“A round of beers for me and my guests!” a man bellowed over the counter towards Linea and pointed to a crowd of five other men.

“Coming right up,” Linea replied with a raised voice to get through to him over the background noise. Madame Maria’s Palace was packed and Basil was giving his best to provide some background music. The usual refined atmosphere had been replaced with a more rowdy scene. Most guests were still excited after the arena matches earlier and the adrenaline was running high. Linea had payed little attention when Maria had explained what the evening would bring but she had gotten the gist. Some upstart merchant, who happened to make a good fortune, had decided to spend most to throw a big spectacle including an enactment of some battle in the arena. Something about his family being crucial to the battle’s winner.

Linea didn’t care much.

But on a positive note the money changed hands quickly and in abundance this evening. Most wealthy people who had watched the fights came to Madame Maria’s Palace to have more fun. The Sun Elf Kevira told Linea that those evenings were her favorites as she could make a killing of all the adrenaline pumped men who needed a woman to take care of them. She had winked at Linea as she said it and Linea blushed much to Kevira’s delight. The woman had made a game out of making Linea flustered as much as possible. Linea just couldn’t help herself but whenever someone mentioned sex to her she couldn’t suppress this reaction. Sarah was of no help either. Her best idea to make Kevira shut up was to have sex with her, which Linea didn’t consider doing.

Although Linea had to admit to herself that she had stolen a glance or two at the Sun Elven woman this evening. Kevira radiated a sensual confidence which Linea felt herself drawn to. The longer she worked at Maria’s the more Linea realized that she had no inclinations to be with a man in the future.

She sighed and tapped beer from barrel behind the bar into several tankards.

“Linea?” Evira asked her as a rather tanked Cardinal Huvis pulled her towards the basement. “Can you bring us a bottle of Grolian wine?”

“Sure,” Linea replied. “I’ll just finish this order.”

“Awww, I don’ wanna wait!”, Huvis whined. “I wanna have fun!”

“Fine, she’ll bring it down for us, won’t she?” Evira chuckled and slapped the cardinals shoulder playfully, which made him sway quite dramatically. “Down to the basement. Second door on the left.”

The last part was addressed to Linea who nodded.

“Have fun,” she said and lifted the six tankards with beer as good as possible. As she walked around the bar Siril - the other girl working the bar with her that night - came back from a bathroom break and gave her a nod. Linea maneuvered herself between the tables and to her relief she got the drinks over to the table without accident.

“Makes twelve silver coins, honey!” Linea chirped to the guy who had ordered the beer. She had learned in the last weeks that a friendly waitress got way more money and had adopted a more outgoing persona while she worked at Maria’s Palace. She had quite some experience faking friendliness from her time at the royal court in Luna’sindra. Only the parlance differed which she had to get used to.

The man put fifteen silver coins in her hand.

“There’s more if you want to make some extra,” he said with a wide grin and patted her butt lightly. Linea forced a smile and suppressed her urge to slap him.

“Sorry, but no can do,” she replied and tipped against her collar. “I’ve got orders.”

“Too bad, we could have so much fun!” he said with a laugh and turned towards his friends.

“I’m sure,” Linea whispered to herself and rolled her eyes as she went back to the bar.

“Do we have a Grolian wine up here?” Linea asked Siril as she skimmed through the wine shelf to the side.

“I sold the last one an hour ago,” Siril answered. “But we should have a few spares in the cellar. Ask Evira if you can take one of those.”

“She was the one who ordered it,” Linea said with a short laugh. “I suspect she would be fine with it. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Siril just nodded and started talking with another man who wanted to order something.

Linea made her way down through the basement into the wine cellar. She hadn’t been down there often and so it took her few minutes to find the wine she was searching for. When she got to the room, she stopped for a second as she heard rather explicit sounds through the door. She took a deep breath and opened the door.

The room was only barely lit and the main part was curtained off. Linea was about to put the wine bottle on a small table near the door, but the occupants of the room interrupted her.

“Aw, did I allow you to touch me?” Evira’s voice came through the curtain. Her sounded sultry and a bit condescending which made Linea stop right in her tracks. “You’re such a naughty slave, aren’t you?”

“I’m sorry, mistress!” Huvis replied and his submissive tone flummoxed Linea. Whatever was going on here, Linea had not expected it.

“I guess I have to retrain you…” Evira sighed. “Not even a month without me and you’ve already forgotten everything… Such a shame.”

“No!” Huvis cried out. “I can be a good boy!”

