Chương 122: Just a rat?

"Wander, I believe that it would be quite beyond anyone to actually abscond with one of the queen's gates," Kite said, amused as rats scurried down to allow Wander to assume her humanoid form, even though her ascension to silver rank during the monster surge meant that all of the rats were no longer needed for it. If Kite was to guess, Wander had probably had eyes on him long before he entered through the inn's outer gates.

Her human form looked much as Kite remembered, but she had let her brown hair grow longer than the short crew-cut she had before.

"And besides, the queen's decree was quite clear that it should be up to anyone with the token to challenge the gate," Braid said, his disapproval clear in his voice even through the layers of cloth which constantly covered the runic.

"While we do not have enough pull in the local scene, I would dare anyone to actually try to call us out on it publicly. Although I doubt it would even come to that. After all, we're here to help him get in, no?"

"For which I am ever grateful," Kite added, sitting down on one of the couches beside where Wander was now lounging.

"How was your trip here? As I noticed myself, it is quite far from Bastion."

"Oh, Kite, you have no idea how glad I was when you wrote and asked. The situation in Bastion was so booooring after the surge. It was just Braid and me tracking down smaller and smaller operations. If I had to pursue another lead only to find out that it was simple tax evasion creating the suspicious numbers, I would have started gnawing at the walls. And my teeth are very strong now, so I could totally have done it too~!"

Wander sounded almost on the verge of grateful tears as she spoke, all of the surrounding rats nodding along or expressing the described misery through surprisingly expressive pantomime.

"And besides, it was exciting to travel here~. I have never been to Orchard, and never imagined that there could be so many farms in one place~," the shapeshifter continued, amazement clear in her voice.

"While I bet that you have had many chances to learn interesting tidbits about the city, Wander, why don't you tell Kite about what our scouting measures have turned up?" Braid asked. His threads had put away the different documents in different neat stacks and were all now thoroughly focused on the piece of cloth. Kite thought that they were doing some kind of incredibly fine embroidery, but it was beyond him to determine what.

"You already began scouting?" Kite asked, turning back to Wander.

"Well, of course~," she said with a roll of her eyes.

"That is what I am best at after all. For the record, there are even more naked people around here than in Bastion," she said, pretending not to notice Kite's flat stare.

"But yes, we have found the place where the gate is. Dug up a little bit of information about it too. While I was surprised at you going the sneaky route, Kite, let me just say I'm glad that you did. The owners of the land, the Pristine family, seem super shady. And the prize they are asking for gaining access is just plain crazy~."

"Any idea about the security then?" Kite asked.

"And I am thankful that I don't have to convince you through some kind of ethics debate in this. Because frankly, I could not afford the straight forward route if the price demanded is even close to what my uncle managed to dig up."

"Oh, please~," Wander said.

"It is sooooo obvious that they are only obeying the rules in the most optimistic of interpretations, with the price hampering adventurers of lesser means and prestige from entering. I've heard it whispered that the Pristine family might often allow adventurers to work off their 'debts' by doing some of the family's dirty work, so they have quite the vested interest in keeping things as is."

"Then I can only imagine that other people might have thought of the same idea as me," Kite said, brow furrowed.

"Maybe, but they did not have me accompanying them, if you'll forgive the immodesty," Braid added.

"Wander took a recording through a crystal specifically designed to trace the arrays. Unless something very special hides beneath the surface, I am quite confident at getting you in there."

"Then I'll be in your care," Kite said, relieved.

"Let me once more say that I am very grateful for you taking the time, as the other alternative viable within a reasonable timespan was to try and reach the gate in Boundary, and from what Uncle Walker could gather, that would have been a lot more complicated. I just hope that you feel that the compensation will be enough. You both could have asked for a lot more." At his words, Wander only shook her head.

"Kite, Kite, Kite… Asking too much from a friend just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Well, mouths. While a girl has monetary needs, just the fact that your request got this thread-maniac away from Bastion is almost enough in and of itself~."

"I do agree that this will not leave our karma unbalanced, Kite," Braid agreed.

"You paying with an essence is already enough, and that my niece will eventually be able to try out for joining your little guild calms her uncle Braid's heart."

