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Chapter Sixty — Gun Out
Chapter Sixty — Gun Out Jenny gestured Sharp back, then tugged one of her handguns out of its sheath. "Guns out," she said."Really?" Sharp asked."I'm with her on this one. Better have a weapon on hand and not need it than the opposite," I said.Sharp blinked at that, but she pulled out a gun from her pack anyway, a compact little shotgun. It only had a four round magazine, but it would pack a decent punch even if it wasn't too subtle. Usually, by the time bullets were firing, the time for subtlety was past, in any case.Just in case, Sharp got a handgun and some straps out and attached it in its sheath to her outer thigh.Alyssa very noticeably didn't pull out anything that looked like a weapon. At least, until Jenny noticed and grunted, then found a rather dainty pistol for the young mage to hold onto. "I don't need it," she said."Yeah, and you won't faint after casting six combat spells in a row?" Jenny asked.There was a story implied there. Alyssa glared, but took the handgun all the same. "I should take the lead on this one," she said. "I can sense any magical traps.""Tsk," Jenny said, but she nodded and stepped to the side. "You first, then the kid and her cat, then me. No names from here on out.""No names?" Sharp asked."Might be cameras. They'll be old as shit and maybe not connected to anything, but a skilled netrunner might be able to grab a still or two anyway, or pick up on what we're saying.""Then shouldn't we cover our faces too?" Sharp asked.Jenny shrugged, then pulled out a scarf from her bag which she wrapped around her lower face. It wouldn't be enough to stop someone determined from IDing her, but then, nor would covering her entire face. She was distinctly short and with a unique build. So was Alyssa, but she was uniquely tall and gangly.But sometimes it wasn't about perfect cover, it was about having cover good enough that following your trail would be too much work for the effect to be worthwhile."Let's go," Jenny said.And so we stepped into the stairwell, with Alyssa scouting just a few paces ahead. The stairs were illuminated by red Exit signs at each landing, and with the centre of the staircase left as an open space that someone could look down, it actually gave us a fair bit of lighting.The stairs only climbed up one level, to a small landing with a metal door with the words Sub-Level One painted in blocky letters on its front.Alyssa brought her hand close to the door, letting it hover there for a moment before nodding. "Safe," she said. She grabbed the handle and pressed down on the latch, then slowly opened the door while Jenny moved to the side to aim past.The door led into a corridor.It was surprisingly anti-climatic. We stepped in, and found ourselves in a space filled with stale air and... nothing. The walls were painted concrete, white and a pale blue. The ceiling was that sort of floating ceiling found everywhere, and the floor was covered by a squeaky sort of linoleum.This could have been a back corridor in a hospital, or an apartment complex, or the back of a mall. There was no dust or grime, the neon lights didn't flicker or hum, the pipes that must have been in the walls, didn't rattle or clang.Alyssa took a slow breath, then muttered, "This place is… heavy."Jenny frowned. "What does that mean? 'Heavy?'"Alyssa didn't answer immediately. She walked forward, careful, deliberate, like she was moving through deep water. "Old magic. Thick, layered, and not just from one caster. This isn't just some guy's abandoned basement lab." She exhaled slowly. "It's like… a graveyard of spells.""Is that bad?" Sharp asked, peering around, her fingers twitching around the shotgun's grip."It's complicated," Alyssa said, stepping forward and trailing a hand along the wall. "Magic leaves an imprint. If it was cast here for long enough, if it was strong enough, the space it was cast it will have a sort of... memory of the spellwork, even if it's no longer active. It can make recasting a spell much easier. Stay close. Don't touch anything."We all watched, both Alyssa and our surroundings, as she knelt and cast something that took several minutes. When she was done, a small flock of moths, none bigger than my forepaws, fluttered out ahead of her and disappeared into a thin mist. More appeared in her hand and flew in the same direction, right towards a wall.The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation."That way," she said. "I suppose we'll have to find a way around.""Let's just grab the package and bounce," Jenny said, and for once I agreed with the girl.The corridor stretched out ahead, doors spaced evenly apart. They were all shut. They didn't have any stencilling on them, or marking hinting at what was behind them. That's when I noticed it. There was no signage here. No ads. No posters, graffiti, no stick-figure symbols warning people about exits or washrooms.I flicked my tail, ears twitching. Something felt off. The hairs along my spine bristled."We should move fast," I said.Sharp nodded and fell in line behind Alyssa, who was leading them with careful steps. Jenny took the rear, gun raised, eyes sharp.Alyssa exhaled, fiddling with the pendant at her chest. "This place… it doesn't just have memories. It has intent.""Creepy," Sharp said. "I used to have fantasies about being in a spooky place with a few cute girls, but in those I always saved them from the big bad monster, and now that we're here, I'm second-guessing my dreams.""Anyone ever tell you you're weird?" Jenny asked."A few times.""Anyone ever tell both of you to shut up?" Alyssa asked.Jenny snorted. "Alright. If your little moths know where to go, we follow."The moths flitted ahead, their