Milc/C.J. Milnes
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Chapter 33 - I was going to make bank if I ever got to go home
🕑 Added 2025-04-04 19:30:58 +0000 UTC“He just argued with a wall of eyes. Ashrot didn’t say anything. It kind of rumbled a bit but I don’t think it was a positive response. So we’re going with Plan Number One. That’s final,” I said. This council of war was making me feel like a kid trying to get permission from my mum to play out late.
“Mond-” Jandak started.
“You guys and your golems can go in my storage if you like? Otherwise I’m going in alone.” I cut him off. The Fangs quickly shook their heads.
“You’re sure you can escape again?” asked Fay and I waggled a handful of mana potions at her in reply.
“Yep. The lord isn’t going to be joining the fight. I’ve got this covered and Bob is in my storage space already. Worst case I pop him out as a distraction and run. I’m more worried about you guys being able to cope with the Undying. There’s twenty odd thousand of the damn things.”
“We can manage as long as the abomination doesn’t decide to join the attack. The undead are no threat to us with the titans in support,” Bon said thoughtfully as he settled his helmet back on his head. “They’ll be starting in an hour. If you’re going to go, now is the time.” I grinned.
“This is basically what I used to do for a living. It’ll be fine. I’ll- dammit Wilson! No! You aren’t coming with me. You’ll get some fun killing zombies as they shamble out of the city!” Wilson was headbutting me in the side repeatedly and whining.
“Your wolf isn’t as confident as you are,” Fay said coldly. She had been furious when I’d tried to discuss my plan with her.
“He didn’t know me before I came to this world. I’m good at this, Fay.” I turned to the rest of the command team, the chiefs watching quietly with studiously neutral expressions. My Fangs looked worried, Fay looked pissed off and the tribunes from the Legion looked stoic. Nothing seemed to faze the Huskar soldiers.
“Focus on your own roles in this fight! Fay, you and the coven are going to be providing magical cover with Kril. The Fangs and the titans are supporting the Legion who’ll take on the brunt of the undead. With the coven neutralising the enemy soulbound and wizards it should be a cake walk.”
“What's a cake?” asked Kril with a scowl.
“Something delicious,” I grumbled.
“You walk on delicious things in your world?” pondered Mune. He rubbed at his chin and looked at me in confusion.
“Shut up! Forget about cakes. I go in and do some targeted killing while you guys deal with the sally.”
It took me another ten minutes to be sure we had all our ducks in a row. Once I was confident everyone was clear, if not happy, with their roles in the plan.
“Be careful, love,” Fay said to me as the meeting broke up. We were standing outside the over-sized tent Pertabon used as his command hub. The moons had set and the only light came from the stars above of the scattered cooking fires within the fort. Fay moved slowly, pregnancy having robbed her of some of her former grace.
“I will. Believe me, this is the first, well second, normal thing I’ve done in this world, Fay. Kidnapping that wizard from Jagapan’s camp before the winter was basically my old job. I’ll cut my losses and run if I have to, don’t worry.” I replied but she pulled my hand over and pressed it against her stomach before hugging me fiercely.
“You have someone to meet in a few months, husband. Don’t disappoint them,” she hissed in my ear before spinning away and moving off to shout for the rest of the coven. Women. I suppressed a sigh. Wilson padded along next to me as I left the camp and moved into the darkness beyond the wooden walls.
“Stop whining, bloke. You can’t come with me. Stay here and keep an eye on Fay, ok?” I said softly as I patted the wolf on the snout. He pulled his head back then sneezed, coating my hand in a fine mist that I wiped on my tunic. Wilson pushed his head into my chest, shoving me backwards slightly, then turned and walked away. Wolves. This time I dared to sigh out loud. A loud chuff came back from Wilson as he walked away. Oops.
Glimpse was high in the sky, waiting for me to do my thing. I weighed the three mana potions in my left hand and pulled another three out of my storage space, slipping them into my belt pouch. The damn things were nearly indestructible. No amount of rough housing and bad juggling among the Fangs had managed to even crack any of them so I wasn’t worried about the seemingly fragile glass breaking in what passed for my pocket.
I glared down at the three vials of blue liquid and flexed my toes in the loam. My perception stretched out into the dirt as I cast Shape Earth and began sinking down as a tunnel grew beneath me. I pushed the dirt and hardened it, packing it in tightly as I dropped to ten metres below the surface and began moving south, towards the city.
I couldn’t move as fast underground as I could on the surface by shaping the earth around me but I still moved faster than a normal man could run. I could sense how far I was from the surface after the first five seconds so I didn’t accidentally go too deep and the path of the tunnel I’d already cut kept me heading in the right direction.
How far I needed to go was the problem. I felt the foundations of the massive walls, wrapped by the abomination Ashrot, were apparent to me as I passed underneath them after another cast of Shape Earth. I needed to be careful where I came up. The city didn’t have a sewer system, something that was both a boon and a curse. A secluded, stinking tunnel would be a nice place to emerge before I hit the streets and made my way to the keep. It would also be full of shit so… swings and roundabouts.
I travelled deeper into the city, sensing the outlines of the building where my sense extended into the stones that made up the ground floor walls of the city. I found a likely spot and chose to roll the dice.
