“There is no honour when fighting a high wizard or archmage. There is only survival. Consider assassinations or poisons. Ground magebane is very useful as it hinders spellcasting.

Not many wizards achieve that level of mastery over magic. Those who do, however, are far more likely to die as a result of their experiments than in a combat.

If you must challenge them, equip yourself with ancestral treasures. Fight in places where their magic would be dampened.”

- an excerpt from the final chapter of the Blade; teachings of Lăoshī Tauric

A bright streak of light left cleric’s hands and exploded inside the vault. Flames spread around the room, alighting wooden containers inside.

In a moment three figures wearing dark armours concealing their faces were revealed.

A woman closest to them graciously vaulted over spreading flames, only gaining more speed as she dashed forward.

A man extended his shortsword and gestured with a second hand towards the wall of fire closing onto him. The flames converged in front of him, his blade turning red. He seemed almost unaffected by the spell, only his armour was smoking slightly.

The last woman, who had her armour covered with a layer of a faint, spectral frost simply laughed when the flames started to burn her skin, unconcerned.

“You call this a fire? I will show you the real one!”

Still laughing she began to form a ball of flames between her hands, which, to her surprise suddenly fizzled and disappeared.

“Your foul sorcery won’t save you today!” the cleric spoke as he counterspelled her Fireball.

Aya and Kyle aimed against the approaching dual wielding rogue. With their cleric still standing in the entrance to the vault, she was the only one they could hope to hit without risking a friendly fire.

The girl raised a sword she was wielding in her left hand in the same moment as Kyle pulled the trigger. He gaped unbelieving, as her blade turned out to be in the ideal position to deflect the bolt he has just shot. Aya’s missile missed her entirely.

“Faith is my shield!” the priest shouted and an ethereal kite shield began to hover around him.

He closed in against the rogue, swinging his mace against her.

Kyle noticed that the witch began preparing another spell. He whispered words of power, and for a moment his will clashed against hers. She struggled, yet was unable to break free from his Hold Person spell.

Instead of reloading her crossbow, Aya dropped it and dashed forward, sword at hand. With an open path towards the paralysed sorceress, this was a perfect opportunity to remove a threat.

Aya was about to deliver a strike when she noticed the enemy spellblade’s sword coming for her. Aya twisted her own to block the attack, yet was forced back by the burst of flames released from his blade as the weapons clashed.

She looked at the silhouette of her opponent, who took a position between her and the sorceress. His last attack seemingly used up the magic stored inside his sword. She turned her attention to marvellous movements of the shadows all around them, casted by flickering flames of still burning containers.

And joined in their dance.

The shadows embraced her and she disappeared from the sight. Hoping to finish him quickly, she tried to stab the enemy from the side. But her opponent didn’t stand still. As soon as he lost the sight of her, he flickered his hand and from the position he stood just a moment ago, now four figures emerged.

Instantly recognising this as the same annoying illusion Kyle often used during a combat, she pierced one of the silhouettes at random. The blade passed through it and immediately she was met by the spellblade’s counterattack. She easily evaded real and illusory attacks alike before slipping into the shadows once again.

‘The witch first, before spell sustained by Kyle expires,’ she thought.

Aya managed to take only a few steps before the spellblade raised his hand up and a bright, glowing sphere of light radiated above them.

She yelled in anger when nearby shadows have been washed away, revealing her. After denying Aya the possibility to use her ability to hide, the opponent closed in against her, forcing to fight in a melee. It wasn’t Aya’s forte, but within a few moments of the fight, she managed to get rid of another illusory image and score few glancing hits on her opponent.

“Aren’t you a clumsy one?” she taunted the spellblade. Either he had close to no idea how to properly use his sword or he wanted her to get overly confident. She bet for the second option and remained careful.

He mumbled something and his offhand suddenly started releasing a shadowy aura. The feeling she got from it was definitely unlike the comforting and warm embrace the normal shadows were giving.

Their weapons started clashing again and she paid attention to not let the opponent’s palm touch her.

While Aya was duelling against the spellblade, Kyle had a struggle of his own.

