Tim's POV
The letter to Blue Rose was a simple invitation.
I had been thinking about Rigrit's Ring for years, had been thinking about it, specifically, since I was eight years old lying on a church dormitory bed. The ring was real wild magic, it was overpowered too, it was currently on the finger of a legendary hero who was alive and presumably somewhere in the Re-Estize Kingdom.
The polite approach was the right approach. The letter was genuine in its intent, I did want to meet Blue Rose, I did have things worth discussing with them, and making contact through proper channels was both respectful and strategically sound. The ring was not mentioned in the letter. The ring was not going to be discussed in the letter, or at the meeting, as I plan to take it.
I wrote the letter, sent it through the guild's communication network, and went back to my work.
---
Months later....
The tier two holy spell arrived on a morning in early spring with the specific quality that magical breakthroughs always had, the pathway that had been almost-open for months finally finding the exact alignment and opening completely.
*Angel Guardian.*
The angel that materialised in my room was approximately two metres tall, constructed of light and with holy energy that the Water God's church had spent years teaching me to work with. It carried a holy mace in both hands, its wings spread the width of the room and then adjusted inward to avoid the walls. It looked at me with the alert attention of something waiting for direction.
I looked back at it.
The spell was fully functional, the angel stable, the tier two holy class increment confirmed.
*I am soooo going to spam this, and summon a amy of angles, as summons don't despawn.*
The wizardry part remained stubbornly at tier one.
I slam my head on the desk about this for the usual amount of time and then got up and continued.
---
The Blue Rose response arrived months later, as they wrote very professionally for long enough that their correspondence was efficient. The meeting: the Adventurers' Guild in the capital. The time: three days hence, mid-afternoon, at besron inn, room 3.
I read the letter twice, noted the details, and began preparing.
I made a shadow clone [level 61], as I left the orphanage, behaviorally accurate enough to manage the daily routine without generating suspicion among the children or the staff, capable of handling the basic healing practice and the instruction sessions at a level that wouldn't immediately flag as wrong. It had limits. It couldn't engage with genuinely novel situations. It couldn't hold extended complex conversations with people who knew me well. But for a day and a half of routine operation, it was sufficient.
I activated *Perfect Unknowable* as I climbed out the window at midnight and dropped to the street below.
I ran south to north through the kingdom at the speed that covered distance without the mathematics of normal travel applying.
It took me Half a day to reach the Capital.
---
The Adventurers' Guild building at midnight was closed as I went to the inn next to it. I found the meeting room that the Blue Rose response had specified through the window on the building's second floor, which was the window unlocked, and A little open.
I went through it.
Evil Eye was in the corner with a book held at her hands. She was absorbed in whatever she was reading with the focus of a dedicated reader, which meant her attention was directed inward and she was not going to notice someone entering through the window while *Perfect Unknowable* was active.
Rigrit Barlette Caurau was asleep in the chair nearest the unlit hearth.
I looked at her for a moment.
She was old, genuinely old, the age of someone who had been alive for a very long time and whose face showed the accumulated weight of that duration. The legendary hero, one of the Thirteen, the woman who had been given a ring by a Platinum Dragon Lord and had been wearing it for decades.
The ring was on her left hand. A simple band, physically, a plain circlet of metal that had two dragon heads with a jem in between.
I slowly moved to her side.
The removal required physical contact and precision and absolute stillness. I took the time to be certain of each millimetre of movement before committing to it. The ring slid from her finger with the cooperation of a loose fit, it had been on her hand for decades and had the slight looseness to it.
*IT'S OFF*
It was in my possession.
She did not wake.
Evil Eye turned a page.
I went back through the same window.
---
The Captain of the Black Scripture's POV [level 65]
The operation had been planned for three months against Adamantite rank Tim and his children, the target required up-most caution.
The children were the leverage and the prize simultaneously, leverage because Tim's demonstrated commitment to the orphanage suggested that the children's safety would constrain his response, prize because two hundred and ninety-eight hero rank individuals was a resource the Theocracy had decided it could not allow to remain outside its control. The Pontifex had authorised the operation and it's his job to complete this mission.
The teleportation circle deposited the Black Scripture inside the orphanage's walls at the late hour when most are asleep. The sedative compound the scouts had identified as effective for the building's population had been introduced to the water supply six hours prior, not harmful, not permanent, but sufficient to ensure that hero rank children in transition sleep would not wake to minor disturbances, the drug might kill the old caretaker, but that's no matter.
Two hundred and ninety-eight hero rank children, sedated, were a significant logistical undertaking. The Scripture moved through the dormitories in practiced teams, the collection proceeding with the efficiency of people who had rehearsed it.
The dragon was the first complication.
It was in the library when the team entered, the large, awake, and beginning to register the intrusion dragon, as it turns their way.
He used his lance before it could make a sound.
Clean. Fast. The dead body lowered by the team behind him before it settled to its own weight.
Tim's room.
He opened the door himself, the 5th Seat moving into position behind him with the World Item ready. *Downfall of Castle and Country*, the dress was a world-class item, capable of producing mental domination against a single target, the Theocracy's most decisive card against a target who could not be physically subdued through conventional means.
Tim woke immediately, which was not surprising, the scouts had assessed him as maintaining the combat reflexes of someone better than the best of them.
He blocked the lance strike with his arm, which was also not surprising given his documented statistics.
The 5th Seat activated the World Item. And beam connected. For two seconds, the operation had its target.
Then Tim faded, into black smoke.
The captain stood in an empty room with a world-class item's activation still dissipating in the air.
He looked at the empty bed.
He looked at the 5th Seat.
*damn it, did he already escaped ?*
---
Tim's POV
I was walking out of the Capital City, I felt my Shadow Clone get defeated.
I Stopped, as my eyes widen in Horror.
---
Tim [Fixed][My Bad]
level [82] [+5 warrior levels form Rigrit's Ring]
Priest: [8/10] [Updated]