88. Subterfuge I (Patreon)

The city was waking up.

As the rays of lights announced the arrival of the sunrise, the streets of Ferilyn began becoming lousier and lousier. As for me, I carried a body.

The person was alive, mind you. But I doubted they would awake, or rather she. The unconscious mage was quite androgynous, but between a quick survey of the memories and the fact I was carrying them like a sack of potatoes, I could assure they were a she.

I was lucky to not find any civilians on the streets, but I could have avoided them easily if that were to be the case. The guards on the Lan’el military zone were a whole other deal though.

Man and woman looked at me with suspicious gazes. The woman recognized me, and I recognized her. I had seen her before as she was on guard duty.

The guards’ minds were plagued with thoughts but funnily enough, those tended to be placed in the holes and blood on my tunic rather than the limp body on my shoulder.

They didn’t pry any further, but I detected some use of magic, and they allowed me in. With utmost certainty, they had informed their superiors, probably Fynn. Why was he outside of the camp and with a body at that, the guards asked themselves.

It didn’t matter to me, I walked toward the two eleven-star mages, which apparently were together at this hour of the day. Did they sleep together? I didn’t really care.

Soldiers slowly came outside their comfortable one-man dormitories and gave me suspicious looks. I wasn’t bothered. I was pretty tired myself. I had no sleep and I had to fight two mages in a row. One a ten-star mage and the other a goddamned eleven-star one.

At this rate, my next fight would be against an eleven-star mage followed by a twelve-star one.

I chuckled.

Making my way into the administrative building, I ignored the looks of the tired soldiers who had night duty. There was no one in Amira’s office but as I opened the door, I noticed I triggered an alarm. They would be here soon enough.

I rested the woman’s unconscious body onto the biggest cushion in the room and began investigating. I put my hand on her forehead, which was hidden with thick and tight robes, but I wasn’t restricted to physical contact, only proximity.

Mystic’s Dominion flared, lavender mana spawned on the physical plane.

Firstly, I casted Force Unconsciousness once more. It was far easier this time, as the target was already unconscious. For my second trick, I casted a familiar spell, True Recall.

Yet the objective wasn’t me, but the dark-robbed figure.

The memory spell allowed me to recall memories of the soul. Any soul.

True Recall was a complicated spell. Maybe only of the eighth star, but its difficulty could rival Astral Self the further on you went onto the memories. For foreign memories though? We were entering Mystic’s Dominion level of complexity.

Time rewound as I skimmed through her memories. I saw the moment I shoved my hand into her mouth, which in retrospect was pretty gross, but back then it was my only hope to keep her alive. I saw the skirmish and I was actually surprised by her point of view.

This woman, or shadow as she liked to refer herself, had mindboggling acute senses. It was most likely due to divination magic, but she was able to sense my Astral Projection when it was in the spiritual plane.

Just how?

Only mystics with Soul Sight could sense a weak spell like Astral Projection on the spiritual plane. You needed soul magic to interfere in the plane. And yet she saw it. Or at least felt it.

That had been her downfall, actually. Because she had distracted herself with my seven-star spell, which I had only used to check on the person who was thrashing divination magic at me, I had caught her with her guard down.

Anyways, fun discovery about Astral Projection. I had used the spell because it was way cheaper than Astral Self and I was far beyond the point where I could insta-cast seven-star spells, but the lessened strain on my mind proved significant. Quantifiable levels of significance. With this I meant that I could move my real body and the Astral Projection without any problems.

Since a while ago, I was able to control my body and the spiritual construct at the same time. But it was sluggish and not that useful. That was no longer the case. There was no delay whatsoever, I could just split my mind and be at two places at the same time. That was an incredible boon I was waiting to exploit.

This also raised the question if I could do this because of my newfound superb-true Soul affinity or if I was able to do so since then. I wouldn’t know, I hadn’t casted Astral Projection for a few years now, opting for the better version that was Astral Self. If the case was the latter rather than the former, my mouth watered thinking how long it would take me to control my physical vessel and Astral Self at the same time.

Unlike the projection, Astral Self could somewhat be classified as a “physical” body. And having two physical bodies was really really good. Still one mind though. I wasn’t no mentalist. I couldn’t just spellcast Parallel Consciousness like Kirielle and have a second brain.

That was exactly my theory on why she and her brother were both of the eleventh star. They did just straight up get double the computational power with one spell, and that’s not even factoring in the myriad of other passive, brain-enhancing spells at the disposal of Mind practitioners.

Huh. I utterly lost my train of thought there, didn’t I?

Aaanyways... The shadow’s memories and thoughts contained really interesting bits of information. Incriminating ones at that. But I doubted this worked as evidence. I mean, I was literally raping the woman’s mind. This was probably illegal. Probably.

I don’t know the legal code. But she still tried to kill me, so I think it’s allowed if I stretch a bit my rights of self-defense.

