As soon as I appeared in the stone corridor I noticed the trip wires I had been warned of. Since they were thin as spider silk, usually they were easy to miss, but this case was a bit different. The whole stairwell appeared as if a band of happy spiders had moved in and colonized the place.

  Was my information out of date or had I been lied to? Perhaps my belief that there would only be a few well-placed ones and, not this hallway filled with them was the mistake. Or, maybe, Davis just remodeled to add extra security when he put his financial records here?

  A chill ran down my spine. Did this mean I had prepared the wrong items? Fuck. My hands shook so I clenched them into fists.

  To calm down, I breathed in and out repetitively. Everything I've worked towards for the past few days was within my reach; I couldn't let it end here without giving it a shot. I’d just have to make my items work for whatever situations I might happen upon.

  I took out one of my Ghostly Bombs. I threw it at my feet, waited just long enough for the insubstantial part to kick in, then I hurried down the stairs, only stopping when I reached the center of the landing.

  To my right, something sucked in a deep breath. I turned, eyes going wide.

  A woman, pale and translucent, appeared on the next flight of stairs that I’d have to travel down. Her clothes floated around her, part of them even passing through the thick walls. Her glowing red eyes peered at me with seething hatred.

  Where the hell did the Crimsondahlia clan find a level 7-15 Banshee to make a contract with?

  Working fast, and knowing what was coming, I pulled out my instrument and played note after note. The Banshee opened her mouth wide to scream but I was already using sound manipulation. Screams could be part of music, so why not a Banshee scream?

  I played my little song and wrapped the scream in soundwaves, pulling it, and pushing it, so that it stayed still, instead of bursting forth and alerting everything.

  Seeing that her sound attack failed, the ghost began flying up the stairs.

  Shit! Wait. Ghosts were undead. Hadn’t I received a gift a while ago and had prepared to use it against the zombie panthers?

  With not much time remaining, I pulled out a scroll and used it immediately.

  The scroll turned bright. The Banshee’s eyes focused on it and the creature sped up. Her nails turned into sharp black needles. They reached for me, stinking of tar and rot.

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  The scroll still hadn’t finished casting.

  Fear crawled down my spine. I jumped back, hitting the wall.

  Seeing me trapped, the banshee grinned. Suddenly, the room flashed bright, blinding.

  When my vision cleared the banshee had vanished. As a whole, those creatures were terrifying and rare. Just what bog did the Crimsondahlia’s discover to find one of these things? And hopefully, it would respawn before Davis wandered back down here. If not, then he’d be sure to know someone had come.

  I spent an extra minute just letting my heart calm down. Then a jolt of fear ran down my spine as I realized that I had only one of those scrolls and it was already spent. If my luck was bad and the zombie panther pair lurked somewhere down there, I just might be fucked.

  Well, my only option was to prepare what I had for the next portion of the heist. Hopefully, it worked just as well on undead as I’d heard it would for golems.

  The first step was to take out the Boots of Air Skating and equip them. This was to prevent any floor-based traps or detections from activating.

  My feet floated a few inches above the ground and I glided forward then adjusted my weight and the position of my feet to glide backward. I stopped myself before I hit the wall. All of this, I did to accustom myself to wearing these again.

  Next, one of the most costly magic items I had, purchased at a whole 45,000 PMk. And it wasn’t even the item I’d been attempting to attain, which was a Ring of Obfuscation.

  When I took off the Night to Day Ring the stairwell darkened drastically, aside from a small bit of light that made its way from the foggy area downstairs.

  I equipped my new ring.

  The only way to maximize this item’s effect and not be noticed would be to cross this area of the hallway as quickly as possible while hoping that the guard creatures hadn’t changed too much from what was expected. Fortunately, The Boots of Air Skating were very fast when used properly, just a little troublesome to use since they worked close to the same way ice skates worked. But this also meant that I’d need to build up speed before I even reached the foggy hallway down there.

  Knowing how places like this were designed, the back wall was likely 5-6 feet away from the end of the stairwell; so I steeled myself for what would happen next and prepared to avoid the wall.

  I leaned forward and slowly moved to the edge of the landing. This next part was going to be two parts fun and one part painful, but I was used to pain at this point.

  I skated forward. Gritting my teeth, I angled my feet to hit only the edge of each step, using the stairs as a complicated ramp. With each step, and as my speed continued to increase, I had to adjust the position of my feet. This worked fine until I reached three-fourths of the way down the stairwell. Knowing I couldn’t continue this, I jumped the last several steps and landed a few feet into the hallway.

  The thick fog nearly blinded me but I didn’t panic. Using all of my dexterity and strength, which wasn’t much, I forced myself to turn. The wall, I could now see, closed in fast.

  Shit! I’d miscalculated!