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This story was brought to you by the Tuan'diath Morph, who requested a short story about Caladin using lithomancy.

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          Caladin stopped outside the Jeweler’s on Main street and pretended to be window shopping. So close to his target he was starting to feel nervous that his disguise was slipping. He used the glass window to check himself out: he’d sat out in the sun for days with lemon juice in his hair to bleach it blond enough, then he’d had to go traipsing through the forest hunting for the right plants to make the dye he needed. The new blue color looked right, but he was afraid it wouldn’t survive a close inspection.

          The costume Caladin was wearing had to be assembled without the assistance of magic. At least until he learned of some kind of “clothing” magic. The brass buttons running down the front of his black jumpsuit were the only part he had been able to fabricate with a spell. The pointed ears had been done with a bit of shape-shifting magic he’d written himself, same with the dull glow he’d added to his eyes with a touch of luminomancy. Even still, impersonating a specific person was risky. The slightest detail wrong and the disguise would be worthless.

          With a sharp flip on his heels, Caladin turned to face the building that was his target: Eldira Savings and Loan, the most secure state-run bank in Eldesia. The bank was built to look imposing, with six stories of solid stone pushing straight up off the street. The only difference between the bank and an actual castle was the lack of crenellations. It still had one central spire that overlooked the city but Caladin wasn’t sure how that actually helped keep their property secure. The whole building was a bunch of braggadocio. He was confident they weren’t ready for him.

          After five generations of lying to humans about their inability to use magic nobody was ready for Caladin. He walked a few blocks closer, weaving between the pampered ruling class out for a day of leisure as he did. The eldrin females mostly rode through the streets in hand carts pushed by burly human men, while the eldrin men walked on the cobblestone sidewalks. Only the human servants on their way to and from errands for their masters trudged through the muddy streets.

          Caladin checked the time, then ducked into a potion shop whose back entrance he knew coincided with exactly where he needed to be. Shelves lined the walls on either side displaying potions of many different shades of color. Three human women were in line picking up orders. The man behind the counter was also a human and he wore a plain black apron over a clean white shirt. The ladies in line looked at Caladin with surprise and immediately stepped aside to let him place his order first: they must’ve taken him for a real eldrin, so that was a good sign.

          “Can I help you, s—Thenadin?” The human’s eyes went wide with recognition. So, Caladin thought to himself with glee, the disguise looks good enough to fool someone that knows him.

          Caladin slid a silver coin across the counter and kept a casual look on his face as he did so despite what that single coin represented. “I’d like a triple dose today,” he told the man.

          “Are you sure? That might—”

          “Quite sure,” Caladin cut the man off. “And be quick about it.” He had to admit, watching the man jump for him was somewhat satisfying, even if it was just because the man thought he was an eldrin.

          While the serving man busied himself behind the counter Caladin heard the bell on the door behind him chime to signal another customer had entered. He looked at the glass holding the display behind the counter and saw an eldrin male that looked exactly like him entering the shop. It was the other Thenadin. Caladin’s heart immediately dropped into his stomach. Was he late or was Thenadin early?

          “A minute!” the shopkeep called over his shoulder to the customer he presumed had just chimed the bell. He had his back turned mixing potions. Caladin moved away from the front desk as casually as he could while keeping his back to the man. He pretended to be extremely interested in a display of potions on the back wall and moved across the room.

          Luckily for him, the human customers didn’t challenge either eldrin, and when the real Thenadin saw the other customer wander away from the front desk he seemed happy to snag his spot in line without comment. Caladin made sure to keep his back to the two of them as he sidled over to the front desk.

          “The usual,” the real Thenadin said. Caladin heard a coin clink to the desk.

          “Yes I have it right here fo—Wait, did you say the usual?” The serving man asked. Caladin risked a sideways glance and saw the shopkeep looking confused. His brows were drawn tight as he studied the man before him and he started to pull back the paper bag.