And this shadow had also been stalking me for a while. Not a lot, but a few days. She was there all the time I didn’t notice her until now, she was even there when...

Oh...

I felt as if a bucket of cold water was dropped on my head. I looked at my time with Marissa beneath the white ter’nar. And... It was uncomfortable to see yourself having a passionate kiss with another person’s eyes.

I wanted to get away from that memory as soon as I could, but something caught my attention, and it wasn’t Marissa’s coquette attitude.

The shadow stalker had been repelled by a force.

A compulsion so strong that had affected her physically through a projection of her own. Now, Mystic’s Dominion could be considered a field-type compulsion, as the woman had called it on her memories, but I didn’t use it. And if I did, a compulsion that strong needs to be targeted, it couldn’t just be applied in an area.

Or could it?

I wasn’t sure, I was going to recall that scene from my point of view to see if or how I did it (mostly how as I was the only one capable of such a feat, the only other mage there was Marissa and she was just an aeromancer), but alas, I was interrupted.

The door of Amira’s office shot wide open with a powerful motion, hard enough that it may as well have torn the wood from the hinges.

“Why were you outside, Private Nightfallen?” The Ceaseless Storm entered the room shouting, with the Arcane Veil behind it.

“I didn’t have any prohibition on where and where and where not I could go. Did I, now?” I replied.

“You were explicitly told I wanted you in the camp to have an eye over you, and you know it damn well!”

Before I could refute any argument or Fynn could shout at me more (which was totally justified), Amira interjected.

“For the High Arcanist, is that person alright?” The arcanist rushed at the limp body of the shadow mage. Also known as penumbra.

“I would say, so. She has been poisoned and suffers from heavy exhaustion, but she’ll live.” I gave my lackluster healer diagnostic.

“Who has poisoned her?” The charitable soul that was Amira asked.

“Herself.” That raised some eyebrows.

“Elaborate, soldier.” Fynn’s rage subsided as he realized something was going on.

“Who you have before you is none other than a ten-star shadow mage spy.” I began. “I got assaulted by her and when she was incapable to kill me, she decided to commit suicide, as her previous fellow did.”

“Are you implying this woman is related to the saboteur that tried to blow up the leyline?” Command Sergeant Major Albeyr inquired.

“I’m not implying anything; she is related to the suicidal cryomancer. I’ve seen it.”

“How have you seen it?” The man asked.

Oh, I may have spoken more than I needed. Fynn’s intuition was scary.

“Let’s say I got a hold of her memories. In self-defense, of course.”

“Self-defense?” He gave me a tired sigh, reminding me that it was early in the morning. There was too much adrenaline in my body that I had forgotten.

“Self-defense.” I reiterated with a nod.

“Whatever,” Fynn sighed. “This woman is guilty of attempted homicide at the very least with what you have just told us. Considering she’s a shadow mage, she will most likely be a divinator, so maybe we can also press charges of illegal scrying. And because she tried to kill herself after failing to murder you, she must have been hiding something. Something worth taking her life.”

“So, you are saying that I did right?” I looked for confirmation.

“No.” He was swift with his negation. “But you are free of mind-reading accusations. Severe ones, at least.”

“Yeah, I should read a law book or something,” I admitted.

“Indeed,” Amira told. “In just a few days you have broken several laws, some more severe than others.”

“Like murder?”

“That isn’t even the worst one.” She added nonchalantly.

“What can be worse than murder?” I said, taken aback. “Did I lose my memories and forget about other crimes?”

“I doubt so.” The arcanist swayed her head. “I was referring to your tampering with a leyline.”

“That’s worse than murder?”

“According to Ferilyn's civic law, yes. Yes, it is.”

“That makes no sense.” I refused to believe touching a river of mana was a more punishable crime than damned murder.

“Actually does.” I was getting tired of her neutral and all-knowing tone. “Ferilyn’s infrastructure heavily depends on the mana administered by the leylines, like the Violet Sky itself. So, the government doesn’t want anyone to have the leylines... well, exploding. Do I also need to remind you we are magical beings and need a certain threshold of mana to survive?”

“That’s... that’s a valid point.” Amira’s voice may be filled with smugness, but she had centuries to back up her words.

The Ceaseless Storm reentered the conversation.

“If you have finished talking about the innumerable soldier’s crimes,” Innumerable? “we can get back at the issue at hand. This unconscious assailant of yours.”

“Yeah, what about her?” I asked. “I was parsing through her memories before you arrived, but I feel you won’t be comfortable if I continue doing so.”

“It’s not about ideals, soldier, but law.” The experienced sergeant told. “And besides, we possess more elaborate methods of subterfuge to make someone talk here. Of a legal kind.”

Amira’s face contorted in repulsion, as Fynn lightly smirked. I knew where this was going, and to be honest, I wasn’t against it.