- Mages School Vault -
"Hm? What was that," Harker frowned, waving his hand and deflecting another attack from Gabriel. "This could be interesting."
"You felt something too I see," Gabriel scowled.
"Yes, and I think we are at the end of our little contest."
"You aren't going anywhere!"
"Oh I think I am, unless you plan to actually start trying," Harker clasp both hands to the small of his back.
"Collapsing the entire school on top of us isn't that appealing and secondly you've been using nothing but magic items for your spells. What, no real magic of your own?"
"No, just unwilling to spend mana when I don't have to." A rumbling began to rise, followed by another shockwave of air from the direction of the vault. "And with that, our little chat is at an end," Harker did an about face and started to walk away.
"W-where are you going," Gabriel asked, absolutely shocked someone would turn their back in the middle of a battle.
"Shopping," he answered with a chuckle and waved his hand, causing a wall of earth to shoot up from the ground and separate the two.
"Dammit," Gabriel began bombarding the wall with attacks. He waited for the dust to clear from his flurry of attacks to see if it had broken through. "Damn him," Gabriel growled upon seeing the miniscule dent that he had managed to make in the wall. He began gathering the mana necessary to push through to the other side and then unleashed it as a steady stream of energy that burrowed through the earth. 'I've gotta hurry. There is no telling what they'll do with those artifacts.'
- Just outside the Dark Vault -
The large doorway loomed over Harker as he passed through it, both of the doors bent inward at a 90° angles. An impressive feat considering both doors were over 3 feet thick of magic enhanced solid steel. Far behind him Harker sensed Gabriel's desperate attempts to break through the wall, this caused him to chuckle slightly.
"Something funny," one of the looters asked as she pulled a shortsword from its case and slid it into her holding bag.
"Just a sense of satisfaction. We have about 15 minutes to grab everything before he breaks through," Harker began to walk off.
"Where are you going?"
"Browsing." He made his way through the rows of display cases, chained crates, shielded objects, and shelves of items. Each one having a plaque that named the object and what it did, or at least what people could understand what some objects actually did.
'Some of these could be rather useful, but I have my mind set on a particular item,' Harker heard a clanging followed by a horrified scream that was suddenly cut off.
"Careful you idiots! There is a reason some of these items are locked up! Fredrick go and retrieve Dartan's bag, if its still intact. Leave the body," a centaur ordered.
After searching for a few minutes, Harker found what he was looking for. Tucked away between a chained up trunk and a head in a jar was a covered round object larger than both of Harker's fists together. Using one of his rings to see the shield that encompassed the object, Harker began to ponder how to disperse the shield. After trying a few spells and watching how the shield reacted, he pulled a coin from his pocket and dropped it onto the shield. Upon contact the shield sparked and in a flash the coin had completely melted into a pool of cooling gold on the floor. Next he pulled a dagger out and dropped it blade first on the shield. Again the shield sparked and flashed, but for the smallest of moments Harker saw a tiny opening form near the end of the knife's existence before it too was reduced to a cooling puddle of metal on the floor.
"Hmmm," he narrowed his eyes, then smiled when he saw one of the looters coming closer. "Hey could I borrow you for a moment?"
The high elf gave him an inquisitive look, but came over all the same. "What do you need," he asked as though he were too important to be bothered by someone else's troubles.
"I could use a hand...actually I could use all of you.
"Wha-," was all the elf could say before he was lifted up by one hand and his body slammed on the shield. Sparking and flashing beneath him as it burned a hole through his chest, the shield began to weaken after untold decades or centuries of no one coming down here to restore the shield. The elf struggled to get free up until the shield pushed through his chest and then his body went limp. Wasting no time Harker quickly reached into the narrow opening he had managed to open wrapped his free hand around the object and pulled it out, his hand scraping the edge of the shield as he pulled out. The man ignored the minor pain to bask in his victory.
"Your sacrifice is appreciated," he pocketed the object and glanced at the body in time to see it slide off the pedestal the object was resting on.
"Hey! Where's Dreyn," the centaur asked looking side to side searching for him.
"He ran afoul of a nasty shield spell while trying to retrieve that item," Harker pointed to the body behind him, using an illusion spell to make it look like a gemstone was inside the shield.
"Idiot," the centaur bent down to read the false plaque Harker had conjured, " 'Golden touch ruby'. 'Grant's the wielder the power to convert anything to gold, at the cost of draining life force for each use from a wide area.' Hmpf, money is not something we need worry about. Clearly someone got greedy. Grab his bag and let's go. We are almost done here."
"Of course. I shall drop the teleportation barrier around us once everyone is ready," Harker bowed.
As everyone assembled the sounds of the drunkard mage grew closer. Then in one last burst he broke through just in time for them to leave.
"Ta-ta," Harker waved and they all vanished, leaving Gabriel alone in the pillaged vault.