Like the rest of the mansion he had seen thus far, its halls were adorned with lavish adornments everywhere. Expensive paintings were on the walls along with lush red rugs that ran along the length of the hall. The owner of this mansion lived enough of an extravagant life that he had even outfitted his mansion with aura-infused lighting to keep it well-lit throughout his mansion. The decadence being showcased was truly astonishing. He wondered how much it cost to have a sorcerer alone to regularly keep the lighting up and running. If anyone can afford such a luxury, it would be someone like them. And only them and those like him.
He managed to not forget the directions Lar had given them earlier. Juna had shown an inability to recall them so he made sure to remember them for her. They could always ask Lar to give them directions on the spot, but he wanted her to be able to focus purely on keeping an eye out for any guards that might be wandering through the various hallways they needed to walk through on their way to their destination.
They eventually reached a staircase leading up to the second floor. There were multiple ways to reach the second floor but this one was the preferred option. Other locations had more guards keeping an eye out so they took a route that avoided the most heavily protected areas. So far they hadn’t run into any additional staff or guards wandering around. Whether the second floor would be less protected, he couldn’t say. He would soon find out however.
When they reached the top floor, he thought he heard voices getting louder. He held onto Juna’s hand and rushed them towards a wall to put their backs onto.
Several feminine voices laughed as they motioned through the opposing hall behind where they hid from. “You’re far too hilarious Marthus,” a woman said struggling to contain her laughter.
A man then began to laugh in response as three other womanly figures appeared beside them. From where they were with their backs against the wall, he could make out his large figure as three other women followed him likely to a private room.
When they disappeared from sight, they began to motion through a long southern hall. He quickened their pace knowing that the quicker they could get this done, the better their chances of succeeding without getting caught.
“Wait.” As they reached the corner to an intersecting space, Lar had warned him telepathically to pause so they did so. “There are a couple of guards up ahead. Wait a moment for them to pass by.”
They waited until Lar would reply back. While he couldn’t see any guard, they hid against a wall and heard some footsteps by them motioning by from a bit of distance.
“Alright, they’re gone now. Head west now and the immediate door to your right is where you need to be.”
Lar was really useful for going through the mansion. Due to her small cat form, she could go up ahead and hide a lot more easily than them. It allowed them to maneuver through the mansion more safely and avoid detection. He thought of how having a companion such as them could make thievery a breeze. It was a good thing he wasn’t just some thief, otherwise all of the wealthy in the city would be missing their things by him and Lar’s very own hands.
Of course, a good thief didn’t necessarily need a small familiar to wander around for them to be considered good at what they did. But it was undoubtedly useful to have someone such as Lar that could enable all kinds of bad behavior if willing to do so. It wouldn’t surprise him if some familiars and humans acted in such a manner. He wasn’t aware of the coalition participating in such behavior though and he certainly wouldn’t be interested in staying with them if they did. He was not at all favorable towards thieves even if he sort of felt like one tonight by sneaking around in areas where he was not supposed to be.
As they reached the door Lar had suggested they go towards prior, a purple aura appeared across the door as he tried grasping the doorknob with his hand. It kept his hand back preventing him from grasping it at all. When he pressed a fingertip against the wall of aura, it warped around as if a water droplet landed in a pond. He was faintly familiar with them. His father from his past life had used them to seal away certain rooms of their estate to keep unwanted guests out of them. And to keep him out of them as well since the last thing a child needed access to, was incredibly dangerous magic and alchemical ingredients.
Wards such as this one were somewhat difficult to break through from what little he knew about them but they had a trick up their sleeve. They had Juna of course who knew how to break through wards.
Juna pulled out one of her mystical daggers that had been sheathed around her inner thigh which was hidden from her dress. She pressed the tip of it against the ward and began to mutter an anti-ward spell beneath her breath. While she could be a bit silly and nonchalant quite often, she was not as useless as some might first think. Her personality might also strongly suggest otherwise, but she was as he had learned throughout his time of knowing her for the last few months that she had proven herself to be a valuable asset to the coalition for her fighting and undoubtedly useful arcane abilities that complimented her acrobatic style of fighting.
As she continued to mutter a spell while pressing the tip of the dagger against the rippling purple ward covering the door, he looked around the hall hoping there wouldn’t be anyone coming to discover them. Come on Juna, you got this. Break that ward and get us in there.
Sweat began to form on her brow. She was realizing that she was taking a lot longer than she likely had intended. He hadn’t seen her break wards before. All he had seen her do was cast ward-like projections during some sparring. Lar’s never going to live that moment down when she defeated her that one time.
Lar hadn’t gotten the chance to get her revenge against Juna. One day, however, he expected they would have another duel to see who would win. Knowing her ability to stun an opponent, it would make Juna’s job a lot harder since her ability worked best towards an ignorant foe who didn’t know she could project wards from her daggers.
The stress of breaking this ward appeared to go to her head. She held an intensely wary expression likely wondering if she could break it. She continued to mutter aloud softly to try to negate the barrier in a less crude manner.
It was one thing to practice or break wards during non-life-threatening moments. It was another thing entirely to have to break them under stressful life-threatening situations such as this one.
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“Did you make it in yet?” Lar asked telepathically as she kept a watchful eye a fair distance away from them.
“Not yet,” he replied. “Juna’s still working on breaking the ward.”
“Well hurry it up. Someone’s about to come to where you are.”
