The Storm King

Chapter 562: The Conspicuous Lion

Leon gritted his teeth as he inched forward into the hallway. From what he could sense, his ring of invisibility was going to be greatly limited here, being disrupted every time he opened a door and leaving him unable to use it for at least five minutes after, and his magic senses would be even less useful with how heavily warded the building was—he could sense everything in the room he was in, but as soon as he tried to push his magic senses past the walls, they were scattered by the walls’ enchantments. He’d have to rely on his more mundane powers and skills to find Gaius—or whoever else might be here, but Leon could think of no one else who could be here; certainly not Maia if this was supposed to be a world constructed from someone’s mind.

Leon wasn’t too thrilled at having his ring and magic senses severely defanged, but for the moment, he at least remained invisible. However, remaining here in the hallway would do no one any good, so he began to investigate the half-dozen doors in the hallway.

He already had a strong suspicion that this was the servant’s area of the villa, so he expected there to be barracks for the servants to sleep, storage rooms for food and other maintenance supplies, and probably large kitchens.

Leon crept up to the first door on his left. There wasn’t much indication of where he ought to be going, so he had to just choose one of the several doors in the hallway at random.

As he expected, as soon as his hand brushed against the doorknob, his invisibility was broken, confirming that, while not rendered completely useless, his invisibility would be of significantly less help now than it had been.

With a deep sigh, Leon knelt down before the door and pressed his head against the wood. His helmet had small enchantments to aid in his hearing, effectively canceling out the issues he might otherwise have in relying on his hearing while wearing a helmet without ear holes. However, even with those enchantments, he couldn’t hear anything on the other side of the door.

He hoped that meant the room was devoid of people, but he still drew his blade from his soul realm as he twisted the doorknob and pushed the door open.

It was with little surprise and a modicum of relief that he found nothing but a storeroom filled with sealed crates. From what he was able to tell from filling the room with his magic senses, there was nothing in those crates except building materials, tools, and…

… What looked like spare servant uniforms.

Leon quickly shut the door behind him and pulled his armor back into his soul realm. The crates weren’t sealed particularly tightly, and it took only a few seconds more for Leon to open the one with the uniforms and to start rummaging around within, searching for a size that would fit him.

If he couldn’t be literally invisible, then he’d do his best to be figuratively so; in his experience, people who owned such large palaces as this rarely ever paid that much attention to the palace staff, though it wasn’t nearly a fool-proof plan.

‘Whatever,’ Leon thought as he found a white shirt and pair of simple, unadorned, bog-standard brown leather pants that fit him reasonably well. ‘It’s either this or wander around in full armor…’

When Leon walked out of the storeroom, he looked almost indistinguishable from the servants he’d seen working outside, though remarkably more lost and less sure of himself than those who knew they were supposed to be here.

Leon quickly moved on to the next rooms. The second one he investigated was another storeroom, though this one was filled with food and had been enchanted with robust temperature controls—it was basically a walk-in freezer. The third room was a large barrack filled with enough bunk beds and small storage chests for about a hundred people, all of them packed into the room like sardines with barely enough room between them to move around. Leon took some comfort in that—there were enough beds that it was possible he could pass himself off as just another part of the staff, but since it seemed like the staff all at least slept in the same room, the possibility remained that he’d get called out if no one recognized him.

The next two rooms were a large bathroom and what sounded like some kind of gathering room—it was clearly not deserted, as Leon found out as he pressed his ear against the door. He could hear the quiet din of conversation and the occasional loud yell or shout of victory. It sounded to him like at least a handful of people were playing a game.

He wasn’t looking to draw attention to himself like that, so he turned around and made for the last door. It sounded quiet within, so Leon quickly ducked inside and found himself in a large kitchen with enough space for at least five chefs and their teams to work at the same time. Unfortunately, the room wasn’t nearly as deserted as its silence had made it seem: three servants dressed in slightly more ostentation attire than Leon’s stolen clothes were busy working in silence, chopping vegetables, cutting and frying meat, and baking bread. It all made for a heavenly scent, but Leon found it none too inviting.

He almost froze in the doorway at the unexpected company, but he forced himself to keep walking into the kitchen with as much confidence as he could. ‘Keep going,’ he ordered himself, ‘look like you belong and no one will stop you…’

There were two other doors in the kitchen, and Leon picked one and started walking toward it. Both were identical, giving him nothing to go on as he tried to find his way through the kitchen as confidently as he could. Unfortunately, it seemed he picked the wrong door, for as he made his way over, one of the servants turned away from his work and sternly said, “Hey! You there!”

