The four knights were spread out with their shields out. They had helmets on, but their visors were up allowing Jonit to see their eyes. It did not quite feel like they were here for a peaceful discussion. Jonit decided to emulate them, his own helmet rose up from his armor; its parts seemed to come out of nowhere, piece by piece, enveloping his face. His headpiece protected his whole face, unlike theirs, but still allowed him full vision through its sensors. In fact he could see even clearer now.
Cardella approached from the center, with two knights coming in from Jonit’s left and one from the right, moving forward to surround him. Or they tried to but were stopped by the fence. They had to either go over the fence and abandon all pretenses of civil negotiation, or stop their advance. They stopped.
Cardella stood with her shield clipped to her left side with her hands grasped behind her back in a formal posture. The other knights had their shields ready attached to their arms. She looked straight at him with her pale blue eyes. She was silent for a moment, perhaps letting her authoritative pressure wear him down, before she spoke, “So you decided to accept our invitation to meet, White Knight.”
“Well I was curious. What did you want to meet me for?” Jonit asked in a disarmingly laid-back manner. He focused the direction of his head toward her, but multiple screens gave him information on the actions of the three other knights.
Cardella seemed to choose her words deliberately. “The woman in your artificial intelligence picture. Who is she to you?”
Ah, so it was the Princess that she was interested in.
“Oh it was just a random picture that I pulled up. Why? Do you know her?”
One of the Tower Knights to the left of him snorted, “This aberration makes a mockery of us.” He sounded like a young man. He stepped forward, “Lets just bring him in for the Inquisitors to take care of–”
“Easy now, Lute”, said the knight to Jonit’s right in a deep voice, “We don’t know his capabilities yet.”
“This… thing… has no magic, I can take him easily!” Lute said. He made another move toward Jonit when Cardella gave him a look. He abruptly seized up as if stopped by an unseen force, unable to move.
Cardella sighed, “Grigs, keep your cousin under control.”
The other man to Jonit’s left moved forward and pulled Lute back a step. Lute unfroze, grumbling to himself.
Cardella said, “I’m sorry for my fellow knight here. He’s only recently joined the company and is a bit overeager.”
“I don’t know, you are all acting rather aggressive and intimidating”, Jonit responded, “I was under the impression that this would be a simple discussion, perhaps a one on one meeting.” His gaze had not strayed from her throughout the whole incident. “I'm becoming rather wary of your intentions.”
Cardella simply responded, “You’re looking for her aren’t you? The woman in the moving picture of yours.”
She guessed him perfectly. Which could only mean that either she had seen the Princess before or that one of the other two agents from his world had been asking around before him. From their reactions it didn’t seem like they had seen his kind before, but he couldn’t quite rule that out either. The fact that she had stated so confidently that he was looking for her meant that she most likely knew where the Princess was, and given the fact that the Witch had told them to climb the White Tower to find her, meant that there was a strong chance that the Princess was being hidden away in the Knights’ care.
“Well… yes.” He relented. “She’s a Princess from my kingdom. She was taken recently and I was tasked with finding her and bringing her back.”
“That’s complete nonsense!” Lute interjected. “The Dark Lady was given to us by the Angel of Infinite Ways…” He trailed off as Cardella gave him what appeared to be a simple look. But Jonit presumed that wasn’t what it felt like to Lute.
“It is difficult for us to believe that someone such as yourself, with such abject magiclessness could associate with someone as powerful as the Dark Lady.” Cardella said.
“Powerful? Interesting.” It seems the President was keeping a few things from him. Either that or he somehow didn’t know.
Cardella stared at him with an expressionless face. “That fact that you don’t seem to know much about her casts doubt on your story.”
“This angel of yours… She wouldn’t happen to have had short red hair would she?” He asked.
Cardella’s eyebrows raised ever so slightly. “You’ve seen her before?”
“Yes, if I’m correct, she was the one who brought me here actually.” He brought up a 3D image of the witch that they had managed to take before she vanished. The other three knights exclaimed.
Cardella paused in quiet contemplation. Her blue eyes seemed to glow in the night.
Then, she spoke.
“The Angel of Infinite Ways has visited our world many times throughout the years. She was one of the first Journeymen. She is at least a few hundred years old from what we’ve gathered.” She pointed at his image. “However, all this image proves is that you’ve met her. Although it may add credibility to it, it is not proof that you are who you say you are or proof of your intentions.
