I came to, feeling absolutely horrible. My jaw ached, my head pounded abominably, and my mouth was filled with a foul tasting something that kept my mouth half open.
Oh. I’ve been gagged. I realized after a half second. I guess you would gag a spellcaster if you captured them.
The pounding in my head almost distracted me from a querulous argument. Almost but not quite.
“I do not understand your fear, brother. They folded like any other weak northerners. Even the sand man from the desert collapsed when struck.”
“Did you not hear me the first time?!” An angry voice I recognized as Anyim’s, now shorn of all false pleasantry, answered. “They easily defeated a clutch of megadiles! The most virulent poison of the viper moths did nothing when the pink haired witch cooked a meal to prevent it!”
“And yet they felt into the trap you prepared with all the naivety of a newborn babe.” The first voice responded.
Anyim’s voice was muffled as he responded “That’s what makes no sense! They should have fought! They did fight! And yet they simply walked out of that unnatural blackness as though they-“
“Hist!” said a third voice. “They awaken.”
“We will discuss this elsewhere, then.” The second voice said, followed by the sounds of footsteps.
I blinked my eyes open, and then winced as the torchlight made my headache even worse. That and the fact that I dearly needed to pee!
How long was I out for?! I thought blearly.
“Lily?” I heard Eshaan’s voice nearby, and struggled to sit up, discovering that I had been bound hand and foot as well as gagged. I was sitting awkwardly inside a wicker cage of living jungle vines and branches. Nearby, I could see five other cages, all holding my companions, all tied like me. Only Soriya and I had been gagged though. Beyond, I could make out the walls of a stone room lit by a pair of flickering torches by a pair of doorways.
No blindfold, at least. At least I’m not the only one… except for the gag, I suppose. I thought angrily.
“Lily, you’re up!” I heard Eshaan say excitedly. “What’s going on?! Do you know what that… that blackness was?!”
I glared at him through the cage bars, chewing angrily at the gag in my mouth.
“It was like going to sleep, but it hurt!” He continued. “I’ve never heard of anything like that before!”
Really?! I thought with frustration. If I could throttle you right now, I would. I thought angrily.
Daniyel said with a low and soft voice “I have heard of such a thing, in campfire tales. The sleep that comes from surrender. It requires… encouragement.” He winced, and I saw a swollen bump on his head.
Camaxtli said “Intriguing. The phenomenon is called ‘unconsciousness’, and is typically associated with sleep, but can be induced on another with sufficient blunt force trauma to the cranial region against a surrendered foe. It is a curious artifact, rarely observed.”
Eshaan blinked, twisting around. “Wait, you know about this?!” He asked Camaxtli.
Camaxtli nodded calmly. “Of course.”
“Well what the unholy hells is it?!” Eshaan asked.
Camaxtli raised an eyebrow slowly. “I just told you. An uncommon phenomenon resulting only after surrender-“
“Yes, yes!” Eshaan said, wiggling around to face Camaxtli’s cage. “I heard all that, but it doesn’t explain anything!”
Camaxtli was silent, staring at Eshaan for a considerable amount of time. “Perhaps it would be best.“ he said slowly. “If you tell me what it is you wish me to inform you of then, as I am unsure what you require.” He said, after a lengthy pause.
“Well… what was that?!”
Camaxtli closed his eyes and gave a long sigh.
Daniyel said “We were forced to sleep after we surrendered.”
“Oh!” Eshaan said. “Well why didn’t he say that in the first place?!”
Camaxtli stared at Eshaan, his mouth open. I was briefly glad for the gag, it stopped the amused smirk from reaching my face.
Eshaan turned to me and said excitedly “So, Lily-“ He paused, and then said “Oh. Oh! Right, you’ve got… a thing.” He gestured to his own mouth. “I wondered why I hadn’t heard your voice.”
I felt my glare redouble in intensity.
Lakshmi giggled softly. “Man, if looks could kill, you’d be in a lot of pain right now, Eshaan.”
Eshaan turned to her and frowned. “Why?”
