Despite sticking around well beyond when he should have, Felix was the first one to arrive back at the designated meeting spot, an abandoned building well beyond the outskirts of Azura, on a distant solitary cloud. Each one of them, except for Felix who didn’t need one, had a device to open an Aether Tunnel for them.
Still, they didn’t want to use them anywhere close to the buildings they had just robbed so all of them had scurried outward before using them.
The first to arrive after Felix, was Varex. As soon as Felix felt the opening of the Aether Tunnel with his Mana Senses, he stowed the ring he had found in his Soul Space.
“What the fuck is happening?”
Felix lifted his hands innocently, “I know about as much as you do.”
Varex growled a little then began pacing back and forth as the others appeared one by one. None of them immediately said anything but, many of them looked like they wanted to. Kether and Aela both stopped themselves from speaking though as soon as they noticed Varex angrily pacing.
Rel was the last to arrive because she couldn’t propel herself with explosions in the city as that would have been too recognizable. Instead, she was forced to walk away from the scene of the crime before activating her device.
As soon as she arrived, Varex stopped and turned on his heel in Felix’s direction, “You need to tell us what’s going on right now.”
Felix cocked a brow, “In reference to what exactly?”
He growled as if Felix should have known, “Kerix. You stopped in the middle of the job and then just dropped that bomb on us. What do you mean he’s watching and he’s just curious?”
Felix shrugged, “I know about as much as you do. Probably less. Some guy showed up at the gala, seemed important. He was with Mist, he said hello. He’s apparently the progenitor of the Ryko family.”
“No. Today, what happened?”
“I was standing there and just felt his attention on me and what we were doing. That’s all.” Felix shrugged again.
Aela cocked her head, “What do you mean, felt his attention?”
Felix thought about it for a moment then closed his mouth and looked at the rest of them. His Aura control was still weak in comparison to others but, it was enough that he could show them what he was talking about. Using his Aura, he focused his intent and projected it outwards, his intent of watching them.
Rel immediately shivered and Aela uncharacteristically tugged on her skimpy outfit to make it less revealing.
“So then… where was he?” Kether asked.
“No idea.” Felix shrugged again for what felt like the umpteenth time in the conversation, “I just felt that, more or less.”
“So then he knows everything?” Varex looked very serious.
“Pretty sure. Also, I don’t think he cares.” Felix answered, unsure.
“Okay…” Varex sighed, “What exactly happened when you disappeared?”
“One of the vaults was being troublesome so I hopped through and dealt with it.”
Aela smirked and Kether placed his palm on his forehead.
Varex groaned, “At first, I thought you had a plan. You had all these people running around in every part of the city, you could get us into places and I was even excited.” He gritted his teeth, “Now I know you’re just making it up as you go.”
Felix shrugged, “Not ex-”
“You just love to wing it. This is just who you are? You get off on things going to shit?”
“I don’t know that I love it but, it happens.” Felix nodded.
“To be fair, nothing’s gone to shit-” Kether started.
Varex ignored him, “I thought you had some grand plan that let you survive The Dragon’s Zone. You didn’t did you? It was all just dumb luck, wasn’t it?”
“More or less.” Felix nodded again.
“Fucking challenger. I should have known.” Varex turned away from Felix and stormed towards the door, “I’m out.”
Aela winced as Varex left the building, though Felix wasn’t exactly sure how he would get back from the floating cloud they were on.
“Do we have to worry about him telling anyone what we’re doing?” Felix addressed the others.
Aela shrugged with little confidence, “Probably not…”
“He just hates it when anyone deviates from the plan.” Kether waved them off, “He ain’t gonna leak anything. He’s just mad and needs to cool down.”
We need to be sure. Follow and observe.
Affirmative.
“Anyways,” Kether licked his lips and rubbed his hands greedily, “How’d we make out?”
“A few hundred Xeros, a few hundred thousand Emros and hundreds of items, just shy of a thousand.”
Aela whistled, “That’s…”
Kether’s eyes lit up, “Enough ros to open my own casino.”
“As for the items,” Felix started, “We’re going to take a few and experiment on them. You are free to look through the rest back at the Lab.”
Aela, Kether and Rel all nodded, none of them minding in the slightest that Felix and the Lab took the first pick of the spoils.
There was nothing else to go over all together so Felix opened them all Aether Tunnels to their desired destinations then headed back to the Wanderer’s Lab himself. There, he began experimenting with the ring, with his Residents help this time.
What they managed to discover about the ring in the first night, was that it wasn’t actually erasing anyone’s presence, even if it felt like that. Rather that seemed to be a side effect of the ring.
Felix left it with his Residents to continue experimenting while he headed back to work at the Storm Sect vault.
He arrived and met with Mac, his keeper at the Storm Sect and the woman that had recruited him, then began analyzing items in vaults, as he did every day.
That lasted for a grand total of just a few vaults before Felix sensed some kind of commotion in the building on the lower floors. He didn’t hear anything or feel the building shaking as the floors were too thick and the walls too sturdy but he definitely felt the Auras in the building below him rampaging around.
Mac felt it just after he did and frowned in confusion before running down the hall. Felix followed as they dropped all the way to the ground floor to find out what was going on.
On the ground floor, where the lobby was, were just over a dozen Spirit Avatars fighting. Three quarters of them were either bestial in nature or were some kind of hunters, the other quarter were obviously security for the building.
Giant Spirit Beasts wrestled with more humanoid avatars, clawing, biting and tearing at them until they were completely overpowered.
Luckily for Felix, they arrived on the other side of the floor from the core of the fighting because he was pretty sure being in the middle of the fight would have actually hurt him. He looked at Mac to figure out what to do next but she seemed completely frozen.
Grabbing her before they were noticed, Felix dragged her back over to the shaft they had descended and dragged her back up a few floors, “Is there any way to lock the building down?”
She quickly nodded and managed to collect herself before leading him up a floor and down a couple halls where she activated some mechanism that slammed all the shafts shut and locked down each floor.
