Sora

I left the vault as I adjusted the leather satchel on my shoulder. It was a bit dated, and definitely not my usual style, but I made it work. Besides, it wasn’t like I was bringing it along for the fashion. I just needed some way to safely carry my core, along with a few other trinkets I had found while searching for it.

I would’ve liked to stay longer and empty the entire vault, but it had been nearly five full minutes since the announcement to hunt Krom and Sami came over the intercom. My instincts were telling me that they would be fine, but it probably wasn’t a good idea to push our luck.

So, I walked a short distance down the hall to a nearby elevator, but stopped dead in my tracks as I saw the doors open. I pushed myself up against the wall and activated my invisibility spell just as a pair of figures exited. The two of them couldn’t have been more different from one another. I recognized the dwarf from earlier, but walking beside her was a tall, ethereal woman with flowing silver-blue hair dressed in a gossamer thin white robe that fluttered in a non-existent breeze. She was equal parts, intimidating and attractive.

“You’re certain that they haven’t left this floor?”

The dwarf shrugged as she responded. “As sure as I can be, but the captain had this entire level isolated from the hull. So, I can’t know what the intruder did after they got up here, but for what it’s worth, I can tell that they haven’t used the elevator to escape.“

“Which means you’re just as useless as usual.” The ethereal woman ignored the dwarf’s glare as her gaze swept over the hallway. “Stay by the elevators and focus your attention on the other two. Kill them if the opportunity arises, but don’t risk the safety of the crew or the integrity of the ship. We need to handle this cleanly in order to have any chance of justifying the change in leadership to the council.”

“Yeah, right? You seriously think they’re going to let you have Leo’s chair with Nora still around? We might as well just hand it to her on a silver platter. Hells, maybe if we grovel a bit, it’ll put her in a forgiving mood and she won’t have us executed.”

“Nora only has two moods, and neither of them are very forgiving. I’d sooner try to placate an aether leviathan in its nest than attempt to negotiate with her.”

“Well, whatever. Go do your thing, and try not to get killed.” The dwarf crossed her arms and closed her eyes as she leaned back against the wall. It was the sort of position an inexperienced navigator took while they were concentrating. Which made me think dealing with her was a low priority.

Samira should have already made it to the engineering deck, which meant it would only be a matter of time until she gained access to the ship’s primary systems. I knew from personal experience what she could do to a navigator once that happened.

So, instead, I followed the other woman back into the vault room. There was certainly an argument to be made that I should have snuck onto the elevator and made a run for it, but the way the woman was giving orders made me think she was important. Dealing with her sooner rather than later seemed like the better option.

“I know you’re still in there!” The woman shouted at the closed vault. “Come out now, and I might just allow you and your sister to live!”

I materialized my dagger as I quietly snuck up behind her. In a single fluid motion, I closed the distance and thrust my blade into the back of her head. The blade continued with no resistance, which caused me to fall forward and pass through the woman as if she wasn’t even there. I recovered with a roll and spun around to face her.

“Impressive. I didn’t even notice you were there. It’s no wonder Leo wanted to recruit you.” She smirked at me in a way that made my blood run cold.

“What is this? Some sort of illusion?” I asked as I watched the rest of the room for movement out of the corner of my eye. If she was an illusion, then the real thing must be somewhere nearby.

“Nothing of the sort.” She began to levitate a few centimeters off the ground and the air in the room started flowing into her. “I am Sanis, an elemental lord of air. I have no need to resort to parlor tricks to subdue the likes of you.”

I tried to respond, but the air was sucked from my lungs the moment I opened my mouth. This was somewhat problematic, but in my personal experience, breathing was highly overrated. So, instead of quipping like I had intended to, I reached into my sleeve and pulled out a plastic bag filled to bursting with a faintly glowing vine covered in leaves.

Sanis furrowed her brows at me as I tore open the bag and tossed it towards her. The flow of the air pulled the bag into the elemental lord, causing the faint glow to grow in intensity to the point of being nearly blinding.

“Wh-what is this? What did you do to me?” The air stilled, but it was already too late. I could see the mage’s bane still glowing from inside Sanis.

I took a moment to catch my breath before explaining. “It’s a weed that feeds on mana, and the more mana it has, the faster it feeds. Say, how much mana do you think an elemental lord of air has? I bet it’s a lot.”

“You can’t do this, I’ll die.” Sanis started to pull at the vines growing inside her chest, but touching them only made the weed spread faster.

“Yeah, it really is a tragedy.” I shook my head as I walked past the elemental lord of air. “I was saving that for somebody else. Now, I’m going to have to find a new bag.”

I didn’t even bother reactivating my invisibility spell as I left. I could see the dwarf lying face-down on the ground, catatonic but still breathing. Which meant Sami had probably found her core. I did my best to ignore the dying navigator while I called the elevator and waited for it to arrive. I didn’t have to wait long, and I boarded it as soon as I could.

It took a moment to study the display and find the hangar near the center of the ship. I selected the twenty-third level before taking a step back into the corner and finally reactivating my invisibility spell.

Thankfully, the short ride was uneventful, but the moment the doors opened, I knew that leaving wasn’t going to be nearly as easy.

More than a dozen gruff pirates were rushing throughout the hangar. As best I could tell, they were in the process of setting up fortifications and gun emplacements facing the elevators. But they were so busy moving crates that none of them seemed to notice an apparently empty elevator arriving. Which made it a simple matter for me to step off and approach.

There was a single man who appeared to be directing all the others. In fact, I recognized him as the human from the brig that I ran into on the way to rescue Sami. I absently wondered what he managed to extort from the dwarf as I snuck behind him.

