Arakiel il Kalanaar led the active members of his party to a small, shallow bend in the river just north of Fillansforst’s keep, where a particularly large collection of reeds obscured an entrance to an escape tunnel that led out of the keep, but also back in.

Aurora and Selene for once agreed on something, namely that they’d never fit into the rather tight and damp tunnel and after some assessment, he had to agree that it did indeed look rather improbable. Granted, the people building it hadn’t considered winged immortals and they could be hardly faulted for it.

Nonetheless, he insisted on entering through here and in the end, after a bit of arguing, only Ezekiel and him entered as Mellia would rather not get her clothes wet and dirty.

She did give both of them a relief enchantment, however – and when she didn’t collapse on the spot, Arakiel proudly praised his little sister who was also growing alongside them.

He would’ve liked her to be present when he found the heirloom, but alas, some things could not be forced.

With a warning to immediately return to the army if something happened, Arakiel departed alongside Ezekiel, his partner-in-crime that had turned half-mute since his ‘defeat’ in al-Aliriq’s arena. Arakiel couldn’t tell whether he was just sulking, or if there was a deeper-lying problem that needed addressing.

The escape tunnel had all the qualities that Mellia brought up as a reason to not head down here. It would’ve been dark were it not for Aurora’s gift of light, but there was not much he could do against the damp soggy air, the low earthen ceiling that looked about ready to collapse at any moment given the way the supportive wooden beams bend or even the ground was just this wet, muddy sludge.

Arakiel briefly tried to raise a subject, but was met with a curt answer telling him to focus on the task at hand. He opted to give no snide remark because Ezekiel was kind of correct.

When he saw the tunnel leading upwards, Arakiel took on Aurora’s aspect and reached for one of the dawnshards that were kept in his belt like a potion. He tapped the white and focused on one of the sigils he had come up with.

As soon as he noticed the color forming the elliptic rune with a single dash through it, he reached for the symbol right in front of him and pulled it against his chest, causing an incredibly faint aura of wind to form around his body.

From one moment to another, the slight clanking noises of his armor ceased, getting suppressed by the wind while his head was the only part that remained free.

He then instructed Ezekiel to let him take the lead after which he drew upon the shard’s gold while focusing on another spell. Like before, Arakiel grabbed the golden rune that formed on its own as a response to his musings and drew it into himself, causing a brief and faint shimmer of gold to spread across his body. An anti-magical buff that should make it harder for Thaumaturges to tamper with his mind.

Since he still had a bit of gold in the shard remaining, he added another protective astral alteration on top, one that would see the first mundane weapon strike against him miss.

As soon as he spotted a wooden door, he hid Aurora’s tiny orb of golden light inside one of his doublet’s pockets. He then dropped her aspect while motioning for Ezekiel to stand still.

Darkness and silence returned in an instant and Arakiel carefully made his way up the sludgy ground until his gloved hands reached the wooden door.

As expected, it was blocked, but not locked. However, Arakiel hadn’t been idle in the past years. He pulled out Aurora’s light once more and briefly examined the construction, which turned out to be fairly simple all things considered.

He protruded a thin saw from this Spatial Ring, inserted it into the little slit between door and frame and began to work on the bar that kept the door in its position.

With the task clear, he pocketed the light once again.

Just two minutes later, the door swung open, giving way into a thoroughly dark cellar and after ensuring that everything was clear, he once again protruded his source of golden light which was really quite practical. Alas, he doubt that it would last that much longer. For now, their buffs were still so very short-lived.

Aurora’s light revealed a storage room made from actual stone, the kind where lots of items ended up vanishing because of improper documentation. Barrels, crates, little sacks and the like.

It smelled of grain which he found surprising as even someone like him knew that ground grain and moisture weren’t on the best of terms to put it mildly.

Either way, he motioned Ezekiel to follow as he hurried over towards the only remaining exit, another wooden door that was only secured by a small crossbar that he also needed to saw through, which was a bit annoying, but whatever.