"As I said before, I cannot make lasting promises for the guild. Uncle Walker is the final arbiter," Kite said.

"And I wasn't surprised that it was a thread essence that you wanted for her."

"She is wise beyond her years," Braid said proudly, his animated threads having finished the now heavily embroidered cloth.

"But back to the topic of defenses, I believe that what challenges there are in that regard will be the unforeseen ones. And from my experiences, there always are."

"Such as the suspected cult meeting turning out to be a sacrifice-fueled orgy?" Kite asked, Wander giggling at the memory.

"You should have seen your faces~," she said between fits of laughter.

"Good times~."

"I was referring more to the actual guards of the estate, as well as the members of the Pristine family," Braid said sourly.

"Oh, those? I wouldn't worry too much. The guards are bronze-rankers at most, and while the family have two silvers closer to the city, those actually remaining with the family compound are core-users. Unless they manage to snag a silver-ranked bodyguard or two with their so-called debts without me noticing, then there shouldn't be any problems~," Wander said confidently. After a while without either of the two men answering, she gave them a questioning look.

"What? What did I say~?"

"Wander, did no one ever tell you not to invite the heavens' fickle gaze like that?" Kite asked, his expression a bit pained, even if said expression was a smile. Wander and Braid's presence felt extremely comforting, as he knew them and their competence. If anyone within his growing circle of friends and allies could find a way to get him through the rumored magical defenses, it was those two.

Because while two wrongs didn't make a right, with Kite essentially planning to break into the estate, he did feel that it wasn't anything that would make him lose sleep at night. What Wander reported only helped cement that feeling, and as they sat down that very night to continue planning, his excitement only grew, as the prospect of actually taking on the second jade-sky gate started feeling close enough to touch.

"Mistress Pristine, surely there has to be some kind of agreement that can be reached which could please both sides. As things stand with my duties within the sect, it may not even be possible to agree to what you are asking," the human man, a student of the Wayward Wind sect, pleaded where he sat opposite the mistress of the house. Pristine Flower of Eternal Youth gave a rueful shake of her head, every part of her expression conveying reluctant sadness.

Said expression was helped a lot by the subtle powers of her visage essence, as mistress Pristine worked complex small-scale illusions to truly get her meaning across. While she was a core user, her aura was expertly controlled to reveal nothing else than she wished for it to. And at the moment, she needed to convey sincerity.

"Alas, inner disciple, I cannot simply forego the tenets which my father swore to uphold when the queen's gate descended on these lands. It will remain our duty to see to it that only the most worthy of warriors may gain the opportunity that is the jade-sky gate. My heart truly aches for you, as you seem to be quite the genius of the younger generations, but my honor will not allow me to make exceptions.

Only by proving yourself and your worth to the elders of our family through extended service may we witness your prowess for ourselves. Without that or showing that you have the resources and backing required, there simply isn't more for me to do than to offer you the hospitality of our house for as long as you wish to stay." She could feel the younger man's frustration even through his firm aura, and for a while she even wondered if he would choose to escalate things then and there.

With the array bracelet upon her arm, she did not fear him within the family compound, but it might still be a costly and frustrating endeavor. But no aggression followed, and mistress Pristine had to carefully school her expression as she saw the warrior's shoulders slump ever so slightly in defeat.

"I… will have to return to the sect and speak to the sect elders. And pray that they might excuse me from my duties for a time," he said, rising.

"Thank you for your hospitality, mistress Pristine."

"I do hope to see you again, inner disciple," mistress Pristine replied as she rose as well.

"And I also hope to have conveyed my heavy heart in this matter. But alas, my duty to the family's honor must come first." The inner disciple did not answer her, instead choosing to bow as propriety demanded before taking his leave. As soon as the door shut behind him, mistress Pristine's mind started calculating what might come of this.

"He might not return, but that costs us little except some potential strain with the Wayward Wind sect. But my senses say that he might, which is an opportunity in and of itself. It was a while since we had a silver-ranker serving for a time.

