I thought that the whole thing we did with Gate was pretty clever. Along with using Spatial Rift, I was expecting a sort of mastery combination too. Maybe once the latter gained a natural increase- I suppose one proper instance wasn't really enough for that.

Then again, I had been expecting some sort of spatial mastery for a while and still didn't have it, so what did I know?

"We found it!" Flopan declared.

"That's great," I said. "What is 'it'?"

"The local dimensional suppression hub. Obviously."

Oh right. They were still looking for that. Honestly, with the current flow of mana I had been willing to test potential routes back even if they ultimately failed.

Midnight felt weird. "What is it?" I asked him directly.

He sighed. "I have to ask an awkward question of the Bunvorixian Freedom Initiative. With an opportunity such as this, I feel like I would be betraying my people by not informing them…" Flopan waited patiently. "With the dimensional suppression hub down and the military base being short on ships, we could strike some sort of critical target. Unfortunately, I don't have access to what those might be and… well…"

"I understand your troubles. Celmothians have been doing well to keep the conflict to military targets- however, all Bunvorixians are our brethren. We do not wish to see them perish." Flopan thought for a while. "I can bring you a list of targets. Automated factories and other things, where casualties would be kept to a minimum. If you could strike only those targets…"

"I can't transmit complex information. Just a few sentences at a time," Midnight explained. "However, if I give key strike locations, at the very least I trust that any assault will focus on those targets. We are also aware of the uninformed nature of many engineers and even soldiers."

"If a revolution could have no casualties…" Flopan lowered his head, "We would have succeeded long ago. No, we wouldn't have needed it in the first place." He took a deep breath. "We will get you the information you need. Then, we will need to plan the assault. For it is not as easy as it might seem."

"We're not expecting it to be unguarded," I pointed out. "Especially not after recent events."

"The guards aren't as much of a problem as accessing the facility to begin with."

"We can fly," I pointed out.

"That would be useful in literally any other situation," Flopan said. "You see, this target is buried deep underground."

"Shoulda brought Fluffy with us," I said.

"Fluffy?"

"Oh, he goes with our Bunvorixian friend. Actually, it would have been nice if we had Zeb with us. But the exact details of this trip weren't planned out ahead of time." I saw Midnight, I opened a Gate. That was all there was to it. "I don't have any earth digging stuff. I assume the dimensional suppression hub is protected from teleportation."

"We must assume so," Flopan agreed. "That leaves only one method of reaching the area. A multiple kilometer long elevator ride."

"Mhm," I nodded. "What's the gravity here?"

"What?"

"Eh, I'll just approximate. Makes the math easier." I did pull out my tablet. Spell math I was used to doing in my head, but some things I needed slightly more. "Less than thirty seconds. That's not too bad."

"Thirty seconds for… what? The elevator ride takes more than ten minutes, during which they would have significant time to prepare. It's a bit much but-"

"I don't see why we'd take the elevator," I said.

"It's the only way down."

Midnight was nervous already. "Surely there's a better way, Turlough."

"How much do you think they're doing with nine minutes and thirty seconds?" I asked him.

"I really don't want to do it."

"You can hang out inside my jacket," I said.

Flopan tilted his head. "Did I miss something?"

"Turlough wants us to jump down the elevator shaft," Midnight said.

"What?" Flopan looked astounded. "So many things could go wrong! What if it's on the way up? How will you even stop?"

"They don't have two, do they?" I asked. "We'll just chop through it. Obviously. Then there won't be anything in our way."

"How will you get out?"

"Flight. Teleportation. One of those." I looked at Midnight. "Have you come up with a better plan?"

"Sadly, no. The best one I could think of involved me not being there."

"That's a terrible plan," I said. "We'll need you."

"I know."

-----

"What about air resistance?" Kick asked.

"We're going to ignore that," I explained.

"Ok but it gets very significant at-"

"I mean we'll actually ignore it," I clarified. "With magic."

"And we stop by…?" Honey Badger looked at me.

"The Fly spell. We'll probably have to pull four or five g's at the end, but not for long."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

"That's not too bad," he agreed.

We'd probably end up going over thirty seconds. Midnight's suit should be able to coordinate us, though. Or maybe Kick's fancy new internals.

We really didn't have a better plan, and waiting would just allow the enemy more time to figure out our goal- or to find us. Nondetection kept taking hits. At least now we could easily reapply it, so nothing had gotten through just yet.

If Calculator were here, he'd have a plan that was ten times better. But he wasn't, so we got me. And Midnight, but unfortunately for him I thought of something viable before he came up with an option that involved less falling. The thing about being the first person with an idea was that it would stick.

-----

"We're probably not coming back," I commented with great severity, informing Flopan.

"What?! In that case you shouldn't-"

"So if you want to send anyone with us, make sure they're prepared to be off world from one month to forever."

I don't know why people reacted strangely to the things I said sometimes. They were perfectly reasonable words.

"... Because you're teleporting directly out of there," Flopan finally nodded.

"Obviously," I said. "There's bound to be tons of trouble. With this facility damaged, it will be harder for them to stop us and also to create a more permanent connection, right?"

"That's right."

"Well, we should still probably try not to show up somewhere problematic." They'd already invaded a national park. Why not go there? It was good to have a destination in mind for our inevitable retreat.

-----

There were a few things we knew about the facility. First was its location. The second was that it screwed with teleportation. The third was that there was a big elevator.

