The Simulacrum

Part 1

A wise man once said that there was no greater delight than self-development. I had no idea exactly who this 'wise man' was though, since I found the quote on the internet, it was probably Albert Winston Gandhi. In any case, I have indeed developed something this day in myself. A profound and deep-seated loathing for stairs, that is.

"Bloody hell… Just how deep are our cells?"

My quiet grumblings found no response in the empty corridors of the Chasm of Desolation. There wasn't a soul in sight, which made me wonder. Future-me said he stole all the inmates from here, but by the looks of it, this prison could house hundreds of people. Just where did he take them? Just where will I take them?

I was also getting a bit unnerved about the lack of staff as well. Sure, this was technically a 'dungeon' in the original meaning of the word, before role-playing games hijacked the concept, and not a jail, but the lack of guards was still baffling. Sure, I could understand that the lower levels would have nobody patrolling because of all the anti-magic malarkey, but that wasn't the case up here.

Also, I still had no idea how people were fed in here either. Future-me making the bottom layers off-limit was one thing, but someone had to come down here to deliver meals to the inmates. At least one person should've realized something was off when the food budget was reduced to just one person.

Unless, of course, there was no food budget, and the inmates were expected to just survive by gnawing off their legs, or something.

…

"Ouch. Dark."

My whispers were still met with the cold indifference of the empty cells as I made my way over to the next stairwell. The higher up I got, the less stifling the air felt and the less bright the magic circles embedded in the ceilings of the chambers were. The two phenomena were probably related; while I reinforced the Leoformer against dispelling efforts, there was still a certain tightness in my chest whenever I donned it down there. Not painful, but just annoying enough to be noticeable. That sensation was easing up with each floor I climbed.

I would've said I was breathing a bit easier, if not for these goddamn stairs! I was in good shape, but there was a limit to everything! On second thought though, maybe that was the real reason why I couldn't see any guards here; they must've hated the stairs as much as I did.

It wasn't until I reached the highest floor that I finally found some sign of life.

"Huh? Is somebody out there?"

The growling voice of a man came from the back of the hallway. An actual prisoner. In a dungeon. Who would've thought?

On closer look, there were a couple of others locked up in their own cells as well. For a moment I wondered how I missed these people the last time around, but then I remembered that I didn't bother to use the stairs back then and just Phased between floors, and I felt silly. And annoyed. Mostly annoyed; being able to Phase would've made this whole thing so much easier. I could just teleport in and out and didn't have to worry about being spotted or paying attention to my environment or…

Was I maybe spoiled by my abilities, I pondered as I slinked past the emaciated prisoners. Future-me probably had a good reason to leave them here, so I didn't want to tangle with them either, and just as reached the stairwell leading to the ground floor.

"[Hm? What was that?]"

I instinctively ducked behind a nearby corner. There was a lone Faun standing near the steps, clad in green armour and holding a polearm. A halberd of some kind, I surmised, and while I silently questioned the usefulness of such a weapon in these cramped spaces, I kept my thoughts to myself and observed him from afar.

This level of the dungeon was better lit than the lower floors, though not by much; there were only a few old-timey torches on the stone walls providing just enough light to blot out the faint glow of the ceiling circles, but not enough to provide proper visibility. I was no prison architect, but I imagined that was pretty important for security reasons, yet whoever made this place didn't seem to share the idea.

Anyhow, I could barely make out the features of the Faun guard due to the dim conditions, but I could tell a few things. One, he was as well-built as the average member of the species. Two, he belonged to the 'Pip phenotype', as I liked to call it, meaning he had wolf-ish features with lots of fur around his face and neck and a pair of triangular ears at the top of his head. Would Naoren find those attractive as well?

I shook the stray thought away and focused on the task at hand. I had to decide how to deal with him. I could always just take out my weapons and duke it out. Even though this outfit only had the bare minimum of physical enhancements, I figured I could take him out with no problem. However, that would be noisy and attract more attention, so I left it as a last resort. Alternatively, I could try sneaking past him. That would've been a terrible idea in any halfway realistic scenario, but again, this whole place was pretty much purpose-lit to enable such shenanigans. I just had to figure out how to get him to move first.

The plan coalesced in my head pretty quickly. For starters, I used my phantom limbs to grab the closest torches and 'turned them off' using my temporary retcon ability. I was starting to get quite proficient with this, and it only took me a few seconds of browsing through the fractal torch catalogue to pick the right ones. Once I successfully made the lighting conditions even worse than they already were, I inhaled deeply and let out a shrill whistle.

"[What was that? Show yourself!]"

The Faun hefted his weapon and looked left and right, clearly startled by the sudden sound, and he cautiously inched forward. I remained crouching low behind the corner, and there were two ways this could play out: he either came my way, in which case I would've had no choice but to jump him, or he continued down the corridor, in which case I could slip by unnoticed.

Luckily for me, he chose to do the latter. I waited for him to move past the junction, and when I felt the moment was right, I leapt out from my cover and quickly (yet sneakily) approached the stairs leading up. I was halfway up when I heard the Faun grumble about how "[It must've been my imagination,]" and while I often made fun of clichés, that was a low-hanging fruit even by my standards.

The ground floor was as bare as the last time I came through here, essentially just a natural cave with some metal grids set down for flooring, and while those would've made sneaking about a tricky proposition, that was only a problem when there were guards to avoid. Which, for the record, there weren't.

I managed to make it to the mouth of the cave entrance before I saw anyone, and it was yet another Faun inside a small, rectangular white guardhouse with a flat roof and large glass windows on three sides. Through those, I could see that he was… currently not paying attention to the entrance and reading a newspaper under the red light of the late afternoon sun. Huh. Well, that made things easier.

Originally my plan was to let my eyes get used to the light outside first, but I couldn't let an opportunity like that go to waste, so I adjusted my Leoformer's enhancements a bit and made a swift dash along the sheer cliff face and towards the brick wall enclosing the whole area. I was nominally familiar with the layout of the surrounding compound thanks to my earlier scouting efforts, and I knew that if I got past there, I would be in the city proper.

Of course, getting past the wall was easier said than done, but it wasn't that high, and so when push came to shove, I was sure I could clear it in a leap as long as I had something to bounce off for extra height. The cliff wall provided me with just that, and so I jumped, then kicked off the rocks and soared through the air while holding onto my top hat. The only thing I forgot to take into consideration was the landing…

"Sunova…!"

My touchdown wasn't particularly dignified, but I managed to do it without rolling and making my clothes dirty. In retrospect, maybe I should've shifted to one of the more combat-oriented outfits, but hindsight and I always had a rocky relationship, and I doubted it would get better any time soon.

More importantly, I was standing in the middle of a wide, deserted street with only a few placeholders in the distance, just outside the walls of the Faun barracks encircling the entrance of the Chasm of Desolation, and as I looked back over my shoulder, I couldn't help but wonder if sneaking in was going to be harder than sneaking out. I figured I would cross that bridge when I got there and shook my numb legs a bit. I should've slipped into one of the nearby alleys right away, but again, hindight.

"[You! This area is off-limits!]"

A reflexive shudder ran down my spine as I glanced at the source of the booming voice and saw a large spear-wielding Faun emerge from the shadow of a gate set into the wall. He was the classic phenotype, meaning he had ram-like features with curly grey horns, and he stomped his feet with every step as he approached me.

