Welcome to Gaia! ::

“These your friends?” Sherspire asked, gesturing to the struggling woman and the surprisingly calm Geth.

“Yeah.”

“I see. Girlfriend?” He asked, almost sounding hopeful. Before Judath could answer, Kamel stopped her struggling and simply started laughing—a deep, throaty laugh reserved for only things she found actually funny, rather than merely amusing.

“…no.” Judath sighed.

“I see. And this here—that’s Gethin Kronsnoble. His royal prince of United Columbus. I heard he’d run away, never dreamed he was with you.”

“We have a mutual mission.” He nodded, casting a sideways glance at Geth—don’t. Say. Anything.

“Oh? And?”

“Confidential. You understand.”

“Right. Well. You understand that I’m going to need compensation for your breaking in here, right?”

Judath raised his eyebrow—this would be the first time he’d suggested anything like that.

“You want the prince.”

“I really do. It’d make my life so much easier to have that kind of hostage.”

“I’m not sure I’m okay with that. I can pay you for damages if you need compensation but I’m not leaving without him.”

“I don’t see that you have much choice, Judath.”

“If you gave me the chance I think you’d be pleased with what I could offer you.”

“I’m all ears.”

“I can improve your ship, make her run faster. You know I’m the best engineer out there.”

“Prince would be more useful.”

“Kamel is a hell of a fighter—point her in a direction, she’ll kill everything she sees.”

Kamel seemed perfectly okay with being bartered away—probably because she might be better off in Sherspire’s company, or because she knew she could escape without much trouble.

“Unnecessary, numbers do the job just fine for me. Anything else?”

Judath bit his lower lip, casting another glance at Geth before looking back to Sherspire.

“I know where the key to the automations are. If you wanted that.”

Sherspire leaned forward, eyes sharpening, a dangerous little smile on his face.

“Well, that’s fortunate. A little too fortunate. You know where the key is?”

“Not just me. A few pirates. No one is crazy enough to use it, though, so we don’t bother.”

“If all you’ve got is tavern gossip I’m afraid it’s not enough.”

“Of course not. I’ve seen it myself. You can trust me, Sherspire.” He pressed, rapping his metal fingers against the wooden coffee table between them—a subtle reminder of their history.

“Really? Well, I just so happened to have learned the other day what direction its in—if you’re telling the truth you should be able to tell me what direction that is, right…?”

“Notus. The southern wind. It’s south.” He instantly replied.

Sherspire smirked, leaning back once again. He rested his leg across his knee, and tapped his finger against the back of the couch.

“Seems I didn’t give tavern gossip the credit it deserved.”

“Seems so.”

“Well, then—guide me.” He smiled, standing up and gesturing for Judath to follow. “Once I have the key, I’ll let you and the royal prince go free.”

“You’re taking us with you?” Judath asked, curious.

“Absolutely.”

“But… my ship… my crew…”

“I’ll get you a new one. Boys, let the woman go. Have her pick up that Bison fellow and be on their way. Seems we have ourselves a guide.”

Hooooo boy.

Judath fidgeted uncomfortably under both Geth’s and Sherspire’s stare, looking to the side to avoid their collective glance. Sherspire smiled a little, standing up and walking behind his desk, pulling out a bottle of sherry and a single glass.

“Take them to their room. Judath has been shot, he’ll need to rest.”

The guards nodded, and started to escort Kamel out of the room—they didn’t like the idea of letting her go, but they weren’t about to contradict Sherspire’s orders. Another group of soldiers took the two men’s arms and started to escort them to their room—it was through a door and down the hall a way, the luxury suite… and it just so happened to share two rooms.

“Cariflex will want to talk with you before dinner. Try not to bleed on the bed.” A soldier grunted—there was an angry loathing in his eyes, clearly he didn’t forgive them for the rampant slaying of his men.

He closed the door. Judath hummed, then put his ear against the door, knocking on it. He’d drag his ear across the door, to the wall, and do the same—knock, move to the side, knock—Geth would tell he was making sure the walls were thick enough for them to have a private conversation without being spied on. Any hole, any nook, any cranny where sound might leak through, he’d surely find it.

“In a manner of speaking.” Jeth sighed as he pulled his ear from the door, limping over to his bed and sitting on the edge, holding his bullet-addled center, a slight wince in his face he had done well to hide in Sherspire’s company. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t ask why.”