“Do you know who’s attacking the vault?” Felix asked when she was done.
She shook her head, clearly still somewhat in shock, “I don’t know them but… their Avatar’s, they’re Mortalbane.”
Ah, shit.
“Any idea why they would be attacking this vault?”
“I… no. Not really. I know there was a rumor that the Storm Sect was making a play to…. That we were behind the thefts but Mortalbane wasn’t hit.”
Well… I guess last night’s news hasn’t reached her yet. Sounds like there isn’t anything special about this vault though so, all of them are being hit at the same time then. Did we know this would happen?
No. Our best estimates were that Mortalbane would be angry and possibly irresponsible. Their actions today were a probabilistic outlier.
Is it just Storm Sect they’re hitting?
Correct. From what’s been gathered so far, it seems as though they are not working alone. Ano Earth Branch along with Fire Branch are here as well though not at this particular vault.
Mortalbane is much bigger… they probably concentrated their best resources on the higher tier vaults then. When were we going to hit Storm Sect?
The planned series of events before today was to steal from the Gera family next. Rel requested we avoid them as long as possible. Kerix Ryko’s presence makes it unrealistic to steal from the Ryko’s without leaving the Realm immediately afterwards which leaves the Storm Sect as the next logical target. However, the plan at this point has changed many times and we were in the process of revising it to acc-
That’s fine. Given there are- How many vaults for Storm Sect?
There are nearly 70 vault facilities within the Storm Sect.
Holy shit, all of them like this one?
Similar in size, yes.
How the hell were we going to make that work?
All iterations of the plan so far have ignored the lower tier vault facilities lettered C and below.
How many does that leave?
8 facilities.
That’s much more manageable. Do we have access to a list of vault contents?
We do not. The Storm Sect is relatively insular and you are the closest to that information of all the Residents that have infiltrated the Sect.
Felix turned to Mac who didn’t seem to have even noticed he was having a conversation in his head as she was still completely shell shocked, “Is there a registry of the vaults and where the really dangerous stuff is?”
She looked at him for a moment, silent, then nodded, “I- Yes, there is.”
“Where?”
“I cannot tell you.” She shook her head, “You have not reached the-”
“Mac. Right now, there are Mortalbane goons tearing their way through the bottom floor of the building. Do you really think they’re hitting just this one vault in particular?”
She shook her head quickly and Felix continued, “If you don’t want to tell me, who do we need to tell about what’s happening?”
“With the building locked down, we could not reach them even if we tried. I am certain they are already awa-”
“Is there not a way to override the lock down? And this person does exist, right?”
She began to nod but as she did, Felix reached forwards and grabbed her both physically and spiritually. He used his Soul Tendrils to begin tearing at the inside of her Soul, injuring it just enough before he implanted a Puppet Soul and attached a Resident to it.
Injured, her Soul didn’t stand a chance of fighting the possession as the Resident began sifting through her recent memories to find what they needed. She only lasted for a few seconds before her Soul gave out and fell apart at which point Felix pulled the Puppet Soul back out of the body and stuck the corpse in his Soul Space.
There was no point in leaving it there without her Soul and there was no way to preserve that indefinitely. Having a Puppet in the corpse wouldn’t fool anyone in Azura, considering how spiritual everyone was, so they didn’t bother.
Third from the top floor is records. Floor above that are offices for the overseers of the facility.
What about the top floor?
Intake for item shipments that are flown in onto the roof.
Oh, that makes sense.
Standing in front of the console, Felix overrode the lockout sequence for a few of the shafts and all of the vaults between him and the top floor. Then, he ran out of the room and began grabbing everything inside each of the vaults. He wasn’t alone on the floors though so he used his Persona to disguise himself.
He managed to get through a single floor before he encountered a group of three Damned and their keepers along with two guards. Rushing onto the floor, they all spotted him and he quickly rushed over to them, “Thank fucking god. Mortalbane is on the ground floor and is trying to make their way up here. My keeper said they were retaliating because they were hit last night. They got her and forced her to override the vault doors a-”
“Your keeper, who are they?”
“Mac- Sorry, Maclethil. She’s dead now.”
The guard, realizing he wasn’t lying about being a Damned, relaxed his expression and nodded, “We’ll head down there and see if we can’t lock down these vaults again.”
“Be careful, they’re already on the floor I just came from.”
The guard nodded confidently, “I’ll notify the other guards. Can you Damned make sure none of the items escape, confirm their contents are still there and manually lock down each vault?”
The keepers nodded quickly, “We’ll get on it.”
As the guards left, the three keepers looked to their Damned, “We’ll coordinate with our Damned,” One of them said before turning to Felix, “You can follow us and we’ll help you close the vaults as we go.”
Felix nodded, despite his definitely not wanting to do that. The three groups then split up, the keepers coordinating which Damned was dealing with which vault, given their strengths. The more vaults were sealed by the keepers, the less loot Felix got access to because as he learned on the way to the first vault, the vaults would be sealed until the entire place was opened back up by someone higher up in the Storm Sect later.
The first vault they hit, Felix paid close attention to how it was being sealed. The second, he entered to ensure the item was still there and not trying to escape because the other Damned in his trio was physically focused. Once he was done, he pretended to not be paying attention while his Matter Senses confirmed the method of sealing the vault was identical to the previous vault so he knew it wouldn’t change with each vault.
On the third vault, he made his move. The other Damned took that vault and as soon as they stepped into it, Felix forced the keeper inside then sealed the door with the same method as the other vaults before it.
Rushing back the way they had come, he quickly reached into a bunch of vaults and grabbed their contents before turning the corner into the hall where the other two keeper and Damned pairs were located. Only one of the Damned was in a vault and before the other three could react, he ran forward and began tossing various dangerous items from vaults he had grabbed.
The three immediately realized what was happening and turned to run but one was impaled by a sword that sought out her heart specifically before draining her corpse of blood. The other fell to his knees and grasped the sides of his head as an amulet landed next to him.