          No! All Caladin’s plans! Ruined just because—Thenadin snatched the bag out of the shopkeep's hand. Success! “Finally, some prompt service,” he said. He dropped an extra coin on the counter and marched right out the shop the way he had come. Caladin kept his back turned but Thenadin didn’t seem to notice him.

          The human behind the counter looked perplexed as he watched his customer leave the store but he smiled to himself when he counted the extra payments. With any luck the human would manage to keep some of that money for himself without his master finding out about it. Caladin slipped out the front door and followed after his mark.

          The alley behind the potion shop connected to a servant’s entrance for Eldira Savings and Loan. Caladin watched with glee while the eldrin guard popped the cork off his Euphoria Potion and took a swig before he got inside. He barely made it three steps before stumbling into the wall and sliding to the ground. Caladin made sure there was nobody else coming in either direction. They were between the high walls of the bank and the backside of the shops on Main street. Nice and secluded.

          “Thenadin?” Caladin called out.

          The eldrin man turned instinctively at hearing his name. “Wussurrme?” the man slurred. His eyes went a little wide when he saw what must’ve looked like himself walking towards him. “Syur me!”

          “Euphoria Potion a little too strong for you today?” Caladin asked, knowing emphatically that the answer was yes. He leaned down and patted the man on the cheek. “Don’t worry. I’m the other you that has come to do your work for you today so you don’t get in trouble for drinking on company time.” In his current state that answer seemed to satisfy him. The fool just dropped his head back to look at the sky and smiled dumbly. Caladin gently removed the ring from the man’s finger. “I need… aha! This was the only thing I couldn’t recreate myself.” Without it, using the employee’s entrance would trigger the alarms.

          Caladin finished the short walk back to the bank that his other self had failed. He found the spot where a section of dirt had been cleaned away by a door opening and closing. There was a circular impression in the wall and Caladin pressed his new ring into it. The door swung outward a moment later.

          The inside of the bank was going to be a mystery to Caladin. He had studied the public sections reasonably well in preparation though, so he had a good idea about the dimensions of the Employee Only sections. The ground floor was the only level he cared about. The floor with the vault on it.

          “Hey, where’s mine?” Someone asked as soon as Caladin stepped in from off the street. He looked over and saw another guard, this one with bright yellow hair cut short to his scalp. They were in some kind of changing room with cubbies of clothes covering all four walls and several benches set into the floor.

          “Your…” Caladin just trailed off trying to think of what the man could be referring to.

          “My potion, man, quit playing around.” The other eldrin held out his hand for Caladin to hand it over.

          It had never occurred to Caladin that the addict might have been getting more than one potion. He needed to get rid of this other man before he noticed something was amiss. “Sorry, uhhh, they were out.”

          The other guard cocked his head back. “Out? They’re never out!” He blinked and looked at Caladin more closely. “Say, you seem a little bright-eyed today. Is something wrong?”

          Bright-eyed? Was that a thing? Caladin tried rubbing his eyes and looking away. “I’m just tired is all.” He tried to shoulder his way past the other eldrin, but the guard placed a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

          “You’re not Thenadin,” he said matter-of-factly, “who are you?”

          All that work on his disguise and it had failed two steps into the back door! Caladin tried to keep his cool while he reached into an inside pocket of his jacket. “Very good, sir! You passed the security test. Management is going to be very pleased with you.”

          “They are?” the eldrin asked. “Security test?”

          That was long enough. Caladin pressed his finger to the slip of paper in his jacket and inscribed the word “sleep” onto it, then he pushed a lithomancy binding onto it. He pulled the paper out and handed it to the guard. “Yes, I’ll just need you to look here…”

          Handing someone a piece of paper to read never seemed to fail. It wasn’t something the guards were trained to be defensive about. The man automatically read the words on the page, which triggered the binding. The guards at this bank all wore personal wards, but they were useless against magic like that. Not when the concept was already inside their head. Just like that, it was over.

