Giving them only a minute meant that Shaya didn’t leave herself much time for complex spells, which meant summoning creatures was off the list. That was fine, the list she had was better for scouting or distractions that doing battle in tight confines, and it meant she could focus on the spells she had been working on recently.

“Phaedra!” She invoked as quietly as she could, “Bend my weapon to my will!”

Eyes glowing gold from her stored Amber, she traced the first spell she planned to sustain. The aether resisted as usual, but months in a forge had taught her to sculpt stubborn material and she bent the aether into her desired circuit. Auric had hammered the importance of efficiency into her, and the circuit was nearly flawless: its pathways open for easy flow of aether, glyphs that reduced flow to prevent more delicate portions from burning out, and a flexible source that allowed her to channel more aether into the spell as needed. As she cast the spell, she felt it suffuse the bronze head of her weapon, and she envisioned placing it on an anvil, hammering the axe blade and excess material into a different shape.

She lacked Auric’s raw power to turn an ingot into a blank knife, but in seconds the metal of her weapon flowed and reshaped itself. The axe blade broadened out, the excess metal of the head flowing into it until it shaped itself into the blunt head of a warhammer. The spear tip and back-spike remained the same, untouched by the spell, leaving her with a variety of options to overcome her opponents.

Even the anxiety-inducing corruption couldn’t keep a smile off her face at the result.

“I didn’t know you were taking a class on transmutation,” Lan noted, eyes already glowing with Sapphire energy.

“It pays to make friends with the professors,” Shaya smiled, trying, and failing, to remember an instance where Lan had interacted with a professor by choice, “they seem more than happy to mentor young mages eager to learn spell seeds on their own time.”

“Hm, perhaps,” Lan said, turning away, “I may be too shy to take advantage of that.”

“Yeah,” Sathaea added, elbowing Lan in the ribs, “I haven’t seen Lan here chat with many people outside of class, unless there was some political advantage to it. Since going AWOL on our first deployment, I don’t think he’s overcome his shame enough to talk to others with any degree of confidence.”

“Hey now, let’s not be too hard on him, there’s no shame in taking care of family,” Shaya said, patting Lan on the back, “Besides, the first deployment ended well enough, there’s nothing to beat yourself up about. Especially since the higher ups clearly didn’t think it bad enough to punish you for it.”

The lithe man shrugged off her hand, “Thank you, but Sathaea is blowing my ‘shame’ out of proportion. Don’t worry about me, perhaps I just haven’t met the right mentor yet.”

“So, what’s our plan once we’re in there, oh fearless leader?” Sathaea asked, “sounds like quite the hornet’s nest.”

Shaya’s comfort with spellcasting was growing, and she finished sculpting another spell while chatting. Without the invocation, it took her twice as long, but the difference wasn’t quadruple or even quintuple as it used to be. This circuit was rougher than the first since she hadn’t practiced it as much, but just as integral to her plans. Jade aether flowed into the wooden-bone haft of her weapon and she tested the spell, increasing the length of her haft and then shrinking it back down. Given that they were going to be fighting in tight spaces, she was content going in with a short-hafted weapon that left enough room for her to two-hand it if desired.

“We go in fast and furious,” Shaya explained, “speed is a form of stealth, in a way.”

“Going to be difficult to take prisoners while moving quickly, especially without invisibility,” Lan noted.

“I don’t think we can afford to be as merciful, unfortunately,” Shaya said after a moment of thought, jaw muscles tight, “our primary objective is intel, and the apostates are the ones that possess it. Those that are colluding with them... well, they knew the risks, and the punishment without extenuating circumstances is death. So, don’t hesitate, just... keep moving.”

The others nodded, drawing their weapons. Lan drew the shorter of his two curved blades, eyes aglow with predictive power, as an ancestral spirit in similar winter-coloured clothes hovered behind him. Sathaea took test swipes with her estoc and dagger, though Shaya’s eyes passed over her whenever she tried to look at her directly. Ren flipped out one stiletto, keeping his other hand free as Jade energy flowed into his muscles from the buff bunny girl that hovered behind him. Shaya gripped her weapon in two hands, finishing her enhance strength spell next as Phaedra hovered over her comfortingly.