The Damned were harder to deal with in every way. Even if they were physically focused, their Souls were strong enough to resist some Spiritual dangers. That also meant Felix couldn’t kill them as easily because they could defend themselves.
Popping out of the vault, the Damned looked around to try and figure out what was happening while the other surrounded himself in a massive armored Spirit Avatar. It had a long curved sword and plate armor covering its entire body. It was also not something Felix wanted to deal with so, he turned and ran as fast as he could.
At the end of the hall, he turned and vanished from thin air.
On the other side of the floor, where he had Spatially Translocated, he began emptying every vault around him in hopes he would find something useful.
With his lengthened Soul Tendrils, he didn’t even have to enter the vaults and all he had to do was run by them.
Then, by the time the Damned he had run from found him again, he immediately tossed a handful more items in their direction. The first looked like a lantern with a string attached to it that spewed out poisonous gas in every direction that his Residents claimed was a thurible.
Another was a single boot that desperately tried to eat Felix as he handled it. After that there were three Spiritual items that seemed relatively dangerous. One tried to possess anyone around it and another was a bag that tried to consume Souls right from their bodies. The third was an empty bucket and Felix had no idea what it was supposed to do but it was so unstable already, all he had to do was slash at it once with his Soul Tendrils before throwing it.
After a fraction of a second in the air, it exploded and took a good chunk of the floor with it, along with completely wiping out Felix’s health, forcing him back into his real body. Luckily it wasn’t quite enough to push through the ceiling or floor, which were ridiculously thick but, it was more than enough to shatter the Spirit Avatar and open the Damned up to be possessed by the rod Felix had thrown near him. The other Damned was barely hit by the explosion but they were clearly a physically focused Damned because as the bag closed in on them, they were completely defenseless.
As they perished horrible and painful deaths, Felix cleared out the rest of the vaults in the hall before cleaning up the mess he had made and taking back the boot, bag, sword and rod.
The next three floors above that one were completely empty but he realized why when he reached the next floor and a keeper greeted him, “I recognize you, you’re that new Damned Mac brought in, right?”
Felix nodded quickly.
“Where is she by the way?”
“She needed to check something with records so I was waiting for her to return when the whole building was suddenly locked down.”
They nodded, “Well, come on. We’re all grouping up on the top floor to get as far from the threat as we can.”
Shit.
“Perfect, lead the way?”
They nodded then led Felix over to one of the shafts. As much as Felix wanted to keep looting the place, this was the best way for him to make it to the Records room for the time being and he didn’t have his Persona to disguise himself anymore.
Together, they flew up past all the floors in vault building B5 until finally, they passed by a floor Felix hadn’t ever been near before. The Records floor.
Just passing by it, Felix could read a number of the Records near the shaft with his Matter Senses as the Records were sealed and Warded from Anima Senses, but not Matter Senses which were far more uncommon.
He would never be in range from two floors away which meant he had to get onto the office floor somehow.
As they passed by it, he made a bad excuse, “We should check this floor and make sure no one is still there, right? Get everyone to the top floor in case we need to escape that way?”
The keeper waved him off, “Those are just offices. Plus it’s the second highest floor.”
“We should still make sure they know. It’s the right thing to do.” Felix feigned nobility.
The keeper sighed and shrugged, “Alright, we can check I guess.”
Honestly surprised his lie had worked, Felix nodded and landed on the office floor where he began walking down the various halls and looking into offices. Instead of looking to see if anyone was still in the offices though, he wasn’t paying attention to that floor at all.
He tried his best to look like he was really looking for people and the keeper didn’t seem to suspect anything but after Felix was forced to walk into a couple of the offices to scan everything on the records floor, the keeper started to get annoyed.
“Come on, there’s no one here.”
“It takes no time for us to be sure. What if someone is taking a nap or something?”
The keeper groaned and followed along as Felix continued down the next hall where an office worker was just leaving their office. Spotting him, they yelled, “Hey! What are you doing here?”
Acting like he was glad to have found him, Felix hurriedly explained, “The building is under attack. Mortalbane tore through the lobby and is working their way up the floors, they’ve overridden the lockdown somehow. You need to get to the top floor in case we need to escape.”
They shook their head like Felix was deranged, “Course I know that. Everyone else’s left already, not that there are many people here normally. I was just finishing something up, I’m done now though. Head up to the top floor.”
Felix rushed past him and into a couple of the offices, “We should at least check to make sure, y-”
“Hey! Stop it. Let’s go.”
Ignoring the man, Felix stepped into a couple more offices before he angrily stepped over and grabbed Felix’s shoulder.
“I just need to be sure.” Felix attempted, “What if we don’t and someone dies because we didn’t check? I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”
“We’re already on the second highest floor. They can get out if they need to.”
Felix couldn’t think of a believable retort so he just nodded and followed the man. They walked back down the corridor to meet up with the keeper Felix had been with and as soon as they saw them and the office worker was distracted, Felix dropped a tiny ball bearing into one of the offices.
He was pretty confident the floor was empty so there was little risk in his leaving Nova there to finish scouting the floor. He had thought about sticking a construct on that floor but they couldn’t scan through the sealed containers and there was no way for him to quickly get a Construct there as the main shaft wasn’t even attached to that floor so that it remained isolated from the items.
The offices were for the Storm Sect Vault Facility B5’s equivalents of Woodruff who, sometimes needed to deal with the items directly and manage the keepers. That meant the records room was the only separated room.
Finally on the top floor, Felix sat with the others that were all nervously gossiping and chatting while he paid attention to Nova who was remotely scanning the rest of the records floor for him.
Going through the scanned records, Felix found way more than he had been hoping for.
There weren’t only records for the B5 facility but there were also replicas of records for a number of the other facilities, though not all of them. It meant that losing an entire records room they wouldn’t lose any records, as they had backups in other facilities but also, no one record room held all the information about all the facilities.
However, they did have records of the item transfers in and out of the facility they were in as well as a few of the other facilities they had backup records for.
