Harold nudged me, “What do you see?”
I glared at him, “I see a lot more when I’m left undisturbed. Let me finish.” Closing my eyes again I resumed my search of the caves. I had already discovered that the main tunnel went back for over a hundred yards, and it was mostly straight from that point. I had difficulty locating the shiggreth along the way, but I could tell that there were quite a few about fifty yards back. They were standing next to some wooden contraptions that looked suspiciously like…
“Ballistae!” I exclaimed.
“They are called ‘onagers’ your Lordship,” Harold corrected me, thinking I was referring to the Duke’s catapults.
Harold really got on my nerves sometimes, though he did mean well. “I know that, I’m talking about in the caves.”
“What?”
Walter nodded in agreement, “You’re right. The shiggreth have ballistae back there. It looks like they are ready to give anyone that enters a greeting with four foot of wood and steel.”
I was surprised for a moment. I had never had another wizard around before, but it was nice to have someone else that could share my unique perspective. “I count two of them,” I replied.
“I agree,” said Walter, “and at least twenty of them hiding in the recesses behind the ballistae.”
I could tell there were quite a few back there, but I wasn’t quite sure how many there were. It surprised me that he seemed to be able to pick them out more easily. “How far away can you see things with your magesight?” I asked him.
He glanced at me in surprise but he answered readily, “About six hundred yards or so.”
That was significantly less than my own range, and yet he was able to perceive the shiggreth more easily. “Interesting,” I replied. “I can see further than that, but I can’t pick them out well enough to count them in there.”
He laughed easily, “It’s probably because I’m a Prathion. We’re known for being a little different than the other families.”
“How so?” I asked.
“Well you have already seen me use my invisibility,” he answered. “Or rather you have ‘not’ seen me while using it.”
“I was planning to get you to teach me that,” I said.
He shook his head negatively, “I can try, but the odds are you won’t be able to manage it. Very few wizards have been able to do it outside of the Prathion family.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, the Prathions were famous for their ability to pass unseen, or so I was taught. It’s kind of like how the Illeniels were known for their devilish enchanting skills,” he explained, “that and their freakish strength.”
His off-hand comments were providing me with a window onto a world of lore and common knowledge I had never been fortunate enough to witness. Not for the first time I lamented the fact that I had never known my birth father. I pushed those thoughts aside and returned to the present. “How does your ability to become invisible relate to sensing the shiggreth?”
“Their magic drain ability renders them essentially ‘black’ to mage-sight, if you think of magic as a sort of ‘color’. My invisibility is different in that it redirects light, and sometimes even magic around me but still I can relate to what they are doing. I suppose I could use my ability to emulate what they are doing, or at least how they appear,” he replied.
I was enthralled by his idea. “Show me,” I said.
“Alright,” he said. “Here, this is what I look like when I become invisible.” His visible form vanished but I could still ‘see’ him in my magesight.
“Shit!” Harold exclaimed. “Warn a fellow before you do that!” I had to laugh at Harold’s discomfiture.
Walter’s disembodied voice answered, “We’ve been talking about it all this time. I thought you expected it.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I told him, “please continue.”
“This is what it looks like when I become invisible to magesight,” he added and his body vanished even to my arcane vision.
“That is why I could not find you when you were spying on me at my home. Why don’t you use it all the time?” I asked.
“Because I am currently blind,” he said. “When I am invisible I cannot see, but I can still use my magesight. When I do this I can no longer see in any capacity. I am left stumbling along in the darkness with only my sense of touch and my hearing to guide me.”
“Can you become visible but remain unseen to magesight?” I queried him.
He paused for a moment. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “I never thought to try that. I haven’t ever really had a reason to do that before.”
“Try,” I said. A moment later his body reappeared but I still couldn’t sense him with my magical vision. “I think you have it right,” I told him. “I wonder if they would think you were one of them like that.”
He shook his head negatively, “Of course not, this isn’t what they look like. It would be more like this.”
He did something and I could sense a change. I could still see him with my eyes but he registered differently to my magical senses. He had become more like them, a place that wasn’t there, before he hadn’t created an empty space. Now he was like a void. “You’re right, but I don’t understand why.”
He released his spell. “Look at me with your eyes and I’ll show you why.”
I did and nodded at him.
“Ok this is what a normal person looks like,” he said, remaining perfectly visible. “Now pretend that visible light is magic, and you are seeing me with your magesight. This is what the shiggreth look like,” his face and body turned black.
It wasn’t the normal sort of black you might encounter if someone used some dark paint. He was utterly black. No light reflected from him at all. It was as if a man shaped hole was standing before me.
“That’s what the shiggreth look like to magesight,” he explained. “Now this is invisibility.” He vanished and now I could see objects behind him.
“I think I understand now,” I said slowly. “When you are invisible it’s like you are transparent. But the shiggreth aren’t like that, magic doesn’t pass through them, it’s all absorbed.”
“Exactly,” he agreed.
I looked over the enemy again and now that I understood better what I was seeing with my magesight it was easier to pick them out. It still wasn’t easy to count them but I figured I could manage it. Harold broke my concentration with a nudge.
“Excuse me. I know all of this is very interesting but how are we going to get past the ballistae?” he asked and then remembered belatedly to add, “your Lordship.”
I smiled at him, “You can handle it for us.”
“Pardon?”
“There’s only twenty or so guarding the entrance. I’ve been wanting to see how you fight with the new earth bond and that armor I made for you,” I elaborated.
He gaped at me, “Two wizards and fifty men at arms here and you want me to go alone?”
“Be honest,” I said, “Do you really think twenty of them will be a problem for you? I saw you fighting more than that last night.” Appeal to his ego first, I thought to myself.
He sighed in exasperation, “Twenty I can probably handle without issue, but they have two ballistae in there!” His voice rose in pitch as he reached the end of the sentence.
I gave him a look that clearly expressed my doubts about his manhood. “I made that armor you’re wearing, if I thought something as simple as a ballista could pierce it I’d never ask you to go.”
“Surely you jest,” he said, staring at me in disbelief.
I ignored him and walked back toward the men, “Someone give me a crossbow.” As luck would have it none of them were armed with one, the soldier I asked said something about them not being effective against the undead. Instead he ran off to find one in the supply wagons. Several minutes later he returned with a deadly looking weapon with a steel bow. “Load the bolt and cock it for me if you would,” I told him and he did so. Once the bolt was loaded and cocked I gave the command, “Now I’d like you to point it at Sir Harold here and shoot him.”