Misadventures Incorporated

Chapter 362 - The Stifled Sword VI

Crimson stains covered the mountain. Everything from the snow to the trees to the distant moon was painted in a bloody red. Splatter after splatter, the roses continued to blossom, coating the canvas in a blanket of death. There was enough paint used to empty her body a hundred times over.

And yet, she continued to strike. Her fangs, her claws, her shard, her tail, her horn. She used everything at her disposal, lashing out at the enemy with whatever she happened to have, whatever was yet to be lost.

Back and forth went the exchange. She attacked and blocked and dodged and weaved with an almost trance-like fervour. She was barely focused.

But she proceeded regardless.

There had to be something at the end of the tunnel.

And she was beginning to see its shape.

___

Dinnertime came and went in the blink of an eye. The captives were transported out of the dining hall and returned to their cell in no more than an hour. For a supposed last meal, it was hardly extravagant, though that was largely the fault of the servants’ distaste for their lord. They had been served a series of sandwiches made of cheap bread and stuffed with whatever was left in the kitchen.

The drinks were just as bland, and it wasn’t just the impending doom that had dulled the flavour. The bottles were remarkably low quality, and even then, the servants had been reluctant to open them. It didn’t matter in either case. Even if it wasn’t the best, the food and drink served as nourishment for the battle ahead.

“Have you any suggestions?”

She asked the question as the prison door was shut and sealed, scanning the faces of those around her. Their shackles were already removed. The cervitaur had removed them as each member was marched into the room.

“Warden didn't seem all that strong,” said Ace. “I say we kill his ass, you know, just to get him back before he sends us to hang.”

“I was referring to seeking a means of escape.”

“Oh.” Ace frowned. “Yeah, I'm pretty sure we're just shit out of luck. Best we can do is leave a few coded messages for our buddies and let ‘em know what we've learned.”

“That's small fry talk,” said Jules. “What happened to all your usual pep, lizard?”

“Just being realistic,” said Ace. “No point pressing the issue if it ain't going to produce results.”

“Man, and that's exactly what the fuck I meant when I said you were making small-fry talk.”

“Well, you got any great ideas then, genius?”

“A few,” said Jules. “I'll spell it out for you since you're apparently too fucking dumb to see it. It's simple. We just need to distract them with something big and make a break for it before they can get their shit back together.”

“And what precisely do you wish to propose, for our means of distraction?” asked Arciel.

“Well you see, while you incompetent fucks were touring the ship and admiring all the trash on board, I was making note of all the places they were steering us away from.” A confident grin crossed his lips. “I can’t exactly hit any of the other ships, since they’ll probably throw up their barriers the moment they sense an attack, but I can take this one down pretty easily.”

“I do not believe that it alone shall suffice,” said Arciel. “They bear such little respect for the marquis that they would prioritize our capture over the confirmation of his safety.”

“Well, yeah, but that’s just the half of it. I figure I could crash the damn thing into the one beside it and take that one down too. The bastards won’t be able to keep themselves from investigating.”

“The outcome is unlikely to change, lest we crash them all at once.”

Jules clicked his tongue. “Alright, fine. Then we use this ship’s cannons—”

“Gonna stop you there, mate,” said Ace. “Think the guy said those used magic. They ain’t gonna be working once you blow up the engines.”

“Right. Forgot about that,” he muttered.

“We might be able to sneak off if he was lying about the detectors,” said Matthias. “We could get away pretty easily with my cloak if it turns out that this is the only ship that has one.”

“You fucking stupid, or what?” said Jules. “Our bard’s not here. There’s no fucking way we’ll all fit.”

“Right,” muttered the mantis.

“I’m not sure we all have to get away,” said Chloe. “I don’t mind staying behind.”

“I would much rather if you did not,” said Arciel.

The maid smiled. “And I’m happy you feel that way, but if someone has to, then I’m probably the best choice. I can probably convince the guards to avoid killing me, at least.”

Arciel frowned, but said nothing more.

“Settling for half wins now, are we? Well, in that case, I’d say the warriors could probably get away easy, if magic is what they’re monitoring,” said Jules. “They don’t have too much more than an average critter, and it’s not like their HQ’s figured out a way to relay orders in real-time. All they’d need to do is change directions a few times.”

“I am afraid to inform you that even a lower-level tracking skill is assured to invalidate such a plan,” said Arciel. “They will be caught before they are able to beseech the others for aid.”

“Damn, didn’t even think of that,” grumbled the clam.

There was a moment of silence as the members mulled over their ideas.

