Sell you a Bridge chapter 91 (Patreon)

Shadowcrest August 28th 2010 7:00 PM EDT

It  was going to be a bad night. I knew this for a fact, because I was  about to try to break into my girlfriends house for the second time. I'd  lost contact with her again after our dungeon delve a few nights ago,  and I had the unfortunate sinking suspicion that it was because she got  caught. It had seemed weird to me that Zatara was watching her for days  then just buzzed off, and I'd been right. That sneaky old bastard must  have let her go and followed her to find out what she was doing.

He  clearly hadn't found the clock tower, between Jim and Madame Xanadu we  had that place on lock, but he knew she ran off and she was obviously in  trouble. The best indicator of that was the fact that my charm no  longer worked on the wards. Papa Zatara had clearly figured out I'd been  visiting and was trying to lock me out and Zee in. I was, of course,  not going to let him do that. The question was, was he home? This time  of night he should be helping run the dungeon, but he might have stayed  back for Zee. Then again he was also needed for town portal I was  betting.

Not that it mattered too much, I was getting in  if he was here or not, the only difference was how sneaky I had to be  and what happened after. First thing first I turned on aura sight so I  could study the defenses. As before they were laughably out of my  league, but that didn't matter like it used to. I had methods of  entrance other than the normal. He could ward against human entry, but I  doubted he was warded against everything. I was going to find a gap. I  studied the wards carefully.

I had been busy as hell over  the last month or so, but I hadn't let myself completely fall off the  thieving wagon, I'd been studying every book Jim gave me, honing my  skills as best I could. Jim had accepted that we would be doing our own  jobs for a while, as well as accepting that there was going to be a lull  for the labyrinth but we were far from finished out apprenticeship  after just a month. Even at my speed of learning and improvement I  absolutely was nowhere near a competent thief.

Luckily I  didn't need to be, I didn't have to crack the security system, just find  a way in, I had a few hundred points in the bank and if Daddy Dearest  wanted to make a bif deal out of this I would tear my way out of his  fucking house by force, and bring Zee with me. Hopefully that wouldn't  be necessary, but honestly I was pretty furious and I'd be lying if I  said part of me didn't want to put a shadowy fist the size of a bus  through his stupid wall. I scanned the wards carefully, and I had to  admit I knew exactly why Jim was the only thief to pull off burgling  this place.

The wards on Shadowcrest were...well almost  gibberish to me. I recognized a few dozen random ward sequences and  runes, but they mixed with dozens I had no clue about and a few I was  pretty sure were just fake symbols with trap spells on them just to make  it harder. The complexity involved wasn't even close what I'd seen in  Madame Xanadus place, but it was well beyond anything I could deal with  under normal circumstances. That wasn't ideal honestly, but the few  sequences I did know were a good place to start, so I got to work.

First  I isolated the sections of the wards that corresponded to those runes.  No wardsmith worth his weight in shit just puts together blanket  sections of ward schema tied together in squares like a quilt, and  Zatara hadn't either. I was looking at a tights woven tapestry of magic,  threads wound around each other in dazzling patterns, creating  multidimensional constructs of energy. For a normal person that would be  the end of it, but I could see those threads and whats more I could use  them to get in if I found a gap.

I started checking the  parameters on the ward symbols I could find, gauging their exact power  and flow, the rise and the fall of the buzzing energy showing me  glimpses of the spells at work. Human deflection, perception filtering,  energy barriers, spiritual traps, demonic sanctions, I saw it all. If it  could moan, roar, howl, or rattle chains at you Zatara had something  for it. I was honestly starting to give up hope that I could manage this  at all when I noticed a glimmer of hope. The spiritual defenses on one  of the threads had life energy woven into it, a complex working to scare  off ghosts that I suspected from it brightness might be a recent  addition.

I smirked to myself as I noted Jim's effect on  the wards here, but rather than be upset about it I was thrilled. See,  the wards had life magic woven into them now, not a ton of it granted,  but more than enough to be notable, and the opposite of life was death. I  drew my gun, silencer and all and took careful aim in my aura sight.  This would be a tough shot, mostly because I wasn't shooting at a  physical object, just a spot in the air. Despite that I was sure this  would work, my marksmanship from my ninja training would help for sure.

I  took careful aim, and with a silenced pop no louder than a snapped  branch a bullet tore right through the intertwined knot of life aspected  magic strands I'd identified as my best target. I'd like to say after  that the whole ward fell apart into dust, but it didn't. The life  strands wilted and died and there was a bit of sagging in the fabric,  but they didn't fall. Which was fine, because I didn't want them to. I  wasn't going to collapse the whole ward, I just needed a small gap. I  started pulling threads. Not much, or far, just a few small spells that I  was able to recognize and tug on to get a reaction.

