The sky hung in an inky shroud as the resonant tolling of bells echoed through the city. Last call. The pubs, their once lively interiors now dimming, spilled their patrons into the cobblestone streets. Only the soft glow of street lamps illuminated the throngs of people as they walked under.
Chryse, nestled opposite the capital city, lay in the shadow of Mount Caelispelagus, formerly known as Hrafnafjall, a mountain whose summit pierced the clouds. Based on the structure of a honeycomb, Chryse was one of the most reputed centres of research, serving as a prestigious hub for both magical and mechanical research. Beyond its myriad of colleges, the city also boasted the renowned 'Museum of Artefacts and Automatons,' It showcased the largest collection of magical devices, relics, and weapons that the public was allowed to view.
Elyza had spent the last day roaming inside the museum, looking for infiltration points, trying to see where they could place guards, familiars, mechanical eyes, tripwires, and according to Alex, even the holding glyphs that they create after closing. Most of all, she had to figure out where they were holding the most powerful of the artefacts. In the last two months, he had dragged her around behind him, teaching her how to read people, how to lie to them. All the while, they helped sort out the problems of whatever town they were in, along with continuing to spar whenever they could.
Till they reached here. Alex just told her that they would be stealing something from the museum, dove into his shadow, and that was eighteen hours ago.
Now, she was sitting on the bench across the street from it, The bells having rung ten minutes ago, waiting. It was the perfect time to break in – just between when the night owls finally went home, the bars closed, the guards were nearing the end of their shift, and just before the earliest of workers woke up.
As Elyza perched on the bench, a bag of sunflower seeds in hand, she scattered them before the birds, acting as if it was a daily habit. Suddenly, she felt a shift in air pressure beside her.
“I can’t stress this enough – pets are really hard to fit into this type of lifestyle,” Alex remarked, his abrupt appearance scaring away the birds.
Elyza let out an involuntary sigh, “Took you long enough.”
Alex simply stated, “Really? How much money is left?”
She muttered, trying to avoid the topic, “You could have told me how long you were going to take.”
“I apologise,” he said, bowing slightly in his seat, “Something personal came up during my visit.” Rubbing a red stain off his cloak, he asked, “So, are you ready?”
“First,” she interjected, addressing the question that had been gnawing at her for the past day, “Tell me what we are stealing.”
“WE’re not stealing anything; you are,” He corrected her with a wide smile.
“What?”
“Technically,” he added, not even trying to hide his amusement, “You’re only going to be replacing something I have already stolen.”
Elyza went silent, grappling with what frustrated her more: him or the museum, “And they have realised one of their prized artefacts has been missing for… how long?”
“Been a month and a half,” he revealed, and tried to defend their incompetence, “and I did put a handmade replica in its place.”
Rather than exhaling her frustration audibly, she took a deep breath and spoke, “If you already have broken into the museum once before, why can you not return it by yourself?”
“Because,” he drawled out the syllables in his reply, “I was busy preparing things for you in the capital, and a few surprises as well.”
“Why were you at the capital?” she questioned, momentarily distracted by a more pressing concern, “More importantly, what did I tell you about surprising me?”
“Don’t worry, I promise they’re good surprises this time,” for the first time, she thought he might be telling the truth, which made what Alex said next even better, “And I was there setting up things for when you register with the guild.”
“Does that mean?” Despite her best efforts, Elyza couldn't conceal the excitement in her voice. With a confirming nod from Alex, she eagerly added, “What am I returning?”
He handed her what felt like neck armour, wrapped in soft silk cloth. “I haven’t eaten anything in a day, so I’m going to find something open at this early hour,” he admitted, turning to her, locking eyes, and cautioned, “Don’t drop that, and don’t leave a trace.” Alex began to meld into his shadow, but before he vanished, he commented, “I would say good luck, but you don't need it.”
Left alone once again, Elyza unveiled the artefact, hoping it was something familiar from the museum floor. She gazed upon a rigid neck collar, made of rusted copper, its intricate designs worn down with time.
She found herself captivated by the triangular red gem at its centre. As her hands explored the rest of the collar, she couldn't look away from the centrepiece, its dark red hue dulling as it filled with a muddy yet glittering purplish liquid. Running her fingers along the back, she recognized the mechanism—it resembled a silencing collar worn by prisoners, crafted to be impossible to open by whoever had to wear it.
