Asher had expected the hardest part of infiltrating the first level and carrying out his mission would be getting past all the nobles with their unique skills and elements crawling around. Or finding a way through the magical defenses they no doubt had in place. Or perhaps even simply finding Leighann's stored finger before the resurrection could take place.

He hadn't expected that, in reality, the hardest part might in fact be getting up to the first level in the first place.

While Asher was rather good at slipping through floors and going down, his skillset was not in fact all that great at doing the opposite. Despite the city being set half in the mountain, the cliff face had been smoothed down over time, either for aesthetic purposes, or to prevent someone from doing exactly what Asher was hoping to do. But even if it hadn't been, he wasn't exactly all that confident in his ability to freeclimb a good five or six stories up a sheer cliff face.

Which meant he really only had one option.

Asher stared at the elevators heading up to the first level, carefully observing how they operated. Unlike the ones between the fourth and third levels, or even the third and second, these looked like entirely different constructions. Magical levitation rather than massive chains, clearly some method of stabilization based on how they didn't wobble, and he was pretty certain he could even make out padded seats from his vantage point, which seemed rather ridiculous when the entire ride took little more than a few seconds. There were three guards at each elevator, and unlike the bored, minimum wage-looking guards down in the lower levels, these guards were far more alert. Somehow, despite the fact that most of the elevators only ended up getting used a few times each hour, the guards remained vigilant and carefully monitored their surroundings. Whenever someone approached them, they checked that person's arm for a magical tattoo before allowing them into the elevator and sending it up.

But where are they getting the tattoos… Asher wondered, watching yet another noble be warmly welcomed into the elevator and sent up to the first level. At this point, he'd spent the last hour observing the elevators, and evening was finally upon them. Dormaul was strange in that, due to the fact that one side of the city was entirely open, while the other side of the city was against a sheer rock face, the light from the setting sun was almost blinding near one end of the city, yet barely touched the other. While Asher was tempted to try and stick in the darker half to hide in the shadows, he quickly realized the other half would be smarter. He had no doubt plenty of other people would have methods of seeing in the darkness and shadows, but how many people would have some sort of skill or resistance to keep the sun out of their eyes?

Unfortunately, Asher didn't have the time to track down wherever the nobles were getting their tattoos applied. Seeing as they always came down from the first level with them already on their arms, there was a good chance the tattoos were applied on the first level itself, which meant that was a total dead end. Instead, he was going to have to get creative.

Making sure to keep the setting sun behind him, Asher carefully crept from building to building until he was as close to the elevator as he could get. Realizing it was just barely on the edge of his Distortion range, he silently thanked whatever architect had designed the second ring before creating a tunnel of compressed space across the twenty feet of empty ground between his hiding spot and the waiting elevator. Not wasting any time, he slipped through, landing on the elevator's roof. Immediately, he pressed himself flat, his heart pounding as he waited to see if he'd been noticed.

As the seconds ticked by and nobody shouted, he began to breathe a bit easier. The elevator was tall enough that none of the guards standing next to it could actually see up onto the roof itself, and the roof was completely flat, meaning his ridiculous plan might actually work. So long as the person looking to head back up to the first level didn't look up and spot him while they approached the elevator, he was in the clear.

And even if they did, it was nothing a few seconds within the astral realm couldn't solve.

Now that he was in position, Asher waited impatiently for a noble near this section of the second level to get tired and come find his elevator. It took a good bit longer than he would have liked, but eventually, one did just that.

As soon as he saw the noble turn the corner and start making their way toward the elevator, Asher slipped into the astral. Lying prone and unmoving, so long as he kept his breathing shallow, he could keep his skill active for nearly fifteen minutes.

The noble, some large, wobbly man with the relic hunter class and all three elements, waddled up to the guards and presumably pulled his sleeve back to reveal his magic tattoo without a word. Asher couldn't actually see him now that he'd gotten this close, but he could hear the man step onto the elevator.

Before the elevator could take off, Asher quickly dropped Astral Dip, not wanting to knock himself out from the sudden movement. He'd done some experimenting back during their caravan ride, and he'd been surprised to discover that he actually could ride a moving vehicle such as a wagon within the astral. Unless he willed himself to fall out of the moving vehicle, he was carried along as if still in the material realm.

However, being carried through the astral burned just as much energy as though he'd moved the distance himself. The mogrants had barely pulled him two dozen feet before he'd quickly dropped the skill, panting and sweating from the sudden expenditure of energy. With that knowledge, he had the feeling that if he tried to stay within the astral while the elevator blasted upwards, he'd either pass out in moments, or possibly even end up killing himself.

So it was when the elevator rocketed upward, he was fully physical when the wall of air slammed into him and pressed him hard against the top of the elevator. It was a good thing he'd already been prone, because he absolutely would have been knocked off his feet and sent flying if he'd been standing.

Asher's face was pressed hard into the cool stone of the elevator as they rocketed upward, and it took everything he had to roll over onto his back. He had no idea what to expect from the first level, and he wanted to be able to see what was coming.

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It proved to be a smart choice, as apparently, the immediate answer was a flat stone ceiling he was about to smash into.

