It was another day and a half of travel that we hit the next town, Tasir, about three full days travel for standard paced travel from Albadoba, however because Omen can go over any kind of obstacle, can fly at twice the speed of a horse’s full gallop and doesn’t need to stop to eat, drink or anything, he just needs to sleep. Tasir is a mainly mining and quarry based town, the town’s first buildings were just carved out of the cliff faces made by the open pit quarry, leading to the rather large town/small city to be extremely compact, made of endless chains of townhomes stacked far too close together, chimneys always pluming smoke making the air smoggy, heavy and hot with the smell of coal, smelting metal, the smell of animals who were fastened to wheels driving drills into the stone walls of the pits, or drew water up out of runoff from water sifting sorting flumes so that the water kept cycling through or went over water-wheels, the clang of metal on metal from metal refineries, blacksmiths, and similar metal processing areas where ore was turned into ingots before being shipped out on metal and wood carts pulled by teams of oxen or massive draft horses. All of the roads of the city were heavy, claggy mud that caked Omen’s hoofs as I rode on his back, my mask and snood up over my face, my hood flipped up and fastened in place as I held the reigns firmly in my hands as he cantered down the street. There were groups of kids at spots of the coal miners where they crawled on the ground in and out of tiny holes with buckets of raw coal ore or other ores, mining tools clattering off ropes held around their bodies or in their hands, faces and bodies smeared with coal dust, tar and dirt, blood often as well.
I stopped Omen at the far side of the town that overhung the maybe five hundred foot wide ovate pit in front of me, a waist high railing of rope and wooden stakes in the ground being the only safety protocol, shaky rattling wooden staircases double-backing down the cliffs to the ground level, pulley/rope systems making elevators where mine carts being pushed by teenagers or kids filled with ore, stone and things of that sort down the mud, many times getting stuck as they went towards where the material was to be processed. There were wooden towers in a near ring on the ground of the massive pit where guards of the noble family in tunics of dark cobalt adorned with the emblem of a dove holding a sickle emblazed on their chest over dark brown, blue and dark ivory/cream toned clothing, armed with crossbows, swords on their hips or back, sickles on some, similar weaponry about their person as they barked orders out to all of the workers. I saw a few guards armed with bullwhips hitting the backs of workers who were pausing just to breathe or fix something as the guards screamed for them to get back to work. I was invisible as was Omen, but behind us were deep, heavy hoof marks in the inches thick mud that was strangely drier than all the rest of the mud. I sighed as Omen vanished in smoke as my own boots hit the mud nearly up to my ankles, I am so glad I wear riding boots with my trousers tucked into them. My boots are also like everything proof: I’ve soaked them in bee’s wax I don’t know how many times: water, mud, blood…anything just beads off them. I rested my hand on the railing as I sighed deeply, Sigia did all of this stuff with magically controlled automatons, there was no risk of people getting sick from the residue and particulates in the air of mines, no need to hang birds in the mine shafts to detect toxic levels of certain gases or things. We used magically driven machines that were as big a buildings to break stone and separate the ore or needed stone away before mages sent the unneeded stone to other areas where geomancy was used to turn the unused stone into other types and molded into bricks or returned to the earth.
How could they…allow this to exist? They have children…working in mines. I saw kids not much older than toddlers pulling/pushing things around the quarry. I rested my hand on the handle of my short-sword as I ran a few steps before jumping and kicked off the cliff-wall, gliding over the quarry to the closest tower, landing between the two guards who were back to back, about a yard between them. I flexed my fingers before slamming both my hands out and grabbed the back of their necks as green magic erupted out their backs and faces as I said a few words of the arcane tongue and their blood erupted out of the front of their bodies. I ran a few steps and went to the next tower as the guards started running down the stairs, but I flicked my hand and my hand sank into the chest of one of them, I crushed his heart inside his chest as he dropped as the other paused, I did the same to his spine. I went about the quarry sending an absolute…panic about the entire town as all of the guards started dropping like flies from necromantic magics. I turned as a guard ran past and grabbed the back of his neck, black energy shot up his head and down his back making all of his veins bulge before his eyes rolled back and he dropped.
