As I stared at the stone Sculpted lying motionless in a cage, it felt like I was waking up from a dream.
From the moment I had departed the tavern to track the slavers, it had felt like I was running on near autopilot. There had been no thought for what I was doing, about what the consequences might be. I had seen another person in a collar and had fallen into a near trance. Slowly, something that had frozen solid in my core with hatred began to thaw.
I…remembered what I had done, of course. I’d followed the men dragging the Sculpted slave to a warehouse, and finding no other entrances than the front door, had grappled to the roof. Slipping in through a window, I…think? I had only intended to find and free the slave inside.
But…that’s not what happened.
While sneaking through the warehouse, I’d nearly bumped into one of the guards inside. Before his eyes could even widen in surprise, I’d used the dagger that had somehow found its way into my hand to tear out his throat. The noise must have drawn the attention of another guard though, because he’d come to investigate while I was standing over the man I’d…killed.
He had died, too. But not before drawing the last guard in the warehouse.
I’d met him with dagger in hand, and after a short exchange of blows, I'd known I was outmatched in a straight-up fight.
So I'd turned it into one that wasn't.
I'd used Grasping Roots for the first time in combat, and bound the warehouse guard in place. As the thorned roots had dug into his legs, causing him to grunt in pain, I'd struck. My brilliantly burning spear had torn through his heart.
After that, I’d…searched the bodies of the men I’d killed, finding a control slate on the last guard.
Then I’d gone to find the slave.
But…
I could only stand there and stare at him blankly, slate in one hand, dagger held limply in the other. My gaze drifted down to the weapon I had created with my own two hands.
I watched dully as blood dripped from the blade to land on the wooden floor of the warehouse below me.
I…can’t quite be sure how long I stood there, watching the lifeblood of the men I’d murdered drip onto the floor.
Eventually, I was knocked out of my trance by what sounded like a voice, coming to me far away. I let my gaze drift upwards, to find that the Sculpted had managed to struggle up into a sitting position, and was looking at me with a wary gaze in his glass eyes.
“Who…the bleedin’…hells…are…ye?” The stone Sculpted asked me slowly, as if it was difficult to speak.
Bleeding. Heh.
I drew in a shuddering breath. “I…I’m someone who doesn’t like slavery,” I said roughly. Sheathing my still wet blade with a trembling hand, I knelt down to look at the lock on the cage. I cursed to myself, as I didn’t have my lockpicking tools on me. Fool, you should know better by now. I was going to have to brute-force it, if I wanted to get this guy out of here.
Meanwhile, the Sculpted was still speaking to me. “That’s…all?” He said incredulously. “Ye saved me…because ye don’t like…slavery?”
“I think so,” I said to him in a low voice, bringing my hand up to rest on lock. Angling my hand away from the prone Sculpted, I cast Poisonthorn Shot on the lock from point blank range. The thorn from my skill embedded itself into the iron of the lock, quickly beginning to corrode it. I dismissed the thorn after a few moments, and then reached and yanked hard on the lock. It broke apart easily in my hand.
Standing up, I eased open the cage door with a shriek of iron on iron. Shuffling inside, I hesitantly laid a hand on the mostly immobile Sculpted. “Are you…all right? What’s wrong? Did they do something to you?” He was almost acting like he’d been poisoned, but that was ridiculous. Were there even poisons that could affect Sculpted?
“What d’ya think…they did, ye daft fool?” The Sculped said haltingly, audibly depressingly. “Put a collar around…me neck and…branded me. This is what happens…when my kind gets fitted…with one. Me life…is over.”
I took a deep breath and smiled behind the unnatural darkness of my hood. While I had forgotten my lockpicks, there was something that I never forgot to bring with me. Reaching behind my back to my ever-present pack, I withdrew the Bond Breaker I always kept on my person. “Not for long,” I said to him.
His eyes tracked the oversized fork in my hands with a confused look in them, as I lay the control slate I’d found on the ground. They nearly bulged out of their stone sockets when I raised the Breaker above my head and drove it down at the slate. “Wait!” The Sculpted nearly screamed in desperation. He was probably afraid I was going to accidently activate the death enchantment in his collar.
The Breaker punctured the surface of the slate, and I pressed the activation rune. With a flash of blue-green Aether, the control slate detonated in an explosion of black stone. Expecting it, I shielded my eyes. I heard a few pieces ricochet off of the Sculpted, though. That wasn’t all I heard, though.
I heard the satisfying click of an opening slave collar. I lowered my arm from my face just in time to watch as the Sculpted’s slave collar tumbled to the ground. Even if he couldn’t move, his eyes still tracked the collar disbelievingly to where it hit the wooden floor of the warehouse with a clunking noise.
Stolen story; please report.
“How…?” He breathed out, amazement thick in his whistling voice.
Even if he couldn’t see it, I still smiled at him. I remembered that feeling. I shook my head at him, though. “I’m not done. Next, your brand.”
The Sculpted’s eyes grew comically wide at my words. “Ye can do that?”
I nodded at him, reaching out to shift the Sculpted man onto his front. He tried to help me as much as he was able to, even with the way he struggled to move. It was easier than I thought it would be. For a man made completely out of stone, he was surprisingly light.
Tugging down the back of his shirt, I exposed the back of his left shoulder. Sure enough, seared into the honeycomb-like surface of his stone skin was a familiar-looking brand. I couldn’t help but scowl at the sight of the S with a slash through it. I’m guessing these pirates were selling to the Savoy, considering they were using one of their brands. Whatever, that wasn’t what was important right now.