“I see that we have arrived at an impasse,” said the squid. She placed her hat on the desk and fell into one of the lounge’s chairs. “I shall endeavour to think of an alternative in the little time we have remaining.”

“Yeah, I dunno,” said Jules. “I’m pretty sure our best bet is to act, you know, before the guards get here?”

“A fair point, but Sylvia is more likely to appear should we stall for longer.”

“So a game of chicken then,” said Jules.

“Y’know, if stalling’s the goal, I think I’ve got something in mind,” said Ace.

“Let us hear it then.”

“Right, so these ships have got barriers, right? Real tough ones. All we’ve gotta do is use that to our advantage,” he said. “If we can capture this ship, maybe by distracting their boss or whatever, we could probably throw up the shield and buy ourselves a bit of time.”

“Not a bad plan, for an idiot. But what are we going to do about, you know, everyone else that’ll try to stop us, genius?” asked Jules.

“Dunno.” The lizard shrugged. “Fight ‘em head-on, maybe?”

“If we’re lucky, this ship’s people will be the only ones we have to deal with,” said Chloe. “Which means a bunch of warriors and the two high-level guys.”

“The marquis and his aide,” said Matthias.

“I believe our issue stems then from the use of the ship’s controls,” said Ciel. “Claire is not present. We have not any individuals familiar with the use of Cadrian artifacts.”

“Right, nearly forgot about that,” said Ace.

Chloe slowly raised her hand. “I might be able to pull it off,” she said. “I snuck on board that one guy’s ship a few times while it was docked at the castle and played with some of the controls. I know how their lifts work, at least. It was surprisingly intuitive.”

“I do not see any further issues then,” said Arciel. “Aside from the need to hold off their fighters.”

“Better than not having any hope at all,” muttered Ace. “I’ll work on scribbling up some messages in the meantime and maybe scattering them around. You know, just in case.”

“Very well. Let us commit ourselves to waiting then and fall back on Ace’s plan in the worst case.”

“Just to make sure. You really think that Sylvia’s going to be able to do something about this?” asked the clam. “Why the hell didn’t she just murder them all in the first place if she’s really that strong?”

“There is little need to call her power into question. It is why not all of us were captured. As for her restraint, I believe the answer lies in matters of pride.” Arciel vanished into a shadow, appearing again beside the sealed weapons rack. She grabbed all of their stuff and placed it on the table after momentarily sinking into the darkness again. “Let us prepare for the worst-case scenario whilst hoping for the best.”

“Not like we have any other choice,” said Ace. He grabbed his swords and equipped their holsters, throwing them over the clothes without bothering to change into his previous outfit.

The others quickly did the same. The mages grabbed their magical rods, and Chloe retreated into a room to finesse her literal belts of daggers and needles back into the folds of her dress. It was a task that would have taken half a second under the usual circumstances, but she had explicitly left them out of her earlier reorganization. Now that she no longer had to weaponize her frying pan, she could return everything to its proper order.

And so they waited.

But Sylvia never showed.

It was the warden that eventually knocked on their door instead, roughly half an hour later with his security detail in tow.

Jules took up his wand without a word and pointed it straight at the entrance. He unleashed a spell as soon as it opened and tore a hole in the cervitaur’s body. Another seventeen followed, completely deleting him from existence before he could fathom a reaction. He wasn’t a warrior type, but he wouldn’t have been able to regenerate even in the case that he was. His head was missing, blown to a mist of bloody giblets charred to the point of disintegration.

The guards stepped forward, but the clam’s blue magic melted their limbs to goop before they could block off the hall.

“You assholes go on ahead,” he said. “I’ll catch up in a bit.”

“Thank you, Jules,” said Arciel, as she melted into the shadows.

“Don’t fucking thank me. Just keep running, you dumb twat.”

“You ain’t winning this one alone,” said Ace. “I’ll sta—”

“Motherfucker, are you deaf? Or just stupid? I told you to leave. The faster you take out the marquis, the faster this place is secured.”

The lizardman tightened his grip on his sword. “Alright.”

Squeezing the handle again, he joined the others in sprinting down the hall. Jules waited for them to turn the corner and dash up the stairs before turning his attention back to the guards. Most of them were small fry. Like the warden, they were powerful enough to be considered elites in another nation’s standing army. And that was judging from their levels alone.

Though far weaker than their higher-level counterparts, they still made a bid to regenerate and regrow the limbs that he had taken away. They healed rapidly, but he took off their heads before their bodies could be fully repaired.

