Triple Strength

84. Crafty Enchanters: Tabitha

I think hiring Ruku was a mistake. MI has infiltrated us. Ruku is the sort of guy Wiremu will connect with. Older, experienced and a warrior. Regardless of the documents he signed and what he said, if he is ordered to report on us, he will. What is he going to do if he sees something illegal? I bet he has raided smugglers before.

Half of my operation is in illegal goods bringing in two-thirds of the profit. Affinity users are not the only things the kingdom likes to track. They also like to keep tabs on Spiritual materials, enchanted goods, alchemical ingredients, and the list goes on.

I have had tremendous trouble getting enchantment information and Runes for Mayakku to continue to learn so she can enchant things Nyx can use. That is only partly the government's fault. Enchanters are a secretive bunch. And they are rich, so you can’t easily bribe them or their workers, and I haven’t got long enough in town to try blackmail. Hence that is the reason for tonight's burglary.

Trying to burgle an enchanter is as risky as trying to get through Wiremu’s traps, and this is one of the city's more prominent enchanters. I know for a fact she has specialisations in Powdered and Gem Enchanting as well as Massive Enchanting. She is a major Contractor to the Navy, and I think there are specialities we are not aware of. I have heard rumours she enhances shipping speed through specialised water and wind enchantments. The military specifically locks down these. I don't want anything top secret. Information and examples of Powered, Gem and Massive Enchanting are what I am after.

Mayakku is stymied in her development as an Enchanter. Wiremu got us a Monster Core, although I think Skavt actually got the kill. The Canine Queens took out a pack of Bone Dogs, who are scavengers that run in packs, about a metre high with a nasty bite and claws. More bone than fur. It was a small pack of twenty or so, and the alpha had the core and a Bone affinity. It was a nasty fight, so bad that Wiremu got his hammer out and used it. He doesn't do that much. It was Ört’s bond, Kryddor, that got the most injured. That threw both Ört and Wiremu into a frenzy. Wiremu is very sensitive about bonds after almost losing Tāoke to the lava dude.

Even with a Monster core, Mayakku has not been able to work out how to use it. Monster cores have a different Spiritual energy than the type that comes from enchanters, and the trick is learning how to tap into that and use it to power the enchantment. Gems can also be used to enhance Enchantments, and the energy from them is different again. Each monster core and Gem type is slightly different, but Mayakku says once you get the basics, you can get the specialisation Class. Then learning the different types will help level the Class.

All that brings us back to this monstrosity of a building in front of me. It was large. It was ostentatious. It flaunted its wealth to attract rich clients and turn away the not-so-rich. I hated it. The front was a shop and consultation rooms. Behind that was the workshop. A luxurious workshop. I went into the shop during the day, and the security was tight. I circled what I could of the building sticking close to the walls. The enchantments in the walls halved the distance of my Spatial Awareness skill, but from what I could tell, it was a labyrinth of different workspaces. There were some areas where my Skill couldn’t penetrate at all. I was hoping what I needed wasn’t in the high-security areas.

There was a basement for deliveries and storage of spiritual materials. I was planning to swipe some of those on my way out. There were some patrolling guards, but I wasn't sure how many as Spatial Awareness couldn’t penetrate all the way through the building. The rear yard for deliveries had four dogs running loose in it. They seemed to be well-trained guard dogs.

One side of the building abutted a neighbouring high-class tailor’s store and workshop. I climbed the roof of the tailors and carefully made my way to where the buildings joined. The shared wall was double brick, and the enchanters had not neglected to enchant it. I didn’t step over to the other roof as I could sense more enchantments, and on roofs, it is common to leave active traps as nobody should be up there.

I ensured I got the Burglar Specialisation before attempting to crack this tough nut. Burglar only gave four attribute points per level. One was assigned to Physical Agility, and one to Spiritual Perception. Detecting the Spiritual was a key aspect of being a successful Burglar. I know when Nijel got this specialisation, he got a Find Hidden Skill. Fortunately, I didn’t, as the Skill would have been useless with my Spatial Awareness. I got the Skill Spatial Pocket. I had never heard of it, but it gives me a pocket about 10cm cubed at level 1 to store things in. At each level, the space grows by another 10cm. By Journeyman level, it will be a cubic metre. It is a small space, and I use it to store my liquid and dust for use with my Shadow Manipulation. The space is secure to me, and the best thing is my Skills, like Shadow Manipulation, can access it directly. No hands are required.

Nyx and I have taken a lesson from Wiremu and Tāoke and have been practising learning from each other. I have learned Binding Shadows and Syphon Energy. The good thing about Syphon Energy is that I can use it on anything with Spiritual energy. I can suck all the energy from a Spiritual Trap and negate it. Nyx has learned Coax, Engulfing Shadows and Sense Spiritual from me. She can coax her prey into her traps now, and Engulfing Shadows greatly enlarges her reach.