“Is that so?” Evira asked. “Yet, I still get the feeling you keep secrets from me… How can you be a good boy, if you keep secrets from your mistress? So disappointing…”

“I have no secrets!” the man said quickly.

“Now, you’re lying,” Evira said and huffed in disappointment. Linea heard a slapping noise and something from Huvis which seemed to Linea like an odd mixture of a moan and a groan.

“I know about the festivities regarding the wedding ceremony of the princess,” Evira said but this time she used an accusatory tone. “And yet you didn’t tell me about it. No details, nothing. How can I plan for such an event if you keep those things a secret?”

“I thought…” Huvis tried to answer, but another slap shut him up.

“Shut up!” Evira snarled. “You are nothing but an overgrown sex toy. You’re not supposed to think!”

Another slap.

“You serve me. You’re my pet. My slave. Nothing more,” she said but then her tone changed again and got warmer. “But I might forgive you… if you tell me what the emperor has planned for the princess. Spill everything and I might decide pleasuring you tonight instead of punishing you.”

And so Huvis told Evira everything. Linea stood motionless trying to eavesdrop on them.

“They are to be wed in the cathedral. I’ll be officiating it mistress!” he explained. “A priestess of Luna will be present, even though the original one declined to serve after some kind of altercation within the Moon Elven envoy. I don’t know the details. But another one is already on her way to replace her.”

“That’s certainly interesting,” Evira said and did something which elicited a deep moan from the cardinal. “But what about the guests and the festivities?”

“There is a banquet planned,” Huvis said short of breath. “I’ve got no idea about all the guests but I know that the freshly crowned King Turandir will attend as well as the rest of the other kings of the Seven Holy Kingdoms.”

Linea’s hand gripped the bottle of wine so hard as she heard the name Turandir that she nearly broke it. Sarah stepped in by sending a few waves of calming thoughts her way.

“Interesting…” Evira mused. “I would guess arena matches are planned?”

“Of course, mistress!” Huvis replied eagerly. “The emperor boasted a little about what he has planned but he left out some details.”

“Well, tell me what you know!” Evira urged him with another slap.

“There won’t be a reenactment of the recent war but the slave princess will be part of the biggest show. A one-on-one duel and a fight against something especially dangerous. But he wouldn’t tell me against who or what. That’s the highlight. Everything will be arranged around that.”

Linea gasped ever so slightly about the information which didn’t go unnoticed. She heard steps and suddenly Evira came around the curtain.

“Thank you,” she said with a smile but her eyes gave away her fury.

“If you ever eavesdrop on one of my sessions again, I’ll make Maria reconsider her policy regarding you,” Evira hissed as quietly as possible and the motioned Linea to get lost.

Linea just nodded and left the room.

‘That was interesting…’ Sarah noted.

‘We have to make a plan how we can take advantage of this,’ Linea agreed. ‘Even though I have no clue how we can use the information right now.’

‘Me neither,’ Sarah admitted. ‘We’ll come up with something, but I have to admit I didn’t expect you to take advantage of all this right of the bat.’

‘Right off the bat? What does that mean?’

Sarah chuckled at the question.

‘It’s a saying from earth, sorry. It means something like immediately. I just wanted to compliment you on the fact that you’re starting to think ahead.’

‘Oh, thank you then. I guess?’ Linea said. ‘But that saying is still somewhat weird. What has a little mammal with leathery wings to do with all of this?’

Again Sarah just chuckled.

‘I’ll explain that one later. You still got work to do.’

----------------------------------------

Linea and Sarah had to delay their scouting of the Mage Tower by one day because the excessive party at Madame Maria’s the night before had gone until dawn. On the other hand they closed tonight to give everyone more rest. An opportunity Sarah wouldn’t let slip away. Tonight presented a new moon, and the darkness enhanced her ability to sneak through the abundant shadows. A perfect night for Sarah.

Their target stood before them. Tall and white a single marble tower spiraled into the night sky. Only a handful of windows still showed signs of flickering fire. Nothing overly interesting for Sarah as her first target was in the tower's basement. A large vault filled to the brim with magical artifacts and riches.

Reeve had given her a combination of runes for opening the vault but he hinted at some additional safeguards which he couldn’t specify. A hurdle to be overcome by her imagination. He also had provided her with a sketched ground plan which she had studied extensively.

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‘I expected more guards…’ Sarah noted as she looked over the walled area around the tower from a nearby rooftop.

‘It smells of a trap,’ Linea agreed. ‘Either that or they don’t expect someone to be foolish enough to antagonize the mages. From what we heard, they are a major faction within the city and the empire as a whole.’

