chapter 919
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Malcolm Tent
Monkey with a typewriter.
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We had arrived. The Vault was right across the hall, and now we just needed to get into it. I'd carefully selected the team I'd brought for this, specifically because of their unique abilities and the details of the vault. First up, obviously, was Abel. I glanced at my mentor. "I need you to create a slipstream of spatial lubrication across this hall, then under the door blocking off the other side."
He nodded, humming contemplatively. "I'm assuming you want Bethy to carry us through in her Domain?"
"As mist, preferably," I agreed. I turned to the others. "Once we're in, Sable is going to take over." I glanced at her intently. "The first room of the Vault is a garden. It looks peaceful but it's covered in special formations designed to detect living beings. Because of the way it's set up though, plants are excluded. We need your root golems to get us across."
The rest of the plan would need to be explained on the fly. There were observations I needed to make in person, and I couldn't predict the outcome. Some of the defenses were randomized, and while I knew what had been a threat when I checked the Vault the first time, my staff could only simulate, not actually predict the future. While prediction WAS something I could achieve in limited circumstances, doing it hours ahead of time with so many variables was impossible for me.
Stepping closer to Bethy, we all let her pull us into her Domain. There was a brief flicker across the red moon, and she let us back out. Abel's spatial lubrication combined with Bethy's mist form let us smoothly bypass most of the external defenses. I'd had to double check a few things on arrival just to be sure, but that part of the plan had gone off without a hitch.
Inside the Vault, we emerged into a surprisingly peaceful garden. We were standing at one end, on a stone platform set into the ground, and a path of cobblestones extended through the place from the platform.
The path was a trap. It didn't actually prevent the formations from detecting you, and there were actually several dangerous trap enchantments laid out on the stones. The detection formations could identify members of the city lord's bloodline, or could be bypassed with a special token, neither of which we had. But that was why I'd brought Sable.
The red haired witch stepped forward confidently, reaching into a pouch, and withdrew a handful of seeds. Nicking her finger, she spread some blood on them and then tossed them casually off the platform and into the grass of the garden.
While the garden only detected living beings and not plants, there were other defenses in play. More active defenses that were a threat to the root golems. Our best bet here was quantity, sending a bunch of them through so that one or two might make it to the other side. Sure enough, the little root people took off for the other side of the room, and as they ran, they started getting picked off.
The garden was gorgeous. A huge, lush expanse of thick plantlife containing hundreds of flowers, trees, and various other interesting flora. I could even see what looked like animals made of plants, moss deer and moose with tree antlers. As the root people ran out among the plants, a large portion of them reacted.
Flowers grew teeth and devoured root people whole, tendrils from beneath the ground dragged them under kicking and screaming, and in some cases, floating spores or fluff landed on them gently, burrowing into the creatures and tearing them apart in explosions of blooming flowers or mushrooms. The whole thing was a horror show, and it made me glad I hadn't decided to brute force it. This was what happened when you DIDN'T trip the defenses. Imagining an actual coordinated response made my blood run cold.
After a bit of trial and error, we realized that there WAS a path through the garden, it just wasn't the stone one in the middle. I also suspected that the recognition formations did more than attack if triggered, I was pretty sure they suppressed the passive defenses too. Still, we managed to get one of them through, and once it got to the other side, I used Double Trouble to appear behind it, bypassing the entire room.
Once I was through, I turned to the large expanse of unwarded earth on the other side, then triggered Agares, and began shaping a long bridge to cover the room.
This was the biggest gap in the security setup. There were formations in place that required that any passersby walk across the ground. They jammed air passage to prevent anyone from just flying over. I'd bypassed them entirely with teleportation, but that was an uncommon ability to have, and the Vault itself was blocked off from teleportation coming in, so it was considered a low priority to defend against.
By using the unaltered ground on the other side of the formations, I could create a path that conformed to the defenses without actually subjecting my people to them. Within a few minutes, the bridge had formed, and my friends strolled casually across it to join me on the other side of the garden.
I grinned at Sable. "Nice one. That took more root puppets than expected. You feeling ok? You had to bleed a couple times for that."
She shrugged. "I'm a witch, and I use blood in a lot of work. I'm used to it." She shot Bethy a considering glance. "I am feeling a little faint though, Bethy, does that big castle have more than just that one bedroom?"
"Of course," the Vampire said perkily. "And all the beds are super soft. I found them on this really weird planet. They have mattress trees there. Also couch bushes, but those eat people. Poor Tracy is still afraid of paisley. Though to be fair, who wouldn't be, it's hideous."
