A few minutes before, Yolanda and Angie hid above the cave on the topside. Their plan was for Shaddox to draw as many guards as he could inside the cave. When that happened, Yolanda would create an illusion of Shaddox from above, leading them toward a branch of the cave that had been long abandoned. This area had been stripped of what little mana stones and ore there were, and would soon be the resting place for the guards who entered.
"Angie, I'm sorry, I spent years avoiding you," Yolanda said. "I expected you to grow on your own. At least that's what I told myself. The truth is I was scared. I still remember that day." The old woman shivered. She could still feel the lightning searing her skin.
"It's okay, granny. Casting illusions gives me a stomach ache."
Yolanda sighed, accepting granny as her nickname. "Listen up brat, I'm going to teach you something important. You can't naturally see mana without spells or skills. What pops up in our heads is simply our minds trying to conceptualize it. Now, every tangible object in this world possesses mana. If you were to break a non-living object in half, the mana would simply divide. Living beings are different. We lose ours upon death. When you sense the mana of someone who's died, you'd probably picture something burning."
Shaddox had entered the cave. Yolanda cast an illusion, creating a duplicate of him which ran towards the abandoned branch. Five guards eagerly followed it, no doubt wanting to be the first ones to get in a hit. Angie placed both of her hands on the ground. With one, she cast multiple barriers around the tunnel. With the second, she prepared to set off a series of small explosive spells she had placed earlier. The barriers were to prevent the shock from spreading and causing other parts of the mine to collapse. Yolanda has decades of experience as a mage. She could sense what little mana the mercenaries had and knew they had just entered the abandoned line.
"It's not too late. We can always hold them off until Battalia gets back," she told Angie. The young mage didn't say anything back. She just triggered explosives. The ground trembled below them. Containing the shock with her barriers was difficult, but after a while, they eventually quelled. While Angie couldn't see the destruction she caused, she could sense it. The lives of the five men burned away below her. She had killed for the first time. Shaddox left the cave, charging back towards the cottages. Angie and Yolanda followed.
The miners were trying their best to fend off the guards. While they had numbers, these were mercenaries who had experience fighting. Another massive disadvantage was their lack of weapons. They were swinging pickaxes and shovels against axes and swords. On top of that, only a few of the workers had fought before, and it had been years. Shaddox joined the fray without hesitation, drawing a knife and running into one of Clay's men. He had to fight. All of them did. As he ran towards the mercenary, Shaddox felt everything: the shame of his family name, the rage of being tormented at Derrick's hands, and the frustration of his own powerlessness. He dug his knife into the unsuspecting man, killing him.
Once Angie and Yolanda arrived, only two guards remained. They were much stronger than the others. One of them cautiously guarded against every approaching miner, fending them off and striking when he could. The other was quite the opposite. He was enraged, overpowering anyone who came close. Angie stared at the chaos, frozen in horror.
"There's just two of them left, why can't they beat them?" she asked.
"They're augmenting their strength with mana. Battalia does the same thing."
The two continued to fend off the remaining villagers. A torch had been knocked over during the chaos. Behind the two trapped beasts, an orange haze glowed. Their faces were covered in blood and sweat, but their eyes lacked hesitation.
"That being said, it's still impossible for them to win, but I do wonder how many they'll take down with them."
Angie felt overwhelmed. She had just killed, but this was different. This time, she would have to watch her victims die. Her hesitation was overcome when she saw something truly horrific. Elain was on the ground. His young daughter was shouting, running towards him as the angered one stood above him. The man's eyes were filled with pure contempt. He didn't care about escaping or surviving–he just wanted to unleash his rage and kill. Angie acted without thinking.
"No," she shouted as a spell circle formed. A beam of light shot from it, blowing a burning hole in the man's chest. He froze, blade still up in the air, then fell over. The villagers were still struggling to take out the last one when an arrow pierced his chest. Jorge was on top of his cottage, aiming down. The dying man turned to him before he fired another. It was over. They were all dead.
"Granny, I can feel it burning," Angie said.
"I know child, we did it," she responded.
"I don't mean them. Clay's house...it's on fire."
The old lady was surprised. Angie was still a novice when it came to sensing mana but was learning incredibly fast.
