I can only imagine that this is the feeling of death. My spirit rises from my slouching body, but I can still feel my fingers against the wooden panel floor. Nobody knows how our spirit can leave our bodies but still feel the physical sensations of touch, but I'm sure some of my former comrades have spent days debating the issue and experimenting on any of my fellow dreamwalkers who failed their final examination. Nobody knows, but that doesn't matter. What does matter are the guards coming into the bunks and the evidence they will find.

 

I slide my spirit through the door and see the guards already entering their first quarters. Moving with the speed granted only to the ephemeral, I am on top of them in seconds. Sometimes you see the hairs on the back of their neck stand on end, but these two detect nothing. I reach out to their minds and feel hate rolling off both of them. Their emotions feel foreign, so much of my training was spent suppressing these emotions and maintaining control, but their hate is contagious. I hate these guards who want to expose me, who want to torture me and who would like nothing more than to see my comrades burn.

 

It would be a simple thing to make them see exactly what they are looking for, but they need tangible evidence that they can take to the Grand Cipher. He is another story; to change his perception would be no small task, all while my body is slumped on the floor, waiting to be discovered by any who might be looking for me. No, illusions will not be enough for the Cipher.

 

I need to think quickly, they are onto the next room and only three rooms away from my own, which houses my discarded body and a cache of encrypted recording crystals. I could stop their hearts, but that would only confirm to the Cipher that they had a spy in their midst and that it was a powerful one. The infrastructure would change, they would implement new security measures. All the information I had transferred back home would be worthless. I would be worthless. I have to make them think that they had found exactly what they were looking for. I needed to stop the search before it got to my room or I would lose months’ worth of data, even if I could convince them that they weren't mine.

 

Like a whip, my spirit returns to my body and I push my bed aside. The noise would have alerted the guards, but almost as second nature I raised fields of compressed air lining the walls, perfectly insulating the room. Sound is only vibration, and if you stop it from reaching a medium then that sound stops. That was the very first day of my advanced studies. Identify the source of sound and compress the sound waves within wind walls.

 

I pulled open my cache under the bed and fetched an unused encryption disc. I spent months learning to encrypt these discs so they could never be decoded, for this though. I need the most basic of encryption. I need them to see what is on this disc, but I don't want it to be obvious that I want that. In seconds I let down my illusions and I see a grey-eyed, auburn-feathered trill reflected back at me in the crystal. My brain barely recognizes this as my reflection before it is replaced by a pale-skinned dracnari. I begin the recording process and record a report almost word for word the same as my first report.

 

 

"Command base, Authentication Thunder, I have infiltrated the Pyromancers. Their security is laughable and I will have all the data I need in a matter of weeks. They have already divulged to me the location of their headquarters, including the headquarters I didn't ask about. I will implement recording crystals at the entrance of each and will attempt incursion to the Illuminati archives on the first of Dioni." I was so naive. I underestimated the complexity of my enemy and worse, I made nearly deadly assumptions about my own competence. I record almost that exact message five years ago with the only exception being that today is the first of Dioni. The recording crystal disabled itself, my face fell to trill, then back to a crimson skinned Dracnari. I inverted the windwalls to lower the atmospheric pressure to amplify sounds. "There is nothing here," says guard one as he shoves the drawers back onto a chest. It was hard to tell how far away they were but I knew they weren't in the room next to mine. What I didn't know was if they were going to be in that adjacent room or two rooms away. I only had one chance at this. I closed my eyes and pictured my room, the building, and the ones next to mine. Wind follows the path of least resistance and when that path is over something moving very fast it creates a low pressure zone underneath the object.

 

The next moment I am in the air outside of my room, feeling gravity pushing me down and the low pressure zone keeping my lift. Flying at low altitudes in small spaces is the most difficult (the most difficult what? Adjective needs either a noun or a substantive marker) and it strains my joints like I am on the rack. I let the gem go and see the path in my head. It takes all of my concentration and it flies out of my hand and into the neighboring window, crashing into the door and chipping off a small amount of wood before skittering across the floor to underneath the bed. I freefall due to my concentration focused on the gem. With it in its place I twist my body and summon all of my might through my hands to push air at the ground to break my fall.

