“Is there anything I can help you with?” Leegaain asked.
“It’s not about me. It’s about my wife.”
“You married and you didn’t invite me?” He replied, his feelings hurt.
“Dad, she’s an Abomination like me and the ceremony was held in the presence of the Master and my new siblings. Having a Guardian ready to annihilate us would have killed the mood.” She replied.
“Are you happy? Is she treating you right?” While Leegaain worried about his daughter, Lith and the others had finished their preparations and were ready to go.
“One last question. How did you find Night’s position?” He asked, as paranoid as usual.
“Baba Yaga put us in touch with Dawn’s loyalist inside the Undead Courts. We don’t trust them so we used our information network to check the rumor they passed us before starting this plan. We wouldn’t send you in blindly.” Feela tapped on Lith’s pin.
Leegaain had once again outdone himself. The artifact not only worked as a small Soluspedia that provided the members of the assault team everything they needed to know about the undead’s headquarters, but it also worked as a short-range Spirit Communication device.
The pins were connected to each other, creating a network of mind links that would allow a team to communicate silently as well as with other teams to exchange information in real-time.
Spirit Magic was invisible to non-Awakened and no sealing array would jam its signal.
“Is everyone ready?” Raagu asked, obtaining several nods in reply. “It’s daytime so most of the undead will be comatose or weakened. Remember that if we fail, the next time the Dead King will be ready for us.”
Her eyes blazed with bright violet energy and so did those of the rest of the Council representatives as they combined their spell for a long-distance dimensional spell.
Together they weaved a Spirit Warping Array that moved the assault teams to their respective positions inside the underground base of the Night Court located in the city of Panat, in the Gorgon Empire.
According to the intel they had received, Orpal steered clear from the Griffon Kingdom due to the seal that Baba Yaga had imposed Night. She couldn’t attack anyone without first verifying that they didn’t live in Lutia which grated on her nerves.
Tista looked around their arrival location, her jaw almost touching the floor. They had appeared inside a richly decorated room with windows, but plenty of light came from the enchanted crystal chandeliers on the ceiling.
The furniture was made of inlaid secular wood while the ornaments, from the flower pots to the book ends, were made of solid precious metals. The air was fresh and filled with the sweet scent of flowers, making it hard to believe that they were underground.
‘Good gods, this is the most luxurious dungeon I’ve ever been into.’ She said via the mind link. ‘Yet why the fresh air if they have no need to breathe?’
‘The undead like living large.’ Lith replied. ‘As for the air, usually I’d say that they do it for their Thralls, but if Meln really is here, then he did it just to satisfy his ego.’
‘If?’ Friya said while moving a curtain with the point of Thundercrash, to not touch anything before checking on the place.
The gesture revealed the presence of a painting gallery in the room to their right. Among the portraits, there was one depicting a half-naked Meln. He was sitting on a throne, his body as perfect as that of a Greek god, while several gorgeous naked women groveled at his feet like animals in heat.
One of them bore a striking resemblance to Tista.
‘This is disgusting! How did you put up with such a perverted creep?’ Phloria said.
‘We didn’t.’ Tista’s face was half-red in outrage and half-green in disgust.
She just wanted to puke and burn the painting, but she had no idea if it had any defense mechanism. Failing the mission just because of Orpal’s perversion was off the table. She wanted him dead, now more than ever.
She cast her best array detection spell, Unravelling Eye, to understand what danger lay ahead of them. Life Vision and mana sense were blinded by the massive magical aura of the place that made them useless.
‘I don’t know if it’s intentional, but that painting is the only one connected to an alarm.’ Tista said.
‘It’s intentional. I bet that Meln has placed disgusting pieces of art like this one in the hope to upset us and make us do something stupid.’ Lith was disturbed by Orpal lusting after his own sister but even more by his cunning.
Somehow the Dead King had predicted that Lith or someone related to him would have found his hideout and had made sure to shake them psychologically before the real fight started.
Lith preferred his opponents stupid and predictable, but after Manohar’s death, he had ceased underestimating Orpal.
‘You stay here, I’ll scout the place.’ Friya wanted nothing more than get out of there quickly, but it would have meant playing straight into her opponent’s hand. ‘Meln is an Awakened as well so he knows how Life Vision works.
‘I bet that all the useless enchantments in this place are here to blind our mystical senses. If you add that to the booby-trapped painting, I’m afraid that there are more surprises waiting ahead of us.’
Tista shared with her the results of the Unravelling Eye spell, allowing Friya to move past the array field without triggering it nor needing to use spells that would drain her focus.
Thanks to Leegaain’s pins, Tista could cast Unravelling Eye again as soon as Friya reached a new area even though she wasn’t physically there.
While Tista took care of the magical protections for her, Friya used her spell, Scope, to check for guards and make sure that the map the Council had provided them was accurate.
The place was exactly as it was described in the blueprints and the guards were in their place, yet Friya couldn’t help but feel the hair on the back of her neck stand up in alarm.
Orpal had filled the place with a magical aura that neutralized Life Vision and weighed on her mana perception. Friya knew that the spells were just cosmetic in nature, but their sheer power ringed a constant alarm in her head.
To make matters worse, all of the guards wore cloaking devices, making it impossible for her to discern their power level and which among them were Night’s Chosen, regular undead, or Thralls.
Every one of them moved without making a sound, their presence almost ethereal.
Friya felt as if she had walked inside a den of Wyverns while completely naked and blindfolded. Just like she was depicted in a painting while she begged Orpal for attention yet he ignored her.
As soon as she was done, Friya Spirit Warped back to her companions. Even though she had cast just a few spells, she felt tired and her forehead was covered in sweat. The mental and magical strain from moving in such a hostile environment had taken its toll on her.
‘I’m sorry, but I’ve got only bad news.’ She shared with them everything that she had learned.