Finally having gained access to the keep proper, Arakiel and Ezekiel made their way up a set of stone stairs that turned to wooden ones by the end, where yet another door awaited. This time, there was a faint source of light behind it.

Luckily, this one wasn’t locked, yet Arakiel froze mid-opening when he suddenly heard footsteps approach; soft, without any indication of mail, plate or leather.

When he heard a middle-aged woman’s voice complain about someone not having closed the cellar’s door properly, he tensed up and prepared himself.

Arakiel struck just as the woman reached for the door. He lunged forth and at a thoroughly overwhelmed maid that he jumped and tackled to the ground while pressing his gloves against her mouth. She let out a muffled cry for help as they landed on the stone floor. With a single, poised flame-enhanced strike, he knocked the servant unconscious before he looked around.

Another set of stairs led further upwards in the back while he was in another, much drier storage room, this one got mostly filled with cheese, sausages and herbs that had been hung out to dry.

It smelled of coriander, basil and leek. There was also a faint note of smoke and something being in an oven.

Arakiel shoved the impressions aside to focus on the matter at hand. This wasn’t a time to get distracted.

He motioned his partner-in-crime to remain and silently hurried up the next set of stairs, hearing someone hum while working in what had to be a kitchen. The further up he went, the more a strong scent of grease took over.

Thanks to his muffled body that was further enhanced by roughly four-fifths of Aurora’s flame, he easily knocked the cook out with another poised strike in the back of the man’s neck after which he hurried down to signal Ezekiel to follow.

It was a bit surprising, but the people down here in the bowels of the keep hadn’t even realized that their settlement had been attacked and most likely taken in full at this point.

From what he had learned from Count Filann, the treasure chamber was in the lowest level, which should be somewhere around here.

Outside the kitchen, he entered into a narrow, mostly wooden corridor with sparse lighting provided by glowing splints. Furthermore, there were faint urging voices in the distance, somewhere above him. But they were far away for now.

Arakiel briefly hurried through this level and found nothing of note except a snoozing servant that ended up like his coworkers.

With no further choice, he and Ezekiel hurried up another set of wooden stairs, towards the talking voices that came closer and he could make out snippets that warned of invaders, pleas to Count Filann to return and the like.

On the next level above, their surroundings changed from dreary and simple woodwork to slightly more representative. The floor was paneled, the walls were limewashed and little braziers acted as bad, but serviceable sources of light. In addition, the doors and their frames looked as though someone had at least tried to put some effort into their creation.

For now, Arakiel kept evading the voices as best as possible as he briefly checked each room since he had no actual idea where the treasure room was located and when he only found an assortment of chambers for the servants, he decided to ask one of the residents directly.

As luck would have it, he witnessed a maidservant heading downwards and since she hadn’t yet raised alarm, Ezekiel must’ve hid somewhere.

Arakiel hurried after the woman, his own air alteration keeping any sound that happened inside of it confined and while no sound would be able to enter from outside, it didn’t matter when his head wasn’t affected.

He quickly caught up with the young woman dressed in a simple, white-grey linen dress. He jumped her from behind, locking her in his grip while covering her mouth.

The maid briefly tried to scream, but became very cooperative when he showed her the black dagger.

Arakiel dragged his prisoner into one of the rooms where he briefly interrogated her about the state of the keep and when he was done, he knocked her unconscious as well.

Having learned that there were less people here than he anticipated, he returned upstairs where Ezekiel waited, casually leaning against one of the walls with arms crossed.

The amethyst-eyed planeswalker raised an eyebrow and shot Arakiel a glance that could be interpreted in many different ways, but Arakiel opted for the one that gave him an excuse to briefly outline what he learned, which basically boiled down to there being roughly 40 more people in here, most of which were staff or courtiers. She hadn’t been able to say how many combatants there were, but the number couldn’t be too big as Count Filann had set out with the majority of fighters.

Knowing this, Arakiel opted for a different approach alongside Ezekiel, especially as the voices they heard grew more worried with each reply.