‘Possible,’ Sarah replied. ‘But I would like to make sure there is no magic we don’t see. Remember the magic Senia told us about at Tanus manor? Which causes an alarm if someone unauthorized casts magic within the area? What if the mages here have a similar thing? Or worse?’

‘I could try to sense if there is something,’ Linea argued. ‘I can already feel magical energies, but I’m not sure if I could identify what a spell or enchantment would do…’

‘Better than nothing I would say,’ Sarah said and gave control over their body back Linea.

Linea took a deep breath and stretched her magical senses. It was rudimentary but after a couple of minutes she noticed different patterns in front of her which deviated enough from natural Ley energy to indicate a man-made purpose. It surprised her when she focused on one of those patterns that she could understand its effect. She went over the different patterns she noticed and analyzed them.

‘The first two enchantments belong to the wall itself. Self-cleansing and -self-repairing. Then there is some kind of ward to prohibited physical entrance over their wall. I guess you couldn’t even throw a stone over the wall.’

‘Impressive, girl!’ Sarah said with glee. ‘Do you see anything else?’

‘There is another ward inside…’ Linea replied without reacting to Sarah’s little compliment. ‘But I’m not sure if I understand the intent behind it. Something about authorization… Perhaps a check who is allowed inside the compound?’

‘Seems impractical if they want to receive guests… I would suspect it’s like the one Senia mentioned. A check on who is allowed to cast magic. It would have to check for authorized magical signatures as well.’

‘Probably, but be careful anyway. I can’t guarantee it.’

They switched again and Sarah stepped into the shadows and became invisible to everyone else. She levitated towards the wall and tried to touch the barrier Linea mentioned but while she was hidden inside the shadows, nothing stopped her. It solidified Sarah assumption that her Shadow Walk rendered her immaterial as long as she didn’t leave her shadow dimension.

Once inside she ducked behind a carriage which had been parked near the stables. She left her shadows and waited for anything to happen.

‘All right, no alarms as far as I can tell. That’s good…’ she murmured more to herself. She peaked around the carriage and noticed a patrol of four guards making their round. Apart from the compound was asleep. The main entrance to the tower was illuminated which excluded it as a possible way in for her. She gazed at the first-floor windows and decided that those would serve them better.

She waited for the patrol to pass her then she used her Shadow Walk again to close the distance to the tower. A quick levitation to the window to check if the room was unoccupied then she opened the window from the inside without making a fuss.

As Sarah slipped inside she saw a lot of instruments and gadgets with an unknown purpose on shelves. Some of them reminded her of slave collars even if somewhat less refined. Prototypes perhaps. Some of them were too big for any meaningful use. She wished she could search for some documents about slave collars and how they worked but without a hint where those could be, it would be like searching for a needle in a haystack.

And so she refocused on the task at hand and went to the door. She pressed her ear against it to check if the corridor was empty.

Silence.

Sarah tried to opened the door, but it was locked. She sent her telekinetic senses into the mechanism and after a bit of trial and error she managed to unlock it. After a quick gaze to her left and right she slipped outside into a rather spacious corridor. While the storage room was rather simple, the corridor resembled an entrance hall of a noble mansion. Extensive use of gold, marble and purple fabrics which reminded Sarah of velvet. Plate armor was lined up in regular intervals at the walls. From the plan Reeve had given her, she knew the corridor led in a circle around the whole tower with a staircase in each cardinal direction. The vault she searched for could be reached from the southern staircase which not so incidentally was to her left. The sketch was rather detailed about this part and hinted at some insider knowledge of this part. Sarah pondered if Reeve had one of the mages work for him or if he had bribed a servant.

The entrance to the basement was guarded by three men in mail armor and a teenager in robes. They played a card game which Linea identified as Sevur. A game she herself had come to enjoy.

‘Seems as if they are occupied,’ Linea pointed out.

‘Yes, but they will notice if the door to the basement opens as if by an invisible hand,’ Sarah replied and looked around to notice two more of those exhibited plate armors. She bent the shadows ever so slightly to dim the light of the candles the guards used to play cards. She slipped past them towards the basement's door and checked if it was locked. Which it was, and the mechanism was more sophisticated than the one earlier.

But it couldn’t resist Sarah forever. With a quiet click the lock gave in, but the sound alerted the guard closest to the door. His companions followed his gaze.

“What’s the matter?” the teenager asked.

“Could have sworn…” the guard said, but as he couldn’t see a problem even after squinting his eyes to look into the darkness behind him, he shrugged and returned to the game.

