We’d barely started on assessing the team of thralls when someone asked,“Should we get Demouls for this? He’s one of the best Mancia experts we have on hand, and I really don’t want to risk this interrogation going wrong.”

I thought for a moment. There was a brief internal debate as we considered the pros and cons of each option. Then we reached for our radio.

“Lawrence Demouls, please come to the second floor corridor. There is a situation requiring your assistance.”

“Understood. I’ll be there in two minutes.”

Sure enough, Demouls arrived roughly two minutes later. Upon seeing the trio of armed thralls, he nodded.

“I can see now why you asked for me to come here. So, you want me to figure out what their orders were?”

Anise – one of the security officers – nodded.

“Yes. If there’s anything intact of who they were to restore, that would be good too.”

The Archmage nodded, and immediately got to writing an interface to read what was in the thralls’ brains. After about half an hour, he reported

“So. There’s nothing left of who these people were, unfortunately. That said, I can definitely confirm that they were sent by Lord Vallium; they were supposed to grab Blue and tag them with a teleport beacon.”

I asked, “So what now?”

Demouls’ expression promised death, though not to me.

“Simple. I take their teleport beacon, use it to slash open a portal to Vallium’s base, and take my revenge.”

Once again, Demouls was suddenly always holding a sword. As he reached for the lead thrall’s belt, I interjected

“Demouls, I’m coming too. You’re not the only archmage Vallium’s hurt that way. Also you might need the backup.”

He nodded.

“Be my guest Adrian.”

With that, he took out the rectangular device and tossed it into the air. His blade snapped right through it, and suddenly there was a door in the air leading to what seemed to be a dilapidated seaside fortress.

We stepped through into what seemed to be a storeroom. There was a teleportation pad here, fitted with a massive tank of energized base potion for fuel.

Demouls nodded. “This is the place, without a doubt. Come on, we need to search the place. Unless those fancy glasses of yours can spot him through the walls anyway.”

As we entered the corridor I answered “That’s not how they work. Though if he’s doing magic...”

I set my glasses to power-trace mode. Immediately the castle lit up with energy conduits going every which way. I recognized what was clearly a kitchen, among a few other amenities such as the lights all through the building. But what really caught my interest was a large accumulation of energy in a bunch of devices all gathered together two floors up.

“I think I know where the command room is. Two floors up, slightly ahead of us.”

Demouls nodded in acknowledgement. Then he slashed open a portal leading directly to… a laboratory full of torture devices, including several types of rather painful mind reading machine.

“Adrian, this is not the command room. That said, I do believe investigating here to be worthwhile.”

Demouls started digging through the various torture machines for useful information, but something seemed off. After a few moments I finally managed to put my finger on it.

“Demouls, if this is Vallium’s headquarters… where is everyone?”

Demouls looked up from what they were doing.

“You know, that’s an excellent point. We haven’t seen a single person since getting here, which is rather suspicious. The only reason for evacuating all personnel from here would be if Vallium knew we were coming…”

We locked gazes for just a moment. This was a trap.

“Adrian can your glasses detect any large static concentrations of energy around? There’s likely to be a bomb here.”

I nodded, and began scanning.

“There’s the fuel tank for the teleporter pad, what seems to be main energy storage for the building, and… right down the hallway, there’s a vortex of energy building on itself.”

Demouls nodded, and we both began dashing down the hallway. We quickly arrived at the door in question, and I noted “This is the room.”

Demouls thought for a moment “If I were Vallium in this position I’d have booby trapped the door. So…”

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He cut a portal into the room. What we saw through there was a massive barrel full of… something or other being rapidly stirred by a motor. Atop it was an alarm clock hooked to some sort of detonator, along with a taut lanyard connected to the door. And there was only a second left on the clock.

Demouls swore, “SHIT!” and raised his sword.

Then everything went very loud and bright.

Eventually the dust cleared, and shockingly we weren’t dead. Despite that, the castle was leveled and we both had severe injuries.

I managed to turn to look at Demouls, “Lawrence, how are we alive?”

He coughed, before managing to answer.

“I parried the explosion.”

I thought for a moment, “Can you cut a portal back to Red Point?”

There were a few moments of silence, then Demouls shook his head. “Both my arms are broken, and trying to wield a sword with my feet or teeth just doesn’t work.”

I tried to stand, only to find that my left leg was thoroughly broken. I couldn’t help but howl in pain at the effort.

Once I regained my composure, I looked around at the devastation. “Unless the NMCU are already on their way here with an aircraft, I don’t think we’ll live long enough to be rescued. And if Vallium comes back right now he stands very good odds of capturing us.”

Demouls nodded as he thought, “We need a way to get back to Red Point. Is there anything you could do?”

My other side spoke up “We don’t have any way to teleport us on our own, but if you had something to write on we could probably get your arms working long enough to make a portal.”

