Chapter 46 - Enemy inside the gates 

 

"The normal entrance to the castle, where Yuna, Daeron, Kiwi and Abbadon goes, is here to the south." Lilith pointed to the south part of the map. 

A drawbridge was marked. The words, four guards, were written on it at the location, or beside it with an arrow pointing at the drawbridge. 

"4 guards are always posted at all times here." 

It looked like the normal entry took you inside the walls, only to face another layer of walls. 

So you had to take a walk all the way around the building to the north side with walls on both sides. 

Pretty hard to get inside in one piece just this far in if you'd were unwelcome. 

 

"Lilith and I will rush in alone to a higher floor directly" I pointed at a tower on the map. 

"Since we're the strongest and cover each other's weaknesses” I pointed back and forth between me and Lilith. “We want all eyes on you guys as you wander in, then as you're at the entrance, we crash in." I said as I looked at the map, leaning my head a bit as I was in thought. 

Lilith was amazing in all physical fighting, I sort of sucked at that unless I'd cover myself in my magic armor. But then I'd say the magic fights for me, and it has all the same strengths and weaknesses a spell has. You can’t ever dispel physical strength. Sure, you can debuff it, but, they’d have to stop me to debuff her or slow her down and they have to take her down to get close to me physically. Sort of. Well, that’s what i’m thinking at least, of course there’s probably something to take advantage of even though we seem like an insane combo in a fight.

"Crash in?.. Eh, I'll leave the, ‘how’, up to you Nana." Lilith shook her head in a worried manner. 

"Anyhow, as you get inside, you'll be heading to the armory floor." Lilith pointed, it was in the section furthest inside. 

"There's 5 doors in the hall you'll be entering, I'll go through it all just in case.” Lilith said and then paused to clear her throat as she looked around to make sure we were all paying attention. Which we were of cour- ooh a butterfly! - se, anyway. 

“Dead ahead you'll get to a throne room or more like an event room. It's used for celebrations, events, welcomings and stuff. It's the biggest door in the center in front of you as you get inside the main hall. You're ignoring that door though.” Lilith pointed beside the door on each side of it on the map.

“The doors next to that door have staircases going up, leading to the next floor, which basically is a corridor surrounding the room you came from. To get to the floor above, walk all the way around that floor, following the corridor, until you reach a staircase.” Lilith paused.

“Sounds easy enough, right?” I mumbled. Lilith grinned then coughed once before going on while looking at me. 

“Both floors have windows and there should be loads of archers and mages placed all over.” she said as she did a circle motion all over the map. “The floor tiles off the 3rd floor can be opened as well, leaving a metal net inplace of a floor, sort of. So they can remove the floor tiles to open up attack windows and they can attack people on the floor below with ease if need be.” Lilith stroked her chin as she explained. I sighed. Well of course it’d be defended but, c’mon. I don’t wanna have to kill our own. “Floor 3 has the same layout otherwise, going in a corridor surrounding the first big room.

Floor 3 has access to 3 towers I think. But anyway, you're skipping that part, heading away into the other part.” Lilith said and pointed at the other half of the castle further in. 

 

“To get to the other part of the building, you take the left corridor, follow it all the way, ignore the door to your left you’ll pass by which leads to a garden. Take a right when you can and you'll have the door to your right.” She smiled at us, scratching her head a bit. We all nodded and mumbled an agreeing statement.

Lilith leaned down over the table, one hand on each side of the map. Like she was checking if she missed something. She cleared her throat again. “Aaaand theeeen” we all looked at her, and when she’d caught all the attention yet again, she kept going.

“You'll be entering an almost identical big hall. Same way to get up here, you go up the 3 floors, only take the door to the left, the door to the right of the center door leads down.” Lilith explained as we all sighed. “Can’t I just blow away the walls?” Abbadon asked as he raised his hand and put it down again as he finished his question. That’s not how hand raising works, Abbadon! And he asked pretty damn casually. 

“No, it’s our castle, no damage unless absolutely necessary to the structure or our soldiers please” Lilith answered and sighed. She looked around at the rest of us as if to check if anyone had any more questions to ask. Then she kept going yet again.

“Then on floor 3, walk around the corridor until you reach yet another staircase, which will get you to the living quarters.” She said as she drew a circle in the air with her hand. Then she put both her palms flat out onto the map, covering the whole structure on it. 

“This floor extends out over the whole damn castle structure, the roof you saw in the first main hall, it's part of this room's floor.” She explained, then removed her hands from the blueprint.  

“Here's also detachable floor tiles, same thing, remove the floor tiles and have a metal net to walk on and if removed mages can launch attacks all over the castle if we get invaded. The material the net is made of does not conduct heat or cold well somehow.” Lilith explained. “which allows our mages to just open up flamethrowers.” she then mumbled.

“But back to it!” she exclaimed. I shook my head, so where in the hell would the enemies be hiding... 

“The staircase up is all the way across the room, and on floor 5 you got the armory. 

They say armory, but all things enchanted, researching and potions are located here.” Lilith drew a line from the floor's entrance all the way over to where the normal entrance would be, but of course quite a few floors above it, to signal where the next staircase was. 

“One floor up is the overlords Chambers with some more stuff. Aaand were not supposed to know this, but there is a small room above it where they keep the shield generator. There's at all times four very skilled mages around it. Since it takes a ton of magic to run a shield that size to cover the whole castle.” She looked around at us. “And no one spreads a word that i’ve talked you through this blueprint, okay?” She said in a serious manner while looking at each of us as we of course nodded at her. “Good, well then!” She coughed.

