The Watch Tower

Shirou and his team watched the watch tower's door from the other end of the street. They were staying out of sight as the soldiers were on high alert, apparently the guards at the gate had finally decided that the intruders they had forgotten to mention might be connected to the now flaming defences. Only the Dragon-blood who had actually talked to the guard had her face known but the others were still being cautious.

The male mortal soldier muttered under his breath, he had been counting how many guards they had. He tilted his head to his commander, the air dragon-blood who had sabotaged the defences and spoke "My lord, it is three teams of five. One patrols, One guards the tower and one rests inside. They likely have shifts of fifteen minutes and we just passed one."

The dragon-blood cursed before stopping "Is it in that order? Do those who rest then go on patrol?"

"Yes my lord."

Said lord stroked his chin "The ones who are guarding were those on patrol, they should already be a little tired then. Either that or they are trying to rest while on duty."

Shirou understood roughly what the dragon-blood was describing, a person who was resting was much easier to sneak past than one who was alert. Had the rotation been the other way round it would have ensured fresh guards who had just finished resting, those types of guards would be much harder to get past.

The other dragon-blood smiled "They must be trying to root us out rather than guarding this place. How should we get through?"

"A distraction?" Shirou suggested.

The follower of the female dragon-blood huffed "Their defenses have been set ablaze, they are already distracted."

"Not these ones though." Shirou observed "These will need something closer if we want to get past. Something that needs their attention quickly."

The male dragon-blood coughed before quietly speaking "We are out of fire dust so we can't create a fire."

The female dragon blood smiled "We could create a situation though, currently everyone who lives here is gathered in their houses. What if they left and rioted?"

"A bloodbath." Shirou said simply "They would be slaughtered."

The woman winked "It would be a good distraction though."

"No." surprisingly Shirou wasn't the only person to say that. The Dragon-blood's own soldier had agreed with Shirou on that notion.

The Dragon-blood raised an eyebrow at her soldier who recoiled as if struck. The dragon-blood simply shrugged "Fair enough, even if it is out of character. I can tell you truely I won't put the effort into another '[You and Yours]' for this"

Shirou turned to the other dragon-blood and his soldier, they didn't seem to understand what she meant either. The strangest thing was that it sounded familiar to him in some long forgotten way. It was only a little later he realised he shouldn't know what [You and Yours] meant, it wasn't in high realm or in Riverspeak and it certainly wasn't Japanese so how did he understand it?

The soldier looked around them all before sighing and asking "My lady, we could imitate reinforcements. There are five of us. If only you could do something to make the guards believe that."

The Dragon-blood rolled her eyes before issuing orders "Everyone, with me."

Shirou was worried as they all stood up to follow her so he asked quickly "Won't they recognise you from the gates?"

The woman shook her head and smiled at him "Not if I talk fast enough."

As she came to where the guards waited in front of the tower she smiled and began talking.

"Greetings, we are here to take your next shift." Shirou then had a strange feeling as if he were slightly drunk, he shook his head as she went on quickly "You don't have to worry, we were sent from our leader themselves." Shirou noticed the others in the group also looking slightly off, except for the other dragon-blood who was raising an impressed eyebrow.

When the male dragon-blood saw his confusion he muttered so the guards wouldn't here him "The magic of the dragons is incredibly powerful. She isn't directing it at us but we can still feel the effects of her words even if only slightly. As far as the guards are concerned her words might as well be perfect truth."

He turned his attention back to her and as he did he felt his attention pulled towards her words.

"Honestly, you should all head out to the north of town. That is obviously the mostly likely point we need to worry about. It's not as if there will be any problem here."

It seemed that some of the guards were struggling to think of a way to argue. It was a strange scene. They thought they ought to argue but they simply failed to think of one as if they couldn't find the right words to counter.

"And so," the woman was finishing her speech "All of you should head out the north gate and patrol around."

The guards simply nodded and walked away. The woman smiled back at them "Well? We have another group to get past in the resting room."

Shirou nodded before speaking "Everyone in, we don't have long."

End of chapter

I must say that I am disappointed in my own ability. Social excellencies should improve your own ability to talk (That is how they work in lore) but I simply am not good enough at debating to be able to write people talking at a superhuman level. No one is I guess but it is still disappointing. Thus I have simply made it "The ability to make whatever you say sound reasonable" when that is different than what it should be.

Also fun fact: Soaring star doesn't have a character sheet, I'm just picking random Sidereal charms she has access to. Mostly social charms but she knows sorcery and a few mental charms as well.