Misadventures Incorporated

Chapter 353 - Hubris X

109833 - 3 - 1 - 5

Dear Diary,

We crossed another border last night. Why would anyone ever come here!? This country sucks, and its name is so weird that I can’t even spell it! There aren’t any roads anywhere and we keep getting attacked by bandits. I killed thirty of them just this morning. I have to keep washing my clothes because they keep getting totally soaked in blood. This is such a pain in the butt. I hate it here, but it's going to take another week or two before we finally make it out. Master is still giving us all the same pointless tasks that he gave us in every other country.

Lina never complains when she does them, so I'm not going to either. At least not out loud, but Master’s a big mean dummy and I hate him.

I miss mom and dad. I kind of want to go home.

Lia

___

Claire carefully scanned her surroundings as the dungeon’s birds unwittingly did her bidding. They were being cleaned up as easily as expected. The Cadrian troops placed on the front lines were not the most powerful; she could tell from the cottontails’ legs and the centaurs’ hooves that most of them were still on their second ascensions. But armed with the tenacity that standard Cadrian builds inspired, they endured the monsters’ assault and quickly put them down.

There was a clear lack of thorae standing within the soldiers’ ranks, but such were the demographics of the Pollux marsh. Most of the bee-ogres hailed from further north and while Tornatus had been a reason for the smart and ambitious to migrate, their much larger frames made it more difficult for them to engage in tinkering. They could have easily compensated with heavy dexterity investment, but even then, they fell behind their peers. The efficiencies of their ability scores—the invisible multipliers that accounted for their shapes and sizes—were tuned primarily for strength. That didn’t stop the artifact-obsessed, of course, but that particular group had most of its members in Tornatus, which was to say that it may as well have ceased to exist.

Similar random observations worked through Claire’s mind as she watched the slaughter unfold. Completely invisible beneath Matthias’ magical cloak, she waited until most of the birds were dead before raising Boris’ front-right foot and placing it above his head.

The copy that she had left within the dungeon mimicked the action and instructed the others to go ahead. The signal was one that they had decided well in advance; it was the only way for them to communicate without exposing any additional abilities.

Surely enough, the portal came to life again as a second wave of birds was chased beyond the rift. It was far larger than the first, eight, maybe nine times its size. The victims involved had been captured over the course of the past day—the bottom floor alone had not been enough to sate their appetites, so they brought along some slightly weaker specimens from the areas directly above it and inflated the army to something in the thousand-bird range.

There were so many of them that their enemies failed to take note when eight were lost beneath the waves. Swimming under the mantis’ cloak, the marching chickens moved with the crowd, remaining perfectly obscured as they paddled towards the distant shore. It was one of Sylvia’s spells; she had sung a quick song that had disguised the party’s members as the mutated meals that walked the dungeon’s plains.

Though it had allowed them to escape the enemy formation, the transformation was unlikely to last until they passed through the city. Their foes already had countermeasures in place. The mothership hovering directly above the city had deployed a barrier that captured the lake and its immediate surroundings. Brute force was required to breach it, and the Cadrians were sure to come running the moment they so much as tried.

Stalling them out was not an option. Though they certainly had a healthy need for fuel, the engines built into the ships’ systems functioned by drawing mana from their immediate surroundings, whether that be air, water, or even the vacuum of space. Whatever the case, there was plenty of magic to spare. Every single drop that the devices consumed was replenished in the blink of an eye. In its unadulterated form, magical energy, like many other substances, naturally moved from concentrations of high to low. The world itself would work to replenish any gaps in the immediate supply.

Worse yet, the output of a magical drive was steady, and it could easily operate until its parts were exhausted, the timespan of which was measured on the scale of months or years. They could still outlast their foes with Llystletein Authority invoked, but it would be a grand waste of time. It was only by launching an attack that they could emerge substantially victorious.

Said attack had been a part of Claire’s plan from the start, but it wasn’t until she looked upon the enemy lines that it had taken a concrete form. That was why they rushed one of the more populated areas still within the containment zone. They looked around until they found an empty house and made themselves welcome inside.