Crap. I knew for a fact that the perimeter of the compound had the most guards (probably because they were more worried about someone trying to break in than anyone managing to escape without their powers), and I purposefully chose this spot to cross over the wall because there weren't as many stationed here. It was just my luck that one of them spotted me anyway.

The approaching Faun might've thought that I couldn't understand him, so he bellowed, "Area not for you! Your identity, show me!" in the stilted speech pattern I was familiar with.

I had to make a snap decision, and I hated it when I had to do that. While I could see some placeholder passers-by down the road, this area was clearly sort of a no-man's-land buffer zone around the barracks, and my presence here was already causing a ruckus. If I ran, the guard would certainly follow, and if I fought him, it would only raise the alarms. Refuge in Audacity was an option, but…

"I said, identity! Now!"

He didn't look like he was going to listen. As such, I was left with only one option.

I looked the approaching Faun in the eyes, searching for the familiar orange light within, and I found it right away. He nearly stumbled as our consciousnesses made contact and I could not only see but palpably feel a sense of shock and confusion through our connection. It wasn't strictly necessary, but I still pointed a hand at him and said, "[I bring upon you the Rite of Dominance, Faun of Inanna!]"

It was a force of habit, and I didn't wait for him to respond before initiating a Dominance duel on my own, not holding anything back.

Three transparent spectres of myself erupted from my position. Then three more. And then four on top of that, plus another three. Wave after wave, I sent my ghostly copies against the Faun's mental constructs, and while he met my first handful of Dominance spectres valiantly, his eyes began to shake at the second wave, and by the third, he was in full-blown panic.

I didn't relent though. Thanks to Brang and the others, I was more than well-versed in this way of mental combat, and I was confident I could overwhelm the average Faun with enough effort. I just needed to confuse and disorient him long enough to let me slip away. That was the plan, at the very least.

It was around wave four that his whole body began to shake, and before I could fully deploy my fifth wave of ethereal doppelgangers, he let out a throaty scream.

"Graaah!"

I thought it was a battle cry at first, but then he dropped his spear and his eyes rolled back into his head before collapsing on the spot like a sack of potatoes, cutting our connection and dispelling the spectral battle around us before it could've even had a chance to properly begin.

It all happened too fast for me to react, leaving me standing in the middle of the road with my arm still stretched out and a hapless Faun convulsing on the ground. Well, crap. It was time for another spur-of-the-moment decision; I could either run or grab him and get the body out of sight before someone else would notice him and set off the alarms. I settled on the second option. As I said before, I hated snap decisions, mostly because I had a habit of making the wrong call under pressure, and it made me feel silly in retrospect.

At the moment though, I only felt mild panic as I dashed over to the unconscious Faun's side and grabbed him under the arms. He was too big for me to lift, so I settled on dragging him towards the gate embedded into the wall, where he wouldn't be out in the open anymore. Alas, as decent as the idea sounded at the time, reality just wouldn't cooperate with me.

"[What's going on here?]"

I froze for a moment when the large door behind me opened, and I beheld not one but three Fauns on the other side. Were they alarmed by the previous shouting? Or was it just time for the evening shift? Why was I thinking about such useless things in this situation?

I locked eyes with the Faun at the front, one of the rare lion-like phenotypes, complete with a majestic brown mane and a flat cat-nose, and after a long beat…

"[Sentinels of this domicile of shackles and stone, come fort to me! A fellow of duty has tumbled!]"

Refuge in Audacity, my old friend… don't betray me today…

The three newcomers shuddered as if they'd just been poked by a cattle prod and hurriedly came outside.

"[What… What happened to Grugnr?]" one of the more goat-ish Fauns in the back asked, so I snapped at him to keep the unbalanced.

"[The name of this guardian, I know not, but his countenance fell ill as if witnessing the parade of a thousand angry ghosts! His mortal coil obeyed the cruel certainty of the universal law of gravitation!]"

"[The universal law of… w-what?]"

"[Cease your useless prattling at once! Can't your ocular organs witness the dire disorder that befell upon this person of masculine form? At haste! A maven of mending you must find!]"

"[A… what?]"

"[I think he means a doctor,]" the other Faun muttered in a half-daze, so I snapped at him next.

"[The dallying you engross yourself in speaks ill of your uprightness of nature! The comradery of the beast-men of Inanna must not be what it once harkened to be! Away with you, and bring the pundit of recuperation! And you!]" I pointed at the lion-faced Faun next. "[I mandate that you grasp onto this sentinel of lacking consciousness and transmit his corporeal form within the ramparts of this here stronghold!]"

"[Yes, we should do that…]" he muttered in a daze and he grabbed into the left side of the unconscious Faun. One of the others hurriedly came over to his other side, so I stepped aside and let them prop up the body. The third Faun already left, probably to bring a healer as per my demands.

I pretended to follow after them, but as soon as they were on the other side of the wall, I grabbed the open wing of the gate.

"[My account vis-à-vis the disgraceful performances of you sentinels shall be elongated and scathing! Pray that he-whose-name-is-crows auricles remain ever-distant from its auditory oscillations!]"

With that, I slammed the heavy wooden gate shut, followed by silence. One breath. Two breaths. Three breaths.

"Holy crap, that actually worked..."

My whispered words were followed by action, and I turned tail without any further ado and dashed across the road and into the nearest alley between the old buildings lining that side of the street. I ran for quite a while until I reached a more congested sidewalk, and only then did I slow down to a natural walking pace to blend into the crowd.

In conclusion, that was almost a disaster, and I had a hunch it'd make sneaking back into the dungeon much harder. If only I was allowed to Phase, even if only for short distances, none of this would've happened…

There was no point crying over spilt milk though, so I put the events (and my reservations about the return trip) aside for the moment and focused on one of the marks I had in the Abyss. While I couldn't teleport to it, it still served as a decent compass to guide me in the right direction, and after a solid hour of wandering through the winding, crisscrossing streets of the Inanna's capital, I finally beheld the familiar shopping street with the familiar pub-slash-salon at its far end.

"Good evening." The barkeep's greeting sounded completely disinterested (not to mention, wrong, as it was clearly still bright outside) right until he recognized me and gave me a thin-lipped smile. "Oh, it's you, sir. Welcome back. It's been a while."

"Yes. I've been busy as of late, but since I was in the neighbourhood, I decided to say hello."

The establishment was just like the last time I visited it, its air saturated with the smell of cigar smoke and liquor, as well as buzzing with the noise of two dozen Abyssals gossiping around their tables. This was my go-to place to put a finger on the pulse of the popular opinion down here, and while I was planning to listen to the grapevine later, there was something else I had to ask first.

"Have my friend come by as of late?"

Before the barkeep could respond, a familiar rotund man let out a guffaw at a nearby table.

"That rascal Antonio said you'd come by later today and that would be the first thing you'd ask!"

"… Is that so?" I asked the man behind the bar, and he nodded in the affirmative.

"Sir Balderdash also refilled your tab while he was here. What can I get you today?"

"Go figure…" I muttered under my breath and closed my eyes to get my expression under control. After a long second, I looked the bartender in the eye again and told him, "I'll think about whether I'll get a drink later, but first…" I raised a hand a used my thumb to point at the worn pool table set at the other end of the salon floor. "Do you happen to have a spare cue ball I could borrow?"

That was, after all, the main reason for my excursion to the surface today. I'd have all the time in the world to immerse myself in the churning of the rumour mill after I secured it.

Part 2

"Welcome home!"

