Saphena
The first domino has been pushed, now it all ends with it failing mid-way and resulting in my death, or the world that I’ve come to despise goes up in flames so a better one may rise from its ashes. As soon as I got dressed up, checked my personal spy portals to see if anything catastrophic did happen, and at least at first look, things seemed to be going as planned, with the big fight still going on. I left my apartment in a hurry, trying to strike while the iron was still hot, thinking about all the contingencies I had to inspect. Opening a classic portal to get closer, while not being so close to being detected, to not cause them to know I am desperate and attract attention. As it was seen as a sign of weakness to open portals to go to parts of the base. My brain, with so much going on, wonders why portals are always rectangular. ‘Focus, head, please! Think about what you are about to do’
I had contracted 3 minor factions to ambush whoever tried to enter the spy hall on foot, so that no one happened to pass through the right time and to see that something was happening, and so I was going to have to disarm that trap as soon as possible to not have any collateral. They were minor enough to not be a serious challenge for me to overcome if they discovered what I was doing and so inconsequential that any try from their parts would be seen as a desperate grab for power, so no one would listen to them. Going into a hallway with a bunch of arches, statues and pillars, I know I reached the first ambush, saying the number code, so that I would not be killed by my own ambush. That would be a funny way to die, although I had to pass the opportunity for now.
Three people leave from well placed nooks and crannies at the sides of the hallway, using the elaborate design to hide in plain sight. Almost like whoever built this meant to be used this way. “How many did you get?” I ask, intentionally not masking my stress. I found that leveraging emotions you already had was much better than trying to make them from thin air and even if I was not the best manipulator in this endless sea of intrigue, I was sure I could fool such small fry. “Sorry, but no one passed yet… Mis? What happened to the…” he answers.
“You didn’t get a single target and are asking questions?” I interrupt, fuming “You three go home, or go see whatever job you guys can get, a fight broke out between Jervus and Frebbis factions in the main hall. I will let you guys keep the first half of the cash and do not dream of the last half and I will keep this failure quiet” I said, giving the carrot, although not too much carrot, and threatening the stick. They got the message and went in the direction of the main hall. It was not good to threaten people specialized in ambushes, especially considering that factions for hire dealt in reputation more than money, although they knew that if I ever were to be scratched, I had enough weight to throw all the renown they acquired to the ground. One other reason why I liked dealing with small factions.
The next ambush got defused in a similar way, so I directed my sights to the last place. I didn’t believe what I was seeing when I got to the ambush. Not because it was clearly shoddy work as I saw it way before entering, it was because the ambush was in a different spot than planned. That could only happen for one reason, so I immediately open a portal to a Truthteller. I could just leave and use my reputation to back up my claim, although this is one of the kind of situations where I had a better resource. The failed ambushers probably could feel the space bending from this distance, without being able to affect it. The portal clicked in place and I was then seeing a person with a colorful feather pen in their hand, clearly prepared well enough to not be spooked by the interaction. Funny how, in a place where intrigue and backstabbing was so commonplace, where words meant little without threats of force to back them up, some people devoted themselves to just seeing evidence with their own eyes and promising to never tell a lie.
“Truthteller, I present an ambush, of a mercenary group of my own hiring, trying to ambush me.” They began to scatter as they noticed what I was doing, making portals home as soon as possible. Seeing the delay at creating a simple portal home makes me much more relieved, as I could take them on with ease if they ever decide to take revenge on me. “As I noticed that they ran and chose to not contest your claim, I will accept that they were planning an ambush. Do you have a way to verify which group was responsible?” the person asks, nonchalant and writing nonstop. “Yes, Truthteller N has verified my contract with three ambushers for this time. The one group responsible for this place was the second group in the list. Ask the N to verify the group, place and time.” I responded, as I’m used to the protocol by now and knew I didn’t risk exposing my plans. Truthtellers never told lies, although that doesn’t mean they won’t omit it for the sake of their clients. “Assuming it is verified, what is the Truth you want to tell?” they respond, for the first time stopping writing with the pen to not miss a word of what I was about to say.
“The Truth is: The group ‘Webmasters of the Hallways’ has tried to ambush and betray a client. Over” I say, knowing that this phrase will be present at the main message board and thus destroying the reputation of the group forever, and without reputation, they were all permanently stuck at the bottom of the social ladder. I would be sorry, if they weren’t trying to kill me that is. “Who are you signing as?” they asked, and almost by reflex I gave the name I always gave, although I managed to stop myself. “Saphena” I responded.
The Truthteller nodded, repeated the phrase back to me and, as was custom, I confirmed by closing the portal. Having lost enough time, I proceed to go check my final and most important contingency, to see if it had gone off.
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Saphena
Reaching the massive spy hall was always a mix of emotions. Two main emotions that is. Awe at the biggest room in the world, a majestic stair at the center, with rails decorated by the biggest sculptors through time, with walls bricked with thousands of thousands of images of every corner of the city, that makes such a breathtaking sight. Disgust at all the lives that were spied on, of special moments being spoiled, a window to every human life so that it could be taken at any point in time for any reason. In general, the floor would be packed, with everyone going from portal to portal, different groups each responsible for each sector, competing to see who could get the nugget of information that can advance their own interests. And through all this, only one objective in common, maintaining this system.
