Hugo needed to do further testing to see if his plan was even halfway viable. Tracking down the ritualists that worked in the Black Marshal’s building was harder than he expected. The Octarians believed in their own weird brand of equality and even the barracks assignments were mixed between soulmarked and mundane.

It took Hugo some time and a lot of gossip to track down three of the ritualists that worked there. He was sure there were around ten of them, but this was the best he could do. Hopefully it would be enough to test his disregard rune.

He fabricated a titanium serving tray and inscribed the disregard rune on the bottom. It would only work as he pushed mana into the tray, but that was just what he wanted. He bribed his way into a few of the officer’s deserts and took his tray around to the barracks.

“Hey Cristina, Mihaela said you might want one of these plum crumb cakes,” Hugo said.

“Sure, I am always up for some plum cakes,” Cristina said, “Are they in the mess hall or?”

Hugo stopped channeling mana into the tray and said, “They are right here, have one.”

“Oh, I didn’t see them there,” Cristina said, “Silly me.” She took one of the small cakes and thanked Hugo. It was clear that the rune had worked on her.

Hugo repeated the exercise two more times, with Andre and Alina. Andre was fooled just like Cristina had been, but Alina was able to see he was holding a tray. She didn’t take a cake until the rune was off though.

“If you don’t mind me asking, Alina. What rank are you? You move so gracefully. I want to know what dexterity I should be shooting for,” Hugo said.

She giggled, “I am rank twenty-eight, but I haven’t put any points into dexterity. It’s all gone into wisdom to make me a better ritualist.”

“So you are saying your charms are all natural?” Hugo said with a smile. He wanted to provide her an explanation for why he was giving her a pastry. If she thought he was flirting with her, she wouldn’t look into the weirdness of the encounter too much.

She giggled again, “Yes, I am all natural.” She hesitated and then said, “I hope I am not reading into things too much, but I have to say that my charms are reserved for humans.”

“Ah, that’s what I expected, but a man can dream, right?” Hugo said and turned to leave.

“Dream away, little man,” she said and took a bite of the plum cake.

He smiled as he left, but the expression fell off his face as he turned the corner. She could see through his magic, and her wisdom stat was somewhere between twenty-eight and fifty-six.

She said that she put all her points into wisdom, so her stat was probably close to fifty, even if she put some of her points into intelligence to balance things out. Either way, it meant that there were a few people that worked in the Black Marshal’s building that would be able to see through his magic. He would have to adjust his plans.

It didn’t help that security was much more strict now. All across the base, he had to show his papers wherever he went. They were trying to catch the saboteur that had destroyed the alchemy building. He had undergone a few interviews about it, and expected to undergo a few more. Thankfully the military trusted in their oath too much, and the interviews weren’t with light mages. He just lied through his teeth with a smile.

Still, the added security meant that he wouldn’t be able to just waltz into the building with his disregard runes blazing. There were specialty keys that the guards used now, and the restricted buildings were locked down tight.

He decided to break things down, and work on things one at a time. First step, think of an excuse to get into the building. Something that would make the ritualists ignore him if they saw him inside.

Step two, copy the keys so he could walk in and out of the locked doors so it seemed like he belonged. The guards out front would ignore him, but if a ritualist saw him fiddling with the door, they would get suspicious.

Step three, create explosives ahead of time so he could place them and get out quickly. He would likely only have one chance at this so he needed to be ready during his first foray into the building.

He decided to work on the third task first. He knew how to make explosives, but decided to tweak them a bit. His mithril/titanium bombs activated with an ignition rune would certainly be effective in destroying whatever they were working on down there. But he wanted to get out of the building before the bombs went off. He couldn’t afford to get in a fight with anyone since they used shimmer casters. He would have to rig a delayed fuse.

Titanium and mithril wouldn’t make a good fuse. He still had a third element available to choose, but he would hate to pick one that would only be useful for a fuse. Instead, he decided to use a candle.

Their barracks didn’t have any, but he was able to find a few candles in the supplies that the enlisted used when they did missions in the field. He cut them small enough that they lasted twenty minutes. It would have been easy to make them longer, but he didn’t want the bombs to be discovered before they went off.

He decided to tackle the guard keys next. At first he was hopeful that he would be able to steal and copy the keys, but it turned out that wasn’t possible. Both sets of keys stayed with the guards that were on duty. Hugo couldn’t even approach the building without the guards becoming suspicious. To make matters worse, one of the two guards on duty was always a light mage.

The building’s security seemed impenetrable. Even with a distraction, only one of the two guards would leave their post. Although, now that he thought about it, he did have a pretty good distraction coming up. The earthquake was going to happen in two days.

He hadn’t planned on doing anything that day, since it was the day of the commodore’s inspection. He was touring the whole base, and everyone was stressed about looking their best. No one was going to bend the rules for Hugo on inspection day. Not until after the earthquake anyway.

Still, it would be a risk to hope that the guards would be sufficiently distracted. It would be equally likely that they would be more on guard, not less. They might assume the earthquake was some sort of attack and not let anyone into or out of the building.

The frustrating thing was that getting into the restricted building wasn’t his main goal in the first place. All he wanted to do was stop the shimmer cascade failure. If they were preparing some other military weapon in that building, he wasn’t going to risk his life to destroy it. He couldn’t stop all war, he was just here to stop the genocide brewing here.