He fell on his back, dropping his other arm against his eyes.

“And no. I have no idea what I’m getting into, or what I’m doing. We have to figure that out, ‘forty-eight’. Weren’t you trained in strategy and diplomacy and sh#t like that at the castle?”

“Yeah, well, I can’t do that.” He grunted again, rolling onto this side, curling up—he was really, really unhappy right now, Geth could hear that in his voice quite clearly: not angry, nor vicious, not frustrated… just upset. Distressed. A little broken.

“I was thinking I could lure him to some hidden cave and murder him in there. I have no idea if Bess will follow Sherspire or not: I have faith in her loyalty but not in anyone else’s, and they’ll be getting frigidity—they hadn’t raided anything or gotten any loot in a while now. If she does follow us by some Miracle, our problems are solved. But… again… I can’t count on that.”

He slowly repositioned himself on the bed, so he was laying across it, rather than sitting.

“He’ll put us both to work while we travel. I COULD sabotage the engine, I suppose. But not in any way that would kill him or his crew immediately, I’m guessing—all they’d need is some parachutes and they’d walk away, leaving us with nothing.”

He slowly slid a portion of his arm off his good eye, and shot Geth a glance.

“Unless you could smuggle us some parachutes, and ruin the rest somehow…”

“You’re thinking too short-term.” Judath signed, not really moving, but shifting his arm back over his good eye—the light was not his friend. “I could have turned you in and walked away, but then how would I explain following him? Sherspire trusts me, but obviously not blindly. If I said I was interested in joining him, he’d be suspicious, given the nature of his quest, and if I said it was a coincidence he’d ask me to stop. I could have thrown a grenade or two at him just then, but it would have been at the cost of both our lives and what good would that have been if he’d lived?”

“It’s weird, but it’s better this way, I think. I’ll have… time, I guess. Time to figure something out. The both of us. And right now this parachute plan seems best… we’ll have to see how it goes.”

He took another deep, satisfying breath, before slowly pulling his arm off his face and letting it rest beside him, staring up with swollen, baggy eyes at the ceiling: it was painted red, with gold leaf trim, and a gas-powered chandelier on the roof, swaying in some invisible breeze.

…wait. It was swaying. It should not be swaying. Something was wrong.

He slowly stood up, then licked his finger, putting it as high as it would go—yeah, there was a breeze. He lowered his finger down, giving it a whiff… gas. Gas was leaking in. There was a gas leak.

“Clever b@stard…” He muttered, a half-impressed smirk on his face. “The room is filling up with gas.” He spoke just loud enough for Geth to hear. “It won’t kill us to inhale, but if any fire is lit, even the tiniest match, this whole room goes boom.”

He snickered again, cracking his knuckles. “Good opportunity right here.” He muttered to himself, following the slight breeze to the ‘leak’, which was emanating from the far left side of the ceiling. “You have any gold you’re not using, Geth?”

~*~

On the side of the fortress where Bison was stationed, a small wall of corpses had accumulated—he had created a gauntlet of traps that guanreteed the death of any who dare approach. Assuming a soldier was able to get past the tripod pistol at the door, they had to navigate a web of piano wire laced across the sides of the wall, which were attached to pistols faceted to the side of the wall, which would fire at the slightest provocation. Others were merely sharp, and even so much as a casual brush against them would cause a massive gash. What few openings were in the wire, there were mines—not normal mines, but ones that shot strong puffs of steam when stepped on, which threw men off balance, causing them to fall into the wires—and while the soldiers were forced to navigate wires and mines, Bison was behind a machine gun of his own, raining fire onto his enemies. Any who managed to get close enough to him (one had, some exceptional soldier) had met with a sword to the face.

All along the walkway, there were corpses, body parts, charred flesh, riddled bodies, and bloodied wire. Bison sat at the machine gun, eyes locked onto the door, waiting for either a ship to depart or for the knob to twist open.

…eventually, it was opened, and to his surprise, it wasn’t another soldier—sidestepping the pistol tripod, there was Kamel, two soldiers behind her.

“What are you doing? Where’s Judath? Where’s Geth?” He asked, brow furrowed.

“They’re captured. We have to go.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Sherspire has them, they traded themselves for us. Lets go.”

“…I-it’s true…” one soldier squeamishly added.

“And we won’t be sniped on the way back?” He asked, eyebrow raised.

“Well I won’t, at least.” She smirked.