I came to a lurching halt on the stairs, but then I quickened my steps and mercilessly rubbed the little nogging of the happy-go-lucky prisoner waiting for me at the bottom.

"Thanks, Beansprout, but this isn't exactly our home, is it?"

He looked at me as if I just asked him a deep philosophical question.

"But… I can't go back to our castle anymore, but I have everything here." He stepped back to gesture towards his cell. "I've got games and sweets and the cassette player and my uncles here, so can't this be my home?"

"You're not going to stay here forever. As for where you'll end up after all of this madhouse is over and done with…" I let my words linger for a while, and I concluded the thought with a shrug. "We'll figure it out when the time comes, okay?" He looked back at me like I'd just stolen his lolly, so I begrudgingly added, "You can keep the cassettes and the games either way."

"Yay!"

Kids were pretty simple creatures at times, weren't they? More importantly though, something he just said gave me a pause and I gestured for him to pay attention.

"Did your 'Uncle Antonio' drop by while I was away?" Ollie shook his head at once, which drew an involuntary hum out of me. "Huh. That's unexpected."

Considering future-me's track record, I was half-convinced that he would not only show up and leave in a way that we just barely 'missed each other', but leave a cryptic message behind just to annoy me.

"He must've been busy elsewhere," I concluded and pointed at the cell on our right with my thumb. "Dinner?"

"I'll pick!" the tiny Abyssal heir exclaimed with gusto and rushed into the chamber with all the freezers.

While he was busy with that, I returned to my cell and walked over to the table in the corner. First, I retrieved my weapons.

"{Finally, fresh air!}"

"Don't be a drama queen," I chided my longsword as I put it onto the table. "You've only been in storage for half a day."

"{And each second of it felt like an eternity!}"

"{Correction: Interface:Caly is exaggerating. Our operations are suspended while in storage, including our temporal experience.}"

"{Quiet, Teeny! Do you want to be kept in storage?!}"

"{Philosophical Statement: Interface:Teeny finds the experience soothing.}"

"{Do you take me for a fool? If our perceptions cease to be, you cannot find it soothing! You can't find it anything, by definition!}"

That was the last bit I'd heard before I put the swords down, and without physical contact, I couldn't hear their bickering anymore. It didn't stop them though, and based on the way the invisible threads connecting them kept flaring up time and time again, they would be at it for a while. Ignoring the two, I detached the storage plaque from my belt and placed it onto the table as well. Last, and in some sense least, I reached into my trouser pocket and took out a scuffed and worn yellow cue ball with the number one on it.

I hefted it in my hand, and while I was tempted to start working right away, I needed a break first, because…

"Here! I got it!"

My train of thought was forcibly interrupted when Ollie tottered into my cell with two white plastic containers in hand. I put the yellow ball down and picked took the food from his hands, only to then immediately frown.

"Macaroni and cheese again?" When I raised a critical brow at him, the rascal gave me the most innocent smile I'd ever seen on his face. "Fine, but we're having something else tomorrow. Now shoo, I'll call you when it's ready."

I didn't have to say that twice, and he dashed back into his cell post-haste. Meanwhile, I put the food into the microwave oven and stood in front of it for a while, trying to remember what I was thinking about before.

"Oh, right… A break."

My hunch about sneaking in being harder than sneaking out was on the money, though not as bad as I feared. Nevertheless, I still deserved a breather for all the patrol-dodging I'd done, so I started it off by returning to the table and poking my storage artifact to retrieve the flask Sebastian 'lent' to me. It wasn't until I was already sitting on the bed that I took a swig from its contents, and I could practically feel my fatigue melting under the heat of the warm tea.

Whatever unkind words I'd ever spoken about the old butler behind his back, I take it all back. This was one of those gifts that I didn't know I desperately needed until I received it, and I was determined to return the favour by any means necessary as soon as I was out of my sorta-self-inposed sorta-house-arrest.

But first, break time. I closed my eyes and propped my back against the wall by the bed with a shallow sigh, and my mind automatically wandered towards the source of my current exhaustion.

Inside a characteristically medieval building lit by a series of oil lamps mounted on the walls, a rather severe scolding was taking place.

"[What do you mean you never asked for his identity!?]" a lion-maned Faun bellowed from the bottom of his lungs, yet his outrage felt more performative than anything. He was standing in front of an assembly of other Fauns, and while they all had the same bulk and body type, the leonine man in the front was clearly the superior officer here, as testified by his considerably more ornate armour.

"[He wasn't hostile, sir, and we prioritized Guard-Corporal Grugnr's welfare.]"

The officer growled at the goat-ish Faun, but his eyes soon landed on the first man I accidentally knocked out today. He seemed to be no worse for wear, though he wasn't wearing his armour anymore and had something resembling a black patient's gown on him, with a thick grey belt tied around his waist. He was sticking out of the group like a sore thumb, so I would've recognized him even if he wasn't the only one I marked in this building.

Also, wasn't a corporal supposed to be an officer of some sort? Brang's original position was 'Scout-General', yet he was only in charge of a handful of soldiers. Our Fauns had very little in terms of hierarchy at the best of times, other than 'everyone obeys Brang, who obeys Blackcloak', as the elderly warrior would've put it, so I wasn't entirely clear on whether their military ranks corresponded with any 'mundane' army's designations, or if they were just for show.

I made a mental note to ask someone about it once I had the opportunity, but for now, I watched as the officer got right up into the face of the gowned Faun.

"[Guard-Corporal? What do you have to say in your defense?]"

"[Sir, I…]" The guy faltered. Literally, as he looked like he was about to topple over, but he managed to right himself at the last second. "[I don't remember much. I encountered an unknown individual within the safety zone beyond the walls. I ordered him to identify himself, but then…]" He swooned again, and this time another Faun had to support him from the back. "[After that, I… felt like I was drawn into the Rite of Dominance.]"

"[Was he one of our kin? Why didn't you say so before?!]" the maned Faun bellowed, and he could only shake his head in denial.

"[No, no sir. He wasn't.]"

"[… Are you testing my patience, corporal?]"

"[No, sir. I swear on the name of the Faun Inanna, it was a man. Not one of us, but…]"

The officer continued to stare him in the eye as if looking for something, but then he let out a derisive huff and walked away.

"[Take him back to the infirmary. He's still delirious.]" Yet, before anyone could move, he already snapped at the next Faun in line. "[And what about you? Was the intruded you encountered one of our kin or not?]"

"[Sir, I… I don't know.]" The goat-ish Faun shook his head, his long ears constantly twitching in a way he very much reminded me of Brang whenever he was perplexed. "[The man we saw acted strange, and he spoke our tongue, but he was…]"

"[It was hard to parse,]" the Faun behind him added in a low voice.

"[Yes. It was… he was fluent, but the way he spoke was ancient. Regal.]"

"[And he spoke about reporting what happened to someone we've never heard before,]" I third Faun chimed in, causing the officer in the forefront to let out another grunt.

"[So you're telling me that a man, not even one of the Faun Inanna, appeared out of thin air, bested Guard-Corporal Grugnr in the Rites of Dominance, spoke to you in our tongue, ordered you around, and then he disappeared without a trace?]" His words were followed by a long spell of silence. At last, he crunched up his nose and growled, "[Can any of you give me a reasonable explanation for these events that won't result in you getting flogged in public for dereliction of duty?]"

There was another tense beat, but then one of the Fauns in the back raised his hand.

"[Sir? I think I have an idea.]"

