A Mage On A Mission

Tonight is exceptionally dark, with the faint blue light of the moon barely peeking through a cover of clouds. Holding my hood up, the empty streets of the capital sprawl ahead of me. Admittedly, I didn’t try all that hard to avoid being seen as I went forward. So what if someone sees me? What’ll they do? Probably ignore me, and if they don’t, I shouldn’t have anything to worry about since I’m not doing anything illegal.

Following closely behind me, my assistant is doing her best to sneak around. It’s clear that she’s trying too hard and hasn’t the faintest clue on how to actually move stealthily. She’s trying to stick close to walls, and slink from shadow to shadow to avoid the gaze of… no one at all. This whole “sneaking out of the capital under the guise of darkness” stunt is her idea, something that I agreed to earlier without much thought and am now regretting. I mean, how sneaky can we be with packed bags? We can just walk out of the capital in broad daylight and spare the trouble. Again, we aren’t doing anything wrong or illegal.

In fact, if our mission wasn’t secret, we should have been given a parade to see us off. Something like the parades that the knights got, where they were showered with the adoration of every living person in the capital. Beautiful maidens throwing flowers along the way, children smiling and waving, men hollering and cheating… the kind of send off that I deserve! Well, there’s still the possibility of a victory parade once we complete the mission and return. And at that time, everyone will know the name Victor Desmond, hero of the kingdom!

Victor the slayer of all demons? Victor the supreme mage? Victor the savior of humanity? They all sound pretty good to me. But for now, who I am and what my task is remains a secret to the public. An important mission that only the most trustworthy and competent could even be considered for. The vital mission that I was specifically chosen for among the royal mages. The covert task of infiltrating the demon tribes that had crossed the border, and pushing them back to where they belong.

The savage inhumans had been crossing into human territory for years now, inflicting unspeakable cruelty and upon the innocent villagers that they trampled upon. Many a squad of knights had been sent to help alleviate the problem, but now it’s finally time to solve it once and for all.

With the combined brilliance of the royal mages, we developed an incredibly powerful spell in secret, one that would be the doom of these trespassers. One mind, many bodies. The complex, beautiful spell grants the caster the ability to extend their mind and put multiple bodies under its control. Now, casting the spell is one thing, but actually controlling the separate bodies is the true test of skill and intelligence. Of all the mages in the entire kingdom, the prodigy with the most impressive talent to control multiple bodies would clearly be assigned to this mission, and of course that just so happens to be me!

Nonetheless the task promises to be difficult, but nothing that I can’t handle. I can’t fail, not with what’s at stake. Just the idea of all those innocent people losing their lives at the hands of the disgusting invaders. Dry husks of corpses that have been sucked dry of every drop of blood, bodies ripped apart by wild claws and hungry jaws, men and women both defiled and enslaved… I’ve heard all too many stories. But that’s where I come in. No more stories of that kind, no, soon the people will be telling a story of triumph! The story of how a valiant hero arrives to repel the demons and save the kingdom!

Oh yes, and let’s not forget my assistant. Her name is Lillias, and she’s quite adept with the one-mind-many-bodies spell too. She will be helping things along and whatnot.

After passing through a few backstreets and alleyways, the city gates come into sight, only faintly illuminated by the meager amount of moonlight. And of course it has guards stationed around it, fantastic. I stop moving forward, and turned around to give my assistant a look that would hopefully convey my disappointment with her plan. I point at the guards with my thumb, wordlessly asking her how she planned on getting past this obstacle. Well now what?

Lillias’s face gives away her panic. Clearly she didn’t consider the guardsmen in her incredibly well thought out plot. She leans in close and whispers in my ear.

“Um, okay, so we need to sneak around or something… Maybe we could uh… maybe look around for a secret passage or something? Like maybe something smugglers would use, or like a tunnel for royalty to escape the capital? Or maybe we can knock the guards out? I can aim for the left one, and you can aim for the right one. You ready?”

An exasperated sigh escapes me. What in the world is she thinking? Enough of all of this! Standing up straight, I pull down my hood and walk confidently towards the guards. The nearest guard spots me approaching, and notifies his partner to come over. I don’t blame them, departures in the middle of the night are naturally suspicious, so the best course of action is to immediately clear their suspicions.

“Hello there my good comrades! I am a royal mage, and this is my assistant.”

Turning around, I find that Lillias is still a distance away, trying to remain unseen. My eyes roll as I gesture for her to come over, and thankfully she does the smart thing and listens to me.

“We are on a mission, not one that I can give you too many details about, but one of high importance.”

The guard I am speaking to looks over at his fellow guardsman for a moment before turning back to me.

“You got your papers then?”

“Of course my good man. I hope you are finding this night quite pleasant.”

After swinging my packed bag off of my shoulders, I start to rummage around in search of my documents. There should be one to prove my identity, and one to prove that I am indeed working for the sake of the kingdom’s glory. But as every pouch and pocket is checked, all I can find are travel supplies, not a single piece of paper in sight. The crinkling sound of paper comes from behind me as I look away from my pack and at my assistant. Lillias is holding some small papers out to the guard, who takes them and begins to verify them. Ah, I should have known that my assistant would take care of such small and unimportant tasks for me. Well, just goes to show how much of a hard worker I am, all too used to doing everything myself and all.

The guard reads through the three documents, verifying our identities as well as our authority granted by the kingdom. The guard hands the papers back to Lillias, and wishes us both luck with a salute. Standing up straight and tall I salute him back, and stride through the city gates onto the main road. The frontier that the demons had encroached upon was quite the distance away, so a considerable amount of travel was still ahead of us. Per the original plan, we’ll soon purchase a couple of horses outside of the capital. Once that’s done we’ll quickly be on our way to curing the demonic infection plaguing the kingdom. For the glory of the kingdom and all humanity!