The clasp opened with a loud click, just loud enough for Elyza to realise what was happening. The gem was trying to put her into a trance, whispering unheard suggestions to entice her to wear it. Quickly covering the artefact with the cloth, she felt a calm settle over her, turning to annoyance as she reviewed her memories and realised she hadn't seen anything like it displayed in the museum. It meant the artefact had to be returned to the vault.
Tossing the artefact into her burlap bag alongside her other gifts, Elyza donned her dark green gloves, striding toward the museum entrance, mentally reviewing her plan of action.
The building stood four stories tall, with additional floors below ground for experimentation and artefact preservation. Built on a small hill, the museum featured an open courtyard on the first floor. The ground floor housed an array of automatons, the first floor showcased larger exhibits, and the second floor was a trove of carefully curated artefacts.
The first time Elyza entered the museum, she had noticed that the steps leading up to the entrance were pressurised, likely to detect anyone that had disguised themselves. However, she had no intention of using the front entrance. After being stranded, Elyza had spent an hour sitting on the bench, waiting for the museum to open its door. Between bites of an egg sandwich, she was also counting how many employees had gone in, and again when it closed for the day. Around a hundred people had entered through the main entrance, and approximately two hundred had exited. Although the museum likely employed even more, it meant there was another entrance, one not to the ground floor, but straight to the basement.
Elyza knew precisely where it was. Approaching the stairs, she veered off the footpath before the pressure plates engaged. Staying close to the museum's outer left wall, she made sure to avoid the gaze of the gargoyles perched above her, uncertain which of them were alive. Following the stone wall, she used her hand to guide her along, turning the corner to find the entire wall densely covered with Creepers. A single glance was all it took for her to realise they were not wild, meaning they had been planted deliberately. Surveying the wall closely revealed what they were hiding; a metal door, hidden by a basic illusion sigil. Blending seamlessly with the vines, the spell was strong enough so people who didn’t know that a door was present would glance over it.
Although it appeared to have a pickable keyhole, touching the door revealed an intricate array of magic circles imbued upon it. Fortunately, Elyza had spotted the employees were all wearing similar looking pendants that only differed in the design of the mounting of the rock. These rocks emitted a faint glow upon entering a new room, leading her to suspect that they acted like a verification system. Her suspicions were confirmed that night by a ‘helpful’ guide she had followed to a pub, along with him lending Elyza his own pendant. Holding the pink rock against the door, she felt it cool as the door absorbed the mana, swinging inwards to reveal the stone catacombs of the basement.
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Yet, Elyza hesitated stepping into the building. She knew nothing about the layout of the basement beyond the location of the one staircase leading down to it. If the vault was hidden in the lower levels, locating it before encountering someone would be a near-impossible task. But as much of a bastard as Alex was, he had never tasked her with the truly impossible, and he was as stubborn as they came. For now, she just needed to focus on finding a way up.
Stepping through the doorway, she felt as though she had punctured the surface of a bubble, and an idea popped up in her mind. The amulet was a part of a verification system, and if the system was still active, wouldn't that mean her location could be pinpointed? Unsure whether her window of opportunity had just been drastically slammed shut, Elyza threw the amulet behind her along with any lingering doubts and delved in.
The chamber she entered resembled a dungeon, shrouded in absolute darkness. The absence of any light source created a damp and confining atmosphere, and the air hung stale. With the door now open behind her, Elyza felt a gentle breeze carrying the freshness of the outside world through the corridors, gradually replacing the stagnant air. The direction of the breeze matched up with her internal map of the floors above, so she decided to follow behind it.
Passing through numerous chambers, some evidently dedicated to the care of the museum's stored relics, Elyza felt more and more confident that the vault, or at least its entrance, wasn’t in the lower levels. Despite her senses being primed as soon as she had entered, they had yet to notice a single trap in whatever room Elyza came across. The few mechanical eyes present seemed to be powered down, contributing to the eerie stillness. But since she had not come across any priceless artefacts strewn about, it wasn’t improbable that the basement’s safeguards weren’t as thorough as the ones above.
Closing in to where the staircase should be, about two corridors away from where Elyza was, the strength of the breeze began to wane. Upon entering the penultimate corridor, she felt something thin break against her thigh, accompanied by a low mechanical clunk originating from behind the wall. Reacting swiftly, Elyza dashed forward, manipulating the air to form a barrier beneath her, reducing friction as she dove towards the opposite end. It allowed her to smoothly slide into the next chamber, just as she sensed something closing in behind her.