“…fine, but I’m leaving the traps.” He grunted.

He blinked down at him, a slight but familiar irritation growing in his eyes. “Wait, a prince and you have no gold? No pens, pocketwatches, jewelry, nothing? The one time your royal background could be of ANY use?” He sighed, looking back to the ceiling. “If you must know, I could show off how smart I was to Sherspire by ‘fixing’ this leak. It’s subtle intimidation: It shows I notice these things and I’m smart enough to work around them, and at the same time useful enough to fix what appears to be broken. Mind games, you should get that.”

He sighed—he really just wanted to sleep, but this was a good opportunity blowing hot air in his face and he’d really like to capitalize. Unfortunately, gold was one of the few metals soft enough to melt using the steam in his canister… lead, maybe… ah, he should still have some bullets—but no, if he melted the bullets the gunpowder in them would go off from the heat…

…he did have an earring, he supposed. He grabbed at his ear, removing a metal stub carefully—silver. Hmmm. He didn’t like it but he didn’t really have much choice, since Geth was being useless. He put the silver on a nearby counter, and slowly untwisted the top—when even the slightest crack appeared in the lining, a massive stream of steam burst out, smothering over the silver bead—after a few moments under the scalding heat and pressure, the silver was in a very temporary psudo-liquid form. Scooping it up in his artificial finger, he quickly stepped onto the bed, located the pin-sized hole in the ceiling, and dabbed the silver on it—it solidified, and the gas was cut off.

“You’re welcome.”

He dabbed a little more melted silver onto the leak source, smiling a little as the chandelier got a touch brighter: meaning the gas flow had improved, the proof he’d done good work. The swinging slowly stopped, and he hopped off the bed and lowered himself into his own, sinking into the softness of the mattress: it’d take a little while for the gas to escape the room, but they were more or less safe in the meantime.

He closed his eye once more, and carefully took another deep breath, trying to cope with the pain in his lower half when Geth shot him a question. It kind of made him laugh, in a private, internal way, even though his face remained more or less stoic. Why he was a pirate, huh? Heh.

“When the great cloud-manta was slain, who got the instrument: the man who built the ship, or the man who piloted it?”

He sighed once more, another limp little smile falling on his lips.

“That’s why.”

~*~

A low-flying cloud had fallen upon the valley between the peeks, granting Kamel and Bison safe passage on their way back to the ship.

“I see.” Bison pondered, still mulling over the story Kamel had told him. “I didn’t know Judath and Sherspire had a history…”

“Bess would know. We’ll have to ask her—if we’ve been double-crossed…”

Bison raised an eyebrow.

“How? We escaped. It was a waste of time at worst. And we’re more wanted in Balvaria than Valrick anyway.”

“Something is just rubbing me up the wrong way.” She vaguely stated, “I don’t like this.”

“Bess will know what to do.”

“I think, in situations like this, there’s a better man to defer our judgment too.”

Bison’s eyes widened, and a hand reached for the handle of his sword—before he could even tighten his grip, he felt a feminine hand slip under his fingers and grab the hilt instead, feeling the blade torn out of the strap holding it to his back. When he turned to face her, the tip of thejackhammer-sword was already pressed to the nape of his neck, holding the gigantic sword up with one hand.

“Y-y-you…” He stammered, uncharacteristically, his face as pale as the white of his eyes, “…you’re not human…!”

“And if I’m not?” She sweetly smiled.

He smirked, then recited from memory, “One string of gold, for nobility, prosperity, and honor. One string of silver, for divinity, grace, and wisdom. One string of copper, for ingenuity, industry, and creativity. One string of bronze, for endurance, stability, and strength. And one string of tin, for humility, humanity, and dignity.”

He sighed, slowly pulling himself up just enough so he could slip under the blankets—it had been a long, long time since he’d slept in a bed this nice.

“I’m astonished you wouldn’t know that, considering it’s your nation’s tradition. And yeah, I’d say I earned it, and Lord help me if I die before I get a chance to give it a play or two.”

He chuckled at the Prince’s final comment, turning his head into his pillow, muttering as his own sleep-depervation caught up with him—today had been busy, working in the engine room, being attacked on the ship, invading this fortress, all the blood he lost getting shot—he was ready for sleep.

“Damn right it was…” he muttered into the fluffiness of the pillow, very quietly and peacefully slipping into sleep—comfortable despite being behind enemy lines.