“How did you figure these tunnels were here, anyway?” Tariq asked as his head swiveled around, looking nervously to and fro at the walls.

“On the outside, at the bottom of the walls,” Paracelsus replied, “There were these small bars that I assumed were some type of highlight window.”

“And?”

“I assume we’re just too deep, laterally, into the structure to be approaching the outer walls. Stop.”

Paracelsus held up his hand, and the reason became all too obvious when footsteps grew around the corner, approaching the intersection and threatening to expose them. The captain quickly grabbed Tariq by the hand and led him to a four-way intersection, where either intruder hid behind one side and allowed the sentry to pass without incident.

Or rather, that was the plan. Instead, the sentry did pass, but he stopped when he saw a glimmer out of the corner of his eye. He leaned down and inspected it, and found the length of thread it was attached to. He grabbed a knife he kept in his waistband, clutching it tightly, but before he could spin around to confront the intruders, he found himself on the receiving end of a club to the head.

“He’ll be fine,” Paracelsus said, trying his arms, “I can’t imagine it’ll take more than a few hours for him to be found.”

“You hit him pretty hard,” Tariq blanched as he stepped over the unconscious man, “Are you sure he’ll be fine?”

“I’m no doctor, but he’s not even bleeding. Now, let’s finish mapping out these tunnels.”

—

Serpacinno brought her hood over her head; the deeper she got into the town, the more and more marines swarmed around. A pleasant side-effect of this was that she now spotted a marine standing alone, unguarded. She crept up silently behind him, like a snake in tall grass, and seized him, wrapping an arm around his midsection to bind his hands while her snakes flitted their tongues out menacingly at his throat.

“There we go,” She confiscated his sword and gun, “Nothing to worry about.” With her palm open and flexed, she chopped the back of his neck to knock his lights out for a few moments, after which she used those precious moments to bind him and steal his overclothes.

Now comfortably dressed as a marine, she left the man and got about something approaching a regular patrol. She gave a half-hearted excuse to join up with another, small group of marines keeping an eye on the elevated section of the city. There, the company came upon Farah Taylor, seemingly writing a report.

“Any updates?” She asked, not raising her head from her notepad, which made Serpacinno gulp in anticipation.

“None, ma’am,” The marine in front saluted, “Except for… Well, Dane’s gone and disappeared.”

“If Dane had disappeared, there’d be seven of you,” His blunder was enough to make Farah look up from her paper, “There’s eight,” She pointed to Serpacinno, “So who’s that?”

“Dane’s, er…” She stammered, “Replacement. The Lieutenant sent me.”

Farah paused for some time, and were it not for the hood making Serpacinno look different she might’ve caught her “Good enough,” She cocked her head to indicate towards the very top of the town, upon which a temple sat, “Go check in with the watchdog.”

Serpacinno nodded, for fear that her voice was going to fail her. Then, she marched with the rest of the platoon to the crow’s nest. There sat the “watchdog”, a huge woman, clearly part hound, with purple eyes that had some sort of crossmarks on them. So still did she sit, that everyone, on first seeing her, thought she was a statue.

“Any news?” She asked in a low, baritone voice.

“We haven’t seen any, but -” One marine said, “Their ship is in harbor.”

The hound took up her weapon, a large x-shaped bow and aimed toward the pier, “Which one is it?” Her eyes grew wide, and her pupils dilated, presumably taking aim.

“The Living Current.” The same marine answered.

“Wait!” Serpacinno shouted, “There might be civilians aboard.”

Sarabi, the sniper, sighed, “You’re right.” She lowered the weapon and returned to a neutral stance, observing the ship, “But I can at least take down their lookout.” She returned the weapon in front of her, aiming it at Gareland.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Seeing no other option, Serpacinno lept into action, drawing a longsword from her pockets and pressing it against Sarabi’s neck. All the marines raised their weapons or took up stances at once. She chewed her lips in thought, grabbing the bow and throwing it down on the ground.

“Everyone down on the ground!” When Serpacinno didn’t get the response she was looking for, she reiterated “Now!” They complied, slowly, lowering their weapons and putting their hands on their heads, “Now, I have a question. How did you get here before us?”

“Miss Taylor,” The helpful marine said, “When she sleeps - the ship goes faster. Much faster.”

“Good enough.” Satisfied, the gorgon searched through her pockets for rope, but came up three or four men short. She tied up as many as she could and pocketed all the weapons. Now there were two free soldiers kneeling on the ground, and that wasn’t even counting the massive hound sat at the glazed wall. She took another look through the window, and Sarabi saw her eyes widen when Serpacinno glanced at the pillar of smoke filling the sky.

—

“Lieutenant Graave,” Farah saluted her boss, “I believe we’ve got one of the revolutionaries trapped with the watchdog.”

Grave smiled, which felt like it may have been for the first time in days, “Good work, Officer Taylor. I'll apprehend them, send a company after me.”

Grave kept his smile up as he started his walk, happy that this whole business was soon to be behind them.

