The stone used in building the keep is the exact same stone that they have used to build the guard house. While the material is very durable, (I don't think that I will be able to break it unless I channel my vital mana.), it is also very uncomfortable.

  My temporary pillow and bed are not helping at all made from rolling all the clothes present in the room. Right now, we are in some kind of a storage room. They have been stuffed full of clothes, uniforms of some kind. I think they are ceremonial clothing for the guards. That would explain why they are so uncomfortable to sleep on. They also look equally uncomfortable to wear.

  We have been making full use of the clothes, especially the troop. Jacob and Andrew have been using these clothes to make a temporary tent, which is where we all are sleeping. It was fascinating watching them work on the tent. They literally tore through the clothes, stitching and rearranging to create the tent.

  As for how I have ended up in my present situation, almost completely paralysed. I blame my underlings. I warned the bastards to be ready for a quick entry. They managed to get through the holes pretty quickly but the damn bastards had forgotten all of our food supplies on the other side of the barrier.

  I had to open the hole in the barrier in quick succession to get everything here. I barely allowed my mana core to stabilize before pushing it all out again to create another hole. By the time the hole closed this time, Andrew ended up stuck on the other side of the barrier. By the time I made a hole in the barrier for the third time I lost consciousness and found myself in my present position, barely able to move.

  That is literally three weeks worth of food, without which things would get very dangerous very quickly. I wonder how exactly did the two men forgot the food supplies. It is heavy enough that even us mages are struggling to carry it.

  I am partly to blame here. I expected the vampires to knock on the door any second so I was trying to rush through it. Well, pushing out all your mana in a burst like thtcis something you are not supposed to do, especially if you are channeling it out of your body. I think it is called as mana burnout and it is supposed to really strain your mana core.

  Men have survived worse burnout. The only thing that I need to worry about if I have left any lasting damage here. Even that is not something to worry about It is only possible to leave lasting damage on your mana core if you were to push it ten to twenty times back to back. The only reason that I am so worried about it is due to the fact that if I were to get injured, healing it is going to be a pain in the butt.

  There is only one way to deal with damaged mana cores. That is either spend years on looking for something that will be able to fix such damage. Such treasures must be capable of healing the soul, which is very hard to find.

  The only reason that I am thinking so much about it is because I have nothing else to do. I mean I don't even know why I am worrying about it so much. The chance of my soul getting damaged from this is about as likely as a meteor hitting my head.

  Well, now that I have complained about my present situation, I should record what the other people in the troop are doing.

  All three of them are right now focused on mapping out the place. They have made this room we are in as their base and they have been slowly and steadily making their way into the fort and mapping out everything.

  Now that must sound ironic. Mapping out places is always one of the goals of the hexmountain, especially of our enemies. After all, it would certainly make your life easier if you could have knowledge about the enemies layout. It would certainly make a guards life very easy.

  The mayfires are considered to be our allies, so the scholars are put under way more restrictions. That includes mapping their home base. Even now the only reason that we are allowed to map the place is that it is a emergency.

  Basically, all of this is politics. We can discuss about that later as well. right now we do not have a working map of the place. Refer to trevors log, he is the one that is doing the mapping.

  Other than that, Andrew and Jacob are cultivating. overall it has been pretty uneventful, which is also due to me. We can't do anything seriously until I actually get better. Even the troop have been playing it very safe. They have only explored about three rooms up till now.

  To give a review of their search, we assume that we are some kind of storage area. One of the rooms contains bedsheets, while the remaining two contains various types of items for eating and cooking food. We can try and go beyond but that is quite a bit risky.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  There are many threats that they need to face after all and they will need me for them. The first threat is most simply put the defensive formations of this place.

  Right now I have no idea if the formations are under the control of the mayfires or the vampires. Right now they could be under the control of either side.

  The defensive formations are usually built to be modular in nature, with each region having a separate control. While this does make it easier to take over a region of the fort, it also makes it worth less. If all of these controls were put in one place, then taking over that place would mean taking over the fort.

