Despite everything, classes continued. Even now, a few days after Isabell and Guardians started their planning, no-one appeared to have any sense of impending doom. His dorm-mates treated the threat of the Horde as a far-off issue that wasn’t worth fretting over. This was not the first time Tenthé’d run into this attitude, and probably wouldn’t be the last. But, it always surprised him how anyone could feel invulnerable to known dangers. Certainly, you couldn’t let potential threats dominate your life, unless you were that kind of person, but it was only reasonable to have plans for when things took an unfortunate turn.
Isabell was busy with the Guardians. He still had trouble following the thoughts of the new Isabell, but she seemed content and reasonably stable. At least, for now.
Of course, George and Nik had to blab about how George managed to obtain armor, so Tenthé had taken a few of his dorm mates to the “secret” armory and fitted everyone, or as close as they could get, with what remained. This meant there was some sharing, as there weren’t enough full sets to go around. It was all good, Tenthé figured that when the Horde showed up, the better equipped his friends were, the better for everyone.
One unexpected result from this effort was the resumption of pressure from House LePoiterice for his services. Tenthé was seriously considering some response. House LePoiterice was the big dog on the block, and over the years, he’d learned that when things came to a head, it was usually worthwhile to have some sort of working relationship with the major players, even if there was not any love lost.
The affluent Houses would have access to resources the others couldn’t match… so the morning found Tenthé searching for Leo. Whatever happened, it would probably be interesting.
The Guardians had ignored his requests to tell him where Leo could be found, so he was ditching his swim class to look for him. The task had an added complexity: while he was looking for Leo, Elishua and the Envoy were looking for him. He watched them from hiding, and from the swearing, it was apparent that the Guardians weren’t helping them either. When they went in one direction, Tenthé went in another.
Tenthé was aiming for the part of the College where the richest families stayed. He hadn’t taken the opportunity to investigate this area yet, and, as he approached, it became necessary to deal with a number of very good alarms and traps. Still, nothing much different from what he expected. Stealth, popping up and down the planes, crawling on the ceiling, and eating a bit of magic got him through. Tenthé wondered at the sheer number of defenses. Did they hate commoners that much?
As he was stepping away from the latest trap, Tenthé froze and threw up a high level of masking just as the Envoy snuck around a corner and stalked past him. She was getting better. This time he’d almost been caught!
Tenthé waited for a while, in case Elishua was following to catch him by surprise. And yep, sure enough, she rounded the corner, covered in stealth. He was impressed. Was this how a proud parent would feel? For fun, Tenthé left a sticky trap keyed to them. Maybe one of them would detect it, maybe not. Who knew? All part of the game.
Tenthé continued on, avoiding a few traps the pair had set for him. Some of them were quite good, but his two keepers needed to talk with Isabell or, perhaps, Magister Grenville and find some magic that he didn’t know. He had hope for them, they were improving steadily.
As to his search for Leo, he could sense a good candidate just ahead. Tenthé walked through the last few wards protecting the rich from the masses, and stopped in a large corridor to survey the area. Someone had piled on the opulence. Even he could tell that the decor pushed the definition of good taste. Gold and silver-plated everything, with ornate figures and bas-relief everywhere you looked. Magic made it all sparkle so brightly that it was a wonder anyone had any sight left. Bear would love it.
Tenthé continued down the hallway, greeting the Guardians posted at the intersections, although they appeared bored. As he walked, he noticed some interest stirring in the watchers. Not enough to halt him, but some discussions occurred, followed by hand and tentacle shakes, signifying bets being made. Not the best form for guards, but as long as they let him do what he wanted, it made his life easier.
He stopped by a door. It was decorated past the point of ridiculous, making it similar to all the other doors. Instead of opening it and triggering the multiple alarms, Tenthé studied the walls of the corridor until he discovered a secret panel. The intricate carvings and plaster almost demanded that there had to be one.
Tenthé teased the panel open, stepped through, and found himself in a closet of some sort. Most likely, it was used for cloaks when the weather was bad. At the moment, it was empty. He closed the panel and opened the inside door, then exited into a vestibule. Shutting the door behind him, he found it disappeared into the ornate wall. There was a very good likelihood that no-one even knew the closet was there.
Unlike the rest of the school, this hallway was devoid of Guardians or wards. The arrogance of the rich. Since he was fond of his skin, he remained cautious, searching for any defenses, but found that there was no security. Nothing at all.
He halted outside a room, peered inside, then reached down, turned the doorknob and walked in. Sitting all nice and pretty were Leo and his two cronies. Not entirely surprising, but Leo was wearing a set of the armor from Tenthé’s cache. No sign of the helm, which was fairly important for full functionality.
The gaze of Leo and his two cronies drifted his way. Leo immediately took charge.
“Johan, remove this miscreant,” he ordered, then growled, “Hey kid! How did you get in here? This is a private area!”
That didn’t make any sense. Either Johan was supposed to deal with him, or he was supposed to answer a question.
It was a moot point, since Johan hadn’t moved. Leo looked over at him. He was asleep.
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“Johan. Johan! Wake up! What’s wrong with you?” When it was apparent that Johan wasn’t going to wake, he reached over and shook Philip, who was also asleep. When there was no response, he glared at Tenthé, who was watching the tableau unfold. So far, everything Leo’d done was completely predictable. Now would come the threat and show of power.
Well, as it turned out, he wasn’t exactly correct. Leo stood up and shot a powerful fireball at Tenthé, disregarding the results this would have on the walls and furniture.
It didn’t really matter, since the fireball fizzled out. The second morphed into butterflies, and the third into a fish, which flopped on the floor and quickly stunk up the room. Tenthé was bored with normal counter-spells.