With all of the magical exercise she had been doing, she knew her spirit had expanded and that she had room left to cast a small ward or barrier spell if needed, but only just. She hadn’t appreciated Auric’s insistence that light-forging spells were overly complex until she had realized how small the circuits were for both the metal and wood transmutation spells he and Bari had taught her. That left her with a lot more flexibility, which suited her just fine.

“Let’s move,” Shaya said, walking toward the stairs down from the roof and into the keep’s depths, “I’ll take the lead; Sathaea, support me as I advance; Ren, Lan: watch our flanks.”

“Why don’t you put up a ward against Azurite magic first?” Sathaea asked, “It might help against the corruption here.”

“It would take time for me to dismiss it, then cast a new spell,” Shaya explained, “which might be too long if we need a barrier or a different ward in a pinch.”

“Door’s locked,” Ren reported, stepping back and letting Shaya past him.

“I have a key,” Shaya said, stepping forward and ripping the door off its hinges with one hand.

“Speed is stealthy, huh?” Ren asked, tail swishing with amusement, “I think I prefer your ‘slow is smooth, smooth is fast’ line.”

“Sounds like you’re volunteering to lead our next deployment.”

“Nooo thank you.”

“Then shush, it’s go time.”

The first guard they came across was alone, leaning out the window for some fresh air. With his head inaccessible, Shaya slinked towards him and brought her pick down onto his back. Chainmail rings burst apart as her pick punched through them, then dense ribs, and finally into the man’s heart, powered by her enhanced strength. With a yank, she freed her pick from the corpse and noticed that the bronze tip was mangled from punching through hard iron. Shaya pushed more aether into her transmute metal spell and straightened the weapon out, resharpening it to the best of her ability.

“Handy,” Lan whispered.

“Thanks,” she whispered back, not hearing anyone else in the immediate vicinity, “I can’t afford mythrite, so I need to find ways to make bronze work against iron.”

“Keep jinxing our deployments,” Ren added, “and you’ll be able to trade in all these monster parts for a mythrite castle in short order. I can’t wait to see what Titan you summoned this time around.”

“Hey now,” Shaya said defensively, “you’re the one jinxing us now.”

They fell silent again as they continued through the keep, carving a red path of ruin through the unaware guards. As she hoped, between Lan’s predictive abilities, Sathaea’s misdirection, and her and Ren’s enhanced strength, they made quick work of the hapless guards in their way without any close calls. Each of them was surprisingly skilled in stealth as well, letting them avoid larger groups.

I wonder where they picked the skills up, Shaya thought, I don’t recall the Academy having any stealth-focused classes. Wouldn’t be fair of me to ask though, given that I'm not interested in sharing where I acquired said skills...

“Can you fix my stiletto with your spell?” Ren asked as they paused their descent after clearing the first floor, unsurprisingly finding no apostates.

Shaya shook her head, “I’m not good enough with the spell yet to make it permanent, so once I stop sustaining it the stiletto’ll revert back to its damaged form.”

“Lame.”

“Trouble,” Lan hissed from where he knelt on the ground, concentrating on a farseeing spell. A third eye of sparkling Sapphire glowed on his forehead and his esper’s, then disappeared as he ended the spell and continued speaking in a whisper, “down the stairs, end of the hallway to the right is the barracks. Based on my predictions, I’m sensing about a dozen guards there. Still no apostates or spawn though.”

“We should avoid them then,” Sathaea said, “the keep is four stories, the apostates must be on the first or second floor then.”

“They could be deeper,” Shaya said, “I heard one of the guards mention a ‘pit’ where they put prisoners... and dissidents found in their ranks. Probably a dungeon belowground or something.”

“Assuming that hasn’t flooded with the back quarter of the keep collapsing,” Sathaea countered.

“Maybe, but I don’t like the idea of leaving that many enemies at our backs. And if the change of guard is sooner than we hope...”

“You want the four of us to kill a dozen guards in an open room?” Sathaea glared.

Shaya wanted to glare back, but still couldn’t look directly at the other woman. Whatever spell she had cast prevented Shaya’s brain from doing more than giving her a passing glance.

“Give me a minute to think,” Shaya sighed.

“I might have a solution,” Ren offered, “I’m familiar enough with transmuting wood that I can make it semi-permanent... or at least pretty long lasting.”

“Think you can expand the door to jam it?”

“That’s what I’m thinking.”

