17. CAPTURED
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As the team floated aimlessly at sea long into the night, Colb dozed off on the cool bed of ice.
After some time, he half-awoke to the sound of Elvish voices, feeling dazed and confused. Colb experienced a sensation of being lifted and moved, but was too drowsy to react. Everything seemed to be happening more quickly than he could understand it. Something was wrong.
An unknown amount of time later, after being set on the ground, the chef goblin had regained enough energy to look up. He noticed thick branches of goldatinum-colored leaves swaying in the air above him. Hmmm… trees? he thought to himself. Did we hit land while I was asleep?
Colb peered downwards, where he saw a mound of goldatinum-colored clovergrass underneath him. I am on land, he confirmed. Hmmm, this is very beautiful clovergrass, yes? Did I die? Is this a dream?
The chef next attempted to stand up, only to discover his arms and legs had been bound by rope. Wait… this isn’t right, yes? he thought.
Colb blinked a few times and shook his head to wake himself up more. As his daze faded away, and his eyes started to focus, Colb noticed his friends sitting with him. They were all bound as well, and surrounded by elven guards.
These elves – who were more than twice the height of Colb – carried wooden blowguns and sharp, white-painted boomerangs. Weapons! Colb worried. Hmmm! We must’ve hit the Elvish Kingdom while I was asleep, yes?! Have we been captured?!
Colb looked outwards, towards the sea. At the shore’s edge, a different group of elves with blue-colored skin, sharp-pointed ears, and long, flowing white hair were holding their hands out. As they did so, the water before them shifted, magically swallowing up Kashmir’s iceberg. Hmmm! This seems like no dream, Colb realized.
Colb looked back at the guards surrounding him and his friends. They appeared to be answering to one particular elf, who looked quite different from all the others. This elf’s natural skin was a mixture of white, black, and red lines, all twisting around each other as if someone had scribbled on their body with inks and paint. The elf also had a potent magical aura about them, which Colb could sense like waves of pressure through the air.
Colb looked around at his friends, to see how they were dealing with the situation. Stibs struggled against his ropes, which became tangled slightly in the backpack he wore. Drek sat proudly: tied up, but still wearing his glorious goldatinum crown, which had been left untouched by the guards. 27 looked absolutely confused and upset. Kashmir was simply staring at the ground, with defeat in her eyes.
Hmmm, we should get out of here, yes? Colb thought to himself. The chef goblin perked up his ears, hoping to get some information from the nearby elves that might help him escape – but as the guards spoke, Colb found their language foreign and impossible to comprehend. Confused, he looked down at his necklace. The Yiklar Amulet of Open Ears was still around his neck, but it didn’t glow the way it used to. Instead, it appeared dull, more similar to the gemstones he’d purchased in Cantia than to an item 27 would sell.
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Fighting against his bounds, Colb decided to carefully inch his way towards 27. He eyed the guards as he progressed, wary that they could attack at any moment.
“Hmmm, my Yiklar Amulet of Open Ears seems to be broken, yes?” Colb whispered as soon as his noble companion was in earshot. 27 looked at him, then looked down at his necklace.
“MMmMmmmm, that is not good, no it is not,” 27 muttered. “However, it is good to see you’re awake, yes it is.”
“Hmmm, what exactly happened to get us in this situation?” Colb asked. “I’m confused, yes?”
“MMmMmmmm, when we hit shore, these elves ambushed us immediately, yes they did,” 27 replied. “One of them fired a blowgun dart right into your neck, and whatever it was tipped with seemed to prevent you from waking up. They fired one at me as well, but fortunately I managed to dodge it.”
“Hmmm, I was wondering why the sounds of conflict hadn’t woken me up,” Colb murmured. He rubbed his shoulders against his neck, checking for the dart. A purple-colored needle came loose from his skin, and fell to the ground.
27 continued to recount the recent events. “After they attacked with darts, I tried to summon an Elvish-translated Yiklar Catalog to befriend and barter with them, yes I did,” he muttered. “MMmMmmmm, but my Yiklar Bag of Traveling Inventory had gone dull, yes it had! Worse yet, Drek fired an arrow at the elves with his Yiklar Bow of Returning Arrow, and it didn’t come back! It fell into the water, and now that beautifully crafted iridhodium arrow is gone for good!”
27 shook his head in disbelief. “MMmMmmmm, it’s as if all magic has gone away, yes it is. There was nothing we could do, and the elves – they overwhelmed us. We never stopped struggling, but they still managed to tie us up one-by-one, yes they did.”
“Hmmm, all magic has gone away?” Colb repeated.
“Look at Kashmir!” 27 continued, his eyes becoming crazed with anxiety. “Her hands have been bound, and she’s not wearing any gloves! You’d think her bare skin would’ve destroyed those ropes by now, yes you would? Even her innate magic has disappeared!”
Colb looked over at the defeated young elf. Indeed, she was tied up without problem – even the clovergrass she sat upon looked perfectly unharmed. “Hmmm, not all magic has vanished, yes?” Colb countered. “Look out to the sea, yes? Hmmm, they’re destroying our iceberg with magic, yes?”
Colb and 27 looked out towards the peppersalt tides. The group of blue-skinned elves had finished sinking the ice-platform, and appeared to be regrouping with their leader. Droplets of water magically flowed atop their skin as they walked, shimmering in the moonlight.
However, as the group got closer to their tricolored leader, this effect suddenly stopped: the droplets fell to the ground with a splash, and the blue-skinned elves appeared to dull and weaken.
“MMmMmmmm, not anymore – their magic is gone, too,” 27 observed. “Perhaps there’s something about this area that suppresses magic, yes there might be? MMmMmmmm… but my Yiklar Bag of Traveling Inventory stopped working while I was on the iceberg, yes it did, not while I was sitting here.”
“Hmmm, maybe there’s some sort of mobile magic-blocker, yes?” Colb theorized. He looked around. There didn’t seem to be any large magical machines in the area… but the leader covered in black, white, and red scribbles certainty had a palpable presence. Each time that elf took a step, Colb felt a light ringing sensation in his ears.
“Hmmm, do all elves have powers like Kashmir?” Colb asked. 27 shrugged, giving him a how-am-I-supposed-to-know look. “Hmmm… perhaps that leader is blocking all magic, yes?” Colb continued. “The elf’s skin almost looks like it’s… wiggling the air, yes? Maybe that’s disrupting the magic of anything that gets too close, yes?”