A light went off in his head. Maybe he didn’t have to get into the building. He assumed that there was a tunnel leading towards the shimmer vein that ran through the city, maybe he could enter in on the other side of that tunnel. If they were trying to be sneaky about it, the other end of that tunnel would be lightly guarded.

Nodding to himself, he decided that was the new plan. He would hop the wall and come at the building from another direction. He had plenty of experience with sneaking over walls. Of course, getting over this wall wasn’t going to be as easy as the one at Blue Lion academy. These walls were patrolled and the military didn’t take kindly to deserters.

...

“Kind of late in the day to start your leave, isn’t it?” the guard at the front gate said.

Hugo shrugged, “I pissed off the major, I am lucky to have leave at all.” He had forged his leave papers so he could leave the night of the earthquake. Unlike ID documents, these ones were just written permission from his commanding officer. That was easy to forge.

The guard just laughed and said, “See you tomorrow morning then, try not to come back drunk.”

“No promises,” Hugo said and saluted on his way out.

Sneaking out this way was easier. He could bring along a bag of explosives and weapons, and the guards would smile and wave. There would be a record of him leaving of course, but if he was successful tonight, he wouldn’t be returning.

He cased out the access points to the shimmer veins, trying to see where the military was tapped in.

He almost missed it because he had been thinking too small. There was an entire warehouse atop the shimmer veins. It was the storage for the shimmer power cells after the plant processed it. What clued him in to the military’s involvement was the human guards.

Prolonged exposure to shimmer was deadly, so the only guards here should have been golems. There probably weren’t any power cells inside, just the military’s ritual site. He studied the building from a block away. Hugo found a window on the second story that didn’t seem like it got much traffic. Hugo felt like he could make it up there, even with a bag full of weaponry.

He waited a few blocks away in a bar. He planned on entering a few hours after the earthquake hit. The guards would be calmed down by then, and there was a chance that some security measures would be broken. It would be the perfect time to enter.

Hugo positioned himself on a rooftop veranda, he didn’t want to get stuck inside during the earthquake. Plus, this place had a good view of shimmer mountain.

Something strange happened as he nursed his drink. About the time he was expecting the earthquake a flash of light traveled up the shimmer veins. Once it hit the mountain, the whole thing seemed to wobble slightly. Shortly after that, the earthquake hit. The building he was in weathered it well, but he still joined panicked people in the streets.

Hugo didn’t care that the power was out and that people were panicking around him. He was still dealing with his own revelation. Hugo remembered that Alexandru had said that the earthquake wasn’t natural, but he hadn’t believed it until now.

The Deva military had caused the earthquake.

They must have learned something about the machinery within shimmer mountain and tried to use it as an attack on the other cities. They were probably going to spend the next month tweaking their design before they tried again, full strength.

Hugo realized that not only did he need to destroy their ritual site and or the runes they were using, but he also needed to make sure they didn’t try again. The worse case scenario would be if he only delayed their attack until after Alexandru’s ritual wouldn’t bring Hugo back in time anymore.

He had to hit them hard tonight, even if it meant being ruthless. He made a plan to deal with those that were involved in the shimmer cascade. He didn’t like the plan, but it was necessary. The lives of eight cities were hanging in the balance.

Two hours after the earthquake, but before the power was restored everywhere, Hugo snuck close to the shimmer storage building. There was only one guard out front. The other one must have gotten hurt or run off to check on his family. Either way, it made sneaking up to the side of the building easy.

Taking advantage of when he looked away, Hugo air-walked up to the window he had scouted out. A quick check with mana sight showed that the window was alarmed, but he was able to easily bypass that. His training with the fox gang a few lives ago was proving itself useful once more.

He found himself in a small office. It was clearly unused and covered in dust. The power hadn’t been restored here yet, so the building beyond the office door was dark. He created a tiny shield on his palm. It gave off just enough dim light for him to navigate the building, but he could close his hand to cover the light if needed.

Carefully creeping through the building, Hugo glanced into the rooms he was passing. This section of the building was all unused offices. Eventually, he got to the main section of warehouse. He was up on the second story and looked down into the building. He could see stacks of shimmer canisters, but the lack of light showed that they were empty. The piles of canisters were high enough that he couldn’t see behind them.

There wasn’t anything here, but the empty offices and canisters just convinced him that they were hiding something. He crept around the edge of the room, but didn’t take the stairs down. Instead, he lightly jumped up to the rafters and crawled along them so he could get a bird’s eye view of the room.

He was glad that he did. In the middle of the room was an empty spot, protected from view. There was a set of stairs leading down below, with a guard stationed at the top. He had a candle burning on the floor nearby. Unlike the guard out front, this one seemed alert and aware. He wasn’t looking up though, and Hugo made sure not to knock any dust down on him so he wouldn’t.

Hugo activated his mana sight and looked around for any hidden dangers. There weren’t any wards to avoid, but he could see something going on with the canisters around the guard. He would have to be careful to avoid touching them as he snuck in.

Hugo made a few platforms in the air and carefully stepped down to the ground. Just before he got close, he activated the many disregard runes in his uniform. He tucked his hat down low and dropped to the ground just behind the guard.

He was on a time limit now. He needed to plant the bombs and get back out before the runed plates ran out of mana. Twelve minutes.