          The guard sank to his knees and slumped over. He was already snoring peacefully before his head hit the ground. “Well at least that didn’t make any noise,” Caladin said to himself. He lifted his shirt to check how much mana that little spell had cost him.

          All along Caladin’s belt rectangular blocks of shiny silver metal were sewn in. All but one of them was still glowing bright with unshaped mana. Good. That was good. There was still plenty of mana left incase anything further came up. As a human, Caladin couldn’t actually store mana within his body, but he’d found that carrying around three times the mana pool of a typical eldrin on his belt more than made up for that shortcoming. Caladin dragged the sleeping man into the corner where nobody was likely to trip on him, then pulled out a blank piece of paper from one of his inside pockets.

          With a touch of lithomancy Caladin inscribed the runes for an invisibility spell onto the paper. He pressed the paper to the sleeping guard’s forehead. There was a quick flash as the paper burned away and the guard disappeared from sight. Caladin had taught himself the language of runes, with it, he could use his lithomancy and a bit of paper to cast any spell he could think of. It really was quite useful to not be limited to a single magic harmonic.

          With the guard taken care of Caladin carefully opened the door to the changing room. He entered into a hallway with natural lighting coming in from a series of windows and rather ostentatious decorations covering the stone walls. A plush red carpet ran down the center of the walkway. Nobody was around, and no alarm had gone off yet so he figured he was fine to keep pretending to be a guard. He headed off to his left. The direction of the main lobby.

          After a short walk Caladin reached a turn and followed the hallway to the right. He spotted the lobby at the end of the hall. The main lobby had guests milling about, all talking quietly like they were in a library. Caladin just continued forward at a fast walking pace and acted like he was in a hurry. Two guards were posted at the entrance to the same hallway he was leaving, but they were facing towards the guests. He blew past them before they could ask him any questions and headed straight for the far side of the lobby. The public lobby to the bank had ceilings higher than most multi-story buildings and was covered in intricate artwork with several dwarf-made crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. Caladin happened to know the flock of birds and sky painted up there was enchanted to appear to always be in movement. He also knew that someone that worked there all the time wouldn’t be tempted to gawk. He did his best to look slightly annoyed. Another set of guards were posted across the room at the entrance to the other Employee Only section of the building. Caladin was sure that side of the building was where he needed to be so he looked straight ahead and continued on his way.

          One of the two guards held up a hand as he got close. “Woah there, Thenadin. Where you headed off to so quick?”

          Caladin had an answer prepared for a situation exactly like this. He pulled out a blank piece of paper and held it up, folded in half. “Got a message to deliver. Boss’s orders. It’ll just be a minute.” He didn’t actually say who the message was for, as he didn’t know the names of any of the guards that would be on duty in that direction. He also didn’t know the title they referred to their supervisor by, so he just went by the generic “boss” and hoped for the best. His answer seemed to satisfy their curiosity.

          “Oh. Well don’t leave Ardlen waiting,” the guard said and waved him right on through. It really was that easy.

          As soon as he was out of sight behind the next corner Caladin stopped and pulled out another slip of paper. This one was one he’d prepared in advance with a devilishly complicated spell he called Illusory Silence. He pressed a small burst of mana into the runes and they briefly flashed red before the paper dissolved away. Immediately, the smallest ambient noise filtering down the hall from the lobby cut off. Sensomancy spells were wonderfully efficient despite how tedious they were to get right. He was confident the spell would last long enough for what he needed.

          Around the next corner he knew to expect a small contingent of guards, based on the shift changes he had observed from the lobby in days past. They would each have personal wards: that would mean the only way to harm them would be to first overpower those wards. Caladin readied himself by pulling out a sheet of paper for each hand. On one he readied the “sleep” binding that he already knew could bypass their personal wards. The other he inscribed with a cryomancy spell in case things didn’t go the way he was hoping.

