Raising an alarm might seem like the worst idea you could have if trying to escape a prison, though here context was important. For one, the Clerics were looking for a monster, not a human. Equally beneficial was that the church would think they knew where she was, and if they checked her rooms at all it would only be a brief inspection unlikely to reveal her hiding place under the bed. If they checked there, well, no plan was perfect. She only needed to be here long enough until she could confirm the alert went out.

As soon as it did, broadcast over a Builder-placed enchantment, she started moving. Claire had a second familiar in the hallways shaped like a fly which she used to make sure the way was clear. This trick had yet to be discovered because of how sparingly she used it.

Once in the hallway, Claire’s reason for the alert was obvious. Only those guards patrolling for a monster were outside of the rooms. At other times the residents and workers of this floor could move about, so long as the former didn’t stray too far. Given the choice between packed halls and more limited, if more alert, foot traffic, Claire felt she had a better chance if she reduced the number of people who could spot her. That, and the limited number of hallways leading to the only staircase on this floor, sealed the decision.

Flicking her attention to her second active familiar, Claire spent a few seconds making sure her cover wasn’t blown and then continued forward. The lack of any proper stealth powers and her failure to get anything like a cloak made her nervous about this part. If anyone spotted her before she made it up this staircase it would be over and she would lose the element of surprise. Claire didn’t fear the reprisal, Quala struck her as the ‘I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed’ type. The Cleric had tried going with a motherly spin to break through to her when other attempts failed, but Claire had bought none of it.

Claire stopped at the first corner, grimacing as she heard movement down the direct path to the exit. Signage was limited and these hallways had been a maze at one point until she’d memorized the layout. I’ll have to cut around the cafeteria, she thought. That was the largest room with the most connecting hallways, though it was also located centrally and she’d have to move away from her goal at first. It was also possible staff were using it as a shelter point, though she’d timed this in the early afternoon after lunch had been held. No helping it.

She didn’t let the nerves get to her. Nothing much got to her anymore. There was just focus, occasionally colored by a mild emotion or two. Claire wasn’t blind to what she’d done to herself no matter what the Clerics thought, she’d just accepted it and realized it was her way to advance higher than she’d been able to before. Claire continued, dodging patrols, then cursed under her breath. By the sound of it, the floor warden himself was setting up at her destination. She was walking right into the highest concentration of the seekers.

Claire pulled her familiar away and pressed her back against a wall, thinking. A rough map of the floor appeared in her head thanks to a mental power dealing with visualizing concepts, of which cartography was just one application. Despite being seen as a common class, Arcanists could get esoteric powers like that. Her primary and secondary routes were down, and by the sound of it, there were a dozen in the cafeteria alone. They were taking this seriously. Why not? It’s their home.

This floor of the Hand’s church had open air facing three sides. Some patient rooms were on the edges, although most weren’t for obvious reasons. The center was taken up by communal rooms, such as the cafeteria, while the rest of the space was filled out by various staff and auxiliary rooms. It wasn’t laid out precisely on a grid and certain sections had only one entrance and exit to make them more secure. If she was found out today, Claire would probably be going to one of those.

The Hand Clerics were prioritizing the safety of their patients first, but a close second was preventing the supposed monster from reaching the staircase which was in the middle of the wall facing the mountain. With every minute the net grew tighter, and she didn’t see a clear way through from her position one-third of the way there. The church had been able to respond with more people than she’d estimated. Neither were they fools, she could hear pairs searching rooms with one going in while the other watched the hallway, leaving her no opportunity to sneak past. Claire could cause a distraction, but that would bring everyone down on the area and she was saving that for the final push.

The mental lines she was tracing kept running into interference. Philimus’ presence in the central area cut her off from an entire half of the floor. Between that and dead-end areas, there just wasn’t room to move. If I could get to the other side and into the staff areas, there would be more corridors. But there’s no good way there from here.

Claire considered going back to her room and trying to salvage this situation by concealing herself and extricating her first familiar from its position when she had an idea. Her thinking had been too closed in, trapped by assumption and lack of imagination. She quickly ran back to her room, painfully aware of every second the delay was costing.

A few minutes later, she couldn’t help but feel the barest tremble of fear. It was a very long way down. Falling wouldn’t guarantee death as the Nest Flight served as lifeguards for any who accidentally fell off of Aurus. That would still result in her effective capture. So, I better not slip.