Asher's eyes widened at the unexpected sight, and it was only thanks to his enhanced reaction time that he managed to slip into the astral at the last possible second to avoid being flattened between the elevator and the sheet of stone. Unlike the elevators of the lower levels, the ones on the first level had a stone cap that they pressed seamlessly into, presumably to stop people from doing exactly what he was attempting to do. The elevator slammed into place, and Asher suddenly found himself surrounded by darkness as he ended up lying within the stone cap rather than smushed by it.

He'd thought his method of invading the first level had been a little too easy.

Now he knew why.

Part of him wondered why the momentum of the elevator hadn't sent him flying through the astral when the elevator came to an abrupt stop, but he decided not to worry about that right now. The astral realm seemed to follow its own strange rules that didn't make much sense to him. For example, despite the fact that he was currently lying inside solid stone, he could still breathe without issue.

It's a good thing this stone cap is only a few feet thick. Any more, and I wouldn't have been able to phase through it…

Realizing he'd barely even begun his mission and had already had his first brush with true death, Asher shakily pushed himself up off the elevator and onto the stone cap itself before someone took the elevator back down and he was forced to risk doing that a second time. He was pretty certain 'crushed to a pulp' wouldn't count as 'mostly intact' in terms of things he could regenerate from.

Having succeeded in phase one of his work-in-progress plan, he took a look around. Similar to the fourth ring of Whikoga, the first level of Dormaul was broken up into different sections, each marked by their buildings having the noble family crests pressed upon them. The different sections didn't have walls separating them like in Whikoga, though there was more empty space between each section, patrolled continuously by roving guards from the looks of things.

Alright… You finally made it up here.

Now you just need to figure out where the hell they're storing Leighann's finger.

Naturally, the largest problem with that plan was that Asher didn't have the faintest idea how to go about doing that. Part of him had hoped that he'd see a large warehouse labeled 'Finger Storage' after finally getting to the first level, but he supposed that had been a bit too optimistic of him. Still, at least he knew where to start.

None of the nearby buildings had crests he recognized, which meant he was going to have to do a bit of exploring until he found the Frent family crest. Yet knowing the insane magical defenses the Frent family had put in place back in Whikoga, he didn't want to just go creeping around the different sections in order to avoid the patrolling guards. Instead, he decided to sit tight and watch the guard patrols to check and see if he couldn't find an opening in their timing.

Knowing this was going to take some time, Asher finally activated his newest artifact he'd picked up earlier that very day, noting how Opal was kind enough to fully charge all of her artifacts before handing them over to her customers. The ring granted the wearer the False Death skill, which would allow them to fake their own death rather convincingly.

However, Asher had another use for it entirely.

False Death (Tier 1) - Take on the characteristics of a corpse.

Asher knew from the lengthy description Opal had written beside the ring that his skin had just turned ashy and pale, and his eyes vacant, but that wasn't what he was after.

No, it was the fact that the ring removed his need to breathe and even stopped his own heart.

Asher sat atop the elevator cap within the astral, grinning at the fact that for the first time ever, he could tell he wasn't wasting energy as he held onto his skill. He was now completely motionless, which meant his muscles weren't crying out in pain, begging him to return to the material realm. Provided he had the shards to feed into the artifact, he could finally stay within the astral realm indefinitely. He was tempted to dismiss the effect of Theorn's signet ring he still had on him and try to use Permanence on the ring instead before something inevitably happened to it, but there was a very strong chance he'd need that signet ring enchantment rather soon, and the sensation of his heart not beating was honestly a little freaky. On top of which, he didn't think making the False Death skill permanent would actually work properly even if he tried.

As useful as False Death was, it did have some limitations. For one, he had to remain almost motionless for the skill to stay in effect. Other than slowly turning his head or making minute adjustments to his body, if he made any sudden movements, the skill would shatter, and the ring would need a minute before he could activate it again. It was only a tier one skill, after all, and it clearly wasn't designed with movement in mind.

Still, for his purposes, it was just what he needed.

Asher sat there in the astral realm atop the elevator for the better part of an hour, calmly watching the guard patrols and mapping out their timings in his head as life carried on around him. It was a slim window, and there was no guarantee another noble wouldn't randomly choose that moment to walk down the path and run into him, but he was pretty certain he now knew how to navigate the first level while avoiding the guards. Ironically, it was solely because of how regimented and organized the guards were that he felt so confident in his ability to outmaneuver them. If any of the guards had been lazy or lagged behind, his entire plan would have been shot from the beginning.

Alright, no sense waiting around, he decided, preparing to begin his search for wherever the Frent family section was. But just as he was getting ready to drop his skill, a distant flutter caught his eye.

Because of the fact he'd been using the setting sun as cover, the elevator he was sitting atop of was relatively close to the open side of the city, which meant he was also close to the portion of the first level dedicated to people flying in and out of the city. While the peasants in the lower levels were forced to climb up to Dormaul and enter the city through the front gates, nobles had access to things such as flying wagons and mounts.

Two or three nobles had taken off during his time spent watching the guards, but for the first time, Asher saw someone coming into the city instead. A lone pegasus, carrying a small but expensive-looking floating wagon behind it that appeared to have been created with a blend of speed and comfort in mind.

While the wagon was unique and interesting, and the pegasus was a majestic sight to behold, it was the rider that had caught Asher's attention.

It would appear Theorn had decided to drop by Dormaul for a visit.

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