Liliana tapped the end of her fountain pen against her mouth as she looked at her notebook. Memories of Marianne’s promise ran through her mind. She had the support of the royal family, if she could just find the proof she needed. The only trouble was attaining that proof herself. She knew it was unlikely she could bribe one of her stepmother’s servants into confessing. She had nothing to bribe them with, really. If any of them were even aware of their mistress’ machinations. She doubted her stepmother had told anyone of noble blood of what she’d done, and if she had, they would be her allies, not Liliana’s.
That left finding hard proof of the transactions. A bill of sale, a receipt. Something that had the Death Adders’ mark on it in her possession. Even financial records that she could trace from Imogen to the assassin group would work. The only trouble was finding the paper proof. If it was going to be anywhere in the manor, it would be in the woman’s room, a place Liliana had never ventured.
A confession from the witch herself would be best, Liliana thought. Her eyes strayed from her notebook to the opened alchemy book on her desk. It had been opened to a page titled ‘Veritas’. It was the recipe for a truth potion. Liliana had asked Astrid to find her an alchemy book with the recipe in it, as she had not owned one. It hadn’t been particularly difficult to find the recipe itself, it wasn’t hidden information. It was so hard to attain the rare ingredients that the recipe itself was seen as almost a joke. The ingredients were still far out of her reach to acquire. Same as it had been in Ariowood, no one in Ravencross sold any of them, despite being closer to the Frostfang mountains.
“Astrid, will the duchess be leaving the manor anytime soon?” Liliana asked, turning slightly to look at the woman. The maid was sitting in a chair nearby the fire, working on some embroidery.
“I believe her grace is going to visit her friend Countess Lovett next week on Venaday,” Astrid told her.
“Thank you, Astrid,” Liliana responded. Turning back to her notebook, she marked down the date. That would be her best chance to get into the woman’s room and try to find proof. Liliana stood from her desk and summoned a cloak from her storage, placing it over her shoulders.
“Where are you going, my lady?” Astrid called out, moving to stand.
“Into my courtyard. I have to practice some skills,” Liliana told her, motioning to Lelantos to follow her. The tiger groaned but rose from his comfortable spot in front of the fire to accompany her.
If Liliana wanted to be able to reduce her risk, she needed to take advantage of the time she had and the resources she had at her disposal. It was time to learn how to use Light magic for something other than fighting.
Liliana opened the door to her courtyard and hissed as a wave of cold washed over her. Steeling herself against the cold, she stepped outside, Lelantos following her. She shut the door quickly to spare Astrid and Nemesis, who had been napping in the maid’s lap, the chill. Liliana’s boots crunched against the snow and she thanked the fact she’d chosen to wear pants when she was spending time in her own room. A dress would’ve gotten soaked through in seconds out here and tangled around her legs. The servants were good about clearing the snow from the paths around the Rosengarde manor and the roads, but her personal courtyard was ignored. Liliana was certain if she asked her father to have it cleared, it would be done, but she preferred to speak to that man as little as possible. So she dealt with the disrespect silently.
She could’ve practiced this in the comfort and warmth of her room, but when learning new skills, even if they weren’t meant to be offensive, there was always the chance of something going wrong. Astrid was far under her in levels now, and would be at risk if Liliana made a mistake. The cold also helped her focus, and the fresh air reinvigorated her. More importantly, as Liliana bid Lelantos to dig out a place for them to practice and walls of snow rose around them, this completely hid her from view. She, or Lelantos, would hear someone long before they could see her. In this house, every secret she held was another ace up her sleeve.
Liliana sat on the cold, hard ground and crossed her legs as Lelantos finished his task. He mentally grumbled at the manual labor and shook off the snow on his coat, getting an ample amount of melting snow on Liliana. With a sigh, Liliana wiped away what she could as she sent an annoyed glare at her Bond. The tiger laid down next to her, pretending to not feel her ire.
“Use [Vanish] for me,” Liliana instructed as she closed her eyes, shifting her mental focus into Lelantos’ mind so she could feel him use the spell. She could [Borrow] the spell, but she could only use it for a set amount of time then. Lelantos could use it until his Mana ran dry and it would give Liliana more time to feel out the spell.
