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Mira’s opinion was that walking down the spiral stairs to the basement storage rooms was for chumps. Mira walked from her study to the spiral stairs and stepped off the edge of the platform. She dropped ten stories until she triggered her feather fall boots for the last two floors. Tiamat’s power dive finally caught up to her a second after Mira landed. The pseudodragon blew a puff of smoke in annoyance at not winning the drop race.
She walked past the sacks of grain and barrels of ale and then stopped in front of one specific shelf which was filled with expensive silver plates and cups. Mira had studied with mages, thieves, and artisans; her true vaults were concealed behind the distraction of an easy treasure and had only non-magical locks for access to her vault’s secret entrance.
In a Mage’s tower, everyone expected illusions and deadly magics. Mira was a contrarian by nature and avoided the expected tropes. Mira used her telekinesis tattoo sigil to simultaneously press three random stones that were a nondescript part of the room’s walls. The concealed pressure switches were hard-to-reach and physically impossible to do if you were alone. At least without magic, it was impossible. The shelf unlocked and slid aside to reveal a dark passage behind it.
Tiamat landed on her friend’s shoulder and together they walked into the dark tunnel. The dark passage was a gate to a Fae Warren. It was insidiously convoluted and rife with Faen misdirection enchantments. Mira’s reputation as a sorceress was derived from her preference to befriend beasts and faen. This Fae warren was a gift from a Fae Gloom Weaver she had bested in a magic duel.
The warren seemed to have a myriad of paths, but it only had two destinations from the hidden entry. The first was Mira’s dungeon and the second was her Vault. The Fae path was loosely connected to the NeitherLands, so it was always possible for a wandering Fae to be encountered.
Indeed, more than one Fae creature had accidentally become trapped in her dungeon. She would always free them after playing a game and entertaining them…at the price of a future favor. Her accumulated goodwill with the Fae was, for her, an investment to be used in times of trouble.
Mira closed her eyes to all the misdirecting visual and audible illusions. The safest way to cross the Fae warren was to try to shut out all the phantom sights and sounds. She walked forward, ignoring all thoughts of misgivings, misdirection, and confusion. She shivered as waves of cold raised goosebumps and breezes pulled at her hair.
After what seemed like forever, walking blind, the hair-raising feeling of being watched and tracked faded. Finally, she bumped her nose into a wall. It smelled of iron, Fae bane, her Vault door. She peaked quickly, opening an eye, and confirmed she was out of the warren. With a sigh of relief, she cast a Privacy warding spell around the Vault’s entry and whispered quickly to Tiamat.
“What’s the latest password again?”
“You shall NOT pass.” Tiamat stage whispered.
“Oh, right…he he...ahem…. You shall not pass!” Mira said while she projected her mana into the iron door.
No Fae could ever get through this obstacle as the purest forged iron repelled them and their brand of magic.
She glided into the vault with Tiamat, shaking off the mental distortions from the Faen mindfuck spells that pervaded the warren paths, as the door closed silently behind her. She reviewed the many displays lining the walls of the Vault. She kept her primary equipment on her or within the hidden dimension of her Conjuring Talisman. The vault contained her most unique and specialized equipment and the more dangerous artifacts she had discovered in her questing.
This was an unusual situation for Mira. She was used to preparing with custom equipment, prepared for specific challenges, with all the pre-knowledge of her many dungeon exploits. Today, she needed to expect the unexpected and load her “guns” for proverbial and perhaps literal dragons.
She looked over her treasures. Enchanted and cursed swords, shields, and books. A collection of wands and staffs she’d taken from her brief involvement with the Magical Dueling Society. The soccer-ball-sized Flaming Heart from a particularly nasty Wrath Demon. Chests filled with varieties of scrap; metals, minerals, plant, and animal parts, all segregated by their affinity and effects with each type of mana. An entire shelf with Beast Cores, carefully labeled to provide insight into their origin, power, and type. She soon found her first target.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Ah ha, there you are my pretty! I think you will be coming with me today.” Mira crooned, picking up a large flask and its holster. She strapped it to her side, setting it low on the hip, and tied it down like a Wild West pistol in its holster. The Polyphial Flask was an alchemist’s wet dream. It was capable of discretely storing hundreds of fluids, concoctions, potions, and poisons. Mira still wasn’t sure about its ultimate capacity limits, but she had once drained an Olympic-sized pool of water into it.