Sarah smiled and gave the armor furthest away from the door a little nudge which made it topple over. The four man jumped with hisses of anger and shock and the teen-aged boy even squeaked. She opened the door and slipped inside without being noticed.

She followed the map from Reeve as she maneuvered herself through the maze that was the basement. Storage rooms over storage rooms and not a system of labeling those rooms.

At least the vault was easy enough to find the given directions.

‘Let’s see if this rune combination is actually correct,’ Sarah said as her hands wandered over the matrix of different symbols. She pressed them in the exact order as she had imprinted them into her memory and she was not disappointed. The door opened and the first problem presented itself.

The vault had no windows and no torches or candles burned inside. Only sliver of light from the corridor illuminated only the immediate area around the entrance. The rest of the cavernous vault was veiled in darkness.

‘All right… How do we find the dagger?’ Linea asked. It was a good question because Reeve had only told them that the artifact was a dagger and what it was supposed to look like.

‘We wait a few moments,’ Sarah replied. ‘Your eyes need to adjust to the darkness again after the light of the corridor. Coupled with your night vision we’ll be able to see enough to find the dagger. Or so I hope.’

It took not too long before she could perceive the different shelves and feel her way through the darkness. But even Linea’s night vision had its limits as they learned after some painful incidents with her shin and rather low standing stuff.

‘I see some kind of weapon rack ahead,’ Linea said after a while and Sarah walked towards the point to which Linea pointed in their minds.

‘That’s the dagger…’ Sarah said relieved. ‘But what are the rest of the weapons?’

“This… this can’t be…” Linea murmured and jerked back control over her body from Sarah without forewarning. She touched a bow which hang on top of the rack.

“Sur’elani…” she whispered as her hand traced the green wood with intricate carvings of animals and stopped atop an emerald embedded into the wood.

‘What now?’ Sarah asked.

‘This is not just an artifact,’ Linea explained. ‘This is a legendary weapon. I have seen its depictions back at home so often… It was supposed to be lost in the Great Cataclysm. We don’t have many facts about the time before the event but the mosaics in the old temples tell us fragments about the great warriors who lived before us. And this bow can be seen in at least half of them in the hand of various heroes of the past. We can only guess what they fought for and against whom… but this weapon has seen more victories than most living beings even had fights. It’s the harbinger of change, restoration from destruction, Whisper of Wind… Sur’elani…’

‘Okay…’ Sarah replied. ‘I guess we take it with us then?’

Linea looked over the other weapons.

‘I recognize some of them… Even if I can’t quite remember their names,’ Linea said. ‘We need to take them. I can’t understand why the humans lock them up instead of using them but we can’t leave them here… The amount of death they could bring to the enemies of the empire.’

‘Aren’t you getting a bit over dramatic?’ Sarah asked with a snort but Linea didn’t sway in her opinion.

‘This hammer?’ she said and pointed at a larger two-handed weapon. ‘Caia’kurthanal. Splitter of Earth if I remember correctly. It’s fabled to level whole cities with one strike. Those stories are probably exaggerated but even if a fraction of it is true…’

‘Okay, okay. I get it. But we can’t take them all with us right now.’

‘We’ll come back with a plan. Screw Reeve, screw our plans. We need to get those weapons out of the emperor’s hands.’

----------------------------------------

Leaving the weapons behind - much to Linea’s annoyance - Sarah made her way to the top of the tower. They had a second goal for the evening after all.

‘Are you sure it’s at the top?’ Sarah asked as she flew through the gaps of the staircase upwards.

‘Yes, I can feel one magical being inside this tower different from the others. Not as bright as we’re in that regard but it’s like a beacon in a sea of dim stars.’

‘But why only one?’ Sarah replied. ‘They should be two. The mage back at the market bought both twins. So why should only be one here?’

‘If got no idea, perhaps he sent one away for… whatever reason. I don’t know. And perhaps I don’t want to know…’

After a few silent moments They stopped on the top floor of the tower which had only three doors arranged in an equilateral triangle on the outside of the corridor. The inner ring of this floor of the tower didn’t have additional rooms, but instead there was a large crystalline structure suspended in the middle of the tower. Around it a lot of runic circles glowed in a blue light.

‘Whatever that may be…’ Sarah wondered. The more she saw about magic, the more she wanted Linea to learn it. She had so many questions about what one could do with it.

‘No time for that,’ Linea said and took control back to check where the one twin was they were searching for. They dropped out of the shadows and Linea searched for her target.

She had located the magical signature to her right when the whole floor lit up and the armor to the sides started to move.