Lelantos complied, and as the spell took over, Liliana tried to feel how it activated, how it made the light redirect around him to give him invisibility. Much as she had before when learning Chain Combos, she had him repeat the spell, again and again. As the winter sun quickly made its way through the heavens, Liliana focused all her attention on Lelantos and his spell. By the time she thought she had a good idea of how the spell worked, her body was aching from its time spent still in one spot in the cold.
As Liliana opened her eyes, she winced, her body feeling like it was a frozen statue. Standing, Liliana moved around, trying to bring life back into chilled limbs. She rubbed her hands together and rolled her shoulders as she thought about the spell. When she sat down, her body was still cold, but she felt less like an ice sculpture and more like a human being again.
Using [Mana Manipulation] Liliana began the arduous process of acquiring a new spell through force. She focused on using Light to force light waves to bend around herself, making her invisible. She knew some things from her classes on Earth, that the reason she could see anything was because light bounced off of it and her eyes took in that light to show the object. So by stopping the light from ever hitting her, and instead having it bend around her form should make her invisible to human sight. The hard part was the technique to do that, which was why she’d had Lelantos show her his spell that achieved such an effect. The second hardest part was focusing so much Mana around her body to achieve the result.
Liliana could feel frustration mounting in her as the sun traced its way to the horizon, the light darkening as her Mana struggled to achieve the results she wanted. Her body shifted and shimmered in intervals. Some parts of her going completely invisible and others staying frustratingly visible. At one point she blinded herself, having forgotten to leave her eyes out of the Mana’s covering. With no light going into her eyes, she could no longer see and she had to quickly adjust her commands for her Mana to ensure she could still see. As twilight began to cast dusky shadows over the courtyard, Liliana’s form finally flickered completely from view, leaving only her eyes.
Congratulations, you’ve discovered the spell Invisibility. Would you like to accept the spell?
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Invisibility: Light
Using your mastery of the Light affinity, you have discovered how to bend light around your very form, making you invisible to any creatures that use light to see. The cloak of invisibility will extend two inches from your skin, hiding anything within that distance from view.
Cost: 300 Mana
Duration: 5 minutes
Cool down: 15 Minutes
Liliana sighed in relief as she released her Mana and accepted the spell. It was never easy to force a new skill or spell like this, but it was cheaper compared to buying a skill or spell scroll to learn it automatically at least. And this way, there would be no record of her having the spell. Now she just needed to level the spell some before Imogen went out.
“Lets go in,” Liliana said to Lelantos as she stood. The tiger drowsily stood from where he’d been napping and the two of them trudged inside, where they could hopefully warm their cold bones.
[https://i.imgur.com/wtMoTrS.png]
Liliana crept through the halls towards her stepmother’s room, cloaked in invisibility. Only her eyes were visible and she hoped her [Stealth] would help hide them. Imogen had left an hour ago for her meeting with her friend, and Liliana had sent Nemesis out to hide in a nearby potted plant and watch the duchess’ rooms to let Liliana know when the maids left. Nemesis had just sent her the alert that the maids had vacated the room minutes ago and it was finally time for Liliana to go and see if she could find anything.
As she reached the door to Imogen’s rooms, she gently tested the handle. When it opened easily, she let out a breath of relief. She hadn’t thought the maids would lock the door. It was uncommon to do in their manor. Opening the door quietly, Liliana slipped in, telling Nemesis to alert her if anyone came towards the room.
Liliana paused for a moment as the door clicked quietly shut behind her, taking in the grandeur of the sitting room she had entered from. Wealth dripped from the walls to the floor, expensive paintings and decor adorned the walls and rugs worth more than Liliana’s entire closet carpeted the stone floors underneath. It was quite obvious where a good chunk of the duchy’s wealth went to. Reds and gold seemed to be her preferred colors for decoration, though the gold that coated so much of what she could see seemed to be real gold, a useless waste of money in Liliana’s opinion. Liliana roused herself from her stunned stupor and began to move through the room, her feet whispering over the ground with little sound thanks to [Stealth]
Liliana passed swiftly through the duchess’ rooms, checking to be sure there were no maids left, her heart pounding as the timer for her invisibility ran down. As she checked the last room, she confirmed she was alone, seconds before her invisibility ran out.
