"They burned the farm!" Tarn bashed on Taramo's door in the dead of the night. An old warding against pranks from friends jolted Taramo to wakefulness.

  The majority of the people were asleep besides the guard which led to some windows with concerned people looking out of them by the time Taramo had exited with his cloak thrown over his nightclothes, a pair of shorts. Spot was asleep in his wand so Taramo grabbed that as well.

  "Let's go." Once Taramo exited he was already walking towards the gate when he turned to see Tarn standing at the door, not having left.

  "But your clothes."

  "No time. If we're to catch them before they can retreat we need to go." and he started to run, feeling the cold of the night against his skin.

  He sent a wave of moths that were near invisible to spread and see where the group had retreated to, continuing on to the farmland in the meantime. There was at least one person on the farmsite but he didn't know whether it was an ally or not so he wouldn't start with immediate hostilities until certainty was achieved.

  A moth got to the site and there were no people visible, though two were up on the third floor of two different buildings. An ambush. He should be able to get them out and catch them, but if he could mitigate the smoldering earth, it was the earth of the farm that was burning, then maybe the farm could be salvaged.

  One of the moths approached the water outlet and Taramo sent his mana through it to activate the outlet at several times the regular capacity, enough for a fountain. When the water came back down there was an immense fireball as whatever was burning would not be put out by water.

  It was then that he arrived physically to the plaza and, with an extra set of wards, he ran to the fields and into range of the two.

  The fireball might have startled one since only one of them sent anything at him. It was two dozen wooden spikes that looked stained with some acidic substance. His outer ward caught most of them while three managed to bypass it. He caught the others in a tendril and carefully inspected them.

  A ward against most interference with a strange requirement. It was impossible for any of these to damage life. He could probably shove it into his arm and it would refuse to pierce his skin. Then he noticed the glamour.

  It was meant to distract him.

  He flared his mana directly, sending coils of flaming essence that ripped the assailant into a dozen burning chunks. They had made it to within half a pace of him.

  The location of the other was blurry, with many spots that cried out that they held the thing Taramo sought.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  He blasted a wave of cold against the paving stones, making a layer of ice grow and cover every surface except him. There was a sound of cracking ice and he had the location of the assassin.

  A few of the moths had converged on the plaza, having found nobody by the time of his attack. Taramo ordered half of them to swarm the location of the assassin and bombard it with sleeping spells. The others he had search very deeply in case there was a third.

  It was good since presumed location was where one of the glamours had fallen and taken on the form of whatever would stand out. It wasn't looking into his mind but it was startlingly accurate.

  A moth detonated itself to flash light in the assassin's eyes while they had a wicked dagger meant for throwing drawn back in their hand. Taramo blasted past the protections on their mind and shut off their sense of balance.

  Alongside the ice that meant that they fell, though they would have successfully thrown the dagger had Taramo not relieved the killer of the hand as well.

  And then the Pitarav army backup arrived.

  The guards that they had set to the farm were dead. They'd had a two way communication stone shared with the gate guard and when they'd reported the fire they revealed themselves to the assassins.

  Taramo had incapacitated the one that was not diced and brought him with the hand and knife. It was something like wraith iron so he wanted Niki to look at it but he didn't want to touch the thing.

  The fire was alchemical and saturated the soil with oiliness that would probably make it useless to farm. They'd have to try again once they dealt with the mercenaries.

  Ariwyn was frustrated that Taramo had run off on his own and remarked that he'd used so much mana so quickly he would need another treatment sooner. Her mood was remidied by the assassin and she had him taken to a basement in an adjacent building that had a large concentration of her signature vine. She'd taken the whole building over and was mentioning that it would be better than their room once she was done with it.

  The basement room was filled with pale vines that looked like snakes but for the spines. The vines darted out and pulled the assassin in, pulling out a half dozen other knives of the same make as the probable wraith iron and injecting a paralytic into the limb muscles.

  "This is the first enemy I can investigate properly. I'll share when I'm done, probably in the morning." Ariwyn shooed Taramo out before the screaming began. That basement room was surprisingly soundproof.

  "You failed." The priest was standing at Sabir's bed and prodded him awake.

  He jumped and reached for his knife. It was in the priest's grip and he dropped it back on his bedside table after he got ahold of himself.

  "What will you do next, o great captain." The priest waited for a response.

  "Next best would be some sort of poison. If we had someone to set it in his food then-"

  "So you have nothing." The priest grinned. "It is a good thing that I have other plans in place. Tell me Sabir, what are the limitations of the great System?"

  "You must struggle to improve. An easy success is impossible."

  "True, though an issue that is not noticed often is that you must interface with the system stone to begin their journey or to gain levels or perks. It is not a limitation with those who have administrative priveliges. One could even be given levels without their knowledge. The onset of the system changes can be put off while the target is conscious and with the beginning notice removed and sufficient distractions one would not notice that they are in the system."

  "Why would that matter. It would just make them stronger." Sabir's mind was still clouded by his dreams that were so recently broken.

  "Not necessarily." And after the few moments that it took for Sabir to realize the implications he was grinning as well.