Claire undid the lock with a vector, strolled right through the hallway, and waltzed into the basement. Only once they were behind several layers of closed doors did she take off the mantis’ runecloak—which somehow still reeked of blood and guts after spending nearly half an hour in the water—and turn her eyes on the chicken-shaped crowd.

The spell was not immediately undone. Sylvia had to take a few minutes to sing a song and see the ability cancelled. That too was a part of the facade; any bard could conjure a minor illusion, and even a weak one could disguise one object as another with enough time and mana. Of course, a less decent singer’s spells also came with a number of caveats, many of which had been fed to the crowd as another layer of deception.

“Whew.” The magical fox breathed a sigh of relief as she scrambled back onto her usual perch. “Finally! That took ages.”

“Of all fucking things, why the hell did you turn me into a fucking hen!?” complained Jules. “You could’ve at least made me a fucking rooster!” The clam had been itching to scream the complaint since he first transformed, but unlike people, chickens were incapable of speech.

“Wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be,” said Ace. “Some of you were struggling, but my legs worked just the same as usual.”

“Affirmative. The chicken legs disrupted my sense of balance,” said Sophia.

“At least you weren’t attacked,” griped Chloe.

“Mmmnnnn… yeah, that was kinda weird,” said Sylvia. “I didn’t think your weird succubus powers would keep working while you were in chicken mode.”

“I don’t think they can be disabled. Half the effect is passive.” The maid sighed—an action that her master soon mimicked.

“Never did I think that I would be made into a bird again,” said Arciel. “Once was already more than enough.”

“At least you didn’t have to fly this time,” said Matthias.

“I would rather you refrained from reminding me,” muttered the squid.

“Enough chatting,” said Claire. “Cottontails have sharp ears. We need to be quick.”

Arciel nodded. “Let us discuss the next phase of your plan.”

“It’s simple. We attack their mothership and pretend to steal it. Then we run away.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Uhmmm… is that it?” asked Sylvia.

“More or less,” said Claire. She paused for a moment. “I’m going to distract them. The rest of you should raid the ship once they start chasing me.”

“You sure that’s gonna work?” said Ace. “Actually, I guess it would. Only makes sense to hunt down a runaway princess.”

“Wait for about five minutes,” she said, as she transformed her blouse into a suit of armour. “That should be long enou—”

“That isn’t going to work.” The door swung open and Panda walked inside. His dishevelled appearance was nothing new, and his eyebags were always hidden by his raccoon eyes, but somehow, he gave off the impression that he was utterly exhausted. “You don’t have time. They’re heading for your location already, and they’ve already got something in mind that basically negates your plan. You’re gonna want to retreat. Now.”

Claire narrowed her eyes. “They know where we are?”

“Yeah. They’ve got you tracked, thanks to the spell that your demon just used.”

“How?”

“Same way they do everything,” he said. “They’re using a fancy gadget. What else?”

“That’s impossible. There aren’t any artifa—”

Her mouth snapped shut as she turned towards the sky. There was something—multiple somethings—inbound. There was no sound. They moved so quickly that she was unable to hear them. But their mana was loud and clear. Claire slowed them with vectors, but while some were flung away and even ejected from the battleship’s barrier, most continued with only their speed reduced.

The first to arrive struck the building head-on. He had started at his terminal velocity, but Claire’s magic slowed him just enough that he arrived in time with the sound. 

He crashed through the roof and tore into the basement with all the force of a raging storm. Claire caught him head-on with her blade. She cut through his core and split his body in half. But the centaur was unbothered. His flesh reformed by the time his subordinates hit the ground.

The building and its surroundings were completely blown away, but the northern brigade’s members remained unharmed; she shifted them out of the way with her vectors last second, whilst also displacing the Cadrians from their intended destinations.

It was not just the soldiers that descended from the heavens. Their gear followed soon after, delivered by a set of slower-falling adjutants clad in magic-resistant armour. The brittle, crystalline pieces were heavily enchanted, decorated from head to toe in runes powerful enough to nearly negate the lyrkress’ vectors. The choice of material stated the message loud and clear. They only cared for magical threats. Because their martial prowess was far superior.

Their eyes reacted to every little motion, their hands twitched every time the Vel’khanese so much as dared to breathe. It was impossible to act without their notice. Impossible to act before they were suppressed. That much, even the mages understood.