It took me a second to remember that Tracy was one of her thralls. I hadn't seen them in ages, since they couldn't really keep up with our pace. Regardless, it was clear Sable wanted to take a nap, and Bethy seemed happy to oblige. Once she'd taken the witch into her Domain, we turned to the doorway to the next room.
"Alright Chels, you're up," I told my sister. "This is a special door that can only be opened by bloodline descendants of the city lord, OR by people with the token to get in here. It works on energy signature. This is good for us, because the energy signature we need is stored in the formations in this garden. The formation has to be able to recognize the proper signature to allow family members to pass."
My sister grinned. "Ooooh, I get it. You want me to use my diagram to share the power from the formations with the door lock."
She raised her hand, and a symbol appeared. Not the full yin yang diagram, but a segment of it. The dark section with the single white dot, looking like a comma. She extended her hand toward the garden, and the comme flew out and landed on the grass, luckily not setting off and alarms. Then she raised her other hand, manifesting a white comma with a black spot, and pressed it to the door.
The two segments glowed, and then the door glowed, and then there was a click and it swung open seamlessly. My sister grinned at us smugly. "See, when I work, there aren't any big loud crashes or ruined landscapes. I achieve everything with perfect balance and harmony. Violence is never the answer."
"Isn't one of your powers conceptual destruction?" Abel asked her mildly.
Chelsea smiled sweetly at him. "Isn't one of your powers shutting up before I hurt you? It would be a shame if, the next time we use the diagram, your powers conveniently fail when you're about to punch something scary."
"Have you learned nothing from Benny?" I asked him with a laugh. "Never piss off the support."
We stepped over the Vault threshold. This was the last room. "Alright, Dayna, you're up." I pointed up at the flying boxes randomly floating through the air. They seemed to be passing through some weird exchanging orbit that altered constantly. This had been part of why I'd needed to wait until now to reveal the plan. I had to use Dantalion to identify the right box. "Can you hit one of those boxes without actually damaging it?"
The archer frowned. "I…think so?" she said hesitantly. "I'd need to know which box, and I might need a minute to set up my shot. If we need contact without damage I need to hit it at the top of an arc. I'll need to make sure all the force is spent and that it hits in that moment before gravity starts reasserting control."
"Good, Chelsea, I want you to link that same power signature to her arrow," I instructed my sister. "Just give me a minute to find the right box." Callie glared at me, clearing her throat, and I rolled my eyes. "Alright, fine, do a few boxes while I look so you can practice."
Cheering happily, my wife dragged my sister and our archer off to set up. The interior of the main Vault chamber was BIG, but most of it was empty space. The floor made up a relatively small proportion of the room's area, but even that was about a square mile. CLosing my eyes, I took a deep breath. This was going to be deeply uncomfortable. I needed to use Callie's shadows to boost Dantalion again. Luckily, most of this room was empty space, and the Vault itself was an isolator of power, so the range would be MUCH smaller this time.
Reaching into the bond, I retraced the steps we'd taken before. I knew how to access her shadows without her help now, having done it with her once, and kneeling down to touch the dark was simple.
My mind expanded, and I grimaced as information flooded my brain. Luckily, it was MUCH less of it than last time, so I was able to handle it with just a few parallels to help manage the info dump.
I scanned the boxes, identifying which ones were the oldest. I figured starting there made the most sense, since the key was ancient and probably wasn't taken out that often. Once I found the oldest of them, I sifted through the information until I finally found the right box. "That one!" I called to the others as I reached up to point at a box.
I let Dantalion drop, turning to see Callie and Chelsea digging through a trio of metal boxes that had clearly been retrieved from the orbit above us. They were waiting for me though, and when I called out, they turned to see where I was pointing. Without much delay, Chelsea imbued Dayna with the right energy, and the archer drew and fired. The arrow arched gracefully through the air, reaching the apex of its arc and hanging suspended, the tip just barely brushing the box in question.
Despite all the impressive things I saw on the regular, watching the elven archer fire the shot so perfectly that the arrow essentially tapped the box in zero gravity, I was blown away. The delicacy and control needed for that were staggering. Whisper might shoot a little harder, but Dayna was obviously our strongest archer in terms of technique.
Once it was touched, the box smoothly drifted down and dropped onto the ground in front of Dayna, popping open as it landed to reveal the object inside.
