It was strangely easy to get onto a building’s roof. Cece hadn’t even had to use a levitation scroll, she just dressed like a common mundane and told the workers there that she needed access to the roof for “cleaning purposes”. She wasn’t expecting that to work, and she had made up an excuse in case they found it suspicious, but they let her up there right away, it was surprisingly lax. She supposed, as a business, they were more used to mercantile sabotage than physical so it made sense, but still it was concerning. Cece wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth however so she found herself on the top of a four story building directly across the street from the Solastria estate.
She had chosen the least windy day she could, but still a breeze brushed past her. She eyed her target, an open air balcony, and she threw what looked like a crimson, paper glider. It immediately went off course.
“God damn it.” Cece cursed to herself. She had made extras of course, but they were expensive. They had to be with how many features she had added. A standard silver eye, with inscription etching abilities, and most importantly, a platinum teleportation magic to transfer a visual feed over to her without triggering the wards. She watched helplessly as the final inscription activated on her missed glider, it self immolated in a burst of oxygen magic flame. She hated wasting materials like that, but she had to be subtle. She didn’t want Solastria to see the remnants of the scroll when it was done.
She grabbed another scroll. With the previous one serving as a test, her calculation boon provided more than enough information on where to throw, providing of course that the wind remained the same. The wind never does so, but hopefully it hadn’t changed so much that she would miss.
The scroll sailed through the air, it looked like it was going to fly off to the left again, but it stabilized and just made it onto the stone terrace of the balcony. The wards of course didn’t stop it since it wasn’t an active magical effect and Cece used a bodily cue to activate it since it was already primed to do so. The silver eye burst into existence before just as quickly fading into invisibility. An illusory field appeared in front of Cece, on the roof, and she could see inside the building. This particular part of the estate appeared to be for throwing open air parties, but despite its casual purpose it was heavily warded. Furthermore it appeared that Solastria’s wards could detect unusual magics as well, at least that’s what Cece thought the alarm that was ringing was for.
Cece immediately started moving the silver eye, it was still invisible so it hadn’t been caught yet. She used the inscription writing feature of the scroll to burn an extremely small antimagic script in the bottom left corner of the nearest doorframe. It was incredibly weak, relying on the magic energy left over from the burning process to flow through the inscriptions instead of ink, but it created a space only a few centimeters at its widest, that could not be detected or effected by magic. They would find it if they went looking for it, but it looked mostly like the a small burn instead of any intricate pattern, and she sincerely doubted that Solastria had any experience with alchemetrixes beyond the necessities.
The silver eye slipped into the nearest room, as she heard footsteps barreling up to the terrace. After a long moment, she heard voices past the doorway.
“I’m not seeing anything.” A masculine voice said.
“Maybe the wards are finally starting to fail, they keep saying it’ll happen in the next couple years.”
“They said next twenty, not next couple, we should check the other rooms.”
Cece stifled her panic, and maneuvered the silver eye underneath a chaise. Although it was invisible it would be seen if they used a spell to see magic, but fortunately most gold detection spells weren’t able to see past physical objects. If she were an actual silver mage, she would have been able to fool detection spells by creating a multilayered illusion, but this would have to make do.
“Alright this room’s cleared!” One of the men called to the other.
“This one too, looks like it’s a false alarm.”
“Still, we should go tell someone.”
“If you say so. Let’s go get this over with.”
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Cece breathed a sigh of relief, but didn’t let herself fully relax, she knew she was far from this being over. Whatever ward alarmed them of the silver eye’s existence was likely to trigger anytime she used the manual inscription, meaning she would have to either disable it or trigger it every time she moved the magical construct from room to room. Cece took a long look at the surrounding wards. Magic was so much easier to understand when it was inscribed, clear lines and geometric shapes channeling the magics of the world. It was very unlike the cast magic she was currently seeing, the magic looked like nebulous clouds of fractals, and it took several minutes of looking at it to get a good idea of which magic was which, and where it originated. It looked like the alarm magic was housed in the floor above her, but she doubted the alarm itself was magical. It was likely a bell of some kind hooked up to the wards. Nevertheless she knew what she had to do. The inscription writing feature she put on the silver eye, was, in reality, just a gold light beam spell, and although it was weak for writing inscriptions, it lent itself well to its original purpose. Cece pressed on one of her thumbs, and the silver eye’s pupil glowed orange as a beam of light burnt a small hole through the ceiling.
