The Silencing Charm
The night was young, but still dark enough for the likings of Voyse. The dark adept quietly crept around the tower until he reached the front end. To his surprise, two guards clad in black armor stood post at the entrance.
“So, they beat me here…but will they find the goal?” Voyse mused to himself as he surveyed the area.
The tower was mostly made of stone, with many openings used as windows along it. Random balconies rested around the tower, along with strange markings etched into the stone surface of the walls. Surely many traps lied inside. Someone really didn’t want their treasures found…
These facts hardly deterred the intent Voyse. With cat-like grace, the assassin climbed the stony wall near the entrance, yet out of sight, and into the closets window, which seemed several stories up. Voyse landed softly on the floor, satisfied that the pain in his right foot was abating.
The room wasn’t lit, aside from the light cast through the windows by the moon. It didn’t appear to have any specific purpose, but three Bladenheart soldiers were roaming about the room, searching for something. Voyse picked up a piece of torn tapestry from the floor and stalked behind the closest soldier. Quickly, he wrapped the tapestry around the soldier’s head, placed one foot on the now entangled soldier’s back, and gave a sudden jerk on the tapestry. The soldier’s head snapped back oddly, and he fell to the ground, dead.
Next, Voyse picked up a piece of stone that had fallen from the wall and intentionally hopped out in the open for an instant. Though neither of the soldiers saw him directly, one of them turned towards the shadows of where Voyse was. Curious, the soldier moved closer to the shadows, only to find a black statue with an unusual mask holding a stone in one hand…or so he thought. The “statue” suddenly sprang forward as the soldier turned around, slamming the stone into the back of his head. Needless to say, he died.
The final soldier quickly realized he was alone, drew his sword, and went on the defense. Finding no one in sight, he looked around himself carefully. One thing caught his eye; he had two shadows.
Voyse leaped out of one of the shadows, a curved dagger in hand. The blade dug deep into the soldier’s groan, and Voyse didn’t even try to recover it. The soldier doubled over in pain. Using the soldier’s own sword, Voyse stabbed him in the heart, ending his agony.
With all opposition done, Voyse decided to examine the room himself. After a few minutes the only thing he could find was a single, charred body at the entrance to the room.
“Just as I suspected; this place is trapped,” Voyse said quietly to himself. If these soldiers were the leading group, then he still held an advantage. Voyse turned back towards the room. A hole was blasted into the ceiling, something he neglected to notice earlier. It appeared that the soldiers decided to avoid the traps all together by going through the floor. A tiny drop of dark energy fell from the hole, and Voyse knew he was in trouble. They had another dark mage with them.
Using his uncanny agility, Voyse leaped up into the hole and climbed to the floor above. The next room was filled with many ancient statues of heroes, monsters, and other random objects of the past. The room seemed empty otherwise. A trap seemed set off near the upstairs entrance. Some hapless soldier’s body was severed in two by a blade that seemed to snap out of the wall. Voyse smirked at the handiwork of the trap maker just before turning around to examine the statues closer.
A single gleam on one statue told Voyse everything. He brushed the age off one statue to assure himself. Sure enough, the statues were made of glass. Voyse knew well of the ancient glass masterworks of the fire adepts of the mountain lands.
“So, the fire adepts crafted this place. No wonder the traps are so deadly,” Voyse said matter-of-factly.
A sudden crash above alerted Voyse from his thinking. He looked around and decided that the only way upstairs would be the trapped stairwell. With a shrug, he dashed towards the stairway. Out snapped the blade, which cover the entire hallway. He rolled under the blade only to find out that another blade crossed from the opposite wall, too low to duck. On instinct, he leaped into the air, barely clearing the blade, and hit the ground in a dash. He made it up the step, dodging an impaled soldier as we went, and slipped into the room beyond.
A large group of Bladenheart soldiers circled around a strange, red lizard about the size of a large cow. One figure stuck out among the group. A single robbed woman stood back from the fighting, a content smile on her face. Here was the soldiers’ mage.
Voyse made his way stealth fully around the fighting and towards the stairs leading on. The mage seemed to notice him, looking up towards the general direction of his hiding spot with a smug grin. Voyse paused and waited for the mage to advert her attention before continuing. In no time he was running up the next flight of stairs. To Voyse’s surprise, no traps stood in his way. The original crafters probably thought the lizard would be hard enough to get by.
The next room took up most of the tower’s height. Three pillars soared up to the roof of the tower. Connected to those pillars near the top was a single platform. A connection of paths and unstable beams lead up to the platform, but Voyse had a better idea. A single hole was at the peak of the roof, showering the room with the moonlight. Shadows lingered all about the room. Voyse could walk where shadows went. The assassin quickly moved towards the closest shadow, but a wall of fire leaped from the sides of all the pillars, blocking any way into the perimeter. So, he’d have to take the long way around.
Sighing, Voyse made his way up a small set of stairs that would start his long climb up. A simple leap got him to a platform that wasn’t connected to the stairs. He spotted a strange button on the floor nearby and pushed it. A sloped path set on a clockwork suddenly cranked over and locked into place beside the platform. Just then, Voyse heard a small click, and he dove to the floor. Two blocks of wood with spikes attached to them snapped out from the wall in a pincer-like movement. Voyse leaped to his feet once the trap retreated and hurried up sloped path.
More traps and buttons continued to leap up to the center platform, Voyse observed. It would be a busy night for him.
Without warning, a blast of dark energy crashed into the wall beside Voyse, blowing a hole in the wall. Voyse turned toward the entrance to find the mage standing, both hands glowing with another attack.
“About time you got here…” Voyse sneered, falling into a readied crouch.