She kept her grip steady and kept climbing. It was fair to say Claire was less pious than the average citizen, but she was far from a heretic. That being said, the colorful patterns in the stone of the church’s exterior, shaped long ago, made for far better handholds than decoration considering how few could see these murals from the city.

The thought had struck her when visualizing the layout of the floor that few windows stayed closed. It was a hard thing to do to separate avianoids from the sky, even if you housed them most of the time in what was technically an underground space. An environment of small, windowless rooms would do the species more harm than good. Since Threst was full of avianoids, almost everything was built with them in mind. Instead of trying to slip through the center of the floor, she could bypass it and reach more open ground by going around the outside.

Claire’s struggling muscles were the reason she hadn’t tried this immediately, or why she hadn’t just tried to climb to the top. She still had some level disparity in strength and endurance which was eating away at her stamina. Oh, and there was the problem that she could be spotted here, which would ruin the plan. Time was an ever-present factor, circling above like a dragon and she’d never know when the fire would come down.

One of her hands slipped as her body jerked involuntarily. She hadn’t seen it happen, but the image of Parduc surrounded by flames, dwindling until there was nothing left, was at the forefront of her mind. She brought the free hand up, touching her chest first before re-establishing her hold. Calm Emotions. She hadn’t had to use it more than daily these days, and that was only to keep up the appearance that she was overusing it. Now she could go without it, for the most part. Get yourself together, she chastised, and kept climbing.

…

Philimus looked around the room, noting how the chairs had been attached to the tables, and how the staff was careful not to leave anything like silverware laying out. Some sections had screens for privacy, though you could see into them from around the sides where other patients wouldn’t be sitting. Those were down now while the threat was still present.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“Anything?”

One of the passing patrols stopped when he shouted the question. “No. Floor warden, are we sure something’s here?”

He wasn’t, though the monster had been confirmed by a truth power. The staircase had been watched the entire time, but maybe it had chosen to run when it sensed an overwhelming mortal presence. Either that or it was a summon, and Claire had dismissed it already. Philimus continued to chew on that point and made a decision. “Send a runner and ask for a diver platform to check the sky around us.”

…

Claire was navigating the curled part of the mural that ran around the corner of the church when she saw the construct start falling out of the sky. As one might have expected, the platform, or Bekali Diver as she knew they were formally named, had as close of a profile to a bird in flight as the Craftsman had been able to carve before handing the product off to be further enchanted. Damn it!

Her goal had been to make it at least halfway along the far wall, which would have her come into a closet she’d already scouted as clear. It appeared that wasn’t an option anymore. She quickly ordered her familiar, now in the shape of a small bird, to fly by the rooms nearest her while she pushed even harder. Were the stakes different she would have stopped for a break before now but pressed on regardless.

Her sparrow found another empty room three windows away. Whatever Ranger or Ranger-adjacent scout on the platform would have spotted her already were it not for the very thing they were standing on, but those platforms could move fast.

Realizing she would lose the race, Claire pulled on her mana and created an illusion in the air of a mirrorbeak cutter. It wasn’t the monster she’d originally planned to use as a distraction, but from her studying of Threst bestiaries it still fit the bill. It was noted as a rare example of a level 2 monster with the ability to turn invisible, though it came at the cost of not being able to hide its reflections or use the ability for very long.

Contrary to popular belief, even among hunters, monsters did have survival instincts. The bloodlust that overcame them when faced with mortals or their works was usually enough to override it. Sufficiently intelligent monsters would run if they needed to. She’d heard the lightning dragon at the lake had tried that when faced with the survivors of the Thormundz, only to be forced back down.

This was the ideal illusion because this kind of monster had enough awareness to back off. Usually when its mana was exhausted and it would lose its invisibility. Claire would have liked to have summoned something like this as a familiar, but her power only allowed the creation of monsters of a lower level, which was also why she’d been stuck on simple animals before. Her illusion ability was up to the task now that she’d leveled. The diver caught sight of the fleeing monster and peeled off to follow it. She’d bought herself time but also taken a crossbow to her own foot.

…

“Floor warden, it looks like the diver found something. They’re chasing it off. Should we start letting people out of their rooms?” He didn’t immediately answer his subordinate. “Sir?”

Philimus scratched at the long underside of his face, still frowning. He’d be facing heavy scrutiny after this no matter what the circumstances were, and he had to be able to defend his decision making. “Wait for Torch’s Clerics to arrive,” he finally decided, inclined towards the safest path. “Have one question Claire again while the rest examine the area. Confirm her story. Keep up the patrols until then.”