There are several ventures where he could be an asset," she thought as she walked inward through the Pristine family compound, eventually reaching a walled garden which was beautifully kept, the family gardeners having done well to bring forth the most bountiful sense of budding spring in the little park. And there, at its center, hovered the circular gate. Resting her eyes at its complete stillness and almost otherworldly presence always helped the mistress to gather her thoughts.

And those thoughts were currently of potential triumphs. The Pristine family always had more goals to further, and as long as the gate remained within their compound, more opportunities would continue to arise.

"Truly a blessing for those worthy to use it correctly. Thank you, your majesty," she mused, lips curving into a smile before she returned back to the other matters on her agenda. The doors closed behind her, leaving the gate alone once more, the monument left waiting. It had become part of the core of their power in the area around Orchard, and the family had promised themselves to keep it inviolable for everything except when fate would deem some challenger to be worthy.

From what mistress Pristine had seen so far, it would probably be a good while until that happened, the family counting on retaining their self-imposed stewardship of the gate for years, even decades, to come.

"So, that is the estate of the Pristine family," Kite mused from where he was crouching in a copse of trees, looking out over the sprawling compound." One of their estates," Wander corrected, one of her bodies sitting atop Kite's shoulder.

"But yes, this is their main one. The others are much smaller and spread around their different businesses. See that walled off garden in the southwest quadrant?" Kite let his gaze pan over the walled compound which in turn formed several smaller ones where walls divided different clusters of buildings, manicured gardens and a few open plazas. As indicated, he found one garden a bit more remote, the inner courtyard of a low, square building.

While he couldn't see it from this distance, Kite could only imagine the silent monolith that was the jade-sky gate staring back at him.

"How is the quality of their defenses then?" Kite asked Braid, the cloth-wrapped man at his side.

"Decent," the weaver admitted.

"I would not have wanted to be responsible to sneak whole units across their perimeter. But a single man and a swarm of very sneaky rats? I remain confident."

"And you both still want to remain in the area while I am in there?" Kite asked.

"The last gate took just over three weeks. There is no telling what a bronze-ranked challenge might be like."

"Oh, quite content. There is a quaint little inn in the village just down the road near the prizi plantations where I could see myself having a nice and relaxing stay. Maybe properly focus on my craft, for once, and see if they have barrels left from last year's harvest," Braid said happily.

"With the tracking stone on hand, we will know as soon as you exit. Or… well…" He trailed off at the end, the implication clear. While it felt like a grim reminder, Kite was actually happy that the tracking stones of the Adventure Society could still register his death even if it was within an astral space. That way, his friends and family wouldn't be left wondering, should the worst come to pass.

While he didn't dwell on the thought, Kite still couldn't help but reach into his pocket and let his fingers trail the token which Fortune had gifted him not long before taking on the first of the queen's gates.

"Fortune, please let your echo linger with me in this endeavor, as you did before," he thought in silent prayer, before turning to Braid and Wander. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"Then we shall wait until night has properly fallen before we close in. Do you have any pointers to offer me in regards to staying undetected when we enter? I assume that you will stay on the outside, Braid, to keep managing the arrays?"

"I will," the cloth-wrapped array-master agreed.

"And as to getting you in there…" He trailed off, clearly looking to Wander. The little rat atop Kite's shoulder looked positively exultant, rubbing its little paws together, and he couldn't help but feel his heart sink a bit as Wander spoke.

"Oh, Kite, I promise you; this will be great fun~!"

"Just another year, Dahlia. Just one more year with boring guard duty. Then you should be able to afford both the essence for little Moth as well as the tryout for the sect admissions." Even the mind of a bronze-ranker was not proficient enough to stave off the boredom of walking around a compound, no matter how beautiful the houses or well kept the gardens.

"At least the moon is pretty tonight," Dahlia thought, letting her mind wander further. Keeping the straight posture and a modicum of vigilance was second nature to her by now, the patrolling woman using the opportunity to recite the different tenets of the local sects.

"-like the rumbling earth, my fist will force the shields of my foe to crumble and break. Truly, the-" A distinct clattering noise from one of the roofs snapped Dahlia out of her recitation, eyes snapping to a nearby roof. Mana surged and the bronze-ranker was carried through the air in a blink to land softly on the tiles above, just in time to see a panicked little rat scurry down the side of the house after almost falling off in fright at Dahlia's sudden appearance.

