PftA Book 5 - Chapter 2 - Spies and Daggers

“Trinity Emie!” a kastet female in simple, dark gray robes called out as the body of my latest opponent disappeared into my storage.

I eyed the kastet curiously as she approached. Her robes nearly matched her fur, which had a strange, almost navy sheen to it. The hint of color was also reflected in the humanoid feline’s vertically-slit eyes.

Shadow and Void? I wondered.

I cast a quick Assess, but only Shadow appeared on my information readout. The kastet also showed up as a Tier Eight, which had to be wrong. Every Tier Eight combatant should be on a Tier Eight world.

The incongruity immediately set me on edge.

“Wow! I’m such a fan!” the kastet said as she jogged over to me.

Her inflection made her sound young, but she had to be at least a couple of centuries old to be Tier Eight. Even in the dungeon, it took time to gain levels.

“Uh, thanks,” I said awkwardly. “Shouldn’t you be assigned to a Tier Eight world?”

I glanced at the mini-map Lisa was using to track the known invaders. Lisa had the kastet marked with an orange-yellow dot, which meant that my Interface Assistant was uncertain of the kastet’s alignment.

It looked like I wasn’t the only one suspicious.

“I got an exception,” she said almost guiltily. “My uncle works for the Council. He set things up so I could stay local since I have a weapon that lets me fight above my tier.”

I wanted to chastise the lower-tier mage for her recklessness, but it wasn’t my place. For those who could manage it, killing an opponent above their tier provided a major bonus to experience.

If the kastet really did have a weapon that allowed her to bridge that gap, she’d be able to get much farther along in her progression here on Aegeas than she would on whatever Tier Eight world she might have otherwise been assigned to.

“Well, be careful, and good luck,” I said before stepping away.

“Do you want to see it?” the kastet asked eagerly as she revealed a softly glowing dagger.

My instincts flared a warning at the sight of the dagger, and I took an unconscious step away while casting Haste to allow me to think faster.

The peach glow implied the weapon had some kind of active Soul enchantment, which, depending on the type of enchantment, could definitely allow someone to fight above their tier.

Soul injuries were not only excruciating, but they also took a very long time to heal without intervention.

“Here, just Identify it,” she insisted as she stepped closer.

Her hand shot forward faster than I would have expected a Tier Eight to be capable of moving.

Thankfully, I was able to avoid the blade. Without Haste, I might not have been able to react in time.

Disappointment flashed across the kastet’s face.

Had she really thought something like that would be enough to take me out?

I responded by targeting her with an overpowered Pause. I’d already gotten used to overcharging the spell after fighting a few of the invaders.

The kastet chuckled.

“You think your Time magic is going to work on me?” she asked mockingly. “Even if I was two tiers weaker than you, your spell wouldn’t work.”

She shook the hand holding the dagger. On her wrist was a thin enchanted bracelet I’d seen worn by several other invaders. I wasn’t sure why her artifact prevented my magic where others had failed, but I suspected it might have something to do with her hidden Void affinity.

Individually, my magic would have been able to overpower either variable. The artifact couldn’t withstand my affinity, just as a Tier Eight Void affinity wouldn’t be able to resist my stronger magic.

But combined, they were more than the sum of their parts.

That she had a Void affinity was an assumption based mostly on the female’s fur and eyes. However, I knew that just because something didn’t show up with Assess didn’t mean it wasn’t there.

I often hid my affinities to prevent drawing attention.

I pushed more mana into Haste, slowing the world around me to a crawl.

The suspected kastet infiltrator moved to lunge again but found only empty air where I’d stood only a moment before.

She jumped back in pain, her empty hand now clutching the stump of her right wrist. The dagger and talisman had been removed, along with her hand, by a carefully placed portal.

They now sat safely in my storage.

Given the oddity of this particular invader, I decided to take her prisoner instead of killing her. If she really was some kind of infiltrator, maybe the Council’s Inquisitors could get some useful information out of her.

With her anti-Time magic artifact no longer in place, my spells easily found purchase.

Putting her in Stasis first wasn’t specifically necessary since I could just put her into the stasis section of my demesne, but I was already going to have a hard enough time explaining how I was able to store a living being in my inventory.

I had Lisa reach out to Anya for guidance on what to do with my prisoner while I moved on to the next fight.

As the invaders were slowly whittled down, they shifted to more destructive tactics, targeting buildings and infrastructure instead of seeking direct combat.

I also noticed several critically injured invaders disappearing in a plume of Space mana, and I made note of the fact that they likely had some kind of escape artifact.

It wouldn’t do any good to hand the kastet over for interrogation if she was just going to disappear as soon as I removed Stasis.

Three hours later, I was taking a short break in my demesne when I received a message from Anya asking me to bring the prisoner to Council Headquarters.

Most of the fighting had died down in Garnet City, though there were still a few stragglers running around, causing as much damage as they could. Even so, there were enough capable defenders that I felt comfortable leaving to make the delivery.