Leon paused with his hand outstretched, his fingers brushing against the doorknob. He was facing the door and not any of the three servants, all of whom seemed to have set their work aside and turned their attention toward him. He took advantage of that to quickly grimace before steeling himself and turning around.

“What do you want?” he growled as he subtly flexed his power, letting a few hints of killing intent enter his aura as he made eye contact with the man who’d called him out.

The man was fairly average looking—brown hair, brown eyes, pale skin, average height and build—and possessed barely first-tier strength. Under normal circumstances, Leon would’ve expected even his minute flexing of power to nearly drive the man to his knees. At the very least, Leon expected him to show some kind of fear when he made eye contact, some sign that Leon’s prodigious killing intent affected him at all.

Instead, the servant met his gaze with a glare and barely even an acknowledgment that Leon was so much stronger than he was.

“What are you doing?” the man demanded to know as he fully turned away from the counter where he’d been cutting meat, and facing Leon, his chest puffing out slightly as the man crossed his arms. His uniform had red spiral designs along the edges of his long white sleeves and along his collar, indicating to Leon that this man’s rank within the villa was probably higher than whoever would’ve been given the uniform he’d stolen.

Leon was tempted to give a hostile retort to his cook who sought to question him and, if nothing else, slow him down, but he clamped down on that temptation. This man’s attitude offended Leon’s pride, but that in and of itself was no reason for Leon to abandon all pretenses and start throwing around lightning bolts.

Besides, Nestor had said that it would be better if he treated this world like it was real. Leon wasn’t sure if that applied to just the underlying mechanics of how it’d been constructed, or it included the people in the villa, but Leon decided in that moment that it did. He wouldn’t just slaughter the people in this villa if he could help it. Illusions or not, no matter what they were, Leon didn’t want to solve this problem with violence. He felt that doing so would only bring Jormun’s attention back to him faster, and Leon wasn’t too fond of the idea on its own merits, either. It would be all too easy to indulge that instinct until it became a habit, and before he knew it, he’d be killing people just for looking at him funny.

So, with his heart racing in his chest as he stood there, enduring the accusing stares of the three servants, his hands subtly shaking with anxiety and misanthropy, Leon replied, “I was ordered to go to the ballroom, but I think I’ve gotten a bit turned around. I’m just trying to find my way around…” He let his voice shake a little as he reigned in his aura, playing the part of a junior servant caught by a senior doing something he shouldn’t be doing. Though they possessed barely any power between them, the sheer social pressure of their judgmental gazes meant that Leon didn’t have to work too hard to bring across his nervousness.

“Fucking new guys,” one of the other servants whispered as he turned back to the dough he was kneading, but the other two remained focused on Leon.

The one who’d spoken before walked over and got himself right in Leon’s face.

“I haven’t seen you around before, what’s your name?” he demanded as the other one still paying attention began to edge toward the other door as her eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“Charles,” Leon lied.

“How long have you been here?” the servant demanded as the other one paying attention edged even closer to the door.

“Just hired a few days ago, this is my first day,” Leon quickly replied. “I haven’t quite gotten to know this place, so I was a bit lost. I don’t suppose you can point me in the right direction?” Leon didn’t guess he was being very convincing despite, at least in his opinion, lying quite well. He didn’t hesitate or stutter, though maybe his confidence wasn’t quite where it ought to have been to avoid such scrutiny.

“We weren’t getting any new people today,” the servant stated. “Come with me. I’m taking you to see the steward. If you’re not who you say you are, then you’re going to be jailed.”

Leon frowned, but as the man turned on his heel and started walking toward the door, Leon decided to go after him. He was sorely tempted to just kill all three of these people, hide their bodies, and move on, but he was of a mind that this was still salvageable; he didn’t need to resort to that level of violence just yet.

The servant led him out of the other door that Leon hadn’t come through, emerging out into a dining room with one wall that opened onto a fairly large and quite beautiful marble courtyard, separated only by the columns of a peristyle. The dining room had a long wooden table big enough to seat at least thirty people, and the walls were lined with bright magic lanterns, potted plants, and marble statues. The adjacent courtyard, however, was completely devoid of furniture or other decorations. It did have at least three other hallways leading off of it, though, including one that was notably large and ornately-decorated.

