The stone used in building the keep is the same stone that they 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. Right now, we are in some kind of a storeroom. It is 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. Even rolled into pillows and a bed, it is not very comfortable.

  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 tore through the clothes, stitching and rearranging to create the tent. I would have never thought one of the sworn to be capable of this.

  As for what has happened to me. I have been sleeping completely paralyzed for the last couple of days. The reason for this is the fact that I have overused my vital mana. If you overuse your vital mana like me, your mana core will stop producing more vital mana with enough usage. Without vital mana, the body tends to become completely weak. It is called mana burnout.

  I blame my underlings for my present situation. I warned the bastards to be ready for a quick entry. Most of them did manage to enter in time, but Andrew managed to bungle his entry.

  I had to open the hole in the barrier five times in quick succession. Once for me, Trevor and Jacob. Twice for Andrew. I barely allowed my mana core to stabilize before pushing it all out again to create another hole. You see, I had planned to open only four holes in the barriers.

  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. If I had given myself some time, I would have managed to complete it. It would certainly have been a more efficient use of time. I wouldn't have been paralyzed like this for two days. Even now there is every chance that the enemy will stumble upon me.

  Men have survived worse burnout. The only thing that I need to worry about is making sure that I don't end up causing more damage to my mana core. At its worst, mana burnout can end up destroying your mana core as well.

  Well, I am nowhere near that level of damage. If anything, I am supposed to damage my mana core like this once in a while. It is supposed to boost the strength of the mana core.

  The only reason that I am thinking so much about it is because I have nothing else to do. Well, I have complained about my present situation enough. 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 I am resting in as their base. They have been slowly and steadily mapping out the part of the fort they can access.

  Now that must sound ironic. If the mayfires were our enemies, then we would already have detailed maps of the place. We would have known where exactly we are right now.

  The problem is that the mayfires are considered to be our allies. That means that the scholars are put under certain restrictions with the mayfires. That includes mapping their home base. Even now the only reason that we dare to map the place is because we need it. Even this might just end up making our relations with the mayfires a bit worse.

  All of this is politics. We can deal with that later as well. Right now we do not have a working map of the place so we are making one. Refer to Trevor's log, he is the one that is doing the mapping.

  Other than that, Andrew and Jacob are busy cultivating as well. Overall it has been pretty uneventful, which is also due to me. We can't do anything seriously until I get better. Even the rest of my troop has been playing it very safe. They have only explored a few rooms till now.

  To give a review of their search, we assume that we are in some kind of storage area. One of the rooms they visited contained bedsheets. They also ended up in a room with different types of food and cooking utensils. (That is why we have yet to starve, even though we did not plan for these two days.) We can try and go beyond this storage area but that is quite a bit risky without me.

  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.

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  The defensive formations are usually built to be modular. The fort is divided into regions, with each region having a separate control point. While this does make it easier to take over a region of the fort, it also makes it worth much 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. This would make traveling very dangerous if we were in the vampire part of the keep. After all, 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 parts of the experience. People seem to have a misconception that traps are only meant for tombs. While they are certainly deadly in tombs, they are even more deadly in places like this.

  After all, with a tomb, most of the traps would have stayed centuries without use. It would be a surprise if one in ten traps worked. In a fort, they can be maintained and upgraded every few years. That increases their deadliness to the next level.

  Right now these traps are the main thing that are keeping us back. If I could move, I would have been able to disable the traps. I would at least set them off in such a way that nobody would know that we are here.

  This way, we would have been able to explore more areas here at the very least. Other than that, we don't want to meet the Bloodfire gang and the vampires right now. 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 right now.

  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 have to assume that the void and the two captains remaining would be able to make use of the bloodline hierarchy.

  I can not use my sword against them if that is the case. That much is clear. Without the sword I don't know how exactly am I supposed to be fighting them. I have fought against vampires before so I have a set of other formations at hand ready for the day the sword becomes useless. My master destroyed all of those. So I don't have anything left.

  Also, I don't know how to fight against somebody like that Matthew. The man has 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. 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 that man managed to activate my sword when I had it deactivated.

  Right now I hope 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 threat that the mayfires pose. 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 to a person in their lands. They might still attack us even if we are of the Hexmountain.

  I mean, we have methods of proving our identity to them. That would require that the mayfires do not attack us at first sight. Knowing them there is more than a little chance that the other side might attack us at first sight. They are a pretty aggressive bunch.

  If it comes down to it, the Mayfires are not easy enemies at all. Their fire magic is very fascinating in the first place. They can conjure projections of fire, so lifelike 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 Mayfires, so it is all hearsay.

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

  Any soul that exists 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 the mayfires it would be their flames. Another example of this can be found among the druids. The bark warriors of the black forest area are another example of soul projection. It is a more temporary and certainly safer method compared to possession. It also allows you to show a much smaller fraction of your soul's strength.

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

  That is what fighting the mayfires will be like. Fighting them is supposed to be like fighting a tribe of sentient flames. I still prefer to fight the mayfires over the vampires. The reason for that is the simple fact that I can at least use my sword with the Mayfires if things go bad.

  My sword will not be helping with the mayfires though. It looks too much like a vampire artifact. They might just end up killing me as a vampire spy. Right now the hope is that things don't end up in actual fighting happening.

  The chances of a fight happening are pretty low 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.