[Deceive, Illusion]

  After leaving the gnome colony, I spoke to Ryder before portalling to the estate to get Bimble.

  “Ryder, I’m sorry about this but for the time being, I’m dissolving the guard. Give everyone, including yourself four weeks pay, after this is over maybe we can try again."

  “No thanks Rose, I’m staying. I’m a guard and that’s exactly what I plan to do. Guard. Shouldn’t we go get Bimble.”

  Sigh, “Thank you Ryder but I never expected this to turn into a war.”

  “Rose the rich have been waging war on the poor for time immemorial. Don’t you think it’s about time that we stand up for ourselves.”

  “Yes, I suppose that it is. But if we are going to do it, let's do it differently, first we only consider plans where no one on our side gets hurt, second that we try to disable, disarm their army and not kill.”

  “You are the boss, I’m only a guard.”

  Then we portaled to the estate. I went looking for Ashley. I didn’t see her anywhere so I called out her name a few times. Then started back towards the house. When I saw Ashley approaching from the Harris’s estate. As soon as she came close in her eerily whispery voice she said, “You were looking for me, Rose, ma’am?”

  “Yes, Ashley, I came to apologize and to ask you to inform me when I do something stupid. I never should have set up those noise machines, it was dumb and the next time I interfere with something you are trying to do please let me know alright?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I see you are coming from the estate, have you learned anything further?”

  “No, ma’am, they still expect the army in three days, they expect to win without a fight, they know that the town has no army and they expect the eldest son now in jail to rule. They also plan to have public executions of anyone who opposes their rule.”

  “Do you have any idea how many people are currently on the estate?”

  “Twenty two, ma’am.”

  “Are they all armed with guns, Ashley.”

  “Most ma’am, if you like ma’am I could start taking them out.”

  “No Ashley, we are going to try and kidnap the family tonight, best not to alert them that we are making a move against them. How should we try and sneak onto their land, from the portal here on the estate or from the road or from the estate on the other side?”

  “There are no guards on the other side but the gnomes and I should be able to easily and quietly take down all the guards on the entire property. I believe that would be the quickest, quietest, safest method for them as well as us.”

  “Thank you Ashley, are you in contact with Elmer?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I’ll have him sit in on the strategy meeting tonight before we come for the Harris’s. Will you please meet us at the portal and inform us if anything changes?”

  “Yes ma’am”

  “Will you please call me Rose?”

  “Yes Rose, ma’am.”

  “Thanks Ashley.”

  I went back to the mansion to look for Bimble, I found her chatting with Ryder.

  “Hi Bimble, have you spoken with Elder Glimmerdus?”

  “Yes, ma’am, he said I’m to cooperate with you but under no circumstances am I to allow you to take action on your own.”

  “Well, that was very specific.”

  “Yes it was ma’am”

  “We are going to portal back to the tower, make a plan and later we’ll execute that plan. I want your input on the plan, Ashley just gave me her opinion. I’ll be interested to hear if you concur.”

  Then Ryder, Bimble and myself portaled back to the tower library. Lu was home from the pub so I informed her of the bad news. She wanted to know what the plan was. Then Maz portaled in with the Barrett M107.

  “Rose, I’m all done with this thing, can we take it to Mount Doom?”

  “Maz, I’m sorry, we can’t tonight, we found out today that an army will be here in three days. If you pack your things I’ll take you back to Tregaron, you can take the rifle with you and we’ll go visit Mount Doom another time.”

  “No, I’m not going back to Tregaron, No, Rose, I can help wait till you hear what I learned today.”

  “Thanks Maz, but it’s going to be very dangerous around here, please put the rifle in Draco’s lair, he’s out scouting the army and then you can tell me everything that you learned today.”

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  But just as Maz returned to the library we heard the thud on the roof that announced Draco’s return. So Maz didn’t get to tell me what he discovered until later. We all went to Draco’s lair so that he could tell us what he’d learned.

  “How did it go? Did you find them? How many were there?”

  “Easy there Rose, impatient much? Give me a second. Yes, it went fine. I found them and Woody is correct. They are about three days away. I destroyed one of their two wagons. But then because I was invisible in the midst of them they started shooting each other, trying to get me. So according to Rose’s mandate of not harming anyone, I left the other wagon alone and flew back. Tomorrow, I’ll try dropping rocks on it, but I’d never hit it in the dark. Hopefully losing that one wagon will slow them down.”

  “Hello, hello, Rose.”

  “Dogberry, come on down, Draco just got back and is telling us about the army.”

  Dogberry was quickly brought up to speed.

  “Draco, you never said how many there were.”

  “I’m pretty sure there are about three hundred of them. Almost all of them are armed.”

  “Alright but I had a thought. What if we go out there and give them some dwarven ale, claim it’s a gift, I could check with the alchemist or Lottie, spike it with something then I could portal them off world.”

