Chapter 60 It’s Clear. Do It.

  Isaac and Shamesh slipped into the CSC store building via a third floor window. Shamesh had dispelled the alarm easily enough and Isaac’s shadows made sure that they were both invisible and that the window didn’t make any noise as they entered. The pair snuck through the building and found themselves at the door to the first basement level.

  Isaac closed his eyes and sent his focus into the shadows. All of everything around him slammed into his consciousness almost hard enough to instantly knock him out. It took him a moment to dial everything back to just the sight of everything from a singular localized point. With great focus and mental effort he moved the pinprick of shadow that he was using as an anchor for his senses. He was forced to sit on the ground almost instantly as a sudden wave of dizziness assaulted him. He had not kept up his practice with that specific skill and it was coming back to bite him.

  Isaac’s little shadow eye slowly moved down the first step. The sudden change in reference from vertical to horizontal was jarring. After that, Isaac decided that the wall was a better surface to traverse in order to go down the stairs. He rode the diagonal trim that guided the stairs to the bottom until it reached the door at the bottom. His real body tilted back and forth as his shadow-perception shifted, from vertical to horizontal to vertical and then horizontal again, until it was back on the floor again. He moved it forwards until he could see out into the next hallway through the small opening under the door.

  ‘We are clear.’ Isaac told Shamesh. Shamesh opened the door and Isaac opened his eyes. Isaac teleported straight to the bottom of the steps. Shamesh closed the door behind himself before he jumped the entire way to the bottom where Isaac caught him with the shadows that were keeping him invisible. Isaac used his shadow-perception to see what was on the other side of the door again and then teleported out into the empty hallway. ‘Wait.’ Isaac instructed Shamesh and made sure that no one was coming from any of the side hallways. He could only hope that no one that was in any of the meeting rooms was planning to leave right as Shamesh made his entrance. ‘Clear.’

  Shamesh quickly opened and closed the door as he made his escape from the stairwell. While he did so, Isaac used his shadows to make sure that the door didn’t creak on the hinges. The pair sneaked through the first level of the underground complex until they reached the door to go down to the second floor. ‘Those wards will counter my attempts at removing them.’ Shamesh confirmed what Isaac was afraid of. ‘Once the mana leaves me and enters a ward via the dispel, another ward will break apart the mana that I was going to use to break apart the ward.’

  Isaac frowned. ‘I guess we are doing this the long way.’ He told his retainer. ‘Keep an eye and ear out for the residents. I’ll be preoccupied.’

  ‘Understood.’ Shamesh replied with the same inflection that Lenna would have given.

  Isaac's first targets were the anti-magic wards in each of the Poison Bubble combination traps. He placed his hand on the first one and made sure that there was a solid space of shadows around the ward before he got to work. He sent a separate string of shadows into the ward that turned back into dark mana upon contact with it under his command. The dark mana then was forcefully infused into the ward a little at a time. The process barely touched Isaac’s ocean of mana but he couldn’t make it go any faster. Without knowing the exact conditions for activating the trap, Isaac wasn’t going to risk just blowing the wards away with supreme magical force. There were too many of them for him to get rid of all of them at once and, aside from the Reality Bubbles, any combination of the currently active wards were completely lethal. Well, he had a good chance at surviving the water and poison smoke combination, but any of the other ones had a chance of obliterating him and Shamesh faster than they could react, if they weren’t prepared for it. They would not be prepared for it if Isaac had just made an attempt at shattering them all with a few dozen streams of concentrated mana.

  It took just over a minute for the ward to break apart on its own from the constant mana imbalance that Isaac had given it. As far as any of the other wards were concerned, it was no different than a natural degradation of one of the other wards. There was almost no chance of something like that setting the others off, because if it would then they would all be entirely impossible to change or maintain. If any form of messing with the wards was not allowed, then they would be like a hundred barrels of blasting jelly balanced precariously atop a heavily sloped roof.

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  Isaac had just started on the second one when Shamesh sensed someone coming. ‘Resident.’ Shamesh sent to his master.

  ‘Shit.’ Isaac swore and made sure to turn any exposed dark mana back into shadows and bring it with him as he and Shamesh got out of the way. A person carrying an empty tray walked up the stairs and passed them towards the basement snack and refreshment room. Isaac’s eyes scanned every inch of the person that they could, in an effort to find a key or a badge that would allow them safe passage through the doorway. He found nothing. ‘Did you see anything on them that might keep the wards from targeting them?’ Isaac asked his retainer.