Sighing inwardly, Dahlia flicked her wrist, the conjured needle striking the falling rodent but a moment later, its little brown body detonating from the force of the magical impact.

"I might have overdone it a bit," Dahlia mused at the display and the light spatter of gore which now covered a part of the stone path beneath.

"Better get some servants to clean that up before one of the masters or mistresses noticed." Dahlia leapt down from the roof once more, blissfully unaware of the mound of rats which had moved without a sound just at the other side of the peak of the curved and tiled roof, taking the opportunity to cross the path that the guard would have taken and disappearing deeper into the complex.

"The distraction worked. She has moved off now. Detonating one of my bodies at the right time always has people thinking that they just disposed of an ordinary little rat~," a soft little squeaking whispered in Kite's ear, sounding all smug.

"And I must say, Kite, you are lighter than you look. All nice and firm, too. I should totally find myself a younger guy." Kite knew better than to respond, just focusing on remaining still and keeping his aura as retracted as possible as he felt the numerous rats move around his prone form while he was carried along. While he knew that Wander was silver rank, it was still a bit surreal that the small frames and paws could carry him along so easily while still remaining utterly silent.

Still, his friends were nothing if not thorough. Braid had made a simple kind of poncho-like garment for Kite to wrap himself in, which would aid in hiding his aura presence as long as he remained as still and inactive as possible. In addition, Wander had an essence power which further helped obscure or downplay her presence, so she made sure that her swarming bodies were covering Kite on all sides to further shield him.

Even so, it was still all Kite could do to not flinch as he was carried up and down along walls and over small stretches of open ground in quick bursts while unable to see the world around him.

"Braid seems to be doing a good job too. No sign of trouble yet. It should only be over one more set of roofs now~." Some rustling and vertigo-inducing sudden shifts in directions later, Kite once more felt the swarm covering him come to a stop.

"I can see it now. Doesn't look like too much from up here. I thought that it would have a bit more gravitas, you know. Let's get dow- wait. There seems to be an active array here. Hmm. Maybe one that Braid missed~?" Wander's singsong voice fell quiet for a minute as she seemed to be conversing with Braid outside the complex through another of her bodies.

"He says that he will be ready, even if he cannot interact directly with the array from over there without it activating. But he should be able to silence it in time~,""Should?" Kite thought, concerned, but Wander continued relentlessly.

"Still, be ready in case something happens~."

"Ready for wha-" Kite began in as soft a whisper that he could manage, but was interrupted by a cheery little choir of soft voices.

"Here we goooo~." And then he felt himself falling. Braid sat just at the edge of the Pristine family's compound, a multitude of glowing threads moving around him to continuously pierce the glowing lines of the array before him, canceling or rerouting the different magical flows.

"It seems to be an array connected to a bracelet. Typical of these nobles to want to use it for personal protection as well," he mused to the rat at his shoulder, the pair protected by formations of woven thread to keep them from being both seen and heard by anyone but the most skilled or powerful observer.

"While it is not bad, it does tend to leave a glaring weakness. Reroute signals from ever reaching the bracelet itself, a kind of bottleneck if you will, and the array will not truly register any intruders as it cannot get the confirmation needed from the control device."

"Yes, yes, Braid is very smart. The smartest of them all. Much smarter than the talented woman who is actually carrying our daring infiltrator through all this~," the rat grumbled. Braid was about to retort when the rat suddenly raised a single paw.

"We're near the yard with the gate, but there seems to be another array around it. Looks different from the rest~."

"Describe it to me."

"Well, it has all these lines and symbols-" Wander began, but fell silent as she could feel the withering glare even through Braid's mask.

"Fine, fine. It seems to be a detection array, connected to the whole thing but not to the central bracelet. What was it you called them? An internal… something-""An internal nested structural matrix," Braid finished.

"That is troublesome, but should be manageable. As I won't be able to break it from here, I can only intercept and cancel the signal. Hopefully. Maybe."

"I just told Kite that you could do it, so I'm jumping down~."