Sense Spiritual is interesting. With Ruku’s revelation of the Spiritual in the atmosphere, I was able to push my Skill to the Journeyman Level. I am getting pretty good at sensing the flow of Spiritual Energy. Nyx is even better at this. This is the energy she lives on. With our Elemental Bond now also at Journeyman Level, she can spread out her Engulfing Shadows and give me a map of the energy flow in an area. This is what I got her to do over the roof. She won’t trigger any traps.

The map I got back showed a regular pattern of dark spots where the energy was being sucked into the Rune Enchantments to help empower them and irregular brighter spots where the Spiritual Traps were leaking Spiritual energy. There was a Spiritual trap just to my right, and I moved to it and syphoned the energy out of it, thereby disarming it. I was fully aware this method would not detect normal traps.

The roof was a key point of entry for me. I wasn’t sure what the Enchantments were for. This was a risky area. They were certainly there to stop spying, but what else would they be for? They could be there to reinforce the roof against entry or act as an alarm and alert the guards. How long before the Enchantments run out if we blanketed the roof and syphoned the energy? This was a Master Enchanter, so I am thinking too long, even if she had one of her apprentices do it. It may have backup energy through a Monster core as well. Surely that would be too paranoid and costly.

I decided to try it on just the Enchantment close to where I wanted to enter. I had Nyx cover the reduced area, and both of us Syphoned the energy out as fast as we could. As the enchantment wasn’t getting additional energy from the atmosphere, it would run on the energy in the Spiritual material used in the enchantment till it ran out. Hopefully, we will syphon this as well. Then the enchantment would need to be recharged by an enchanter. We both syphoned for a full hour. Then we stopped, and I had Nyx redo the map to test if it worked. There was no dark spot there anymore, and I had a greater range of Spatial Awareness in that area.

I got out a small pry bar and carefully loosened the roofing tiles. I was doing this near the edge of the roof by the tailors. Once I got enough tiles up to slip through, I could see the roof trusses, and there was a ceiling tile of some sort. I reached down to the ceiling tile and used my Shadow Manipulation to brush the small bit from the roof away from the tile I was planning to lift. I tied a very thin rope to one of the trusses. All going well, this would be my entry and exit, and nobody would know I had been until the roof finally leaked in the next big storm. It is always good to have a plan. Then you need several backup plans as it is extremely rare for everything to go according to the first plan.

I loosened the ceiling tile and lowered myself into the building. I was in a small work cubicle. There was a workbench with some leather stacked on it. I could sense containers under the bench were some Spiritual material. I had no idea what it was. Ideally, I was looking for tools and examples that they used to train their apprentices in Gem and Powered Enchanting. I left everything where it was and moved to the door. It was frustrating as all the internal walls were enchanted too. Maybe it wasn’t just to stop spying but to control random Spiritual Energy from affecting the work. I should have quizzed Mayakku more about this before coming.

The corridor was empty. I engaged Shadow's Embrace and wrapped shadows around me, and it also reduced the sounds I made. I have never forgotten that Wiremu found me by the sound of my heartbeat once. I moved carefully toward the shop area. My theory was the more senior Enchanters would need to be accessible to consult for customers. I did check out other workspaces as I went, and they seemed to all be set up differently with different tools. One space per type of job? It did make some sense.

I picked up a guard approaching, so I ducked into the nearest room and strengthened the Shadow's Embrace till they passed. There was a corridor running parallel to the wall separating the Public area. The guard had just passed through it, but I had Nyx check for Spiritual anomalies. Apparently, only the walls and ceiling had runes. If they stored Spiritual materials in the basement, shouldn’t the floor also have enchantments? There was an open space below me, according to my Spatial Awareness. I picked up the stairwell heading down to the other end of the corridor.

I crouched down and examined the floor covering. It was some sort of woven wool. Then I noticed tiny markings at irregular intervals on the wall, which led my eye and Spatial Awareness to thin silky strands running from these markings to markings on the opposite walls. Just a normal physical trigger trap. That is pretty sneaky. The Guards know where to look and step carefully through here. Both my Detect Traps and Detect Spiritual Traps were in the Journeyman Levels. With my high Physical Perception and Spatial Awareness, I easily mapped the traps and stepped through them carefully. I didn’t go downstairs, figuring the high-level enchanters probably preferred a window office. There were nice offices along the outside wall, so my reasoning seems correct. I entered the first one and started searching.

Two draws blocked my Spatial Awareness, so a dab of oil from my Spatial Pocket, a Shadow Key and a Disarm Trap, and I was in. Mayakku had shown me what she thought she needed. She thought I was going to go and try to buy it and didn’t think I would be successful. What was in the drawers did not look like what she wanted, but I decided to put it in my pack anyway. I closed and relocked the draws rearming the trap. Next office.