She mentally double-checked its contents with a divination spell. It was already loaded with her normal array of potions (healing, mana, and stamina), a variety of poisons (Sleep, Great Viper, Gorgon Stare), common poison antidotes, Truth Serum, flammable oil, holy water, a swimming pool worth of normal water, and Universal Solvent Acid. As useful as the flask was, it was also a pain in the butt, due to its large size and weight. Since it was itself a spatial storage device, it couldn’t be magically stored inside her Conjuring Talisman. For this adventure, she would make an exception.
“I’m going to need something specific for the Cloud Bridge stairs. I’m betting that to enter the Cloud Land, I need to walk the path and not fly. I’ve done enough quests to read between the lines. Hmmm.” She pondered looking over the Miscellaneous Gear Bin, a haphazard mix of clothes and charms. Tiamat dove into it and soon emerged dragging a pair of worn leather boots.
“League Step Boots? Speed, stamina, and some spatial enchantments that multiply the wearer's stepping distance. Yep, that should work. Damn, I love my Feather Fall boots and hate not wearing them though. I guess, if I’m falling from the clouds, I should have plenty of time to cast a levitation spell-form.” She debated with herself. Tiamat looked at her with a tired expression and pushed the boots forward.
“Fine!” Mira grumped, pulling off her cozy suede Feather Fall boots and swapping them with the worn leather look of the League Step footwear.
“Ok, then. I’ll carry my usual Aether Nexus Staff, a Vorpal Knife, my Conjuration Talisman, Binding Rod, Impervious Cloak, and my Spell-Shard Bracers - preloaded with my favorite spell-forms. I can’t think of anything else. Can you?” Mira asked.
In answer, Tiamat flapped over to the cabinet with the displays of magical rings and selected a small gold band with a small prismatic gem. She slipped it on, the ring serving as a bracelet for her little claws. Tiamat’s small dragon form grew and morphed into the shape of a slight human girl with close-cropped hair and large expressive eyes and wearing a simple tunic. Tiamat danced a little jig trying out her new shape.
“You’ve gotten used to playing as a human with our character farming adventures, huh? Okay, and you might as well keep it. I think sometimes we attract too much attention. There aren’t that many Elf Sorceresses with pseudodragon familiars in the Realm.”
A shadowed hand tapped her shoulder. Mira screamed and jumped, spinning in the air as she sprayed the far wall with a forking lightning bolt that burst forth from one of her bracer’s ten gemstones. The lightning passed through the Specter and blasted her collection of Staffs, scattering them about the Vault. Mira managed to cancel the chain lightning before it rebounded and multiplied.
“Damn it, Reggie! What did I say about sneaking up on me?!?” Mira shouted.
The ghost inclined his head. His cloaked skull might have been grinning, but then it always was. The phantasmal skeleton sighed slowly with effort, standing straighter in his rusty armor and black cloak of shadows. He wheezed as he slowly responded.
“My. name. is. Regent. of. Shadow. There. is. an. intruder. up. stairs.” he forced out slowly.
“Blast it, REGINALD.” She said with emphasis. “I beat you fair and square. If I’m to be cursed with you haunting my tower, you can work with me. I’ve told you that I've renamed you Reginald. None of this oh-I’m-so-scary shtick. Use the voice, I showed you.” Mira said, stamping her foot.
“Very…Well…Madam.” the skeletal form forced out, with a slight English accent but still filled with undead angst. Mira eyed Reggie carefully using her Mage sight. She had attached her soul pattern to the damaged remnant’s necromantic echo in the hopes of upgrading him into a proper caretaker for her tower. Her "true name” was the very shape of her soul; comprised of the overlapping construct of her Qi core, Akasic links, and Faen threads.
Reginald existed as a void in the Akasic field, given life again with at least a negative image from what he had possessed as a living soul. Unfortunately, he was damaged and incomplete. Most undead had damage to varying degrees. Some devolved to become mere base spirits with bestial instincts. She had hoped that by impressing herself upon Reggie, she could restore him to his original self, but it was marginal at best so far.
Mira shook herself free of her distracted introspection and asked.
“Wait a second. Did you say an intruder? I told you I was expecting a guest. Damnit, Reggie! What have you done?!” Mira yelled. Without waiting for a response, Mira pulsed her will into another gem in her Spell-Shard array, triggering a simplified Teleport glyph. It was preset to pull the caster to her large custom mithril glyph circle embedded in the floor of her Tower atrium. This was technically a significant waste of power for such a short distance, but the Fae warrens were weird with time, and she was worried about her guest. In a flash of light and a clap of air crashing into the space she vacated, Mira was gone.
Tiamat screeched, but she was too late. She had missed her ride. With a look of annoyance at the Tower’s resident specter, she used her human form to exit the room and brave the Fae warren on her way back to the Tower.