I stabbed the Breaker down in the stone of the Sculpted man’s back, right over the brand. Thankfully, the original design of the Breaker had been intended for Ward Stones, so it had no problem penetrating the stone. I pressed the activation rune, causing the brand to light up in ethereal light for a moment, before dying down.
Two things happened the moment I did so.
First, the Sculpted man beneath jerked in place, as if he had suddenly regained complete control of his body. Still lying down, he turned his head in place to give me an amazed look.
The second thing that happened?
Well, secondly, the front door of the warehouse on the far wall exploded. I flinched, letting go of the Breaker and standing to look behind me. I looked just in time to see someone flying through the broken wall where a door used to be, sword brandished in front of them.
Right at me.
My eyes bulged, but I managed to draw my dagger and fully extend it just in time to catch a downward chop from whoever this was in a block. The impact was so great though that it both drove the breath from my lungs, and me down to one knee. I desperately reinforced my strength with Sylvan Vigor at full power in order to halt the advance of their blade any further, but it wasn’t working. The blade was still advancing on me, inch by inch. Whoever this was, they were way stronger than I was.
Straining, I looked up, trying to see the face of my attacker. In the dim light of the warehouse, I thought they were a woman, but that was all I was able to make out. Only, they had reared back, and were driving their blade back down at me with a snarl on vaguely feminine features. Desperately, I tried to brace myself better from my bad position. I don’t know how many more of those I could take.
“Stop! Stop,” I heard from behind me, moments before the woman’s blade could impact my spear. It instantly halted, inches from likely blowing right through my guard. Seconds later, the Sculpted that I had rescued scrambled over to stand in between the woman and I. Gently, he nudged the woman’s cutlass away from my spear. “Captain, it ain’t what ye think. This weirdo saved me.”
Weirdo?
The woman finally spoke, never taking her stormy blue eyes off of me. I didn’t dare move under her piercing gaze. “Ye got a damn fork stickin’ out of yer back, Pete,” She said in a low, smoky voice. “That don’t look like no kind of rescuin’ I’ve ever seen.”
Oh. I’d…kind of left the Breaker embedded in the Sculpted man’s back. Yeah, I could see how that looked bad. The Sculpted, apparently named ‘Pete’, grew a surprised look on his face, and groped uselessly behind him, trying to reach the Breaker. He couldn’t quite reach it, though.
Suddenly, a familiar blue short sword snaked around the neck of the woman still standing over me. The woman stiffened in alarm. With a shimmer of light, an illusion broke, revealing Sylvia standing right behind her clad in her full stealth suit. My Sculpted friend leaned in closer to her. “And you’ve got a sword at your neck.” She hissed in her ear. “I’d advise you to think about your next move carefully.”
The tension in the room ratcheted up massively with the now three-way standoff. I was still kneeling, frozen in a guard while being threatened by the woman’s cutlass. Pete had frozen in place as well, right arm over his back. Out of the corner of my eye, though, I noticed his left hand drifting closer to his waist.
“That will be quite enough of that, I believe,” I heard a voice say from the shattered doorway. Craning my head slightly to look beyond the woman, I found Grey standing there, unconcerned about the rubble. I nearly sagged in relief at the sight of my mentor.
He strode into the warehouse as if he owned it, reaching us in no hurry. “You can let go of her, my dear,” He said to his daughter in a soothing voice. “I know this one.”
Slowly, Sylvia withdrew her short sword from around the neck of the woman in front of me. She backed away until she was standing off to the side. She never took her eyes off the woman, nor sheathed her blade.
Meanwhile, the woman sagged slightly, letting out a shuddering breath. Almost subconsciously, she raised her unoccupied hand to rub at her throat where Sylvia’s blade had rested only moments ago. She paused, turning to face Grey in the dim light of the warehouse. “That voice…can’t be,” She said in disbelief. She sheathed her sword, and with her now free hand, used it call forth a ball of light, bright as any LED from back home. I squinted in the bright light, my eyes adjusting to it. When I could see well again, I got my first good look at this woman.
She…well she definitely looked like a pirate Captain.
She was dressed astonishingly similar to the pirate leader I’d met earlier, Cassandra. She was wearing nearly identical black leather armor across her form, except with a blue overcoat draped over her shoulders instead of a red one. On her head was a black and white tricorne hat with a red feather in its brim. The woman itself had dark, nearly midnight black hair cut into a shoulder-length bob. Her face was all sharp corners and high cheekbones with thin lips, but I wouldn’t say she was ugly. From my position, I was still able to see her dark, stormy blue eyes. All in all, I’d describe her as…striking.
Said striking woman was still staring at Grey. “Whitegull?” She said, incredulous. “What business do ye have with these blaggards?”
Oi, woman. I just saved your friend. A little gratitude would be nice.
Grey chortled to himself. “These ‘blaggards’ are my daughter,” He said, nodding to Sylvia first. “And my apprentice. Of who is most definitely not supposed to have gone off on his own to rescue slaves at the first opportunity.” He finished, fixing me with a raised eyebrow.
I flushed, standing up from my crouch and collapsing my spear. I dismissed my cloak, since I didn’t think I needed it anymore. When I did so, small drops of blood that had been lingering on it fell around me like raindrops to rest on the floorboards beneath. “I…” I started, and then stopped. “I don’t…know what happened. I couldn’t stop myself,” I said quietly.
My words caused Grey and Sylvia to look at me in concern. Grey walked over to me and put a hand on my shoulder. “Later,” He told me quietly, before turning around to face the Captain with a forced smile. “Isabella! How long has it been? Why, the last I saw of you, you were still apprenticing with Cassandra.”
The Captain, apparently ‘Isabella’, grimaced. “Don’t call me that,” She said, almost automatically.
“These days, they call me Bella the Blue.”