Mage Tank

It turned out Lito had his own dream hammer. That is, a hammer that sent people to dreamland by force. It was a rubber mallet called Gorgeous, because of how
it was. One might even call it a
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It thumped people unconscious without killing them.
It was a three-hit combo, dealt no damage, had to be strikes made against the head, it was pretty useless for combat. But boy howdy, did it shut Berserker Leon right the hell up.
Once we got Leon back to the Pocket mansion, Myria administered a sedative that would keep the man down without provoking any cranial swelling. That would have been an atrocious idea, medically speaking, if the man’s brain had been powered off by actual head trauma beforehand, rather than magic. Of course, Lito’s wallops had been enthusiastic enough that I questioned his assurances the hammer didn’t deal damage. He was the expert, so I left him to his business. Either way, Leon was dealt with and now he was someone else’s problem.
Lito had some theories for why the feisty Lord Heronwyte mistook the deranged writings he’d presented for devastating evidence of my guilt. Mind fuckery, essentially. He didn’t take much time to explain, now that everything was wrapped up for them to leave. He and Myria popped the emergency portal, and they ushered the Hiwardians through, making a hasty and efficient exit. Myria took up the rear and paused before crossing over, making sure I didn’t want to head out with them.
“No offense,” I said, “but I’m not convinced Hiward is particularly safe for me at the moment. I also need to do some house cleaning to make sure there are no more nasty surprises hiding out in here.”
“Alright,” said Myria. She bit her lip, still hesitating to go. “Look, I know you’re worried. There’s three extremely powerful people out there working to get your party members back, and more are probably on the way as we speak. No one’s going to sit back while the king’s missing.”
“I have no doubt Hiward’s best will turn out for the king,” I said. “As for everyone else…” I shrugged, leaving the sentence unfinished.
“Just be careful,” she said. “Don’t do anything rash.”
I leaned back against a wall in the lounge hallway, staring at the bloodstains. Lito and Myria had taken the bodies as part of the investigation, to Grotto’s silent dismay. My familiar hadn’t let the opportunity go to waste completely, though. A couple of the corpses had been missing their weapons, and the Guard who’d nearly survived a decapitation had been holding a fancy shield that was nowhere to be found.
A trinket here, a potion there, the sorts of things that might get misplaced while making a quick retreat.
The blood was in front of me, but I wasn’t really staring at anything in particular. My vision blurred as I drifted through half-formed plans for assaulting a mystery foe. Myria was right. It would be rash to try and pursue someone who could capture–arguably–the most important man in the world. Someone who could do it under the noses of three of the oldest and highest-level Delvers on the planet. Someone who’d evaded all the surveillance both Grotto and I could bring to bear, and who’d infiltrated the King’s Guard at the highest level.
It was that last part I found myself fixating on. The enemy had succeeded
of the King’s Guard, who’d been having one fucking hell of an opposite day.
A squad from the Guard spent 24 hours combing the Closet before the king arrived, halfway pretending to be servants. Did that give them the time and access needed to make such a massive weave in the lounge? I didn’t think so, but a lot of the furnishings had been brought in from outside. Did they have access to the Ravvenblaq’s furniture beforehand? That seemed more likely.
What I knew for sure was that they were given free rein to move as they pleased, establish security points, and create blindspots in Grotto’s monitoring. They were in charge of vetting guests and ensuring no dangerous magical items were brought inside. Inventory inspections were not unusual where the king was involved.
Self-defense was a big part of Hiwardian culture, so a Hiwardian might resist if someone tried to strip them of all combat options, even as a condition to see the king. Most Delvers didn’t need a sharp piece of metal to wreak havoc, anyway, and weapons and armor could be contained with a proper beatdown. However, a Hiwardian would have a much harder time justifying a device capable of remote monitoring and limited incursion capabilities. The King’s Guard should have been on the lookout for things like a fucking divination beacon, for example.
We didn’t think for a second the King’s Guard would be on
side, but we took it for granted they’d be on the
side. It worked into our security plan, and it blew up right in our faces.
Leon hadn’t been a part of the King’s Guard, but he’d probably been hit by some sort of mind-affecting ability. That could have been done well ahead of time. Suggestion plus Mesmerize, maybe. The main hole in that theory was the Berserk status that occurred once Lito pointed out the inconsistencies in Leon’s beliefs. There were a lot of potential explanations for that, though. A unique Passive Skill, a conditional item trigger, a delayed potion effect, to name a few. Leon wasn’t directly tied to the imposter Guard, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t working for them indirectly, voluntarily or not.