Analyzing and plotting a number of them, Felix, along with a number of Residents, grew increasingly annoyed with the state of disarray of the records. They weren’t awful but there were missing records where items left one facility with another facility as their destination but there was no intake record on the other end.
If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
He didn’t have access to every facility so he couldn’t be sure they weren’t redirected, but it was annoying to him that there were no records in the origin facility indicating that.
Then, one of his Residents had the brilliant idea, “What if they aren’t missing?”
Upon hearing it, Felix immediately realized they were right. The items weren’t missing at all, they were heading to a facility they didn’t know about and that was kept off the records. It made perfect sense when he realized all of the items that went missing, were either very dangerous or were otherwise valuable and useful.
It was entirely possible someone was stealing the valuable and useful ones but there was no way for him to know that.
What he could do, was map the missing item’s intended destination on a map. Drawing lines from the origin facility to their intended destinations, all the missing items headed in a particular direction, likely to make it seem less obvious. When they left from the vault, they were still heading in the correct general direction.
There wasn’t anything significant or stand out listed on the map there but the pattern was too apparent to ignore.
Unfortunately, Felix didn’t see a way to safely rob all of the Storm Sect facilities but one single vault facility that was hidden and stored the best of the best loot, he wasn’t going to ignore. For the rest of them, he had his Residents help Mortalbane as subtly as they could. Then, they would simply steal everything back from Mortalbane later on, who’s primitive security relied mostly on guards and didn’t split things up into thousands of individual vaults.
Nova finished scanning the records floor, with Felix and Mark tapped into her senses through the former’s connection, in a few minutes. After that, she made her escape by burrowing through one of the outer walls over the course of another few minutes.
At that point Felix was fairly bored and was only spared by his Residents outside the building keeping him updated.
Mortalbane didn’t make it much further than the second floor, where the guards had fallen back to and made their stand. There, there was a stalemate for nearly a half hour until hundreds of members of Mortalbane suddenly joined their comrades.
From what his Residents had seen and heard, they had already finished clearing out the lower, less secure vaults. Once they had cleared out a vault, every member that had participated, save for a few Damned designated to cart the loot back to their base, joined the next vault up.
The easier vaults were cleared out quickly which meant the members snowballed upwards into the higher vaults.
As hundreds of members of Mortalbane poured into Vault Facility B5, the guards that had made their stand were quickly overwhelmed. Pouring into the vault unimpeded, they began tearing through the vaults with little regard for their own lives.
One of Felix’s Residents was amongst the company and what Felix saw from their senses, were people running into vaults, then running out screaming as the others laughed at them. For the most part, they rarely died though as they were rather resilient on the whole which made sense considering they were a hunting and dungeon delving company.
By the way, if they’re just designating a couple people to run all the loot back…
We’ve already hit every group running back. There is little coordination or communication so they have not noticed anything as of yet.
Perfect. In that case, we just need to make sure we clear out the last vault before they send everyone there. Then, we get everything.
We have yet to locate this hidden vault facility as of yet so we are unable to form a concrete plan.
Yeah, no worries. Nothing concrete but if we send the entirety of Mortalbane there, they’d provide a pretty great distraction.
We have Residents in Mortalbane, shall we leak the information?
Not yet. See what the planning Residents think but we need to time Mortalbane’s arrival. We don’t want them skipping the rest of the vaults in their excitement to hit the secret one.
The Residents in question believe we should begin planting the seed but avoid disclosing any specific information.
Sure, they know better than me anyways. Do it.
Affirmative.
In the meantime…
Felix turned to the keeper near him, the one that had recognized him, “Mortalbane just started pouring past the second floor.”
He frowned, “What? What do you mean?”
One of the office workers near him turned towards them when he heard that, “How do you know?”
“I can hear them.” Felix lied. It was slightly more believable than feeling their presence through the dozens of thick floors designed and warded specifically against Anima.
The two of them looked rather skeptical but Felix played up his being nervous, “Look, you can sit here if you want but there are hundreds of them down there. Where’s the exit? I’m outta here.”
Another of the office worked turned to him, “You cannot leave. We need to ensure the contents of the vaults are all accounted for. If and when we are certain Mortalbane has-”
Before he could finish, Felix really did hear Mortalbane just a couple floors below them and evidently, most everyone else in the room did to. He didn’t even need to say anything as the office worker who was telling him he couldn’t leave just a moment ago, suddenly shifted gears, “Exit is this way, everyone please leave in an orderly fashion and follow us to vault facility B2.”
Everyone in the room followed along and headed for the shaft to the roof where they began to leave in a flock. That didn’t work for Felix who was needed elsewhere so, he had his Residents help him out.
Just as they got into the air but before they were too far, a small contingent of Mortalbane appeared on the roof and projected out their Spirit Avatars and attacked them. They weren’t seriously trying to kill them but they were more trying to mess with them, like drunk frat boys messing with a competing school.
It was enough to scatter the group though which was exactly the cover Felix needed to fly off in another direction entirely.
He obfuscated the direction he was going in just in case, picking up Nova on the way, and used a couple of Aether Tunnels to readjust before finally arriving at the location of the Storm Sect’s Secret Vault, at least theoretically.
Standing there in a completely normal part of the city, Felix understood why his Residents were having a hard time finding the place. He was, and they already were, looking for any buildings with industrial sized doors where a portable vault might be flown through.
Looking around though, there was nothing he could immediately see.
He tried looping around a few of the buildings but none of them stood out for any particular reason.
Mortalbane is moving on to B2.
B2? I thought they just got through B5?
The teams at B3 and B4 broke through on their own.
Shit. How many vault facilities left until this one?
4 including B1 before this facility.
We haven’t told them about this one yet though, right?
We have not. We will have to before they reach A2 however or more of Mortalbane will likely begin to head back and will realize what has happened. We must tell them while their excitement levels are raised.
Shit shit shit. We have to actually find the damn pla-
Before he finished the thought, Felix felt a familiar feeling, one he had felt on the last job they had done. Kerix Ryko was watching him.