Immediately after shooting from his crossbow he ran to assist the cleric. Yet, since the very beginning, something was off in the fight.

The dual wielding rogue they clashed against just didn’t make sense. Kyle prided himself for his dexterity, but the way she was dodging was something else entirely. It looked more as if she knew where to move to avoid an attack before they even began it.

Moreover, after Kyle spent most of his remaining mana to create Illusory Images of himself, she completely ignored them. Not even once she had attacked any of illusions nor tried to protect herself from their attacks. She was simply letting the images pierce through herself totally unconcerned. The rogue was focusing mainly on the cleric, so Kyle was still able to focus on sustaining his spell against the sorcerer, but her attacks were forcing the priest to self-heal or defend.

Only after the cleric finally decided that going offensive might be actually his only option to break the stalemate before he eventually runs out of mana and summoned a Spiritual Hammer to assist in their attacks, they managed to finally score some hits against her. After which she disengaged just for long enough to drink a potion before returning the fight.

“I curse you, vile creature!” Aya heard an angry shout of the cleric.

The spellblade she was facing against was breathing heavily from exhaustion. During their short exchanges, she managed to evade his left palm all the times, even if it had cost her a glancing blow from his sword a few times.

Seeing an opening, the shadowdancer lunged forward once again, striking her opponent’s blade and disarming him. Not letting the spellblade recover she thrust once more, going for a kill.

“Screw this, I’m not going to die playing with sticks,” the man whispered as his blade fell.

Aya’s sword was just inches away from his throat when a translucent barrier appeared on its way. A sudden deflection made Aya lost her balance for a single moment, but it was enough for the man to grapple her.

For a moment she felt a strange, numbing feeling spreading from where the man’s left hand was holding her wrist, then she sensed her strength leaving her.

In panic, she tried to break free from his grasp, but she only managed to fall prone, dragging the man with her. She heard a numbed out scream not immediately recognising it as her own. The darkness started to cover her whole vision. She was barely able to discern a silhouette of the man lying on her.

Casting a shadow on her…

Struggling to stay conscious, she let herself sink into it. The man, voicing a surprise as his hands submerged in the shadow released her and she gladly let him go. The ability to glide on the verge of Shadowplane was a struggle even in her prime, trying to drag someone forcefully in her current condition was nigh impossible. Fighting her exhaustion, she skidded further away.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Kyle heard Aya’s sudden scream and saw her emerging from the shadows few meters behind him. She was completely devoid of colours, unmoving.

‘Tymora, please don’t let her die.’

Seeing Kyle losing focus for a moment, the dual wielding rogue used an opportunity to attack him mercilessly.

To make a situation worse, the enemy sorceress finally regained her ability to move and, brimming with anger, started to chant a spell.

“Your struggle is useless!” The priest immediately tried to counter it.

“As if I’ve let you again,” Kyle heard the spellblade’s voice.

“What?!” The cleric exclaimed when his spell failed.

Kyle disengaged, prepared to dodge the enemy spell, but nothing happened after the woman finished casting. The rogue assaulted the cleric again, while the sorceress released two crackling beams of energy at the priest. He screamed in pain as three fiery rays casted by the enemy spellblade followed.

Making a quick decision, Kyle threw a tiny metal sphere. When it hit the wall near the combatants, it quickly started spewing suffocating black smoke from the holes in its casing, causing everyone in the area to cough.

Obscured by the cloud, he quickly dashed to Aya’s body, producing a scroll and a tiny mana core from his pockets. They were meant to be used as a last resort in a case they were trapped by the vault’s wards.

He placed the scroll on the mana core and using all his mana reserves tried to direct the energy through it.

‘Faster.’

The sounds of fighting resumed.

‘Oh, c’mon.’

“I won’t relent,” he heard the priest’s shouting and saw a short burst of light inside the smoke.

Finally, all the runes on the scroll filled themselves with power, and a tiny tear in space appeared before him. He dropped the scroll that started to turn into dust and dragged unconscious Aya through the dimension door. Unfortunately, the spell’s range was limited, so they were able only to get out to the building and had to somehow slip out of the estate’s grounds.