The imposter King’s Guard had been the enemy’s main advantage in the Closet, and the imposter King’s Guard was dead. All of them except for Aprogar Bluewren, or whoever it was
to be the Lord Director.
That made Aprogar the only remaining threat
. He’d been injured, and he was on the run. It sounded like a tasty opportunity to chase the man down, but it also sounded like a setup. Aprogar had moved to a secondary location, where he may have regrouped with backup, healed, and prepared to ambush any pursuers. Then again, the teleport sigil might lead to the middle of the Less-Than-Habitable Forest, and Aprogar just plain flew away and fucked off into hiding.
I didn’t know enough to say that the teleport weave behind my wardrobe would lead to my missing party members. I didn’t know enough to say that taking that teleport would lead to anything good, whatsoever. In fact, I
know enough to say that the chances of it resulting in certain death were sufficient for reasonable minds to consider it a very stupid thing to do.
But yeah. I was going to take that teleport.
I wasn’t about to rush in while wearing my suit, though. It already got ruffled enough during my dust-up with Leon, so I stripped down and started to armor up. I had to do it the old-fashioned way since I didn’t have a convenient CLOTHES BEAM that allowed me to equip my full armor set in a flash. I added figuring out how Ealdric and crew did that to the List. The answer was probably money.
While I worked on that, Grotto worked on some other things.
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I finished up with my armor, made sure the boa was well secured, and took a look at my vital stats.
It was the first time I’d taken a good look since getting Somncres back. My Fortitude and its first evolution gave me a base health regen of 378. I got another 52 from Who Needs a Cleric, and since Auradilato made me my own ally for auras and aura buffs, my Heavy Armor evolution, Standard Bearer, slapped a 21% bonus onto that. Both Somncres and my Cuirass of the Descent added another 100 each, taking me to 641. Then
number was doubled by my ring. I could go from 1 HP to full health in under ninety minutes.
Stamina was less impressive, but it was still twice what Fortitude would grant normally because of the same evo doubling my base health regen. One hundred mana was being reserved by my Reverse Card aura, and a third of my mana regen was due to the Ambient Absorption trait I shared with Grotto. That bonus came from soaking up the Dimensional mana in the Closet, but we’d throttled the mana in my section to protect mundane people from accidental mana toxicity. It could grant up to an additional 400 regen total in the right environment. Conversely, the bonus might disappear entirely, depending on the types of mana at the teleport destination.
Satisfied with what I saw, I began walking toward my bedroom.
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The hallway leading to my bedroom had splatters of blood along the floor and walls. It wasn’t “I just dragged an eviscerated corpse down this hallway” bloody, more like “Oh god! My jugular vein is cut and all my juices are escaping!” levels of bloody. There was some decent arterial spray, enough that a normal person would have been dead in a minute or two. The trail led to my bedroom, where the door was already open. I paused in front of it.
My wardrobe was still pushed to one side, and the teleport sigil had a bloody handprint in the middle.
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I sighed.
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Grotto appeared next to me in his normal mini-c’thon disguise, gripping a small roundshield in his feelers. It was still large enough to cover his entire body.
Because the little octo shared my intrinsic skills, he was theoretically as good with Shields as I was. He didn’t have the Strength to wield anything robust, but he’d still get a huge defensive bonus from the skill alone, even if the shield itself was kind of lousy. Plus, if he wanted to use something bigger and badder, he had the Animate Object spell, which is why the large roundshield that once belonged to the tanky not-a-King’s Guard also floated next to him.
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By this point, I realized I was stalling. The situation felt urgent, like I should be rushing through as soon as possible, but I didn’t actually know if time was a critical factor. I forced myself to stay calm and continue trying to do everything I could to ensure success.
I had Discretion selected as my free mana shape from Arcane Geometry, so shaping Explosion! to avoid allies wouldn’t increase the cost. I could do a big channel before heading through, but if there were no good targets the spell would be a giant waste of mana.
There was always Shog, but Sam’lia herself had told me not to interrupt the c’thon’s alone time. I’d only pull him out if things were
desperate.
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“Indeed my boy, it would be!” a hearty voice boomed from right beside me.