This time though, it wasn’t just curiosity Felix felt. He also felt Kerix’s observation trying to tell him something. As he walked around, it began to indicate his proximity to something, telling him when he was getting hotter and colder. He assumed it was the building he was looking for, though he had no idea why Kerix would be helping him.
Once he found the building, Kerix’s attention vanished so Felix figured he had the right place. He quickly circled the building but found nothing off about it at all.
Walking up to the entrance, it looked like a standard office building. Even the lobby he stepped into looked completely normal with a person standing at the front desk and everything. They didn’t seem to pay much attention to Felix just standing there and looking around either.
His Residents joined him a few moments later though not all of them walked into the lobby as that would have stood out. Instead, many of them observed from afar and some of them tracked down whatever information they could about the specific building.
How do we get in? I’m open to ideas.
Aether Tunnel? A Resident responded.
Where though? I could just open it randomly I guess…
Right in the middle of the building. Center of Mass. Another answered.
It will at least get you past the front desk. One of the smarter ones added.
That’s true. The building could be crawling with guards though, we have no idea.
Use the ring. Another answered matter-of-factly.
The ring?
It does not hide your presence, we believe it acts as a shield from The Aether and Ambient Anima. It is however, strong enough that it should help against most Spirit Avatars. They added.
Great. Who has it? Felix asked as he left the building.
No one answered him but a Resident walked right up to him and handed him the ring just a moment later. He nodded in thanks then slipped the ring onto his finger, adjusting to the sensation of being removed from reality briefly before letting Mark lead him to a specified location.
There, he opened an Aether Tunnel to the direct center of the building which, was inside a wall. Using his Matter Senses he found an empty location nearby then regenerated his Mana then tried again a moment later.
This time, he knew the destination was empty but instead of just jumping through, they tossed a number of Seeing Eye Constructs which were completely unrecognizable from what they had been. Even though Felix had the schematics and knowledge in his head to create them, he hadn’t been supervising their creation and so, he still marveled at how tiny they had become.
Instead of orbs the size of softballs, the Constructs were now like tiny bugs. They weren’t completely invisible from a distance but they were barely fruit fly sized.
As they spread out through the building, scanning everything around them, Felix’s Residents also set themselves and more Constructs up everywhere in a multiple block radius around them.
Just a few seconds past before the Constructs were finished scanning the room. Somehow, there was nobody in the massive room they had opened a tunnel into.
Stepping inside himself, once he knew it was clear, Felix took a look for himself and found his Constructs hadn’t missed anything really. The room was a massive cylinder with a thick pillar in the middle, that he had initially opened an Aether Tunnel into.
Otherwise, the walls were thick and warded, though not in a way that stood out in an office building. They were also thick, not surprisingly so but on the thicker side of normal.
The room was essentially just barely within the range of normalcy of an office building. Other than its shape which was odd.
The pillar in the middle of the room that Felix had tried to Tunnel into previously, didn’t reach from the floor to the ceiling, instead, it ended at about the midpoint.
Flying up to the top of it, Felix smirked as he found the first thing his Constructs had missed.
The reason the vault was so hard to find and the reason the room wasn’t warded and defended to every extreme, was that the vault or the facility containing the vaults, were in a True Sub Space. Right at the top of the pillar, floating right in the middle of it, was nothing visible nor perceptible by any normal senses.
Felix, with his training in Spatial Anomalies from Rathelius, immediately recognized the pinpoint in Space that was bound to a tiny orb, floating just a few inches in the Aether. Were it not for his Matter Senses or training, he never would have known it existed.
The challenge was that, the orb wasn’t a physical thing. Instead, it was created and maintained by the room around them. Felix began to piece things together, his Residents having already figured it out but not spoiling anything because they knew he enjoyed doing so.
The room was shaped the way it was because the wards on the walls weren’t just warding the room, they were also normalizing the Mana inside. The pillar, contained a complex circuit of spell work that had been adapted to fit their needs. It clearly wasn’t something they had made otherwise the contrast between the complex spell work and the rest of the room it was attached to wouldn’t have been so stark.
Not being a physical object, meant Felix couldn’t just grab the orb and run. It only existed because the spell work below his feet conjured and maintained it. If it were to be cut off for any reason, the entire vault or facility within the True Sub Space would vanish.
While it was a feature the Storm Sect probably wanted, it was definitely not something Felix did so, his Residents began to pour through the Aether Tunnel he had kept open and flying up around him. The ones that specialized in Spatial devices got right to work along with Nova, who Felix tossed out of his Soul Space.
Incoming. One of the Residents who had remained in the lobby of the building spoke into Felix’s head.
Shit. How long until Mortalbane gets here?
They are at least a minute out at full speed and they have yet to break through A2.
Okay, start a rumor that the Storm Sect is emptying this vault just in case so they hurry up.
Affirmative.
Felix turned back to the Residents that were now surrounding the seemingly empty center of the pedestal, “How long?”
“A few minutes.”
“Alright. Guess I’ll stall then.” He nodded and turned to the door before leaving them to work.
There was no one immediately on the other side of the door but Felix knew someone was coming so, he quickly made his way away from the central chamber, to try and hide his origin. He didn’t stray too far though because he needed to make sure no one else showed up and checked on that room. He also didn’t stop moving so he could map as much of his surroundings as possible for when he inevitably fought the guards.
It took a few seconds for them to wander towards the central chamber as it didn’t seem to Felix like they were specifically checking on that room or like they were alerted. Rather, they looked more like they were just making the rounds through the building.
He was spotted almost instantly at which point the guard didn’t even question his presence. They instantly projected their Spirit Avatar and leapt at him twice as fast as Felix could move, even with every one of his buffs active.
Felix had planned for this though and immediately instinct cast a Force Bomb between them intermingled with a Sound Explosion. The Sound was unnecessary as the Force Bomb created its own sound but by amplifying and building off of it, he was trying to notify anyone else nearby so they went after him instead of checking on the vault room.
