Dragon's Tale 82 (Patreon)

Escaping from a base that was clearly designed to keep a sorceress prisoner — and was over-designed for that purpose — was a sufficiently tense affair without turning my back on said sorceress’ blackmail that was the reason I was in said prison in the first place. 

Yet, I turned my back to her and started walking, the tenseness better than displaying fear. It was a risk I needed to take for the future of our relationship. “Keep your magic suppressed,” I ordered to my unwilling companion as I took another step. 

“I don’t appreciate your tone,” she whispered, though that didn’t prevent her from following me. Clearly, her lack of appreciation was shadowed by her dissatisfaction with her living conditions. 

“And I don’t appreciate being blackmailed, but here we are, beautiful. Grow up. We can’t get everything we want from life.” 

“But—“ she started, but I interrupted her. 

“Feel free to ask one of your other sorcerer friends who’s also an expert on wards and runes to save you if you’re feeling slighted,” I answered tersely. “Oh, wait!” However, despite the sharpness of my word, it was not just an angry rant, but a little trick to show my displeasure, trying to set expectations that I wouldn’t be catering to every single whim of hers just because I needed her help. 

That earned an angry glare from my guest, though, luckily, she suppressed her magic as she did so, showing that she wasn’t the type to pointlessly escalate the situation. With that, we finally stepped into the corridor, leaving the last major ward that still belonged to her cell. 

Leaving only the need to leave the prison protected by active wards, and defended by hundreds of mind-controlled soldiers, forced to be attentive and loyal at the same time.

Simple, right.

I carefully expanded my magic, trying to make sure there were no guards close. Seeing that there were none, I turned my attention back to the cell, making a couple of additions that would provide the person that opened the door with the biggest surprise of their life. 

“Can’t you integrate those traps into the wards more,” my ‘guest’ commented as I pulled my magic? “Anyone with the magical sensitivity of a snail would catch them.” 

“Not if you don’t want to trigger those wards and bring all the guards to our presence,” I answered. 

“But what’s the point, any half-decent mage would notice those traps on the door if they check it properly.” 

“That assumes that it would be a mage that opens the door, and not an ordinary guard,” I explained. I certainly didn’t appreciate someone questioning even the simplest move I was making, but I wasn’t in a position to teach about the rudeness of her actions as well. Not with a lot more to be done. Instead, I stayed still for a moment while tracing the direction of the wards, trying to find the center where they were managing the wards. 

Luckily, finding that location was not difficult — another reason why making inward-facing active wards wasn’t the best idea. It gave another easy target to be taken down — relatively easy. 

Though, it didn’t take long for me to correct that particular thought, because as I traced the magical direction toward the center, I had met with another set of active wards, this time facing outward. 

My eyes widened. A layer of active wards was already excessive, but creating a second one to protect the center of the first one was certainly a lot — especially since it wouldn’t protect the controller against more indirect interventions as my initial infiltration had proved. 

Yet, if I wanted to get out without an alarm, my best option was to break through that second ward and prevent the ward managers from controlling. 

“Follow me,” I said as I expanded my mana carefully once more, once again splitting my attention, using it to find any guard that might be patrolling while simultaneously camouflaging us. Still, I was lucky that they didn’t post any guards to her cell. My guess was that they were afraid of her somehow breaking the mental tricks — which, considering her healing expertise, wasn’t exactly impossible. 

As we walked, I started passing more guards sleeping in their beds. Yet, there were three differences. One, they weren’t living in crowded rooms, each assigned to a solitary bedroom. Two, each was radiating magic enough to mark them as mages, impressively strong considering the power that was radiating off them. 

Three, the number of mind-manipulating wards woven in the rooms was overwhelming. 

“Do you have any idea how they don’t get mad with that many wards?” I asked. 

“Who told you that they don’t?” she asked. “The experiments I showed you are not the only reason I’m a ‘guest’ in this place.” She flared her magic, isolating three wards on the structure of the mages. “Without these three suppressing their madness, it would take only hours for them to get crazy.” 

“Oh, really,” I said even as I stretched my magic, smoothly sabotaging the ones that she had pointed to. “Any idea why they are relying on such unreliable guards.” 

“Who told you they are guards?” she said with a scoff. “They are just experiments.” 

That made much more sense, I realized as I considered every single security measure. Yet, before I could comment on that, we had arrived at the control center, eight guards standing at the entrance, alert and ready to launch. 

Luckily, not enough to notice us behind the layer of camouflaging magic. 

“Do you want me to deal with them?” she asked. 

“Go ahead,” I said. It was a risky move to trust her to do so without alerting them, but I was willing to take that risk to get a better understanding of her abilities. After all, she should have a reason to take the initiative in such a manner. 

I watched as her magic spread slowly, barely a wisp wrapping around the guards — none of them a mage unless they were suppressing their aura. The effect wasn’t immediate, but I watched as their attentive expression slowly disappear, and they turned dazed and bored. 

At first, I thought that it was just another sleeping spell, but her wisp of magic was interacting with their minds in a different manner. It took a while for me to realize she was unraveling the changes that were made by the wards, and with those gone, their alertness had been reduced significantly. 

Enough to fail to raise the alarm when she followed up with a sleeping spell. 

“Impressive,” I said as I looked at her smug expression. It wasn’t the most time-efficient way of dealing with a bunch of ordinary guards, but it was a good way to keep her mana presence limited, especially since they were just a couple of feet away from the active ward that would catch any big flare. 

“I know,” she said, not bothering to hide her smugness. Her act was also an excellent way to show that, even as a healer, she was still a sorceress, with all the danger that implied.  

“Now it’s my turn,” I answered. Luckily, I didn’t need to make a choice between being efficient and showy. I had no choice buy being showy against an active ward. “Just repeat the trick on any guard that comes close, I need the time.” 

I shifted my position several times around the corridor, carefully carving several runes in a complicated pattern, carefully fueling every single one. Her presence was fortunate, because, without her assistance to keep the guards away, I would have needed to split my attention between powering the runes — subtly enough not to alert the mage managing the ward — and the patrols. 

The web of runes I created started gathering energy, a ray of light hobbling between them, though despite the visual show, its magical presence stayed hidden, concealed by the other runes I had created. And, as I added more and more runes, the ray of light between them gained strength slowly, the pale light casting a strange hue on us. 

My unwilling partner sent me a suspicious glance, clearly not expecting such a comprehensive structure, her gaze showing she didn’t understand my ultimate aim. Yet, she didn’t ask a question, so I kept my mouth shut as well, ignoring her wordless question. 

If she was curious, she could always ask. 

What I was doing was excessive even against an active ward. There were three layers. The inner layer was there to hide the magical presence of the runes from the controller before they could react, and the middle layer was the main weapon to break the ward before they could raise the alarm. 

The interesting addition was the outer layer. They existed to hide the aura of my assault from outside, but not directly like the inner layer. 

Hiding a direct assault in progress was different than hiding the runes. Concealing logs in the darkness was one thing. 

Concealing them when they were on fire was something else. 

Yet, this time, the enemy gave me the tool I needed to conceal that explosion in their obsession to create several layers of security to their secret experimentation location. 

“Be ready,” I warned my dubious ally as I started gathering my magic…