"[Oh, do you? Then out with it!]"

The Faun steeled his nerves and uttered a single word in response, "[Ghosts.]"

"[… Guard-Private. Are you really so eager to join in the flogging?]"

Seeing the thundering eyes of the leonine officer, the Faun in the back hastily showed his palms.

"[N-No, sir! It's just that… there's been lots of stories about ghosts in the Chasm of Desolation. Right?]" He glanced around, and a few others nodded along, much to his relief. "[So, I just thought… If this intruder appeared and disappeared without a trace, and spoke an ancient dialect, could it be that it was a ghost from ages past?]"

"[And since when do ghosts engage in the Rites of Dominance?]" the Faun in the fancy armour sneered, but the other guy didn't catch his sarcasm and answered one hundred percent seriously.

"[I've… never heard about then not being able either?]"

"[… Are you giving me lip, Guard-Private?]"

"[N-No, sir, it couldn't be farther from my intention! I'm just saying that if it really is a ghost, then we cannot discount the possibility that—]"

Before he could finish, there was a loud knock on the heavy wooden door leading into the chamber, and then was thrown open without waiting for anyone to respond.

"[Warmaster-General Redmane, sir! There's an emergency!]"

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

The lionesque man's ears perked up at once as he turned to face the entrance.

"[Are we under attack?!]"

"[No, sir,]" the Faun in the doorway responded meekly. "[Or at least I don't think so. It's… I'm on night shift duty today at the guardhouse, but when I got there, I found Guard-Corporal Hraskl sleeping.]"

"[How is that an emergency?!]"

"[Sir, please listen!]" the Faun in the doorway continued to plead. "[I tried to wake him, but he was incoherent, and he kept warning me about a strange man that appeared out of nowhere and challenged him to a Rite of Dominance without his consent!]"

The room remained eerily silent in the wake of the newcomer's report for quite a while.

"[Where is this man now?]"

"[We don't know, sir. Hraskl said he ran in too many different directions at once before he lost consciousness.]"

"[I see…]" The general huffed and puffed for a while and ultimately turned to the Fauns lined up in front of him. "[Consider your flogging postponed until we get to the bottom of this! Double the patrols, and send a runner for an investigator! Until they get here and turn every stone and blade of glass over, I want the perimeter of the Chasm locked down tighter than the Esteemed Matron's knicker cabinet! Did I make myself clear?]"

"[Sir, yes sir!]" the Fauns bellowed in unison and streamed out of the building.

My mark was also leaving the area, so the last words I managed to catch were the general grumbling, "[Ghosts of the distant past? Bah, humbug!]"

Okay, for the record, if we were still in the holiday season, that outburst alone would've prompted me to hammer together an impromptu Christmas Carol special. Sadly, I couldn't quite do a good ghost impersonation without being able to Phase. But then again, the other Fauns did mistake me for one, so maybe I still had a chance?

…

Nah. I wasn't quite that bored yet, and I had more important things to worry about. Such as how I was going to return that cue ball to the salon once I was done experimenting with it. If only I could Phase… or at least have Snowy's stealth Sigils. Those would've made the whole sneaky-business much easier. The Christmas Ghost business too, but I digress.

I opened one eye to glance at the microwave, but it was still defrosting, so I closed it again and Far Glanced once more. Since I got reminded of her, I decided to take a look at Snowy. I expected her to be home at this hour, studying for the exams, maybe drawing, or even just horsing around and doing cute little-sis shenanigans with my other sister. What I absolutely did not expect was the dark sky overhead. That was odd, considering it wasn't that late, but then I realized that it was raining. Probably an early summer storm of some kind.

That was odd. Not the rain, but that my point of view was outside in it. I pivoted around a bit, and I finally found my Abyssal sister's silhouette. She was hiding in an alley behind a big green dumpster, shielded from the rain by the combination of an overhanging roof and a cheap collapsible umbrella held by a familiar face.

Tajana, dressed in a ridiculously conspicuous trench coat right out of Jaakobah's handbook, was half hidden behind the dumpster, while my sister was crouching down and drawing a glowing symbol onto the pavement with her fingertip. She finished before I could take a closer look, and as it flared to light, their outlines momentarily wavered and she stood up.

"Amazing work, My Lady!"

"It's just an anti-surveillance Sigil," Snowy responded modestly, but it didn't stop the spymaster from heaping praises on her. She didn't pay much heed to her, and instead her eyes were glued to the building across the street.

Even under the gloom and the downpour, the large high-rise hotel building was impossible to miss. It was also a familiar one; this was where Sahi set up shop when she first came to the island, back when she was still Saahira. Which meant…

"Like, this weather is totally grody!"

Speak of the devil. The brown-skinned incognito arch-mage, dressed in casual summer clothes with a clear plastic raincoat that contrasted hard with the outfits of the two Abyssals, skipped over to their side from the other end of the alley, only to come to an abrupt halt.

Eyes wide open, she raised her palms and waved them around as if trying to audition for a street mime job.

"Wow! Like, is this one of your Sigils? It's totally wicked!"

"It is, but please don't talk so loud," Tajana warned her as she conspicuously glanced left and right. "This is a clandestine operation. We must remain ever vigilant."

"Like, of course I know that! Gag me with a spoon, why won't you?"

In the meantime, my sister's expression was growing more restless by the second, and after an abrupt thundercrack (as if there was any other kind), she turned to the spymaster.

"Maybe… I should follow after her? Just to be sure."

The worry was audible in her voice, but Tajana shook her head without hesitation.

"No, My Lady. You must believe in Penelope and wait. She put her faith in us, and we must meet it by ensuring that the extraction zone remains secure and ready for her arrival."

"I know, but…" Snowy glanced at the building again, and after a long second of hesitation, she stepped back and behind the cover of the alley.

"My Lady..." Tajana put her free hand on Snowy's shoulder. "As a Noble and Heir of our House, you must sometimes send those you cherish the most into the jaws of danger because they are the only ones you can trust with the task. Penelope also understands this, yet she still volunteered, so you must believe in her the way she believes in you!"

"Do you think she can do it?"

"Absolutely!" Tajana declared without hesitation. "Penelope is not only strong, she's the third most trustworthy person I know!"

"Third?" Sahi chimed in on the side with a wry bend in her brows. "Like, isn't that totally that thing? You know, like, damning with faint praise?"

"No! I have very high standards, you know! I'm devoted to My Lady, and placing Penelope so close behind is a testament to my trust in her."

"… Who's the second then?"

The rejuvenated arch-mage's question made Tajana freeze up for a moment, and she hurriedly took a pair of comically tiny binoculars from the inner pocket of her oversized trench coat.

"N-Never mind that! Now hush, and let's keep a lookout!"

"Hey! What kind of lame-o-rama answer is that?"

Sahi continued to grumble, but the two Abyssals' gazes were already glued to the hotel and didn't entertain her. They must've been really curious about what was going on in there. So was I, actually, so… let's give it a look, shall we?

Part 3

The prestigious Hotel de Luxe (not a very imaginative name, but who was I to judge) was a familiar setting. The high-rise building in the economic center of Timaeus was fancy, but in a subdued kind of way. Less posh and more elegant, with modern interior décor dominated by white walls decked out with abstract art pieces and the gleam of mirror-polished stainless steel.

