aura he wasn’t able to sense anything more back then.

“Maybe you aren’t as good with detecting magic as you thought,” Reria answered with a smug smile, easily pointing with a finger at Ion’s current position.

“Well, there is no reason to risk,” if they accidentally happened to be spotted by Melker or Amanda while sneaking it might cause some unwanted suspicions, “It looks like, I will have to work more on Invisibility spell in my free time.”

“By the way, what spell is this robe enchanted with?” Reria was curious since she first saw the artifact. Not only had Ion a Bag of Holding, an item which was worth more than her whole family could earn for a few years, but also obtained an enchanted robe.

“Nothing special, only Prestidigitation.”

“Really?”

If Ion wasn’t trying to store it into his Spatial Bag, he would see Reria’s eyes getting wide.

“Well…just a limited one. The sole part of the spell I managed to keep working is a part responsible for cleaning it. Now, it is almost unstainable.”

Reria jaw drop. ‘Just a butchered cantrip engravement using that much mana? By the Nine Hells, how?’

It was so absurd that she could swear that Ion wasn’t lying.

He finally stored the robe. Reria found out, that despite Ion not wearing his robe anymore, he was still leaking quite impressive waves of mana. It meant that either his reserves were rather deep or he was really poor in concealing his aura. Maybe both.

They covered themselves with Invisibility again.

“Well, let’s return now. I will go on the left so that we won’t accidentally trip over ourselves.”

It was a proper concern, as they couldn’t really see themselves while the spell was in effect. Without the artifact interfering with the illusion from Invisibility spell, even Reria’s Eldritch Sight would not be able to pinpoint his position; surely wizards developing the spell throughout gods know how long came up with a formula that also covered user’s natural aura.

Moments later they were back at the gate of the estate. The guards were gossiping.

“Do you think that Evans is really connected with the ‘Cult of Horned Rat’?”

“Sure as hell. I am glad that we’ve been chosen to protect the estate tonight. If those cultists raise an army of creatures living in severs those poor bastards guarding the graveyard would be in a deep shit.”

“Hahaha, literally! Ours should be fine, we are their allies now, I guess? After all, the edler knows what he is doing.”

“Are you sure? It was only the day before yesterday when first servants noticed that this guy is a necromancer. What if he deceived the edler too?”

“Man, are you working here since yesterday? You must know why Silverfords’ trusted servants aren’t blabbering around, right?”

“No idea, are they well paid? Or threatened maybe.”

“Nah, that might be maybe just one of the reasons. But the few most trusted, have a Geas placed on them. Silverfords pay Velho Sovgrat quite a hefty sum every now and then to refresh the spell on them…”

The other guard was very surprised.

“That must expensive…”

“Yes, I doubt they’ve got more than six or seven such servants…” the man saw a maid going in their direction and called to her. “Where are you going, sweetheart?”

“Back home, Paul,” she came closer to him. “Are you free tomorrow? I’d like someone to keep me safe at the concert…”

“With pleasure. I’m free after the night shift,” the man eagerly agreed.

“So come visit me when you rest,” she kissed him before leaving the estate.

Ion and Reria waited for the girl to pass the line of glyphs, sneaking in at the same moment. Sae had noticed during her trips in and out the estate that the wards were producing a quiet sound whenever someone passed them.

“That sounded strange…”

The slightly prolonged pang of the alarm startled one of the guards.

“Uther’s glowing balls, look at that ass!”

The other however had something entirely different in his mind right now.

Reria and Ion made it back through the gardens and into the main building, passing another two guards. With most of the servants finishing they work for today, they put their dodging skills to the limits.

Fortunately, they made it back to their room without any incidents.

“Here you are,” Sae greeted them.

“Wow,” Reria said, seeing the girl clad in a dark, tight-fitting camouflage armour.

“It really suits you,” added Ion. Sae’s armour really emphasized her curves.

“I knew you would like them, so I’ve got similar for you,” She weaved towards a table, where similar equipment laid. “You have no idea how hard it was to bring them inside the manor without anyone asking questions. We have some time, so change, regenerate your mana and prepare the wards in the room. I plan to move out in two hours, it should be just after the shift of guards in the vault. I will go scouting and inform you immediately, so be ready whenever I return.”