****

“Where are they?” Ion emerged from the smoke, coughing.

“They must have fled,” Sae sat down against the wall just outside of the cloud, breathing heavily, “Hells, I’m exhausted.”

Ion kneeled by her and chanted; even after mending his wounds, the excess lifeforce he drained from the enemy was enough for him to share with the girl.

“Nah, it not this kind of fatigue,” Sae stopped him and straightened herself. Seeing his quizzical look she added, “Things like mana fatigue can’t be cured like this."

Mana fatigue was something that could affect fighters and wizards alike. It happened when one was digging too deep into the reserves of his inner mana to fuel their abilities.

"We need to move out, soon we will have all of their guards on our backs. Just let me check this guy’s body.”

Sae took a deep breath and entered the cloud once more.

“I’ve brought your sword. And the one that woman dropped too,” Reria said flatly, giving him both blades.

Ion angrily stored them into the bag.

Only a few days ago he would be marvelled by having a chance to witness a rogue with abilities his opponent had; someone capable of blending with shadows, without any apparent use of mana, or, to be more exact, by using it in a completely different way than wizards do when spellcasting.

Even if supposedly on the most primal level the mechanism of such an ability was similar to that his father or Thaleus used to strengthen their blows or made themselves more resilient, the effects that rogue could have achieved through her combat mana manipulation seemed to be on a completely different level.

Now however…

‘It was far too close.’

Sticking to their original plan and pretending that he was a rogue was a foolish idea. Sure, he had years of experience, as he was trained with his father and Windhelm’s guards, but that was primarily with a spear, not a sword. And even considering that training, he was average at best, surely not a match against someone using a blade for the living.

Despite the act, he was forced to resort to using a Shield spell to lure his opponent into making a mistake. A spell that if counterspelled could have left him severely wounded.

There was also another reason for his anger.

Judging the skills of the rogue, even if he had resorted to using spells from the very beginning, his only chance to win would be paralysing her with a Hold Person spell, similarly to what was done to Reria. Yet, if she had resisted that, he would be left only with an option of hurling fiery bolts, which she would have probably easily evaded, or magic missiles, which would be more a nuisance than a real source of damage. At least in an amount he could evoke before she would close in. Moreover, it would have not only made her aware of his skills but also could turn the attention of the cleric towards him.

Ion could have only raised a Shield around him then and pray that it holds for long enough for him to try immobilising her with spells again.

For the first time since he learned how to cast spells, he felt really vulnerable. Sure, the fight against the Yugoloths pushed him to the limits, but they were fiends from an Outer Plane. His current enemy was just some random rogue, that happened to break into the same vault as they, and that encounter was enough to corner him.

In a short-term, there would be benefits of learning how to better handle melee combat… but should he waste time on this, when learning magic was much easier for him? He knew, not only from stories and rumours, but literally have seen what a powerful wizard could do.

The thought brought Ion back to his visions; they were probably the only reason why learning magic for him was that simple. If he was planning to somehow get rid of them at some point, he should drain all the knowledge from them as fast as possible, instead of wasting time on swordsmanship.

Getting rid of the visions…

This was the thought that whenever recurred to him, Ion was burying, choosing to focus on something else. There was an underlying fear, that if he had somehow found a way to shut them out, he would also lose his ability to control mana. He could cast cantrips fairly well even before the first strange dreams occurred, but would that be the same with regular spells?

Deep inside he doubted whether even after finding the reasons behind and a way to get rid of his visions, he would really try it. Was risking worth it? Maybe he should wave off their side effects as something acceptable.

After all, sporadically seeing something while awake or hearing a voice, especially if it had some useful hints, wasn’t something that alarming, right?

‘To search for knowledge despite dangers or stay within a safe embrace of what is already known?’

‘Always helpful, Voice,’ Ion mused, ‘I wonder if those dangers lie in getting rid of you or allowing you to ramble?’

‘…Isn’t this an eternal question?’ the Voice continued, not reacting to Ion’s murmur.