I was familiar with the place and even visited it in person; it was where arch-mage Saahira originally set up shop after coming to the island, and where I performed the impromptu soul-switcheroo that resulted in Sahi joining our principal cast, so to speak. That was a while ago though, and once Sahi entered my employ for the homunculus project, she had effectively moved to the underground base and there was no reason to ever revisit this building. Until now, that is.

"Has the meeting started yet?" the voice of an unfamiliar man asked, eliciting a dismissive grunt from his companion.

Dressed in rather conspicuous white robes, the two men continued to walk down the elegantly simplistic hallway on the sixth floor of the building, completely unaware of the orange flicker following behind them from a distance. The one on the left was cleanly shaved and had a bit of a baby-face, while the other looked a bit older and had a sort of perpetually-frowning resting bitch face.

"I don't think everyone's here yet," the second Magi responded dismissively, and while I didn't recognise him right away, his voice sounded rather familiar. "The Lord will not start the meeting until we're all there, so there's no reason to rush."

"We shouldn't make her wait, though…"

It took me a while, but I finally figured out where I'd seen the second man: it was back in Ottawa. He was the rude senior Magi who wasn't going to get a gift bag. Since he was here, it didn't take a genius to figure out who they were talking about.

Actually, I take that back. I had a strong inkling ever since Sahi showed up in the alley with my sister and Tajana. She used to live here for a while, and her suite was full of heavy magitech machinery. That wasn't something you could smuggle into a hotel room without anyone raising a brow at you, early-development placeholder staff or not, so I had long suspected that the hotel had close ties to the Magi. All that considered, I already had a strong hunch about why Penny was currently in the middle of infiltrating the place, even before laying eyes on the robed men.

But speaking of her, I focused my attention on the soft magical glow peeking out from behind one of the decorative cabinets in the spacious hallway, and I found my knightly sister there, her back set against the side of the furniture. Her appearance was rather odd; not just because of the thin sheen of orange light covering her body, but because she was also wearing an eclectic mix of her Uniformer outfit and her original armour.

Her head was covered in a silvery white metal helmet with a stubby alabaster horn sticking out of the forehead, and she was also wearing metal gauntlets and greaves. Furthermore, she had her original sword hanging from her waist; the one she used until recently, when she decided to switch to a zweihander. The latter was probably too bulky to carry around indoors like this.

She didn't exactly look sneaky, but the subtle, occasionally rippling magical aura covering her whole body told me she was under the effects of Snowy's Concealment Sigil. She poked her head out for a moment, her eyes behind the face plate darted left and right, and then she immediately jumped out of cover and dashed over to the next hiding spot, behind a large blue vase set between two doors. She held her breath, and seeing that nobody was the wiser, her body language relaxed.

Now, why was my sister sneaking about in a hotel that was implicitly Magi territory at the moment, belonging to an arch-mage who didn't exactly like us? That sounded like a silly question, but I had to insist: what was she, in particular, doing here?

If it was about infiltrating a building, we had perfectly good ninjas for that kind of thing, and if this operation required the concealment Sigils to happen, our Fauns were always available as well. Since she was already there, I could only imagine two possible reasons: my Doylist reasoning told me she had to be the one doing this because it was more dramatic this way, while my Watsonian common sense figured that, considering her personality, Penny probably really, really wanted to do this for no other reason than to prove that she could. Because she was stubborn and competitive like that.

Either way, she followed after the two Magi until they eventually reached the large automatic doors at the end of the corridor.

"Hey? Do you really think that the Celestial Archon was captured in the Abyss?" the younger Magi asked while the two waited for the elevator to arrive, and the gruff man by his side let out an ambivalent grunt.

"Why couldn't they? We also caught him once."

"Yes, but… didn't he escape right away?"

The other man glared at his companion and uttered a flat, "That wasn't the original question. Whether he escapes or not is technically a different question."

"I… suppose you're right."

The lift arrived just as they finished, and the two of them leisurely entered, only for the baby-faced man to suddenly stop and glance around.

"Did you feel that?"

"Feel what?"

"I… It felt like there was a breeze."

The other man also looked around, but when he couldn't find anything out of the ordinary, he shrugged and gestured to their right.

"There's a storm outside. Maybe someone left a window open somewhere."

"That must be it."

Thus reassured, the two of them got into the lift car, blissfully unaware of the half-armoured girl in the corner. She slipped by them using her unnatural speed, and by the looks of it, she was holding her breath until a moment ago, afraid that she was discovered. Now that she was inside with them and she was in the clear, I could already picture her smug smirk under her faceplace.

I could also clearly imagine it withering the moment the lift doors opened, just a floor later, revealing a maid pushing one of those all-in-one cleaner trolleys with the buckets and the mops and everything. It was a 'normal' maid though, not the French variety; just a middle-aged woman wearing a simple sky-blue uniform with white cloggers and a hair-net.

"Going up?" she asked in a creaky voice, and the men inside nodded.

"Ninth floor."

"I'm going to the top floor. Can you make some space?"

The grumpier man was none too pleased by this, but they made way and the maid pushed her trolley inside… much to my sister's visible panic. The elevator cabin wasn't exactly spacious, and after a moment of hesitation, she suddenly crouched down, extended her hands, and leapt up. This was followed by a series of gymnastic twists and turns in the air that made my back hurt just by looking at them, and before I knew it, she somehow managed to wedge herself between the opposing walls of the elevator cabin with her hands and feet.

"What was that?" the younger Magi glanced around in mild bewilderment, but he stopped when the maid let out a grating chuckle.

"Ah, don't mind it. This thing always makes weird noises." She lightly kicked her trolley. "Management says it's not broken yet, so I'll keep using it until it is."

"That's not what I…"

Meanwhile, the automatic doors closed and the lift headed up. Two floors later, it came to a halt again, presenting Penny with another dilemma. Because the way her sword was hanging from her waist, its tip was right at face-level, and the gruff Magi was just about to walk into it as they were leaving.

With some quick thinking (and more impromptu acrobatics), she somehow managed to twist her hips so that her scabbard barely missed the man's head. He must've still felt something, because he came to a halt just outside the lift and turned around, his eyes narrowed into a suspicious squint, but then the door closed again and the elevator continued its way up.

The maid and her trolley departed as soon as they reached the top floor, and it wasn't until the doors closed again that there was a soft thud followed by a relieved sigh. My sister stretched her back and shook her hands inside the empty elevator car. Then, seeing that she was all alone, she balled up her fingers, followed by a sudden fist-pump and a quiet, "Yesss!"

She was pretty hyped, and even after pressing the button for the ninth floor, she held her firsts up to her chest with innocent glee and muttered, "That was so cool! Like a real spy! I wish the others could see me…"

Yes. Like a real spy. Sure, kiddo. Sure.

Her elation didn't last long, and as soon as the automatic doors opened again, she dashed out of the elevator and crouched behind the first piece of cover she could find, namely a curio cabinet filled with old glazed plates and silverware.

More importantly, the men she was following were already long gone, so she had to figure out which way to go. The elevator was at the end of a T-junction, so she could go left, right, or forward. Now, considering that left and right were dead ends, while the last remaining path led directly to the hotel suites, she obviously…

"I wonder what's there…"

Went left. Dammit, kiddo! Why would you go that way?

…

Okay, that wasn't exactly fair. I knew why she was did that; while Penny in particular was rather… 'physical', to put it diplomatically, the Unicorn Knight was always the anti-magic specialist of the Brotherhood, just like how the Griffon Knight was anti-air, or how the Eagle Knight was the ranged and skirmish specialist. The Mantle and the equipment of the Unicorn Knight not only made her highly resistant to spells, but she could also sense magic. Not to the degree I (or more recently, the class rep) could see spells with our naked eyes, but more of an instinctive perception. And that dead-end hallway? It was positively aglow with ambient mana, so I could understand why she would choose to investigate it first.