“Your ‘Princess’ as you call her was brought to us by the Angel. The Angel spoke of a great calamity about to befall our world, and so the Dark Lady was given to us as a gift to aid us.” Cardella spoke methodically and clearly, as if she were lecturing a class. “She first arrived completely ignorant and pure as if she knew nothing not only of our world, but of herself or her own world. But she picked up fast as we taught her our ways.”
Cardella continued. “Her magic was strong, but not only that, she was an excellent spellweaver. Curiously, despite being seemingly new to the world, almost like a newborn, she picked up magic rapidly. Even faster than language, in fact.
“She has only been here for one tricenticycle but she has already discovered revolutionary new magic forms, one of them which we now use everyday: long distance instant communications.”
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“Wait a minute.” said Jonit, “How long is a tricenticycle?”
Cardella raised an eyebrow, “A cycle is one light-dark cycle, or 25 hours. A ‘centi-’cycle is 100 of those. A ‘tri-’”
“She’s already been here for almost one year?” Jonit asked. “But she was only taken from us a few days– err… cycles ago.”
Cardella cocked her head, “Interesting. Could you show me the picture of her again?”
The Princess appeared again, but this time in a life-sized image. The two knights to his left exclaimed and murmured. The one on his right seemed to lean in a bit, hand on his chin. Cardella was motionless as usual, studying the image.
“This is most definitely her. So the time discrepancy is quite odd.” She glanced at him, “If your story is to be believed.”
“What’s there to doubt?” Jonit responded, “And besides, how do I know you aren’t the ones lying?”
Cardella ignored this, “So Sir Journeyman Knight, you are searching for your Princess and aim to bring her back? Is this correct”
“That’s the idea, yes.”
“Well, we would need to confirm your intentions and verify your story. Surrender yourself to us and we can bring you back to our capital and figure out a resolution.”
Jonit laughed, “I’m not totally sure I’m ok with that proposal.”
“I'm afraid that wasn’t quite a proposal I was making. It was more of a… strong suggestion that you comply with our demands.”
There seemed to be a sudden shift in the air. The other knights seemed more tense and a few had put their hands on the hilts of their swords. Cardella had not moved, but something seemed to be radiating from her, a pressure of some sort.
His sensors suddenly detected an unknown force emanating from her, he had but a moment to move out of the way. He leaped backwards over the fence, though perhaps a bit too far as he wasn’t quite used to his combat suit just yet. The fence he had been leaning on seemed to abruptly collapse in, splintering as if a large invisible hand had grabbed it. He landed a good few meters away. He was near the main entrance of the inn but he didn’t want to involve anyone else if he could handle this on his own.
“It would be in your best interest to cooperate.” He could see Cardella slowly pacing toward him in an almost relaxed manner, pale blue eyes glowing in the darkness.
The two knights to his left, Grigs and Lute, leapt over the fence after him. The knight to his right seemed to fade into the darkness, disappearing from sight entirely. He tried switching to thermal imaging but that didn’t seem to work either.
“Remember, we need him alive. But don’t be too worried about getting rough, I can put him back together later.” said Cardella.
The knights to his left pulled out their swords, they glowed with a golden light in contrast with their silvery armor. He raised his left hand in a fist and shot three neurotoxin paralysis darts at the knight in front, Lute, catching him by surprise. The targeting system tracked the small opening of his helmet enabling him to hit him with two of them. Lute collapsed, unable to move.
Jonit didn’t want to use any lethal force as they apparently (?) weren’t using lethal force either. But it may get to the point where he wouldn’t have a choice. He shot a few more darts at Grigs, who had continued to charge despite his companion falling, but those were deflected by a seemingly invisible force. Grigs raised his eyebrows in a rather amused manner before raising his sword. Jonit’s shield flickered on glowing white in the darkness. He raised it up at an angle deflecting the strike.
An arm suddenly came up from behind grabbing him around the neck in a headlock.
“Easy now…” came a deep voice seemingly from nowhere, “No need to drag this out any longer.”
Jonit tried to elbow the invisible knight behind him. He wasn’t sure of the suit’s power settings so he decided to go low so as not to fatally injure anyone. Let’s try 2x power enhancement. There was a loud crash and a reverberating sound as his elbow collided with the knight’s armored torso.
