"A human's mana stores are fundamentally inefficient. Like any other sapient creature, we can store a certain amount of mana within our aura and mana channels naturally. However, past a certain concentration, it becomes impossible to fully contain and begins to disperse involuntarily. When this involuntary mana dispersal begins to occur at a rate greater than that of the host's natural mana generation, it becomes inefficient to for them to store further amounts of mana. So naturally, we passed around our mana, found our maximum capacities in terms of mana-days (as measured by yours truly), added up all of our max mana storage capacities to arrive at a number that represents our cell's max mana storage and are tracking our mana budget against that total. We're now using that number to track which spells are the most efficient to use and have already made a number of optimizations to our combat playbooks and even some of the runes around base that get us more bang for our buck. Boo yeah, MATH!" -- Field Research Journal: Volume 2, Grace, Oliver, Page 27. DECLASSIFIED BY DIRECTOR J-5 08-29-2053.

Day 147

Mana budget: After the thing in Veden and the upgrades to the range, we're down a total of -7%, leaving us at only 43% of our total mana storage capacity, just slightly worse off than Gideon and I calculated.

Graves is recovered from the leg injury, and Gideon's finally ready for some more action. Tallahassee's getting restless, and perhaps most importantly the operative finally came back to us with the information we need.

I still haven't been able get ahold of a solid schedule for the four archmages they have rotating through the base, but it seems like it's likely to be either Quariss or Veidron just based on the past few months. As long as it's not Alloman, we should be fine. None of our safe contingencies will work if it's Alloman, so the plan is to abort if it turns out he's on base, no matter how far along we are. Fingers crossed, I guess.

Still, that's the last piece of the puzzle and we can't afford to wait any longer. Our source says they're getting close to perfecting the Rite and dispersing it across the Empire.

We're going to make our move during the guard shift rotation. There's just no point in holding off any longer, since the longer we wait, the more we risk them sharing the Rite throughout the empire, which is probably the only failure mode we can't recover from besides everybody dying. Of course, it's possible they've already done that, but we'll have to cross that bridge when we get there.

That means the next mana shipment, which goes out tomorrow night, will have to be the big score. Not just a little stickup this time: we're going for the captain and his ring of dimensional storage, and this time we're taking *all* the mana. That'll bring the enforcers down like kicking a hornet's nest, but we won't be around for the party, since we'll have to hit the lair right after that in order to avoid wasting all that mana.

Luckily, the weather will be on our side both tonight and tomorrow night. It's a new moon, and the cloud cover has been solid for the last two weeks. Winter weather. And it's frigid, like ten degrees Fahrenheit, so with a little luck the guards won't be paying much attention to what's going on out in the dark around their fires.

Sung is nervous, but Sung's always nervous. I just told him to make sure he had the spell analyzer up and running by the time we're back with the target, and we should be good to go.

Anyway, I digress. As long as we can get our hands on the mana and that second ring of storage, the raid on the Crucible should be able to go off as planned without a hitch.

16 miles southwest of Velia, 50 paces off Kingsroad. 00:29.

Oliver triggered the signal spell, knowing that the dogwhistle-high sound would be picked up by the sensor spell Gideon currently had active on the other side of camp and shifted down into the human range of hearing for his benefit.

"I'm all clear," Oliver murmered into the spell. "Target is in range. Be advised, my heat vision spell is picking up three guards, one with mana suppression active, and several signatures by the fire. Can confirm mana vision is picking up a very strong mana signature by the fire. He seems to be a physical reinforcement type packing a couple of grade-three armaments. This is the big shipment, alright."

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"Roger," came Gideon's voice several moments later, sounding somewhat distorted by the audio transformation of the spell. "Clear to proceed with phase one," he continued. "On my mark."

"Three," came Gideon's voice a moment later. Oliver watched as he closed on his target, the form of the guard farthest from the fire.