…

Claire absorbed the bird familiar into her Focus, a small orb, as she entered the room. With it she reclaimed part of the mana used to summon it which effectively reduced the cost of resummoning the insect. She preferred her orb to a staff or a wand as none of her powers needed to be aimed directly from her Focus, and being able to palm the object felt better than having to hold it. This hadn’t been taken away, both due to her good behavior and the religious implications. Powers were blessings given by the Octyrrum. Confiscating someone’s Focus or, worse, destroying it, would be close to blasphemy unless there was a great need.

She concentrated for half a minute, forming the small bug more suitable for scouting in here out of mana. Creating level 0 beasts and monsters had become far easier at level 2, but the repeated use of the ability was beginning to impact the mana she had left. That was the tradeoff compared to being a Beastmaster. Limited duration, summoning times, mana cost, and level limitations were the price paid for having the cornerstone of another class as a single power. Arcanists who awakened enchanting powers also had limitations when compared to Artificers, as did those who brewed potions.

Exiting the room carefully, Claire found her gambit had paid off. There were more empty rooms on this side, and more importantly, they were interconnected. Some of the staff doors would be locked, but only physically. The costs associated with enchanting rose with every additional enchantment placed on the same building, and the inherently trusting organization that was the Hand church hadn’t felt magical locks were worth the cost. Not in this part of their temple, at least.

She had almost reached the stairway, ducking through offices and at one point a bunk room the overnight staff rested in, when her skin began to glow. “Shit,” she swore. This might have caused another flashback if she hadn’t already calmed herself. It appeared to be a power akin to the one the dragon had used right before it had descended on Roost’s Peak, one she had been affected by before fleeing.

On a hunch, she switched her hearing to her second familiar and heard the voice of the Cleric that had healed the initial wounds. “Please, I’m sure she’s been disturbed by the attack. We should let her rest.”

“The floor warden wanted me to confirm her story. Even a nod will do.” The second voice was foreign, though based on the fact that she was glowing, she guessed the Torch Clerics Philimus had called for had arrived.

No use for it. Time for the end run. All she had to do was get up those stairs. Glowing didn’t help, but if it was like the other power it shouldn’t last long. By the time anyone figured out what was going on she should be clear.

Claire reached out to her first familiar, which was currently benefiting from the Mimic Owner ability. The attributes remained the same based on whatever had been originally summoned, and it couldn’t do anything the original form couldn’t, such as talking. That was what Project Voice was for. Claire, issuing mental commands while speaking, set off the next part of her plan.

…

Upstairs, the second Claire suddenly shot up. “It’s here!” Her eyes were open wide in fright, though the Torch Cleric raised an eyebrow as he detected the obvious lie. His powers, as a specialized Cleric of knowledge, could perceive the truth far better than someone of another church who received a lesser variant. He was about to ask the woman, clearly one of the crazies the Hand church kept in the basement, more pointed questions when a pure white cube three meters across filled the space she’d been in.

“What?” He was only taken aback for a moment, quickly realizing it was an illusion, but ‘Claire’ was already running.

…

Elsewhere, the mirrorbeak cutter winked out of existence, though the Ranger had already caught on because arrows went straight through it.

…

Claire sighed as her mana was further depleted. The cube was thanks to Familiar Cast, a feature that allowed her to use certain other abilities on or around her summons at a far higher mana cost. When it came to illusions there was also added difficulty in weaving images, but all she’d needed was the most basic shape she could think of to cause a moment of distraction.

Someone was clearly in contact with the Torch Clerics below, who also started when she used the ability. Seeing a chance, Claire quickly used Mimic Owner on her other summon. The insect provided a truly pathetic amount of endurance, the clone would still die to just about any injury, but it could run. It was also glowing.

“Hey! Stop!” The Clerics of both churches saw Claire’s familiar sprint towards a window and ran after her. In the confusion, no one thought to stay at the stairwell. She’d bought just a moment, but it was enough.

The Claire downstairs jumped, the Claire upstairs briefly reverted to a ringcat before being dismissed at the cost of all the mana used to summon it, and the real Claire reached the church’s main floor and went straight for the laundry room.

The alert was still active, but it was focused on the area she was just in. The guards at the gate weren’t questioning anyone leaving, normally there weren’t even guards. They just cared about making sure no monster got loose into the crowd of the Divine Quarter ahead. They barely nodded at her.

Claire breathed in as she walked free, knowing they couldn’t find her now that she’d reached the streets. She’d escaped. Now all she had to do was kill a damn dragon.