“So, uh, do you know where the ballroom is?” Leon asked as the servant led him out into the courtyard and toward the opposite side—the ornate side—playing into his uncertainty and hesitancy a bit to try to put the servant at ease.

The servant gave him a derisive sneer and replied, “This villa doesn’t have a ballroom, you brainless fool. Parties are held in this space.” The servant indicated the open courtyard, and Leon smiled bitterly.

“Bad guess on my part, then,” he said as he took a quick look around to make sur they were alone. He could see a couple guards milling around the peristyle where they would be out of the way, but close to the action if anything happened. His magic senses couldn’t get much more information than that, but Leon was at least certain that he and the servant weren’t being watched.

Leon decided to act before the servant tried calling the guards or doing anything else. His infiltration had gone quite poorly so far, and every moment he spent in the company of this servant was another moment everything went further up shit’s creek. He needed to do something right now or else he’d be giving up on this infiltration completely and have to resort to killing his way through the villa.

With no warning, he lunged forward and lightly brushed his hand against the side of the servant’s head, his speed as his lightning magic surged through his body allowing him to move almost instantaneously. A single tiny arc of silver-blue lightning crossed from Leon’s fingers and into the servant’s head. The servant immediately seized up, his eyes going wide, his body curling forward. The servant fell straight onto his face, hitting the floor of the stone courtyard nose first.

He was unconscious before he hit the floor.

Leon crouched down, quickly checking the man’s pulse. He felt a bit weird even bothering to do so for someone that wasn’t ‘real’, but given that he could sense the body of the guard he’d killed still in his soul realm, sticking around like it was a real thing, Leon didn’t think he could just walk away without at least checking on the servant. He hadn’t used enough power to kill anyone, just a little jolt to ‘turn him off’, so to speak. So, it was with relief that Leon found a pulse, though it was quite fast and erratic.

Leon took a deep breath, then started shouting, “Help! Someone’s hurt! Help!”

Barely even two seconds later, he heard the sound of the guards in the courtyard running over from behind, and he had to control his immediate instinct to turn and draw his weapon.

“What happened?!” one of them shouted.

“He just tripped and didn’t catch himself!” Leon responded, his voice shaking with ‘fear’ and ‘anxiety’. “He’s not responding to anything, either!”

“Shit!” the guard cried out as he crouched down next to the servant just as Leon had a moment before, the other guard that had come running over hanging back a little bit.

Leon didn’t give them much time to examine the servant before making his next play. He said, “I’m going to get help!” and started running for the ornate hallway.

“No, wait!” the other guard called out, but Leon had already taken off. There was a moment when Leon thought at least one of the guards might follow him, but it seemed that they were untrained, unworried about attack, or otherwise unsuspicious of him. Whatever the case, neither of them followed, and Leon disappeared down the ornate hallway, leaving them behind to take care of the unconscious servant.

Almost immediately, Leon was confronted with a T-intersection and a door on his right and left. Given that he could hear a lot of movement coming through the door to the left—possibly spurred on by his shouting for help—he chose to go right. He quickly dashed over to the door, flung it open, and ducked inside, closing it just as the door on the opposite side crashed open and what sounded like at least a dozen people traipsed into the courtyard where they started shouting with the two guards who’d already been in the courtyard.

Leon sighed, then began to move. He wanted to put as much distance between himself and the courtyard as he could. The alarm might’ve been raised by what he did, but he figured that this was still a better outcome than continuing to go along with the servant as he led Leon to who-knew-where.

‘Better to take control myself than to just follow him into a dungeon cell,’ Leon thought to himself as he darted down the hallway he found himself in.

This hallway was a great deal larger than the one he’d just been in, though no less ostentatious. From what he could tell by keeping the size of the building in mind, this hall ran nearly the entire length of the building, with multiple alcoves filled with marble statues and other examples of high-end art, doors that led to who only knew where, and open doorways to no less than three more courtyards.

However, seeing this, Leon at least had some idea of where he needed to go, now. This main complex of the villa was four stories tall at its highest, but not every part of the building was that tall. It stood to reason in his mind that his destination was one of the higher floors. At the very least, the guard detail that he could sense on this first floor, while more in line with what he might expect of a building this size, wasn’t numerous enough anywhere to indicate where someone important might be.

