POV Rio
I look down on the bloody mess that Manfred became.
"Look at what you made me do," I say while going to wash my hands.
It was incredibly unpleasant work, but it was made much easier once I got him to talk about the crimes he had committed. If I only wanted info on the Triangle of Light, I would have been done after maybe around two hours. But I wanted to know everything about the Illuminati, their bases, the families involved, crimes they were responsible for, who supported them, and anything else that might be useful for destroying them. A part of me wanted to use the Numbers on Manfred, but I didn't have the time, and I doubted the value it would give me.
Still, I didn't get everything I wanted, but for now, I left him alive. After I cleaned him and the room, I would leave her alone with him to do what she wants. Thankfully, cleaning up was easy with magic.
"He's all yours, and he didn't have the watch with him. I do, however, know where it is, and I can summon it whenever you want," I reply.
"Thanks," Lara says as she enters the room and closes the door behind her.
A few minutes later, she leaves with a slightly shaken look on her face. I make sure he is dead and then store the body away and make sure the last traces of Manfred are removed from the room. Then we leave the hotel room we had been using for the interrogation.
"To Siberia then?" I ask.
She nods, and we leave. The trip to Siberia is a quiet one as she is lost in thought, and I don't want to disturb her. But after arriving at the village in question, we had to stop before entering. The area was crawling with armed guards and armored vehicles. I even spotted some old Soviet Era tanks.
Whistle
"They must have really not liked Manfred and his men disappearing," I comment.
"How are we going to get past them?" Lara asks.
I was going to comment that we could walk by invisibly, but I stopped myself as we still had to cross the frozen lake. But then I recalled another piece of gear that should help.
"We'll fly over," I say with a smile as I take out the Firebolt.
She looks at me with a raised eyebrow.
"Seriously? Don't tell me you also have a pointy hat and a black cat," Lara says with amusement.
"Gasp! How did you know?!" I joke.
She chuckles.
"Jokes aside, I'm being serious, this broom can fly. Though space might be a bit tight, as it wasn't meant for multiple people. But you can choose where you want to sit," I say while gesturing to the broom.
"Sigh. Fine, let's get this over with, just watch where you grab, you might be handsome, but that's 4th date material," Lara comments while sitting in front of the broom.
I get behind her and hold on to the broom as I have to do so to direct it safely.
"Okay, well, hold on to your butts, this is about to get crazy," I comment.
The cloak goes over us and conceals us, and we lift off a bit unsteadily. I hadn't flown with a passenger yet, and it was odd. It also meant I had to go quite a bit slower than usual. But we arrived at the cave as the dead zone only affected electronics, not magic items. An Anti-Magic Field would have been a much bigger deal and would have been used by some organization by now.
"Well, that wasn't too bad," I comment as we land and walk into the cave.
"I assume it can go much faster," Lara says.
"Yeah, it tops out at 150mph, and it can reach that in 10 seconds flat," I reply.
"Not bad, given it's a household cleaning tool," Lara replies.
She walks over to the ice wall and then looks at the bell. I think ahead and cast a silence bubble around myself. She rings the bell, and I am spared the extremely loud sound. Lara was unaffected as she was the one to use the bell.
"We'd better hurry, our enemies must have heard that and will start making their way here," I say while walking past her.
We walk into the large chamber and see the model of the solar system, and I start setting up a barrier to hopefully keep our foes at bay long enough to escape. I also took this chance to disguise both of us to avoid retaliation later on. We more than likely would have been fine, but Lara agreed that an ancient order like the Illuminati shouldn't be underestimated.
As I was setting up the barrier, Lara was working on getting the last piece of the puzzle. We still had time until the window of time, but she wanted to practice jumping towards it so she could do the real thing faster.
It took perhaps two hours for the enemy to be knocking at the gates.
"How long will the barrier hold?" Lara asks.
"Uh, generously? Another 30 minutes of attacks. And conservatively, 5 minutes," I reply.
"Good enough, the window opens in 8 minutes," Lara says.
"I see what I can do," I reply.
I walk towards the barrier, and the gunfire halts for a moment. But that wasn't because of me. Instead, it was because they had pulled out grenade belts.
"Uh oh!" I say while running away from the barrier.
BOOOOM
The barrier shatters, and I start shooting at them from the ground. I also tossed in a few grenades for extra measure. While I pinned them down, I slowly created another barrier. This one would be much weaker, but it would hopefully buy us a minute or two.
"How much longer?!" I yell out.
"2 minutes!" Lara calls back.
