2095 City Hall (Part 1)

"The Abomination-hybrids have never stopped working on whatever the Professor's goal is even during the war, but they have been helping us.

"Once Thrud has gotten rid of Meln and taken control of the Undead Courts, the Kingdom would have been in dire straits if not for the Abominations. They are dealing with the undead by themselves and even devolving half of the profits they make to the war efforts." Lith replied.

"Is that why Jirni is focusing on traitorous nobles and the Royals have never fallen behind despite their losing streak?" Tista was flabbergasted.

"Correct. It's their side of the deal with the Council. The Abominations are fighting half of the war in their spare time, and they are winning."

They walked for a bit to give Tista the time to digest the four meals she had consumed and for Solus to process the collected data with their help. The Eyes of Menadion explained what they saw, but it was up to their wielder to understand the how and why.

'This is a mess, but I have good news.' Solus said. 'We need to start by deactivating the main array of the city all. After that, not only will disabling the other arrays become much easier, but with each layer we sabotage, the city defenses will become weaker in a domino effect.'

'Okay, what's the bad news?' Lith asked.

'That Thrud knows it as well. The power of the arrays in the city hall is several folds greater than in the rest of the city and even from the restaurants I could spot an energy mass that can only belong to powerful life forces.' Solus replied.

'On top of that, I noticed several checkpoints on the way there. We can't even reach the inner rims on foot without being searched with Invigoration or by flight without the arrays spotting us. Aside from that, we're good to go.'

'If I didn't know you better, I'd call you a smartass.' Tista inwardly groaned, perceiving Solus' sincere optimism.

'It's not a big deal.' Solus shrugged. 'I can sneak past the checkpoints and open a Steps for you.'

'No way.' Tista shook her head. 'Unless you walk all the way to the city hall, you'd need to open one Spirit Warp for each checkpoint and you'd become exhausted before we even start.

'Not to mention that to cross such a huge distance without being noticed, it'd take you hours and we can't afford to reach our destination after dusk.

'Finding a secluded place where to conjure a Warp Steps in a rich neighborhood is hard. It's not the slums with plenty of back alleys and no illumination. You'd have to watch out for house staff, to not be spotted from a window on an upper floor, and avoid the patrols.'

The area nearby the city hall was heavily guarded, with Forgotten flying around in irregular patterns and checking the surroundings with Life Vision. After sundown, the cover of darkness would have made things easier for them if not for the curfew.

With no one on the streets and the entrances closed, Thrud's Awakened were free to focus solely on protecting the city walls and the innermost rim where the Warp Gate was located.

Any damage to the arrays would be spotted more quickly and the diversion that Phloria's Awakened would have caused would become much less effective.

'What if I get inside an empty house and you Warp inside?' Solus said.

'Yeah, right. Because a couple of strangers coming out of a noble household are bound to go unnoticed.' Tista said with a sneer.

'If you have a better idea, I'm all ears.' Solus sprouted a few on her stone ring to emphasize how annoyed she was.

Lith pondered the problem as well, yet found no solution. The attack had to start while the Phloria's Awakened corps would still cause enough commotion to force Thrud's Forgotten to spread thin and allow Tista to finish her job.

Yet until she dealt with the main array, any disturbance would have made the security around the inner rim tighten and foiled their plan. His Tiamat eyes could see far, but not enough to see the city hall from a restaurant and Warp Solus there.

To make matters worse, the entire city hall was surrounded at all hours by a dome of solid energy that kept anything from getting near the building, even birds. There were sentinels at all corners so that any attempt to Warp in the vicinity of the City Lord's office would be spotted in a matter of seconds.

Lith asked Phloria for advice, but she had no clue either.

"I'm sorry, but I've never been inside Zehnma after its capture and my intelligence is too outdated." She said. "If you can't find a solution, you can come out and use a mind link to share the details so that we can brainstorm the problem with the members of my corps.

"Worst case scenario, we can postpone the attack to tomorrow. Just get yourself a hotel room so that you have a safe place from which Warp in and out of the city."

'That's it!' Solus said via the mind link. 'Phloria is a genius, please thank her for me.'

"Thank you, Phloria, but it shouldn't be necessary. You may have just given us the solution." Lith had no idea what Solus was talking about but he trusted her enough to blindly follow her instructions.

She had them go back to the panoramic restaurant closest to the city hall and take the room on the highest floor that the hotel connected with the establishment had available.

From there, Lith used his keen eyesight as a Tiamat to see far away and the Eyes of Menadion to grasp dimensional coordinates. Then, he conjured Trion and used a marble-sized Spirit Steps to move him into the shadow of a chimney.

The black chains connecting Lith to his Demons worked like a mind link but they couldn't be detected with Life Vision or arrays. He used Trion's eyes to extend his field of vision even further, conjuring and sending Locrias as farther away as he could while the first Demon faded.

The process lasted solely for a second and Lith imbued in the shadow just enough mana to take physical form. By cycling his Demons, he was quickly able to reach the closest and tallest house near the barrier while escaping detection.

Valia appeared in the shadow of a maid who was hanging out the laundry of her noble employers, using the woman's energy signature to hide her own.

'The good thing of being surrounded by so many arrays is that, with all the mana in the air, unless a guard focuses on me it's hard to notice my presence.' She used the Eyes of Menadion to check out the city hall from a distance and find an empty room for Solus.

Life Vision's range was limited and its readings got less accurate the more distant the monitored area was. From that distance, between the barrier, the other arrays, the enchanted items, and the life signatures in the building, even the eyes of a Demon would only see a blurred mess.

Menadion's artifact had no such problem, allowing Valia to find an empty office whose windows faced in her direction.