Chapter 33: Face to Face with the Enemy
A group approached DM. He noticed all three Burgers as well as Andrei Vosk and several guards, leading the way with lit torches.
“Must I, father?”
“We already discussed this. Do it, Karen.”
She sighed. “Creature, I permit you to speak; however, you must remain truthful at all times. Answer any questions from either me or my father.” She turned back to Chuck. “You must realize this doesn’t prevent him from omitting information or misleading us.”
“Yes, of course. We’ll need to be careful. Jonathan, make sure you back up your sister.”
“Of course, Father.”
“Let’s start with something simple.” Lord Burger addressed DM. “How old are you?”
DM remained silent.
“Hm? Karen, why won’t it answer?”
“It needs to use one of those morphlings.”
Chuck Burger turned to look at the rows of monsters nearby. “Which one is a morphling?”
“Creature, have a morphling step forward.”
DM wagged his appendage left and right, signaling no.
“You won’t!?”
“Sister—“
“Not now, Jonathan!” She grunted. “Creature, do you refuse to have a morphling step forward?”
DM’s appendage swung left and right.
“Then why?”
“Sister! Are there even any morphlings here?” Jonathan knew there were but was playing dumb.
“What? Shouldn’t he have brought some? Doesn’t he need at least one?”
“You told him to dismiss all morphlings back in that first dungeon and ordered him not to talk. I don’t think he’s brought any with him?”
“Oh.”
Lord Burger buried his face in his palm. “Karen, how long would it take to get a morphling here?”
“Hm. The creature would need to spawn a morphling from the dungeons west of Gulukkhath or south of Nabilgat, I suppose? If it walks at the pace of a human, it may require a couple of days?”
“Well, we don’t have a couple of days. We’ll be setting out in the morning.”
“Father, I’ll have the creature dispatch a morphling right away. The morphling can take the form of the first person it sees and then proceed without raising any alarms straight to Kharb. We can interrogate the creature when we arrive near Kharb before entering battle.”
Chuck turned to Andrei, who had been silent until now. “I’m sorry, not everything is going as expected.”
“I can see that. These monsters seem to be proving more of a liability than an asset. At this point, I’ll just settle for having that wyvern at our disposal during the battle.” He gestured to the single wyvern napping by the side of the road. “We’ve wasted enough time. I’ll begin the preparations for us to depart.” Vosk stepped away.
Karen spoke her orders to DM, instructing him to deploy a morphling. She waited a moment and asked if the morphling had been deployed.
DM swung his appendage vertically, although in truth he hadn’t done anything. There were plenty of morphlings nearby, after all.
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As the door creaked open, various adventurers looked up from their evening drinks to gape. A group of four girls walked in, each with a different type of animal ears on their head. It was an unusual sight in the Union, but hardly unwelcome at the Guild.
The girls proceeded straight to the clerk, with Kat leading. “We have an important report for the Guild.”
“What is it?” The clerk raised her eyebrow.
“There’s an army hiding five kilometers south of Meethil. They are allied with the Empire’s central lords, planning to pincer Gazahanar. The local lord is sheltering them, most likely after being bribed or extorted by the Empire’s central lords.” She recited it like a speech she had memorized without fully understanding the words, but it got the message across.
“What!?” The clerk jumped up from her seat.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“We also found an army near Zinar and already reported that to the Guild in Zinar.”
“You’re… serious?” The clerk clearly still doubted the girls, but she was at least listening.
“Yeah.”
“Did you see this army for yourself? Did they see you?”
“We weren’t spotted. We saw them.”
The clerk turned to glance at an open door behind the counter area. “The Guild Master isn’t here right now. I’ll need to… verify this report.”
“That’s what the Guild Master in Zinar did. He sent people out to scout right away.”
“Yes, of course…”
“Oh,” Kat continued. "The same thing happened in Niralsg… Niralsg…”
“Niralsgnolon?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. I’ll deploy a team right away on the Guild Master’s authority, if I can find some folks who aren’t drunk… How do you know all that about them being allied with people in the Empire?”
Kat hesitated. “We, uh, overheard people talking while we traveled north through the Empire before getting to the Union.”
“All right. If everything you say is true, I’m sure I’ll receive messages from the Guild branches in Zinar in Niralsgnolon soon. Stay away from those armies, and don’t tell anyone you’re the ones who reported their positions.”
“Okay.”
“Are you girls going to stick around?”
“No, we are going to see what the Theocracy is like.”
“Probably for the best. Check out Shemlielo after you cross the border.” The clerk likely expected the girls to at least spend the night, but she didn’t bother to ask about it.
“Thanks.”