“I could only stand here, unable to do anything,” Ion’s train of thoughts, lasting no longer than a few seconds, was interrupted by Reria. “If not for your help, I would have died here.”

With a sudden respite from the immediate danger, Reria broke into tears.

„It’s all right now,” Ion hugged her. „Hold Person isn’t a pleasant spell to be affected by, even more so for the first time.”

Seeing Reria affected by the spell back then, he had thought about Dispelling it, yet with all the wards in the outer vault that could interfere with his try, it would have been quite difficult and lengthy to execute it properly. And would immediately identify him as a primary caster.

She continued to sob.

“But hey, after breaking free of it, you dealt with that cleric like an angry dragon!” Ion tried to cheer her up before suddenly silencing.

Only then did he understand that they have really killed someone. Not an animal, fiend nor monster, but a human. When his father had learned that Ion planned to work as a mercenary, they had a long conversation about this subject. Gerard wanted to be sure that if it comes to that, he won’t die because of his hesitation.

After all those talks Ion expected to feel something more.

However, there was only… an emptiness.

It all happened so fast, on one moment the enemy was attacking them, on the next his corpse was falling to the ground, devoid of life. He wasn’t even sure whether the man was killed by a spell, his or Reria’s, or Sae’s sword.

In his dreams, he experienced Vision-he killing many times; sometimes his opponents, sometimes passing sentences or executing them. Honestly, Ion felt more affected by some of those memories; he could relate to victims’ goals, sympathise with them.

But what happened today was a kill or be killed situation. The man had chosen to attack them, not wanting to be reasoned with.

‘It was different when Yugoloths killed the caravan guards; I knew them, talked with them. This guy, however, was a total stranger who only wanted to kill us…’

“Only some potions and coins,” Sae went out of the slowly dissipating cloud interrupting. “I hoped that he had a holy symbol with himself, but no luck. Only a component pouch. It would have been a perfect way to leave some false trails for Silverfords.”

For a moment she looked curiously at Ion, still hugging sobbing Reria.

“Well, we need to get out of here fast. We weren’t the only ones thinking that it was a great opportunity to break inside so there might be more opponents. Moreover, we have no way of knowing if they haven’t been spotted earlier. The whole estate might be ready to jump on us.”

As if to confirm her words the magically amplified shout echoed through the corridors.

“Intruders!” the call, even if distorted, was strangely familiar to Ion.

“Take those and follow me,” Sae gave Ion and Reria crossbows and some bolts, which were apparently left behind by their opponents. “Resort to magic only when necessary now.”

As they headed out she hastily instructed them how to load the weapons.

They quickly went by stairs back to the main floor. There, they were able to hear a thundering noises coming from somewhere out of the building.

“Shit! Shit!” the door closed loudly as a panicked servant ran into the building, „Wizards fighting outside, guards dead, why was I chosen to stay today?”

Reria, scared by the sudden movement, shot from the crossbow.

“Uther’s glowing balls!” the man was lucky that she has missed. Noticing them he immediately paled, “Please, don’t kill me!”

Sae approached him and pointed with her sword threateningly.

“Tell us what is happening outside and we might let you live!”

“I don’t know!” the man looked as if he was about to piss himself, “I heard some noises so I went outside, only to see the guards at the door dead. On the other side of the building Master Evans is fighting against someone…”

‘Impossible’ everyone thought, yet after hearing the servant Ion suddenly understood why the voice they heard earlier sounded so familiar. The voice sounded like his own when he used his transmutation spell to pretend to be a necromancer.

“No! Help!” the man fall prone, scared, when the door suddenly opened again.

“Check the vault!” two men wearing haphazardly donned armours with Silverfords’ insignias entered, visibly after sprinting there.

By the time they have noticed the figures in the hallway, Ion shoot from his crossbow. A bolt pierced man’s armour. Sae followed, hitting the guard in a helmet with her sword, probably knocking him out and stabbing the other warrior in a chest. He fell to the ground, gasping for air erratically.

She quickly looked out of the building and ushered them out.

“We are running from here, now!”