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Of course it wasn’t possible to spy on every single person at the same time, so there were shortcuts. Only the biggest cities were looked into, since ideas appeared much more commonly and spread much faster than rural areas. And the main tactic against rural areas, if you wanted to learn magic, you had to go to the big cities. Education was a hard thing to balance, too much and the people start getting ideas and becoming powerful enough to challenge you, too little and magic is off the table, so if anyone wanted to not die of any infection, to change their body, to store food and so on, they had to take the risk.
Now, though, there wasn’t a single soul on the floor, since a massive battle was happening. The two factions fighting right now are the two biggest, causing allies to jump in, old enemies to unsheath their swords, exploiters to jump at the chaos to try to get a piece for themselves, bloodthirsty monsters using the opportunity to kill with or without reason. I have been preparing for years for a battle like this to take place, even using a bit of political maneuvering to speed up the date. Not a lot, by any measure, although it would total to a lot of lost time. Now was the time to see if she was discovered.
As you couldn’t make portals directly up, you had to climb up the stairs until you could be eye level with the portal you wanted to focus on, so I climbed tons of steps to reach the correct height, when I sense someone is trying to portal to here. I check the spy portal and confirm that the thin portal I placed there would be cut if anyone tried to get a closer look. So I focus on the ripples in space around me. Is like a feeling of some piece of space, rapidly coming to meet you, like a boat coming and you could only see the waves coming to shore. Soon enough, I feel a kind of click as two pieces of space meet, opening a portal at the entrance, with 10 people leaving it, with a bunch of those faces I recognized. I should have just killed the ambushers instead of letting them run.
“It 's you!” one of the minions screamed, filled with hate, “You that screwed with our plan!”
“Shut up!” boomed the man in the middle, that I can only guess is the leader, “We will kill you and then your boyfriend to avenge our dead faction, will you accept your death or will there be a fight?” he challenged, clearly not attacking because I was hundreds of steps up so neither could hurt each other, as portals don’t deal with verticality. I could run, and maybe all this was just posturing to scare me, although my only way to prevent evidence from leaving here was dealing with them. The boss had to be somewhat perceptive to grow a group, I was pretty high up, so that meant only inconsequential stuff was there, so It was possible to pin me to Auvrey’s shop, especially if I planned to keep going there. I have much more skill than the grunts I saw, the only problem being the boss I knew nothing of. In this kind of a battle of skill versus numbers, being fast was best, since eventually the bigger amount of bodies would have the bigger pool of mana.
That is to say, I had to go fast. Before they get their bearing, I jump at the top of the rail and start sliding. A childish part of me thinks it is so much fun, surprising me, since I thought that part was long dead. I saw everyone start to panic, as clearly they didn’t expect me to go alone and fight 10 people at once, and so they started to push space all at about the same spot, at the base of the rail. So predictable and easy to dodge, they were clearly so unprepared to deal with someone who knew they were there.
As I neared the bottom of the rail, I had gathered so much speed I was deafened by the sound of air rushing. I tugged at space itself to make a portal to the other side of the rail and I continuo to go down on the other side. They start panicking even more, as they apparently didn’t expect for me to use portals too, and start directing their pieces of space towards the other side, but they are not fast enough. As I hit a low enough height, I throw three portals in quick succession, two cutting clean through a minion each, the third being aimed at and defended by the leader, he being skilled enough to do basic interference with opposing portals. Yeah, figured that would happen. As I was about to reach the floor, I opened another portal in front of me, with the exit at the side of the group. Oh, I knew this was going to hurt.
I fly through one end and pass to the other with a lot of speed and go feet first into the first in line. I see their head light up as they understand what I was doing, only to have their chest cave in, as three people in line get barrelled by a high speed woman, killing the first two one the spot and knocking the leader to the ground. My legs hurt so much I am sure they are broken, but my adrenaline keeps it at bay for now. As I kept going through the air, I managed to throw two more pairs of portals, managing to cut down one enemy with a pair, and two with another, making use of both ends to hit flesh. Gravity finally catches up to me as I hit the floor, letting my body roll to minimize damage. My shoulder takes the brunt of the hit, making me cry out in pain, but I still hold onto my consciousness. I threw something at the leader, just to make sure he died before he got his bearings. This was never meant to be a fair fight and serves him right to die on the ground, probably barely conscious.
As I finished rolling, I was about to finish the other two, but I saw how terrified they were. Stuck on the spot like a statue. “You have five seconds to run.” I say through gritted teeth and pain. “If I hear about anything that happened here you are both dead.” I’m sure I looked like a pathetic mess, but they seem to take the out I offered and don’t even try a shot at me. Which was the best idea of their lives, as even though my body was a mess, I still had way more mana to throw around. I see them run, one with a portal, the other with their legs. The fight took mere seconds from start to finish, which was the plan all along.
I take some time to catch my breath a bit, then open a portal to one of the best Position mage doctors in the world. I normally would enter it, but she pulls me in and lifts me at the table with a quick and practiced movement. I’m sure it is not the first time she did that, the way she didn’t even appear surprised to see a broken up woman appearing out of thin air. I then look to my side and see there are a lot of people in different tables and states. Oh, right, there is a battle going on. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have time to make me sleep, only giving some slow acting numbing thing in my blood, which means I howl in pain as bones get moved to where they were supposed to.
All this caused because a man wanted revenge he could never get himself. Note to self, do not trust your contracts will always act rationally.