System Change

Marcus stood invisible a few feet behind Natalie and her giant hunk of armor and watched the expenses pile up as she unleashed spell scroll after spell scroll on the enemy army. She hadn’t done much damage altogether, but she had practically halted their advance by throwing money at them. He couldn’t help but shudder at the thought of the bill he was going to have to write to the king once the war was over.

Cydaria is never going to work their way out of House Savannah’s debt if this keeps up. Unfortunately, Natalie already had too much invested in the kingdom to allow it to change hands. Otherwise, he would have pushed for her to take a neutral stance. But, the decision in the end went to her, the current head of the family. His job was just to follow orders once given.

Which is what led him to the position he was in. The Scroll of Obscurity she had given him to use was one of the rarest scrolls she had in her arsenal, and she only had the one and it only lasted thirty minutes. Sure, he was invisible, but the scroll also blocked any leakage of his aura or magic. His presence, and the presence of anything attached to him, was basically gone.

I’m way too old to be doing stuff like this. Work as an administrator for Natalie, they said. Put your talent to use in the world of business. Dammit! Marcus sighed and summoned some talismans from his storage ring and placed them on his body. The instant he activated them, he had five minutes of perfect flight, and his defense skyrocketed for the same time. Which should be just enough time to do what he needed to.

Next, he shifted his attention to the battle above, where Alanah was battling the commander of the joint army. From what he could see, they were pretty evenly matched, but it looked like the elven man was slightly ahead. Natalie had told Marcus that the man’s skills would be a direct counter to her, and that seemed to be the case.

With a long sigh, he gently pushed himself off the ground and began his ascent up to the two fighters. He stayed behind the elven man as he floated up, and he kept a slow but steady pace. Everyone had seen him come out with Natalie, then vanish, so they would be looking for him, which is exactly what Natalie had planned.

He kept his attention focused on the battle in the sky that he would soon be joining, if only momentarily. He couldn’t make heads or tails of what was happening. Alanah was swinging her small blade with wild abandon, and occasionally, he would see something flicker around her before disappearing. He guessed that those were some of the barriers that the duke had used to attack.

From the reports he read, Marcus found that the Royal Family of Indria were all very talented in the use of barriers. He also learned that from what had been gathered about the skills they used, there really weren’t any that were made specifically for offense. So, it was all the more impressive that the man was able to keep the Dawn Siren at bay for as long as he had.

However, as he approached their fight, he could tell that neither Alanah nor Ryven seemed to be tired. They looked more like they were just going through the motions-like they were just testing each other. Or, they found that there isn’t much they can do against each other and are just trying to wait for the other to slip up.

On the bright side, though, the elven commander never really moved from his spot in the sky. He basically stayed still and let his barriers and shields do all the talking. Which was great news for Natalie’s administrator.

Marcus continued to creep up ever so slowly, and soon, he passed through something that caused all the sounds of the battle below to instantly disappear. No longer could he hear spell bombardments from Natalie, and soldiers running around giving commands to defend and counterattack.

No, now what he heard was a terrible screech. As he stilled, he felt that the sound would scramble his brains if he stayed too long. So he pulled out another talisman. He stuck it to his chest and activated it. A rush of power flowed through his body as his defenses hardened even more. He focused much of that power on his head and ears. With that, the intense screeching around him lessened. It wasn’t able to fully rid him of the screeching and the pain caused by it, but it had certainly dampened it.

With that taken care of, Marcus continued to watch the two battle from a distance. Once he confirmed that neither had taken any notice of him, he continued on his way toward the enemy commander. He inched closer and closer.

At one point, he could have sworn he saw Alanah’s eyes land on him, but she quickly shifted them away and continued on with her battle. Did she see me? Can she sense me while I’m in this terrible noise that’s radiating out from her? Marcus swallowed hard and continued his approach.

Ten or so seconds later, he found himself in position behind Duke Ryven. At this point, he hoped beyond all hope that the Scroll of Obscurity was as good as Natalie had said it was. He moved the last few feet, making sure to stay a little above as to not touch the barrier the man was floating on.

Finally, he was within arm’s reach of the man, who didn’t react at all. As gentle as he could be, Marcus removed a handful of his talismans from his storage ring. Grabbing one with his dominant hand, he slowly reached out and lightly stuck the first talisman to the man’s armored back. Wow… it… worked, he thought.

With the first talisman placed, he became more confident and placed the remaining four. As long as the user didn’t attack physically or magically, the Obscurity skill, which he was using from the skill scroll, should stay active. He had confirmed it when he first used his flight talisman after activating the scroll.

Unfortunately, Marcus didn’t have any talismans that could kill or really harm the man in front of him, but what he did have were loads of debuffs. With the talismans placed, Marcus slowly floated away. Once he was sure he was out of the range of the barrier the man was standing on, he sped up. He didn’t have long before his flight talisman was out of magic. Once it went out, his other ones, the ones keeping him from being shredded by Alanah’s sounds, would also disappear.