  ‘No.’ Shamesh confirmed what Isaac had seen. ‘Maybe the wards do not activate unless someone that is under the effects of an invisibility spell attempts to go through.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Isaac replied and returned to his task of shutting down a potential coffin before it could be assembled around them.

  In the end, due to far too many interruptions and a duo that thought that the hallway was an amazing place to have small talk, it took Isaac and Shamesh nearly an entire hour to disarm all of the wards set into and around the doorway. They had to wait for another staff member to pass before the pair could slink down to the next floor. As they scouted that floor, they stumbled across something that really shouldn’t’ve been there.

  ‘Shamesh, can you tell if a teleportation circle is one of a pair or a part of an array?’ Isaac wondered while he stared at a teleportation circle, that was set into its own room, that had a double-wide doorway without a door.

  ‘I am afraid that I cannot.’ Shamesh replied. ‘We would need someone properly versed in rituals and teleportation magic.’

  ‘Like Alexander or Jala.’ Isaac grumbled.

  ‘Yes.’ Shamesh replied.

  ‘If we damage one of them just enough that it won’t work anymore, do you think you’d be able to fix it so we can use it later?’ Isaac questioned his partner in crime.

  ‘I have no idea.’ Shamesh told him honestly. ‘It all depends if there is a synchronization ritual that is tied to the act of connecting a teleportation circle to the other one or ones in its designated network.’

  ‘Okay, we’ll come back to this problem. Let’s keep looking around.’ Isaac said with a physical sigh to his mental words.

  The pair continued until they found a storeroom. Shamesh was left outside as Isaac shadow-stepped into the locked room. Inside the storeroom there were cabinets full of files of merchandise and around twenty separate barrels with different drugs and other illegal substances in them. Everything was labeled.

  Isaac didn’t care about the drugs so he quickly moved on to reading all of the different labels on the cabinets for which types of merchandise were cataloged within them. ‘Weapons, Jewelry, Identification Papers, Magic Items, NMMI… what is that?’ Isaac asked himself and opened the cabinet.

  Inside the cabinet there were folders that were each labeled again. As he flipped through them he finally found something that he was positive would be useful: ‘Invisibility Equipment.’ He thought to himself and pulled out the folder in question. He opened it and found a few entrees. The first was a cloak that made whatever was on the other side of it invisible… indiscriminately, regardless of distance. It just looked like a black void. Next was a square tent that projected whatever was on the other side of it in all directions to give the illusion of it being invisible. It was a great idea for couriers and other people that traveled the wilds alone but relatively useless for most others. There was a scabbard that was invisible and made whatever weapon was stowed in it invisible as well, only while stowed. That one was quite interesting for assassins and other ne'er-do-wells. Isaac put the paper entrees back and returned the folder. He did learn one thing however; at the top of the page of each item there were the words: ‘Non-Mage Magic Items.’

  Isaac then moved on to the other cabinets. ‘Monsters, Mortals, Machines, Miscellaneous Contraband (Altia).’ Isaac hummed in thought. ‘I wonder if there are other branches in other countries that have their own version of this one.’ He thought and then moved on to the last one: ‘Information.’ Isaac opened the cabinet and only saw one paper with a list of prices based on how detailed the information needed to be, how hidden the information or person was, how important the person was, and how dangerous they were. ‘That’s what I get for hoping they just had dirt on people laying around in the open.’ Isaac chastised himself. ‘Shamesh, is it clear?’

  ‘Yes.’ Shamesh replied and Isaac shadow-stepped out to meet him. The pair continued on for a while longer. They passed a few more meeting rooms until they stumbled across a teleportation room that actually had closed doors that were locked.

  ‘Where do you think it leads?’ Isaac wondered.

  ‘Perhaps one of them leads to another branch and the other leads to their base of operations?’ Shamesh offered.

  ‘That’s exactly what I was thinking.’ He replied. ‘We need to make sure that no one escapes through either of these.’

  ‘Or enters.’ Shamesh added. ‘Reinforcements could prove problematic.’

  ‘Agreed.’ Isaac said with a nod. ‘Can you make sure that this door doesn’t open at all anymore?’

  ‘I could leave a Fireball on the ritual circle that will detonate if it is activated, as long as I can enter and casting it won’t set off any wards.’ Shamesh offered.

  Isaac shadow-stepped inside and inspected everything. He didn’t find a trace of even a single ward around the teleportation ritual so he returned to his companion. ‘It’s clear. Do it.’