          Caladin rounded the corner and hurried forward with his hands carefully tucked at his side. The hall opened into a larger room with a sturdy metal door at the far end of it. Four. There were four guards on duty. He’d been hoping for only two, but he’d have to just try his luck anyway. After all his preparations, it was too late to turn back.

          One of the men was already looking right at him as soon as he came around the corner. He was standing at the entrance to the room, while another two guards waited back by the door they were guarding. The two in the back of the room were chatting quietly with each other. “Halt!” the eldrin watching the hallway said when he saw Caladin. “This is a restricted area.” The man had the same black jumpsuit with shiny brass buttons Caladin was wearing, but he was armed with some kind of wand.

          Caladin just kept walking and tried to act like he knew what he was doing. “I have a message to deliver,” he said, holding up the paper with the sleep binding on it.

          The guard that had challenged Caladin narrowed his eyes. “It’ll have to wait,” he said. “Nobody is allowed near the vault if they’re not on the schedule.”

          Caladin waved the paper in front of him. “I can wait right here,” he offered. “You can come to me to get the note.”

          The guard frowned, but after a moment’s hesitation he walked forward and grabbed the paper.

          “This better be important,” he complained. “I hav…” The man’s eye’s immediately drooped closed. He staggered for a second, then slumped to the floor.

          That made three.

          One of the guards standing at attention by the vault door saw the interaction. His first move was to hit the alarm on the wall next to where he was standing. The alarm blared out, loud enough to make Caladin’s ears ring. Normally that would have been a big problem, but Caladin happened to know that nobody would be coming. The sound from the alarm wasn’t going to make it down the length of the hall.

          Before the guard who had triggered the alarm was able to turn back around Caladin rushed into the room and triggered his cryomancy scroll. A blast of ice swept out and covered everything in the room. Caladin pulled out a second piece of paper and inscribed a spell for lightning. He fired a bolt off into the first guard’s chest. The guard was more surprised than injured though, his personal ward absorbing the brunt of the attack.

          While the three guards struggled to free themselves from the ice Caladin pulled out an extra-long sheet of paper. He inscribed the spell for Magic Missile onto it. As the spell burnt through the paper Caladin kept adding more lines to the bottom.

          Pop, pop, pop. The bolts peppered the man’s face. Caladin kept going, burning his way down the length of paper. Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. These guards had never seen magic like this. They weren’t prepared. The bolts powered their way through the first guard’s wards that had been weakened by the lightning. Two more bolts after that and he was unconscious and bleeding on the floor. Caladin aimed both hands at the next guard, but only got off two more bolts before he ran out of paper.

          The remaining guards had Caladin flanked. They were already working on spells of their own. Caladin saw the beginnings of a flame in the corner of his eye.

          Caladin took a quick step forward to stand between the two guards. He inscribed a spell of teleportation onto another paper he pulled from his pocket as fast as he could. As soon as he saw flames headed towards him he released the spell. He disappeared, then reappeared a few paces away. He got a good view of the two guards hitting each other with their respective spells in a clash of fire and stone. Before they could recover Caladin inscribed a spell to turn the stone floor into mud. Lutumancy: a so often overlooked form of magic. The spell was cheap as it only lasted a few seconds. But that was just a bonus. The wards the guards wore protected them from direct attacks, but did nothing to keep them from sinking to their waists in liquid stone and getting stuck when it re-solidified.

          The pyromancer spotted the new location Caladin had teleported to first. He threw a lance of fire in Caladin’s direction. Caladin inscribed the teleportation spell he’d just cast a second time, and threw the paper it was inscribed on in front of the attack. There was a pop, and the fire teleported across the room and hit the guard who had just cast it in the back of the head. Purple sparks erupted outward as the ward protecting him reached its limit, then the man’s head caught on fire. Once the ward was down Caladin inscribed a quick Sleep spell, oneiromancy this time, and the man slumped over asleep despite the hair on his head that was still on fire.