The girls left the Guild as quickly as they had entered, leaving behind a storm of activity and a bunch of gaping adventurers who had eavesdropped on the entire conversation. Rather than heading to an inn or walking east toward the border with the Theocracy, the girls exited Meethil to the south, headed directly for Zaranar, where Bandit’s mission had brought her to the harbor.
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As far as Bandit could tell, nobody had raised the alarm yet, despite her ongoing efforts to sabotage every warship. As she swam to the next ship, she glanced further into the harbor. Several ships were at anchor, unreachable without a short boat ride or a substantial swim. Most of those ships appeared to be merchant vessels, displaced due to all the warship activity at the piers, but one or two of them looked like the types of vessels she was supposed to be targeting. Bandit decided going after them would be too challenging, and she’d leave them alone. Sabotaging the bulk of the fleet would be more than good enough, if she could pull it off.
She found sabotaging the ship from the deck was more risky than quietly disabling the rudder at the waterline but required less mana. Given the considerable number of ships, she was choosing the former method in most cases. So far, she hadn’t needed to kill a single person, but quite a few were taking unscheduled naps out of sight. Sooner or later someone would discover all the disabled people and put two and two together, raising the alarm port-wide. She needed to hurry up, complete her mission, and get out of there.
Bandit arrived at the stern of the next ship. Listening carefully, she couldn’t hear any signs of activity up on the deck. She climbed up the exterior as she had already done many times before. Quietly placing her hands on the railing, she lifted herself to peer over the top. Her vision of the ship was blocked by the chest and face of a sailor.
Before she could react, the sailor reached over the railing and grabbed her by neck, flinging her over the gunnel and onto the deck. She rolled once, attempting to use her momentum to get back up. Before she could, the sailor’s foot stomped down on her back with enough force to knock the wind out of her.
“We gotta stowaway!”
Bandit could hear footsteps. Two sets, approaching from further forward on the ship.
“Just one?” another male voice called out in a deep voice.
“Aye.”
“Let’s have a look.”
The first sailor twisted his leg away to give a better view of Bandit as the two other men arrived.
“Smell aside, she’s no waif,” the deep-voiced man noted. “Look at her gear. Someone’s put her up to this.”
“What should we do?”
“Bring her inside. We’ll question her. Get that smelly wet gear off of her and wrap her in a blanket or something.”
“Aye. Shame she’s not a bit older.”
Bandit could probably break free of the situation, but she wasn’t sure who else was nearby. Without assurance that more people wouldn’t come running, she didn’t want to create a commotion. If people saw her spawning tentacles and summoning a succubus, they’d cause her a great deal of trouble if they escaped and spread the word. Still, allowing herself to get captured was risky, especially since they already recognized her as a threat.
“Help him. I’ll send a messenger to the dockmaster, just in case.” The deep-voiced man gestured and started walking away.
Bandit decided she couldn’t let any reports leave the ship. With her arms still mostly free, she twisted her wrists in a way that exposed her one-handed crossbows. Hoping they would still function despite all the time she’d spent in the water recently, she bent her left elbow to aim one crossbow up at the man looming over her while she twisted her right arm to aim the other way at the second man. As she fired, she realized the poison must have already washed away from her bolts.
The man to her right took a bolt to the underside of his chin, causing him to stagger backwards. The first sailor twisted to evade, receiving Bandit’s attack on his left upper-arm rather than a more vital area. However, his maneuver released the weight from his foot resting atop Bandit’s back.
Before he could recover, she rolled out from under his foot and extended an arm at him. Her hand had released the crossbow, so it was just her empty palm pointed in his direction.
He lowered into an aggressive stance while nursing the wound with his right hand. His eyes were glued to Bandit’s open palm, his brows furrowed in confusion at what she was planning to do.
She started muttering, causing the sailor further confusion. Running out of patience, he lowered his stance further and prepared to rush her like a bull. Just as he lurched forward, he was met by a T2 ice spear that had emerged from her hand and struck him square in the chest. He collapsed, unconscious or dead.
Bandit turned to look at the other two. The man who had taken the bolt to the underside of his chin was writhing on the deck. The deep-voiced man had been watching agape from several meters away. He shook his head and turned to run, only to find his ankle pinned. He fell forward, unable to overpower the tentacle holding him.
“Just what in the hell is going on!?” A fresh face came running aft from further up on the ship, weaving between the various obstructions. He was greeted by the most beautiful of succubi.
A few minutes later, four men were napping in a quiet corner. Bandit actually had to use two of her small healing potions on the more injured men to keep them alive. Thaw probably would have called her a softie, but Bandit knew DM didn’t want to kill people needlessly, especially since many of them were unaware of why they were being thrust into battle to begin with.
Thankfully, the next couple of ships were less prepared for Bandit than this one had been.