The next two offices were similar, and I collected random stuff. I had no idea whether it was valuable or not. I hoped these thefts would distract attention from my main goal. They must have some value because they were locked away. The fourth office was my jackpot. It was a larger space comfortably fitting eight to ten people. There were chairs and a blackboard at the end. One wall was lined with locked cabinets. Simple locks, no traps. I started at one end, grabbing what I thought Mayakku needed and some other random stuff, especially if it looked valuable. My pack wasn’t large enough to take everything.

Just when things are going well, and I think I have succeeded, this is when things go wrong. The Dwarves call it Olycklig’s Lore. I have no idea who she was, but I am becoming a firm believer. There was a shout from across the building at about the spot I entered. My entry had been discovered. I moved quickly to the next office, and then I had to think. Do I smash the window and run? Or do I try to hide? All of a sudden, the whole building is flooded with light, and I hear the sound of dogs being called. I grab a small desk and throw it at the window with everything I have. Smash and run was the plan, except the desk bounced rather than smashed. Of course, they don't have normal glass.

I moved back into the training room, spreading pepper powder along the corridor to put off the dogs. I kept some in case I needed to use them on the guards as well. I worked a ceiling tile loose and crawled into the ceiling space on one of the trusses. There was no way the ceiling tile would hold my weight. I put the tile back using my Shadow Manipulation to fix it in place. I had to fix it from the top as there were now no shadows in the well-lit room. It looks almost perfect to my Spatial Awareness. I started working my way carefully along the truss. I was above the ceiling enchantments but below the roof enchantments. I started working my way to the back of the building. I figured if the dogs were inside, this could be my exit. I didn’t think I had an hour to disable a roof enchantment.

I could hear voices and dogs below me. They were systematically going from room to room. No panic, just quiet efficiency. I hate competent guards. I heard the guard that found my entrance reporting to his senior. Apparently, the Spiritual atmosphere of each room was monitored, and the level in the room I entered was way off, obviously because I disabled the enchantment. Then he saw the hole in the ceiling with the rope. I knew this was a risky venture.

I was getting close to the end wall when they found the pepper. That meant they were close to finishing the search. Then they would look in the less likely places. I could already hear a Guard searching on the roof. My entry point would now be a trap if I tried to exit the same way I came in. I spread Shadow through the ceiling cavity and examined the rear wall. Enchanted and trapped like all external walls.

They also didn’t take all the dogs inside. They took two and left two roaming in the rear yard. I need a distraction and then a successful bust-out and run. Plan B and C are a bust because of the competent guards and the dogs. I sent Nyx off to trigger Plan D while I drilled small holes in the wall while furiously trying to syphon the energy from the enchantments to make it easier.

From a five count. 5 …. 4….. 3…. 2…. 1. The package I left outside the front door exploded as Nyx triggered it for me. At the same time, I exploded a small section of the rear wall making a gap to squeeze through and drop to the ground. Hopefully, my small explosion was covered by the larger one at the entrance. Except for the Guard standing by the rear door with his truncheon already out, and the two dogs were heading straight for me. Acid flung into the eyes of the Guard, the remaining pepper stalled one dog, and my own Nunchucks clobbered the other dog making him whine and pause as I sprinted for the fence while holding the wounded dog in my Binding Shadows. I figured the gate would just be another trap, so I went for the fence.

I got to the fence before my pursuers and was up in no time. When I got to the top of the fence, I got zapped by some sort of lightning charge. Bloody enchanters! It is almost like they don’t want to get robbed. My momentum carried me over the fence, and I fell to the ground, twitching. I staggered to my feet. If these guards were as competent as they appeared, they would have called for the city watch when they first discovered the break-in. I had to keep moving.

I staggered over the next fence and then the next one. I was starting to feel better, but I was hearing sounds of a pursuit starting and yelling to get the Watch to intercept on the next road up. I changed direction and started to hit my stride. That lightning charge slowed me up quite a bit. Running from a pursuit really gets the adrenaline pumping. I enjoy this. Playing catch with the Watch is exhilarating.

Nyx and I are so practised at this after Jern. She took my form and darted across a road leading a group of puffing Guards away from me to create an opening. I slip through their net and go full stealth. This is seriously child's play after the crime war in Jern. Nyx soon joins me, and we make our way to a safe house. I take the opportunity to have a good wash. I scrub everything, head to toe, to get rid of the perfume. Pro-tip for burglaries, buy cheap common perfume and have a light covering over your body. Then scrub it off, and don’t use it again. It will mean those with the Bloodhound Skill or similar won’t be able to follow you easily. I leave all my clothes there and dress like a party girl heading home after a long night.

I grab the backpack of stolen loot and stash it in a different hideout. Then I make my way back to the Inn for the remaining couple of hours of the night. It has been a long night.