Casting spells on others: Some, ah, interesting experimentation tells us that aura of most subjects is too thick and interferes with moving mana tendrils within. It's possible to force a mana tendril within an aura of a thin enough density, but expensive—very expensive. The difficulty seems to be dictated by some ratio between the density of the aura and the density of the mana tendril, in which the difficulty of penetrating an aura with a tendril increases exponentially with the density of the aura. How the cleaning spell managed to empty my bowels at the camp is no longer a mystery; I simply didn't have any mana at the time, hence no aura to stop its effects. I suspect that I may be the only person to have experienced this… unique effect of the cleaning wand. In any case, our experiments show us that it's nearly impossible to effect change on a being with aura with external mana tendrils." — Field Research Journal: Volume 2, Grace, Oliver, Page 63. DECLASSIFIED BY DIRECTOR J-5 08-29-2103.
Oliver closed his eyes, then cracked them open slowly, wiping away the tears the sudden light caused as they adjusted.
They were in a small cobblestone-walled room lit by a single mana light, surrounded by mops, brooms, several wands hung neatly on a wall—a janitor's closet then, or something like it.
He looked up to see Tiro extending him a hand; he took it and stood.
The man who had helped them win their way into the fortress of the Crucible was small, unassuming; a dark-haired, short, mousy man with an unshaven beard and nervous mannerisms, he was more or less exactly what Oliver had imagined a spy would look like. Which was, perhaps, why he'd made such an excellent one; who would suspect the person who looked exactly like a spy of actually being one? They'd have to be either extremely clever or extremely foolish to try it and get away with it.
"—be changing now; of course, the golems will still be patrolling, since they do not rest. By my calculations we will most likely encounter at least one, perhaps two patrols. Will you be able to handle them silently?"
He was talking with Galen and Sindra. Galen nodded, cracking his knuckles. "Not a problem," he rumbled.
Gideon leaned in and said something, then stared, cursing at the insider's response.
"What is it?" asked Oliver, coming over.
"Alloman. He's here. It was supposed to be Severin's shift this week," Gideon spat, turning to him.
Sindra looked over at him. "Do we withdraw, try another time?"
"They're closer than I thought," broke in the mousy little man, "to finishing the spell. They've managed a handful of resurrections just in the last few days"—Tallahassee gave a little startled jerk at this pronouncement—"and they're still bringing in Earthlings, more every day. I think they're just testing now. But it's done."
Gideon indulged in a few choice expletives. Everybody else waited.
Finally, once it became clear that nobody else was going to say anything, Oliver spoke up, feeling mildly self-conscious at the attention but knowing he needed to say his piece. "We can't afford to wait for them to disperse the spell. We can't"—his voice broke on the word—"let them get to Earth. We need to keep the fight here, on this planet."
Tallahassee was nodding along, face grim. "He's right, Gideon," she said, accent stronger than usual, voice thick with some emotion, "We have to do this. We have to do it now."
Gideon sighed, looking at them, taking in their faces, assessing what they were saying. Oliver could hear the gears turning.
"What are our chances of encountering him?" he asked the man.
"I don't know," the spy said with a shrug of the shoulders. "Alloman isn't like the others. He usually stays in the control room. But he pops up randomly sometimes. He likes to keep an eye on things personally."
Oliver looked to Gideon.
"Please," said Tallahassee. To hear her begging—well, he'd never heard that note her voice before and the four of them had worked closely over the last several months. It moved him, and he could see it in Gideon's eyes; it moved the big man too.
"We shouldn't," said Graves. "The spell gets free, we can always figure out another solution, no big deal. But if we die here, we're done. There's nobody else to get the job done if we get killed. We're it."
Sindra was already shaking her head in negation. "Impossible. If the spell gets out, there'll be no restricting it," she said.
"What if we were to corrupt the spell after it was released?" Graves countered.
"We've discussed this. The right version of the spell would still be in the System," said Gideon. "We can't risk it. As Sung would say, the spell getting loose is a lossy operation. We'll never recover. No, we have to do this now."
Tallahassee was nodding along enthusiastically at this; Oliver felt something off in her expression. Normally she was reserved, played it cooler than this; normally, she'd be the voice of caution and Graves would be the one pushing. Something was off here, but he couldn't put his finger on it.
Regardless—"We stick to the plan," said Gideon. "Just remember the fallback, One Ring to Rule Them All," he said. "If Alloman shows his face, we will be aborting immediately no matter what. Until then, we'll lay low."
