"I wish I had known Adventure Magazine articles were allowed."

 

 

 

 

Miriam had trailed the fat man and his companions back to their camp. It was less than a mile and they had been there at least a day. It was strange that they had missed each other until now. The camp was situated in a roughly circular area atop a small hill, devoid of trees or natural cover. Tents dotted the landscape, and aside from a conspicuous pole positioned at the center of the camp, there was nothing particularly distinctive about the setup. Andrew's keen eye immediately recognized the pole as the focal point of an alarm spell.

Miriam's reconnaissance revealed the presence of ten men, among whom was the wizard leading the group. Additionally, there was an adult elven slave, presumably the woman they had encountered previously, and three elven children—two girls and a boy. The children were confined to one tent, while the woman shared quarters with the wizard in his tent.

Andrew's blood pressure rose dramatically.

Andrew had left their prisoner secured in their camp, casting a new rope trick for containment. With Miriam's assistance, he ensured the child remained asleep, then stealthily traveled with Miriam to the enemy camp. Utilizing autohypnosis, he implanted the conviction within himself that he harbored no hostile intent towards these individuals, effectively rendering himself non-threatening and invisible to the alarm spell—until, of course, he initiated an attack.

"Adventure Magazine?" Miriam perched on his shoulder as they hid in the underbrush.

Andrew nodded, "Adventure was the monthly magazine of the company that made the game. Many power gamers dismiss it because it's not technically canon and the articles can be quite... odd. " He pointed to the warehouse, "The Wizard Sigil slash Curse combo to make a slave mark that allows you to use certain spell effects on a slave is from a magazine article called A Dozen New Spells for Wizard Sigils." He frowned, "I remember it because half the spells were f'ed up. It looked like an article written by a sexually repressed freak, to be honest."

 

He looked to the horizon, "The kid is going to wake up in two hours. I don't want to wait anymore, Most of them are in their tents anyways." He pointed as he spoke, "I want you to turn invisible and stay in the tent with the kids. When the wizard who cast the sigil dies, they should be free, but I don't want them running around, they might get caught in the crossfire."

 

"Crossfire? From what?"

 

"The summoned Troll and Bear skeletons, of course."

 

Miriam's eyes went wide, "You can't use necromancy! That's seriously soul-corrupting!"

 

Andrew rolled his eyes, "Please." He held up one finger, "One, it's conjuration, nor necromancy. I'm summoning, not creating." He held up a second, "Two, I'm SHADOW conjuring the skeletons, not actually summoning the skeletons. They're technically illusions. Even if those guys see through the illusion, it'll still pack a punch. They're the distraction, anyways."

 

She squinted, "Why not make illusionary bears and trolls, then?"

 

Andrew sighed, "The shadow conjuration has to imitate a target spell and the target spell with the best combat critters for the circle I can cast are bear and troll skeletons. If I had the time to cast haste, I would summon bison and trample the camp, but they have hostages, so that won't work." He looked sideways at Miriam, "And I'm not casting summon undead because, as you said, it's an evil spell. I'm IMITATING it, big difference. Besides, this version allows me to command them with my mind, so I don't have to shout and give away my position."

 

Miriam frowned deeply, "I don't know if casting an illusion of an evil spell isn't evil, but..." She took a deep breath, "We need to discuss this later when we have time." She turned her attention to the camp, "What about the wizard?"

 

"I'll take care of the wizard. Make us both invisible and get going. You will have twenty-four seconds to get into place from my mark. One last thing..." Andrew pulled out a dagger and held it up near Miriam for her to examine, "I'm going to need something from you before you go."

 

---

 

There is a psionic power called Glorytongue. It's a very strange power and very cheap to cast. Most people don't use it because it's just gross. It turns your tongue into a construct and allows it to grow up to 100 feet instantly. It can't lift itself off the ground very far, but it can go along the ground a hundred feet. How? Why?

 

Andrew's theory is that one of the developers was tripping balls when they made the Hard Sun game setting, which is the world from which the psionic power originates.

 

Yes. Psionic. Someone tell me how mastering the power of the mind allows your tongue to grow a hundred feet. I swear, it is one strange cosmos, my friend. But I digress.

