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The High Sorceress of the Temple of Doom held the box before her and began chanting to cast the spell necessary to unlock the magical sealed box.

This was the moment she was expecting, thought Maylara.

As spy, she have learned that for the secret, the confidential messages between the High Sorceress of the Temple of Doom and the High Priestess of the Cult of the Flower of Jabharil for a planned coup d'etat, where held in a small, aparently featurless metallic box.

However, that box had really some very advanced trap mechanisms and seals, so if somebody try to force the box without knowing the spell to pass them, or using traditional ways, the mechanism inside the box will be automatically triggered, destroying the content of the box: then, the unwanted eyes who tried to discover the secrets of the High Sorceress of the Temple of Doom, will instead stare at some remains of paper.

Normally, this would be enough to keep spies away. But Maylara Maltree, drow from Nohalion, wasn't a normal spy. Or rather, she was, but she had an uncommon hability:

She know the lost and banned ways of the spellthief.

And while the sorceress chanted the spells to open the sealed box, Maylara began chanting her own spell to steal from the High Sorceress, hidden behind the column in the chambers of the sorceress.

"It is now" she thought.

The High Sorceress, one of the more powerful magical users of the City State of Negeémiliel, feel like the spell she was using to open the box was losing strenght.

"Uhm?" she thought. Magic and spells where allways chaotic, and sometimes the results could be unexpected, but she was even more puzzled when it was dispelled.

"Uhm... I should have been more tired than I thought." think the High Sorceress, as she turned, screening the room, but she noticed nothing out of place.

Just to make shure, she revised the area... It feel weird, almost as if... somebody, or something, syphoned the spell she was casting...

She strided then to her bedroom, where the slaves where sleeping.

Was that a curtain that moved?

She appeared suddendly in front of the bed... but the four drow slave girls where sleeping. It was just that one of them rolled in her sleep, moving the curtain with her arm.

As the High Sorceress looked to her slaves, she smiled, before walking away.

"Or I'm too tired, or that stupid box had a problem" thought the High Sorceress. May breathed again, but keeped her eyes shut. One of the other slave girls rolled next to her, as she continue to sleep.

In the other side of the room, the high sorceress chanted again the spell to open the box, this time more focused... and she didnt had any problem in this occasion.

She checked first if it wasn't a malfunction of the box. The box itself was uncommon, and sometimes such complex artifacts can have problems, but she didn't see anything out of order, and luckily, the papers where alright.

She quickly readed the message from Ma'Az, Priestess of the Cult of Jabharil... she smiled, before closing the box that she put on a safe.

And then, she walked away, leaving her chambers, as urgent matters called her back to duty.

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Alternate ending

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Continuation:

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