“Notebook and pen, left pocket.”

“Right.”

What followed was twenty agonizing seconds of hauling myself over to Demouls across the broken ground. Every movement I made was pure agony, my internals screaming in protest. Still, I managed to get over to where Demouls was lying.

Digging through his pocket, I immediately noticed that it felt very wet. I wrapped my hands around the notebook and pen, pulling them loose. Immediately, my heart sank. The pen had ruptured, spraying ink all over the pages and rendering them nearly unusable.

Still, there was just barely enough room to write a few sentences, if we were careful. Steeling ourselves, we bit down on our right index finger until we tasted blood. In a desperate careful hand, my other side wrote out:

“I hereby authorize Lawrence Demouls’ arms to work for the purposes of swordswmanship for the next two minutes. Signed Adrian Adley.”

Reality shuddered as Demouls screamed in pain. Still, he wielded the blade. With a single cut, he opened a rift directly to the infirmary at Red Point.

On the other side of the portal, Franz startled but didn’t immediately move to pick us up.

“Adrian, Demouls, will the portal stay open?”

Demouls answered

“For thirty seconds, I can’t hold it longer than that!”

Franz nodded and immediately started hauling Demouls through, even as he howled in pain. As for me, I resumed dragging myself towards safety, even as my body protested with every single signal it could possibly send.

I didn’t get very far before Franz had already hauled Demouls through, and proceeded to start dragging me back. I couldn’t help scream in agony as I was roughly dragged through, and despite his best efforts Franz didn’t quite get me through before the portal snapped shut. Oh… oh that’s a lot of my blood coming out…

The next thing I knew I was on a hard table, feeling suspiciously alright. Franz was currently standing over me in full surgical attire.

He blinked.

“Hmm, didn’t quite use enough anesthetic. You probably don’t want to be awake for this next part…”

I went under again.

When I woke up I was in one of the infirmary beds. Looking around, I noticed Demouls to my left, currently unconscious. As for Franz, he walked over to me with his face scrunched up in a frown.

“So. The good news is that you’ll make a full recovery. The bad news is that I had to replace about half of your internal organs and both your legs from the knee down. Your left arm is still broken, though it should be properly healed in a couple months.”

His expression shifted to one of sadness.

“Adrian, what you and Demouls did was reckless, incredibly so. It’s one thing to risk your life protecting the school from a threat that’s already here. It’s another matter entirely to go chasing after a terrorist to who knows where. We need you here, keeping the school running. And the fact of the matter is you’re one of my very few friends.”

I tried to sit up, only to find that I simply couldn’t muster up the strength to overcome gravity.

“Ah, I forgot to mention. I was able to keep you from bleeding out, but I’d have stretched my blood supplies to an unacceptably thin margin if I simply refilled your circulatory system. You are currently severely anemic; you should recover fully over the next few days with proper feeding. I’ll need to put in an IV to feed you in a bit; you’re in no state for solid food at the moment.”

“I’m sorry for running off like that Franz. You’re right, I acted rashly.”

Franz nodded sadly.

“I can’t really blame you; in your shoes I’d have probably done something similar. But please promise me you won’t ever do something that reckless again.”

I could barely muster a nod

“I promise not to go charging off like that again.”

There was a pause. Then I asked

“How’s Demouls?”

Franz sighed, “He was three minutes away from death when he got to the infirmary. He’ll make a full recovery; I accept nothing less. But he was messed up even worse than you were. Frankly it’s amazing he was coherent enough to open that portal with how badly concussed he was; I dare not wake him up for at least a week, not until I’ve fully repaired his brain.”

The image of Franz opening up Demouls’ skull and carefully rewiring neurons flashed through my mind as I processed what he’d just said. I probably wasn’t too far off, admittedly.

...It only now occurred to me just how tired I felt.

“Ah. Can I go back to sleep now?”

Franz nodded, “Yes. You need your rest. I’ll make sure the IV going in doesn’t disturb you enough to wake you up again.”

I quickly drifted off back to sleep.

When I woke up again I felt much, much better. Looking at the calendar on the wall a good four days had passed since the incident which landed me here. There was still a needle in my right arm connected to a bag of something or other, and my left was encased in a cast. Being very careful not to mess with the IV, I hauled myself upright.

Franz immediately noticed that I’d woken up of course.

“Ah, glad you’re awake Adrian.”

“Am I clear for solid food?”

He shook his head, “No. Not yet. Your new digestive system isn’t quite ready for solids yet. That said, we can get you started on liquids today.”

“So the IV can come out?”

“Yes.”

Minutes later I was walking under my own power for the first time in days. Walking to my office, I opened the door to see a massive stack of paperwork on top of my desk. Right, let’s start clearing out that backlog before it gets any worse.

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