So, Leon began to slink off toward a nearby courtyard where he might be able to access the places where more private residences might be. As he went, he activated his ring once again, reasoning that in such a large space, there was no reason for him to be seen until he found a door he wanted to pass through.

And it was a good thing he did, too, for less than a minute later, he noticed a handful of guards come barreling through the door he’d just passed through, whispering to themselves about finding ‘that floor-licking peon that just came through here’. Leon ducked into an alcove as they passed him by, but he was becoming more and more aware that his time was running short. The security had been light and lax up to this point, but if the guards were spreading the word that an unknown servant was walking around their premises, and that he may be involved in an attack on another servant, then security was likely to be stepped up.

With a sigh of frustration, Leon continued to quietly slink down the hall. However, he soon paused again, for he noticed with his magic senses a pair of the guards that had just rushed past him talking to another servant in a secluded corner of the smallest courtyard not too far away. He wasn’t too interested in their conversation; rather, it was the servant’s attire and toolbelt that interested him.

The servant wore clothes that emblazoned with several purely-aesthetic runes, and she carried various writing implements on her toolbelt—a paintbrush, a hammer and chisel, several rolls of enchantment spell paper… This woman was obviously an enchanter, and if Leon’s guess was correct, she was probably the one who maintained the enchantments of this villa.

With a smile, Leon watched as the guards finished asking the female enchanter their questions and moved on, and the enchanter turned around and walked through a door that they’d been speaking just outside of. Leon only got the quickest of glimpses inside before the enchanter closed the door behind her, but Leon knew what he’d seen: the control room for the villa’s defensive wards.

‘I think this might warrant a bit of a detour…’ Leon thought to himself. He quickly changed course and made his way over to the door, avoiding several guards along the way as they hurried patrolled the ground floor of the building, clearly stirred up by his actions only a few minutes before.

Leon entered the enchantment’s control room, finding the door unlocked though still heavily enchanted. A sound like a bell chimed as he stepped in and his invisibility was disrupted, causing him to fade back into view just as the female enchanter turned around in her chair only a few steps away, with anger, frustration, and confusion all mixing on her face.

Before she could say a word, Leon bolted forward and hit her with the same attack he used on the previous servant. She was a little bit stronger as a second-tier mage, but it was nothing at all to Leon to quickly give her a nonlethal jolt and knock her unconscious for the time being.

Once she was down and he had the room to himself, Leon took stock of it. There was a bank of enchantment control consoles on one side of the room, and five pillars on the other, all made of stone and coated with smooth, clear glass, upon which dozens of enchantments had been inscribed. It was a surprisingly complex design, with the coating worked into several dozen glass ‘rings’ with latches and hinges encasing the pillars. From what Leon could tell, these rings had been so well-designed that they could also be easily removed for maintenance or replacement, giving the enchantment scheme of the villa a unique modular design that he couldn’t help but admire.

For how well made the enchantment scheme was, it still made his job much easier. He rapidly circled the pillars, giving himself plenty of time to parse through them and for his ring to ready itself again. By the time he was about ready to make himself invisible again, he’d just about figured out the enchantment scheme that the villa used.

All he needed to do was to disable a few key wards, and he’d be able to use his magic senses and have unfettered use of his ring again. All it would take was removing three key glass rings from the pillars, and…

“Got it…” Leon whispered to himself as he apprehensively unlatched and removed one of the rings. He hadn’t found any alarms or traps attached, but he still took great care in removing the glass ring, just in case, and set it down upon the floor. He was tempted to put it in his soul realm and take it with him for study, but he decided that bringing an unknown piece of enchanted equipment into his soul realm in this place was a terrible idea, and in fact, he found himself rather desperately wanting to get rid of the corpse of the guard that he’d killed to gain access to the villa. With a wave of his hand, the corpse appeared in a corner of the room behind several boxes filled with more materials to maintain the villa’s enchantments, giving Leon at least a little peace of mind.

So, with that lack of response from the defensive wards at his removal of a ring bolstering his confidence, Leon set about removing the other two rings he’d identified.

As he took the last one off, however, he realized that he may have just made a terrible mistake. No alarms went off and no guards burst through the door demanding his head, but he did hear the familiar voice of Jormun whisper into his ear, “Ahh, there you are…”