Darcassan grimaced. Of course, Rhalyf had done something nearly impossible. Like usual. The other Aravae never seemed to practice his magic, but he was always able to push spells to do things that no one else could make them do.
He cleared his throat noisily and said, “Well, that is a bit harder… but not impossible! I could do it.”
Elasha’s head snapped towards him. “Darcassan, are you sure?”
“Austral smell everything,” Snaglak pointed out, which likely meant that they had a keen sense of smell if he was translating orc to… well, to how everyone else expressed things correctly.
“Meaning that even if they don’t see us passing by they might smell us?” Elasha clarified.
“Only if we get close enough,” Helgrom admitted.
“If smell then fight!” Snaglak looked pleased at the idea.
“We don’t want to fight, Snaglak,” Elasha reminded him. “Not a whole city full of Australs. They’ll all be after us, right, Helgrom?”
Another nod and grunt.
“Awwwww.” Snaglak scuffed a foot against the stony ground.
“Well, if we fail and get seen, maybe you’ll get your fight. But our only chance to survive is if that happens after we have the weapons,” Helgrom explained.
“But where do we go then? You’re assuming that a rift will magically open for us to take us away from here once we do this,” Elasha pointed out. “But if it doesn’t we still have a five day walk minimally to Illithor.”
“That’s true.” Helgrom nodded. “So best not to get caught. If you really can cast such a spell on all of us, Darcassan, that would be best. If you cannot, then you must say so now.”
“I can do it,” he answered, not even hesitating.
Elasha’s blue eyes cut towards him and her mouth flattened into a thin line, but she didn’t contradict him. He could do it! Or he’d figure it out! Rhalyf had pushed him against a wall. Shaken him. Choked him. Insulted him! Rhalyf was of some inconsequential bloodline from the outer reaches of the Lieren Plane. He was a Fairlynn! Nephew to the Sun King! Of course, he could do it.
As they had crept their way through secret passages and snuck down hallways and climbed through windows and not met any Australs inside, he’d begun to think that he wouldn’t have to attempt this spell. He was certain he could do it. Of course! But maybe it was best if he didn’t attempt it for the first time in Xrdatha. Under pressure. On five of them. At once.
Helgrom looked at him again. Meaningfully.
They’d been crouched here for nearly half an hour, hoping the Australs would move, but they never left the T-intersection. Darcassan had hoped that the Australs weren’t that intelligent, namely, that they wouldn’t be guarding an ancient armory that no one had managed to break into in millennia, but evidently they either really were intelligent or had no sense of time or… regardless, they were not moving on. And the longer they stayed here, the greater the chance that they were seen or smelled.
He had to attempt the spell.
He swallowed.
If I succeed then I can tell Rhalyf about it. Casually. Let him know he isn’t the only prodigy with magic. Show him that I don’t rely upon my family name! Not alone…
He nodded at Helgrom to indicate he would do the spell. He felt his sister tense behind him. She knew what he was about to do. And she had no faith he could do it.
No, she’s just worrying. Like always! It’s not that she doesn’t have faith specifically in me, but in anyone.
He’d been thinking on the problem of how to make a normal invisibility spell also eliminate smell and sound. Eliminating smell really wasn’t possible. The compounds that made up any odor… Well, even if he changed a few of them so that the Australs didn’t immediately identify what they were, it would still attract the bird-like things because they would be unusual and might alarm them. No, he needed to make them smell like something the Australs already knew and expected to be there. Muffling footfalls was much easier. There were spells that captured sound and kept it from moving outwards.
While Rhalyf likely could have woven all three spells together–damn him–Darcassan wasn’t going to attempt it. He would weave each individually. One after the other. It was already going to exhaust him to weave so many spells on this many people and keep them for however long they needed them up.
He closed his eyes, blocking out where they were and the Australs that were so nearby. He envisioned water dripping into a still pool. At first, the water was dripping quickly and the vibrations were spreading out rapidly, but as he calmed himself down the drops slowed until they finally nearly stopped. When the water droplet hung–pregnant and luminous–above the pool, he began to weave the first spell.
He envisioned the invisibility spell as a sheet that each person was throwing over themselves. One over Glom. He imagined the damned naki shaking its head in annoyance at the invisibility sheet. One over Snaglak. The orc would stand there idiotically and swish about. One over Helgrom. He would draw the sheet tight around himself. One over Elasha. She would remain still and let the sheet settle. And finally, one over himself. He swore he could almost feel the coolness of the sheet fluttering over his head and settling around him.
The scent spell was both harder and easier. He drew in a deep breath. What scents were the most present? Stone. Minerality. Water. Heat. Bitter. He pulled those scents and tweaked their unique scents of leather, lotion, soap, or in the case of Glom, ham and other unmentionables, to mimic those usually existing smells of the palace. The Australs would smell them, but they would smell of the palace.
Sweat coursed down his spine and dripped down his temples. He’d used quite a bit of power getting to Chicago and then fighting the Leviathan. Doing this on top of that was straining him more than he’d ever been strained. Sweat dripped from his chin and pattered the floor.
One more spell. Or rather five more. This was the easiest of them all. He created force fields around them all, which would trap any sounds they made. They would be able to hear their own footfalls and the rustle of their clothes, but no one else would.