The soil beneath me surged and lifted me up and the ground above me flowed to the sides and hardened. I emerged from what I hoped was a quiet back street like a demon rising up from hell. I glanced around and thankfully there was no one nearby. The rooftop of the ramshackle house next to me was a good five and half metres above me but I leapt up in a smooth motion and landed with a light thump.
I froze and listened carefully but nothing stirred below me. I had gathered from Glimpse that large swaths of the city were now abandoned, the people either fled, conscripted or turned into the undying. The crow flew lower and orbited above me, giving me a bird's eye view. Heh.
I was clear, the city was quiet, even the massing of the Undying by the northern gate was done in almost complete silence. Only the occasional shouted order of one of the necromancers commanding the swarm broke the silence of the undead. Those pricks were on my secondary target list for this evening. My first order of business this evening was the leadership, so I began running quietly across the rooftops towards the keep that loomed in the east.
Leaping quietly from roof to roof, invisible to the occasional guards or civilians below was an exhilarating feeling. The clouds had blocked the moons and the stars so I was operating in deep darkness but after being underground it felt like a pleasant twilight to me. I made my way inexorably towards my targets, assured by Glimpse that the bastards were hiding in the keep this evening.
I paused as I reached the last building before the sheer stone walls of the keep stretched up across the unusually wide street from me. The blocks of stone were rough and badly cemented together, leaving plenty of opportunities for hand and foot holds. The entrance was a hundred feet down the road and the guards were half asleep from the look of them.
I backed up a couple of metres, took a deep breath, then charged forwards to fling myself across the muddy street below. I hit the wall with a dull thud and scrambled for purchase as I started to slide downwards. I used Minor Shapeshifting and my fingers and toes grew longer. They developed rough patches of skin at the points of contact and I began scaling the wall like a gecko.
I slipped silently into the map room and checked with Glimpse that no one had noticed anything amiss. I was in the clear. If I ever did get to go back home I’d be the best damn assassin on Earth. My fees would climb by an order of magnitude. My digits returned to normal as I cancelled the shapeshifting spell.
I scooped the maps and documents into my storage space, wasting another forty mana then moved to the door. I turned the handle slowly but it was locked. The keyhole was large and crude, any competent locksmith from Earth would sneer at it derisively but I had no tools to pick it with.
I drew my dagger and carefully sliced between the door and the frame. The crude iron caught on the blade but it sliced through smoothly with a little effort. I swung the door open quietly, catching the sheared off metal and laying it down next to the door. I poked my head out and the corridor was dimly lit by widely spaced torches that threw flickering shadows everywhere I looked.
This was less than ideal. I was guessing the lord's apartment wouldn’t be far from his command room but Glimpse had only been able to survey the place from the outside. The internal structure remained a mystery. I put a hand against a wall and cast Shape Earth again then drank a mana potion while I waited for my perception to spread out into the stones around me. Bloody wooden floors! I could feel the outlines of the rooms but wasn’t getting anything more information than that.
I walked casually over to the door opposite me, moving like you belonged was a good way not to draw attention. Walking like you belong stops most issues before they start when you’re somewhere you shouldn’t be. I pushed my hand against the wall by the door and warped the stone to break the wood around the lock. The door slid open quietly to reveal an open space, benches lined one wall and tapestries covered the rest. In the centre was what looked like a baptismal font, a raised dish carved to look like vines climbed up from the floor. The light from a pair of torches caught the water in the bowl and made it gleam orange.
I pulled the door shut and walked down the corridor until I heard the sound of quiet, but heated, conversation around the corner ahead of me.
“WIthout Ashrot this is going to fail!” hissed Sal Hadin.
“You’ve tried to explain it! I’ve tried! He just won’t listen!” snapped Sal Fadra. I crept closer to the corner, moving silently.
“All he’s doing is praying to Hadesti for his wife's soul! We’ve all lost family to feed the Undying!” Sal Hadin complained bitterly. Clearly Mortimer didn’t need to worry about maintaining morale in the same way that I did.
“We should escape. Whether the city stands or falls we’re better off in the south! What’s left to hold us here?” Sal Fadra whispered so quietly I almost missed it. I leant forwards and sure enough the two lesser lords were standing a short distance past the corner as I peaked out with one eye.
They both looked drawn. They hadn't looked happy yesterday at their meeting, as far as I could tell through Glimpse's vision, but they looked noticeably grimmer now. I slid the dagger from my hip then paused. Why bother getting up close?
I cast Shape Earth again. When my sense of the stone reached out to the wall next to the two petty despots I acted. Tendrils of stone shot out from either side to burrow into their eyes, noses and mouths, stifling their screams before they were born. More tentacles of stone lashed out to grip their limbs, holding in place as they tried to gasp and scream.
All that emerged were faint scuffles and strangled gasps. Shoving limbs of living rock down a bloke's throat was not an option available to me back on Earth but it was convenient. As they stopped struggling the walls swallowed them and all that was left was a pair of slight bulges in the stone. I was going to make bank if I ever got to go home.
Soulbound Servant slain x2
Forty Souls harvested.
Secondary targets down. The primary was presumably through one of the doors near where those idiots had been arguing. Left or right? Which way, assassin? I mentally flipped a coin, couldn’t work out which one way it would have landed and thought fuck it.
I melted the walls to either side with the last couple of seconds of my cast of Shape Earth. This proved to be a mistake.