They weren’t worried about the Storm Sect detaching the True Sub Space as they had already adopted the Mana Circuitry holding it in place. The Storm Sect no longer had any control over it but, his Residents were drawing power from the building while it was still providing it, with batteries and automatic fail-over mechanisms in place.
The Force Bomb hit both Felix and the guard, creating space between them for Felix to start running away.
Catching himself, the guard sprung off the ground and followed as Felix led him back through the halls, never leaving the proximity of the central chamber.
Another guard joined them a moment later and Felix could feel the presence of others nearby.
How far is Mortalbane now?
A minute out. They have begun heading in your direction.
Great. Wanderer’s Lab is already clearing out, right? My identity is blown and I’ve been seen in and around the company.
They have. All resources and personal have been diverted to previously created dummy corporations. Future plans have only been minimally hindered.
Great.
Felix ducked quickly, avoiding a massive Spirit Avatar spear that extended itself as it was thrust, blowing a cannon ball sized hole in the opposite wall.
Too close.
The other guard swung a glaive in Felix’s direction that he leapt over before flying off down the hall.
Before he reached the end of the hall though, another guard appeared, rushing around the corner with his Spirit Avatar poised to vertically bisect Felix with a massive axe.
Shit.
His Soul Tendrils sprung into action but it turned out, they were unnecessary. Just a few inches from Felix’s head, the axe made a grating noise before bouncing off of seemingly nothing.
A spear was thrust into Felix’s back and the same thing happened, causing Felix to smile maniacally at the guards, taunting them further.
So this ring…
The glaive wielder angrily leapt into the air to deliver a full force strike that bounced off the barrier the ring created, just a few inches from Felix’s skin.
is awesome. I take it the barrier conforms to the wearer’s body?
Correct.
So when it was just in the vault, it wasn’t conforming to anything and just expanded out to fill the vault instead?
Possibly. The other possibility is that was its maximum size.
Ducking and dodging through as many attacks as he could, while the ring handled everything he couldn’t handle, Felix distracted the guards for nearly a minute. At that point though, the guards got sick of trying to hit him and 2 of the 5 that had shown up split off and headed back towards the central chamber.
Seeing that, Felix rushed forwards and finally hit back.
Felix’s Spells were still far weaker than he’d like them to be. Forcing a Concept into his Fire Ball though, it didn’t do nothing as the flames engulfed the two guards and slightly sunburned the two of them. That was only where the flames made it through their Avatars though, everywhere else his Fire Ball was useless.
They turned back angrily but neither of them stopped moving, which wasn’t good enough.
Without Spells that could effectively hurt them, Felix had to turn to other means which meant, he began lobbing various items, he had looted from the vaults in the B5 facility, at the guards.
The entire hall instantly became pure chaos as sentient weapons, armor and mundane objects flew around the room and attacked everyone they could find. A few flew after Felix but he swatted them with his Soul Tendrils when needed. The only reason the guards couldn’t do the same, was that the items were simultaneously attacking their Spirits with Aura’s and Concepts.
Their Spirit Avatar’s began to falter as they desperately tried to fend off the items, for the most part unsuccessfully.
They were doing better than the Damned in the B5 facility had but not well enough that they didn’t have to worry about the items attacking them.
How much longer until Mortalbane arrives?
Seconds.
How much longer until we’re done with the vault?
A just under a minute.
Have they disconnected the vault yet?
Affirmative.
No issues there? We have enough Mana to keep it running?
All calculations indicate success.
Running past the guards that were distracted from Felix, he began littering dangerous items all over the halls outside the central chamber just as he heard a number of explosions from the lobby.
With all of the people from Mortalbane that had participated from every vault heading towards them, there were thousands of people pouring in. Mortalbane also wasn’t a company known for the manners, restraint or sanity of its members so it was completely expected when they began tearing through the building itself in search of treasure.
It wouldn’t take them long at all to get to the vault room so, Felix created a diversion.
Choosing a random room on the floor, he threw up the fastest wards and enchantment he could on the walls before dropping his new ring into the middle of the room. Then, his Resident in Mortalbane drew their attention to the room where, their Spirit Avatars were completely ineffective and the walls were stronger than usual.
Their excitement was literally palpable as they began smashing the walls to try and get through them while Felix just hoped he had bought enough time and lamented the loss of the ring.
There was a chance Felix could get the ring back later, if his Resident could somehow sneak out with it or locate it so that Felix could Aether Tunnel directly to it but that was a small chance. He knew the ring was probably lost and he just hoped it was enough because if it was, it would be well worth the sacrifice.
With nothing else he could really do, Felix ran back to the central chamber where his Residents were just finishing up. As they did, he and Nova fortified the door with enchantments, wards and added material after which they began creating a bomb.
They attached the bomb to the door then ran back to the Residents, “How much longer?”
“Just a few seconds.”
“They’re on the other side of that door now, I can feel them.” Felix gritted his teeth.
“Shit. Well, we can’t really go any faster so, hope you did enough.”
Felix grumbled and began charging an Aether Tunnel as the entire room shook along with the door as it was battered.
The bomb was set to go off when the door was breached but it also wasn’t the most stable thing Felix had ever made, considering it was put together in a rush and didn’t need to survive much longer than a few hours. As he charged the Tunnel, he could feel the bomb slowly deteriorating behind him.
“You’ve got about 2 seconds before that thing goes off.”
“We need at least 5.” His Residents responded.
Without a better option at his disposal, Felix quickly redirected his Aether Tunnel to the other side of the door and kicked the bomb he had made through it, instantly closing the Tunnel behind it.
As soon as he did, the door and everything around it exploded. The entire side of the room vanished as the Spatial Mana and patterns Felix had thrown together in the bomb tore Matter apart and blew right through the wards on the room.
The bomb easily took out a hundred from Mortalbane and Felix shielded the Residents behind him but, it also completely wiped out the door and left Felix without an Aether Tunnel to escape. His only saving grace was that in a couple seconds he could stick the entire vault in his Soul Space, once it was anchored to the crystal Nova had created, and it would be inaccessible to Mortalbanne, even if they captured him.
