“Before moving out, you should wear this.” Manohar gave Balkor a Skinwalker armor and several clothes typical of the Kingdom to store within it, ranging from a noble’s attire to a street urchin’s raggedy overall.
“Neither of us can afford to be recognized nor we can waste time changing clothes every now and then. As the two most wanted men in the Griffon Kingdom, we need to be creative.” He answered Balkor’s silent question.
“Do you need a ride?” Salaark asked.
“No, thanks. I’m going to make this quick.” Manohar placed his hand on Balkor’s shoulder, shapeshifting both of them into a couple of young maidens that anyone who knew Tista would mistake for her relatives.
“What the fuck?” The god of death’s voice was now as feminine as it was full of horror.
“We need to lay low. Despite my disguises and tricks that damn Jirni Ernas almost caught me several times the last time I went for a few errands.” Manohar took a red sphere out of his dimensional amulet.
“Maybe because they look for your trademark dickery and light constructs.” Salaark laughed her ass off while looking at the two girls who moved with the grace of an elephant.
“That woman sure is annoying, but her husband crafts lots of great stuff. He gave me a few trinkets in exchange for my help in getting revenge for his daughter or something. I think you two would get along, always so full of teen angst. Passage for two.” Manohar said to the sphere, ignoring Salaark.
The runes on the sphere rearranged themselves, locking onto the coordinates of Warp Gate in the city of Othre while creating a fake ID signal that would fool the Royal archives. Then, the sphere disassembled into several pieces that formed a circular Gate.
The moment the two “women” stepped through it, the gate imploded and the sphere turned into dust.
“Remarkable piece.” Salaark tried and failed to salvage any information about the sphere’s crafting methods by using her Invigoration technique, Mother Sun, on its remains.
“Tyris, old friend, why does your Kingdom keep pissing off the wrong people? Whoever this Ernas guy is, I wouldn’t want him among my enemies.” She whispered to the wind.
“That makes the two of us.” The wind whispered back. Tyris was sick and tired of people who in the pursuit of their petty grudges and personal ambitions would put her life’s work at risk.
Meanwhile, in Othre, Manohar seductively smiled at the guards who let them go without asking them a question except for a date.
“Smile, you idiot.” Manohar rebuked Balkor who had reacted to the men’s advances with hostility as if they had tried to murder him. “Tista, one of my students, taught me that if you’re pretty enough, you don’t need to ask to get what you want. You just need to smile.”
“How can you find asking for help humiliating and yet have no issues doing this?” Balkor pointed in outrage at his now rosy skin and double D cup the moment they walked through the door of the army base.
“Hey, it’s not like I’m talking or acting any different than I normally would. I’ve never cared for appearances and I can’t be blamed if people are so shallow that a perky bosom is all that it takes to shut their brains off.” Manohar said.
“The only real question here is if we want to attack during the day or the night.”
“The Black Night becomes stronger after sunset and so do her undead. I’d say we should move as soon as possible.” Balkor said.
“Okay then. We’ll attack after curfew.” Manohar dragged his companion in a restaurant and ordered for two.
Between the Mad Professor’s eccentricity and the looks the waiter threw at their cleavage, Balkor was seconds away from turning Othre into a graveyard.
“Either you give me a good reason for waiting that long or I swear to the gods that I’ll go home.” The god of death said.
“We’ve got plenty of reasons.” Manohar replied. “First, our earlier squabble cost us both a lot of mana. Based on the examination I gave you while we shapeshifted, it will take us food and a few hours of rest to get back to the top of our game.
“Second, during the day the army and the Association would notice our spells from a distance and promptly intervene. We can’t afford them to join our little operation because once they recognize us escaping would become much more difficult.
“After curfew, instead, even if they spot the fight, it will take them so much time between preparing and getting the authorization to leave the city that by the time they arrive we’ll be long gone.”
“Third, is way more fun this way.”
After hearing the last point, Balkor started to regret having accepted to help the madman sitting on the opposite side of the table. Yet the god of death couldn’t turn down an opportunity to weaken the Undead Courts and secure his home.
Thanks to its Overlord and her Feathers, the desert was safe, but the situation was bound to change soon. Salaark couldn’t be everywhere at the same time and the Blood Desert was full of precious magical resources.
Dawn had already probed the defenses of several outposts protecting the Adamant mines and crystal veins. To make matters worse, Dusk was unifying the renegade tribes under his banner with the promise of eternal life and Night had dared to harass Balkor’s family again.
Now that the three Horsemen were acting together, they weren’t afraid of messing with Salaark’s turf.
“Since we have a few hours of waiting ahead of us, do you mind explaining to me how can you cast spells without chanting?” Balkor also had to follow the Guardian’s orders.
“Sure thing.” Manohar twirled his index and middle finger together, creating a Hush zone. “During the years I sometimes clashed with some psychos who could weave perfect silent spells of all tiers.
“Aside from that they were no big deal, so I never bothered learning their tricks. Last year, however…” He sighed, needing a pause to muster the strength necessary to say those words.
“I was def-. I was best-. I faced an opponent who almost made me sur-.” No matter how Manohar tried to word the phrase, his mouth refused to comply.
“You got your ass handed to you.” Balkor completed the phrase for him. “It happens to all of us, sooner or later.”
The god of death still remembered how Linjos, thanks to the help of the Emperor Beasts, had foiled his plan to take down all the six great academies. After that, the Guardians had bested him magically and intellectually more than once while investigating the Master.
Yet Balkor didn’t resent any of them. He believed that every defeat had made him stronger.
“Not to me!” Manohar jumped up, drawing a lot of attention despite the presence of the Hush spell. “That Thrud Griffon kept using magic without chanting and her mana seemed to be endless. I was better than her, but those stupid chants are too easily interrupted.
“After that day, I studied Lochra Silverwing’s diaries in search of a way to overcome the limitations of magic as I knew it. It was then that I realized that we need chants and hand signs to line up runes quickly in an orderly fashion.
“We vocalize those too hard to be drawn and write with our mana the simple runes at the same time. So I thought, why not use Light Mastery’s first magic to draw all the runes and infuse them with mana?
