“What are you talking about? You have a goblet in your cell chamber?”
“If only, my friend.” Nate gently pushed out his aura, stopping at the doors exiting the brig. “Feels like it’s just us down here, but I assume a guard is right outside the door. If I push out any further, they’ll likely feel it.”
“Turn off my cuff and I can shadowstep out of here,” Krypdyr said through the chat.
“Terry could probably eat the bars too,” Nate felt a surge of aggressive agreement from within.
“Let’s keep the bars intact. It would be expensive to fix once we take over the ship.” Nate heard a similar eagerness from Krypdyr that he felt within himself.
“Right.” Nate attempted to create a portal outside of his cell, but felt the magic of the cell push back against the escape attempt. He reached out to touch the door.
Improved Holding Cell. This cell, often installed in small town jailhouses and larger airships, can safely hold properly suppressed individuals of Adept Rank or lower. There are three effects on this cell. Dimensional Block is active. Unbreakable Bars is active. Magic Barrier is inactive.
“Quilly, can you interface with these effects?”
“Yes, sir!”
“I don’t suppose you know who turned off the Magic Barrier?”
“I do not,” Quilly answered as he perched up on one of the horizontal bars in Nate's vision.
“Turn off the Dimensional Block for all the cells.” Nate felt a slight shift as the blocking magic dissipated.
Dimensional Block disabled for all cells. Your Rank Tyrannist title’s ability to ignore rank disparity has negated the additional personal energy cost generally required to interface with higher-ranked systems.
Nate stepped through a portal to right outside of his cell, then opened one for Krypdyr. “We need to find the others. I can’t reach out with my aura yet without risking our discovery.”
“So, you guide me like I’m your prisoner to the captain’s quarters, freeing our friends along the way?”
“The Princess Leia Rescue plan. Love it, though it would have been better with Fuzzball!” Nate nodded and focused on his connection to Terry. His leather armor darkened to a purple that was nearly black, offsetting his white feathers. He pulled out the Tricorn Hat he’d gotten recently and secured it to his head, pulling up Quilly’s mirror to make sure it looked okay. He deepened his voice in an attempt to match Blackwing’s voice. “I'm Duckman. What do you think?”
“If we’re fast and no one stops us, I think we’ll be fine.”
Leaving the Suppression Cuff on Krypdyr, but turning it off with a touch of his aura, Nate stepped confidently to the only door leading out of the brig. He swung it open, the kangaroo-faced chimeran guard who had been leaning against the door falling backward. A portal opened underneath the falling guard, depositing him into one of the nearby empty cells that Nate could see into.
“HEY!” the guard yelled as Nate immediately shut the door.
“They can’t hear you,” Krypdyr said as he peered through the bars, “Airships with prisons have those areas sound proofed to keep the noise down. Should make for an interesting time.”
“Agreed,” Nate said, “and I would be more than happy to let my friend eat you, but I think you can help us in a more productive way. Where did they take Zeff, Fuzzball, and Ellie?”
The guard said nothing, withdrew a set of keys and began unlocking the cell door. As the guard pushed the door, Nate opened another portal in the doorway, and the guard ran through his cell, passing through the portal several times before Nate could get the keychain from the door and close it back.
“Ooh, these keys are going to be handy, I think,” Nate said as he leaned back against the opposite cell bars. “Holding the portal open that long is exhausting.”
The guard began thrashing against the bars, hurling expletives. A futile effort.
“You can’t get through. These are designed to hold in Adepts, and you are a Novice ranker like me.”
After several more minutes, the guard slumped, breathing heavily.
“We may have gotten off on the wrong foot. My name is Nate Arkwright. What’s your name?” Nate asked him.
“Liam Jackson. You look like Blackwing.”
“A recent development, I assure you.” Nate cycled his menus and shifted back into his typical ginger haired form. “This better?”
Liam shrugged.
“We're going to be taking over this ship and the more help you give now will help your case later.”
Liam couldn't quite stifle his laugh. “The Black Bunny will throw your corpse from the deck before you do.”
“That's Spring Jack, right?” Liam gave a single nod. “Maybe we'll snag him last. You're surprisingly forthcoming with information.”
“I'm a pirate,” Liam said as if that explained everything.
Nate shifted into a goose chimeran. “And I'm a silly goose, but I doubt that would be a justifiable reason for giving info to enemies.”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“You have the power to escape from not only our brig cells, but apparently the cuffs too. I can't do anything against that, so switching sides is better than death.”
“And pirates are pragmatic?”
“This one is.”
----------------------------------------
Ellisandra sat at a table covered in plates nearly overflowing with food. Delightful smells of roasted meats and vegetables overlapped with the sugary sweets and baked breads. She touched none of it, of course, her eyes boring into the cobalt chimeran sitting across the table. Spring Jack picked through the plate he had filled up for himself.
“Please eat. I wouldn’t dare poison food that my crew will be eating for a while,” he said as he popped a grilled orange tomato-esque vegetable into his mouth. “Besides,” he said around the bite, “we have much to discuss.”
She raised her left arm and shook the Suppression Cuff. “You’re very lucky this is on my wrist right now.” She grabbed a butter knife near her and threw it hard at Spring Jack, who caught it with a blur of movement and placed it on the table.
Spring Jack sighed. “Yes, yes. Tough, beautiful scaly elf lady would kill me if given half a chance. Sounds like a fun night. I need you to tell me about Nate.”