Fifteen minutes before I can use that again, Liliana thought. If it was an emergency, she would strip and use [Vanish]. But she’d rather avoid that if possible. Liliana took in the room she was in, taking in the obnoxious decor. The duchess had six rooms to herself, three times the amount Liliana did. And all of them were far larger than Liliana’s, and more grandly decorated. Liliana frowned as she looked over the splendor in the duchess’ rooms. It had only gotten more ostentatious as she’d delved deeper into the duchess’ domain, the wealth obvious from the curtains to the furniture as if the woman didn’t know the meaning of restraint when it came to showing off her wealth. Shaking her head to clear the envious thoughts of how obvious the gap in favor between her and her stepmother was, Liliana refocused. She needed to find some kind of proof. She could focus on the unfairness of her situation at a later date.
Back tracking, Liliana looked for the woman’s study, or her desk. Looking through the rooms, Liliana saw that Imogen did not have a proper study. Instead, she had a desk in her bedroom. The woman had a room full of dresses, shoes, jewelry, and other such things. Apparently she so dearly needed closet space she’d used a room probably originally intended to be a bedroom or study to house her clothes and accessories, and even then the room was nearly bursting at the seams.
Despite the overwhelming amount of wearables the woman owned, and her quantity of rooms, there was not a single bookshelf across all six of her rooms. Liliana shook her head as she made her way to the ornate desk. It wasn’t as large as her father’s, but it was more richly made. It was more a piece of art than something meant to be seriously used. Liliana looked over the papers on it, seeing invitations and half written responses to letters on it.
She’s an awful person, but her calligraphy is beautiful at least, Liliana noted, as she shuffled carefully through the papers. They were full of flowery language common between nobles, but nothing incriminating unless tea parties and gossiping had become illegal overnight. She set them back down exactly how she’d found them Liliana moved on to the drawers. Rifling through them, she found stationary, many colored inks, ornate pens and other miscellaneous items useful for writing. Liliana felt frustration growing when the last drawer she pulled at refused to open.
Oh, that’s interesting, Liliana thought as she tried the drawer once more. Looking around the desk, Liliana couldn’t see a key readily available.
I should’ve picked up a lock picking skill, Liliana thought with irritation. Emyr popped into her thoughts. He would surely have such a skill. But he would also have questions if she suddenly wanted to learn lock picking. Liliana pushed the thought away. It was pointless to think on right now. She looked around. Perhaps Imogen had left the key in her bedroom. Moving on silent feet, Liliana checked the woman’s bedside nightstands. When she found no key, she moved to the next room, trying to think where Imogen might hide a key like that.
Liliana went to Imogen’s jewelry boxes. Opening the first, she felt the need to blink to shield her eyes from being blinded. The box was filled almost to overflowing with sparkling gemstones and precious metals. A dragon’s horde couldn’t compare to what her stepmother had in her room, and it was only the first jewelry box. Liliana frowned. She herself only had a single small jewelry box, not even full despite the presents her father had sent her. Yet her stepmother had more jewelry than she could possibly wear in a lifetime.
Liliana tried to stamp down her anger as she shifted through the jewelry boxes, but the more she saw, the worse her anger became. Coupled with her frustration over not finding a key, Liliana was struggling to keep herself from going on another tantrum and destroying everything in front of her.
Nemesis alerting her to a maid heading towards the door cooled Liliana’s anger, replacing it with fear. She quickly placed the jewelery back into the box she’d been shifting through, closing it swiftly. Liliana checked her spell cool downs and saw that thankfully [Invisibility] was off cool down. Activating the spell, she watched as her body shimmered, going invisible just as Nemesis told her the maid opened the doors to Imogen’s rooms.
Liliana waited for the maid to pass by the room she was in before she made a hasty retreat out of the rooms. Her heart was in her throat at how close she’d come to being caught, and yet she’d gotten away with it. She might have failed to find anything incriminating, but confidence filled her. She had succeeded in getting in once. Liliana could do it a second time. And that time she would come better prepared.
I’ll need to learn lock picking. There is something important in that drawer. Perhaps the proof I need, Liliana thought. She was upset she hadn’t found the proof today, but she felt like she was finally close to catching Imogen in a web of her own design and choking her on the threads of poison she’d tried to trap Liliana in. Frustration still ate at her, but hope was blossoming and growing roots in her heart. The end to this deadly dance the two of them were locked in was in sight.