"You what?!"

"Jumping now, Braid. I believe in youuuu~," Wander said cheerfully, Braid dropping everything as his magical perception showed a trio of signals flaring up along the lines of the array. His threads shot out faster than ever before, two of the signals immediately caught. The third was as well, but not before it had flared a miniscule spark just the moment before Braid's glowing thread caught it.

Braid let out a breath as the array remained stable, but he wasn't entirely sure that the last little spark had been just a random discharge.

"Fortune, please show mercy on the fool who hired Wander for something like this," he thought sourly, sending the prayer on Kite's behalf as he kept stabilizing and re-routing the array. It would be up to the bronze-ranker and Wander to handle the immediate future. Mistress Pristine utilized all of her silver-ranked speed as she moved through the corridors from her sitting room towards the gate.

The array console had flared ever so briefly, but with her meeting with the frustrated inner disciple from the Wayward Wind sect having taken place just a few days before, she would not leave anything to chance.

"I did not expect him to try something so foolish," she thought to herself as she moved like a mirage through the final stretch of gardens.

"But maybe he decided to forego asking his elders, and go straight for the prize. The youth of today grows bolder than their talent can back up." She threw open the sliding doors to the inner garden which housed the gates, the bronze-ranked guard stationed outside barely having time to snap to attention and bow to her, ignoring the confused man as she stepped into the garden where the gate stood. The silent, empty garden.

Mistress Pristine remained vigilant however, silently watching the whole of the peaceful garden and the imposing, serene monument hovering in its midst. All was still until- A rustling was heard, ever so soft, and a moment later a small brown rat slowly crept forward from beneath one of the nearby bushes. It seemed unaware of the tense silver-ranker at the door leading into the garden, its tiny nose smelling the air, whiskers wiggling. Just a rat? Special ability.

Cost: None Cooldown: None Current rank: Silver Effect - iron: Greatly increased ability to conceal aura. Effect - bronze: The effect further increased while shapeshifted, and may be extended to any rat-type familiars or summons. Effect - silver: May mask aura to appear as normal rank. Using other essence powers or taking overt or hostile actions will end this effect. Effects of higher rank or especially potent means of detection may see through this effect.

"Mistress? What is it?" The bronze-ranker asked, conjuring a series of darts seemingly made from smoke which hovered at the ready above him. Mistress Pristine clenched her teeth as she flicked her wrist, a projectile of hard light darting out and causing the little vermin to explode into fine mist.

"Nothing," she said tersely, turning around in frustration.

"But-""Nothing, I said. You have not seen this. This never happened."

"Of- of course, mistress."

"Just a rat," mistress Pristine grumbled once she had left the immediate vicinity of the guard.

"And for the help to see me acting on such a trifle. Embarrassing." The sensation of falling was brief, with Kite's fall being arrested with surprising gentleness by the swarm of rats forming a mound beneath him to act as cushion.

"Are- are we there?" He asked cautiously, not daring to move.

"We sure are. Thank you for choosing your friendly swarm of rats as your chosen means of transportation, benefactor. This one-" Wander began, but he soon felt her stiffen.

"Wait, someone is coming. Silver. I'll have to go fast. Goodluckintheredon'tdosomethingIwouldn'tdobyeeeee~." Wander was moving even before she spoke, accelerating to a degree where Kite felt the speed tug at his inside. A second later, he felt himself airborne once more as he was launched in an arc, with the last of Wander's garbled well-wishes being abruptly cut off by complete silence and the world shifting.

As the door closed to the garden once more, Wander's many bodies smiled the same little smug smile, the bloody smear on the grass a testament to how well her little sacrificial tactic worked. Give people a reasonable explanation for a sound, and they would most often dismiss the rest out of hand. And rats made people uncomfortable, so killing them and moving on was easy. Once upon a time Wander had felt very uncomfortable with what was essentially a part of her dying, but time had a way of changing perspectives.

These days, she didn't even know if it was entirely correct to just think of herself as only one being, given how many things she was usually doing simultaneously. Even at this moment, she was talking to Braid and giving him, if she said it herself, a most excellent retelling of how she had acted fast enough to throw the Kite-bundle through the gate and hide before one of the local silver-ranked core-users came to investigate. She had even had almost two seconds to spare!