Strolling forward, I leaned down to grab the key from its purple velvet cushion. The object was black metal with strange protrusions and sharp angles all over it. I didn't question it, this was the right item, I could tell from its history. I stashed it in my ring, then turned to the others, cracking my neck. "Good job everyone. Now that we have the key, gather up all the extra loot. This next part is going to be a little wild."
He nodded, humming contemplatively. "I'm assuming you want Bethy to carry us through in her Domain?"
"As mist, preferably," I agreed. I turned to the others. "Once we're in, Sable is going to take over." I glanced at her intently. "The first room of the Vault is a garden. It looks peaceful but it's covered in special formations designed to detect living beings. Because of the way it's set up though, plants are excluded. We need your root golems to get us across."
The rest of the plan would need to be explained on the fly. There were observations I needed to make in person, and I couldn't predict the outcome. Some of the defenses were randomized, and while I knew what had been a threat when I checked the Vault the first time, my staff could only simulate, not actually predict the future. While prediction WAS something I could achieve in limited circumstances, doing it hours ahead of time with so many variables was impossible for me.
Stepping closer to Bethy, we all let her pull us into her Domain. There was a brief flicker across the red moon, and she let us back out. Abel's spatial lubrication combined with Bethy's mist form let us smoothly bypass most of the external defenses. I'd had to double check a few things on arrival just to be sure, but that part of the plan had gone off without a hitch.
Inside the Vault, we emerged into a surprisingly peaceful garden. We were standing at one end, on a stone platform set into the ground, and a path of cobblestones extended through the place from the platform.
The path was a trap. It didn't actually prevent the formations from detecting you, and there were actually several dangerous trap enchantments laid out on the stones. The detection formations could identify members of the city lord's bloodline, or could be bypassed with a special token, neither of which we had. But that was why I'd brought Sable.
The red haired witch stepped forward confidently, reaching into a pouch, and withdrew a handful of seeds. Nicking her finger, she spread some blood on them and then tossed them casually off the platform and into the grass of the garden.
While the garden only detected living beings and not plants, there were other defenses in play. More active defenses that were a threat to the root golems. Our best bet here was quantity, sending a bunch of them through so that one or two might make it to the other side. Sure enough, the little root people took off for the other side of the room, and as they ran, they started getting picked off.
The garden was gorgeous. A huge, lush expanse of thick plantlife containing hundreds of flowers, trees, and various other interesting flora. I could even see what looked like animals made of plants, moss deer and moose with tree antlers. As the root people ran out among the plants, a large portion of them reacted.
Flowers grew teeth and devoured root people whole, tendrils from beneath the ground dragged them under kicking and screaming, and in some cases, floating spores or fluff landed on them gently, burrowing into the creatures and tearing them apart in explosions of blooming flowers or mushrooms. The whole thing was a horror show, and it made me glad I hadn't decided to brute force it. This was what happened when you DIDN'T trip the defenses. Imagining an actual coordinated response made my blood run cold.
After a bit of trial and error, we realized that there WAS a path through the garden, it just wasn't the stone one in the middle. I also suspected that the recognition formations did more than attack if triggered, I was pretty sure they suppressed the passive defenses too. Still, we managed to get one of them through, and once it got to the other side, I used Double Trouble to appear behind it, bypassing the entire room.
Once I was through, I turned to the large expanse of unwarded earth on the other side, then triggered Agares, and began shaping a long bridge to cover the room.
This was the biggest gap in the security setup. There were formations in place that required that any passersby walk across the ground. They jammed air passage to prevent anyone from just flying over. I'd bypassed them entirely with teleportation, but that was an uncommon ability to have, and the Vault itself was blocked off from teleportation coming in, so it was considered a low priority to defend against.
By using the unaltered ground on the other side of the formations, I could create a path that conformed to the defenses without actually subjecting my people to them. Within a few minutes, the bridge had formed, and my friends strolled casually across it to join me on the other side of the garden.
I grinned at Sable. "Nice one. That took more root puppets than expected. You feeling ok? You had to bleed a couple times for that."
She shrugged. "I'm a witch, and I use blood in a lot of work. I'm used to it." She shot Bethy a considering glance. "I am feeling a little faint though, Bethy, does that big castle have more than just that one bedroom?"
"Of course," the Vampire said perkily. "And all the beds are super soft. I found them on this really weird planet. They have mattress trees there. Also couch bushes, but those eat people. Poor Tracy is still afraid of paisley. Though to be fair, who wouldn't be, it's hideous."
It took me a second to remember that Tracy was one of her thralls. I hadn't seen them in ages, since they couldn't really keep up with our pace. Regardless, it was clear Sable wanted to take a nap, and Bethy seemed happy to oblige. Once she'd taken the witch into her Domain, we turned to the doorway to the next room.
