|
The elf hovered above the city, taking in all the information that had been brought back to him through his transcendence. Interesting. Two points of ingress were available; he’d been unable to derive too much information from either one, and so, the selection was simply up to chance – no more, no less. The elf paused, taking a long drag on his cigarette and exhaling into the sky above. Extending a slender finger, he tapped the end of the long stick of rolled tobacco. The ashes fell, swept up by the winds to the north.
“Brace yourself,” the elf uttered, giving the fae but a few moments before they were both dematerialized, plunging into the astral. The decision had been made, and for the elf, riding the astral was as instinctive a method of transportation as putting one foot in front of the other. The only difference, of course, was the rather large difference between the amount of time it took to undertake either one. Warping through the astral plane, the elf dragged Cein along with him, materializing within sight of the ships, his wings arcanically scrubbing clean the spell’s signature release of arcalyzed mana.
Now that they were within the operation area, he switched to mental speech, facilitated by the ring that the young fae possessed. They remained cloaked in non-detection, a spell that the elf had reinforced and upkept in strength.
“There’s too many people here. We could kill them all, but that would be unwieldy and inefficient. You’lll need to thin out some of these fellows – the guards, the labour, the hired hands. Go to a large ship nearby not yet unloaded – something within sight or sound – and sink it, discretely and slowly. Make it look natural.”
The elf spoke directly into the fae’s mind, divining the idea behind each word. The subsequent rush to unload the ship before it sank – or at least, figure out what was causing the flooding, and stop it – would provide both a distraction and thin out the crowd, allowing the elf to sense the presence within. In fights between mages, mysticism was king. Yet, to prepare a proper response, one needed knowledge of the enemy. He’d expand his awareness as the fae went to perform his task, and analyze the information that flooded his mind.
|