Vol. 3 Chap. 27 Brains Are Overrated

Vol. 3 Chap. 27 Brains Are Overrated

I have been using my brain too much.

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No, I mean, thank you for being less of an asshole, but no, I mean, I need to be more direct. I have stirred the pot here and there, but it’s time to add more serious teeth to the threat my imaginary mastermind presents. Stop moving pieces around; start taking them off the board. Draw out bigger hitters from Starbrite rather than getting Level One and Two rookies moved around.

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The Four Seas Bank has a regional branch here- I’m thinking of a smash and grab again, but this time making a point of targeting the high-level managers and security. Also targeting any bank records we can reach, popping open the vault if we can, the whole bit.

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Yeah, I’m going to cheat. Most of what we want is chaos and killing. So, having just spent some quality time in Siphios...

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Yup. Also, while I want to shoot for as much success as possible, I’m planning for failure.

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I know.

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Truth struggled to activate the scales portion of Incisive. It was a little hurtful that, apparently, it was a stretch to think he might be a senior manager from out of town on an inspection visit. Which okay, he was young, but come on! Was it more believable that he was the ruthless heir to some ancient hidden family than a goddamn white-collar prick from the internal audit team?

The glittering span snapped into life. It was an evacuation route- couldn’t have it deploy slowly. The talismans had their own stored supply of cosmic energy, enough to deploy the bridge and keep it up for a few minutes. Naturally, this was insufficient to evacuate a whole floor, so there was backup- triple redundant power supply channels running through some very sophisticated networks in the armored core of the bank. All of that, talisman, power, backups, the bridge itself, all of it, overseen by the security control room.

Truth waited until they were well over the wide street in front of the bank. Orderly strolling to the other building, where they would be met with coffee and answers. Chatting lightly with their peers or casually ignoring their lessers. The bridge wasn’t some custom creation. These bridges were used for pedestrian access all over. Any sane magical engineer would put in safeties, multiple redundant safeties, to ensure that power could never be discontinued while it was bearing a load. But this bridge was made by Starbrite and installed by Starbrite, and the commercial security division was very clear on what they needed to protect.

Truth tapped a button. There was a momentary silence. A few desperate, useless flashes of charms or spells. A brief shower of suits soaked the evacuating serfs below. Then it was over.

Truth found the file room security monitor and disabled the fire suppression systems. He disabled as much security around the vault as he could, but even the security center was limited in what it could do there.

Truth left the security room at a dead sprint, heading for the record office. Rows upon rows of steel file cabinets and banks upon banks of bound spirits. All the records of loans given and deposits taken. Stored contracts. Charters. Truth smiled nastily and called the Tongue to hand. He sprinted along the rows of cabinets, slicing them open like a knife scraping the head off a beer. The banks of bound spirits fared even worse, the blessing of the Sea of Brass compounding the power of the angelic blade. They were simply annihilated. Expunged from existence. Whatever wisdom and secrets they held were lost forever. He looped back towards the door, this time slicing lower. Having turned the room into a charnel house of paper, he tossed a couple of incendiary charms and left.

The vault was next. It sealed automatically in the event of a power cut, naturally. And... it was still sealed, despite his efforts from the control room. He tried to find an override but couldn’t. Nearly a meter thick and three meters tall, made of enchanted steel, it wasn’t moving. Nor could he use his usual trick of going through the wall next to the door- it was Starbrite PMC that taught him the trick in the first place. The whole thing was a steel box. He went to the backup- stacking as many cutting talismans as he could in one place and tried to drill through the locking mechanism.

This did not work.

It... very did not work.

Truth watched the vault door just absorb the energy and begin pulsing. Steel pooling like quicksilver under it, growing in size. Legs starting to form, already rising to a waist in a spare second. A liquid steel golem, three meters of pure slaughter. He had never seen one deployed. The energy and material cost was atrocious. You would only use them to defend a fixed position like a... bank vault.

It was just slightly possible that he had gotten a mite arrogant.

The steel giant’s hand turned into a long saber. Burning orange eyes opened in the mirror flat face. No need for a mouth. There was nothing to say, after all. The saber whipped down blindingly fast. Incisive screamed, and Truth listened, bolting backward. Chips of the polished marble floor exploded upwards, tearing open the heavy work clothes. The saber was rising before the stone flakes could bounce off Truth’s skin. Burning orange eyes fixed on him. No doubt, he was spotted.

Truth moved to attack, using his sword to push the saber past him as it came in, and then slicing down. Angelic steel screeched on the refined metal of mortals, leaving a long gash behind it. A gash that filled an eyeblink later. Truth swore and took distance.

“Thrush, now!”