"Alright Chels, you're up," I told my sister. "This is a special door that can only be opened by bloodline descendants of the city lord, OR by people with the token to get in here. It works on energy signature. This is good for us, because the energy signature we need is stored in the formations in this garden. The formation has to be able to recognize the proper signature to allow family members to pass."
My sister grinned. "Ooooh, I get it. You want me to use my diagram to share the power from the formations with the door lock."
She raised her hand, and a symbol appeared. Not the full yin yang diagram, but a segment of it. The dark section with the single white dot, looking like a comma. She extended her hand toward the garden, and the comme flew out and landed on the grass, luckily not setting off and alarms. Then she raised her other hand, manifesting a white comma with a black spot, and pressed it to the door.
The two segments glowed, and then the door glowed, and then there was a click and it swung open seamlessly. My sister grinned at us smugly. "See, when I work, there aren't any big loud crashes or ruined landscapes. I achieve everything with perfect balance and harmony. Violence is never the answer."
"Isn't one of your powers conceptual destruction?" Abel asked her mildly.
Chelsea smiled sweetly at him. "Isn't one of your powers shutting up before I hurt you? It would be a shame if, the next time we use the diagram, your powers conveniently fail when you're about to punch something scary."
"Have you learned nothing from Benny?" I asked him with a laugh. "Never piss off the support."
We stepped over the Vault threshold. This was the last room. "Alright, Dayna, you're up." I pointed up at the flying boxes randomly floating through the air. They seemed to be passing through some weird exchanging orbit that altered constantly. This had been part of why I'd needed to wait until now to reveal the plan. I had to use Dantalion to identify the right box. "Can you hit one of those boxes without actually damaging it?"
The archer frowned. "I…think so?" she said hesitantly. "I'd need to know which box, and I might need a minute to set up my shot. If we need contact without damage I need to hit it at the top of an arc. I'll need to make sure all the force is spent and that it hits in that moment before gravity starts reasserting control."
"Good, Chelsea, I want you to link that same power signature to her arrow," I instructed my sister. "Just give me a minute to find the right box." Callie glared at me, clearing her throat, and I rolled my eyes. "Alright, fine, do a few boxes while I look so you can practice."
Cheering happily, my wife dragged my sister and our archer off to set up. The interior of the main Vault chamber was BIG, but most of it was empty space. The floor made up a relatively small proportion of the room's area, but even that was about a square mile. CLosing my eyes, I took a deep breath. This was going to be deeply uncomfortable. I needed to use Callie's shadows to boost Dantalion again. Luckily, most of this room was empty space, and the Vault itself was an isolator of power, so the range would be MUCH smaller this time.
Reaching into the bond, I retraced the steps we'd taken before. I knew how to access her shadows without her help now, having done it with her once, and kneeling down to touch the dark was simple.
My mind expanded, and I grimaced as information flooded my brain. Luckily, it was MUCH less of it than last time, so I was able to handle it with just a few parallels to help manage the info dump.
I scanned the boxes, identifying which ones were the oldest. I figured starting there made the most sense, since the key was ancient and probably wasn't taken out that often. Once I found the oldest of them, I sifted through the information until I finally found the right box. "That one!" I called to the others as I reached up to point at a box.
I let Dantalion drop, turning to see Callie and Chelsea digging through a trio of metal boxes that had clearly been retrieved from the orbit above us. They were waiting for me though, and when I called out, they turned to see where I was pointing. Without much delay, Chelsea imbued Dayna with the right energy, and the archer drew and fired. The arrow arched gracefully through the air, reaching the apex of its arc and hanging suspended, the tip just barely brushing the box in question.
Despite all the impressive things I saw on the regular, watching the elven archer fire the shot so perfectly that the arrow essentially tapped the box in zero gravity, I was blown away. The delicacy and control needed for that were staggering. Whisper might shoot a little harder, but Dayna was obviously our strongest archer in terms of technique.
Once it was touched, the box smoothly drifted down and dropped onto the ground in front of Dayna, popping open as it landed to reveal the object inside.
Strolling forward, I leaned down to grab the key from its purple velvet cushion. The object was black metal with strange protrusions and sharp angles all over it. I didn't question it, this was the right item, I could tell from its history. I stashed it in my ring, then turned to the others, cracking my neck. "Good job everyone. Now that we have the key, gather up all the extra loot. This next part is going to be a little wild."