I am in a really uncomfortable situation at the moment. We are presently outside the guard camps, in the most disgusting position that Trevor could find.

I don't blame the man mind you, this is the safest method for us to enter into the place. It doesn't change the fact that it is disgusting.

To be more clear, I am wading through at the moment in one of the many pits that the guards have built up in the place.

These pits are the place in the guard house where the soldiers shit. Now they certainly need a way to get rid of all that now and these people decided the best way to do that would be to connect the moat outside (I will get back to you on that.) to the cess pits. The moat literally floats into the cess pits and carries everything out. That means we can crawl in through the place.

That means that we have a point of entry, which is a good thing but that also means we are wading through a pile of shit at moment.

The moat itself is a thin stream of water. I have to think that they are using some kind of a formation array to create this array since the area has no underground source, nor any river from which it could have taken that water from. If that is the case, I have to say that I have been underestimating the mayfires wealth. (What can I say, I would charge an arm and a limb for such an array if I could make it.)

Lets talk of more technical matters, as we walk through here. Right now, the pit that we have will link into the washroom closest to our target. Here we will be taking a bit of a risk. The cesspit and the washroom are separated by a plank of solid wood.

It is supposed to be quite sturdy, so the only method of entry is to explode it. We are using a basic fire formation for this purpose, but explosions are explosion. We cannot really predict who will be there to hear it. If it is one of the captains our plan is fucked on the spot.

Even now we can't be sure if one of the more sharp eared soldiers could be hearing the splashes that we are making. Well, no use thinking about this as we make it to our location.

I can see the plank of wood, with holes at steady seperation. All I can think about it is just how uncomfortable it must be to sit on. Well, I can't really waste time so I get to work.

About half a minute later, I have set up the fire ball formation onto the wood. It is a basic formation that will burn through all of its reserves to create a pretty strong fireball. It should be able to eat up the entire wood in matter of seconds.

Normally fireballs spells are risky in that they are hard to control. It is more likely to start a fire that would be barely in our control. Thankfully, these guys have done the good thing of placing the thing over a source of water. Anything burning will fall into water. There is a difference between a heist and setting the entire thing on fire.

As I think this, the formation activates (the standard activation, five seconds before it will access the mana reserve.) And it begins to shine like a miniature sun.

Well, that might be an issue. The wood is eaten up by the fireball though. I can hear the wood give way to the flame as the entire thing falls with what seems to be a thunderous crash. All we can hope is that this was in my head.

We climb up into the fort and position ourselves next to the door. Anybody enters the first thing that we will do is stab him in the head.

We wait like that for a few seconds that seem like an eternity. Thankfully, it seems that nobody is in this part of the fort at this moment. That is good, since that is saving quite a bit of time.

We walk into the corridors. From here things should be safe. We are about a minutes walk from our target. This area should be relatively free of people though even I don't know what Trevor is going to be doing at the treasury though. That place will have both captains and soldiers.

Thus, we make our way to the location in suspense, at least me. The treasury and the accounting room look almost ordinary, much like the bunch of doors that we have seen while walking here.

The guardhouse is essentially divided into many rooms which are connected by corridors to each other. The two rooms here are one such room. Other than the two doors, there are three corridor doors including ours.

That doesn't bode well for us if we are discovered. At the moment we are hiding near the entrance of our corridor, peeking through the door. The surprising thing is that there is nobody in the room. I would have expected normal guards at the very least.

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Meanwhile trevor has been fiddling with a formation. It is a pretty low powered formation but that is about what I can say about the thing. It takes me a few more minutes of study to understand what it was.

It is an illusion formation and one of the rare active ones. (Illusion formations, especially the active ones are the kind of formations that only illusion mages can use. It takes too much skill to make a illusion believeable. The formation only works to make the casting easy.)

"Are you sure you can run that?", I ask.

"I have my tricks, captain. It would take me years to explain to you all the tricks that I have in my bag.", he replies. "Just be ready to react to anything."

Saying that the man goes back to his fiddling. Soon enough he has the thing running. In front of me are two men, perfect replicas of us. Looking from even this close, I can't tell the difference between us too. The only thing is that the illusions do not have the mana presence of us. That doesn't matter much though, which person would try to sneak into a place without having suppressed their mana.

