The men dropped anchor and jumped off the boat. Gus heard them giving orders, some to look for food others to look for supplies and fill the water jugs. There continued to be no indication that they were looking for him, which lowered Gus' alarm even more. That is until they mentioned where they would sell the women. Time slowed for Gus for a couple of moments, and he wondered whether he had heard that correctly. As Nick interpreted, Gus learned more of the plan of these men who had boarded a ship this morning, taking the owner and his family and friends captive.

The cavalier attitude the men had with slavery in this modern day took Gus' brain a bit to process. One of the men ranted at how even though they kept them all together in one room without conveniences, how the younger girls had covered themselves in feces to avoid being violated. The other trafficker laughed, saying that wouldn't stop him.

Gus realized that he had to do something. Reality slapped him full on in the face. Part of his mind was hesitant to take action, worrying about the possible ways it would reveal his location and result in the loss of the island. The stronger half asserted that if he didn't help these people, he deserved to lose the island, and he would be one of those supers. The selfish ego-tripping individuals who only looked out for number one. Now was time for action, he could philosophize later.

Gus toggled his display and saw six men in infrared. Two on the beach and four remaining on the ship. The captives must be deeper on board, possibly masked by walls or water, or in some hold that would block their heat signature.

He would have to separate these guys and not let them warn each other and possibly harm the hostages. Sweat beaded on his forehead at the very real stakes involved. Gus followed one of the traffickers as he stepped out of sight of his crew, exploring deeper into the forest that lined the beach shortly after the sand ended. It was the first time he had an opportunity to incapacitate someone rather than kill them outright, and he fumbled at what skills he should use. Wreck-luse would be nice if it didn't have its deadly toxic effect. Maybe some variation of ether weaving to prevent him from crying out and securing him from firing a shot at the same time? It was worth a shot.

Waiting for the heavyset man to put some distance between the ship and himself, Gus readied his weave. He had a wide bandana-sized swath of ether prepared and sneaking up behind the man he used it to envelop to his head. At the same time, he used two tendrils of ether to plug the barrel of the gun as well as fill the trigger guard so the man could not fire a shot and warn his friends.

The man was startled and the gun easily wrenched from his hands. It was odd to see his hands fly to his face and pull at the invisible and incorporeal ether that displaced and sealed out oxygen. Try as he might, the man found no purchase on the material and struggled to regain the ability to breathe. Since he wasn't in the best physical condition, the pirate passed out quickly. Gus reformed the ether, making it into a gag. He pulled the man off the trail about twenty feet and fashioned arm and leg restraints out of ether lashes. Gus marveled at how ether reacted with regular matter. Without the ability to shape it, there was no way the man could untie himself and get free. He would feel that he was bound by something as incorporeal to him as air. Gus doubted he could even bruise or chafe if he struggled against the bonds.

Securing him to a tree away from the sight of the trail, Gus made his way back to the boat, trying to find out how to distract the others and get them off the boat if at all possible. It only would take one slip-up, and people would be hurt by his incompetence. By the time he reached the boat, the four men were still on the boat, and the other man who disembarked was nowhere to be seen.

He could see the footprints on the soft white sand, so he followed those, intermittently changing filters on his display to distinguish where the man was. Gus had no luck until he came to a wide opening. The path spilled out to a taller area overlooking a pool. Nearby a waterfall dumped water noisily, the rushing water churning the otherwise calm lake beneath. The man was standing near the edge, surveying the scene. He was too far away to risk sneaking out in the open, but if he could approach without being noticed, he could take this man down as he had with the first.

Gus floated an inch off the ground with Basic Flight and then triggered Slide. Gus glided silently over the sand towards the man. Gus overshot his momentum and almost sailed off the end of the cliff, and barely hopped back to his feet and smothered the pirate until he passed out like the first. Quickly releasing the weave, Gus checked, and the man was still breathing. He dragged him out of sight and bound and gagged him with ether.

It appeared that the other pirates were cagey and would not leave the boat, even after waiting a couple of hours for their mates. Gus would have to go on the offensive. As he approached the ship, he noticed that their mouths did not sync up with what they were saying, like a poorly dubbed foreign film. Sometimes there would be long stretches where their mouths were moving, but Gus heard no translation at all.

“Nick, how come--”

“I’m keeping it PG-13 for your oh-so-sensitive ears, remember? If you want I can give their direct translations, or substitute some of your standard pseudo-swear words if you like. Shut the front door! Got down, sat on a bench! You fricking, flipping, fetching, frelling, frakker!”

“No, that would be even more annoying than usual, thanks.”

“You didn’t even let me get to Fraggle Rock, fudge nuggets or tartar sauce...” Nick said petulantly.

Gus was evaluating his skills, and they didn’t offer a lot of functionality for non-lethal combat. Still, he had an idea. Getting in position, Gus fired T-Wrecks behind the ship, with construct being just deep enough to leave the top half of its body exposed. The beast bellowed, and all the men rushed to that side of the ship. They fired at will at the construct, who gnashed and waded towards them.

Straining to split his ether in four ways, Gus snatched all the men simultaneously with a bubble over their heads. He hoisted them over the edge and dunked them under the water and held them there. Only one of the men appeared to keep his gun with him, and he fired a couple of muffled shots underwater before he too let go of his weapon. Gus strained to hold the weaves and pulled the men out of the water as he felt his control slipping. He didn’t want to accidentally drown them. Gus’ ears began to ring as he held on to the weaves. “Don’t cross the streams,” he gritted between his teeth as he struggled to hold the weaves in place until the men were knocked out.

Two men succumbed quickly, while the other two thrashed violently, then weakly as they drifted into unconsciousness, expending the available oxygen in their bubbles. A chime sounded, and Gus let go as soon as the men calmed, tying them up with ether as he was struck with the most intense splitting headache of his life. His MP and stamina were only partially depleted, but his poor brain was not accustomed to that type of focus. After a lot of massaging of his temples and the bridge of his nose, the icepick-like pain subsided, and he could focus on his display and logs again.

You have leveled up the skill: Ether Weaving to Level 4!

XP awarded: 750

FP awarded: 400

You have unlocked a subskill of Ether Weaving: Incapacitate (Level 1)

Incapacitate (Level 1): Subdue an attacker by restricting their oxygen flow through an ether weave. Success rates decrease by 10% for every level above originator of skill.

Gus got to his feet to see how the original owners of the boat were doing.