By the time an authoritative male voiced called for discipline among the staff, Arakiel had removed five more servants from the picture as he copied Ezekiel’s air alteration which made him quicker on his feet while also renewing the enchantment that kept him silent.

Swiftly and silently, he began to clean up the level while his partner-in-crime watched his back, disposing of the bodies in a way that ensured they couldn’t be found right away.

This way, the two cleaned up more or less the entire working staff in the two lower levels, at which point they ascended towards the keep proper.

The environment became even more representative, but he paid little attention to the fine wood, the soft carpets or the few pieces of art that began to decorate the walls and furniture.

Instead, he more or less became one with his surroundings just like he used to do when he broke into other people’s homes. Back then, he had blinked a lot to move from one secure spot to another, but with his swift and silent steps, he could achieve a similar effect.

Adding to this, the security measures here were laughable compared to the heists he used to undertake back in the day.

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One did not hire a Traveler to break into a common keep. That had been an entirely different league – several, in fact.

For now, he kept to the shadows to silently remove lone people from the picture, especially those that looked like they wouldn’t be able to fight back a lot and so far, every single person had fallen to a swift and clear strike at their nape or head.

When he eventually spotted a pair of men dressed in armor worriedly looking down from a balcony, he went for a lethal approach, slitting one guy’s throat before plunging the dagger into the other’s neck.

On this level of skill, people hadn’t yet developed the kind of sixth sense that would make such an approach nigh impossible against higher level planeswalkers.

Assassinations of high-level individuals did happen, but they were exceptionally rare unless the killer was really damn good.

Arakiel was decent at best if at all, but his alterations alongside the element of surprise proved enough to clean out the keep one by one.

And although he should not, he began to feel just a little bit of satisfaction for every person he took out, whether lethal or nonlethal.

The inhabitants of the keep even noticed near the end that people were missing, but it was far too late by this point.

If anything, it helped his cause when the remaining ‘survivors’ banded together in one of the large halls where he then informed them by means of an echoing voice that they could either lie on the ground and surrender, or he would kill them like he killed everyone else.

His psychological warfare worked on many of the Middle courtiers and servants, most of whom were obviously people that had never gotten into a dangerous situation before.

When he eventually charged in to kill two male courtiers that tried to play the heroes for the assembled ladies, Arakiel didn’t even need to say anything.

The two dropping bodies were enough for the other cowards to remain on the floor, begging for their life.

He ordered his partner-in-crime to collect those who were conscious and use them as a little present to the Smokeless Host, after which he set out for the treasure chamber that lay in the first floor, but the entrance ended up being on the second floor.

Count Filann hadn’t lied, but he had omitted the truth.

Either way, he quickly discovered the trapdoor where a ladder led into a small chamber that was surprisingly empty safe for a mannequin that held an elaborate and highly luxurious green dress that was beset with gems, pearls and lots of silver. More importantly, however, it also held a thin argent circlet that consisted of two intertwining pieces that ended in playful, twirling manner in the front, where an emerald in the shape of a tear dangled.

He reached for the circlet and examined it, noticing filigree etchings on the inside that spoke of high craftsmanship.

This was the heirloom artifact he was looking for and as expected, he couldn’t store it inside his Spatial Ring. When he also couldn’t store the dress, he became a little perplexed but also excited.

Besides these two items, he only found lots of women’s clothing and shoes. Apparently, Count Filann had stored everything belonging to his dead wife here.

Since neither had any need of it, Arakiel stored what he considered to be worth something and then hurried to meet the approaching Smoking Host’s soldiers who were undoubtedly a little surprised when the keep suddenly lowered its bridge and opened the gate.

Ezekiel had been a littler faster than he hoped, but Arakiel still managed to exit the keep just before the first soldiers were about to head inside.