"Well, at least he just vanished when passing through the gate. I'll have to assume that it wasn't just him being disintegrated or something" Wander mused as she made sure that her bodies hid further inside the different bushes of the garden, several starting to make hidden burrows. Wander had found that she had really come to enjoy a good burrow.

"Now we - I - just have to wait. At least there should be plenty of larders with tasty things to sniff out. Only to pass the time, of course~." Kite's sudden and blessedly short flight ended with a rather ungraceful impact, his body still tangled up in the aura-shielding weave Braid had given him. The poncho felt more like a sack than actual garment at the moment, and even as his mind spun with sudden vertigo, Kite did his best to extricate himself from the thing.

As he finally managed to free his head, Kite rolled to lay on his back, staring up at the unfamiliar haze above him; like a cloud-covered sky where streaks of white light were occasionally peeking through. While the vertigo still scrambling his mind was a clear indication of what had happened, the sky being decidedly not the same evening gloom that had hung above him before Wander had wrapped him to start their little infiltration was another definite proof that they had done it. Kite had passed through the gate.

A quick search through one of his dimensional pouches confirmed that the bronze token was indeed gone, having disappeared once he crossed the boundary.

"Thank you, my friends. I hope to prove worthy of your assistance," he mused softly, just laying there for a moment as the fog cleared from his mind. Through his expanded vision, he had already seen a very familiar floating sphere hover nearby, but as it seemed content to wait for him, Kite took his time to find his bearings again. Only when he felt grounded once more did he rise to his feet and turned to what he assumed was yet another officiator.

Like Third, the sphere from his first trial, this construct also seemed to be made from the same pale and almost surreal-looking metal like the gates. But this time around, the entity did not possess the same level of mystery as the last time, with Kite even having seen the rows of inactive ones which Gleam, the servitor of the Queen of Jade and Sky which he had met a few years back, had carried and constructed within herself.

When he stood up, Kite also realized that him feeling grounded was more relative than he thought it to be. The gate through which he had emerged was anchored to a metal disk thirty meters across, which in turn hovered high up in the air above a sprawling landscape.

Even through the mist-like haze beneath the disc, Kite thought that he could glean many different kinds of landscapes and territories, like a miniature world shrunken and condensed to a circular space which just seemed to fade into nothingness at the edges.

"Greetings, trial-taker. I am the officiator of your trial." The neutral voice snapped Kite out of his reverie, eerily familiar. In a way it was as if Third was back there with him, or at least the Third who hadn't yet shown its true colors and enthusiastically started regaling Kite with its design philosophies. But as it continued speaking, Kite could note a difference compared to his memories. The pitch of this officiator was just a little bit higher, and the enunciation a bit different.

"Potential second-stage trial-taker detected. Please present proof of the previously completed iron rank trial." After a second of incomprehension, Kite understood what it was asking for. Immutable Echo, forged from the body of Third and the prize given to him at his earlier victory.

The weapon had remained unmarred through every trial and tribulation Kite had suffered through and conquered so far, the only difference since its forging being that it now sported a second ring dangling from the ring-like head of the staff.

"Proof accepted. Second-stage trial-taker verified."

"Would it be possible for me to know what that entails?" Kite asked.

"Certainly, trial-taker. Those who attempt to pass multiple trials laid out by the queen will see their potential gains increased, as the queen chose to acknowledge such a trust in one's paths. This will affect the potential reward from the gate should you manage to pass the trial, but be warned that it will also potentially increase the challenge. No step towards the heavens should be taken lightly, lest it weakens your foundations and introduces weakness to your path.

You will be tested to your limits and beyond."

"I… see," Kite said, heart warring between fear and excitement at the statement. And the 'increased gains' mentioned certainly set the mind racing with possibilities. While he wasn't sure by any means, Kite got the vague impression that the orb was a bit pleased at this acceptance.

"Then, trial-taker, would you like me to explain the rules of this gate, and the challenge that the Queen of Jade and Sky has left for you to undertake?"