60
I rolled my shoulders, and waited for Sekka to pass where I was standing. Following along as he did. The rest of the afternoon was boring. We set up camp when night fell. Balock would be the only one staying at the camp tonight so I built a defense array around the camp.
It didn't take long for me to do since I used the same runic stones each time. I didn't like these runic stones because I needed a week to charge them to use them again if I didn't want to use my own mana to charge them. A passive mana charge that slow was more then a little irritating, but it was the best I could do with my limited knowledge of arrays. It was the strongest array I could make that didn't require my magic to fuel it. I shrugged off the irritation, and finished setting up the array.
The array would hold for the rest of the night. The array had two functions. One of them hid Balock's presence. The other shielded him. Unless something particularly powerful found him he would be perfectly safe.
In the event that the barrier failed I would know immediately. I'd left my mark on him. I would know when his protection failed. Leaving him behind was risky, but luckily he wouldn't be with us for long so the risk would be limited. We dived deeper into the underbrush before opening a portal, and teleporting to the very first city we crossed through.
The particular city didn't have a barrier like the larger ones did so it was easy to teleport straight into the city. We were already all dressed, and ready to go. It didn't take long to find the slave housing or the noble households. I remembered the layout of the town pretty well from the last time I'd scouted it out. I stood on the roof of a nearby building completely shrouded in shadows.
Sekka had already parted from me. He was prowling through the shadows beneath me. His job in this was to get the slaves out. My job was to kill anyone that got in the way. I followed his plan simply because less death meant the elves would take more time to pursue us.
Trying to avoid killing was the reason it took me so long to collect slaves in the first place. I wasn't avoiding it anymore. I created a dozen poison filled ice arrows to shoot at my targets. The large ice arrows weren't easy to conceal so the elves would notice the shaft of the arrows sticking out of their allies. These particular arrows were filled to the brim with the same paralytic toxin I'd used to disable the dwarf.
Just in a much higher dosage. This would take effect right away, and it would last. They'd be completely out of it for a week. Completely aware, and unable to do a damn thing about it. Even with the damage to their body healed they wouldn't recover.
Not unless the poison was removed. The elves didn't appear to have much experience with organic poisons. There were entire books dedicated to mana poisoning, and it's various effects. They even appeared to be familiar with elemental versions of poisons. Mostly darkness from what I could tell.
The variety of magical, and non magical poisons I'd come into contact with were numerous. From toxins that simply caused you irritation to poisons that flat out ate you from the inside out. The simple pain causing toxin to the one that could rend your flesh. Even some that could turn you into something else entirely by ripping you apart from the inside. Some from plants.
Some from animals. Some from insects, and fish. Even a few from creatures I couldn't describe using words. Even a few man made ones that didn't exist in nature. A psychotic smile split my face even though the mask I was wearing covered it.
My coat moved slightly as the night winds brushed by me. I moved like a dark protector. Brushing over the rooftops silently. Any elf that appeared to take notice of the shift in the shadows was pierced by a near invisible ice arrow. The liquid center being drove into his body.
It was easy for me to keep pace with him. Even easier for me to thicken the shadows he used to hide himself even further. Helping him to hide in the shadows without using all of his mana in the process. I followed him patiently from the rooftops. Scanning through the escape route he was likely to use once he had the slaves.
He was probably going to run into some trouble on his way out. I parted from him to go take care of that trouble. Dropping down to street level as I tracked all the elves that would overlap his way out. I moved through the shadows swiftly. Dragging my enemies into the shadows with me.
Sinking my teeth in before tossing them back out of the shadows. My canines still worked as the best delivery system for my various toxins. The bite would look halfway between human, and beast. Injecting high dosages of venom into them, and leaving them completely unable to defend themselves. It was an effective way for me to put them down, and keep them down.
None of them saw me grab them, and even if they did see me afterward my mask was back in place. I returned to the roof once the path was clear. The rooftops were a quicker route to get back to Sekka. I kept a mental eye on all the elves I'd knocked down. I didn't want them discovered just yet.
It was fairly easy for me to pull the shadows closer to them even with the distance between us. It wasn't that complicated. If I'd wanted to solidify the shadows or something similar to that then the mana cost would skyrocket. I started to hear Sekka's voice as I made my way into the room where the slaves were stored. This kind of cheap storage was communal.