          “A vocomancer!” The remaining guard called out. He did his best to twist the top half of his body that wasn’t stuck in stone towards Caladin and aimed a spell at him. The ground beneath Caladin’s feet broke apart and wrapped him up in a layer of broken stones. The stones began to squeeze. “Let’s see you try to teleport your way out of that you rebel scum,” the man spat.

          “Oh, I’m not a vocomancer,” Caladin said through gritted teeth. “And I don’t care one whit about your civil war.” He tapped into his deeper magic. One goal. Find the prize. He didn’t need paper for this.

          “Yᴏᴜ ʀᴇʙᴇʟ sᴄᴜᴍ,” Caladin repeated. His words echoed with power. It was the words the man had just spoken. Caladin bound their meaning and sent them right back at the man who had spoken them. You rebel scum, you rebel scum, you rebel scum.

          The man’s face scrunched up. He tried to fight it, but the words were already inside. The meaning twisted. “I-I,” the man said. “I didn’t realize we were on the same side.”

          Caladin smiled. Yes. He had bound the guard to the concept of being a rebel. For the moment at least, he would be obsessed with the idea of rebelling against the empire. A rebel scum, in all the ways he imagined them to be. Caladin just hoped that would mean betraying his comrades and helping a stranger break into one of his nation’s most guarded vaults.

          The guard released the spell that was restraining Caladin. “Sorry about that,” he said. He used a quick geomancy spell to free himself from the stone floor immediately after. Caladin let him.

          “Hey,” Caladin said. “I need that ward you have.”

          “My ward?” the guard asked. He looked slightly confused. Caladin didn’t want to strain the compulsion on him too much. He needed to play into the delusion to help it along.

          “Yeah,” Caladin insisted. “For the rebellion.”

          “Right,” the man nodded to himself. “Of course. The rebellion.” He removed his belt and handed it over to Caladin. The belt buckle was covered in tiny runes. That would be the source of the guards’ protective enchantments. Caladin snapped the belt around his own waist. With how well his spell was working he figured he might as well try to press his luck and see if he could get the guard to help him break into the vault next.

          “Could you hel—” When Caladin looked back up he saw the guard running a knife along the neck of one of his unconscious fellows. He slashed the sleeping guard’s throat open, spilling glowing eldrin blood all over the stone floor. “What are you doing?” Caladin demanded. Fighting for freedom was one thing, but cold-blooded murder wasn’t something Caladin had signed up for.

          “I’m a rebel scum,” the guard said. “I kill everyone I meet and fuck their corpses.” The man began to pull down his pants. Caladin’s eyes practically bulged out of his head. He didn’t know what kind of propaganda this guard had been sucking down to think that the other side of the conflict was so depraved, but he clearly believed it. Caladin refused to stand by and watch, if nothing else than because it would be disgusting. He inscribed a quick Sleep spell. With any luck the guard wouldn’t be able to remember what he had been about to do by the time he woke up.

          Caladin checked his other belt with the mana bars on it. Only five bars still glowed with magic. Hopefully it would be enough to get through the vault. Caladin examined the vault door more closely. It was a dark golden metal that nearly looked black. That would be that new metal—adamantium—that the dwarves had recently cooked up. He had read about it before, but this was the first time he was seeing it up close. It was supposed to be indestructible. That could be a problem.

          Or it would be, if Caladin had been planning to cut his way through the door. Caladin pulled out the prepared scroll he had made for cracking the vault door. Ariolamancy: a spell called View Past. It did exactly what it sounded like. It allowed the caster to see into the past in a literal sense. The cost scaled with how far back one wanted to look. Hopefully he would have enough mana for what he was planning.

          Caladin completed the spell. A shimmering ring of light opened up in front of his eyes. The battle he’d just gone through began to play in reverse. Caladin repositioned himself so that he could watch the vault doors instead. Watching his own fight would be a waste of time. The spell ran automatically. It had been difficult to figure out on his own, he didn’t really have the technical skill to modify it to jump to specific times. He would just have to hope there was enough mana left to see as far back as he needed.