faint glow reflecting off the linoleum floor as they guided us deeper. They didn't hesitate, didn't waver, moving through the air like they already knew the way.We followed in silence. At the first intersection, I meowed at Sharp and the others, catching their attention. "Sharp, mark the walls with something. So we don't get lost.""Right, gimme a sec," she said before reaching into a pocket and fumbling out a large marker. Jenny paused to watch, then nodded as Sharp drew an arrow at about head-height. "That's okay, right?" she asked."Shouldn't interfere with anything," Alyssa said. "Come on, this place isn't infinite, nor is it a maze. We'll get to the vault soon enough."The corridors twisted and stretched ahead, identical walls and floors making every step feel wrongly familiar. Sharp kept marking the way, but the sense of being watched settled over me like dust.Jenny's grip tightened on her gun. "I don't like this.""No one does," Alyssa muttered. "We keep moving."The moths led us through a wider hall, where the walls were lined with reinforced doors. Some had digital locks, others manual ones, but every single one was shut tight. No signs of tampering. No signs of escape. No numbers or letters on the keypads.Alyssa inhaled sharply. "This isn't a storage wing. It's a containment unit."Jenny stopped mid-step. "Containment for what?"The silence stretched out. The air felt thicker now, pressing against us like the walls were leaning in. I flicked my tail, ears flattening. The hairs along my spine prickled, and my claws flexed against Sharp's shoulder.Alyssa turned in place, her fingers twitching toward her pendant. "Something that wasn't meant to be let out."Sharp squinted at the rows of reinforced doors."I mean… everything in a vault is technically 'contained,' right? Maybe this is just, like, a really secure part of the facility?"Jenny huffed. "Yeah, sure. And I'm a billionaire. These aren't storage lockers, kid. These are cages."I didn't like that phrasing.Alyssa stepped toward the nearest door, her fingers ghosting over the surface. She muttered something under her breath, and a wave of purple energy ran from her fingertips across the metal. Symbols, faint but still active, flared up along the surface of the door in a dim, warning-red glow."Still powered," she murmured. "Still warded."Jenny shifted her grip on her gun. "So what, this place isn't as dead as we thought?"Alyssa's lips pressed into a tight line. "It's been abandoned, yes. But not deactivated."Sharp gestured at the glowing symbols. "Okay. What do they say?""No idea," Alyssa said. "There are three dozen common magical scripts and a hundred more private and hidden ones. This isn't one of those I can read."Alyssa raised her hands, and the fluttering little moths guided us to the far end of the room where, past several branching corridors leading out of the hall, there was a door. A large wooden door, looking entirely out of place in the concrete and metal space."That's our destination," she said. "Let's grab the goods and go."
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Chapter Sixty-One — Warded
Chapter Sixty-One — Warded Just barging into a magically warded room with no preparation or thought was, generally speaking, a dumb idea.I hadn't lived as long as I had doing dumb things, and so I was very much tempted to call this entire mission off as Alyssa poked and prodded at the door.I didn't, however. Mostly because she was a somewhat competent mage.Working with mages and magicians and kineticists and wizards was always a risky bit of business. People who stared past the physical world and into the space beyond that tended to be... skewed. Still, that didn't mean that they couldn't be professionals.Alyssa, for all of her youth and brash attitude, struck me as one such person. I didn't think she'd come into her art as a professional, however. The way she did things reminded me of Sharp, in a way. She acted as though she had been trained to act that way.It came in the way her spells were practiced, in the confident way she read into what magic she saw. At the moment, she was reaching into a pocket to pull out a small pouch that looked like it was filled with sand, and she did so with the ease of long practice.Most younger folk didn't bother practicing mundane skills related to their discipline until they were second nature like that.I watched as she spilled salt onto the ground, the scent in the air telling me what she was dealing with.Alyssa then touched the door and muttered an incantation, and soon enough she slumped down.Jenny placed a hand on her shoulder, keeping her steady. "You good?" the shorter woman asked."I'm fine," Alyssa said. "Just, give me a moment. This is a complicated one, but we're so close... we'll have time to rest later."Jenny nodded, then returned to scanning the room. Every sound we made, sniffles, shoes scuffing on the floor, or words spoken in a low whisper, echoed through the large space in an eerie way.Alyssa took a deep breath, then refocused. A glow suffused the door, then a form shifted out of it. A moth, as large around as a person's head. It gently glided down, then alighted onto the pile of salt and disappeared.The salt... melted down, tumbling away and spreading out into a circle with spaces marked out within it. It continued to move, and after a long minute, there was a complex diagram written on the floor."Okay," Alyssa said. "We're dealing with something pretty standard. There's a barrier that goes off if you tamper with the door directly, another set of alarms for magical tampering, and... this one here looks like it explodes outwards if you try to force the door open." She pointed to various parts of the diagram."Fun," Jenny said. "Can we open