‘Shit,’ Sarah and Linea cursed in unison. Linea looked back down the staircase where it was still dark.

Without even thinking about a coherent plan, they switched again and Sarah went down the stairs and slipped into the shadows again.

With a fast beating heart she heard voices on the floor above emerging from the doors. She tried to focus herself and bring her heart rate back down. After a few minutes the guards on the top floor seemed to conclude that there was some sort of malfunction and deactivate the defensive mechanism again.

‘All right, let’s try to enter through a window then,’ Sarah commented dryly.

Shortly after they hovered in front of a window outside of the tower. They knew where the woman had to be but some kind of enchantment hindered them to look inside. Sarah took a risk and knocked on the window and waited a moment. When nothing happened she repeated this only a little more forceful.

This time someone opened the window and looked outside. It was Tenevil, the younger of the twin duchesses who had helped Linea on the shipment to the city.

The woman frowned and shook her head. Sarah slipped through the open window and waited for Tenevil to close it. When she had done just that, Sarah left her shadows behind the duchess and put a hand over her mouth to prevent her from screaming, which only worked to a degree. Her muffled screams where still loud enough. Sarah used the same technique to interrupt any orders coming from the slave collar on Tenevil's shoulders. The moment she did that, the woman stopped screaming.

“It’s me,” Sarah said in Linea’s place. “I’ve disabled all but the most basic functions of your collar. Will someone check on you?”

“Yes,” Tenevil whispered as her eyes roamed all over Sarah. “How did you…”

“Not now!” Sarah hissed as she heard footsteps. She stepped in the shadows again and sprinted for the wardrobe. She levitated herself on top of it and made herself as small as possible to avoid being hit by any possible light source directly.

The door was opened, and she heard a male voice.

“Everything all right here?”

“Y-Yeah…” Tenevil stuttered. “I stubbed my toe. I’m sorry for the disturbance.”

The man just groaned and after a few moments he left again.

“Linea?” Tenevil whispered into the room.

“Here,” Sarah replied as she made herself visible again and climbed down the wardrobe. “That was way too close for my preference.”

“Same here,” Tenevil said. “What are you doing here?”

“I'm trying to rescue you?” Sarah said as she went to the door to check if she could hear anything, but whatever lay behind it was silent. For now. “Where is your sister?”

Tenevil sighed and a small sob escaped her.

“She… They sacrificed her. The same day they brought here us.”

Sarah took a deep breath. More for Linea than for herself but since their soul parts had started to coalesce she had more difficulties to remain calm than before.

“What for?”

“Huh?”

“You said they sacrificed her. What for? What was their goal?”

“Only our master. No one else profited from it. It’s a ritual to assimilate the sacrifice’s magic,” Tenevil explained.

‘Is that possible?’ Sarah asked Linea.

‘Hell, as if I would know.’

“All right, I will get you out of here,” Sarah just said. “I need to retrieve a lot of artifacts from the treasury down in the basement. Any idea how?”

“Not right now…” Tenevil replied. “How can you help me with that thing around your neck?”

“No time to explain this. We need to move.”

Tenevil stopped her as Sarah walked towards the window.

“Can you… can you come and get me next week?”

Sarah stopped in her tracks and turned around slowly.

“What?”

“I… The master wants to perform the ritual on me in six days.”

“Even more reason to get you out now!” Sarah hissed.

“I know… but… Oh Luna, I know it’s so stupid but I think I can reverse it if you can help me. I could reclaim my sister’s magic. It’s… it’s all that is left of her.”

Her pleading eyes locked onto Sarah.

“This is a bad idea…”

“You could take the time to come up with a method to transport what you found in the treasury,” Tenevil argued with a faint smile.

“Fine,” Sarah snapped. She didn’t like the idea one bit but on the other hand it would secure Tenevil’s loyalty and make her a trustworthy ally. “I’ll leave the block on your collar. Just see that you follow all orders when your master can check if you complied. If they find out, you can disobey… It would make things difficult.”

“Of course,” Tenevil agreed with a dark grin. “In six days when the sun has sunken below the horizon. The preparation will take an hour from there. If it goes like last time, their will be three apprentices and the master. You need to neutralize the apprentices. Dead or alive, I don’t care. But the Master must be alive. Not necessarily conscious but alive.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Sarah said. “If anything goes wrong, I’ll kill them all and get you out of here.”

“As you wish, My Lady,” Tenevil said and came a step closer. “And thank you for coming for me.”

She then embraced Sarah in a hug which she reluctantly returned.

“Just stay safe,” Sarah said and jumped out of the window.