“OVER THERE!” Someone shouted, I turned and thrusted my hand towards that guard before sending my other out so when I looked between my hands he was between them, I said a few words, his entire body was haloed in green energy as he dropped to his knees as his body started twisting at wrong angles, his body muscles flexed, skin boiling up as all of his blood crushed him from within before his hands and feet just exploded sending every drop of blood out of his body. I used my command to the blood spell to control another guard who simply turned and shot the guard beside him point black in the face who in turn did the same at the exact same time. I saw a guard running down the stairs, I rose my hand and he went rigid before stepping to the side of the stairs then dove off the side, falling about seventy feet before his fall was broken on the ground with his face. I was still invisible and intangible, the guard must have some kind of true sight, well…used to have. Only beings with true sight can see me while invisible or enchanted objects made to see invisible beings. I kicked off the ground and floated upwards before landing on the edge of the top as I grabbed the ropes beside me as the last guards were in an absolute panic as they screamed, panicked and went just…ballistic as they tried to find what did this. Last thing I did was fly over the quarry as I tossed about three or so handfuls of coins out over everyone. I landed on the far side of the quarry before kicking off and flying to the back wall and threw myself over the railing as I landed in an area that was far, far nicer than the rest of the city.
There in front of me, was this…resplendent manor of purple toned wood, pale stone and dark clay shingled roofs, huge windows, white stone pillars, tons of vines and things covering the walls and the huge yard wrapped in a circular courtyard. I ran alongside before I kicked and threw myself sideways floating through the wall before running and grabbing the trellis as I floated up and entered the attic of the manor. I left myself intangible, but dropped the invisibility, it was pitch black inside the attic, everything covered in white sheets, miles of dust and mammoth volumes of spiderwebs. There were are for dormers along the roof with tiny windows letting soft barely there beams of light inside making the air which was visibly thick with motes of dust.
I was able to knock some paintings quietly out of frames and detach the canvas from the backing rolling it up and putting it in leather tubes for safe keeping, art sells for a lot. I went through all of their stuff gathering some luxury goods that were probably only put up here because they’re not in style anymore. This is the home of the Dewitt family. There were guards posted about the home’s grounds, but none inside the house, only one or two by the doors. Idiots. I stayed up there for about an hour or so before I went invisible again and slid across the floor sinking into the floor before floating down through a hallway, it was getting towards dusk now, I half-crawled/half-slid across the floor before floating down again, I may be a literal ghost, but beings that have true sight or objects/enchantments that protect against things like that could still possibly find me, so staying low and moving stealthily even with my magics keeps me below the line of sight of objects on walls or out of view of people’s line of sight.
As I walked about the manor, I found the two daughters talking in one of the sun-rooms as they embroidered, one was mid-twenties or so, a toddler by her legs playing with a wooden horse toy, the other was a later-teen by how she looked. I stalked across the room before I softly nudged the toy the toddler was playing with, it had wheels at the ends of its legs so it smoothly slid across the floor, the toddler pulled at his mother’s skirt to rise up to his feet as he toddled towards it, but I was faster so the moment he touched the toy, I rose my hand and a bolt of green magic out of nowhere slammed into him, blight spell, works wonders. The two women screamed as the boy just doubled over…dead. As they ran towards the kid I grabbed the back of their necks and green energy flowed up my arms and into me, soon after I heard footsteps rushing towards here, I turned and stamped my foot and all the blood flowed out of their bodies and formed a near network along the wall where the doorway was, as people rushed into the room, a bolt of blood would shoot out and stab them through their hearts, heads or throat letting them collapse back to the ground as their blood was pulled into the wall till the more modest sized family of five all lay dead on the floor of the sunroom in a heap. I flicked my hand and all of the blood slid down the wall into a pool around them as I jumped wards out the glass walls letting all of the glass shatter around me as I shot myself backwards and out of the grounds.
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