She continued to sneak down the corridor, hugging the wall and occasionally sweeping the floor ahead with her feet, as if searching for tripwires. There was nothing of the sort, yet she diligently repeated the motions until she reached the second-to-last door and the source of all the ambient magic energies suffusing the air in the vicinity.

She gingerly reached out towards the doorknob, turned it, and…

…

It was locked. I mean, of course it was. Whatever was behind that door had to be at least somewhat important, so it would've been eminently dumb to leave it open. Of course, going by the same logic, I would've expected the Magi to put some kind of ward or at least one of those eyeball spells, the magical equivalent of a security camera, onto the door, but maybe my standards were just too high.

I fully expected that Penny would just kick down the door at this point, but instead she… reached under her helmet and pulled out a simple black bobby pin. She broke it in half and then twisted the pieces a bit so that she could…

Wait, what…? Dammit, kiddo, were you holding out on me? I didn't know you could pick locks! She wasn't even half bad at it, because after just a minute, the doorknob clicked and she turned it with a happy-go-lucky hum. Seriously though, I had 'learn lock-picking' on my to-do list for ages, but I just never got around to it because I was always busy with something else. I no longer needed it, because nowadays I could just retcon locks open, but it could've been potentially very useful in some past scenarios. Or failing that, a nice family bonding moment.

Anyhow, Penny slipped into the room and, after some fidgeting in the dark, she flipped the light switch. I could already see a vague outline of the items inside, but I think we were both equally stunned when we saw them under proper lighting.

"A-A-Awawawa!"

…

Okay, so maybe Penny was a bit more surprised than me. Putting that aside, this seemed to be some kind of storage room, and half of it was still occupied by beddings, curtains, and other textiles piled up almost to the ceiling. The other side though… Where should I even begin?

There was a small table in the corner, and on it, an eclectic collection of handcuffs, blindfolds, a ball gag, some kind of binding device made of dozens of thick leather straps, and there were even multiple finger-cuffs of various sizes. They were also aglow with the colourless light of magic, yet they weren't the most eye-catching items in the room; in the back, near the window, stood a kind of vertical bed made of steel pipes with a pair of wheels at the bottom. The kind of contraption muzzled serial killers would get tied to for transport. However, as if that wasn't creepy enough, there was also a huge open suitcase lying on its side, and its insides were padded in a way to fit the contours of a person in the foetal position.

Now, there were two possibilities here: either Lord Marzanna was into some kinky stuff (which, for the record, I didn't judge), or some really shady shit (which, on the other hand, I did judge with extreme prejudice). Penny must've realised that this could be important, because she stepped up and closely observed the various items on display. I half-expected her to take out her phone and start snapping pictures at any moment, but she probably didn't bring it with her.

She didn't have the opportunity either way, because there was some noise coming from outside. Penny abruptly snapped her attention to the doorway and immediately dashed over and crouched down in the nearest corner. The door opened wide almost as soon as she came to a stop and in walked a tall, gaunt woman wearing the same kind of white robes as the men from before.

"The door's open," she called out towards someone outside. "And they left the lights on, too!"

"C'est typique!" the muffled voice of a man responded from the hallway, followed by some more complaints in French, culminating in a heavily accented, "Someone must 'ave been late from ze meeting. It's très lucky we noticed it before ze Lord did."

While the two Magi were conversing, my sister inched towards the entrance, and seeing an opening, she dashed outside.

"What was that?" the woman jumped and glanced around, but by then Penny had already rushed past not only her, but the muscular older man in the hallway as well, only to… go down the other dead end hallway with the only door leading into the stairwell.

She realised her mistake fast, fortunately, and she returned to her initial hiding spot next to the curio cabinet in the junction. It was just in time, since the two Magi finished inspecting the room and were already near the elevator.

"I swear there was something there. Maybe a bat, or some rodent…"

"Zere was noting. You're juste nervous because of ze storm outside. Let's take a coffee break, oui?"

"Sure, just… Let's be quiet. The meeting is in the second room to the left over there, we don't want to interrupt them."

Oh, how very convenient. After delivering that crucial bit of information, the duo walked down the middle corridor, and Penny followed closely after them right until she reached the designated door. She waited until they entered another room and were out of sight, and only then did she sidle up to the door and put her ear against it. Or rather, her helmet, but let's not split hairs about that.

She remained motionless, but it was clear from her body language that she couldn't hear anything. It was as expected; privacy spells and artifacts were dime-a-dozen in the World of Mystics, so there was no reason why the arch-mage and her posse wouldn't muffle the room before they started talking. My sister hesitated for a while, but then she put her hand onto the doorknob and very slowly opened it to a crack.

As soon as she did, the muffled voice of Lord Marzanna could be heard from the inside, barely more than a faint whisper. Penny held her breath for half a minute, and only when it was clear that nobody had noticed her intrusion yet did she relax. Feeling emboldened, she pushed the door a bit further, and the voices on the inside became clearer with each millimeter.

Of course, I could just shift my point of view to the other side of the wall and didn't have to strain my ethereal ears at all.

"… the Tower of Evocation," an unfamiliar man spoke in a deep voice, and everyone sitting on a bunch of chairs arranged in a circle was paying full attention to him. "Lord Bruxo is Lord Endymonion's protégé, so we can assume that his Tower of Conjuration will also support them. Under these circumstances, Glasgow won't move until all the other Towers also state their intentions, regardless of the results of our investigation. In the worst-case scenario, the Assembly might call for a Grand Gathering."

"Those miserable fools," the familiar arch-mage of Ottawa, Lord Marzanna in the flesh, cursed under her breath and stood up. "The Assembly still doesn't seem to understand what's at stake here!"

"But, my Lord?" an older woman with white hair and grandmotherly features spoke up, holding her walking cane up to signal that she wanted to speak. "What if it's the truth? What if they really have found the Conduit of the Grimoire?"

"I think we already concluded that she's an impostor," Marzanna hissed back, but after a long beat she humoured her anyway. "But assuming that she is, it's all the more reason to proceed with the plan." Her eyes swept over the people in the room, and she vehemently declared, "We must capture this Celestial puppet and find out the truth. If she's a fake, then we can use her to lift the veil off the eyes of those stubborn old men in Glasgow, and if she's genuine…"

She paused for a while, until the gruff man from before finished her sentence.

"Then we take her back to Ottawa, as planned."

"Yes," Marzanna spoke in a deep, eerie voice. "We need to bring her with us and either reveal her true nature, or extract the power of the Conduit from her. By any means necessary."

As per the universal rules of timing, the storm outside was not only getting worse, but we even got a classic 'dramatic lightning bolt in the background' effect to punctuate her sinister declaration, with the thundercrack making the room shake and the flash momentarily blotting out lighting and dressing everything in black and white.

However, that wasn't the only thing it did.

"Why is the door open?" Marzanna asked while glaring at the entrance.

The flash must've seeped through the gap in the door as well, or maybe it just cast a shadow to draw attention to it, and the robed Magi closest to it got off his chair and walked over. He flung the door open… and then turned to his fellows and uttered, "It must've been the wind."