"Two." Oliver mentally marked his own target for his spell as the guard moved through the snow-laden trees silently, picking his way around trees and undergrowth in a circular pattern around the outskirts of the camp. He hadn't noticed Oliver, and wouldn't unless he had excellent mana vision, which was unlikely for a lowly caravan guard. The Empire dealt in specialization when it came to their mass-produced paint-by-numbers grunts, so you were either a hitter or a spotter, and if you were a spotter you would be paired with somebody who could hit. Hence by deduction the solitary man in front of Oliver was a hitter, wouldn't see him coming at all.

"One."

On the mark, Oliver triggered his spell, watching as a strand of his mana snaked out into the darkness behind the figure with the mana suppression active. Once it reached its destination, just behind its head, it reared back like a cobra preparing to strike and bloomed into a myriad of micro-filaments.

The filaments immediately went to work, turning the air in the immediate vicinity into aerosolized sevoflurane. Oliver's mana fell slightly, but he'd practiced with this spell and the expenditure was expected. Oliver wasn't personally familiar with the gas the spell was creating, but Graves assured him it would put just about anything short of Superman to sleep hard and fast. The rats they'd tried it on all agreed, and a couple of them even woke up later. It was one of the most mana-efficient, silent, and effective knockout methods they had at their disposal, so long as they weren't particularly concerned whether or not the targets would wake up afterwards.

A couple of minutes later, his man silently collapsed to the ground, unmoving. Oliver went up behind him, put a couple of fingers to his neck to check his pulse, and straightened him out so his airway would be unblocked. Then tied his hands and gagged him. No sense in taking unnecessary risks one way or the other.

When he looked up, another of the figures was down, Gideon's mana-suppressed form barely visible at its side, leaving only the other mana-suppressed guard's form flickering at the edge of his heat vision. It hadn't moved yet.

Then, even as Oliver watched, it started moving in his direction, accelerating at what could only be magically augmented speeds. He listened hard, heard branches snapping in the distance.

"Mana-suppressed guard on me," said Oliver into his comms spell, suddenly unsure. There wasn't supposed to be anybody here capable of picking up their own mana-suppressed signatures -- that was the only way this could work -- but this opponent was moving unerringly towards him. The last several mana caravans had had beefed up security, but they'd had no intel on... whatever this was.

He started backing away, reviewed his options. It was maybe fifteen seconds away, closing fast. He readied the spell he mentally knew as the Big Gun, hoping it would be enough to put the unknown threat down, despite the fact it would probably mean an end to their mission. Without the element of surprise it wouldn't be possible to proceed. He couldn't get an accurate read on it with his mana sight. "Can you guys see it?" he asked.

"Negative, Grace, disengage," came Gideon's voice distantly.

Oliver began to scramble backwards. "I'm pulling out the big gun just in case," he said, the spell swallowing his words as they left his throat and carrying them off into the distance so that not even his breath puffed into the cold air.

"Roger that."

Oliver readied the spell, bracing himself for the mana cost and preparing to target whatever burst out of the trees in front of him. He backed up a little further, crouched down in the shadows of the undergrowth, hoping that he might not be seen.

The undergrowth in front of him shivered violently and disgorged a figure moving at inhuman speeds. It landed lightly, turned and skidded in the snow, coming to a stop besides the downed soldier.

Whatever it was, the figure wasn't wearing the same metal armor the other guards had been, instead clothed in dark robes that seemed to swallow up even the faintest hint of light as it glanced around. If it weren't for the red splotch it made up in Oliver's heat vision and the still-moving bushes it had just appeared from, Oliver's eyes would have passed over it in the darkness.

The figure slinked over to the fallen soldier Oliver had left behind, moving with a catlike agility. He realized that perhaps it had been watching their mana signatures, not his own. If it hadn't yet seen him, there was a chance they could salvage the situation yet.

Quietly, slowly, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a clay bullet. He tabbed down a spell in his hotlist, held up the bullet, and triggered the spell.

And as he did so, the figure whirled, alerted by something despite his caution.