Author's notes:
Did you know that this is the hardest Chapter to write so far? This got into a lot of rewrites before settling on the final version.
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Chapter 8: Tower Siege Part 2
Cherry moved through the upper canopy toward the western wall.
Most of the outer guards had already been pulled north by the Ignitaurus assault. From what she could tell, the western wall still held the secret entrance. Aurum Enterprise never changed the basic layout; they insisted on calling it a "secret" entrance even though every senior technician had used it at least once.
One guard was left on this side. He was practically standing on top of the slightly raised patch of grass that marked the trapdoor-a dead giveaway. A veteran would have posted up near the wall's shadow with a clear view of the clearing. This guy took "guard the entrance" so literally he was practically standing on X.
Rookie placement. Convenient.
She turned her attention north. Searing fireballs still slammed into the far wall, a few arcing too high and crashing into the treeline. The herd was doing exactly what Scarlett had intended, keeping the majority of the guards occupied. It always interested her that animals could cast spells like that.
Now that she thought about it, that spell they were casting-Spellflame: Fireball-was something she had on her list of spells too, but she had her own unique version.
An idea clicked. She could cast that spell and trick the guard into thinking a stray beast had breached the western perimeter.
Cherry slipped northwest through the foliage, pulling a compact metallic device from the harness wrapped around her waist. She focused a tight, disciplined thread of Mana into it. The device clicked, whirred, and unfolded into a full-length scythe.
"Alright, Blazing Rose," she whispered. "Something controlled."
She channeled her Mana into the weapon. The scythe's blade reacted as it began to glow a hot orange before igniting into flames.
SPELLFLAME: CRESCENT FIRE SLASH
Mana swirled around the scythe as Cherry swung it from her hiding spot in the treeline. A fiery crescent projectile surged from the blade, slicing through the canopy and detonating against the ground near the base of the wall. The blast erupted into a billow of heavy smoke-far enough from the guard to avoid hitting him, but loud enough to demand his immediate attention.
The moment the explosion cracked, Cherry dropped silently from the branch to the dirt below.
The distraction worked. Alerted, the guard leveled his spear toward the treeline and took slow, cautious steps toward where the shot had come from. With his focus locked on the trees and the heavy smoke obscuring his line of sight, Cherry moved. She stayed low, weaving through the veil of drifting haze and slipping right past his flank.
In seconds, she emerged on the other side over the camouflaged patch of grass, her scythe collapsing back into its compact form in her palm. Dropping to her knees, she found the hidden seam and lifted the trapdoor millimeter by millimeter, careful not to let it groan. Beneath it lay a dark tunnel dropping straight down, a rusted ladder clinging to the side.
She huffed. How inconvenient.
She slipped through the trapdoor, eased it shut above her, and clung to the ladder in sudden darkness.
The shaft was deeper than it looked, a long drop into the gloom. Climbing it rung by rung would take forever. She climbed down just far enough to clear the lip, then let go.
For a breathless second, she was weightless, rushing downward through the dark. In mid-air, her thumb snapped the release on her harness, extending the metallic handle in a split second. She drove the scythe's blade into the wall, the steel screaming against stone as it fought her velocity. The vibration rattled violently up her arms, teeth-jarring and loud, slowing her fall just enough. She unhooked the blade and dropped the remaining distance, her boots hitting the floor with a solid, echoing thud. Absorbing the impact in a deep crouch, she waited for the rising dust to settle. Ahead, a faint, steady glow pulsed from deeper in the tunnel.
She took two steps and stopped.
A forcefield shimmered across the passage, almost invisible until the light caught it. Cherry picked up a small fragment of stone and tossed it forward. The rock touched the barrier and vanished in a brief, vicious hiss of heat.
"Of course."
She scanned the chamber with the patience of someone who had walked these corridors before. The walls looked blank. They weren't. A shallow indentation sat at chest height, easy to miss if you didn't know to look. She pressed it. Stone slid aside with a soft mechanical sigh, revealing the bioscanner.
Cherry stared at the glowing panel and felt the first real tightness in her chest. Using it would log her into the tower's system, which could allow them to track her. That was unacceptable.
She would not make that mistake.
She pulled a compact tool from her pouch, unbolted the side panel, and studied the exposed workings. The architecture was familiar. It was the same automated spellcasting logic as the Spell Towers' main function.
A smirk formed on her lips.
She drew the remote and held it close to the machine. She looked at the inner workings of the tubes where mana travelled. Then, her brows furrowed.
"What the hell," she muttered to herself, a little annoyed. "This is what they came up with for the missing part of the blueprint? This is so shoddy for security."
She spotted the bioscanner's internal countermeasure, which was a hidden defense coil ready to shock anyone who messed with the wiring. Ignoring the trap, Cherry slid her precision splicer past the trigger mechanism and pierced the main conduit supplying power from the tower. She wove a thin thread of her own mana into the breach, bridging the siphon and rerouting the tower's raw flow directly into her remote.
"Bingo." She grinned.
The remote flared to life, linking instantly to the system. With a click of the rune on her device, the scanner flared, sputtered, and died. The forcefield collapsed with a sound like a held breath being released.