“From floor 4 you got access to all the towers and both outer walls. I'm not sure which door goes where here though, just look at the map and try to memorise as they might hide in a tower.” Lilith ended her explanation there of the layout of the castle. “Soo, any questions?” She asked.

"But, what about the right door back in the first hall?" I asked and pointed to the right side door in the very first room, or hall, in the castle from the main entrance. 

"Oh, it leads to a huge kitchen and you can also get out to a garden. But that garden is more of a kitchen stuff garden, not meant to be beautiful." Lilith answered and smiled.

 

---Yuna's perspective later the same day.---

We passed the first drawbridge. And sure enough, 4 guards fully armed standing there. They greeted us and just let us through with no issue when we showed our badges. 

Kiwi sat on my shoulder invisible to others. 

We walked along the path around to the other side of the structure. I saw archers and mages all over the place in and on the walls. 

"Damn, that's some security" I mumbled as I watched them.

They also had something that looked like big cauldrons, giving off some smoke. Maybe boiling oil? Or some equivalent magic thing? 

I shuddered at the thought as we kept walking. 

"Can you hear me?" a voice spoke in my head, Nana. "Y-yes!" Yuna shouted and stopped for a second before realising she might look super suspicious, then she ran up to the other two and kept walking. 

"Yes mam, we're almost north by the entrance to the actual castle building." Abbadon answered calmly as he kept walking. 

"Yes I can hear you love." Daeron said quietly, also keeping his calm. 

"Good, comms are working then. You can contact us anytime. Lilith should hear you too." Nana said happily. 

 

---A bit earlier, before the mission, Nana’s perspective---

We had agreed that we needed to enter quickly in two teams to quickly go through the people and the place. They’d be entering from the start to make sure they wouldn’t just sneak past and run out the main entrance.

We were at mission control. Discussing the best plan to enter. Should we charge but be swift, or stealth our way inside.. 

 

"I think rush, what do you think would be best?” Abbadon said. "Not that I'll take part.." he then said a bit like he couldn't care less. I looked at him as he talked, as one normally does when someone is talking in a meeting. He met my gaze after he said it and immediately looked quite panicked, bowing towards me at the table. 

"Except in defending my lady. Of course. Sorry.." he raised his head again, smiling at me. I sighed. 

 

"oh, I can sneak in!" Yuna jumped up energetically, raising her hand in the air. "I'm allowed into the castle!" she said as she smiled. I looked at her and waited for the explanation of why she's allowed in there. Buuut, no explanation came so 30 seconds later I asked. "why are you allowed in there?.." she raised her finger into the air. "Right, sorry! Let me explain." then she coughed. I sighed together with the others. 

"Oh, since I got an order on an enchantment from them. Which I said I didn't have time for at the time, but... I could go do it now and sneak around at the same time!" Yuna smiled as she looked confused at us. 

 

I grabbed Lilith. "I got an idea" and teleported us to the school's arena. Perfect, close by and guarded by a dome. So they couldn't see me prepare. "what.. Did we-" Lilith said as I interrupted and explained. "I teleported us. " 

 

I walked into the center of the arena. There was a crater from me, taking off, yesterday. Weird, it was only yesterday.. I gazed around a bit nostalgic. The wall I blew up as a kid, which of course was repaired immediately, but still. The changing room. 

Aah, fun memories. I focused... Closed my eyes. 

I hovered up in the air a bit and darkness magic power together with Demonic power started to gather, like ash flying around me in a circle forming a ball shaped storm of sorts. With the dark and Demonic magic taking physical form as it's drawn to me. 

 

I drew up Demonic and darkness energy, just kept doing it. It poured up at me like a waterfall from their magical pools. 

I started attaching it myself, since everything gathered like a ball around me, and acted like it was a sandstorm spinning around made of black ash. "What the hell are you doing Nana?!" 

 

I gathered up enough energy to make myself into sort of a dragonfox? I looked like a pitch-black energy dragon standing like a human. I was about 20cm taller than usual but I built a scale-covered body with thicker arms and feet with claws as well, and masked my wings in the magical power, making it look like I was a dragonoid or dragonkin. Though, it looked rather threatening with darkness power oozing from me like ash-droplets raining upwards from my pitch-black shiny burning dragonscales… 

Well. I had my normal head, just, glowing eyes that looked like they were burning in their colors. Pink on the right and purple on the left. 

And like a dragon. Scaly legs and claws. Though all the scales were of course just magical power, Demonic, for defense. 

I built a whole thin slick dragonoid or dragonkin looking armor, which you really couldn’t tell was an added magical armor to be honest, but a foxtail and my head with my fox ears.

So basically, imagine a human, though about 200cm tall, replace hands and feet with a dragon's claws for hands and feet, replace skin with scales all over the body, though the scales stopped around the throat. A human head with fox ears and super long black and white hair. Then dragonwings on the back, and a foxtail instead of a dragon tail where the tailbone is. 

And all in pitch-black shining scales that were sort of looking like they were burning a bit here and there, also the energy oozing off the whole thing. Like ‘Ash-droplets’. That's how energy looks when it gets too much and it just waits around in the air around you. Ash of the color of the used element.