Solaria
“Bye, I’ve to go” I managed to say, before I bolted out of there. Really ran as much as I could, since I was both overwhelmed, desperately needing some air to think, and itching to get some exercise done. What does it mean? Lunario couldn't be truly the son of Yeasul, as it was clear Lunario's sudden “My dad is also a Time mage” proclamation was clearly true, if a bit misleading. Your dad wasn't A Time mage, he was THE Time mage, and while regular people could hide their magic from their kids, ‘the timelord’ or whatever couldn't. I'm sure there is some fucked up story of how he got adopted, like killing the mother in front of the infant or making the kid kill the true parents. ‘Maybe is fucked up enough that we can put the clock in jail' I think sarcastically, since ‘putting the clock in jail' is a saying that means an impossible task.
The very source of the idiom being Lunario's dad. Everyone knew that house because of how frequent the accusations against him are, every single one being dropped by the end. He was an absolute powerhouse for the country, conquering swathes of land by outplaying multiple countries with way bigger militaries, so by now everyone accepts that he is going to go unpunished as long as he is useful for the country. And he probably will, since the spells he developed are a tightly guarded secret he will take to his grave, as most high end mages do.
There is no way for me to exaggerate this guy, whether it be about his accomplishments, crimes, tactical genius or rumored powers. Oh, and I have a crush on this guy's son. My mind is thinking of having a nice dinner in his house and having to ask his permission to date Lunario. I start giving my all to running, putting so much effort thinking becomes hard.
Saphena
I found a way in, dodging the guards stationed at the main hallways. I was deep inside the Ghelgliani, a faction that is supposedly way more powerful than they projected. Feigning strength or weakness, both had their own advantages depending on your goals, although making yourself look weaker was generally seen as risky, so only really strong factions could get away with it. If you choose to go through that route, you have to hold back resources, because if you look richer than what you had the strength to back up, people will attack you. It's fine the first time, as the attacker will be surprised by your strength, the problem comes after that, because now you actually took some damage and may not have strength to back it up. You basically had to not use your full capability to not make yourself a beacon to attack after attack. A common tactic to weaken opposing forces was to make them fight each other, so if badly managed you would do that to yourself. Making your enemies destroy themselves is such a frequent play that anyone with reason looked for who was behind when two factions fought.
And that is what I’m doing right now, seeing that I got a tip that this faction was a massive player behind the last conflict. Another risk of looking weak is that you actually have to reduce the sizes of perimeter guards, the only reason I managed to get in. It wasn't so much of a ninja-like infiltration, trying to stay hidden for as long as possible could only get you so far until someone saw you and shouted for help, which was especially hard to do when the whole base was all bland corridors. No, infiltration meant getting inside the outer layer of security and walking around like you know what you are doing, nodding to guards like they should know you, listening for intel that gets you further in and bossing around the inexperienced, since they were easier to fool and wouldn't know who the people who should boss them around were, always easy to spot by the ‘I’m anxious that I'm doing something wrong’ posture.
I got as deep as I can right now, as now there will be no new employees and my free source of authority ran dry. For now, I was using the persona of a friendly spy, and as much as the irony is a good bonus, spies were ideal since they are not the type of people you should recognize by sight as the job requires. They had fail-safes to test the spies, like weird rules of who could talk to who and codes for every interaction. Lucky for me, you could also skirt around those, looking like you are always going to the next spymaster and repeating an overhead code and intel with enough routine annoyance to make them not even bother to see if the code is right. And you better bet I was annoyed at all these security measures wasting my time.
I got enough data to leave, heard tons of countries being cited, the frequency of those giving an approximation on how important each was for the faction, how they operated, how much different ranks have authority over others, how the division of labor is organized and, most important of all, they're indeed huge, much bigger than the couple guards stationed at some hallways may lead a curious looker to believe. There must be so much more that I missed, since we are in an essentially infinite building, with distances between key places being better described with country measuring scales. They for sure were a massive player behind the scenes, although they must have expanded operations by a LOT, that is for sure. It simply isn’t sustainable to have what I estimate is tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of people working with you and staying under the radar for too long, although it is a really crude approximation, basically guessing how much further does this go, how many parallel corridor there must be and how the density of people changed. Well, if I got the tip that something was happening here, the major players for sure already had precise headcounts.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
As I was thinking of all that and walking in a bigger room than usual, an imposing hallway of sorts, I felt someone near me manipulating space, faster than I ever saw before. I’ve been part of big factions in the past, so I knew casting in the middle of any base was bad news and everyone was trained to collapse them at any cost, so I reached for the disturbance in space, applying the most amount of mana I could to the corner of the frame of the soon to form portal. The opposing mage tried to apply an opposing force to not let the frame bulge more, but portal frames couldn’t support not having four right angles for too much, so it collapsed. I knew the battle wasn’t over, so I scanned the troves of people, most having frozen at the clear attack that was happening. That is the problem with using numbers to solve a problem, if I wasn’t here like it was supposed to be, a portal would have opened in the middle of the base and an army could have been waiting at the other side. The numbers only give a false sense of security.