  Maz said “Rose, ask Lottie but a drug that’s used for sedation dissolved in dwarven ale. Should put someone out for hours.”

  Dogberry said, “Instead of claiming it’s a gift, drive a wagon out, take a wheel off, make it look abandoned then when the army discovers it’s beer, they just steal it. It doesn’t put anyone at risk and is more believable than a gift from the notoriously cheap Harris’s.”

  “Alright, but that is for tomorrow, we’re here to talk about the kidnapping of the Harris’s. Ashley feels that she and the gnomes could easily capture all the guards that are outside the house. Bimble, do you agree with that, you could do it without killing on either side?”

  “Yes, we could easily do it, no one will be permanently hurt.”

  “Draco could you cast invisibility on Lu and I, after the guards are neutralized, Lu and I will sneak in and all I need to do is touch them and portal them to one of my worlds, their weapons will be useless, there.”

  “Yes I can cast invisibility on you but you need to crawl, if they are using a projectile weapon they will shoot for chest height if they hear you unless you knock against something on the floor.”

  “If they start to shoot, I’ll knock them unconscious, bullets can’t kill me, I won’t let them hurt Rose.” Lu said.

  “Any questions, objections or suggestions about tonight’s plan.”

  No one said anything so Draco cast invisibility on Lu and myself then Dogberry, Bimble, Lu and I portaled to our estate. Ashley was waiting as promised. Bimble called in the rest of her team, explained what we hoped to accomplish then the gnomes spread out in a long line. Then with a quiet cricket chirp that spread up and down the line of gnomes they began to move forward.

  It was very dark so I didn’t see a lot of the ambush, but the gnome on the line to my left. Darted forward so fast, I doubt the thug would have had a chance in broad daylight. I heard the low zap sound as the thug hit the ground. I watched as the gnome easily flipped the unconscious thug onto his stomach and bound his hands, before gagging him.

  We made it to the house and no alarm at all had been raised. The door was locked but Lu just twisted it and it broke. It made a sharp crack sound but we froze and listened, waiting to see if anyone came to investigate. After a tense minute we entered the house. We could hear voices in conversation deeper into the house. We should have waited for them to go to sleep, but I think Lu was as anxious as I was to get this over with.

  So as quickly and quietly as we could we moved deeper into the house. I heard a knife scrape a plate. They must be having their supper. I hadn’t had a private moment to ask Lu about her declaration that she couldn’t be harmed by bullets. I hope she knew this through experience, not just from werewolf lore. She’d said she couldn’t be killed by bullets, but she is still flesh and blood so bullets must hurt something fierce even if they can’t kill her.

  We crept down a long-shadowy corridor. But from an open doorway on the right, I could see a brightly lit room. An ancient woman sat at the head of the table, a middle aged woman sat to her right. A middle aged man sat at the opposite end of the table. I whispered to Lu to get the man. I crept up to where I could put a hand on both of the women. Grabbed them and jumped to Hilltop, deposited them both in the pit trap.

  Then I jumped back, the man was standing, I couldn’t see Lu, but she must be standing behind him because he was bent back with his feet off of the floor. I touched them both and jumped us to Hilltop right on the edge of the pit trap.

  “You can let him go, Lu, how many other people in the house?”

  “Go to hell witch.”

  “I don’t believe in it.” Then I floated him two thousand feet into the air, I floated up the middle aged woman and asked her.

  “How many more people were in the house?”

  After a minute of no replies, I floated her to two thousand feet but far enough away from the man so that they couldn’t speak without shouting. I floated up the granny, but I expected her to be the toughest of the bunch.

  “Who else is in the house, granny?”

  She wouldn’t say a word. So I jumped back to get Dogberry and have Bimble and some of her gnomes search the house, I didn’t want any of them to get away. I also asked Ashley to do a thorough search of the grounds to make sure that we hadn’t missed any one.

  “Dogberry, I don’t think we’ll get them to talk, let alone order their army back. But I may have to do some bluffing, but I won’t permanently hurt any of them, in fact it’s really just an illusion.”

  “The itching, like you did to the thug.”

  “Yes exactly, he cracked in a few hours. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  I jumped us to Hilltop. The man began to itch. I could see him flailing his arms I paralyzed him from the neck down, he still felt the itching but now he couldn’t scratch, I did the same thing to the middle aged woman. She began cursing me right away.

  I turned to the granny. “How do we turn your army back?”

  “You can’t, they are bought and paid for, you destroyed our family, now we will destroy your town.”

  “What about your grandsons don’t you care what happens to them?”

  “Sure, they’re safely locked up. Once the army takes the town, my grandsons will be the new rulers.”

  “No, I don’t think that they will. Granny.”