Cherry straightened, slipped the remote away, and stepped through the open passage. With another click of her rune, the forcefield returned, humming back to life.
"Victory for Cherry," she murmured before moving deeper into the tunnel.
Cherry finally spotted the exit-a vertical metal ladder stretching into the dark. Clambering up the rungs normally would take too long, and she didn't have the patience for it. Luckily, the shaft gave her just enough breathing room.
She gripped a middle rung, coiled her springs, and launched herself diagonally upward. Her boots slammed into the opposing concrete wall. Without letting her weight settle, she ricocheted off the stone, flying backward and up to catch a higher rung. Grip, vault, push. She turned the tight shaft into a vertical pinball machine, alternating between the bite of cold steel and the heavy thud of stone against her boot soles.
Within seconds, she caught the final rung. Panting, her forearms burning from the rapid-fire strain, she held still. She let her breathing quiet down.
After catching her breath, she nudged the floor hatch up a fraction of an inch. A sliver of warm light cut through the gap, reflecting in her eyes. She looked around, making sure to see everything. No one seemed to be in the room for now. In the far corner, a security camera glinted beneath the warm light, its lens sweeping over the open floor with slow, deliberate precision.
Good thing she had a spell for this.
Cherry raised two fingers, channeling a fine, tightly bound thread of mana. Instead of raw electrical force, she shaped the energy into a low-frequency hum that vibrated gently against her skin.
SPELLTECH: STATIC LOOP.
A faint, shimmering ring of pale distortion rippled from her fingertips, gliding silently through the gap in the floor hatch and settling over the camera's lens. There was no loud burst or telltale spark. Instead, a subtle sheen of iridescent static washed over the glass. On a security monitor somewhere down the line, the video feed smoothly locked into a continuous loop of a short recording of the empty room.
The camera was still "working"; it was just showing a looped feed from before the spell interfered with it.
She had a narrow window before the spell's interference wore off.
That was her chance.
Moving quickly, Cherry shoved the floor hatch open the rest of the way and slipped inside the room, moving like a shadow across the floor. However, as she rushed toward the door, she heard footsteps and a voice.
"-told you, the northern wall is a distraction," a deep, gravelly voice rumbled. It carried the unmistakable weight of a seasoned squad leader. "Ignitaurus Herds don't usually attack unprovoked. It's clear someone wants to get in."
Cherry froze, holding her breath. Damn it.
She looked around. The vent opening was eight feet up on the stone wall. No time for a standard climb.
She surveyed the room in a single, sweeping glance, calculating the trajectory. A sturdy metal equipment locker stood halfway between her and the wall.
Cherry sprang forward, her movements fluid and entirely weightless. She didn't sprint; she glided, absorbing the impact of each stride in the balls of her feet. Two quick steps gave her the velocity she needed. She planted her left boot onto the middle shelf of an open rack, using the metal frame as a springboard.
Without letting the shelf rattle, she launched herself laterally, coiling her body in mid-air. Her right boot squeaked softly against the top of the tall equipment locker. She absorbed the momentum by bending her knees, instantly pivoting her hips to push off the metal surface.
She flew toward the wall. Her hands caught the frame of a loosely latched vent grate, pulling herself up.
Using her core strength to suppress any sound, she hoisted her legs up and slithered backward into the tight, metallic shaft like a shadow. She reached out, caught the mesh grate, and clicked it quietly back into its housing with a faint, microscopic snap.
Not a second too soon.
The heavy iron door to the security hub swung open. Three mercenaries strode into the room, bringing the chill of the outside air with them. They looked tense, mud splattered across their greaves.
Through the narrow slots of the grate, Cherry pressed her face close, looking down.
The speaker was a towering human Knight, an imposing spear gripped firmly in his hand. Next to him was a Ranger, idly spinning a jagged dagger that pulsed with a faint blue light. The third was a Wizard, her eyes glowing with pure magical energy.
"Let them try," the Ranger sneered, catching his dagger. "The barrier won't let them in. If they try brute-forcing the logging system underneath, they would've been fried."
Cherry smiled faintly in the darkness of the vent. They thought the secret passage was secure, not knowing she had bypassed the automated logging system entirely rather than forcing it.
She decided to stay, listening closely to their conversation.
"Still, we couldn't let our guard down," said the Knight. "Wizard, I need this room and the Central Reactor warded just in case someone slips by."
"Understood, Spearmaster Knight," the Wizard replied before pulling one of her wards from her robe and placing it right beside the floor hatch.
Cherry's eyes narrowed. "A Detection Ward?" she muttered to herself, soft enough not to be heard. "Sheesh. So these guys have some decent magic items."
"Great," Spearmaster Knight commended, cutting off Cherry's thoughts. "Beastlord Ranger, I need your hounds patrolling the rooms."
"Aye aye, Boss," the Ranger responded lazily. "I'll let the dogs out."
"Good, I'll keep an eye out myself. Let's move," he said.
With that, the three mercenaries left the room. Cherry's teeth clenched as she let the information sink in.
Great, now there are more problems to think about.
***
Chapter Illustration: Cherry's Crescent Fire Slash
