A Jaded Life

Even after spending two days trying to figure out the town, which I had dubbed Queta, as it was the only part of the town’s sign that remained legible, we still didn’t know a whole lot. Sure, we knew that the town was the source of the strange scent, we knew that there was an incredible number of Shattered existing within the town but why these Shattered were different from their counterparts, we didn’t know.

Remote observation, scrying and spying just wasn’t enough to get more than a glimpse of these creatures, they managed to remain quite covert, taking shelter in the few houses that hadn’t crumbled yet and possibly underground. To make matters worse, it turned out that my first failure to scry them hadn’t been a coincidence, these Shattered were sensitive to Astral Power and could easily find my scrying constructs. As soon as my constructs dropped into their range, they struck with more than enough force to destroy them, preventing me from getting anything but the briefest of glimpses.

Similarly to my own failures, the others hadn’t been able to learn a whole lot more. Silva might be the one who gathered the most information, her sense of smell allowing her to differentiate between twenty-five different individual scents, giving us the lowest number of Shattered there could be in the town but, obviously, that didn’t mean there couldn’t be more than those twenty-five. She simply was unable to detect more, but given the distance and intermingling of scents, even that was quite impressive.

Luna managed to get a few glimpses from afar, simply by looking at the town, but those glimpses only revealed that the Shattered were active, regardless of whether it was day or night.

No, if we wanted to have more information, we’d have to go in personally, making sure to remain quiet and hidden, so we could investigate. And maybe collect a specimen or three, the shelter I had dug was ready to detain a few Shattered, at least for a time. The only possible problem I could see was that the remaining Shattered might consider the collection of a few of their number to be something that couldn’t be tolerated and they might try hunting us down. While I was fairly confident that I could conceal myself from them, the combination of Darkness Magic, Wind Magic, high attributes, my cloak and considerable practice was incredibly useful for that, that confidence went away when bringing a prisoner along. Similarly, while I might be able to drag a Shattered through the Shadows, thus breaking any physical trace, I wasn’t sure about their sense of smell or if they had some other ways of tracking each other.

So, a way to keep us from being swarmed, put under siege and eventually overrun within our shelter was needed, something to make sure we’d have a way out if the worst happened. At the same time, I wanted that way out to be something only we could use, preventing anyone from getting inside that way.

Digging an escape tunnel was quite trivial, only that I didn’t dig it all the way through, instead I only dug the tunnel until it was about two metres from the surface, covered by a volume of earth and stone I’d be able to move within a minute or two, depending on my level of exhaustion. At the same time, trying to find the exact spot where a tunnel was hidden beneath the soil would be nigh impossible. There was no trace left on the surface unless the Shattered could somehow detect traces of the passive Earth Magic I used to map the environment but given the nature of that skill, I highly doubted it. Even I would be hard-pressed to find traces if somebody else used a similar skill, even if that skill was based on Darkness or Ice Magic, my highest affinities.

With all that in place, we decided it was time to investigate directly and find out what it would take to capture a Shattered, as opposed to simply killing one.

As usual when it came to sneaky operations, I was moving alone, while the others were waiting in a carefully prepared ambush near a prepared overhang that was providing a permanent Shadow. I had carefully studied this particular location, driving the sensation deeply into my mind, to the point that I could Shadow Step to it without needing line of sight. I wasn’t sure how far I could step in total, but we had done a few tests to make sure that the entire town was within my range, so I could be confident in my ability to get away if things got troublesome.

Knowing that the Shattered here had at least some skill in detecting magic, I didn’t even try to fly near the town with my cloak, instead, I had covered myself tightly, while weaving a neatly contained web of Wind Magic around my body and Darkness Magic around my Mind. There shouldn’t be anything giving away my presence, even my Soul should be concealed thanks to the effects of my cloak, the darkness of the night making sure of that. While I wasn’t truly invisible, I was the next best thing, a wispy shadow in the darkness of the night, silent, scentless, mindless and soulless.

Entering the city was quite disconcerting, the moment I stepped between the houses, I could feel an odd twisting in my gut. Without taking another step, I tried to make sense of the sensation, checking if there was some strange magic making me feel uncomfortable or something similar. But, no matter how I tasted the air or how much I looked around with my magical sight or my burgeoning Soul Magic, I couldn’t detect anything. Nor was there anything I could sense with my Mind Magic or the Extrasensory Perception: Mind trait. No matter what I tried, there didn’t seem to be a reason for the uncomfortable sensation.

But, by now, I had learned to trust my gut, there were moments during which my high Intuition made itself known, even if my mind was unable to quantify the threat or detect where the sensation came from. It was, at its core, an instinctual fear of something that could be a threat, meaning I had to be especially careful.

Looking around, I decided to move into the deepest shadows I could find, letting myself completely meld with them to the point that I almost stepped into the shadow realm entirely. Not quite, that would have taken too much of my senses out of the physical world, but far enough to vanish.

For a minute, or maybe five, nothing happened but eventually, I heard a clacking noise. It was incredibly quiet, only loud enough to be heard in the few moments in which the soft breeze faded away and left the night almost perfectly silent, but it was there. And it was coming closer, a realisation that only reinforced my desire to hide and find out what was going on.

Not long afterwards, a Shattered moved into my line of sight, its ability to move silently and without any abrupt motions that would draw the eye was incredible, and even its eyes, normally burning brightly and making any attempts at stealth impossible, were dim and shrouded in darkness. Despite knowing where to look, thanks to the clacking noise one of its claws made as it moved, I could barely see it. Trying to spot it would have been fairly difficult otherwise, not impossible but certainly not an easy task.

As I watched, the Shattered moved into the area where I had entered the city, sniffing the air, touching the ground and looking around in a disturbingly intent way, as if the thing knew there was something to find but couldn’t.

Out of curiosity, I decided to use Observe in combination with my Darkness Magic to keep the ability concealed. Moments later, a blue box told me the Shattered was level sixty-seven, nothing overly worrying, but at the same time, the Shattered suddenly stopped as if somebody had pressed a pause button. Then, a heartbeat or two later, it suddenly moved with far greater urgency, frantically searching the area around it.

The only conclusion I could draw from its behaviour was that the thing somehow had noticed my entry into the city, though I had no idea how that could work, and been able to deduce the general area I was in. Then, my use of the Observe ability must have been noticed, too, confirming that a target was nearby, prompting its current, frantic activities.

After taking a moment to watch the thing, waiting for it to turn its back to my concealed position, I decided to strike while the iron was hot, even if some of the surprise factor was lost. In a single, smooth action, I let the active concealment around me fade away, allowing me to focus all my mental and magical energy on my attack. Overflow activated and a simple command escaped my lips, spoken in a quiet voice but reinforced by an overwhelming blast of my Mind Magic.

Sleep.

The Shattered had no time to react, it had barely started to turn when my magic hit it, immediately crushing what defences it might have and sending it into a deep state of unconsciousness. Now, I just had to get away with the thing.