Weapons of Mass Destruction

POV Dennis Dalton

Using [Haste], I reach the top of the building where Aaron is already waiting. Like me, he’s wearing clothes woven with experimental threads made from an alloy of metals that Nat spun together. These threads apparently help us hide our mana signatures more efficiently while disguising our heat signatures and dampening the signs of our passing, from our footsteps to the air disturbed in our wake.

Just these damned modified clothes qualify as mid-epic rarity, much like the masks we’re wearing, the ones that don’t even have holes for our eyes while still allowing us to see.

(Clothes alone might not be enough,) Aaron sends with a sigh.

(Sneaky mode?) I ask.

As I wait for an answer, I glance at the city stretched out below us. The place we’ve spent the past five months. Hollowgate is one of the three biggest cities in the central region, well-known for the mines it stands atop and the ancient ruins within.

Thousands of prisoners move through the city, weaving between the vast multitude of buildings dotting the landscape. Some structures look to be on the verge of collapse, while others resemble fortresses, sprouting directly from the streets of the city. A few tall towers rise above it all, while a deep pit—apparently dug by one of the groups occupying the city—tears a massive gash in the land, and a tall mountain dominates the landscape of the city, with a small fort nestled against its base—which we’ve decided target this time.

(Sneaky mode,) Aaron confirms.

After that, we tune our mana emissions like Nat taught us and circulate it throughout our bodies with a few slight modifications. In combination with the clothes, our presence becomes almost imperceptible. Adding [Sensory Deception], Nat says we should be able to easily hide from people up to 50 levels higher, with a few rare exceptions.

As planned, making use of the mental map we made on prior scouting missions, we pass by the guards and then break through the protective web over the tall buildings encircling the areas within. It’s easily one of the best defended places in the city.

Our first obstacle is the outer circle placed on one of the walls in our path, so we approach one of the designated anchors. There on the wall, is an intricate set of inscriptions, engraved in molten metal and requiring a key tied to the user’s mana signature.

We already stole a key; so the hard part is going to be using it.

(Together,) Aaron says through our link.

I send my confirmation, and through [Connection], we combine our minds’ processing power, to work on decrypting the key, connecting it to ourselves instead of the owner. And just like that, a task neither of us would have been able to manage alone has been accomplished almost without effort, and we pass through the now worthless defenses with hastened movement.

There’s barely anyone around at this time of night and we’ve already noted the positions of the guard posts we’re now in the process of avoiding. Eventually, we enter the building, breaking through its protections in a similar manner, quickly running through the hallways made out of white stone with black floors. Our steps echo off the empty walls, and I feel my heartbeat quickening.

The same feeling I’m getting from Aaron.

Using the same method, we once again connect to another door, opening it together before proceeding deeper inside once more.

We avoid a few guards, while others pass us by, oblivious as we blend into the furniture. Occasionally, a scan from the protective array sweeps over us, but it always passes us over, thanks to our masking. We’re not even using the key to impersonate the guy we robbed at this point—he probably didn’t have access to this area anyway.

Then we find ourselves stuck, in front of the final door, deep inside of the fort. The door is made out of beautiful silver metal with intricate engravings on the surface, as beautiful as they are functional.

(Even he wouldn’t be able to open this.)

(Please don’t say things like that, he might show up and smack you in the head, before opening it up, all while practicing with those evil cubes of his.)

(Fuck, that could really happen. Creepy orb?)

(Yes, but be careful, and please, don’t lose the box this time. He’ll be furious if it happens again.)

(Don’t even remind me.)

And with that final confirmation, I reach into my pocket and pull out the small box densely layered with inscriptions and made of some of the most durable metals we could find, all covered in a thin layer of voidcopper.

I unlock it with my mana signature, and it opens up, revealing a gray orb, about the size of a grape that almost seems to be made out of smoke.

Inside, the box is lined with a layer of Lily’s bones, which bear their own set of inscriptions. Even now, I don’t dare try to touch it with my fingers, choosing instead to bring it closer to the door, extremely carefully blowing into it while deactivating the inscriptions.

The gray smoke flows through the air, meeting the silver door, before disintegrating the metal at the merest touch, eating through its defenses as if they weren’t even there.

That's how Lily's [Disintegration] is.

We watch the process from a good distance away, waiting for the smoke to disappear entirely. Even then we wait a bit, just to be sure.

Only then do we move in, pushing on the door and entering the room.

It’s a storage facility belonging to a group called the Gravelhands, in fact, we are currently visiting, one of the best vaults in the entire city.

(Quick.) Aaron says, throwing a bag at me, which I grab, before piling materials inside. Some metals, some threads, scales, weird leather.

Meanwhile, Aaron moves over to the corner where the more valuable items seem to be.

(Fuck, that’s a lot; I bet we’ll get some nice shards out of this too!) he says in between looting the various items around us.

(It would be nice if he made us an arcane item.)

(Dream on; you saw how many different items and materials he needed just to make one, and it still blew up our old base.)

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

(Angry Kittens are indeed a menace.)

(For Angry Kittens!) Aaron cheers, his hand wrapped around some weird metal.

We both giggle for a moment before receiving a signal from one of the traps we left behind us.

(Not good.)

Time and again, our traps go off, followed by multiple scans washing over us, the defenses in the room trying to reactivate without any real success.

Without any need to talk, we pick up everything we collected and rush outside, reactivating Sneaky Mode and [Sensory Deception].

We pass through the first wave of guards easily, none of whom directly notice us, then we avoid another by going through the window.

Then one of the guards does notice us and does something to strengthen the defenses in the area around us, destroying our camouflage. He attempts to disrupt our mana, but we resist and disrupt his instead, then he rushes us, his immense mana flaring up around his body, and creating a set of huge mana arms.