Making eye contact with the raiders who stepped forwards after the explosion, Felix just stared them down.
It took a moment for them to try and sift through what was happening before they began rushing forwards but it wasn’t nearly enough of a pause for his Residents to be done.
Then, the rest of the room exploded.
From Felix’s left, a massive Dragon head appeared and tore through the room just in front of him, missing him and the pillar by a meter at most. The head alone was wider than the building they were in and the body behind it, was serpent like rather than lizard like. It didn’t have wings but it had four legs, claws and furry white scales.
The building immediately started collapsing but the Dragon had missed Felix and the pillar so they were safe for the couple of seconds they needed to wrap things up and anchor the vault facility to the crystal. As soon as his Residents were done, Felix stuck everyone and everything into his Soul Space before leaping forwards and grappling on to the Dragon’s body.
Riding it out of the building, Felix got a better view for things and saw the Dragon’s body was about as long as Azura was wide. It’s body was as wide as the entire building and flying by, it simply crashed through buildings as if they were frozen blades of grass.
Though it looked completely solid and real, Felix recognized the Dragon immediately upon seeing it, though only because it wanted him to recognize it. Felix suspected no one else had or would.
Felix rode the Dragon, letting it take him wherever it wanted as it tore through the entire Storm Cloud District belonging to the Storm Sect, leaving half a building standing here and there, at most.
Mortalbane, being a hunting company, began trying to catch and kill it but they stood no chance as the Dragon didn’t even seem to notice them. A few of the hunters gave up, some immediately, others after seeing they couldn’t even hurt it but most of them stuck around. Most of those, died as the Dragon wove its way into another building and crushed them with its tail, seemingly accidentally.
The rampage lasted for a total of a minute or so before the Dragon spun in a circle and flew off into the sky above the cloud city, vanishing from sight.
Felix remained on its back the entire time because he had a lot of questions for the Dragon that needed answering. Once they were out of sight, the Dragon shrunk down until it was just big enough to support Felix then went from white and furry scaled to completely translucent.
It flew through the upper sky for a bit before diving back down into the city, to an area Felix had been to every dekad for the last epoch.
Landing outside a different building from the one Felix was used to, Kerix Ryko dropped his Soul Projection reverting his form from a Dragon to a relatively normal looking human or elf.
He stretched as soon as he was back in his human body and yawned before walking into the building in front of him, without even once looking back at Felix.
Felix followed, unsure what else to do, and found himself in what looked like a completely normal house.
Kerix flopped down onto one of the couches, lying down and sighing as his arm draped itself over his eyes, “You get it?”
“The vault?”
Kerix grunted in affirmation.
“Yeah. I got it. Do you… want it?”
“Nah.”
“Uh…” Felix looked around then sat down on the couch opposite Kerix, “Thanks. Also, why?”
“Hmm?”
“Why’d you save me?”
“Need your help.”
“My help? With what?”
Kerix sighed, “I want out.”
“Of… The Realms?”
“The… ya.”
“You need me to leave?”
“Nah.”
“Then… why can’t you just leave?”
“I can. S’been a while though.”
Felix remained silent, unsure what he was saying and unsure what to say next.
Kerix groaned as he spun himself around to sit up, which was ridiculous considering his physical condition and the minimal effort it would have taken, “I entered the Ladder in the 9th Era. What are we on now, 11th?”
“Era?” Felix cocked his head, “What are you talking about?”
“See.” Kerix nodded, “This is why I need your help. I don’t want to leave and end up lost in a universe I know nothing about anymore. I need a guide.”
“A guide?” Felix shook his head, “What do you mean? How do you know we’re from the same universe?”
Kerix cocked his head, “The Ladder is only in one universe… unless that changed?”
“The Ladder? Your referring to The Realms of Annihilation by a different name? A series of realms that contain simulated challenges?”
Kerix closed his eyes and rubbed them, “Ladder of Ascension. Probably the same thing but, that’s not the point of it. Doesn’t matter, you willing to help me out?”
“I… yeah. Sure.”
“Cool. I can wait till you hit Titan.” Kerix spun and laid back down on the couch, “Just don’t go doing any other stupid things beforehand. I’d rather not have to come and save you.”
“I…” Felix shook his head. Then he shook it again, “What?”
Kerix turned his head to look at Felix, “What?”
“What is Titan? What’s the point of the Ladder of Ascension? Do you know what The System is?”
“Titan is… the end of the beginning?” He seemed unsure of his own answer, “Ladder is designed to get you to Titan, it’s a… specifically designed replacement universe. Yes, heard about it in passing.”
“Okay… I need more than that.”
Kerix looked confused, “What do you know?”
“In my universe, where I come from, The System oversees everything. It helps us grow and get stronger and all that. The Realms of Annihilation are… something, no one really knows. They’re a challenge or something that you go through and get stronger. Seem to be from another universe or from before The System.”
“Definitely same universe. Not really before but, yeah.”
“Uh… okay, we’ll get back to that. I’ve never even heard the word Titan outside of mythology from my planet or in a dictionary before I identified you at the gala. What am I missing?”
“Kinda… everything?” Kerix sighed, “I don’t really want to explain everything to you but… there really isn’t anyone else… Actually, you could ask The Acharaya.”
“Right. Cool. Who are they?”
“They oversee the last few realms beyond this one.”
“Few? How many more are there?”
“20 I think?” Kerix shrugged, “They’re all the same from here on out though. They’re just refinement realms. Basically just one big realm. Don’t worry about them too much. Just finish up what you’re doing in the city, rob whoever you need to then let me know and move on to the next realm.”
“Not yet. Also, can’t you just answer my questions?”
Kerix groaned, “Yeah… I could. I don’t really want to.”
“Okay, different question. What do you know about The Dragon on the 2000th realm?”
“Not much. I know it’s there and it would probably kick my ass if I tried to fight it.”