The hangar was large, with four ships of varying size spread a comfortable distance from one another. None of them were small, but the largest was easily three times the size of the next biggest. While the smallest could still comfortably house a half-dozen crew.

Besides the ships, I counted eleven pirates I considered to be a threat, along with two more who were just moving boxes and didn’t appear to be armed.

I started with the blackmailing human who was issuing the orders. He was close enough to be heard by the others, so I covered his mouth and materialized my dagger in the back of his skull. I then silently sprinted to an elven man who wasn’t carrying his weight with the preparations and did the same. A human woman noticed his death, but I threw a conjured blade through her eye before she could raise the alarm.

Unfortunately, she hadn’t been standing alone and her companion, an androgynous orc, grabbed her as she fell. I threw another blade and caught the orc in the neck, but it was too little, too late. They managed to get a shot off, which went wide, but still drove the room into a frenzy of shouts and curses.

My invisibility spell was still holding, but I was pushing its limits with the amount of movement I was having to do. Of course, I couldn’t let up with this many people gunning for me, so I said a silent prayer to my favorite goddess before charging into the fray.

The remaining seven threats were loosely separated into two groups. I dodged wide in order to put the smaller group of three between me and the larger group of four. My thinking was that they would hesitate before firing blindly through their friends. They didn’t. Which caused two of the three in the smaller group to go down in a volley of friendly gunfire and for me to get shot in the upper thigh.

I stumbled, but caught myself in time to dodge behind a crate as they continued to fire. It didn’t feel like the bullet had hit an artery, but there was a lot of blood, which made it hard to tell. My nanites would stop the bleeding eventually, but I couldn’t wait for that, so I pulled a small vial of medical foam from my sleeve and broke it open against the wound. The pain was still going to slow me down, but at least now I probably wouldn’t die.

“We know you’re back there, and that you’re hurt.” A greasy sounding pirate shouted from the group of four. “Come on out and we can get you patched up. There’s no reason we can’t all be friends.”

“You backstabbing bastard! You just killed Kal and Yondi!” There was another hail of gunfire as the last of the group of three were sent to join Kal and Yondi.

“Like I was saying before I got rudely interrupted.” I reinforced my invisibility spell while Backstabbing Bastard continued his completely legitimate sounding offer. “Just surrender and we can all get out of this alive. After all, the captain is dead. There’s no reason we need to fight.”

I slunk around the corner of the crate opposite Greasy Backstabbing Bastard and peered over the top to get a better handle on the situation. Three of the four were moving painfully slow to flank where they thought I was still hiding. Meanwhile their ‘leader’ was holding his position while keeping his rifle raised. I wasn’t sure why they still trusted him to watch their back, but I admired their ignorance as I snuck by to get behind Backstabbing Bastard.

“Alright, ain’t nobody that can say I didn’t at least try!” The bastard shouted right before I materialized my dagger inside his throat. Then I grabbed his rifle as he went down and emptied what was left of the magazine into the three unsuspecting pirates.

Except, shooting your own allies takes bullets, which meant there wasn't much left in it for me, and my aim with a gun has never been the best, so only one of the pirates went down. The other two spun around and opened fire. I caught a round in my left shoulder, but still managed to drop the gun I was holding fast enough to hurl a conjured blade at the woman who shot me.

Another round went off, this one notably louder than the rest, and the final pirate dropped dead.

“You don’t look so good,” Krom noted as he stepped off the elevator and holstered his pistol.

“Sora!” Sami sprinted across the hangar to cling onto my side. I ignored the pain as I returned her hug, trying my best to keep the blood off her.

“Strange, because I feel great.” I deadpanned to Krom before addressing Sami. “I’m fine. Did you manage to sabotage the ship to your liking?”

“Everything is set, but we should get out of here in the next fifteen minutes.”

“When you say that, you mean…?” I let the question linger and Sami let go of me with a satisfied smile.

“I mean, if we don’t leave now, then we’ll definitely die in the explosion.”

“That’s what I thought,” I chuckled to myself before turning to our new orc ally. “You have four choices here. I’d recommend you choose quickly.”

Krom completely ignored the three smaller ships and went directly for the largest. It was ridiculously bulbous with a garish yellow paint job that could probably comfortably sleep sixty crew. I hated everything about it.

“No, seriously, you can pick any of the four.” I limped after him while Sami followed closely by my side. She was obviously concerned, but I did my best to ignore the look she was giving me as I continued to shout after Krom. “Really, you don’t have to choose that quickly. I mean, there are three others. You could at least look at them.”

“Just get aboard before you bleed to death.” Krom pounded on the hull, causing a hidden ramp to lower from one of the overly rounded sides. “Medical is on the right. Samira can tend to you while I get us out of here.”

“It’s his old ship,” Sami explained as she led me aboard. “Captain Leo took it from him to cover a debt or something. I didn’t really get it when he explained the situation to me, but it’s half of the reason he agreed to come with us.”

“What’s the other half?”

“You’d have to ask him about that.” Sami’s face turned bright red, which told me everything I needed to know. “Actually, on second thought, forget I said anything. It’s not that interesting. He just wanted his ship and the money you promised him.”

I was about to tease her some more when I heard something that stopped me dead in my tracks.

Sora, this is Bryce. I’m not sure if you can hear me, but I’ve been trying to contact you for the last few days. We managed to get safely back to the mortal plane, but we weren’t able to restore primary power to the Fury. Instead, we’re using the shuttle to travel to Paradise and cut off whoever captured you. Or failing that, create a base of operations to launch an assault on Mother’s compound.