Bullets immediately shatter the front barrier as she steps through the threshold, to which she casually gestures. Constructs shoot out and knock the shooters down, where she quickly binds them and retrieves their wands. Sarrah stays next to her within the barriers surrounding them on all sides, pointing wands at each door they pass in case of ambush.

  Reinforcements pour in from the side halls as the fighting continues, but they’re unable to concentrate their attacks in the narrow confines. Three more figures in the grey robes, which mark them as mages, show up, but none have the defensive ability of the void mage and so are quickly incapacitated. Allia takes particular care to bind them in place, individually binding fingers together, tying the hands to their legs and finally gagging them.

  The biggest threat surprisingly comes from a pair of soldiers coming up the stairs to the basement. In their hands are larger bullet wands – metallic in the Thallasian style and nearly three feet long with two handles and a stock for the recoil. The sound they make is almost like ripping fabric as they shoot bursts of three bullets in rapid succession, each ball much more powerful than even the demon pistols.

  They shatter several barriers, but Allia has plenty to spare and quickly incapacitates them before grabbing the wands. She gauges which one is less discrete and hands it to Sarrah, who nods and stuffs her pistols into her uniform before taking the hefty carbine.

  Securing the intersection by the basement stairs, they glance around for more enemies but find none. There’s still fighting outside, but it seems they can’t afford to send more their way. Facing no more resistance, they take a moment to absolve wands, then head down the stairs.

  “Wait!”

  They pause on the first step and turn to see Alex DuPont running after them.

  Allia brightens. “Alex! So that was you! Thanks!”

  “What are you doing here?” Sarrah says suspiciously.

  “Club got out late. Took cover when the fighting started, but I saw Allia’s light show and thought I’d help.”

  “Why didn’t you help sooner, if it was so easy?”

  “Not our job. Speaking of; what the fuck are you two thinking attacking a demon century by yourselves?!”

  Allia shrugs. “They have J. We think they intend to abduct her.”

  “Oh,” Alex says, taken aback. “Alright then, let’s rescue her.”

  “What? Just like that?” Sarrah asks.

  “Well, yeah, if they take her, they can mindrip all our details from her. It’s why I didn’t act sooner. I didn’t want them to know what I could do while I’m still learning. But if they’re taking her anyways, then might as well do what I can.”

  Allia nods. “My thoughts exactly. Here, take this.” She hands him the second carbine.

  Alex scoffs. “I don’t need that.”

  “Can you even manifest indoors without baking us alive?” Sarrah asks dryly.

  “Um, yeah.” Alex makes a lazy two fingered pointing gesture and emits a thin stream of white liquid flame that, in the course of seconds, melts a small hole in the nearby stone wall, but the two girls don’t feel any heat. Without their eye shade, the light would no doubt have been glaring. “Powerful and precise.” He boasts.

  “Just take it.” Allia tosses him the weapon, which forces him to catch it with a scowl. “On that note, I should take some too.” She stoops down and grabs two random demon wands and stuffs them into the waist of her uniform like Sarrah has.

  “…You know what,” Allex says after a second, “that’s actually not a bad fashion accessory.” He stoops down and grabs his own pair, but stuffs them with a more dramatic diagonal tilt, causing Sarrah to sigh in disgust.

  “All right,” Allia snaps in her best imitation of Professor Granger’s no-nonsense tone. “Shields up, attributed against bullets and heat. Eye shades at three layers, outer two auto-variable, inner at max. Audio gates on ears, traction on feet, filter on air, wands half absolved or more. I’ll keep barriers around us at all sides. Alex, you take front and flare anyone you see to blind them, then step back and I’ll do the rest. Sarrah, you take the rear and watch for ambushes. Questions?”

  “None!” Alex makes a mock salute. “But um, are you sure you don’t want me to do more than flare them?”

  Allia nods. “You can turn up the heat if you need to, but better to keep that as plan b. Don’t want to burn up all the oxygen down there.”

  “Makes sense. All right, down we go!” He says with forced cheer as he leads the way down the stairs, quickly chanting the suggested utility spells (taken from the Adventurer’s League’s list of suggested spells for going into the unknown) as they go.

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  No ambush awaits them as they go down two stories of stairs past blasted open security doors. On the bottom is a hallway with no side passages, the end of which is a security room with the only light being from a spotlight shining at the stairs that would be blinding without their shade spells. The room is heavily armoured with a shield effect still active and two slits for the occupants to shoot out of. The door isn’t blasted open, but almost seems rotted despite being metal. Inside, they discover two guards who are completely rotting as if left in the water for days or even weeks.

  “Looks like a manifestation. You two hear of anything like it?” Allia asks.

  Sarrah shakes no. “I heard of a few powers that result in accelerated decay as a byproduct, but nothing this fast. So, I would guess the decay is the primary power rather than incidental. But this shield enchantment,” she points to the lines of symbols on the inside wall, “it’s optimized for durability, not regeneration. It shouldn’t have had time to repair itself if it was broken, meaning these two were protected by it when they died.”

  “You think an airborne attack?” Allia asks.

