... Tower Heist!

The father-daughter duo rushed downstairs. Airs of the party continued within, the thick bark walls hiding the din outside.

“Your mom has bodyguards, right?”

Lucy nodded. “Aye. Security detail. They’re called the ‘Secret Service.’”

“Of course.” Skott snickered despite the dire circumstances. He’d told Lamora to call them that.

“They have antimagic tech,” Lucy continued. “Magic is a common assassination tool. Why, not but two years ago—”

“Should be safe from the tornadoes in this tree at least.” Skott huffed as he loped down the spiral stairs. “Just… make sure Lamora is aware. We’ll have to get everyone inside.”

Plans, as always, were being formulated as Skott ran. Running around a fantasy world inciting rebellion with a devil-may-care demeanor felt much better at nineteen. Now his back hurt, and he kept getting distracted by thoughts of his stock portfolio.

“Everyone, stay away from the doors and windows,” Skott announced as he burst into a ground-floor ballroom of sorts.

The procession was mixed: a lot of orcs and the odd human from the coalition, matched by elvan, making up about forty percent of the company. They all wore fancy dress garb not unlike what you’d see in depictions of an Earth-bound late 1800s debutante ball.

Skott briefly wondered what any insurgent Redeemer types would think of the procession here. These elvan were nominally part of the coalition government. While perhaps some security-minded members of the detail would eye them with suspicion, there was even odds that the Redeemers were out to get these ‘collaborator’ elvan even more than they were any of the orcs.

Lucy ran off to alert Lamora to the disturbance while Skott ran to the wide front door of this tree-manse.

Four modest-sized twisters ran anticlockwise (for Aeirun translation magic inexplicably described many concepts in British English) through the circular courtyard. They barely rose to an EF-1 on the Earth tornado scale, but that was more than enough to send people flying.

“Everyone get inside!” Skott yelled. “If you can’t make it to the mansion, get beyond the hedges and be ready to rush in and counterattack. Something’s about to emerge from these twisters.”

Skott didn’t expect anyone to hear him. Luckily, a captain from the coalition army was bellowing roughly the same orders, so the great hero from Earth wasn’t usurping anyone’s authority.

“Skott of Omaha!” Sethset came running up with Skottson at his side.

“You made it, sons… er, Corporals.” Skott coughed. “Lucy should be with your mother. Mansion should be secured as well. Is there another way into this building?”

The pair shook their heads.

That captain from before approached. “Corporals, you two know the Prime Mini—by the gods, is that Skott of Omaha?”

Skott was left waving awkwardly.

“Okay, you’re on VIP detail anyway. Go with him.”

The four twisters coalesced just off-center from the tree-manse front doors. Skott spied a few silhouetted figures deep within the vortex. Then, a lit fireball flew from deep in the tornado and struck the mercifully fireproof side of the towering manse.

+++

The garrison of coalition soldiers barricaded the front doors while Skott and sons returned to the main banquet hall.

“Okay, we can’t get out at the moment but we’re well-positioned and they can’t get in,” Skott said. “Everyone remain calm.”

Murmurs ran through the delegation. They were as calm as a diplomatic meeting under siege could be.

“It is as Skott of Omaha says.” Lamora nodded.

The elvan and other locals of the delegation were the most apprehensive. Never fear, assured a guard captain, they still have a full garrison and multiple battalions of outside troops. The Redeemers had never fielded a standing army. Ergo, there was no reason to suspect they could take the tower.

Skott scratched at his chin. “Hmmm. If they wanted to blow the tower, they could take out half the government all at once. There must be a reason why they want to get us all in here.”

Whatever the reason, Skott suspected it wasn’t anything good. But finding out why could perhaps be essential to their continued life expectancy.

“No movement at the front door,” Skottson reported.

“Ah, I have to head back upstairs to upstairs and get something,” Skott said.

He’d feel much better if he had his baseball bat at his side.

A squeal came from the far side of the circular banquet hall. “Take me too!”

It was Lucy.

“Sure thing, kids,” Skott said. “Come with me.”

+++

Most of the delegation was on the lower three floors. If there was some kind of magical fire or other hazard set within the tower, they wanted to have an easy route of escape.

The upper floors were mostly office rooms and a clerk’s desk. A few unused conference rooms, including one where Skott had stashed his effects. It would be unwieldy to take everything at once when he could be engaged in heavy fighting. But with four of them.

“Let me take a pack,” Lucy implored her father.

“Sure thing.” Skott shrugged. “Don’t take more than you can reasonably carry. We’re going to have to run and probably swing a weapon.”

On that note, Skott grabbed his bat, which he had left angled against a chair. He swung it around, warming up. Who knew when they might need to use it?

Sethset and Skottson had standard-issue rifling, relatively new technology for Aeirun. Long rifles were of limited utility indoors, but they also had attached bayonets and single-shot flintlock pistols that could come in handy. Lucy had her standard iron sword, relatively antiquated in these days age but effective up close.

Eerie silence permeated outside the windows. There were no chants or war cries at all. Which was arguably worse…

“We’re certain there’s no other way into the tower?” Skott asked, still twirling his bat. “Seems like a frontal assault would be unwise.”

Skottson peered out a window, with his body flush to the wall to present the smallest possible target. “We’re not surrounded. And I see the rest of the brigade out beyond the perimeter.”

The rest of the city was quiet. Unsurprising, as it was quite late.

“There should be no way in through magical means, unless…” Lucy began.

“Unless someone flies in through a window,” Sethset added.

Lucy sighed, evidently quite used to being interrupted by her brothers.

“What I’m saying is… there is one magical means they could get in.”

If Skott possessed his children’s more prehensile ears they would’ve perked up.

“Come again?” asked the older human.

“Well, they could use the blood ri--,” Lucy spoke slowly, as if remembering something from a lesson long ago.

A shattering window interrupted the young half-orc. A figure in chalk-colored robes and holding two magical staves flew in on an elaborate glider. No doubt the mages who summoned those tornadoes helped guide his smooth glide right into the waiting window.

Below, there was a symphony of a dozen broken windows as robbed Redeemers repeated this maneuver up and down the treehouse tower.

“Ahahah, cower in fear, greenskins and smooth-ears,” proclaimed the robbed figure. “The time of redemption for our noble high king is nig—oof.”

Skott rushed the unwelcome guest and smashed him right upside the head, between the two slots for the Redeemer’s pointy, knife-like ears. The intruder stumbled back and tumbled right out the window. There was a scream as the figure whipped around, his fall just barely broken by the glider that was still on his back.

“Woo! An excellent riposte, father,” Lucy declared.

“There’ll be more where that came from,” Skott said. “You said there was another way in?”

Lucy nodded. “Blood rites. Longstanding security feature. It cannot be guarded against by magical wards. But it would need someone from the same bloodline as the manse’s original owner.”

A deep-seated rumble sounded from the roots of the tree-manse. Skott looked to the two corporals, then to Lucy.

“C’mon, let’s get downstairs,” he said.

The tree shook like there was an Aeirunquake. A great howling came from the central stairwell. Skott led his trio of half-orc children out of the empty conference room and back down to the conference.