That wasn't a lot of things, but we could make some guesses. First, Bunvorixians tended to use certain weapons. Energy Ward would protect us from that. There would be guards, but we wanted to get past them. Haste was good. Kick and Honey Badger would be able to destroy most reasonable doors. While we expected a secure facility, we also expected elevator doors at least for part of it.

The four of us approached all stealthily. We were so good at infiltration. And we had prior knowledge about methods that might be used to detect us, while the Bunvorixians were not really prepared to catch humans. Or orcs.

Celmothians? Absolutely. That was where the preparations came into place.

And going fast.

The facility was theoretically behind an unassuming door in the middle of the city. It wouldn't do much good if they placed it in a field miles away, now would it? Not when it was meant to cover an area around it. I don't know why it was buried underground- perhaps it had to be. Either way, it was where it was. As long as our allies weren't wrong. If they were… I would throw all the mana I had at Gate and hope things worked out.

There was one thing about Bunvorixian doors. They were made for Bunvorixians. That made them inconvenient for humans to fit through most of the time, but they were also made to resist Bunvorixians. Canines weren't known for being great at kicking down doors. They also didn't carry a lot of bladed weapons these days- either they used their teeth or claws or used high tech guns.

Honey Badger's axe thrummed with power as he chopped the waist high door into quarters with two slashes. Some of the bits remained attached, but he kicked them apart. Alarms blared, as expected.

Kick almost did the limbo as he entered the tunnel, and while it was an insane angle for normal people, when we ran into Bunvorixian guards he met them tech first. There were just two that got slammed into the walls, and then the elevator. Apparently, the doors weren't made to resist people with hands, and they opened quite easily. Maybe it was a safety protocol- people had to be able to get out. Besides, it was a secret facility so who was going to attack it?

We were.

Inside, there were laser turrets that immediately opened fire. Honey Badger chopped those apart, calling upon his mana to enhance the destruction of his swings. I saw the guards stirring around the time Honey Badger was cutting apart the floor of the elevator- it was large and tall from a Bunvorixian perspective, meant to transport probably ten or more people all at once. It was the only entrance and a long ride, after all.

They didn't expect anyone to chop the floor. We already had Fly and Physical Freedom cast just outside the door, so we hopped down.

Midnight squeezed tightly against my chest. However, despite his fear, he wasn't that bad. Maybe because he couldn't see anything. Obviously my presence helped a little, but irrational fears didn't always get along with friends.

I renewed Honey Badger's Energy Ward on the way down as we continued to go faster and faster… then I cast Haste when we were about halfway down. We really might need the improved reaction speed to properly stop our fall. I took my time, being as careful to craft the magic to be as normal as possible.

The alerts came from various pieces of technology all at once, informing us we had to decelerate. I did so, clutching my arms around Midnight. I wasn't afraid of long falls nor particularly concerned with high forces. Anyone with the Brigade could handle a few seconds of high g's anyway.

This was going great. Honey Badger managed to hold onto his weapon. Kicks were his legs, and I still had mine in Storage until we nearly slammed into the ground. Instead, it was just me and I bent my legs to absorb the last of the impact. Totally fine, no problems. Might have to talk to Ceira to get new knees in a few years.

"Oh, I feel it," I turned my head.

"What?" Honey Badger asked as he was prying open the doors. These ones were locked down- maybe because of the alarms above. He bent the metal. I could have been an actual Barbarian. I did really like magic though.

"The big space thing," I said. "I don't think it's magic, but it sure is grabbing a lot of it."

Bunvorixian guards. My weapon was tuned to be difficult for their suits to resist. I felt a bit bad, but nobody in secret military facilities was totally innocent. Also, they were shooting at us.

Energy Ward was wearing down. We'd have to rely on our super suits.

Midnight hopped down out of my jacket. The rest of us crouch-walked through corridors that were only slightly too short. Kick picked up some sort of security pass with his foot, opening doors along the way.

We entered a room with a bunch of people standing around instruments.

"Hey," I called out. "When I blow up that thing, is there going to be a chain reaction?"

Canine people looked over, startled. Some of them reminded me of Zeb. They looked worried… but not that worried. It was probably fine. Or they thought I couldn't do it.

They were unarmed. "Get out of the way while we shoot stuff."

They were smart. They did. Midnight and I shot stuff. Kick tried to seal the door behind us. I walked up to a window where I could see a really big tech thing. Looked kind of like a particle accelerator or a generator. Lots of coils and stuff.

I could destroy it from here if I-

"No." Midnight firmly answered an unvoiced thought.

"But what do you think happens if-"

"No. We'll just shoot it."

But Spatial Rift- alright fine I got his point. Don't throw Dimensional Magic at the dimensional suppression hub.

Honey Badger hit the glass. I was about to tell him it was probably too thick to break, but I would have been wrong. A crack spread through some glass that was absolutely meant to not propagate cracks, opening a hole in the several foot thick glass, shards blasting outward in a cone. Barbro was the right guy to accidentally bring along to a mission where we had to break a ton of stuff.

I suddenly felt a bunch of magic- but not in front of us. "Oh," I said. "He's here."

Midnight spun around. "Spot."

"Isn't that way better than calling him his official name?" I grinned.

Spot and whoever was with him would reach us in a few seconds. I casually shot my modified Bunvorixian laser into a very expensive room while I considered how to handle things.

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