it?""Yeah," Alyssa said. "I mean. Yes. This is old stuff. Solved a long time ago. I can unlock the vault door, but I might not be able to stop all of the alarms linked into this bit of spellwork.""What does that mean?" Sharp asked. She'd been pretty quiet, staring at the diagram and the magic as it unfolded."It means that as soon as I break the lock, we'll have seconds to act before the alarm goes off," Alyssa said. "And I have no idea what that alarm will do, only that it exists and is linked to the door."Jenny hummed, then scanned the room. She pulled out a smartphone, turning on its flashlight to scan the ceiling. "No turret emplacements. I didn't notice any traps on the way over. Could be that the alarm is just a signal. And with the master of this place being dead as doornails, we might be okay.""Might be?""Let's be fast, then!" Sharp said. I think she just said it to override any of the very sensible objections I had.My main concern was that Alyssa and Jenny were being rather cagey about what exactly, we were here to grab, and what we might find in this vault. I had some guesses, but nothing concrete to go off of."Ready?" Alyssa asked."Yeah," Jenny said.Sharp stepped to the side, then brought her shotgun up to her shoulder in the same pose we'd practiced at the range. "Go ahead," she said.Alyssa touched the handle, then yanked the vault door open in one smooth motion. Sharp and Jenny tensed, aiming into the room that was only lit by Jenny's light.Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.It was... a small room with a few shelves along the walls and a couple of long tables. The space wasn't much bigger than the average public washroom, with furniture that looked like it had been bought from one of those 'assemble it yourself' stores.On said furniture were a few items, but mostly books."Looks clear," Alyssa said. "There, that's the one." she was pointing right across the room, where a large tome sat all alone on one of the tables. It was black, bound leather with a bit of golden gilding on the sides. The kind of thing that was needlessly expensive and pretty, but exactly the sort of thing an ostentatious mage would be attracted to.She crossed the room, and we followed.I was looking for trouble, but didn't find any in the knick-knacks resting on the tables. There were wands and foci, more books, and a few jars with samples of unidentifiable stuff in them, but nothing that jumped out to me as actively dangerous.Alyssa's hand hovered over the book for a moment before she nodded. "Safe," she said before grabbing it. "Jenny, bag.""Got it," Jenny said as she pulled out a crumpled plastic bag and swished it open. The two managed to slip the tome into it.Meanwhile, Sharp was looking around. There were items here that might be worth something, but I wasn't going to let her just grab anything. Except... "Can I have that?" she asked, pointing to one of the books.Alyssa looked over, then blinked. "Uh... sure, let me check it."The book Sharp had pointed to was rather small. A palm-sized paperback, well-read and with a few bits of paper sticking out from between its dogeared pages. Alyssa picked it up, then handed it to Sharp. "Thanks!" she said.I finally got a good look at the title. Magic for Newbies.Well... yes, I supposed that was a good pick. And it looked like something that wouldn't be worth setting any sort of magical trap on."Guys, let's move," Jenny said.We moved, though not without complaints. "You know, when I agreed to help, I expected to get some sort of reward out of this," Sharp said. "Not... just one small book.""We agreed to pay you a thousand dollars, that's not nothing," Alyssa said. "Besides, this has been a cakewalk, no danger, no-""Trouble," Jenny interrupted.My fur climbed to stand on end at the word, and I perked my ears up to listen better. There was something moving. Something small but relatively fast... no, multiple somethings, and from the faint electrical whine, they weren't organic.The first of them came rolling out around the far end of the room, out of one of the adjoining corridors.It was a drone. It rose to meet Sharp's waist in height, with four tractor-like treads and a boxy metal body. The unit had a set of sensors on its front, which was fine. The turreted gun atop it was not."Shit," Jenny said. She raised her handgun and took three quick, loud shots that echoed through the room. The first two struck the robot centre-mass, the last cracked into one of the walls behind.The moment she fired, an alarm started to blare, and the emergency lighting came on.The bot Jenny had shot veered off to the side and ran into a wall, incapacitated. So, nothing too strong.Cheap, AI-operated security drones like that were a dime a dozen. They carried small arms, and could recognize people with a good-enough ratio of accurate identification. They usually went down in a couple of hits. Not even necessarily bullet hits either. Someone with a bat and some enthusiasm could take one out.But in bulk, they sold for about three or four thousand a piece, and even an enthusiastic bat-wielder would hesitate after seeing a dozen gun-toting drones wheeling their way.Another came out of a corridor to our left. Jenny took a few more shots, then Sharp levelled her shotgun and tore the machine's side off with a spray of buckshot."Time to move!" Jenny shouted, and she was right. I could hear a few more coming, and these things were usually networked together. They'd start by investigating, then if met with violence, would adopt a 'shoot-first' kind of stance.We weren't bullet-proof enough to handle that.And so we finally had an excuse to put all that cardio I'd been pushing Sharp into to the test.
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