If I could have ground my teeth together, I would have. I subsisted chewing angrily on the gag and glaring even harder. In her cage, Lakshmi dissolved into giggles.
“I guess this is as good a time as any to test out my trick.” Lakshmi said. She closed her eyes, and whispered quietly, and suddenly a small ball of fire flickered into existence in front of her, before falling into her lap. She gave a startled yelp and scrambled around, rolling in her cage to put out the fire she’d just started in her lap.
Honeysuckle. Did she just…?!
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
“Lakshmi! You did it! You cast a spell!” Eshaan enthused. “When did you learn how to cast?!” He exclaimed.
Lakshmi slowly righted herself, wisps of smoke still rising from her slacks. Her expression was that of embarssed pride.
“I’ve been working on it since Camaxtli fixed my mana blockage.” She said, clear pride in her voice. “I didn’t think it would fall into my lap like that though!” she went on, the embarrassment coming to the fore.
“I suppose I need more practice before I can bust us out.” She lapsed into silence.
“It would not be wise in any case, as Lilyanna and Soriya’s plan involves us being sacrificed. A process which has not yet completed.” Camaxtli said.
I nodded vigorously, though I dearly wished that Lakshmi had told me she was a caster now! Still… such things were best kept quiet until needed. It had certainly come as a surprise to me!
A short time later, one of the faceless cult members returned, carrying a torch. “Your sacrifice to the goddess will begin shortly.” He said.
I blinked in surprise. It will?! How long were we unconscious?! I thought. Come to think of it, this is a room isn’t it, not the jungle!
“How long were we unconscious?!” Demanded Lakshmi.
The cultist simply turned and walked out of the room without answering.
Lakshmi huffed. “Rude!”
“Did you expect them to be polite, Captain? They doubtless think we are merely fodder for their deity.” Said Daniyel.
Lakshmi huffed again, crossed her arms over her chest. “Still rude.” She said in a less vehement voice.
Eshaan shrugged. “So… I’m still confused here. Lily? Do we bust out or not?”
I started to glare at him again for asking me something when I couldn’t talk, but took a deep breath and thought.
Do we want to bust out? We’d just wind up inside our goal anyway. Being guided in, even. And when we pop out again, the surprise will be all the more dramatic. No. We do not.
I shook my head, and tried to explain, but the muffled words around my gag and Eshaan’s baffled incomprehension stopped me. So I simply shook my head again.
Eshaan leaned back against the wicker bars of his cage. “Well then. That’s enough for me. Pity though, I was hoping to show off my own spellwork.”
If my mouth hadn’t been gagged, it would have fallen open. Now Eshaan can cast spells!? What the heck kind of level is our party?! The hero boy fighter never casts spells until late in the game! Are we really that far along in the plot? Or just over leveled? Or… or maybe we’ve actually gone someplace off track? My heart leapt for a moment. That was the goal after all! Get off track, get ahead of the track and then move the train where we wanted instead of just riding along.
Lakshmi brought me back by saying “Pft, you’ve barely managed {Acceleration}. And you’re using the System to do it! I had to learn like Lily and Soriya do! Every time I try to use the System to cast, my mana channels hurt!”
“{Acceleration} is useful!” Eshaan protested.
Time magic? Who was tutoring…?! I felt like a dunce. Camaxtli. Of course. So now Eshaan’s {Bladestorm} is going to be even more disturbingly OP.
We sat in our cages, occasional bursts of conversation quickly fading out. I wished I could sleep, but the floor of the cage and my bindings made that effectively impossible.
I suppose I should be glad that Eshaan isn’t the type who likes his girls all tied up. I also don’t like myself being tied up! I thought wryly.
The time seemed to drag slowly, until Anyim and the rest of the cultists filtered in, now dressed in their ceremonial greenery.
“The time has come, adventurers! Rejoice! Your lives shall fuel the silence of the Goddess, her blessings to the forest! Your great airship shall fuel our silent growth as well, nothing shall be wasted, as the Goddess decrees!”
It’s a good thing that Lakshmi hadn’t slipped her bonds. I thought wryly. If she was free I think she’d have gutted Anyim and everyone else in the room just now!