Elyza cast a glance behind to see what exactly had happened. The walls of the corridors were adorned with stasis circles, and the way back was blocked by a shimmering, translucent barrier. While she would have loved to learn how to shatter it, someone was likely already en route to check what had sprung the trap. As Elyza got back on her feet, she noticed a small metal string hanging from her leggings, thin as a hair strand, and what had likely triggered the trap.
She continued onwards, her eyes now vigilant for any more reflective strings, ducking into the last hallway while avoiding another wire, finally coming across the stairway, its stone steps defying gravity as they spiralled up from a central pillar. Elyza knew she had to beeline for the vault, so as she ascended up the steps, she mentally mapped out the fastest route to the presumed entrance.
As she reached the level above, the sound of footsteps echoed throughout the ground floor, growing louder with each second. Sprinting up to the first force, she barely avoided stepping right into the gaze of a floating eye. Above the bronze clad automaton was a glowing green bat with enormous ears, a familiar, its wings flapping ferociously as it struggled to carry the eye. Her footsteps weren’t as quiet as they should've been.
Her hand dove into the depths of her pouch, picking out the densest seeds, before Elyza threw them to the corridor behind the bat. As the seeds clattered on the marble floor, the sound was loud enough to draw the bat’s attention, allowing her to slip by it and into the room to her left.
When she was exploring the museum, Elyza had noticed the building was shaped like an elongated pentagon, whose tip had been squashed down to resemble more of a rectangle. The chambers in both the ground and the second levels were shaped accordingly, but something was off on the first floor. The rooms at the back of the were smaller than they should’ve been, and there always seemed to be a couple of guards standing around. It didn’t take long to realise they were guarding something, it took even less to spot the faux patch of wall.
Crouching at the archway into the room, now illuminated by the light from the night sky, courtesy of the open courtyard, Elyza headed straight to the patch. Its illusion was much more advanced than what she had encountered outside, but no match for her eyes. Touching it, she hoped to pass straight through, instead her palms hit the wall. It would be easy to destroy the illusion and continue, but since that would just as easily be noticed, she had to squeeze through.
Her fingers dug in, which hurt, the congealed mana hard as solid rock, but they were able to create enough of a gap for her to work with. She focused a tiny bead of spinning air at the tip of her finger, placing it into the gap, and started to feed it. Instead of breaking the bonds that formed the illusion, she was stretching them, trying to create a hole big enough to pass through. The whipping air pushed against the magic, the mana needed to continue feeding it growing with each second, as its edges started to bloat and harden, till the gap was big enough for Elyza to squeeze through.
As she emerged to the other side, the wall returned to normal, and she was left in a dim room with a door. The room was dingy, dirty, only meant to house the door to her right. She got back on her feet and tried the doorknob. It was unlocked, and that was unnerving. Elyza walked through the door, and into a brightly lit stairway leading down. The walls and the floor were made of metal, the walls of bronze and the floors of something coloured white. Crystals embedded within the steps gave out light that filled the constrained corridor, with guardrails leading down to a solitary vault door.
It looked too easy, the steps too inviting. As her hand reached for the rail, it felt something, the same feeling she got whenever facing Alex. Looking closer at the steps, they appeared to be risen, pressurised. The corridor was a mousetrap, likely not disarmed because no one had crossed the barrier properly. Elyza had a simple solution. She stepped back, focused herself, and leapt. As she fell, the air around her feet started to spin upwards, creating an area of low pressure that helped to keep her afloat at the centre of a mini-tornado. It allowed her to descend down the stairs, her legs never touching the ground till she was in front of the vault door.
The vault door, towering above Elyza, emanated a cool blue hue that seemed to greedily absorb her body heat as she touched it. Its weight and density were palpable as she pressed against it. Even if she was allowed to, it would be a herculean task to force her way through it. She attempted to push air through the door to the other side, hoping it wasn’t airtight. Though subtle, she detected a faint channel that flowed through the lock.