Credit to their insider, he didn't seem the slightest bit afraid at their suggestion. Whatever his motivations for betraying his countrymen, they were strong, sound, and absolutely unflinching.
"We'll proceed down to the lower levels and under most of the base," the man said, "then come up through the cell wing to reach the testing labs. That's where we'll find your target, a woman named Elbis."
"And you're sure she's one of the people with the latest version of the spell?" asked Oliver.
"Absolutely certain," he confirmed.
"Then we'll get the spell from her, make good on our escape, and nuke the place," said Gideon, reiterating their plan for the millionth time. His nerves were showing, finally. Oliver'd begun to believe that he didn't have any at all.
"I still don't know what 'nuke' means," said Sindra, "but as long as you hold up your end of the bargain, that's satisfactory to me."
"Are we doing this?" asked their guide, whose name Oliver still hadn't gotten.
Gideon nodded. "Please, lead us to this Elbis." Having said his piece, he turned, handed the second ring of spatial storage to Oliver, who slipped it on the ring finger of his right hand.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
And with that, they were off. Their guide opened the doors to the closet and stepped into the hallway casually. After a moment, he motioned them onwards, and they departed the hallway in their predetermined order, with Sindra and Tiro leading the line, the five members of the anonymous cell, then Gideon's crew and Oliver, followed by Galen bringing up the rear.
The hallway they were in sloped unevenly downwards. After a time, the walls changed from the cobblestone to larger and more roughly cut blocks of the dark gray stone they'd seen above, indicating a change in construction techniques at some point.
At no point in their walk for the first ten or fifteen minutes did they encounter anybody.
A little while later, the mousy little man held up a hand, cocked his head listening for a moment, then hustled them all into a side closet several paces behind. A moment later, heavy metallic footsteps made themselves known. They grew in volume until it seemed like the owners of the footsteps — the golems, certainly — were almost on top of them. Oliver held his breath. After a moment, the it became clear the sounds of footsteps had begun decreasing again. They were clear.
When the footsteps had gone entirely, they ventured out into the hallway again. Shortly afterwards, they reached a series of stairs leading down even further below. Their guide unlocked a wooden door with a key from a keyring on his belt and they went even deeper, the walls changing again to being roughly hewn from pure rock, excavated rather than built up again. Whatever this place was, it had history. Had been built a long time ago, then built over again, and then again.
Idly checking his mana as they walked, just to be safe, Oliver noted that his mana had ceased falling as rapidly. It was still going down, had been decreasing ever since he'd stolen the mana from the caravan, but in this place apparently the mana density was high enough that the pressure without came close to equalling the pressure within, slowing his excess mana rate of dispersion.
Soon the crude, deep hallway had narrowed even further until it was barely more than shoulder-width. If Oliver had had claustrophobia, it would have kicked in then for sure. Tallahassee's mana sphere was the only thing providing light to them, and several other members of the group lit their own, including Galen at the back and Gideon towards the middle. The little man ahead of them seemed to have little care for lighting, as if his senses were refined past the point of human capabilities. And perhaps that explained how he'd heard the golems before anyone else, earlier.
After several more minutes of walking, the long, dark hallway began to ascend again. It branched at several points, though their guide always seemed to know the right turn to take, never pausing to consult a map or consider which path was correct. Every so often, a dark room would appear off to one side or the other. Some of the doorways were blocked by half-rotten or broken wood doors, others lay open to the hallway; all were dark. As lights passed by Oliver thought he could occasionally make some of the contents of the rooms out, old chairs and beds and such, but whatever they were they were no longer used and had lain long abandoned. Even the floor of the hallway was covered in a thick layer of dust disturbed only by a very few footprints.
Finally, the reached the end of the hallway; it terminated in a dead end in the hewn wall, with nothing but a hand-forged iron ladder leading upwards.
Their guide was the first to ascend the ladder, pushing its hatch open with one hand above him as he ascended. A moment after disappearing into the room above, he reappeared, waving them on; Oliver could barely see his motions from where he stood, but ahead of him the others began to climb the ladder one at a time.
They emerged into another hallway, this one lit by cold blue mana globes shedding a dim yet sufficient light; it was clean, made of what Oliver had come to recognize as a more modern method of building.
Just as Galen climbed out of the hatch and dropped it closed, they began to hear metallic footsteps in the distance.
Their guides' reaction was instantaneous; he whispered as loud as he dared, "Get back down the hatch! There's another golem patrol coming this way!"