  Doing things this way means that you have to visit and attack each part of the fort, to be able to take it over. This gives most of the advantages to the party that makes this place their home.

  The defensive formations will be a mixture of alarms, traps and barriers which would make travelling very annoying if we are in the vampire part of the keep. After all, we if we end up setting off any of the traps then we have to deal with the vampires that it will alert as well.

  Dealing with traps in a fort is always one of the more uncomfortable part of the experience. People seem to have a misconception that traps are only meant for tombs. While they are certainly deadly in tombs (most adventurers die due to traps, rather than anything else.) they are even more deadly in places like this.

  after all, with a tomb, most of the traps have been spending centuries without use. In a fort, they can be maintained and upgraded every few years. That increases their deadliness to the next level.

  Right now that is the main thing that is keeping us held back. If I could move, I would have been able to disable the traps or at least set them of in such a way that nobody would know that we are here. That way, we would have begun our search for the mayfires.

  Other than that, we absolutely don't want to meet the bloodfire gang and the vampires. I especially don't want to meet the vampires. There is the leader of the bloodfire gang and his two captains, who are somebody that I don't want to meet.

  Matthew might be an exception in the way that he played around with me. The man could have easily killed me if he had taken me seriously. Right now the issue is how exactly am I supposed to fight them.

  I can not use my sword against them, that much is clear. I have fought against vampires before so I have a set of other formations at hand ready for that eventually. My master destroyed all of those.

  Also, I don't know how to fight against somebody like matthew. The man literally made me pause like a statue. How the fuck do you counter something like that. I mean, I know that higher vampires are supposed to be able to do that, but I did not expect that they would be able to do so through a possessed body. The most annoying thing I want to know about is how did that man manage to activate my sword when I had it deactivated.

  Right now my hope is that we will find the mayfires before we meet the bloodfire gang. That would be the best case scenario. Once that happens I can just leave all of the fighting to the mayfires and focus on what I am doing. Well, I have spoken about the bloodfire gang for long enough. Any more and I will just work myself into a panic.

  I also cannot forget about the mayfires. the mayfires are right now in a combat mode. They expect to be attacked any second. We can't predict how exactly they will react with a person from the black mountain coming here.

  I mean, we have methods of proving our identity but that would require that the mayfire to not attack us at first sight. Knowing them there is more than a little chance that the other side might attack us on first sight.

  My sword will not be helping with that, I assure you. It looks too much like a vampire artifact. Right now the hope is that things don't actually end up in actual fighting.

  If it comes down to it, the mayfire are not easy enemies at all. Their fire magic is very fascinating in the first place.

  they are able to conjure projections of fire, so life like that they seem to be actual creatures. They can conjure tigers, birds, wolves and even bulls from their flames. I have never got to work with

  The scholars have confirmed that is not the case to us. They are a type of soul projection, is our best guess. Now how exactly am I supposed to explain soul projection. Yeah, you can consider them similar to possession. Only in case of possession the soul forces itself into a loving body. The body has to be alive or at least recently dead.

  Any soul that existed in the body is obliterated and the new soul takes over. Soul projection is gentle compared to that. In this case a part of your soul is put into something that does not have any soul.

  For example, with he mayfires it would be their flames. Another example of this can be found among the druids. The bark warriors of the black forest area another example of soul projection. It is a more temporary and certainly safer method compared to possession.

  These projections move as if they are creatures of fire themselves and that makes them terrifying. Think of a flame that could enter into your wounds and burn your body from the inside out. You would have to always be on guard, to make sure that even slightest of flame does not stick to you.

  That is what fighting the mayfires will be like. The only reason that I prefer to fight the mayfires over the vampires is the simple fact that I can at least use my sword with the mayfires if things go bad.

  The chances of that happening are actually pretty little but one should be ready for anything. The mayfires have been under attack for a while now. Nobody will be able to predict their actions.

  Now that I think about it, we might have just left the frying pan to enter into the fire.