Factory Raids 1

When I come to, Ivy is laying next to me peacefully, not asleep, but not fully awake either. My consciousness nudges hers, and she opens her eyes, looking at me and smiling. I smile back, kissing her lazily. We communicate solely through our mental bond. ‘I love you Ivy.’ I tell her. ‘I love you too Gem, so so much.’

The weak light streaming through the windows indicates that it’s about 6pm, and I pull my phone out of my inventory real quick to confirm. It is indeed just past 6. ‘We should probably think about having some dinner soon.’ I suggest, my rumbling stomach agreeing with that idea. ‘Just a few more minutes.’ Ivy replies, and I sink back into her arms, sighing contentedly.

True to her word, after a few more minutes of cuddling, we get up and head downstairs, both of us putting on the minimum of clothes required to cover up in front of Olivia. A luxurious pink set of pajamas for me and Ivy’s regular bodysuit suffices for this purpose.

I find myself thinking that both Olivia and Ivy were right. I feel a lot more relaxed now. We walk into the living room and Olivia looks up at us with a knowing smile. “Are you feeling better now?” She asks me. I nod, smiling happily. “So much better.” I reply, as Ivy disappears into the kitchen. “Have the others come back yet?” Olivia shakes her head. “I’ll go look for them then, we should have dinner soon.” I say.

I find Mia and Paige both passed out in one of the guest bedrooms, holding each other and sleeping peacefully. As much as it pains my heart to wake them up, since they both look so adorable and peaceful napping like this, we do need to eat. After some gentle words, I manage to coax them both out of bed.

On the way downstairs, I check the library for Skylar too. Surprise surprise, she’s there, having finished the book she was on before, and started the next one. Upon hearing that dinner is going to be ready soon, she closes her book and joins us to head down.

Before dinner, I make sure that Sol and Luna have been fed. They’ve grown up a bit and they’ve passed the point of needing to have food available all the time. They’ve also both gotten louder over time. “Mreow!” Luna exclaims as I pet her soft fur. The sound makes me smile, I love them so much.

I find myself wondering if my powers have a way to make them immortal somehow, or at least live as long as I do. I already have a way to magically connect my girlfriends and I, and increase their potential. Maybe I could somehow do the same for Sol and Luna? I shrug mentally. It’s not a problem I’ll have to deal with for a while yet at least.

Dinner passes quickly, as does the rest of our relaxation time. I’m a lot more relaxed thanks to Ivy and I’m able to lead in the final preparations without the near crippling anxiety that was taking hold of me. We do our final checks, go through the plan again, and mentally prepare ourselves for the risks we’re about to take, and the people we’re hopefully about to save.

With everything ready, we head out of the Kingdom, exiting into the Fateweaver barrier. The cars that Skylar and Olivia rented earlier in the day are parked right where they left them. I take a couple of deep breaths to calm my fast beating heart, inhaling and exhaling slowly. I look back at my guild. I trust them all with my life.

I nod once. “Let’s do this. Olivia, I’m with you and Paige. Ivy and Mia, go with Skylar.” I say, taking the lead. The groups are strategically chosen based on level and power, so that if we get separated, there’s a good mix of all of us. We file into the respective cars and Olivia opens up navigation on her phone. She puts the car in drive and pulls out of the Fateweaver barrier with Skylar following us close behind.

The first few minutes of being outside the Fateweaver barrier are tense for me. I’ve not been out here in a month, and it’s pretty terrifying. I start to relax though and settle into the drive as I can’t see anybody following us besides Skylar. I hold Paige’s hand in the backseat, gently running my thumb over the back of her hand. I take comfort in her presence and her gentle, wordless affection.

Even on the motorway, late at night with no traffic around, it still takes around 40 minutes to get there. We arrive and Olivia parks the car. Skylar pulls up beside us and switches off her engine. We exit and Olivia takes the lead in walking to where the factory is supposed to be. After a few minutes of walking, we stop in front of a nondescript building. Doesn’t look like much, at least on the mundane side of things.

“This is the place?” I ask. The lady of the beasts nods. “This is the address I was given.” I turn to my girlfriends. “We go in hard and fast, straight through the front. We use speed, surprise and overwhelming ****. Spare lives where you can, don’t kill in cold blood. Let’s go.” I say. A strange calm settles over me as we enter the barrier.

The nondescript mundane building is replaced with one of an arcane flare, very similar to the mana factory that we raided a month ago. It looks almost like a large barn, with pieces of magical looking machinery attached. I don’t really want to know how it works. Knowing what it’s used for is enough. I manifest my frost armour as I look over the building.

In front of us is a large set of barn doors, shut with a chain and padlock. Observe reveals the chain and lock to be magically reinforced. It looks almost comical. I gesture to Paige and Skylar, and they step up next to me. Paige uses her magic to rip up a large amount of rock from the ground, the size of a boulder.

Taking a breath, the goth girl slams the stone against the door, hard. The magically reinforced material creaks and bends inwards, groaning and straining under the almost deafening impact. Immediately as Paige lifts the mounds of earth, Skylar steps forward. The chain is severely weakened from the looks of it, and the padlock broken.

Using hands of darkness, Skylar rips back the doors, snapping the chain and throwing the doors wide open. Before I can react, Mia charges inside impulsively. “Dad’s not holding me back any more, so you’re all gonna feel it!” She yells cheerily, her swords drawn and her wind magic allowing her to fly inside at a rate of knots.

I shake my head. We did discuss that I’d be taking the lead on these raids, including leading the first charge inside. I guess Mia’s enthusiasm sometimes gets the better of her. Following Mia, I manifest twin swords of ice and lead the rest of my guild inside. I register that Olivia has shifted into her Tetramand form and is charging behind me.

My massively increased intellect lets me process what I see inside at hyper speed. It’s a depressingly similar setup to Sarah’s mana factory. The mana slaves sitting on benches, hooked up to machines extracting the valuable magical resource from them. I harden my heart to the sight, not because I don’t want to free them, but because I need to worry about the guards first.

I scan the rest of the place, noting the levels of the many guards around the place and the office in the back that’s large enough to double as a room for the person who runs this place. None of the guards exceed level 35. I smirk, knowing that we’ve already won, despite the fact that there’s 18 of them standing around the place.

Our loud entrance was not without reaction. The guards are scrambling towards us, interrupted from their quiet night keeping watch. My swords disappear, and I manifest a simple blunt two handed mace instead. Lethality isn’t necessary here. I duck nimbly under the slash of a sword, and swing my mace hard into the man’s side. I hear the cracking sound of bones being broken as he’s sent crashing away.

A shield of frost blocks an incoming arcane spell, magical energy dissipating harmlessly over the manifestation of my control over ice. I retaliate with a mana bolt, aimed perfectly at the mage’s legs, crippling him for the rest of the fight. I activate mana shield as I turn around to see Olivia and my girlfriends already engaging the guards. “I’m gonna find the owner. Shout if you need help.” I tell her. She nods once in acknowledgement.