The barrier gets put back up and immediately shows signs of breaking again.
"Bloody hell! Why do blokes have so much ammo!" I yell at them.
They respond with more gunfire.
Finally, the final stage of the alignment began, a solar eclipse. But that made the enemy more desperate as they started lobbing all the grenades they had left at the barrier. The result was exactly as you would expect.
Shatter
I took cover and tried to hold them off for as long as possible while Lara did her thing, but I was running out of room and fast. They were more and more willing to take losses to force me back. They tried tossing grenades at me, but with my magic, they just bounced right back at them.
"I got it!" Lara called out.
"Great! Now hurry up and complete it! I can't hold them any longer!" I say, while tossing the last grenades at them, as I ran into the chamber proper.
A blast of white light blinds me for a moment as the Triangle of Light is completed. Lara is standing there with a sad look upon her face, but she quickly freezes time for everyone but us.
"Great, now let's get the heck out of here!" I say while walking over to her.
"You promise you'll destroy it," Lara asks.
"I swear, once we are out of here, I will destroy it. I don't want to mess with time. It never ends well," I reply.
She nods and grabs my hand while I teleport us out of here and back to the hotel room we reserved before we traveled to the Temple of Ten Thousand Shadows. As soon as we arrived, I collapsed to the ground in exhaustion.
"Finally, there were hundreds of them! Hundreds!" I say with annoyance.
"Here," Lara says with a smile while handing me the Triangle of Light.
I take it and enter it into my inventory before choosing the absorption option, which gives me a noticeable 75 cubic meters of inventory. Then the Triangle was gone, and Lara seemed to know I did it as she joined me on the ground.
"It's done," I say with a smile.
"Thanks. Not just for the adventure, but for giving me a chance to say goodbye to my father," Lara says with a sincere smile.
"No problem. Thank you for all your help. I couldn't have pulled this off without you. Or at least not safely," I answer.
"Any other adventures for me?" Lara asks.
"I could tell you about the story of what I really did with the Luna Temple loot," I answer.
"I'm listening," Lara says.
"Well, it all starts with that orb you wanted..." I start telling the tale.
POV Shift Calhoun
"They failed," I report to the other council members.
"No! After all these years! Who beat us to it! Was it Manfred?!" Moore asks.
"We don't know. Only 8 members of the nearly 200 men we sent into the cave came back alive. And those that survived were near the exit when the cave collapsed, so they saw nothing of use," I report.
"Those useless imbeciles! They can't even complete such a simple task!" Moore says angrily.
"Now, patience, surely this could mean that the Triangle wasn't retrieved, or those that did get it were buried in the cave in, we should start excavations," Lady Jane adds.
"Surely you jest! You really think that the power to control time could be stopped with a measly cave-in?!" Moore says with spite.
"Mr Moore! We are all equals here! And decorum is to be followed!" I say menacingly.
"I apologize, Mr Calhoun, I let my feelings overcome my rationale. And I'm sorry, Lady Jane, that was uncalled for," Mr Moore says with a calm tone.
"Good, now, I believe that while it is unlikely that we will find the Triangle, we may yet find some evidence of who has it now. Or if anyone managed to retrieve it in the first place. Thus, I agree with Lady Jane's suggestion. Excavations should begin promptly," I say to the other council members.
Everyone votes to begin excavation, so the motion passes.
"Next, shall we recall our forces from that vampire hunter coalition?" I ask.
"We still haven't gained enough profit to overcome the losses we suffered," Thomas says.
"And we likely never will. Shield takes anything of slight value before we can do anything. Even the High Table hasn't been able to gain enough to offset their losses. What hope do we have?" I ask.
"Damn Shield! They will answer for this disrespect," Mr Moore says with annoyance.
"For now, they won't. We are too weak from all these losses. We should focus inwards and attempt to recuperate," Lady Jane says.
"We should at least do something to damage Shield, even if only a small annoyance," Mr Moore argues.
"We can help push them out of the UK. I've heard they stepped on a lot of toes there. With some extra support, I'm sure we can cause some headaches for them," I offer.
After more discussion, we agreed to both plans. We would pull our support from the vampire hunters' coalition, and we would attempt to remove Shields ability to operate in the UK.
"The last thing on the docket is the distribution of Mr Powell's wealth," I say.
"Use it to cover the expenses we incurred in this endeavor, and the rest can help support the excavation," Thomas offers.
Everyone else swiftly agrees, and it passes. After that, the meeting is adjourned, and we all head home.
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Author's Note:
Bonus chapter today, cause wynaut?