They could only stay silent and work their minds as the Cadrians prepared for battle. Each falling star was handed a set of garments and armours, weapons and trinkets, which they rapidly equipped.

Claire nearly cursed under her breath. Her plan was on the verge of failure. Escape was still on the table. There were a few cottontails thrown into the mix, but she was confident that she could outrun them as long as she took to the sky. Most rabbits were earthbound, and centaurs were not the quickest to ascend. They were still fairly mobile in the air, but their vertical movements were far quicker when endowed with gravity’s might. But there was a problem. Escaping meant leaving all the others behind.

“I applaud your bravery.”

The first to land was also the first to speak. His body’s overall shape was like that of the average cervitaur, specifically epitomizing the white-tailed subspecies. Standing at roughly two-meters tall, the young buck had a pair of massive, feathered wings dyed a slightly darker shade than his brown-furred body. There were only three patches of white to break up his pelt’s colour, one that stretched from his tail to his humanoid torso, and another on each of his ridiculous-looking artifacts that adorned the side of his head. Like most deer, he suffered from a case of inherent ugliness. His ears’ midsections were far too wide for anyone with good taste to judge them worthwhile. His horns were his only redeeming features. The massive antlers were twice his head’s height and featured a full set of carefully sharpened protrusions.

But of course, there was more than just that. They had been hidden by the metal skirt he draped over his frame, but his ascensions had blessed his hooves with sets of eagle-like wings. Each was roughly twenty centimetres long and provided him with enhanced mobility whilst up in the air. The tail that was his species’ namesake no longer bore its usual appearance. The fluffy appendage was replaced by another set of feathers, crafted to better his balance no matter his twists or turns.

Then there were his arms. They looked normal at a quick glance, but a more careful observation revealed that they were not touching his shoulders. That too was a known evolution, albeit a rare one. It was a feature that could be traced far back, to a particular deer who claimed that Xekkur’s very ichor ran through his mortal veins. Whether that was to be believed was still up to interpretation, but in either case, the fact remained that his blood was special. Centaurs that bore it could grow in such a way that their upper limbs could be freely moved within a domain of their wingspan’s size.

He scratched the back of his head as he cast his gaze in Claire’s direction. “Constantius Augustus. Today’s the day you die.”

Claire blinked. She was able to suppress her reaction, but her allies were not quite as flexible. Confused looks, grunts, and murmurs ran through the crowd; it was far too late to stop the Cadrians from catching their complete bewilderment.

“Yeah, I guess I wouldn’t have told you either if I was him,” said the deer. There was a confident look on his face as he spoke the words that dotted his script. “But the long and short of it is that you idiots are dancing in the palm of his hand. He’s just passing off the blame,” he said. “This treacherous snake is the king’s brother, and a traitor we owe an overdue execution.”

“I am not Constantius,” said Claire. There was no way to undo the mistakes that her allies had made, but the situation was yet recoverable. “And snakes are not treacherous.”

“Yeah, that isn’t gonna fly,” sneered the buck. “We’ve fully analyzed your magic. It’s too close in form for you to be anything but.” He scanned the room. “Especially with your abilities matching perfectly with our reports.”

The qiligon formulated a plan as the deer talked. An all-out brawl was the worst-case scenario. She needed to put some distance between her enemies and her allies if they were to stand a chance.

“But if you’d like to pretend that you’re some nameless knight, then that’s all fine with me. We’ve known for a thousand years that you’re pretty much just honourless scum.”

“You’ve only been alive for thirty, Sir,” quipped the reverse centaur standing directly behind him.

“You shut up.” The buck raised a spear and pointed it at the nameless knight. “I’m Porcius, Porcius Pollux, white-tailed sky terror.”

“Pollux?” Claire twisted her gaze into a sharpened glare and scrutinized the features. “You don’t look like one of his.”

“I haven’t got a lick of his blood in my veins,” admitted the deer, “but I’ve inherited his name, so I’ve pretty much no choice but to inherit his will.”

“The only thing you’ll inherit is his grave.” She closed the distance between them and drove her lizard towards his skull.

She would give him the brawl he wanted.

It didn’t matter how her allies did.

By taking up her enemy’s name, he had sentenced himself to death.