“Well it’s too bad for you!” She proclaimed proudly “We’ve already plotted your little surprise party! Your goddess is going down, and the Sparrowhawk is safe from you!”
I felt myself wilt a little, and saw how Daniyel winced at that.
Anyim jerked like he’d been stung, and staggered a few steps back. I could see his eyes through his mask, they looked wild and panicked. The moment held like a glass pane before breaking.
“High Silence… the sacrifice?” said one of the minions behind him.
Anyim spun, clutching his staff like a talisman. “No!” He proclaimed. “No, this feast… they are poison! They mean the goddess harm! We must destroy them before they get close!”
Daniyel sighed. “This, princess. This is why we restrain our impulses.”
“Well how was I to know!?” Lakshmi demanded angrily. “Pinkie always has a plan!”
Eshaan cleared his throat. “So, we can attack now?” He asked hopefully.
Everyone looked at me. I rolled my eyes and nodded, and got a muffled “Yeff.” Around my gag.
Lakshmi’s grin grew broad and vicious. “Finally! Lakshmi the Red has words for you!” She said with a joyful viciousness. “And those words are-
“Spirits of Inferno, heed my command, unleash hell! Flare!” She shouted.
A blade of red orange light brighter than anything I’d seen before, brighter even than Soriya’s spells, burned out of Lakshmi’s cage, the wicker halves falling to either side, brightly burning and snapping angrily. The blade of fire continued to either side as Lakshmi spun, laughing hysterically, cutting the wicker cages in half.
I yelped and dove for the floor of my cage, the wickerwork bars collapsing in a smoking heap on top of me.
Right. Right! Lakshmi’s supposed to be from a magically talented family. Sure, this makes sense… I whimpered in the ruins.
“Attack!” Screamed one of the faceless temple minions, and the battle was truly on.
Eshaan threw his own lightning spell, but as he did, it wrapped around his fists. He leaped forward, his fists blazing with elemental power and his punch knocked one of the cultists backwards into the wall, where they slumped, and then dissolved into motes of light, a scattering of equipment and gear falling to the stone floor.
I felt a pang at my heart seeing another death, but I told myself this was just how this world was. These people weren’t inviting us to a cookie party, they were trying to kill us. For some obscure religious purpose that I doubted they even understood.
My sympathy was quickly neutralized entirely, as night black daggers appeared in the cultists hands, which then began to shimmer with a virulent green glow. I shouted, but the gag muffled my words.
Daniyel stood up from the ruins of his cage, and swiftly turned to Lakshmi. “We have little time, and there will be reinforcements. Without our weapons, this is a losing battle.”
“We could take them!” Lakshmi protested angrily.”
Daniyel spun and backhanded a cultist that approached, kicking out with his legs to sweep under another. A third hurled the black dagger towards Lakshmi. She gave a startled shriek and ducked, her floppy red hat skewered and pinned to the stone wall behind her.
“Or, I suppose we could leave.” She said, then shouted. “Soriya, Lily, we’re going! Loyal crew! Cut loose!”
Camaxtli looked up from where he was retrieving a pair of black daggers freshly without an owner. “This is already in progress.”
We were swiftly cut free with a mix of stolen cultist daggers and spellcraft, and I ripped the gag out of my mouth and hurled it at an approaching cultist. I almost spit at him, but that felt uncalled for.
We spun and made for the opposite doorway.
“The fools flee towards the goddess! Make sure they do not double back!” A cultist shouted. We fled into the darkness, and I chanted a hurried {Light} spell to let us see where we were going.
A corridor of fitted grey stone, splattered with green moss and vines met our eyes. As we ran, the corridor slowly opened out, spreading upwards into a vast arched dome overhead, stone carved to look like vines and living plants. In the very center, a 10 foot diameter circular opening gaped before us, so dark and deep that my {Light} could not reach the bottom.
Around the edge, were small stone stairs, broken and shattered with untold age, and missing entirely in places, like the gaps of a broken tooth.
Oh wonderful. I thought. A jumping puzzle.