  Alex shakes no. “It would be kind of silly to go to the trouble of setting up this murder hall and neglect the basics of a secure air supply. Besides, look.” He points to several packages bolted to the roof that looks distinctly like bombs linked to a control sequence in the guard room. “A self-destruct package meant to collapse the tunnel. If the attack was airborne, they would have had at least a few seconds to recognize the danger and set it off. Whatever killed them did it before they could react.”

  “…Right,” Allia says thoughtfully. “We have to assume that whoever did this can manifest through a shield effect without breaking it.”

  “That’s impossible,” Sarrah points out.

  “Contingently,” Allia counters,

  “…Fine.” Sarrah begrudgingly accepts the point.

  “Regardless, safer to assume it can be done. Sarrah, cast mirror spells on any corner we need to turn, convex form.”

  “That’s assuming the power requires line of effect rather than just sight.” Alex points out.

  “Even if they only need sight, we’ll be expecting the mirror and they won’t. That should give us a few seconds to act.”

  “I should point out that I only need sight,” Alex says. “It might be best if I just immediately fill the area with fire the moment I see someone.”

  “Sure, that’d be great,” Allia says with a sardonic tone, “if you want to kill J.”

  Alex winces at her rebuke. “… No, yeah… you’re right. Of course… just. I mean, with the mysterious power… I hate to be the one to point it out, but killing her would solve the problem of our details leaking.”

  The two girls stare at him, Sarrah witheringly, Allia assessing. Allia speaks. “You can do whatever you want, but I’m here to rescue her. She’s a good teacher; I’d rather keep her around.”

  “Right… Right. Sorry. I just… it was a stray thought. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “It’s fine,” Allia says tersely. “We’re all stressed, and it’s better that you said it so we all know what we’re not doing. I’ll think nothing of it.”

  Alex nods gratefully while Sarrah glares at him in a way that says she’s very much thinking something of it. They move on.

  Behind the security room is another hallway that turns right after twenty feet. Sarrah creates a mirror on the ceiling corner, but the hall is dimly lit, so Allia is forced to send her luminate constructs ahead to see that no one is waiting for them. Another fifty feet is a door, likewise decayed off its hinges. Beyond it is a large room filled with filing cabinets.

  “The manifest records,” Sarrah says for all of them, voice with awe. “Whatever this secret project is, it’s using the security of our school’s most sensitive information.”

  “So this is about the secret project?” Alex asks.

  “Yeah,” Sarrah says, “the demons mentioned it when they took J.”

  “Ah… I guess we’ll find out what it is together then. Don’t worry, I’ll still give you that favour.” He gives Sarrah a joking wink and smile, which she turns away from. “… Anyways. I’m pretty sure that was a secret door over there.” He points to a section of rubble that opens up to another staircase down.

  Beyond lies another staircase down, this one spiralled and barely lit.

  “That’s a problem,” Sarrah says. “There’s not a good spot to put a mirror down there, and anyone waiting will see us coming from your lights.”

  “Then we'd better be quick,” Allia says, and with a gesture, her constructs shear through the metal staircase all the way to the bottom and flattens it to the side. Then she creates a horizontal platform at the top and steps on, motioning for the others to do the same. They nervously look at each other, but silently comply. The moment they do, the platform plummets several hundred feet to the bottom, slowing suddenly at the end to prevent them from splatting.

  On the way down, Allia spots the door to the next chamber and sends a volley of blunted spears through it before seeing if anyone is waiting beyond it, but no one is.

  “The longer nobody attacks us, the creepier this place is,” Alex complains.

  “They probably left all the soldiers behind on the surface and didn’t expect that anyone would get through so soon,” Allia reasons. “That said, they probably heard that.”

  “Yeah, that was a bit, um, impulsive,” Sarrah says.

  “Did you have a better method of dealing with a potential ambush there?” Allia asks flatly.

  “…No… I don’t know. I guess with any luck they’ll assume it’s a building collapsing outside or something.”

  “Let’s hope,” Allia says and walks through the door.

  There’s another dark hallway beyond, which goes for a few hundred feet then suddenly turns back at a 150°angle.

  “What’s with these tunnels? What’s the point of going so far only to double back?” Alex complains.

  “Blast protection,” Allia states as much as guesses. “Whatever is going on probably has the potential to explode, and they want to funnel that explosion through long stone tunnels rather than up into the school.”

  “…Comforting,” Allex says.

  “Well, at least it means they might not have heard the stairs,” Sarrah says, hopeful.

  After two more oblique turns, they finally see light ahead. Fearing ambush, they rush to it and find a blasted off door with an office on the other side with several desks and cabinets. No one’s there, but there’s a door to another room in the corner set in drywall. Sarrah creates a mirror on the frame, and they immediately spot around a half dozen or more darkly clad demons surrounding a closed vault door, apparently trying to open it.

  In the far corner stands J under watch by two soldiers armed with Thalassian carbines. She’s gripping an arm that’s completely blackened and rotting away like the two dead guards.

  “All right,” whispers Allia, “she’s in the corner. She should be fine with a little flame if you keep it away, even without a shield. Meanwhile, I’ll send a barrage through the wall. Sarrah, stay flexible and do what you can. On three. One, two…”

  Before she can say three, the wall blasts apart from the other side, and three demon mages step through the dust. The lead one, a thin man with spiked ebon hair, gestures towards them and their vision goes dark.