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As the pair left the dusty and webbed side passages, they came to a large and open warehouse area with only three obvious exits. One was a huge, open-to-the-air, sky dock. An enchanted flying ship, a three-masted clipper, was moored to the dock. It floated serenely in place with no evidence of any people about it. Mira marveled at the construction of the ship. It appeared to be built using Moonstone. The rare material absorbed mana naturally, making it weightless and even buoyant. No Akasic glyphs were required to float the massive ship, even a minor mage could adjust the elevation by pushing or pulling mana from the moonstone without much effort.
“This is awesome. That ship looks bigger than the Air Yachts of the Ilbarse Wasteland Traders. I bet that I can fly it. Selling this thing off would make this trip worth the risks, all on its own.” Mira said.
“Should we just take it and go then? I’m getting a bad feeling about this place. It’s both too easy and feels like something big is lurking at the same time.” Tiamat asked, skittish and looking about the open area.
“Hmm, I feel the same. But at least a part of that feeling is coming from us riding the Faen luck tide with this quest. It's probably this big and active due to no one trying this dungeon in years. Fate wants what fate wants, and say no at your peril, as the Archivist Thalorian used to tell me.” Mira said.
“I am super excited to inspect and take that godly artifact if it's here. We’ve come this far. We can’t turn back now. Sure, this boat is a nice heist, but that Staff of Law is a retirement fund. If our luck turns sour, we can still teleport out or run for this boat, okay?” Mira suggested with Tiamat hesitantly agreeing.
After a brief discussion, Mira boarded the windship to ready it for a quick escape and familiarize herself with the controls. Meanwhile, Tiamat scouted out the other two avenues that lead deeper into the Palace. Mira was just finishing, satisfied the boat was drivable and in working order when the stealthy Tiamat came winging back.
“Trouble boss. Both passages end in large doors, no locks in evidence, but each has one of those Gate Guardians as a sentry. How should we play it?” Tiamat asked. Mira thought through her best tactics.
“How about we use our old Monster-Train, with False-Flag, and Thunder-Dome?” Mira asked. Tiamat nodded, then clucked and asked.
“What about their alarms? You said in your foresight vision that the gate guardian would call for help.” Tiamat finished, looking worried. The gate guardians were the opposite of the weak critters they had faced so far. They were heavy hitters and one wrong move by the duo could be fatal.
“Hmm, yes. Okay, I’ll need to modify the False Flag with an extra sigil to either silence or disable their alarm glyphs. It looks like I’ve got some work to do before we can confront the guards. Can you inspect some of the boxes on these massive storage shelves? I might want to collapse them onto the Guards, but if there’s anything valuable, I want it. And keep vigilant, while I prepare.” Mira directed as she began pulling out devices, materials, and her Grimoire from her dimensional storage.
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The code name shorthand the pair used was for tried-and-true battle tactics that they had honed over years of dungeon delving. Monster-Train lured monsters together to fight each other while they hid nearby. False-Flag was planting an illusion on the guards to make them appear as another monster. Most monsters wouldn’t normally attack each other. The illusion would encourage them to fight amongst themselves.
In this case, the tactic would require a pair of "illusion and silence" spell-trapped gems with one side covered in Valus wood sap. The sap was a highly sticky and magically conductive glue. Finally, the Thunder-Dome tactic was to carefully plan and prepare the battleground with mechanical or magical traps to end whichever monster survived the arranged battle.
The pair worked quickly, preparing the materials for the plan. Tiamat had found lots of mundane and magical supplies amongst the towering four-story shelves filled with large crates. Purified Aegisite, Moonstone, Mithril, Adamantium, gems, and assorted Beast Cores all went into Mira’s magical storage. Large crates of dirt, wood, coal, marble, and iron ore were identified and rigged for collapse with simple mechanical triggers. Either Mira or Tiamat could trigger the collapse, when and if a monster was well positioned within the trap area’s fall zone.
Mira gave Tiamat one of the False-Flag sticky grenades and used their shared familiar bonded telepathic link to coordinate. Mira showed Tiamat the Guards’ alarm glyph where she needed to stick the device. They both hoped that this would ensure that no more monsters were summoned. This dungeon felt more like a regular castle instead of a dungeon. That meant that security alerts might bring the whole palace’s horde of enemies pouring out at them.
The grounds were layered with spell traps, Dispelling Magic wards that would weaken the surviving golem before Mira finished it off. Mira had plenty of powerful spells, but speed and silence were their allies for now. They had a plan and hurried to execute it.
The Faen luck building due to the quest must have still been thick in the air, as Mira’s plan went almost perfectly. Mostly such plans were only guides and usually needed high levels of improvisation, but this one executed flawlessly. Both Mira and Tiamat managed to apply their sticky spell gems to the Guards before they sounded the alarm. The Guards had chased each of them back to the warehouse’s central court. All according to plan, the golems were unable to catch the pair; they were strong but too slow.
Each guard, shrouded in an illusion from the sticky trap gem, appeared to the other as large and powerful Ogres. They both attacked each other instead of continuing their fruitless chase of the pair of smaller enemies. Most monsters would prioritize strong opponents and the Guards were not an exception. The guards punched and shocked each other. The warehouse thundered with the sounds of their blows until one fell to pieces revealing the lighting elemental within.
One burst of lightning was enough to dispel the illusions upon both Guards. They stopped the fight before a full kill could occur. Mira expeditiously triggered both the deadfalls and the Dispel Magic traps at the same time. The elemental was killed outright, and the second Golem’s armor was destroyed. A quick activation of Mira’s Multi-Missile resulted in the last foe's emerging elemental form being cut apart in seconds. The lighting elemental seemed especially vulnerable to Void Magic bolts.
Mira stored the broken Guards' armor, elemental cores, and the debris from the shelf traps, in her storage. She wanted a clear the path for later if they needed to retreat. Mira, ever the pack rack without consequence due to her super-sized storage device, hummed in satisfaction as they made their way to the left hallway.
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