…

Apparently, today was 'stealth clichés day', or something. They might've said something more, but I couldn't hear it, because my point of view was forcefully dragged along as Penny left the vicinity. By the time I caught up with her, she was already halfway down the building using the stairs, jumping off five steps at a time and occasionally sliding on the railings as well.

It took her no time to reach the ground floor… only to get too engrossed in her daring escape and accidentally go down into the basement.

"A-Awawa…"

She climbed back up with considerably less enthusiasm, and once she was back on the ground floor, she wandered the hallways for a while, dashing from one corner to another until she finally found a service entrance and left the building.

Once outside, it only took my sister a minute or two to orient herself, and she dashed across the street. While she was undetectable to the naked eye (and most magical senses), the water she kicked up on the sidewalk turned a few placeholder heads, but then they soon continued walking and minding their own business.

"Penny, over here!"

Hearing my other sister's voice, she dove into the familiar alley where she was waiting for her, along with Tajana.

"You're drenched," the Abyssal spymaster muttered and started rummaging through the large handbag she was carrying. "Here, I brought a towel."

"Never mind that!" Penny cried out as he took off her helmet. "We've got them red-handed! It's exactly what Joshua suspected!"

"Really?" Snowy sounded both skeptical yet cautiously optimistic at the same time, and she proceeded to take Tajana's fluffy blue towel and wipe the rainwater off my knightly sister's forehead. "They didn't notice you, did they? Because if they did, they might change their plans."

"Of course not! Your Sigil was awesome! They didn't see me even when I was right next to them! It was sooo cool, and—!"

"My Lady, Penelope," the spymaster cut in while holding a cheap smartphone that must've also been in her handbag. "Our ride should be here momentarily, so…"

Just as she was saying that, a bright yellow sports car came to a sudden halt in front of the alley. While it was hard to see it in the rain, it was obvious that Sahi was behind the wheel, and while this was a four-seater Mercedes instead of the Lamborghini she was driving the last time, it was still a bloody expensive car.

"… let's talk once we're back home." She used her phone to make a sweeping motion towards the street and added, "I'll contact the others."

By the sound of it, this wasn't just some rogue operation my sisters came up with. Okay then, I'm game. Let's stick with them a little longer and see where this was going…

Part 4

A little over half an hour had passed since the small group got into Sahi's car, and now they were already sitting in the living room of Josh's house. As much as it was a cliché that the protagonist's parents were never around, it certainly made impromptu tactical meetings more convenient.

As for the participants, we had most of the gang present; some seated on the couch, others on some wooden chairs from the kitchen, yet others standing. First off, there was the quartet from before. Snowy and Sahi looked the same as before, while Tajana was out of her trench coat and was wearing jeans and a black blouse. Penny was also no longer wearing her Uniformer, so she was in her school uniform with a towel over her head and the gauntlets, greaves, and helmet of her Unicorn Knight gear on the table. They were joined by Pascal, Ammy, and (surprisingly enough) Mike, all of them clustered around Josh in the middle.

There was a long beat of silence lingering in the room, and it was understandable, since Penny had just finished giving her recounting of what she discovered.

"See? Like, I totally told you that old Marzanna was grody," Sahi broke the ice while blowing on the mug of hot cocoa in her hands. "She was, like, always a major joanie like that. Totally."

"The better question is, what are we going to do about it?" Michael, dressed fashionably and looking unnecessarily handsome as usual, cut in while holding onto the class rep's hand. "We can't let her hurt Amelia, right?"

"I don't think she wants to hurt her, as much as capture her," Josh interjected. His brows were set in a thoughtful frown, and he looked over at Penny. "You said they already prepared restraints, right?"

"Yeah! I saw it with my own eyes!" my knightly sister declared with unnecessary vehemence, and started counting on her fingers in a way that reminded me of the princess's small gestures. "They had cuffs, and ropes, and blindfolds, and even an arm-binder!"

Speaking of my girlfriends though, they were conspicuously missing from the group, along with a certain hyperactive Celestial, but before I could Far Glance over to them, the class rep moved the conversation along.

"What's an… arm-binder?"

"Oh, that?" Penny responded innocently, and she twisted her arms behind her back so that her wrists would touch near the small of her back. "It's a bondage device that forcefully keeps your arms locked in this position, so you can't move them at all. It wasn't a proper mono-glove design, but the type using leather straps, and it didn't include a collar either, so it was probably a custom…" It was at this point that she realised that everyone was looking at her funny. There was a pregnant pause, then her face instantly flushed crimson, and she began waving her hands in a panic. "A-A-Awawa! D-D-Don't take it wrong! I-It's not like I'm interested in this kind of thing or anything! It's just that…!" Her hands stopped, and she pointed at Snowy. "It's just that we researched stuff for Snowy's image training! That's the only reason why I know about these things!"

It was nice to see that my sister's habit of stuffing her foot in her mouth without prompting was the same as usual. The others were already used to it as well, and they moved on with the conversation, much to her relief.

"Putting the exact type of the restraints aside," Josh started and, I swear I'm not exaggerating, he put his fingers together in his lap and tried to mimic my usual 'scheming mastermind' pose. He paused for a second to make sure everyone was paying attention, then continued with, "We have to decide how to deal with her."

"Excuse me for being presumptuous," Pascal interjected with an expression that was more confounded than anything else. He looked Josh in the eye and asked, "If what Dunning said is true, then the only reasonable course of action is to alert the Lord arch-mages of the plans of Lord Marzanna."

"No, actually," Josh argued back without missing a beat. "That's exactly the only thing we can't do."

"But… wouldn't that be the safest option?" Mike insisted on the side, but the guy in the middle shook his head.

"Yes, but that's not what we need right now. Remember what our goal is: we need to deal with the arch-mage, 'cuz that's the quickest way this stalemate situation can be resolved and we can put Ammy's plan into action, right?"

"Excuse me, I'm out of the loop," Tajana interjected next, looking a bit lost. "When was this decided? And what is this plan?"

Not wanting to hold up the discussion, Snowy gestured for her to lean over so that she could whisper the details to her. In the meantime, Penny got over her self-inflicted bout of embarrassment and balled up her fists.

"Yes! We need to get Amelia into the Abyss to rescue Brother!"

"And, like, we can't do that while the Assembly is breathing down her neck," Sahi added on, eliciting a grunt of agreement from Josh.

"Precisely. If we tell Ammy's grandpa and the teachers about this, they're gonna just use it as an argument, for diplomatics, or maybe demand an investigation, and it's gotta follow procedures and protocols and stuff. Remember what we talked about the last time? We're used to Leo just cutting through all the red tape for us, but if we're leaving it up to the adults and their politicking, it's gonna take ages to get anything done."

"What are you proposing then? Do you want us to storm the hotel and secure the evidence?" Ammy spoke up, sounding just a tad confrontational, but Josh stood his ground and met her eyes.

"That sounds dangerous…" Mike noted, and Josh nodded along, surprising everyone.

"Yes, and that's why I'm not saying we should do that. Instead…" Oh my god. He tented his fingers in front of his chest. He was totally stealing my mojo. "I think we should let her make the first move."

His words left a spell of silence in their wake, and it was Tajana who broke it first.

"You want to set up a trap and catch her in the act."

"Exactly." Josh nodded along, but didn't take his eyes off the class rep. "If we do that, she'll lose all credibility. Ideally, we should also capture her and have her confess her plans, but…" He inhaled deeply and his brows descended even further. "The problem with this plan is that it's gonna put you at risk. Are you okay with that?"