Galen leaned down and with one massive fist opened the hatch again, but the steps were growing too loud for them to all jump down in time.
Ahead, where the hallway reached a junction, a brighter light began to flood the hallway, this one a warmer color; it was coming from the head of a staff held by a man who froze when he saw them in the hallway, only to be pushed forward by two golden metallic golems that seemed to be little more than animated skeletons wearing armor; Golems, indeed. More like skeleton knights. But beneath their armor, the bones were gilt with gold and inlaid with many gems, all of which glowed with stored mana.
"Who are you—" began the man as the golems shoved past him, raising their fists.
"I'll take the one on the right," cried Galen, shouldering by the group. As he rushed forward, three of the anonymous Moderates still wearing their flying leathers simultaneously surged forward as well by unanimous unspoken agreement. Their guide shrank back in the face of the violence, backing away rapidly.
A horizontal wave of red light flashed from Galen's wand at chest level in the narrow hallway. There was a tinkling sound and it dispersed, leaving luminous cracks hovering in the air in front of the mage with the staff and passing through the golems without affect.
The mage responded nearly instantly, conjuring a whip of crackling blue lightning—Oliver recognized it as the restraining spell that had been the first magic he'd seen—and using it to attempt to restrain Galen.
It lifted Galen bodily from the floor, but he merely reached up and pushed himself down from the ceiling to keep moving forward despite the force lifting him up, and reached the mage's shield.
With one punch, he broke through it, shattering it like glass just as the three veiled figures reached the golem to the left of them.
The skeleton-golem stretched out its two arms, fingers extended, moving unbelievably quickly to pierce two of the figures through the stomachs. Golden gauntlets emerged from their backs as the one in the middle continued undeterred to place his hand on the golem. There was a flash of mana, and his handprint left a red-hot glow on the golem which slowly spread from its core outward; it seemed to freeze, moved jerkily backwards for a brief second, and then collapsed in a puddle of molten metal.
The two dead Moderates on the floor seemed to crumble down as beside them the enemy mage fell to the ground before Galen, face crushed in. The third veiled Moderate remained standing as the two bodies on the floor seemed to trickle into him, then turned even as they merged with his figure to focus on the other golem.
As the mage fell, the second golem sprang forward, seeming to have no fear or indeed intelligence to call its own, and made that same deadly thrust of both of its arms towards Galen.
The big bruiser responded by blocking them both outwards with his own arms, moving at the same speed, then planting a boot in its sternum. The golem stumbled back, momentarily off-balance then punched at him as it recovered.
Galen caught the fist, then twisted it to the side slowly. He didn't catch the second fist, a punch that swept forward lightning-fast to strike him on the temple. He fell to one knee, still holding the other hand, swayed, then sprang upwards to headbutt the golem in its armored skull. It fell back, unphased, and opened its mouth to breath a white laser directly into Galen's unarmored face. He dodged to the side and the laser shot straight past him, raking the side of the hallway and leaving a long black scorch mark on the stone.
Oliver held back, summoning a bullet into his ring hand with a thought in case he got a clear shot, thought he very much doubted he would. A quick glance at Gideon showed he'd done the same.
Even as the armored skeleton with its gold-plated bones tried to punch him again, Galen didn't let go, instead using his free left hand to uppercut the monster and giving the Moderate a chance to slip in and place his hand on the second golem's chest. The spell he'd used before flared a second time, the mana flowing from his hand into the golem's body to melt it from the center outwards.
As the second golem collapsed to the floor, the anonymous, veiled man retreated back to the center of the group, sketched a bow to Sindra.
"I'm out," he said, voice barely audible. Indeed, his mana was very faint, barely visible; it seemed the weakest Oliver had yet seen in a combatant of this world. His strength was spent.
Sindra nodded, then turned to Oliver. "Would you mind?" she asked.
He nodded, then extended his hand to draw the man into his ring as they had arranged before; the extraction plan. It was effortlessly done, the man's body disappearing into the pocket dimension the ring served as the anchor to just as any other material object would.
As the man disappeared, Oliver noticed that behind where he'd been standing their guide was slumped against the wall, slowly sliding down it even as Oliver watched. Oliver called out in a loud whisper, saw that Graves was already moving towards the man.
Their guide had been hit by the golem-skeleton's laser. It had not ended at the wall as Oliver had thought at first; at the last second it must have twitched and landed on him, for the flesh of his abdomen was black, scorched, the clothing in the area melted to his skin.
The man was slumped against the wall, gasping for breath, pale, clearly going into shock.