The two illusory men sneak their way into the room. They reach the door of the accounting room quite safely. The illusory me has already bent over the door, acting as if he was fiddling with the formation (being an illusion it naturally cannot interact with a formation.)

It doesn't take long for them to be noticed. First it is a group of soldiers, along with a captain. It must be the third captain. He is a middle aged man, but quite well built. He gives me the vibe of a general. He won't be an easy enemy to fight.

They begin to attack the illusory us, as the illusory us retreat and begin to run across one of the other corridors.

Within a few moment the room is silent again. I wait a few seconds, as Trevor beside me is scrunched up in concentration. Controlling an illusion like that and keeping it believable must be quite the strain on the man's faculty.

After a few moments of hesitation. I drag Trevor and quickly make our way to the locked accounting room. At the moment all the remaining guards should be in the room, waiting for a prospective invader.

If even one of them glanced outside we would be fucked. Well, I put all of that out of my head. No point in wondering about that now. It is with this focus that I make my way to the door. It is a simple lock. To be Frank, the only thing to worry about is a small alarm formation that exists on the side.

I don't even need to think as strings of mana enter into the formation and break all links it has with the door. The alarm is never going to ring again in its life. Nobody will be able to tell from the outside though. Almost forgetting the man behind me I enter into the room.

For all the effort taken to get to this place, the place is painfully lacklustre. It is basically a accounting room, full of documents and account sheets. Rows and rows of them to be precise. The entire room is so full of cupboards holding these documents that there is barely any place to walk. To be Frank that is an abnormally large amount of paper for the guards of a fort. If possible, the organisation would like every book in the place, I am sure.

For now though my focus is on the formation, the only hint of mana I can detect through my mana sense. (there could be fainter sources, but at the moment my mana sense is not as it used to be.)

The only reason that I even managed to find my target was due to the glow of the mana it emitted. Otherwise it would have been lost in the complex mess of cupboards in the room.

The moment that I get close to it, I can sense the mana formation on the cupboard. It is the trusty old pressure based sigils it is acting as the first layer of defense. The runes of such a formation tend to be quite fragile. Even a touch will be able to break them. Once that happens only god can tell what can occur. Some just tend to be alarms. Some tend to release noxious fumes. the best traps (or the worst for the man in it.) are often the result of a formation mage and poison mage working together.

Such traps though will not exist this close to the hexmountain thankfully. Still, this trap will be more than enough to get me screwed. After all we are hiding in the room right next to the people whom such a formation would alert.

And thus I begin my work. Strings of mana extend into the formation, like cautious rats next to the trap. My work now is to find the section of the formation which will correspond to the trap. The part that will cause the alarm to be raised. If I can do that without damaging the part that will collapse on touch, the security will be disabled. For now I will call this part the non trigger.

Then I will need to start work on the other layers. Shit, I catch myself as in this moment of distraction I almost triggered the trap. It is time for me to return to focus.

And thus I work, my body drenched in sweat for the next five minutes. I don't do much, just study the structure of the formation. It is an art, to hide the non triggering part of the trap. That is why they keep the structure so confusing. What might be the trigger in some formation, will be the non trigger and vice versa.

That is why dealing with security formations is such a hassle. You can never be certain. In this while, I have actually found the non trigger or atleast what I think is the non trigger.

I have been poking it with my mana strings for a while and it has not reacted. It could be that this is the trigger and the formation mage was not skilled enough or too skilled (if this was an accident, not skilled at all. If not, really skilled. It is hard to do this on purpose.)

Screw it, I can't waste time. My mana strings began to vibrate with energy as I grasp the non trigger and crush it.

For a few heart breaking seconds I fear a puff of poisonous mist on my face. Thankfully, the moments drag on and nothing happens. I breath a sigh of release as I destroy the remaining formation. (It is not so hard since it was built to do so.)

Before I can continue on to the next layer though a voice interrupts me.

"Captain.", whispers Trevor as if he is being choked.

I turn back from the formation to look at the female captain standing behind, her claws on the neck of Trevor.