          One thing Caladin hadn’t been expecting was that the further back his View Past spell looked, the redder and darker the vision got. Even going back only three hours had rendered the spell so dark as to be nearly useless. By the time the events he’d been waiting to witness played out at least a half hour had passed in real time and his mana bars had drained to nearly empty. Shift changes would be happening soon, he had to hurry.

          The blurry shape of an official entered the frame and reached for the locks on the vault door. Caladin squinted hard to make out the numbers as the massive dial turned back and forth. He wrote down the combination as he saw it. 17-189-43-92-260.

          As soon as he had the combination, Caladin stopped his spell. That was all he’d been after. He anxiously rechecked the mana bars on his belt. Only one left, and it wasn’t even at full brightness. He had cut that dangerously close. There was no time to waste. He stepped up to the over-sized combination lock and started to put in the first number. 17.

          He stopped himself. No, that was wrong. The vision had been in reverse, the first number would be 260. Caladin cleared the lock and entered the combination in the reverse order. The vault popped open. He swung the door wide. It was perfectly balanced and took no effort at all.

          Inside, the small chamber was filled with mana crystals. They were carefully organized into rows on shelves and labeled based on weight and quality. Caladin paid them no mind… well, some mind, he stuffed a few of the bigger ones into his pockets, but that wasn’t what he was really here for.

          Tel’Andrid. An entire city locked inside a stone that could fit in your hand. His father had told him about it. The people living inside knew secrets of magic Caladin could only dream of. They had the kind of power that could let a mere human burn down an entire castle with an afternoon of instruction. The power to free his people once and for all.

          It wasn’t there.

          Caladin found the spot. A plaque labeled, “Tel’Andrid” and even an empty slot where it should have sat. But the city wasn’t there.

          “Fuck!” Caladin cursed. It was all for nothing. It was supposed to be there!

          There was no time left to stand around whining. He would just have to take whatever else he could and get out of there. Caladin started shoving mana crystals into his pockets. With a small fortune like this he’d be able to fund further heists. He could figure out where they’d taken the City of Ma—

          Something caught Caladin’s eye. In a spot of equal importance, right next to where Tel’Andrid should have been, was a simple silver circlet. The label beneath it said, “Belorian’s Crown.”

          Belorian, as in Belorian-the-dark-god-who-covered-the-world-in-darkness-just-over-a-century-ago, Belorian. Caladin had never heard anything about an artifact like that. But if it was in this vault it had to be powerful… right? He grabbed it. It would make a fine consolation prize.

          “…they’re not going to…” a voice echoed from down the hall. Caladin’s heart practically stopped. Voices. Someone was coming! He ran out the vault and pushed it closed again. There were bodies on the ground around him, and he couldn’t exactly—

          “Stop!” A voice yelled. “Thief! Raise the alarm!”

          So much for that. Caladin made a run for it. There was only one way out of this vault: the way he’d come in. He charged straight towards the oncoming guards, something they weren’t expecting. He inscribed a quick vocomancy spell while he ran onto one of the numerous pieces of paper he kept in his sleeve. Right before he collided with the guards he released the spell and teleported behind them. There were vocomancy protections around the entire city block, but nothing to stop him from teleporting short distances within the same building.

          Caladin zipped around the corner and more guards headed his way. “Hurry!” he told them. “There’s a thief in the vault!” He ran out to the main lobby and started making a ruckus. “A thief in the vault, hurry!” The guards around the room stopped what they were doing and ran off in the direction Caladin indicated, not suspecting that Caladin was the thief. He reached the front door and shouted at the guard waiting there, “Hurry, man! We’ve got a thief in the vault! He’s killed some of our men!”

          The guard drew his brows together. “Then why are you running the wrong way?” he asked.