Exiting was much faster than entering. Before his flight skill ran out, he had slipped out of the sound barrier and the noise of the chaos caused by Natalie and the army engulfed his ears. With that, he went into a dive and slowed before coming to a stop behind Natalie. ‘It’s done,’ he sent her telepathically.

‘Good. Now it’s time for your next job. Be quick about it. You only have twenty-five minutes. You better get to it,’ Natalie sent back.

‘Yes, mam!’ he said, but inwardly he was cursing his boss. He considered his first mission hard, but he didn’t know how his second would play out. With a deep breath, he began to move… directly at the army ahead.

He soon arrived and began slipping in and out of the army. Yells and screams of the leaders getting control back of the rest sounded out. It wouldn’t be long before they reformed and regrouped and realized that as long as they were cautious, they could slowly make their way through Natalie’s spells and eventually reach and breach the city.

It should be about now… Marcus thought as he glanced back up at the battle between Duke Ryven and Alanah Swan. And, just as his eyes landed on the man, he saw a small light from the distance, verifying that his talismans activated just as planned. With a smiled, he said a little prayer for the man.

Any one of those talismans may not have made much of a difference, but all of them combined should work wonders. Marcus couldn’t help but think about the man’s reaction when he was hit will all the debuffs at once. Every stat he had would be weakened for some time, and his armor would be weighing in at ten times the weight of what it was previously.

He was also very happy about the regeneration talisman he had made… or, anti-regeneration as it was. It was short, only working for three minutes, but with the amount of mana it looked like the man was using, it should do just fine. He also sneaked an experimental talisman into the bunch. He called it his Anti-Absorption Talisman.

If it worked as planned, then the man’s body would have a hard time absorbing any potions he consumed for the next five minutes. Normally, the talisman wouldn’t be worth it, but fighting a monster like Alanah while keeping so many barriers active was already hard enough. Finding out that your potions weren’t working as planned mid-fight… that would be rough.

Marcus couldn’t help but let a smile form on the corner of his mouth. If Alanah could pull it off, he would have played a very big role.

But they were depending on Alanah for almost everything. Everything would come down to whether or not she was able to win against Ryven now that he was debuffed. But there was nothing else for Marcus to do there, so he continued bobbing and weaving his way through the mass of soldiers. Soldiers who seemed to be becoming more and more organized as he moved further in.

Soon, Marcus was where he needed to be. He was standing directly in front of one of the Portals that soldiers were still pouring out of. With one last breath, Marcus took a step and entered the Portal.

Everything flashed by in an instant as the scene in front of him grew larger and larger, then he was spat out on the other end. Marcus quickly activated another flight talisman and floated into the air so he wouldn’t collide with anyone.

After surveying around, he could tell that only half, maybe not even that many, of the army had made it to the battlefield. He had work to do, and he had to be fast about it.

The problem with using the Portal skill, other than the risk that you summon a village, or even city destroying calamity that is the Void Beast, is that when you have it activated, you can’t move. You have to hold it open the whole time. You can’t just activate it and leave it open.

Which meant that it wasn’t hard for Marcus to pick out every mage that was using Portal. Hopefully, these Portal mages are just that, Portal mages. He was counting on all the mages to have less than extraordinary senses. He even hoped that they weren’t at max level. He wanted to Identify one of them, but he was afraid they would feel it.

So, instead, he just flew from one to another, placing talismans on them. He tried his best to place the talismans in places that would be hard to see, as once they left his hands, they became visible again. Once they were all placed, he went back for another round, but this time, it was far more risky.

For his next talismans, he placed them at the nape of their necks. He actually managed to place six talismans before the seventh person felt something and scratched the back of her neck with her free hand. When she pulled it back, she had the talisman in hand. Marcus kept his attention on her as she panicked, but didn’t seem to know what to do.

She couldn’t just close the Portal with people inside, after all. So, he kicked it into another gear and became much less stealthy. After sticking the last talisman, he shot up into the air and began flying away. Multiple mages had discovered the talismans there at the end, but he didn’t care. When he felt he was far enough away, he manually activated them all at once.

His hope seemed to be proven correct, as with the explosions came the blinking out of Portals. In the distance, he could see legs and limbs flying. He also saw a couple of heads. Obviously, the Portal mages had next to no endurance, which is what Natalie was hoping for.

Still, he didn’t want to stick around to figure out exactly how much damage he caused. So, he flew vertically, then took off into the distance, activating another flight talisman on the way. His job was over. The entire army wouldn’t be able to attack anymore. At least, not as quickly as before. It was now up to everyone else to do their part. Maybe I can get a vacation out of this.