Rather than distract her by this unfortunate detail, he kept that fact to himself. He let her continue to work on negating the ward hoping it would finally break apart. You’ve got this Juna. Just keep at it.
The ward finally broke apart. He felt immediate relief and she appeared noticeably relieved as well having managed to finally negate it. The purple aura completely dissipated allowing him to finally grasp onto the doorknob and twist it granting them entry into the formerly warded room. As they entered together, he closed the door shut hearing a pair of guards walk by. Had she not gotten them in when she did, they likely would’ve certainly been spotted and been forced to handle the guards violently. As enough time went by, the guards appeared to be gone from the hall they had wandered through.
“Hey, let me in,” Lar said telepathically.
Kiran opened the door just enough so Lar could slip on in. She hopped onto his shoulder and he quietly closed the door behind them once again.
They all let out a sigh of relief together. That was really close. We almost got caught back there. Thankfully they hadn’t. Juna’s ward-breaking ability worked and they managed to get inside.
The room they were in was quite normal looking. It was just a small study of sorts with a sofa and a desk with bookshelves behind it. It also contained aura-infused lighting as well. They began to search through the room and discovered that the bookshelf was hiding a secret entrance that had a long dark staircase going down.
The three of them began going down the darkened steps. Light existed at the very bottom, but only very little from where they were at the top of the staircase. He carefully strode down them at a normal and steady pace eager to enter the light that existed down there at the bottom.
As they reached the bottom, he could begin to see the oncoming steps more clearly and begin to see the hidden-away chambers that existed beneath the mansion.
Aura-infused lights kept the space lit. Such magical lighting was quite useful as it didn’t require the constant maintenance that candles, torches, or braziers required. In fact, it spawned an entire industry where a sorcerer who specialized in such a thing could earn good money to keep and maintain all aura-infused lights in particular parts of the city. Marthus Einfeld went all out keeping even these secretive compartments lit as well.
The fact that he had this kind of lighting down here suggested that he was in possession of a talented sorcerer who was complicit in their twisted behavior of harboring people or familiars to do with however they saw fit.
When they stepped off of the staircase, they were greeted by a rectangular chamber with a multitude of halls on the left and right along with a center hall directly ahead of them.
Lar hopped off his shoulder and faced towards the hall directly ahead of them. “Follow me,” she said, “I can sense a familiar in this direction.”
They walked forward ignoring the multitude of halls to their right or left. They entered a tighter space where the walls limited their ability to stand beside each other. Instead, they could only walk individually down the hall with the walls nearly touching their shoulders on both sides.
“Be ready to fight,” Lar said.
He heeded Lar’s suggestion and prepared himself. The beat of his heart intensified and the blood pumping through his veins coursed within him.
Months of training prepared him for moments like these. He didn’t have to turn his back or flee as he had done in the past. Now he could stand his ground and assist Lar appropriately in all encounters. He felt unafraid and fully prepared to use the talents he had been fostering for some time now.
The three of them exited the tight hall and came to find themselves in a bit of a longer and wider chamber with smooth stone surfaces all around. The ceiling went up in a triangular fashion rising far above them. Due to how far below ground this space occupied, it allowed for quite a spacious underground area beneath the enlarged man’s mansion which was already quite large itself.
At the very center of the chamber, a raised platform sat there with a manly figure with a metal apparatus around their neck with long chains dangling from the top of the ceiling connecting itself to that apparatus. The man looked up at them and gazed longingly at them.
They appeared in many ways defeated as if all hope were lost and that they would forever be bound to that apparatus and kept within this chamber until the day they died. That darkness in their eyes however gave way to light as hope for them returned. They steeled themselves knowing that they had come for them. The one who went by the name of Laphy had been bound beneath this place for who knows how long. From a time before he joined the coalition by his summation. Now he had an opportunity to lend assistance to them and prove his worth to the coalition by breaking them free.
But while Laphy could see that help had come for them, he was not the only one in attendance within this chamber. A black-garbed figure with a hood obscuring their face stood there ahead of Laphy. As their eyes remained solely on the three of them, they unsheathed a curved sword gripping it tightly. They adjusted their feet taking a defensive posture that also said clearly that if they dared to take another step towards them, they would come at them in full force.
“You do not belong here,” they said carrying a calm voice that echoed in the large chamber. “Leave and I will not be forced to kill you.”
Lar shifted from their cat form into a human form. She stretched her arm out summoning her fauchard. She spun it and then sent the end of the shaft towards the ground harshly. “That’s a nice offer you have there,” Lar said mockingly. “But that familiar you have right behind you is someone who belongs to us. So we’ll make the same offer to you. Put down your sword and we’ll not kill you.I don’t know about you, but that’s a pretty fair offer coming from us considering it’s three-on-one.”
Though he could not see their face well, he could see that they grinned a little. They gripped their curved sword even tighter preparing to have to fight them.
“Then be the ones who strike first. I shall be the one who strikes last.”
Juna grabbed another one of her mystic daggers while he was the only one left to summon his sword.
He began to see the sword in his mind. It had a black leather-wrapped hilt and a long steel blade. He could feel the grip’s texture in his hand and see the light reflecting off that smooth and dangerously sharp blade’s surface. The sword began to take shape in his hand and the weight of it forced him to grip it tightly lest it fall to the ground.
The three of them all looked at each other in their readied stances, and with a simple nod, they all began to rush towards the warrior standing between them and Laphy.