Foxtails and Fairytales: Facades and Fables of the Phantom Prince

[Arc 9] Ch. 6 Robbin' Hood(s)

Rowan Sherwood

Son of a-! Who were these people!

My team and I had been assigned by our mentor to take up a position in the security room of the Kallit estate during their pretentious magic party. The security room was a large circular room with a domed ceiling that reached two to three stories high held up with marble pillars. A large copper armillary sphere made of movable copper rings fixed with polished dungeon cores hung just above me. It was held up inside the dome by several large stone statues.

Below us, glass orbs floated above numerous stone pedestals circled the room revealing images of rooms from all around the estate as if they were contained inside them. I noticed that they may have appeared as if they were randomly scattered around the room but from my perspective high above them, I could see that they were set up to represent the layout of the estate. This entire room was our worst nightmare as thieves since once the apparatus was activated a barrier would surround the entire estate and it would turn into an endless maze that could be altered at will from this room. But that wasn't the scariest thing.

In the center of the room rested a large basin of water. That basin was a magical device that allowed the user to not only scry anywhere on the property, but it also acted as an invisible portal. As fancy as the apparatus was it was made that much more frightening when combined with the short-range portal that allowed security to safely snipe any enemies from any direction. Turning an infuriating maze into a death trap.

Our mission was to sneak into this room long before the party and hide until our mentor gave us the signal. When he gave it, we were supposed to disable the guards, shut down the apparatus, and escape through the portal. In short, we were the back-up which only told me how important it was considering our mentor was a master of the craft. But in the worst-case scenario we were to get out alive as our first priority and disrupt anyone going after our target if possible.

We had been sitting in wait for the last twelve hours, hiding high in the tall intricate ceiling statues. It was standard procedure in a way. It was easier to sneak in early and stay hidden before they beefed up security and if you take a position in the security room then it's like you were invited to their high-profile meetings.

Everything was going as planned... then a group of people and demon beasts stormed the room and slaughtered the guards. They started taking over like they already knew what they were doing. One of the party guests showed up and seemed to be leading the whole thing. Viscount Winterhall.

Great... someone else is hitting the Kallit's Vault. It's in a different location underneath the estate. Our mentor said there was an emperor's ransom worth of dungeon cores, Etherite, and cross quartz in there. But the real treasure was a shard of a dungeon core from deep in the Lost Peninsula that had some mysterious properties. Tonight, we were after that shard. According to our mentor it was the size of an apple core and as red as a ruby. Most have never seen a dungeon core from the Lost Peninsula and the Grandine wolves have gone through extensive effort to manage them.

Magus Kallit was one of the foremost authorities on Dungeon cores and was asked for her assistance regarding the shard since it was discovered under unusual circumstances. The details hadn't been disclosed to us, but we didn't need them. All we needed to know was that our mentor was going to steal it to keep it out of the hands of someone worse and we were on board.

Viscount Winterhall was a smuggler who hadn't done much of anything to stick out... until today. Where did he get an army of Demon beasts?

*

Better question!

SINCE WHEN IN JORIA'S MIGHTY MERCY DID DEMON BEAST HAVE THE ABILITY TO TURN INTO HUMANS!?