(Teleportation?)

(Teleportation outside from here is still blocked.)

We’ve done any number of runs like this. I guess it was about time one of them went belly-up, especially considering the value of the items we took and the power of this group in particular.

Our [Connection] activates, and we connect to the skill of the man attacking us. Our minds come together to bear the strain of the calculations, as we take over the skill, one of the huge arms punches its creator and three more start tearing a hole in the wall.

As the man gets thrown by his own arms, we pass through.

I receive a warning and move to the side without pausing to check and send a similar warning to my brother, causing him to duck under an arrow. Another man and woman attack, but we get rid of them quickly, and a few more afterward. Just a few months ago, they would've been a lot of trouble, but now it seems way too easy. For now.

Finally, we reach the place we passed into the inner layer of their defenses and come to a stop.

A blue-skinned man with four arms stands there. In the darkness, only the flashing of security lights and their piercing sirens serve to break the silence. But the moment he stands before us, the alarms fall silent, as do the men and women who were pursuing us.

There is no need for them to hunt us anymore. The man in front of us is a Champion Candidate, the most powerful thylarin mage in the Gravelhands and one of the top 10 in Hollowgate.

(Together we can take him), I note.

(Not quickly enough. They’re already building up defenses around the fort.)

(Well fuck, I’m sending him the signal,) I say and pull the thread tied to us and leading back to our base.

(This is going to be a mess.)

(It already is.)

“Tell me, are you the ones who’ve been stealing things all across Hollowgate over the past two months? From the Voidstriders? From the Veiled Claw? What about Goldmere?”

“Also from Shadowcliff,” I note with pride. It was the most difficult one so far.

The thylarin Champion Candidate lets out a boisterous laugh, his blue skin shining in the dim light around us, and his four arms moving lazily. “You mean that old fuck Drek covered it up? Was he too ashamed to let people know?”

He doesn’t say more, opting instead to release an immense amount of mana from his body, it flows from his heart, through his chest, and into his four arms which hold it, molding the energy, and creating a number of wisps that glow in the air around him while he radiates a scary amount of pressure.

“Now, I’ll be taking your masks and cutting off your limbs, one by one. Then we’ll talk. What do you think, my new friends?” he says, his tone dripping with menace.

Before anything can happen, I feel a mark on my forearm burn. It’s his anchor, connecting us to that invisible thread of his.

The protections around the area are suddenly ripped apart from the outside, as if that monster were forcing his way in, ignoring all their defenses against teleportation. Then, without any warning, without so much as a whiff of mana, or any sign of disturbance, he appears at my side.

He doesn’t even have that crown of his floating over his head, he’s left it behind in our base, clearly feeling that it wasn’t needed. The same goes for that terrifying weapon he made.

His black hair is messy and his clothes look like he just woke up and threw them on. Obscuring his face is a mask similar to ours, hiding even his eyes and muffling his voice.

He takes quick stock of the situation, his stance lazy, seeming almost careless.

Maybe he really did just wake up.

“Let’s do this quickly, okay? Clean up the fodder; I’ll take the boss. No witnesses,” he finishes that with what sounds like a yawn.

In a blink, he disappears, suddenly standing in front of the thylarin Champion Candidate. It’s not even teleportation, he’s just that fast.

Layers of shields stack in front of the thylarin, and Nat twists his body, in a smooth, almost lazy movement, tapping the first layer which ripples like the surface of a lake before bursting open. And the other barriers quickly follow suit.

The thylarin moves the disrupted mana, tendrils with glowing white tips making an attempt to run Nat through, who’s begun moving from side to side in a twitchy, and chaotic pattern of movement that seems almost impossible to predict.

One of the thylarin man’s arms gets torn off, one of the left arms, it holds its position in mid-air, floating there as Nat bulldozes through barriers and continues to fight the man.

Then I run out of time to spend watching and use [Haste] to avoid an attack. Multiple projections of me appear in the area around me, each possessing its own mana and heat signature, they even produce a small kinetic signature. Aaron does the same, and we rush the men and women surrounding us.

I hold a short sword and dagger while Aaron favors using a single dagger.

Whenever we find ourselves faced with an opponent that’s more difficult than the others, we opt for a quicker way, often swapping places. Aaron is better at facing certain builds, and I’m better at fighting others. The sheer surprise each time we do is just a bonus.

No one here can match our speed, even with their higher average level. Plenty of them have trouble even detecting us or find themselves confused by our projections, so with the exception of two of the more powerful members, where we end up needing to combine our minds to disrupt their mana, we deal with them easily.

When it’s all over, we return to Nat. He stands there, and I can sense him deploying his web to erase our signatures and anything else that could be used to track us.

I add him to our link, and he asks, (Done?)

(Now that everything’s in chaos, do you want to go loot some more?) I ask in return.

(Maybe next time. I’m currently blocking three of their defensive arrays and disrupting their attempts to teleport in. Probably around a hundred people?)

(Well, fuck.)

(It’s fine, they suck at it.)

His mana touches us, and at the same time, I feel a pull on that thread and anchor tied to us, spiriting the three away while the thread dissipates in the air as we vanish, without leaving anything in the way of a traceable signature.

We appear back in our base’s living room and throw the loot into yet another pile nearby before Nat quickly goes through it finally settling on a pair of weird metals, and seeming satisfied.

“Just what I needed,” he declares and then, without fanfare, disappears again, probably returning to his underground lab, leaving two evil orbs in his wake.

As we exchange glances, I send a message, (Lucky us, we didn’t get yelled at.)

(Yea, you think so? Check the orb.)

As I do so, I can only let out a deep groan at the new structure. It requires us to break through defenses and is filled with dozens of traps that punish each mistake, mimicking the one we missed that triggered the alarm.