—

Tariq and Paracelsus, meanwhile, had just emerged from the tunnels back into the streets, having evaded detection as far as they could tell. With a map of the tunnels in hand, Paracelsus initially planned to return to the White Horse to wait for his partner.

Instead, along the way, he was grabbed by the shoulder by a goat-looking woman with a gun, who told him, “Come with me.” Worst of all was that she was flanked by two large, broad-shouldered sailors.

Not one to argue with a weapon, Paracelsus kept a hand around the corner of the street they were on, partially to block Tariq from walking into sight, and partially to hand him the map. His young friend, to his credit, took the map, and disappeared to skulk away from the confrontation. With the map gone, Paracelsus put his hand forward to indicate towards the bay.

“I don’t suppose there’s any way we can expedite this?” He asked, stumbling along, “I have somewhere to be tonight, you see.”

His joke, it seemed, was not appreciated by the man who gave him quite the blow in the back for it, which made the alchemist stumble forward a few feet before settling into a regular pace. He took note of the eyes of his captors, not purple, which seemed to indicate they were foreigners, and with a certain air about that seemed to suggest they weren’t entirely legitimate citizens.

“On.” One man put so summarily, knocking Paracelsus onto a rowboat.

He rolled his eyes once he realized he was the one expected to row them. They already had a gun to him, and now they expected manual labor? He shook his head in exasperation as he began doing just that sort of manual labor, hugging the coast until they came upon a small bay in a cave about three miles from the harbor. At the boat, he loosely tied it to the tackle on the side and climbed the Jacobs ladder to board.

“So?” He asked his captors, “Why am I here?”

“Hello, son,” McGraw grinned from the quarterdeck, chuckling when Paracelus’ eyes filled with recognition, “We was just bringing you here to parley.”

“Forgive me if I find that hard to believe.”

The pirates made him sit on the deck at this point, chaining his wrists behind him and around the mast. Then, the captain decided to grace him with his presence, and his breath almost made Paracelsus wish they’d just kill him already.

“I know you were hiding something from me, lad -” McGraw said, “Something you’re willing to risk your life for.”

The alchemist pursed his lips and licked his teeth in thought. He didn’t truthfully know what, specifically, they were after, but he was sure that once he told them what they wanted to hear, he was dead, “Let me write a letter to my friend. Then we talk.”

McGraw whacked him across the face with his fist for daring to make a demand. With indignation in his eyes, he repeated the blow several more times to punish the young man for speaking out of line. Once his rage was seemingly sated, he kneeled down and gripped Parace’s face to make him look McGraw in the eyes, “Tell us first. Then you can go, free and clear.”

“That’s a bold-faced lie, and you know it,” Paracelsus maintained his smirk, trying to look in control of the situation, “Let me write, or you can throw me in the ocean right now.”

“I can think of far worse to do to you, what you don’t speak.” McGraw reassured him.

“There’s a map on my ship. I’m not quite sure what’s buried there, but I have it on good authority that what’s buried there is worth a ludicrous sum.”

“Well, do keep going.”

“You’ll kill me as soon as I’m of no use.”

The captain grumbled for a moment or two, but the act of goodwill was clearly enough, as he retreated to find a paper and pencil. When McGraw returned with the materials, he put the pencil in his captor’s mouth to write. Dear Serpacinno - I’m fine, don’t worry about me, and I’ll still be around tonight. Any questions, ask Tariq.

* Paracelsus

McGraw inspected the letter and chuckled at the thought of him escaping, before he let the raptor take it away, “Alright, let’s hear more. In specific - what are you doing here?”

“Just taking a look around town,” Paracelsus’ tone was even and confident, knowing that anything less was likely to get him killed, “And resupplying, of course.”

“That’s not true,” He was delivered another blow to the chin from McGraw, “You know it. I know it.”

“You’re an astute man, Captain…”

“McGraw.”

“Captain McGraw. On the map, there’s a note, I need to find a woman named Georgia for the last part, and I have reason to believe she’s here.”

“You sure seem to like that phrase. ‘Reason to believe,’ eh? Do you have any actual proof that she’s here?”

“None whatsoever, at least of any substance. The only indication is that this is the final touchpoint before we sail off to Uni-Blanc.”

“Then I guess we’ve some work to do, don’t we?” McGraw gathered a few men, and although none of them spoke the local language, he was sure he’d be able to make do. “When we get back, we’re all gonna take a short jaunt to your ship.”

That left Paracelsus on the deck with around two-thirds of the crew still present. Notably, among them was the same goat woman who’d grabbed him earlier, who waited about an hour before first making contact with him.

“I know you’re lying,” She said, crouching down, “You’ve been telling him what he wants to hear - why?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I want to live.”

“And when he comes back and realizes this ‘Georgia’ doesn’t exist?”

“Let me worry about that.” He tried to turn away from the prying woman. She was far too shrewd for his liking, and he knew she was onto him.

She clicked her tongue, and wagged her finger a few times, “No, no, no. You have a plan to escape, and I need to know it.”

At that, Paracelsus groaned. He knew there was no good way out of this.