The men of the Smokeless Host greeted their Lord Executor and his right hand with cheers and applause. Arakiel basked in it, accepted it, felt glad that they did it – he even took satisfaction from the way his men shackled and collared the obvious nobles and then, under loud sneers from the Holy Transcended’s chosen people, marched them towards a new stage of their lives.

Down in Filannsforst, his men had begun to go from house to house in order to raise the tribute that they were owed.

Arakiel and Ezekiel then left them to their devices and headed back to Aurora, Selene and Mellia, who had begun to have a small picnic at the river’s bank, thoroughly uncaring for what happened nearby.

When he asked Mellia what exactly they were doing, she merely silently pointed at the riders of the Smokeless Host in the distance who had everything under control.

In response to her cheekiness, he presented the circlet to her, explaining that this, according to Count Filann, should be an artifact that condensed one nature shard every two weeks in the form of the little pearl-shaped emerald which could then be tapped to enhance one’s spellcraft.

Mellia reached for the circlet without hesitation and put it on and although it was a little loose, she would be able to wear if it she used her hair a little. As a means to immediately test it, she easily plucked the emerald tear from the circlet.

She held the uncut gem in her outstretched palm and then briefly gestured something before she knelt down while touching the ground.

The green shard in her hand began to glow while beneath her in a small circle of perhaps one or two meters, the grass, reefs and flowers began to bloom at a rapid pace, much to Aurora’s excitement.

It was also the first time he saw her using this kind of magic, but it made sense. Enchanters were the ones that affected their surroundings the most, although he was sure that even Nature Evokers had a way to make things grow, just differently.

The plants stopped their magical growth a little later while the green tear in Mellia’s hand crumbled to dust, affirming that this had indeed been a nature shard.

Artifacts like these were usually very expensive to make and hardly worth it for any seasoned planeswalker, as their cost and frequency stood in stark contrast to its overall use which was minor at best. But as with most low-level artifacts, Constructors had to make them in order to grow in their profession and as part of a regalia, it certainly made sense.

Either way, it’d certainly prove useful to Mellia. She agreed and once again thanked him the gift, but when he presented the dress to her, she noted rather curtly that it wasn’t only tasteless to wear another woman’s gown, she was also a bit too petite for that kind of clothing.

He rolled his eyes but didn’t press the issue as she seemed to have taken quite a bit of offense from that. Arakiel just decided to store it in some bag later and then sell it further down the road.

Then, he and Ezekiel sat down to enjoy a little picnic alongside the girls.

Nothing like a bit of unwinding after a small but intense mission.

Fillansforst not only fell in under an hour, it was also looted in under half a day so that the Smokeless Host began to march northward by the time late afternoon hit, leaving only a minuscule token force behind that’d ensure a modicum of order and, more importantly, a steady supply of food.

When Arakiel heard a detailed report on the spoils, he was more or less happy with the result. Most importantly, his army’s morale was as high as ever. Now, with but a little taste of Middle spoils, they’d be all the more eager to reach Irialswell.

The peasantry had been spared of any tribute while the settlement’s burghers, meaning anyone not a peasant or a noble, had mostly opted to pay their tribute with coin and food. Only 13 families had given up one of their kin as tribute, with two young men and eleven young women. This, in addition to the 24 nobles or suspected nobles, had led to a count of 37 captives, 33 of which were considered old enough to be enslaved.

Besides that, the army had confiscated a large amount of food and supplies that had filled the Host’s dwindling rations.

All in all, the jinnum siblings considered this a more than adequate opening for the war.

Later that evening, the only event that was out of the ordinary compared to the previous weeks was the auction of the prisoners, since the members of the Smokeless Host had the first right of acquiring some fair Middle flesh for their household.

From what he heard on the next day, all 33 were sold while the four noble children were kept as hostages.

The march of the Smokeless Host through the fields and forests of the duchy of Irialswell turned out to be rather uneventful all things considered, which was as excellent as it could be. The scouts did an admirable job of preventing any potential threats from warning the capital or anyone else for that matter, effectively causing no major change in the way the army proceeded so far.

