“Alright, I know you know I do enjoy punching people.”
“I have noticed that, yes.”
Alouella felt so light, like she could float off into the sky without any magic at all. Something about a job well done lifted her up, carried as though by Wubwa on his elven beat.
“But that was very impressive. You got a small cult in the middle of nowhere to let us go into their church without violence. I'll admit that I don't think anyone but you could have done it.”
She twirled her staff, energized and happy at her success.
“And all we have to do is wait a bit while they clean house.”
“So we basically made tons of money for sitting around digging through trash. I mean, I'm bummed I didn't get to punch anyone.”
Alouella snorted and made a half-hearted disapproving shake of her head.
“But I guess it's nice to try new things.”
They were within earshot of the camp when they heard the animated, excited voices going back and forth.
“Guys, you won't believe what our...fantastic little...”
They stopped, all eyes on them as they stared at what Wade, Clarke and Wormwood had been talking so heatedly about. Between them were broken splinters of the wooden box the nasty green potion that had been keeping them all alive had been kept in. It now soaked into the earth of their camp as a dark green sludge littered with broken shards of glass.
A sunken trail of dirt wound around the camp like a dog that had been searching and obviously found what it had been ordered to find.
“What happened?”
She bent to pick at the glass, saw the faded logo from the box Clarke used.
“Is it all gone?”
“It's all soaked in the dirt so I guess we could eat that but it is, essentially, gone.”
Wade cracked his knuckles, growling at the castle silhouette.
“Damn cultists.”
“Hang on, what makes you think they did this?”
Wormwood chuckled, a weird noise considering the situation but it sounded almost joyful.
“Who else? If it were a random animal attack wouldn't there be more broken up than just the box? Country boys, isn't that right?”
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Wade grunted, nodding along with that idea.
“But...but the scyllites have been nothing but nice to us! The shark lady, after I'd finished my work for them, even said we could come in and look around. We'd just have to wait a few...days...”
She trailed off. In a few days they'd all be corrupted by the mana around them.
“Just enough time for us to die off then. So maybe they knew all along what we were doing or figured it out.”
Clarke sighed.
Gwen spoke up.
“So...we have to head home then? Or at least out of here until we have a new plan?”
Wormwood laughed this time, a sound that was mixed with Wade's nervous knuckle cracking.
“We can't do that either. See those fires out there?”
He pointed along the tree line the way they'd come. Small torch lights dotted it as far as they could see.
“They want us to know we can't leave.”
“So that's...she wants me to stay...”
Alouella whispered. Gwen looked confused.
“What? The shark girl?”
“Yes, she offered me a place here as their priestess because I could understand the magic their old priestess used. She probably wanted me to take over and since I refused...”
She let the implication stand on its own. Gwen smacked her fist to her palm.
“I guess it's punching time? We fight our way out?”
“Can't. There are what, one hundred scyllites around here that we know of? Unless we managed to sneak by them perfectly they'd probably overtake us either on foot and definitely on wagon. I don't think they'd just let us leave.”
Wade growled the words. Clarke had been quiet during the exchange, writing slowly in his notebook. It was quiet for a few minutes as they let their situation sink in, Gwen prowling around the edge of the camp, everyone taking the news in their own way. Alouella felt betrayed and angry, her heart pounding even as she looked for some way it might not be the scyllites.
Clarke nodded at his book and cleared his throat.
“Alright. Plan one is that Alouella and Wormwood escape using their stealth and that lightning leap spell and the rest of us stay here and die.”
“I like that plan.”
Wormwood tapped the air with a finger. Alouella immediately denounced it.
“I'm NOT going to-”
“Right, I knew you'd say that. I was just exploring our options. It's a process.”
He struck something off on the page and kept on.
“And we already know what will happen if we try to leave by wagon or foot. Very slim chances.”
He stopped to make a few more notes, the others getting impatient before Gwen and her shortest fuse spoke.
“I hope you were building to something cause your plan so far sounds like we start digging our own graves.”
“Well, the best plan is we break into the castle and take it from them. We're looking for a hidden room, aren't we?”
He waited for someone to nod but no one did so he went ahead.
“So the odds are good that there will be some moss growing there, where the scyllites couldn't find it. And I would bet my life, which I am, that any teacher of Twinty's had access to a secret escape route out of the city, being both a spy and a ratling.”
He stopped and looked at the group of angry faces, Wormwood chuckling through a sneer.
“You want us to bet our lives on chance? Odds? And how in the hell do you even plan on getting in? The whole point of a castle is to keep people out!”
“I have a way in, I didn't forget.”
Wormwood looked at the trees, the small moving dots of light and his sneer shrunk. Clarke stared him down, as though picking apart why Wormwood was still there, why he had come along so far. Wormwood finally let go of his sneer with all the glaring eyes at him and sighed.
“I guess you're going to need someone good with traps. It is a ratling spy's room.”
“I thought so. We don't have the luxury of time so grab what you need. Everyone-”
As cool as he was on the surface he could feel the fear powering his heart too fast. Their chances weren't good but it was the best they had or they'd be dead soon.
“-let's go.”