"Good, now comes the hard part," Yolanda said. Shaddox looked at the village square. It was now littered with bodies. Fortunately, none of the townspeople had died, though many were injured. The doctor and Marge got to work, immediately tending to the wounded. Jorge and the men who weren't wounded started cleaning up. They put out the fire and prepared the bodies. For Shaddox, the night was just getting started.
...
"We need someone who's willing to give up their life," Yolanda had told him.
"What?" Shaddox asked.
"I guess that sounds a bit overdramatic. We need someone to pretend to be Clay. Most of the mercenaries are nomads. Nobody will miss them, and I doubt anyone from the capital knows who they are. Clay is different though. He's a businessman. There might be contracts that will activate upon his death. On top of that, he's the main line of communication between Oberon and Ažakan. We need to create a convincing replica. So, we'll need someone to give up their identity and become Clay."
...
Shaddox entered the doctor's practice later that night. The place was packed with injured villagers. The doctor was in the process of sending them off for the night. Battalia helped apply bandages and gave out medicine while Angie used what little healing magic she could.
"Thank you so much," Elain told Battalia, grabbing her hand. "If you hadn't come, who knows what they would have done to her."
The man was delirious, recovering from a head injury.
Battalia placed her other hand over his. "I did this to avenge my people, you don't have to thank me." Battalia truly had no interest in being their savior.
"You don't seem like the vengeful type," Elain said, passing out shortly after.
"He should be fine," the doctor reassured.
His clothes were stained in blood. Even his cigarette had a touch of crimson on it. Once things settled down in the clinic, the doctor led them to a room in the back. Clay was laid out on an operating table. There was another empty table behind him. Yolanda sat on a stool in between them both. Jorge was the last to enter the room.
Shaddox pulled out a mask. It was made of metal, designed to just cover the eyes. Yolanda had given him the day before.
"I will go over this once more, so all six of us are on the same page," Yolanda said. Everyone sat in silence.
"Having someone pretend to be Clay for a few hours is easy. But for months, possibly years: that's going to be a little more difficult. The spell we'll be using is Gemini Mask. If the alias is being taken, and not given, then the alias must stay alive. Clay cannot die. The doctor here can keep him unconscious, but it'll be time-consuming and difficult. As for the wearer, Shaddox has volunteered to become Clay. He will be able to transform into Clay at will, with the cost of being unable to remove the mask. At least until we're done with him. He also can't be seen by any of Clay's closest family and friends."
Angie remembered something that both Yolanda and her mother had told her.
"Magic is unfair. Not all spells are created equal, and neither are all mages. The only fairness in magic is the Rule of Values. Something given will always be worth more than something taken."
If an identity could just be taken then people would do it all the time. Yolanda would often complain that it's much easier to kill someone than do anything else with them.
The witch continued. "The second thing is that in order to keep things running smoothly with the capital, I will have to copy Clay's memories and graft them into Shaddox's. Either we can do this fast and painless, and risk Shaddox going insane, or we do it the long way. And I do mean that for myself included. This will take hours, and during that time neither one of us can be touched nor spoken to. No matter how much we scream or yell, unless one of us passes out, ignore us."
Yolanda faced Shaddox. "We don't have to do this now, you know? You've had a long night, and you're probably high off the adrenaline. You could pass out any minute."
"We'll need to get into the swing of things as fast as possible. The quicker we can answer the hard questions, the better. The villagers will want to celebrate tomorrow night anyway."
Shaddox laid down on the other table.
"The doc is going to stay and make sure we're stable. Jorge is going to stick around as well." She looked over at Battalia and Angie. "You two go get some rest. The both of you have done enough for us."
"Oh shut it Granny, you know we're going to stay. Besides, neither one of us is tired."
"You two did the most and neither of you is tired," Yolanda mumbled. "Magic really is unfair."
Shaddox put on the mask, and the process began. Both Shaddox and Yolanda grunted the entire time, yet neither screamed. The doctor smoked more that night than any other in his life, burning through his entire supply. Angie sat worried, trying not to cry. She was also trying to figure out if Battalia had fallen asleep sitting up, or was doing some kind of meditation. It was a mixture of both. Jorge spent the entire night working on a piece of leather he had bought. He sat right outside the room, just in case the sound might disturb the two. It was nearly daybreak when it was finally finished.