To save the immediate surroundings, Tenthé ordered Leo’s armor to freeze. Leo was caught off-balance and fell onto his face, maintaining an awkward pose. This resulted in a certain amount of invective directed at the rug.
“Hey, Leo. I want to have a talk with you. If you’re going to be good, I’ll let you up.”
Not unexpectedly, the volume of swearing increased. Tenthé wandered over to where Leo had been sitting. Oh! They had been having tea and pastries. He sat in Leo’s chair and helped himself.
“These are really good,” he announced. “You want one?” The muffled roars continued. “No? Well, you’re missing something.”
Tenthé took Bear out of his pocket and put him on Johan’s lap. Bear stirred, shaking off his sleep.
“So, where are we now?” Bear started, then looked around. “Oh. My. Goodness! This is spectacular!” he exclaimed, verifying the level of bad taste on display.
Bear zeroed in on one fresco, “Are those three doing what I think they are?” he then turned to Tenthé. “This is what I mean when I tell you what our room should look like! I had no idea someone could interpret perfection so well! And, oh! Look there! I didn’t realize that was physically possible! This is just perfect!”
As Bear admired the walls, Tenthé freed Leo, who collapsed for a moment before jumping to his feet.
“Do you know who I am?” he yelled. Then waved his arms at Tenthé, attempting to use some of the armor’s built-in spells. Nothing happened.
Unwisely, Leo pointed one of the arms at his face and attempted to activate a spell. Fortunately, nothing happened.
“What’s wrong with this Gods’ damned thing!” Leo yelled.
“I’ve locked the armor into trainee mode. You can’t do anything except move and see. Everything else is disabled,” Tenthé said around the cookie he was munching on.
Leo turned fairly respectable glare on Tenthé.
“Who are you? How do you know about my armor? It’s the latest tech!”
“Ha! Latest doesn’t mean new. I spent a lot of time with them, way back when.”
“What? How? You’re just a kid.”
Tenthé sighed. “This is a world of magic. How stupid are you? Maybe I should leave.”
Leo paused. “No, wait.”
He stood still for a moment. His face reflected a fair amount of thinking going on.
“There was a missive,” Leo started, then he began pawing at his hips. “Damn it! I can’t get to my pockets!”
Tenthé waved a parchment. “Do you mean this?”
“How did you…” Leo asked, then reached for the note. Tenthé let him take it.
Leo held it up awkwardly in front of his face. With the suit in dumb mode, it was a bit of a challenge. After a moment, Leo spoke. “Yeah. I’m supposed to contact a boy named Tenthé, some sort of super wizard, and arrange for him to meet with the family.”
He lowered the parchment and looked at Tenthé. “That’s you, isn’t it?”
“Uh-huh. You’ve tried to recruit me before and it didn’t work out.”
“How come I can’t remember?”
“Just one of those things.”
“So, why are you here? What’s different now?”
“Plans change. House LePoiterice has nearly as many troops as all the other families added together, and I know a lot of people who have worked for you. They told me you guys are strict, but fair. But I have some rules. I don’t want to deal with your family, just you. Talk to them and see what they think. Maybe we can work something out.”
To give him credit, Leo didn’t say anything. He simply stood and thought things over. Tenthé wasn’t sure which way he was going to go. He’d probably think he could handle anything that a little kid could do, in spite of the evidence to the contrary.
After a moment, he spoke. “I tell you what. I’ll see what they say.”
Tenthé could hear the smirk in his voice, but it was along the lines of what he was looking for, so… whatever. He’d learned over the years, that a large army behind you wasn’t a bad thing, even if there were issues. What Hells, there were always issues. In this case, Leo would assume he’d pulled something over on Tenthé.
Internally, he laughed. Wait until they met Isabell!
“Okay,” he said. “Let me know. We’ll see what happens.”
“Good, good,” Leo responded. Tenthé could almost see him rubbing his hands together, like all the good villains did.
“Oh, and another thing,” Tenthé added, “A basic lesson for your armor is how to disable the override. Good luck.”
He froze the suit again and Leo crashed to the ground, once again shouting into the rug.
Tenthé looked over at Bear, who was rifling through the pockets of Leo’s sidekicks. Tenthé wondered if Bear’d found anything good and started searching the rest of the room. As he was pocketing some coins and pastries, a strange whistling sounded. There didn’t appear to be a source, but the room was experiencing gusts of dusty air.
A hum and some faint singing could be heard, along with a very distorted voice that grew in volume, then faded in and out.
“Hello, hello?” it said. “Is this thing even working? Hello, hello?”
If he had to guess, he would say it was Tomas. Kind of hard to tell.
“Hello… if you can hear me, I need Tenthé to report to my office. Um, Tomas’ office… Is it even doing anything? Who’s idiot idea was this, anyway? Bloody speaking system!”
The voice continued. “Cough, cough, ahem! How can it possibly be dusty? It’s entirely magic!” A few more deep coughs, then, “Yeah, uh… Tenthé! Report to my office… and maybe free Elishua and the Envoy on your way. Cough, cough!” then there was a massive click, and the voice added, “Well, there. That’s done… What? It’s still on? Stupid thing!” There were some more loud bangs, and the noise cut out.
Tenthé waited a moment and looked at Bear. “I guess he wants to see us,” he ventured.
“Yeah, and it looks like no-one’s figured out how to broadcast voices over any distance, yet. Still as bad as I remember.”
Magic far-speaking was one technology that had never worked very well. Too many other things played with it. Even if you could make out what was being said, messages were mixed up or changed, which caused a lot of problems. Every so often, someone would come up with a new way, which usually resulted in screaming and fires.
Tenthé grabbed Bear and left, taking all the necessary precautions for traps and wards. Behind him, Leo, Johan, and Philip made for an interesting composition.
One of his better efforts.