Garnet City hadn’t been the only city attacked during the Collective’s opening salvo.

Five other cities, including Ascendence, the capital of Sira where the Council’s Headquarters was located, had also been targeted.

Anya and one of her bodyguards were standing in the lobby waiting when I arrived via the Council’s teleportation platform. It was one of the most secure teleportation networks in the Alliance, and I was unsurprised to find it was still active.

“I’m glad to see you uninjured,” the white-haired Fate Mage said with a smile.

“Me too,” I said. “Any issues here? I saw Ascendence was on the list of cities that had been attacked.”

“It was only a probing attack,” Anya deflected. “The saboteur was caught before he could disable the [Spatial Lock], so they weren’t able to do as much damage as they did in other locations.”

“Did they breach the city?” I asked as I followed Anya through the winding corridors. Her bodyguard walked a few steps behind us.

“They did, but the casualties were limited. Like I said, it was just a probing attack. There were only a handful of invaders.”

“Do they have a lot of Tier Tens to throw at you?”

“We don’t think so,” Anya replied. “In fact, I suspect most of their strongest fighters were part of the assault. At least one of them was right at the pinnacle, but I don’t think he’s crossed the actual threshold yet.”

“So… not a significant threat?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Anya replied. “The naga seems to be one of their primary leaders, but he and the other Tier Tens are all protected by some powerful anti-scrying artifacts. It’s very hard to see anything involving them. The artifacts almost have to be rift rewards of some kind.”

I nodded in agreement. Rift rewards were some of the most advanced items in existence. As much as we tried to emulate the rift rewards, crafted items never quite reached the same quality.

Some came close, but if all things were otherwise equivalent, the rift-created items would always be superior to those made by hand.

“Well, that sucks,” I muttered.

Anya’s expression shifted into a light smirk, and she said, “It does, indeed.”

“So, what do you want me to do with my prisoner?” I asked when we arrived in an unfamiliar room. “I removed all of her enchanted items, but I can’t guarantee she doesn’t have some other way of escaping.”

“Yes, we heard about invaders teleporting away when they were about to be defeated,” the dwarf behind the counter said gruffly. “They were also collecting all the bodies from both sides. Not sure what their reason behind that was, but a lot of people are bothered by it.”

“Necromancy?” I asked curiously.

“It’s the most likely possibility,” Anya admitted, receiving a glare from the dwarf. Ignoring him, she continued, “Though Death magic can’t animate corpses alone, if they have a Soul Mage and maybe an Arcane Mage working with them…”

I shivered at the thought of fighting the undead. That was something that was supposed to stay firmly in the realm of fantasy.

Undead rifts were rarer than tri-affinity mages, and they were always destroyed as soon as they were discovered.

“I really hope they aren’t planning to do something like that,” I said with a frown. “How would we even combat the undead? They don’t die like normal opponents.”

“With great difficulty,” Anya said solemnly before her eyes lifted to meet mine. “There may be something you can do to help prevent that. We should discuss it in my office once we are done here.”

I immediately agreed. If there was a way that I could help prevent an undead attack, I was all for it.

“If you could please remove the prisoner from whatever storage you are keeping them in,” the dwarven guard said with a hint of inquisition.

“I got an upgrade to my inventory as a rift reward. It lets me store people in stasis,” I said by way of explanation.

The dwarf nodded, accepting my claim without further comment.

The time-locked kastet appeared in front of me, her body still frozen in an expression of pain and incredulity as she clutched the stump of her wrist. Her body was covered in a makeshift toga I’d created out of a set of sheets since I didn’t want to leave her naked after removing all of her belongings.

It wasn’t that I particularly cared about her modesty or her feelings; I just wasn’t an asshole.

“I assume she was dressed differently when you froze her?” the dwarf said with a raised brow.

“Yes. I have everything she possessed here,” I said, waiving my hand and depositing the items on the counter beside me. “The only thing I kept was a dagger she tried to stab me with. I want to examine it to see if I can reverse-engineer some of the runes.”

The dwarf immediately looked affronted that I would withhold one of the items. But before he could say anything, Anya stepped in.

“That’s fine. It’s yours by right of victory. I just ask that you submit a copy of the enchantment used once you uncover it.”

“I can do that,” I agreed. “I plan on focusing on the dagger when we’re finished here… unless I have another assignment right away?” I added.

“Nothing right away,” Anya replied dismissively. “But we might as well head to my office now that we’re done here.” She glanced over her shoulder at the dwarf. “We’re done, right?”

The dwarf grunted and collected the pile of items I’d left on the counter into a small, cube-shaped spatial item. He then tapped the kastet with the cube and nodded in satisfaction when she disappeared.

The cube was familiar. It reminded me of the item Sir Eri’Non had given me to provide to the dungeon’s Gatekeeper all those years ago. Had it held the rest of the kidnapped Earthborn he’d been holding in stasis?

I hoped not. I didn’t want something like that on my conscious. It was already heavy enough.