made it stop working.
The warding spell was still taking in juice from three of the four points, so it didnât go down. But the loss of one ofthe graffiti nodes was enough to weaken it at the point of failure. I spun my levitation spell and floated over the fence, punched through the compromised barrier with a little juice and landed inside.
I crept up to the building, being careful to keep as much distance as possible between me and the gangbanger on guard duty. I dodged a roaming patrol and approached the wall of the building, angling for a side door that didnât look like it saw a lot of traffic. I peered at the door with my witch sight and saw that it, too, was warded. The protective spells were being fed by the tags laid down on the brick walls around the door, and I used the same chaos magic Iâd used on the perimeter ward to defeat them. I waited until another patrol went by, then I spun my B&E spell, opened the door and slipped inside.
Whatever the factory had manufactured at one time, all of the machinery had been torn out and removed. What was left was essentially one huge, high-ceilinged space the size of a modest airplane hangar. There were another dozen or so gangbangers inside, but most of them were lounging on cots that had been lined up along the walls, or sitting at folding tables eating, playing cards and generally wasting time. Whatever this place was, it seemed Papa Danweâs boys planned to stay a while.
When Iâd first seen the antenna outside, I assumed it was just fixed to the roof of the building. Now, I saw that it was actually anchored to the floor in the middle of the factory. It extended up through a crude hole that had been cut in the roof.
The tower rose from the exact center of a metallic ring about fifty feet in diameter that had been set into the concrete floor. I used my witch sight and followed the flow of juicefrom the graffiti network into the ring. The magic surged around the ring like some arcane particle accelerator.
I moved farther into the building to the edge of the ring. I knelt down and examined it more closely. Silver metal glinted in the light from the overhead industrial fixtures. The ring was about two feet wide. I couldnât tell how far down into the concrete it went. For all I knew, I could have been looking at the top edge of a cylinder that extended all the way down to the ley line deep below the surface.
Whatever its actual dimensions, a lot of juice was flowing through the ring. I reached out for the juice, and I could sense that it was fed both by the graffiti network and the ley line. There was more juice coursing through the ring than Iâd ever seen in one place, and I couldnât reach any of it. It was completely contained within Papa Danweâs ring, and I didnât have the access codes.
The tower was obviously meant to draw power from the ring, but I couldnât see any mechanism for it. There were no lines or spokes connecting the two. I got a mental image of raw magic arcing from the ring through the air and into the tower, like an arcane Tesla machine. Whether this was some uncommon design insight or overwrought imagination, I couldnât tell.
I decided I needed to get a closer look at the tower. This was tricky, because there were four gangbangers clustered around its base, standing guard. I crept close, willing myself to remain silent and unseen.
When I was still about twenty feet away, my right foot broke a concealed warding circle surrounding the tower. I hadnât felt it as I approached. I hadnât spotted it with my witch sight, and I should have been able to. Maybe I was dazzledby the magic show created by all the juice flowing through the silver ring.
The instant I broke the ward I was hit with a true seeing spell that dropped my wallflower, and an alarm bell began to sound. It tolled like Notre Dame at noon on Sunday.
I froze in place, looking about as stupid as a cartoon character who just
The warding spell was still taking in juice from three of the four points, so it didnât go down. But the loss of one ofthe graffiti nodes was enough to weaken it at the point of failure. I spun my levitation spell and floated over the fence, punched through the compromised barrier with a little juice and landed inside.
I crept up to the building, being careful to keep as much distance as possible between me and the gangbanger on guard duty. I dodged a roaming patrol and approached the wall of the building, angling for a side door that didnât look like it saw a lot of traffic. I peered at the door with my witch sight and saw that it, too, was warded. The protective spells were being fed by the tags laid down on the brick walls around the door, and I used the same chaos magic Iâd used on the perimeter ward to defeat them. I waited until another patrol went by, then I spun my B&E spell, opened the door and slipped inside.
Whatever the factory had manufactured at one time, all of the machinery had been torn out and removed. What was left was essentially one huge, high-ceilinged space the size of a modest airplane hangar. There were another dozen or so gangbangers inside, but most of them were lounging on cots that had been lined up along the walls, or sitting at folding tables eating, playing cards and generally wasting time. Whatever this place was, it seemed Papa Danweâs boys planned to stay a while.
When Iâd first seen the antenna outside, I assumed it was just fixed to the roof of the building. Now, I saw that it was actually anchored to the floor in the middle of the factory. It extended up through a crude hole that had been cut in the roof.
The tower rose from the exact center of a metallic ring about fifty feet in diameter that had been set into the concrete floor. I used my witch sight and followed the flow of juicefrom the graffiti network into the ring. The magic surged around the ring like some arcane particle accelerator.
I moved farther into the building to the edge of the ring. I knelt down and examined it more closely. Silver metal glinted in the light from the overhead industrial fixtures. The ring was about two feet wide. I couldnât tell how far down into the concrete it went. For all I knew, I could have been looking at the top edge of a cylinder that extended all the way down to the ley line deep below the surface.
Whatever its actual dimensions, a lot of juice was flowing through the ring. I reached out for the juice, and I could sense that it was fed both by the graffiti network and the ley line. There was more juice coursing through the ring than Iâd ever seen in one place, and I couldnât reach any of it. It was completely contained within Papa Danweâs ring, and I didnât have the access codes.
The tower was obviously meant to draw power from the ring, but I couldnât see any mechanism for it. There were no lines or spokes connecting the two. I got a mental image of raw magic arcing from the ring through the air and into the tower, like an arcane Tesla machine. Whether this was some uncommon design insight or overwrought imagination, I couldnât tell.
I decided I needed to get a closer look at the tower. This was tricky, because there were four gangbangers clustered around its base, standing guard. I crept close, willing myself to remain silent and unseen.
When I was still about twenty feet away, my right foot broke a concealed warding circle surrounding the tower. I hadnât felt it as I approached. I hadnât spotted it with my witch sight, and I should have been able to. Maybe I was dazzledby the magic show created by all the juice flowing through the silver ring.
The instant I broke the ward I was hit with a true seeing spell that dropped my wallflower, and an alarm bell began to sound. It tolled like Notre Dame at noon on Sunday.
I froze in place, looking about as stupid as a cartoon character who just
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