That was about to change with its arrival at the heartlands, which were more flat and cultivated fields and orchards compared to wild, untamed forest or meadow. The temperature had also begun to drop and for the first time in a while, Arakiel had spotted clouds in the sky.

In three days, he would only have one more month to fulfill Sultan Zimraan’s request, yet he wasn’t growing worried just yet.

Quite the opposite, really. As long as they kept this pace, they’d reach Irialswell in those three days and if everything went well, they’d hopefully conquer the town in under a week, which was still more than enough time to march east and take the other settlement.

If anything, the sight of the soldiers that followed him only furthered his confidence in this whole operation. Their discipline was excellent, their morale was high and the enemy was none the wiser as far as they knew.

He had no illusions that the duchy’s capital would fall as quickly as Filannsforst, but it’d fall on time.

Even if the proper onset of winter in a few weeks might slow them down a little, it wasn’t that big of a deal since they were supposedly rather mild here in the south.

The army passed by three hamlets over the course of the next three days, all of which were taken and conquered by a swift strike of the cavalry companies.

Unlike the towns, all people living there were considered peasants. As such, the occupants only confiscated some food and then went their way and the army’s discipline prevented any assaults on men, women or goods.

The surrounding environment was one of many harvested fields and orchards full of ripe fruits that were only partially harvested yet. Quite a few small streams winded through the relatively flat land and the amount of crops that this duchy produced was truly staggering – it was truly a breadbasket as far as the eye could see.

On the eve of the third day, the scouts reported that Irialswell was still in the dark about the encroaching army. Instead, they were in the process of preparing a large harvest festival which, according to some prisoners’ information, would happen tomorrow.

Arakiel immediately felt reminded of the Boundary, but then reassured himself that his army would not stoop to such lows.

If anything, it was a massive chance to take the town by surprise.

After consulting his advisors, he ordered his army to lie in wait in some distance to Irialswell, where they’d wait until it was time to strike after dark.

Then, he joined his scouts to gain a personal impression.

Arakiel arrived at a small patch of forest close to Irialswell, which lay on the edge of two crossing rivers, one smaller and one larger all while being surrounded by a highly cultivated landscape that had been harvested for the most part.

The duchy’s capital consisted of three parts as far as he could tell. A sizable keep made of stone right in the corner with an adjacent town for wealthy individuals. This sector of the down was walled in, leading to a larger section that most likely housed the burghers while the domiciles close to the wall were rather simple in nature – or rather, they lacked a second floor while most other buildings had at least two to even five or six levels.

Most buildings had been built in truss except for the wealthy houses close to the keep, which appeared to have been built from stone alongside sizable gardens.

Granted, it was quite hard to tell from the tree upon which he had climbed, but he just wanted to have a look for now.

He guessed that around two thousand, give or take a few hundred, lived here and even now, he could see patrols on the walls.

Unlike Filannsforst, Irialswell would end up a proper fight from what he could tell.

And yet he noticed how many people converged in the several squares in order to built rows of tables, little stages and the like. The citizens were undoubtedly building for an upcoming feast and a harvest festival would make sense.

Given the proximity to a river, he further tried to see if they had any sizable ships, which was not the case. There was a small harbor close to the larger river, but not the size that should make him worry.

On the other hand, he didn’t see any major weaknesses. They had a fortified gate and the one small stream that flowed into the city from outside was secured by an iron grate.

The most effective strategy would be to open the city gates during the feast and then surprise them.

He stayed for a little longer and gathered some additional information, but the only real way he saw was to take control of the gate and once again, he felt as though he should step up to the challenge, prove to his people that he was a fighter just like they were.

A general had to lead from the front, after all.

He returned and shared his plan with his advisors, who agreed more or less, only that they insisted on coming along alongside a handpicked number of elite fighters.

Arakiel saw no reason to refuse.

He went to bed feeling quite ready for the morrow, a feeling that his docile seraphim only nurtured with her supportive actions.

She was truly his light.