Julius sits up in the rafters of the church, frozen still and wary, but the man doesn’t get up again even after the sleep spell breaks.
Julius lets out a shaky breath and it echoes back to him before all the amplifiers shatter in a rain of dust, followed by the illusion of the bodies and then the invisibility on himself. His hands are trembling and numb as he pulls out a vial and swallows the potion to boost his mana before it drains enough he loses control of the statue as well.
He quickly directs it back into place and finally drops those spells too, the church turning into a snowing nightmare for a brief moment before the black ash vanishes.
Julius slumps fully against the wooden beam he's sitting against and just gives himself a moment to breathe. Not even the seven cultists he fought at once gave him that much trouble, they all fell to well-placed spells after the statue distracted them.
Julius wants to go home and sleep, but he needs to clean this up before someone else gets here - probably Diedrik, who might be able to spot tampering. Which is also why Julius keeps up the mana filter that keeps his spells black.
The filter, plus the illusions and the 6th level puppetry cost him a week of obsessive research and sleep deprivation. It took him another three days to figure out how to multicast that many spells and his only answer is chugging potions and the laser focus that comes with the threat of near death.
He waits for the potion to run its course so he's not shaking anymore and then walks down 1st level platforms to the ground. He cleans up, with liberal use from his tidying spell to sweep all the debris out of sight into dark corners.
Julius snuffs out the extra torches and then starts fixing what the last cultist interrupted him during; he melts the wax back into a proper mound and regrows the vines back together.
He then cuffs mana suppressants onto the new cultist, shoves him in the side closet with the others, and sends out a beacon he copied off Diedrik's guards to call the boy.
Julius teleports home with a flare of black, landing perfectly in his bedroom, and finally -finally- drops his last two controlled spells; the filter and his arm breaking.
He takes two staggered steps towards the bed but groans and instead swings himself around towards the window. He grabs a blanket as he passes and wraps it around him to hide that his clothes aren't fit for sleeping and shoves his curtain open to exaggeratedly look around.
He catches the eye of the minion Diedrik planted in the forest to watch Julius' house and frowns, then wrenches the curtains shut again. Alibi done, and now he flops face first into the bed.
To be fair, the cloaked minion has caught two people from entering Julius' property but they wouldn't have been able to get past his wards anyway.
Sleep swallows him down.
Julius is drifting in and out of sleep in his viewing chair, lulled by the light hiss of rain that afternoon and the scratching of Hien’s pen. His prosthetic shattered in the morning when he first fell asleep at his desk and he hasn’t bothered to put it back on.
He doesn’t have meetings anyway; most people are still hiding away at home lest they be dragged into the guerilla warfare in the streets. It’s not actually likely, barely two unlucky outsiders have been mildly injured and in fact it’s generally quiet, but the entire city thinks it will escalate.
Not only is Julius not getting money, his shop keeps getting attacked and even poor Omar almost got jumped trying to go home from work. Diedrik’s guards help but that means Julius gets shadowed everywhere he goes and it’s incredibly frustrating.
Diedrik couldn’t find the church even with Chloe’s help so Julius ended up sending Henry to run a circuit around the city and find it on foot instead of through information. And yes, Julius could have simply passed on the location, but he was angry at that point and since he had the spells anyway…
Hien now sits at his desk transcribing spell scrolls for him but she’s been there for a while since there are a lot of new spells and his handwriting at the end there was stream-of-consciousness and sleep deprived.
The distant rumble of thunder brings him out of the fog long enough to check the time. “You should take a break,” Julius murmurs.
“I’m almost done,” Hien says, and there’s the sound of shuffling papers. “Would you like some tea?”
“Hm, no.” Julius closes his eyes again and drags more of his robes over him like a blanket.
“Ah, um… Are you feeling okay?”
“Hm?”
“All of this,” Hien tries to clarify but her voice is soft, unsure. “And you disappeared for a few days only to come back looking tired and disappear again. Is it…better now?”
Julius opens his eyes and leans around the back of his chair to smile fondly at Hien. “I’m okay, it’s out of my system. Just stress from the shop getting rebuilt and with Omar getting attacked.”
“Do you need a longer break?” Hien asks worriedly, fiddling with her pen. “It’s okay to get some real sleep. There aren’t many meetings and I’m sure the rest of us can take care of it if something is urgent.”
“I’m fine now,” Julius reassures her. “Thank you, Hien. If I did need a break, I know I can trust you to keep things running.”
Hien watches his expression for a long moment and then nods. She looks down at the scrolls in front of her, neatly wrapped and bow-tied. “I’m finished with the spells, should I put them in the pile next to your desk?”
“Gods no,” Julius says immediately. “Furthest back you can, cram them behind the shelves if possible. I’m not touching those again.”
Hien blinks and then sets off to bury the scrolls as well as she can, even dragging over a chair to get them high up and out of eye-sight.