The mana he expended returned to him immediately. He spent no time pouring the points into his wisdom, further bolstering his magic for the encounter ahead.

Only one enemy remained, standing undamaged among the corpses of his men. Jules’ spells had struck him directly, but their effects were ultimately negated by the crystalline armour that adorned his bizarre frame. He was the opposite of a centaur, with a mostly human body topped with a horse’s head. His mane was cut shorter than usual and spiked up to form a mohawk, The hair itself was a light blonde only highlighted by the dark yellow fur that masked his equine face.

No words were exchanged between them.

Both men silently raised their weapons and stared the other down.

The horse looked the part of a traditional knight. He had a tower shield in one hand and a spiked flail in the other, with neither piece made of the material that adorned his body. His protector’s material was not immediately clear. He could see that it was covered in dark brown leather, likely the hide of some beast or other, with bolts to secure it to an unknown base. His weapon, while just as mysterious, made it much easier to catch the eyes. The whole thing was made of bone. The handle looked the part of a femur, the links pulled from a spinal column, and the spiked tip a large humanoid skull with thick, bent nails hammered all the way through.

The head had a vaguely human shape, but its size was too large and its teeth were too jagged. Its spikes were of a rather simple design, but they were far more alarming. The rusted iron glowed with a faint green light—a trace of magic whose nature was completely unlike that of the wielder.

It was clearly cursed. He couldn’t decipher its precise effects, but any wounds that the weapon created would surely take an eternity to heal. If they could be healed at all.

Still, Jules remained unflinching.

The hall was not by any means narrow. Even in the prison ward, it was wide enough for four large centaurs to walk shoulder to shoulder unhindered. But it was confined enough for his spells to do their work.

Most true mages needed to chant in order to invoke their magic, but Jules was of an unusual sort. He only needed to activate the shortcuts wired into the back of his mind. And yet, he spoke the keywords regardless.

While generally frowned upon when placed in a one-on-one, it was not as if chanting was entirely detrimental. Jules’ nodes only acted as shorthands, allowing him to weave his spells with greater speed and overall efficiency. They did not at all account for the extra effects that one could draw by extending the casting duration.

Red magic typically only required two verses to manifest an explosion; linking nodes one and four sufficed to draw out the heat-based effect. A third verse, node twelve, was all he required to expand the range and paint an area red. The other modifiers were similar. Node ten allowed him to increase the air intake and bolster the force of the explosion. Node seventeen added shrapnel to his blasts, and node twenty-two would carve the spell onto an item in the form of a one-time enchantment.

They were all effects that he used fairly frequently. That was why he had used his synergist class to shorten the process to begin with. But because they were produced so far in advance, the shortcuts were entirely inflexible. To modify his spells to precisely suit the task at hand, he would need to do as other mages did and actively chant the verses aloud.

He wasn’t the fastest chanter. Perhaps noting that, the warrior was in no rush to close the gap. He moved almost lethargically and lazily swung his flail at Jules’ face, but the mage was unbothered. He linked two nodes in the back of his mind and unleashed a completely different spell—a concussive blast that knocked them both back—whilst continuing to chant. He was thrown right into a wall, but not even that sufficed to interrupt his words or rob him of his breath.

The warrior was not quite as affected. He landed right side up and jumped right back into action. Perhaps sensing that something was wrong from the sheer amount of mana gathered, he broke into a dash ten times his previous speed. But it was already too late. The caster was done. He had only needed seven verses to construct his spell. And all of them had echoed through his enemy’s ears.

He wasn’t enough of a fool to speak his spell’s name aloud, especially after his opponent had handed him an advantage, so he only said it inside his head.

It was his primary class’ ars magna, Cry of the Cardinal Chain, or at least a modified version thereof. Most obvious was the change to the payload’s size. The sphere had its radius tripled so that the force of the reaction could be heavily bolstered. If simply allowed to explode, the mana-rich spell would have consumed the entire ship, but the extra verses constrained its area so its width and height matched that of the hall.

Only the length was unconstrained. The detonation blasted out both ends of the castle, punching several holes in the rocks through which the winds suddenly began to blow.

The sheer force of the explosion knocked both fighters away, sending them tumbling through the tunnels and into the sky. The reverse-centaur wasn’t quite dead, and Jules hadn’t the liberty to finish him off, but it was all according to plan.

He had not only locked the elite out of his allies’ battles but also escaped the ship alone. Despite being a mage with a target painted across his back.

If the other Cadrians went after anyone, it would no doubt be him.