“I’m not telling you anything.”
“I assume you’ve heard of Zolis Fezim?”
Ellisandra sat back in her chair, but said nothing.
“He wants Nate pretty badly. I think it has something to do with this Interface Podium thing, but I haven’t been able to find anything about it. What is it?”
She grabbed a slice of grilled meat with her fingers and tore off a chunk, chewing thoughtfully. “Where are my friends?”
“In the brig, where you will eventually be going if you refuse to cooperate.”
“I need to know they’re okay, to see them.”
“I assure you that no harm has come to them, yet,” Spring Jack said.
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t trust you.”
The doors to the dining room slammed open and Blackwing charged into the room.
“Blackwing, my friend, you hungry?”
“No,” Blackwing said, “did she tell you anything yet?”
“Not yet.”
“I can get what we need,” he looked at Ellisandra with a vicious gleam.
“Ducks aren’t that intimidating.” Ellisandra didn’t back down when he punched her hard in the face. She laughed as the blood flowed from her nose.
“Blackwing.” The mirth had left Spring Jack’s quiet tone. “You will leave this room now.”
The silence that fell over the room was palpable. Ellie felt the clash between their auras, watched as Spring Jack’s slowly but methodically took every advantage it found, crushing Blackwing’s fearsome aura beneath its chaotic focus. Blackwing shook with fear and rage, but said nothing else and stormed out of the room. Spring Jack immediately retracted his aura and his smile returned.
“I’m sorry about him. He takes information gathering a little too seriously.”
Ellie licked the blood from around her lips, “You mean torture, right?”
“Torture is… inefficient. It can be useful in part, but generally it doesn’t work unless you are threatening to torture loved ones in front of the ones who have the info you need.”
The chat invite popped up into her view.
“Nate! How?”
“I’ll fill you in later. Are you alone?”
“Nope. Captain Rabbit man is here.”
“We’ve snagged about half the crew so far. We have them in the brig. Keep him occupied.”
“He wants to know about you.”
“That seems to be going around these days.”
Spring Jack gave her a puzzled look, and Ellie felt his aura settle around her. “Where did you go just then?”
“I was thinking about you.”
His cobalt ears perked up, ‘Oh?”
Ellisandra’s smile never reached her eyes, “You are deceptively charming. I think you weren’t expecting Blackwing to strike me, and so you sent him away with your aura, purposely including me in it so I could sense you do it even though my aura senses are suppressed. You wanted me to be at ease, thinking you the good pirate.”
“Very insightful. Did it work?”
----------------------------------------
Nate, shifted into Liam’s kangaroo chimeran form, crouched next to a hatch leading into an area with several tables, around one of which sat Zeff talking to a dark furred panther chimeran dressed in mechanic coveralls. Krypdyr peeked out from the other side of the door.
“That’s what I told him,” the mechanic said, “I had to reroute power from the core into the cells through the kitchen equipment.”
Zeff smirked, “Dravin, that wouldn’t be a problem if you add extra stabilizing runes to the relevant siphon plates.”
Before Dravin could respond, Nate stepped out, “Dravin, there’s some weird sounds coming from the cells.”
Dravin sighed, “Again?”
“Why are you consorting with our captive? Isn’t he supposed to be with Blackwing?”
Dravin looked a bit nervous, “No?”
Zeff smiled at the shifted Nate, “I volunteered in transit to help with your airship issues.”
“He’s a real wonder at this.”
“Thanks, Dravin!”
“Shut it. Take the blue man if you must, but you will follow me.”
Zeff and Dravin stood and walked ahead of Nate. Krypdyr stayed in the shadows. As they reached the brig door, Nate grabbed Dravin from behind, activating his vampiric draining ability, shifting back into his human form as he did so. Dravin struggled for a moment before exhaustion dropped him to the ground.
“Nate?” Zeff looked on in surprise as Krypdyr slipped out of the shadow to pick up Dravin and slither him into one of the empty cells.
“Glad you weren’t being tortured,” Nate said as he pulled Zeff into a hug.
“They have been very nice to me, actually. I think Dravin was the nearest thing they had to a mechanic, but he must have gotten his knowledge from a skill book.”
“Have you seen Fuzzball?”
“I have not. I’ve only been into the core room and the dining area,” Zeff looked into the cells. “How many have you captured already?”
“I think we’re at ten. Liam, how many others are there?”
Liam rubbed his hairy chin in thought, “At least that many more, plus Blackwing and the Black Bunny. I’m surprised you haven’t triggered the alarms.”
“That’s my fault,” Zeff said.
“You fiddled with the core?” Nate asked.
“Of course! Dravin had no idea what he was doing. I made it about 25 percent more efficient just by correcting some of his configurations. And I went ahead and turned off the alarms while I was there. Figured you’d escape one way or another. How did that happen anyway?”
“Visit from Life,” Krypdyr said as he settled next to them.
“Not exactly,” Nate clarified, “my Interface ability did the heavy lifting. Life gave me the ability to change myself.” He shifted into Dravin. “Should be able to get around a bit easier like this. Where’s your gear?”
“Not sure,” Zeff said.
Nate used his Resourceful ability to craft a heavy wrench and handed it to Zeff. “This will do for now. Oh,” he grabbed Zeff’s suppression cuff and deactivated it, tucking it into his inventory alongside his own.
Zeff sighed with relief as he felt his abilities unlock. “Thanks!”
“Now let’s go get Fuzzball and Ellie.”