Drawing air from within the vault to her side allowed Elyza to visualise how the lock was constructed. It seemed to have three cylinders, which was fortunate, cracking a three digit combination was the higher end of what she could pick with some amount of speed. Leaning down for a closer look at the dial, she noted its basic structure—numbered from 0 to 99 and made of hardened bronze. It was strange. Except for the materials it was made of, the door seemed entirely too basic for the museum.
But she was not here to criticise the security of the institution she was actively exploiting. She spun the dial clockwise till she was sure the locks were re-setted, Elyza leaned against the door, ear pressed next to the dial while she kept an eye on the dial. Rotating it counter-clockwise, she felt and heard the initial pair of clicks at 70 and 80–indicating the contact points where the lever touched the gaps in the notch. Resetting the locks, Elyza started at 0, turning the dial clockwise, slow enough to still be able to feel any shifts in resistance, or hear any clink of metal under the soft clicks of the dial. She felt the points again at 71 and 79. Too far apart. Resetting again but this time starting from 2, she heard the clicks at 72 and 79 this time. Closer. She repeated the meticulous process at each interval of two till she had gone around the dial.
The room enveloped them in silence, broken only by each turn of the dial. Elyza's concentration was unwavering, her gaze fixed on the dial as if decoding a cryptic language. The closest the clicks got were 74 and 77, and she had felt them after starting 18, 68, and 80. The first number was definitely 19, narrowing the next two down to 68, 69, 80, or 81. As quick as her fingers could move, she entered all twelve of the possible combinations, thankfully not needing them all to find the correct one—19, 68, 81— and she felt the lever drop. Turning the dial one final time clockwise led to a new sound echoing through the door.
Unaware that she had been holding her breath, Elyza released the tension with a drawn-out exhalation. Pulling on the vault’s handle, it popped open with a groan, struggling under its own weight. And then her heart fell. Stepping onto the white marble floor, Elyza saw a magic barrier, placed at the end of the room, totally opaque yet bathed in a soft blue glow. The long room was lined with glass displays, each separated by a metre, and each held artefacts she had never seen before. But she could only hope that the room held the artefact's twin.
Swift on her feet, she roamed between rows of artefacts, searching for one similar to the collar in her bag. Some displays housed the corpses of long-forgotten creations, while others held weapons whose power emanated even through the dampening glyphs on the glass. Some were chained down with magic, and surprisingly, Elyza was able to recognise some of the items, having read about them in ‘historical’ books. Although the books were more fiction than history, her mind was vividly imprinted with their descriptions of 'mythical gear.'
Among the displays was a Nordic axe with runes etched along its blade, its giant blade covered with a layer of frost that spread down the wooden handle. As it floated, it seemed to be waiting for its wielder to call upon it. Nearby, a one-handed long sword was held up by its blade, its hilt spreading down like wings. The blade glowed white as she neared it, and stopped when she passed it. An intricately crafted crystal skull whose shape was unlike any animal she had heard of before, and next to it was a crudely crafted compound bow made from torn parts of an automaton, both caught her eye next. Further along was the bottom half of a mask designed after a demon from Shinto folklore emanating darkness, asking to be stolen by Alex.
Nearing the back of the room, worry grew with each step forward. Elyza had no idea how the barrier worked but knew trying to figure out would be an impossible task before somebody stumbled upon her. However, something caught her eye. At the room's edge, next to a pendant shaped like an eye with a glowing green crystal as its pupil, was a ceremonial dress resembling those worn by a specific sect of Egyptian priests during funeral processions. The way the hieroglyphs were etched onto the dress was identical to the collar, and as Elyza stared at its copy through the glass, her mind slowly figured out a group of symbols. It read ‘Under the guidance of Upuaut’.
Inspecting the display revealed nothing unusual. The ensemble rested on pillars with decreasing height—jackal mask at the top, the fake collar below it, and a skirt with metal plates woven into the leopard skin. Elyza gingerly pulled open the glass door, grabbed her bag, and lifted the legitimate collar, the gem’s words failing to win her over. Doubts lingered even after coming so far; she couldn't believe it would be this easy. Placing the real artefact as she lifted the fake, making sure the weight on the pillar wouldn't change, lest it be pressurised. With one final nudge, she had returned the collar to the museum. Nothing happened to signify her achievement, and if she had done everything correctly, it would be just a normal day for the museum.
Closing the display, Elyza pulled the black bell from her pocket and shook it. As it rang, a hand seized her ankles, pulling her into her shadow.