Ammy didn't hesitate for long and nodded along, startling Michael at her side.

"S-Sunshine? Are you sure about this? Shouldn't we discuss this a bit more first?"

"No, it's okay." She squeezed Michael's hand to reassure him. "It's not the first time we've been doing something dangerous on our own, and I'm no longer a weak Magi who can only summon Petra."

There was a dangerous glint in her eyes. A familiar one, too; the kind of giddy expression she showed whenever we were playing our tabletop RPG and she found an excuse to set something on fire. That kind of look.

"If Lord Marzanna thinks that she can capture the Conduit of the Grimoire at her leisure, I'll show her just how wrong she is! I can cast fireballs now, you know? And more!"

See? What did I just say?

"Easy, sweetheart. Don't get carried away," Mike chided her by snuggling up to her, and the class rep's expression turned blissful as she rested her head against his shoulder.

It didn't stop her from adding, "I have so many spells I want to try out…" under her breath, but everyone ignored that, and then Josh moved the conversation along by forcefully clearing his throat.

"So, since Ammy is fine with being bait, we need to set up a trap. Any ideas?"

"I'll take care of that," Tajana declared with a sudden gusto, momentarily surprising everyone. "I'll show you what the infamous Hound of Inanna is really capable of in her element!"

"Like… who's that?" Sahi asked an innocent question, making the Abyssal spymaster twitch and glare at her.

"It's me! I'm the Hound of Inanna!"

Snowy, being a cinnamon roll as usual, gently rubbed her back to reassure her.

"Don't be upset. If they don't know your nickname, it just means you're good at your job."

"Yeah!" Penny joined in, including the back-pats. "The best spies are the unremarkable ones that nobody knows about!"

"Uuu… Are you making fun of me…?"

Maybe he wanted to cheer her up, but Josh cleared his throat again and gestured at Tajana.

"In that case, I'll leave setting the trap in your hands."

"Yes! I'll do it!" the Abyssal woman declared with renewed enthusiasm, so Josh moved along.

"I don't think the arch-mage and her people are going to go down without a fight, so can I count on your help?"

That question was aimed at the two Magi, and Sahi immediately responded with an enthusiastic, "Fer shur! I'm, like, totally game!"

Armband guy was less eager, but after weighing his options, he also nodded in the affirmative.

"If Lord Marzanna and his subordinates truly attempt to subdue and capture Amelia, they are likely going to set up a Restricted Space in advance. I will access the Spatial Fluctuation Detection Systems of the School and try to pinpoint the location, so that we can subvert its anchors for our use."

"Good thinking!"

"Um… I'm not much of a fighter, but…" Mike gulped hard, then started over with a bit more determination. "I'm technically something of a liaison officer now, and as Leonard's aide, I can maybe sorta potentially ask the Praetorian Guards to serve as back-up? Maybe? I mean, I think Mister Arpachshad would at least hear me out, and…"

"Not a bad idea," Josh cut his rambling short with a determined nod. "We're gonna need some eyewitnesses, so we should get more people involved in the cleanup."

"Then I'll ask Duncan to lend us some Squires!" Penny volunteered with a hand in the air. "He owes me a favour, anyway."

"In that case, we only need some Draconian witnesses," Ammy pondered aloud, her head still resting on her boyfriend's shoulder. "Or is Eleanore going to be enough?"

"Like, where's she, anyway?" Sahi asked the million-Jen question as she theatrically glanced left and right. "Shouldn't she be, like, totally involved in this?"

"I'm pretty sure I already told you this," Josh responded a touch testily, crossing his arms in the process, "She's at her place and cramming with Judy and Angie."

"Oh, wow…" the rejuvenated arch-mage looked a bit stunned and scratched the top of her head. "Like, aren't they totally nonchalant about this?"

Josh exhaled a somewhat exasperated sigh.

"Angie's just really focused on her grades right now, and I'm pretty sure that Deus just convinced her that everything's gonna be fine because it's just 'Polemos doing Polemos things' or whatever, and it's not worth stressing about. As for the others…" This time, it was a genuine groan that escaped his lips, then he began rubbing his temple. "I don't wanna sound paranoid, but I'm about ninety-five percent sure that Judy and Elly always knew that all of this was one of Leo's convoluted schemes, and they're just not telling for some reason."

"Sure, but, like, that doesn't answer Amelia's question?"

Josh squinted at Sahi and let his hand down after a long beat.

"I'm pretty sure Elly will join us, but just to be safe, we should get another Draconian…" He rubbed his chin for a bit. "I guess I'll see if I can rope Zihao into the plan."

I'm not going to lie, the way they were planning this out was surprisingly level-headed. If there was just one issue I had to point out, it was the distinct and alarming lack of contingency plans for when everything would inevitably go pear-shaped. Not even Tajana brought that up, and she was not only the singular adult in the room, but she also used to be a spymaster in charge of clandestine operations and whatnot.

…

Oh well. They'd learn with experience, I supposed, and it was around this time that Josh glanced at the digital clock on the wall and clicked his tongue.

"Ugh, it's this late already?" He stood up and gestured outside. "Angie doesn't have an umbrella, so I'll go and pick her up. We don't have school tomorrow, so let's meet up in New Camelot in the morning and work out the details of the plan."

Penny was about to interject 'Haven!', but Snowy beat her to the punch by speaking up first.

"We can use the room where we play our Technopunk campaign. It's usually empty when we're not using it."

While the others voiced their agreement, Sahi pointed at the class rep.

"Like, do you want me to give you a ride? It would be totally lame if we put all this effort into, like, planning this out and you, like, get attacked on your way home."

"Oh, can I also come along?" Mike spoke up, only to hastily amend, "I never sat in a sports car before…"

"Fer shur, fer shur!" The brown girl flashed a toothy grin and gestured for them to follow. "Come on, kid! I'll give you two a joyride."

"I'm not a kid," Mike protested even as he was getting up. "I'm older than you."

"Yeah, toootally."

Sahi giggled and poked Pascal with her elbow, since he was the only other person 'in on the joke', but seeing that he didn't react, she soon stopped and the four of them left. Then it was my sisters' and Tajana's turn to bid farewell, until only Josh was left. He also dressed up and picked up a pair of umbrellas, only to pause and, after some thinking, leave one behind.

Oh? Was he angling for an umbrella-sharing scene? While it was getting dark outside, the rain had already eased up a little, so it was perfect for some romantic frolicking. I remember the last time we did it with the girls; it was pretty cramped under a single umbrella, but it was still nice and cosy. It was a nice memory.

…

Damn. I really was missing the girls, wasn't I? Maybe because this was the first time we were apart since our relationship began, but I was getting sentimental, and maybe a little bit lonely. I didn't think not being able to just Phase over whenever I wanted would be so isolating. Or was I just too spoiled, I wondered.

"Ugh, enough moping…"

I shook my head and got up from my bed. I glanced outside my cell and found that Ollie was already in front of the TV and rewatching an old anime series with giant robots. It was his favourite, by the looks of it. Since he was fine, I turned around, walked over to the table in the corner, and picked up the billiards ball I deposited there after coming home.

Originally I was planning to start working on this in the morning, after taking a break first, but as they say, there's no time like the present, and… honestly, while I was really missing my girlfriends, I also didn't want to leave them in exam cramming limbo. It was bad for their mental health, so… yeah, this was for their sake. Definitely.