Felix cocked a brow incredulously but didn’t retort. Kerix knew his own strength better than Felix did.
“Okay, Titan. You’re Titan. How do I get to Titan? What does that mean?”
“It’s… the final form and the first step?” Kerix didn’t seem like he was trying to be cryptic and mystical but rather it seemed like he was just stumbling through his own thoughts.
“Which means…”
Kerix sighed, “It’s when… you stop being a Body, Mind and Soul and become just… you? It means you’ve kinda… realized who you are and become that? Like… your truest form.”
“You said it was the first step, that sounds like the last step to me.”
“You aren’t the same person now as you were before you entered the ladder, right? Everyone changes, evolves. You can also still grow stronger, learn things and all that as a Titan. It just means you’ve taken the first step to… being able to do all that.”
“I learn and grow now.”
“Sure sure. I just… You have limits now that don’t need to exist I guess is the right way to put it.”
“So how many Titans are there?”
“Like… gazillions? Basically the entire universe and every other universe. Everyone in them that isn’t a child. Some are famous like The Wanderer some are normal.”
“The what?”
“Wanderer? A Titan that does a lot of traveling, universe hopping, has a name I just can’t remember it.”
Holy shit…
“Okay so how do I get to Titan then? How do I know if I’ve reached it?”
“You’ll know.”
“Okay. That wasn’t helpful at all. You told me to reach it then come back and talk to you. So I need to know how to reach it now, right?”
“Nah. The Acharaya will help you. It’s their job anyways.”
“Fine. Whatever, back to The System, you’d heard about it in passing?”
“Yeah, kind of surprised it’s still around. It’s… a long story. We can talk about it some other time.”
Felix’s frustrations mounted as Kerix seemed unwilling to answer out of sheer laziness.
“Okay well, I was planning on robbing your family too but-”
Kerix waved him off, “No need. Everything worth anything is in my Soul Space and you can have whatever else you want. Just hurry up so we can get out of here. Don’t take more than a few thousand epochs, okay?”
Fucking nearly eternal beings. Of course I’m not going to take a few thousand fucking epochs.
“You said I could take whatever I wanted…”
“Sure. What are you looking for?”
“Ros would be good. I’m also looking for any kind of equipment or materials. I need new gear to fight The Dragon. Also any Spells would be good or tips on Spell work if you have any.”
“No tips on Spells, I don’t use em. Forget about The Dragon, you’re just gonna end up killing yourself and I need a guide, not a corpse.”
Felix shook his head, “Here.” He tossed him a small sphere, “That’s a Mana Computer that knows everything I know. It’ll be your guide if I die.”
Kerix looked at it for a moment then shrugged and stowed it in his Soul Space, “Cool. I can show you my Soul Space and the vaults here but don’t bother with ros yet until you get rid of those Convictions. Your Soul isn’t stable enough.”
Felix closed his eyes and sighed, “What?”
“What?”
“What do you mean ‘get rid of those Convictions’? Why would I do that?”
The Titan turned his head to the side to look at Felix, “What do you think Convictions are?”
“A way to align Anima to a specific objective or belief. Three synergistic Convictions is what’s recommended to make your Soul as aligned and therefore, strong, as possible.”
“Right. For a child. Three Convictions is a good stepping stone while you make your way up to Titan but you shouldn’t keep em around. They’re too limiting in too many ways. They also put a ceiling on the strength of your Soul. Also, your Convictions suck.”
“I… really?” Considering I didn’t create this combination but discovered it from whatever I was… I expected it to be an ideal combination.
“Sure. Why do you have two Convictions that are nearly identical along with another that has that much overlap. It’s not necessarily bad on it’s own but you’re also excluding like… a lot of your Soul. You could fix them but honestly, you’re so close to Titan anyways, I wouldn’t bother.”
“Okay, I’ll get back to that later. For now, stuff. What do you have in your Soul Space?”
Kerix sighed and projected out an image of a jug. While it was just a Soul Projection, it both looked completely real, felt real and Felix could even sense and analyze it as if it were real. He had perfectly recreated the jug along with its spiritual and physical properties to the point where Felix doubted whether or not it wasn’t real.
As far as he could tell though, it was a spatial jug filled with something. He didn’t need it.
“Next.”
Kerix flipped through hundreds of mundane items and seemed almost asleep as he did so. Felix saw a couple he was interested in and Kerix summoned and dropped those onto the table as soon as Felix said he wanted them. Nothing had particularly stood out, but some were just interesting enough for Felix to want them.
That was until Kerix projected out one of the oldest and gnarliest looking pieces of wood Felix had ever seen. It was almost as tall as Felix was and mostly straight. On one end, the branch twisted and branched out and on the other, it was rounded off where it had been cut. The entire length of it consisted of twisting and woven roots or branches that formed an intricate shape.
A stick wasn’t interesting by itself. What was interesting was that it projected the experiences of countless Souls over countless lifetimes. The stick was somehow an infinite well of wisdom and experience.
“What is that?”
Kerix looked over, as if he didn’t even know what he was projecting, “Stick from the World Tree’s Ancestor. I was trying to figure out what to do with this. Sword handle or something, never really got around to it though.”
Maybe we are from the same universe.
“I want that.”
Kerix didn’t even nod and just summoned and dropped the stick onto the table next to him while he moved on to show the next item.
Picking it up, Kerix’s projection didn’t do the branch justice in the slightest. Holding it, Felix felt like he was literally holding all the knowledge and collective experience of a thousand universes. It was like the stick knew everything but not in a Curse of Desire way but more in a Hollow Claw’s Soul kind of way. It contained so many experiences, there was no way Felix could ever sift through them all.
He stowed it for the time being and turned back to the items Kerix was showing him.
There were a few other interesting items he took but not many overall. Many of the items Kerix had were swords, which Felix could have dissected but he didn’t bother out of respect and appreciation for what Kerix was doing. The branch though, he had plans for.
Once that was done with, Felix turned his attention inwards, to the entire vault facility he had stolen while Kerix, seemed to be napping.