          Not a fool, this one. Caladin grabbed a sheet of paper and used the last of his mana to inscribe the word Obsessed onto the page, then sealed it with a lithomancy binding. He shoved it in the guard’s face. “Here, read this.”

          The guard took the page and Caladin shoved past him. He happened to know he’d be studying that piece of paper for a long time. He just had to get outside the range of the building’s vocomancy wards. Then he could get the hell out of this city. He ran out onto the street and ducked into the first alley he came across. He tried inscribing the teleportation runes he needed on another sheet of paper before realizing he was out of mana. Shit! What was he going to do?

          “Stop! Thief!” Caladin turned around to see that two guards had followed him out of the building and into the alley. They looked like the same guards he’d teleported past. It seemed they at least hadn’t been fooled by his telling everyone they needed to run to the vault. Caladin knew he couldn’t face them without mana. He turned to run. Two more guards popped into place on the other side of the alley with a teleportation spell of their own.

          “There he is!” one of them said. They’d figured him out.

          No good… Caladin’s eyes spotted a possible escape. A tight gap between the buildings on his right—the space was too narrow to even be called a proper alley—he rushed down it without a second thought. The gap between the buildings gradually narrowed as Caladin moved. He went from running sideways to sidling frantically. By the time he got to the end he couldn’t squeeze himself any further. He was stuck.

          “Shitshitshit!” Caladin cursed while trying to squirm himself through the last little bit. He could feel the edge of the building with one outstretched hand. He was so close.

          “Cut him off from the other side,” a guard yelled from behind him. Caladin craned his head around to see one of the guards from before. The man raised a hand and shot a bolt of lightning that arced into the side of the building. “There’s no escape, you rebel scum!” the guard yelled at him. Caladin was almost inclined to believe him. But no, he wouldn’t give up so easily! He did have another source of mana, now that he thought of it.

          He stuck a hand into one of his pockets and grabbed one of the mana crystals he’d stolen from the vault. He’d never actually used one to cast a spell before, but they were supposed to be rather mana-dense. Certainly there would be enough to overpower whatever wards this guard had in place. Then maybe he could just teleport out of here.

          “Esᴄᴀᴘᴇ!” Caladin roared. He poured his magic into his voice and fed his spell with the mana in the crystal he was holding. He used the guard’s own words against him. The words echoed in Caladin’s mind. Escape, escape, escape. There was a flash of red light when the spell completed and the entire mana crystal dissolved away.

          The guard stopped advancing. “I-I’ve gotta get out of here!” he screamed. He started backing out of the narrow space and squirming frantically as he did so. Stuck the way he was, Caladin had no choice but to follow after him. He prepared a scroll of paper when he reached the main alley again. He held another mana crystal in his other hand, ready to tap into the power if he needed to.

          Someone ran towards him at a breakneck speed. Caladin inscribed a wind spell to push them aside, but at the last moment he realized they weren’t a guard. It was an eldrin woman in a sundress. The sight was so far removed from what Caladin had been expecting to see he didn’t know how to react. Why was she running like that? He stood there dumbly as the woman pushed past him. She looked like she was in fear for her life. “I have to get out of here!” she hollered. “I have to escape!”

          None of the guards who had been pursuing Caladin were anywhere to be seen when he emerged from the little space he’d squeezed into. He cautiously walked to the end of the alley. When he reached the main thoroughfare he saw chaos. Had he really caused this? Hundreds of citizens were running around the street in various directions screaming. They were jumping out of windows, some were galloping around on horses. He even saw a human servant full-on punch an eldrin in the face to get through a door they were fighting over.

          He heard shouts of “Run!” and “Escape!” as the chaos reigned. They were so obsessed with the concept they couldn’t control themselves. Caladin even saw some guards in Eldira Savings and Loan uniforms among the frantic crowds of people. At least nobody cared about some thief anymore.

          “Note to self,” Caladin said. “Be more careful with mana crystals.”

          He completed his teleportation spell and vanished without a trace.

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