“It seems there are indeed competent people among the trash, the person who broke the portal, reveal yourself” a powerful voice boomed, if a bit raspy. ‘So it was a test now, wasn’t it?’ I kept silent, to make sure it wasn’t some kind of trap, so hands started to fly up to claim my deeds. There were more than ten hands thrown up, making it obvious most people were lying, so I knew what was going to happen. Square pieces of space were thrown from the source of the voice, not close to the speed of the first test, clearly just meant to find the person who could have stopped the simulated attack. Unfortunately, they were all small fry, so they were cutted down like swatting flies. I hated this world for many things, the willingness to kill just because you could was on the top of the list.
“Stop, it is me!” I shout back, blocking two attacks at people close to me. I can’t get to the more far away attacks, so I just hope he doesn't snap the portals in. I catch my breath, as I see the squares of space settle in each person left, only leaving up to the caster if he wants to snap it in place. It feels like time has stopped, as the seven surviving people are about to die. And I realize that time hasn't stopped, as one of the people breaks the frame that could have killed them, the rest realize what they are supposed to do and that time hasn't really stopped. Unfortunately, five people didn't get the chance and were dead.
“Awful, all of you!” The voice says, with such profound disgust, and I finally see who owns this voice as he turns to face me, “Except for this one, what is your name and position that I will promote you.” As I have time to breathe, I hear the accent in his voice, ‘somewhere to the east’ is the best I can tell from memory, as my main focus was in Neohazelel. And I see his face, with the eyes of a person that killing doesn't mean anything, a face which hides a perpetual rage. That is to say, coupled with the absurd speed he can manipulate space means he is a terrifying force of nature. I realize I was staring at him for a bit to long, so I say in a bit of a gamble: “I cannot give you my name and position, I have no way to verify if you are not an enemy of the faction and doing all this theatrics to test our defenses and spying on us.”
“Huh, you really are way too competent,” he says, baffled that someone was using the security measures that are in place, “so just give me a name and any position and it is yours, no need to say your current position.” I was thinking how to respond, settling for: “Can you give me your name and position so I may verify if you even have this kind of power? Do you even supersede me.” Normally I would hold my tongue and find this kind of information behind the scenes, although now wasn't a normal situation. Especially if my suspicion is true.
“I am Ghelgliani, the head of the faction. So yes, I think I supersede you.” he responds, confirming my suspicion, and after a bit of a pause, he continues: “I like your style, although I am not a bottomless pit of patience, so say the job you want now or this offer is gone.” I knew I couldn't actually ask for any position, I needed something with freedom to move around and enough access to information to benefit of the massive size of the faction. I walk to him, putting my mouth as close to his ear as possible so the people who were curiously watching this interaction don't hear. “ My name is Saphena and I want to be a domestic spy” I gambled, backing up. Domestic spies were responsible for spying on the faction itself, to look for betrayals, slackers and spies. It's a position who requires a great deal of trust, and he really shouldn't agree, as I have a face he never seen. He could kill me right now, since we were so close that I couldn't react in time to stop him, although I was pretty sure he wouldn't risk killing an asset like me.
His face was suspicious, as he should be, looking straight at my soul with that dead eyes of his, trying to see who I really am. Good luck, if you found out you can share it with me, would be much appreciated. “I like your audacity, sure you can have the spot, just know you will not be having a second chance if you misstep.” he says, still holding a piercing stare in what I guess is supposed to be another test. “If I was planning on making mistakes and going unpunished, I would not be here.” I say with true sincerity I hope even his dead soul can pick up. He waves me to follow, so I assume I passed whatever test it was supposed to be. I guess I got a job to spy on spies while being a spy. Huh, now that's funny.