 

I am too late, and just the smallest burst of air comes out, pushing my arms up and slamming my legs into the ground with a loud crack. The guards must have heard. I project an illusion above me but the pain in my legs causes it to ripple and shake. I release it from my mind while emptying an entire ruby vial onto my legs. They painfully contort into place and then I feel completely healed. An image of the ground without me there springs to mind just in time for a guard to stick his head out the window next door to my neighbors.

 

The evidence is planted, now I have to give them the scapegoat. I have been monitoring the movement of every citizen I can and I know exactly where Hector will be. It would be fastest to fly there, but I can't fake the flight of a Pyromancer and I am too drained to maintain an illusion that would cover so many angles. I need to walk there and I could use the time to sip my mana elixir and recover my strength. He is in the shopping district, looking at clothes as he always does on the first of the month.

 

I spot him almost immediately; his robes are covered in garish silver inlaid flames streaking up to his matching flame crowns. However, I have learned that nothing is as it seems in Gaudiguch. I approach him slowly, he can’t' suspect anything until I make my move, lest I leave evidence that contradicts my narrative.

 

"Hector, the Templars are in our quarters. They have found evidence of infiltration by the Hallifaxian aggressors. We must convene the enclave to discuss the situation."

 

The brief look of concern on his face is replaced by pride at the thought that he is important enough to participate in espionage talks. I shoot down the nearest alleyway and approach the entrance to the Illuminati headquarters, the Pyramid of the Illuminati. I scan the windows of the buildings above before stopping just short of the threshold.

 

"Rirngi, you haven't said, who was discovered to be the spy?"

 

I lean in close, twirling my fingers in practiced ways, as soon as the whisper of the word "you" is out of his mouth, I have the first coil of condensed clouds around his throat. He tries to scream against the pressure of the cloud coil but only what could be described as a mugwumpian croak escapes his mouth. He may seem slow witted but the fires inside him burn bright. For the first time I see him unleash his full power. Flames lick up and down his body, and I am forced to put some space between us.

 

As I leap back I see for the first time the brilliance of his wardrobe, the crown upon his head directing the flames up and around his scalp, the inlaid silver flames melting and flowing freely along the seams of the roe like magma, flowing down the front and up the back in a closed circuit. The few moments that I wasted being impressed by his visage cost me greatly in leverage on the coil. I know I am seconds away from losing my advantage. With my free hand I weave clouds around us. All of his focus is on the coil choking him so he does not notice when the coil suddenly weakens, containing far more oxygen now than could be used in a physical manifestation like the coil. The flame licks up his frame before the leading edge encounters the now dissipating coil.

 

The shockwave hits me before I ever hear a sound. The windwalls stopped the entire city from hearing the blast but the damage between is unmistakable, the carnage amplified by closing the blast area in.

 

I can feel the blood trickle down my ear and neck. My face wavers between trill and dracnari. Hector’s throat is seriously burned, but intact. He however lies unresponsive on the ground, the silver inlays cooling and returning to their original pattern.

 

So much for not leaving any evidence. I walk over to the body and with one blow force the air from his lungs and create a small barrier across his nose and mouth. His body reflexively kicks as he goes into hypoxia and finally cardiac arrest. I drag him over to the entrance of the Pyramid. I open the door into what appears to be a standard foyer. I remove the barrier from his mouth and nose and begin inflating him with pure oxygen. His body distends and warps as if exposed unprotected to the void. I reapply my seals and light one of my custom pipes. I push his body over the threshold and it immediately tumbles through the immaterial floor. It is a waste of a perfectly good pipe, but I toss the smoldering pipe in after. I am quick to get as far away as possible. I feel the barriers tugging at my will and I release them. This time there is nothing compressing the sound but I still only heard a dull roar as the faux entrance to the Pyramid of the Illuminati is evaporated.