Sorcerer… Cyborg???

Chapter 136: Stunning Surge

Kothar crept across the bare ground between the inner side of the wall and the main building, keeping low to the ground and trying his best to keep his movements slow, and fluid, and his silhouette as irregular as possible.

While the guards on the wall had been lax in their duties, it seemed that the rest of the guards in the outpost were not as lazy. The grass in between the building and the wall had been cropped recently, offering little cover. 

Kothar hoped that the 'common sense' of the other soldiers on the walls would keep their gaze turned outward toward the open ocean and the forest.

The building itself had three floors, and from what Kothar could see, even now, the majority of the soldiers had their rooms on the bottom floor, with a number of them on the second and finally the three strongest individuals on the top floor. 

[I don't like this, Silane. I think we should have been given far more time to prepare.] Kothar grumbled as he slunk into the shadow of the building, aiming for a smaller side door. 

[It seems to me that Tam operates both based on his instincts as well as spending his time strategizing. Seems to have served him well so far, I guess you just don't like being on the receiving end of one of his 'instinctive' gambles, huh?] Silane teased, she knew that Kothar, for one, hadn't naturally been reckless or impulsive at all. Before his Alliance missions, he would spend hours on mission simulations, repeating the simulation even when Silane had assured him of a 1000% success rate.

Silane was beginning to learn that acting without thinking too much was both humans' greatest strength and weakness. If the end result of the action was good, then the person who had decided so would be praised as 'instinctive'. But if the outcome was negative, then the individual would be considered 'rash' or 'reckless', it was fascinating to her, that two individuals could utilize a virtually identical decision or lack of decision making process, and only based on the outcome they would be treated so differently. 

[At least you'll be able to trial that spell you developed. Should earn you plenty of praise from Docara if those work.] Silane said weakly, mostly occupied with her thoughts on humans and their response to rushed action.

[Yes, it'll be a good opportunity to try it out. It'll be good to have a spell that's guaranteed to be non-lethal, but I am surprised I haven't seen more spells that were developed with that in mind, especially for Lightning Mages.] Kothar slipped his lightning blade out of its sheath, and channelled mana through the blade, and the edge began to oscillate, emanating the slightest of humming of noises. 

[I guess, this world, advanced as it is, still hasn't linked electrical activity to movement. And Lightning is purely associated with destruction and damage, so the spells are designed to be as destructive as possible.] Silane responded, while Kothar slipped his sword into the slightest gap between the door and the door jamb, moving the blade up and down, encountering the slightest amount of resistance as it sliced through the latch. 

Thankfully, it seemed as though the Empire had neglected to use any kind of runic formations on the outpost, confident in the reputation of the empire as well as the walls and soldiers stationed within. 

There was the slightest of creaks as Kothar eased the door open, beginning once it was about an arm's length away from the door. Kothar immediately stopped pulling the door open, and drew his blade across the ground, clearly marking out a line in the dirt, writing underneath it in the text of Ursten, 'noisy door'. 

That would have to do for the following soldiers. Kothar pulled the door shut behind him as he slipped into the warm building, to a chorus of quiet snores and the low crackling of a fire. 

Most of the soldiers were asleep in what was probably a large dormitory style chamber that was to the left of the corridor that Kothar stood in, but there was a pair in a different room, sitting on chairs, moving their arms in animated conversation. 

Kothar decided to take them out, it didn't make sense to leave soldiers that were awake free to roam about throughout the building. 

Kothar crept along the dimly lit corridor quietly, those the building was stone, the warm climate and the roaring fire that Kothar hear even in this part of the building meant that it didn't have the distinctive chill that a stone building usually did.

He kept close to the wall, and within a minute he could hear the low voices of the soldiers.

"One more hand, Duny, you've got to give me a chance to try and take my money back." The first voice was high pitched, and spoke with a wheedling tone. It seemed the language spoken by the Empire was not so different from that spoken in Ursten, Silane didn't even have to translate and Kothar could mostly understand what was being said.

"Alright, even though you've been saying one more hand for the past half hour, I'll play another. Can't say no to taking more of your cash." This voice was gruff, but chuckled at the end of his sentence, and Kothar heard the faint clinking of coins. 

A small amount of light radiated out from the room that the soldiers were playing cards in, and Kothar stood meters away, charging up his newest spell in each hand. 

Two small balls of blue colored lightning formed over each of Kothar's palms, slowly rotating around, joined with a strand of twisting and crackling lightning. 

Though the spell made some noise, as did any Lightning Element Spell, thanks to low power, it was quiet enough that it was drowned out by the ambient noise in the building.

This was Kothar's latest invention, the new Lightning Element Spell: Stunning Surge.