 

The thing is, it's a construct, yet it's a part of your body. So you can extend your tongue a hundred feet and cast a spell using the tip of your tongue as the point of origin. You can use it for touch attacks, although it sucks in combat and has lousy stealth rolls. When you want to execute a pincer movement and you want to summon skeletons that will only last for three minutes before they vanish, you don't want to waste your time sneaking around the edge of a clearing.

 

Andrew's tongue shot off to the left and summoned the four bear Skeletons. Six seconds later his tongue retracted then shot off to the right and summoned four more. Where he stood, he summoned two troll skeletons, then used dimensional hop to teleport himself to just outside the wizards's tent, arriving invisibly and undetected.

 

Luckily for Andrew, his autohypnosis continued to persuade him that he posed no threat to anyone, thus bypassing the Alarm spell. Additionally, since skeletons lacked minds, they were not perceived as hostile entities and failed to trigger the alarm either. Andrew shook his head, reflecting on the situation from a tactical perspective, ~This is why you don't cut corners when it comes to security. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows to use greater alarm so it picks up undead and anything ethereal.~

 

Andrew understood that the success of his plan depended on silently neutralizing the wizard first, before deploying the skeletons with a mental command. If executed flawlessly, the guards could be incapacitated without triggering the alarm. Using autohypnosis, Andrew convinced himself that his intention was not to harm the wizard. He was here to help the man sleep with a dose of Miriam's poison that Andrew just happened to have coated on his dagger.

 

As Andrew slipped into the tent, he was worried the wizard might hear him, or see the tent flap open. Andrew need not have worried. The wizard was too busy banging the crying elf woman who was chained to the central tent pole. Upon seeing this, Andrew resolved to murder this horrible excuse for a man as hard as he could, which of course caused the Alarm spell in the center of the camp to go off.

 

~Shit.~ Andrew still had the element of surprise as the wizard started looking around. He never got to see Andrew stab him in the back. The wizard clearly didn't have poison resistance as his eyes rolled up and he collapsed. A moment later, he collapsed on top of the woman Just as Andrew sent a single mental command to his conjured minions, ~Attack. Spare Me, Miriam, and any elves.~

 

Andrew scowled as he grabbed the man by the hair and pulled him off to the side while exposing the man's throat. Andrew brought his dagger around while looking at the elf, "Elyin, you might want to look away."

 

 

She didn't.

 

 

 

Andrew let the body roll to the side as he stood up and put his dagger away. He kept his eyes averted from the naked woman, "Tiri is alive and in an extradimensional pocket not far from here." He moved toward the exit, "The skeletons attacking have been ordered not to kill elves, but don't provoke them all the same."

 

Something made him pause.

 

He turned back to see the woman taking out the man's dagger and moving toward her own throat, "Oh crud! {HOLD}" He pointed at her and the elf woman froze. He ran over and touched her forehead, "{Remove Curse} {Erase}" He stepped away, "Just in case, I have to leave you paralyzed, You should be safe."

 

He turned and ran outside as fast as he could, "{Fleet Feet}" He ignored the men fighting the skeletons. Andrew was surprised. He expected the Illusionary Skeletons to be little more than a speed bump, but the guards were all utterly fooled. The skeletons were kicking the guard's asses and in a rather brutal fashion. They were already moving onto the men who had been asleep in their tents. Andrew didn't have time to rejoice in his good fortune and instead rushed over to the tent with the children. He burst in with a spell upon his lips, just in case he needed to stop the children.

 

They were all lying on the ground, piled on top of one another, out cold.

 

Miriam was hovering over them. She looked at Andrew as he burst in, and let out a sigh of relief, "Holy crap! Andrew, the alarm went off, they woke up, then they started trying to strangle one another! I had to put them to sleep. What's going on?"

 

Andrew looked disgusted, "Some sort of suicide option built into the curse. DO NOT let them WAKE UP." He turned and started walking out, "I'll be right back." Cracking his knuckles as the tent flap closed behind him, he turned his focus to the tent the skeletons were converging on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"This won't take long."