It  took an hour, small fine tugs here or there pulling this way and that,  before I finally got a gap big enough metaphysically to slip a shadow  through. And slip a shadow through I did. I melted into my shadow form,  and following my aura sense (which worked MUCH differently when I was  two dimensional and was incredibly disorienting) I flowed through the  gap I'd created. It was a strange feeling, my shadow form was usually an  on flat ground sort of power, but this required me to use a bit more  versatility, something I couldn't have done without shadow dancing.

The  external wards were sturdier than the ones inside, but not by much,  however the internal stuff was geared towards detection more than  defense, and my shadow form was a ninja skill to start with. Going  undetected was what I did best. It was child's play to follow the path  back to Zee's room and slip under her door. I flowed as a shadow up to  the side of her bed where I could see her crying. "Zee?" She jumped, and  sat up quickly, looking around frantically, clearly trying to see where  I was.

Her  bright blue eyes were red from crying and her face, which was in it's  elven state of flawlessness and not glamoured, was dirty from smudged  mascara. "Morgan? Baby is that you? How did you get in here? You have to  go, if daddy finds you here he's going to be so mad." Her voice was  hoarse and she sounded genuinely worried, but I honestly gave no fucks  about Zatara or his feelings. She wasn't hurt or anything, Zatara really  did love his daughter and he would never hit her, but locking her up  like this was just as bad in my opinion.

I  did not, of course, go. "I'm fine, he can't detect me, I came through a  gap in the wards and once I got inside I stayed in my shadow form. It's  not really recognizable as magic from what I can tell so it bypasses  most forms of detection. I came to get you out of here, are you ok? I  knew something was wrong when I couldn't get a hold of you." I was  babbling a bit but I was so relieved she was happy to see me. If her dad  hadn't locked her up that would mean she hadn't wanted to talk to me  anymore, and I was kind of ashamed of myself for how relieved I was  given how unhappy she was to be here.

She  shook her head. "I can't leave, I'm locked in here. I'm such an idiot. I  thought daddy didn't know anything and that I convinced him in those  few days before our last raid, but he was just trying to trip me up. He  wanted to learn more about who I was with and he knew I wouldn't tell,  so he followed me to our dungeon run. Or at least he tried to. The tower  is warded so he was just waiting when I got home. He dragged me in here  and told me he wouldn't allow me to consort with criminals and then  locked me in here until I "got my head on straight"."

Her  voice was so acidic when she said that I almost burst out laughing. My  girl had authority issues. Usually those didn't apply to her dad, but  he'd clearly pushed too far on this one. Instead I just gave her some  good news. "Nah, you aren't stuck. I can bring someone out with me."  Well, I was pretty sure. I'd used my shadow form to pick things up  before, and I was A LOT more powerful now, so it seemed like it would  work. If I couldn't it just wouldn't work though so it should be fine,  she wouldn't get stuck halfway or something.

Zee  looked...torn. "I...I don't know Morgan. I know locking me up was  wrong, but if he comes in here and I'm not home. He might be in the  house, I haven't seen him for a few hours but he comes in to bring me  food and it's almost dinner." She chewed her lip a bit worriedly before  her eyes hardened. "You know what, no. I'm sick of this. I'm not some  princess he can lock in a tower. This isn't an ok thing to do to someone  you love. Wait here." She climbed out of bed and walked to her closet,  closing the door. She came out about ten minutes later dressed in new  clothes and carrying a bag.

She  shot the approximate location I was in a big grin. "Ok, I'm ready. Now  can you carry me and my stuff at the same time?" I had to chuckle at  that. I could, if I could carry her at all. Extra weight should just be a  factor of power and I had plenty to pump into this. Once we got out of  the wards I would be able to teleport us back to the clock tower, that  should be the safest place to hide out. Zee nodded when I explained  everything and headed over to get close enough for me to bring her into  my shadow. I reached out with shadow manipulation and touched her own  shadow, pulling her through it the same way I used shadow form.

It was sort of a halfway point in the process I'd used to teleport  those fallen in the dungeon, and before I knew it she was in my shadow  with me bag and all. I carefully retraced my steps, while also going as  fast as possible. I had the sneaking suspicion we'd be noticed sooner  rather than later and I wanted to be out of here when it happened.  Luckily my skills were up to the task, and we got out through the gap  I'd made. Once we were clear I shadow ported us back to the clock tower,  and we finally shifted back to normal. I saw Zee staring at me intently  before she leapt on me and kissed me, and I had to admit, I could see  why people played hero, it felt pretty damn great.