“No ward between the floors, sloppy.” Cece muttered to herself in satisfaction. Her family hadn’t put any in their floors either, it was most likely excessive, but if the owner of Cece’s building saw what she had done underneath the floorboards, she doubted he would be happy.
The alarm started blaring immediately again, and she heard the two men barreling back up the stairwell. She had already moved the silver eye to the upper room. Inside was a room that seemed to be mostly devoted to administrative work. Shelves of records lined the walls, and there were several desks with open ledgers on them. A large bell was mounted on the wall and Cece could see the magic flowing into it as it rang. She got to work immediately creating another small antimagic script, isolating the alarm. She made sure to the etch the final part of the inscription at the time the bell would normally stop, which was approximately 120 seconds if her memory served her right, and of course it did. The bell shut off just as it was supposed to, but for at least a few hours, it wouldn’t be able to start again.
With the alarm dealt with, she had free reign as long as she could etch an antimagic inscription in a doorway while no one was in a given room. Luckily the estate didn’t seem particularly busy today. She directed the silver eye down a stairwell. She had dealt with enough mages in her life to know that anything worth working on was something worth hiding in a basement. One of these days she was sure she would be bested by a mage hiding something in their attic instead, but she doubted today would be that day.
It was a painfully methodical descent until she found a few locked doors, bars of heavy magically inert brass blocked her way, but she was piloting a silver eye less than three centimeters in diameter, so it was quite easy to slip in through cracks between them. She found little of practical use, a few laboratories and stock piles of alchemical reagents, but it wasn’t until she wandered deeper that she found something truly interesting. Who knew that a large natural cavern lied underneath the city center? It appeared to be the Solastria’s meeting place of choice, as two of her worst enemies were speaking to several of their subordinates. Joseph and Freya Solastria, stood there, discussing and giving orders. They both appeared in their early twenties, but that meant nothing. You got to decide what you looked like when your entire body was made of gold. They had been alive for at least one hundred years maybe two hundred, it was hard for her to get reliable information on them.
“I don’t see why you’re so perturbed over some dysfunctional wards, we knew they would fail soon.” Freya said exasperatedly.
“It’s not their failing that bothers me it just reminds me of something, its nagging in the back of my head.”
“What do you mean, it reminds you of something?”
“Remember when Cornelius Silva infiltrated the estate?” He asked. The name almost made Cece falter, as she maneuvered the silver eye. On one hand she was touched that her actions reminded them of Uncle Cornelius, but it was concerning that they were so close to understanding what was happening.
“Cornelius Silva has been dead for six years, Joseph. If I recall correctly you ran him through with your sword yourself.”
“I’m aware, it just feels similar.”
“I sincerely doubt it is. The man is dead, the family is dead, and nothing but that mundane whelp is left, and the worst harm that she can commit is annoying Sienna. Nonetheless we should be on our guard. If Tiberius is to ascend we shan’t let anything get in the way. Is everything prepared for the solstice?” She asked, turning to a young man with blonde hair.
“Yes, Lady Freya, the gold is secured at the altar, and the magics have been imbued.” He said gesturing towards the center of the cavern, where a large pile of gold sat. There were certainly gold magics in the room, but Cece had no idea what most of them did, which was a very disconcerting feeling considering she had devoted most of her life to studying magic. She pushed through the feeling though and found a good spot to immolate her silver eye. She had the information she needed. Tiberius Solastria was Sienna Solastria’s father, a gold mage of fifty-five years, and she knew exactly when they intended to perform his “ascension”. In three months it would be the summer solstice, the day the sun rules supreme.