“Can you do it without drawing attention?”

“Probably,” he shrugged, “it’ll take me a bit of time to cast without an invocation, but it’s doable. The wood’ll creak as it expands and jams up though.”

“Sathaea, can you provide some covering noise? Mimic some of the voices we overhead on our way here?”

“Of course,” she said with her usual smugness.

Shaya hoped that the Azurite mage never got over-confident, since her constant assurances could lead to a plan going awry quickly. Apricot didn’t like her, but she at least trusted in her abilities, which meant Shaya was willing to as well. Until proven otherwise, anyway.

“Alright, that’s the plan then. Lan and I will keep watch while you two get the door jammed.”

They slinked down the next set of stairs, descending into the darkness of the third floor where the ceilings were still intact. The hallway leading to the barracks was illuminated by the sputtering fire of a few lit torches held in ornate sconces shaped like billowing leaves and the occasional ray of sunlight peeking through damaged masonry. Both sides of the hallway were dotted with old, wooden doors, putting Shaya on edge given how many places someone could stumble onto them unexpectedly.

Ren and Sathaea snuck up to the barracks door while Shaya and Lan set up on either end of the hallway. The chatter coming from the barracks was loud enough that Shaya wasn’t too worried about anyone overhearing the door’s expansion, but Sathaea was on standby just in case.

Lan stiffened suddenly, raising two fingers at Shaya, and slinking around the corner until he and his esper were out of sight. A second later, a door several feet from Shaya opened and a guard walked out. Shaya froze, realizing he was likely too far away to take down before he could scream. She would need to go at him with a dead sprint and hope he was too shocked to warn the others.

But Lan raised two fingers, and that made her pause.

The guard turned to where Lan had been standing and started swaggering that direction, away from the barracks. Shaya’s heart started beating again, thundering in her ear drums. A second guard in different colours stepped out of the door after the first, adjusting her weapon’s belt.

Shaya shot forward like a loosed crossbow bolt, long, enhanced legs closing the distance in mere heartbeats. The woman started to turn towards her, eyes widening and pupils dilating. But Shaya’s hammer was already mid swing, slamming into the woman’s chest with a sickening crunch of bone and launching her back into the room. Shaya followed her in before the first guard turned to the noise and heard a crack and a groan as Lan bashed the man in the back of the head.

A second later, Lan carried the unconscious guard in after her, depositing the two in the musty old bedroom. The woman gasped for breath at Shaya’s feet, but no blood frothed from her mouth. She would survive, as would the man she had snuck off with. Shaya punched her across the face, knocking her out. The broken jaws and ribs would heal, probably.

“It would have been embarrassing for our plan to be undone by their negligence,” Lan sighed.

“Fate has played crueler tricks,” Shaya shook her head.

“Job’s done,” Ren reported from the doorway, he and Sathaea smirking at the two unconscious guards at their feet.

“Wow,” Sathaea whispered, “I knew you were shrews, but this seems a bit much even for you.”

“Ugh, shut up,” Shaya sighed, moving for the door, “Gods, I thought Ren was bad.”

“Oh my, no,” Lan whispered with annoyance, “Ren at least shuts up on occasion, like in the middle of a stealth mission.”

“Gee, thanks,” Ren whispered as they moved back down the hallway.

“That wasn’t meant as a compliment.”

“I’ll take what I can get, thank you very much.”

“Yeah, you don’t strike me as that picky,” Sathaea whispered with a smirk.

Ren bit back his retort as Shaya glared back at the three of them, silencing them as they went about searching and securing the rest of the third floor and moving down to the second.

They found their quarry almost immediately, the smell of cooked meat wafting toward them from a large dining area that dominated the center of the level. Conversation drifted to them around the corner, this time in a musical language that Shaya recognized as a dialect of Vayeiran but couldn’t understand. The language always sounded upbeat to her, but the faint clinking of glasses made her suspect the diners were celebrating something.

Sathaea paled as they approached the entryway, then whispered, “They just ordered the guards to bring in the evening’s entertainment along with the ‘implements’.”

“Please! No!” A woman screamed from the next room in Arcadian, chains rattling as she struggled against her captors, “I’ll do anythin’ you want! Just please let me go!”

Shaya stiffened, feeling her blood boil. She felt Phaedra’s gaze settle on her, heavy with expectation.