“Hah! Good try, son, but not quite there.” came the response in his ear as the knight’s grip tightened.
Grigs came up from the front aiming to knock him in the stomach with his shield, but Jonit pulled up his legs and aimed a kick. I guess 5x power shouldn’t be too bad. His feet smashed into Grigs’s stomach just as the knight drew back his shield for an attack launching him, almost comically, into the air. The knight’s shining form flew past the fence narrowly missing the inn before disappearing behind the stables.
Jonit landed back on his feet and tried to throw the invisible knight forward but the knight abruptly released his grip around Jonit’s neck causing him to tumble to the ground. He pivoted this into a roll and landed on his feet. Another spike in energy from Cardella caused him to reflexively raise his shield, extending it to max strength while crouching so that it could protect his whole body. The massive force grabbed onto the barrier emanating from his arm lifting him into the air. It slammed Jonit into the ground.
Once. Twice.
Before Jonit abruptly turned off his shield and it seemingly lost its grip on him causing him to fly haphazardly away from the inn. He bounced a few meters down the hill before he was able to orient himself and dig his feet into the ground. A brief overview of his systems showed there was some minor damage to his arm shield which could render it a bit unpredictable, but otherwise his suit’s functions were still intact. He considered for a moment of simply running away, but decided against it. His main source of information was located in the inn and besides, the Tower Knights might cause trouble for Leyna and the others if they couldn’t find him. He finally pulled out his sword and moved to a small group of trees while slowly making his way back up the hill.
Jonit approached the edge of the trees where he could vaguely make out the shape of Cardella in the field. His sensors so far could catch onto Cardella’s “magic” to a certain extent when she unleashed attacks. If he could refine the detection he should be able to tell earlier where she was attacking from, not to mention, if the invisible knight was also using magic, he could tell where he was as well.
A sudden snap of a branch to his left was the only warning he got before a sword struck his left leg. He was already in the process of pulling away so the damage was lessened, but he could feel part of his armor cave in. His leg grew heavy as the machinery broke down. Speak of the devil.
He swung back with his sword but hit nothing. He leapt out of the trees backwards toward Cardella. Perhaps if he got close enough he could disable her first. There was another swell of power, but his suit’s system seemed to be refining its detection allowing him to easily dodge the oncoming attack. He pushed off with his right leg closing the distance. Cardella simply looked at him, but was that the faintest hint of amusement on her face? He suddenly noticed she did not have her sword or shield. He tried to change directions but his left leg was still malfunctioning. He looked right and barely flickered on his shield as her sword flew at him propelled by magic. He deflected it but her shield flew in from the left, knocking him in the head. His sword flew out of his hand.
His vision got distorted as his helmet partially blacked out. He hoped there wasn’t any serious damage as he was pretty sure there wasn’t any way to repair his suit here. He felt a heavy force slam down on him, pressing him down. He couldn’t move.
Cardella’s sword and shield flew back to her neatly returning to her sheath and hip. She looked down at him.
“Valiant effort, White Knight. But rather pointless, we’re only trying to help you and your Princess.” she said in the same methodical manner as before. “Your struggles only complicate things.”
“I think I was doing fine without your help to be quite honest.” Jonit replied with a muffled voice. He couldn’t see much with his face full of glowing fungi but he heard a heavy rustling noise.
A man spoke, groaning with pain, “Heaven’s, Journeyman, you launched me halfway to the border.”
“Oh, there you are, Grigs.” came Cardella’s voice. “Lute looks like he needs some help, if you would.”
He was able to get his helmet functioning again and could see that he was surrounded. He could now detect the invisible yet unnamed knight, albeit as a vague blurry energy signature, but that was not very helpful at the moment.
Cardella spoke again, “Haden, go send a signal to the border, we’re going to need an extraction.”
The invisible knight moved off toward the center of the fungal field.
“Grigs, let’s get the-”
Suddenly there was a cracking noise followed by a small explosion. The air was suddenly filled with blue smoke. He could hear Grigs swearing nearby. There was a moment of blindness, but suddenly Jonit felt Cardella's magic lifting off him.
Then, from the smoke came a familiar rasping voice, “Journeyman, I thought I told ye to give me a holler.”
“Oh hello Trey”, said the Jonit, still on the ground, “Didn’t want to inconvenience you.”