Ch238-Double Down (Patreon)

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Ch238-Double Down

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“-and then you sold him off at an auction, and he was bought by a group of noblemen, for the purpose of torturing him to death,” Edmund summarized.

“Not to death exactly,” Sylver corrected.

“Right, you sold him off at an auction, for the sole purpose of being tortured,” Edmund said.

“You say it with this odd tone as if he’s some random guy I plucked off the street,” Sylver said.

He and Edmund were making their way to the shore, towards a specific spot in the unnaturally dense forest.

“So we’re up against a dimensional mage, being aided by a demon, that has a personal grudge against you,” Edmund said.

“Might have a grudge against me. For all we know he realized that the Cord is the one responsible for what happened to him. I was merely doing a job,” Sylver corrected.

Edmund was floating in the air, laying on his back, staring up at the cloudy sky, while Sylver sat on a thick sheet of ice, that was being propelled through the water by an invisible stream of compressed heat.

“I almost forgot how much I missed your sense of humor,” Edmund said with a genuine smile.

“If he has a grudge against me, why didn’t he kill me?” Sylver asked.

“It’s been 5 years since he last saw you, it’s not impossible he didn’t recognize you,” Edmund offered.

“Could be memory loss… Not to mention he was blind the last time I saw him… I feel like Lola told me he died,” Sylver said, as his piece of ice reached the sandy shore.

Sylver made the ice stop, he then slid forward along the ice, and with the help of his robe was lifted into the air, and landed right on Ulvic’s back.

The wolf shade effortlessly traversed the rocky sand, while Edmund continued floating alongside them.

“What if he panicked? He saw you, got frightened, and teleported you away without thinking?” Edmund offered.

“My point is that we don’t know if he’s out for my blood specifically. Just because most people I work against end up blaming me for all of the consequences of their actions, doesn't mean Nautis is one of them,” Sylver said with a lame shrug of the shoulders.

“Right, your presence put a stop to a kidnapping operation that had been going for… 50 years, I think you said?” Edmund asked.

A moment of silence passed.

“So we’re up against a pissed-off teleportation mage, that’s been holding a grudge against me personally for over 5 years, being helped out by a relatively competent demon, both of which are hidden inside an impenetrable fortress,” Sylver said with a tired sigh.

“If your description of the man’s magical prowess is to be believed, the only real problems are the last two things… Nautis has enough affinity with spacial manipulation for long-distance teleportation, which means that he could easily open a portal to the demon realm. So the fact that he hasn’t means the demon is only helping him out in small ways,” Edmund explained, as Sylver nodded along.

“Or perhaps Nautis understands the seriousness of opening a portal to the demon realm and understands that as a person living in Eira, it is his duty to die, before opening one, and-” Sylver choked on his words as he burst out laughing, and was then laughing too hard to finish his sentence.

People infinitely smarter than Nautis couldn’t resist demonic temptation, that shell-less snail didn’t stand a chance.

“He hasn’t opened a portal to the demon realm because his magic is too specialized,” Edmund offered, once he had calmed down enough to string a sentence together.

In Nautis’ defense, it wasn’t that he was exceptionally weak-willed, pathetic, feeble-minded, or mentally inadequate, the fact of the matter was that demons were damn convincing.

I’ll spare you, your family, and your friends! You’ll all live in luxury, who cares about a few evil noblemen being killed?

He killed your brother! His soul won’t be able to rest until you avenge him!

You’re rotting in a prison cell because of him! He’s out there drinking wine and eating fresh fruit, and so on and so forth, until the person being persuaded decides that the voice whispering in his ear has a good point.

“Still… A demon is a demon… The first hurdle is getting inside,” Sylver said.

“We already tested her shell, we can’t dig our way in. Unless we get extremely lucky and find a vein that isn’t filled with acid, going in through her sides is out. Which leaves either going in through the mouth, the rear entrance, or using the waystone again,” Edmund said.

“The problem with using the waystone is that either it will teleport us to a random spot, due to either the obelisk, or the fact that Tuli is healthier, or, Nautis is aware of the waystone, and the next time I try to use it, he will teleport us somewhere dangerous. The other two entrances are very likely guarded, or at the very least watched,” Sylver said.

“Even if we do find a way inside, the next problem is we don’t know what we’re up against. I could take those 6 in my sleep, they were all below 200, but what if he has an army? In my current state, I can maybe go against 40 men, but since Nautis can teleport people, he could just throw bodies against me until I run out of steam,” Edmund said.

It was a lot more obvious from a bird’s eye view, but Sylver was following a path of destruction. Half the trees here were dried out and dead anyway, the fact that someone broke down another quarter was barely noticeable.

Still, there was an arrowhead embedded into the ground here, a hole the shape of a fist there, a boulder cleaved perfectly down the middle over there, the rain washed away the most obvious evidence, but there was enough if you knew what you were looking for.

“For starters, we don’t know how long he’s been here. If he broke out 5 years ago, then it’s very likely he took his time, gathered resources, and now has an army of mercenaries. Or he’s only been at it for a month, and those 6 were the only people he could cobble together,” Sylver theorized, as he sent his shades out.

Edmund stopped laying on his back and turned his body the right way round.

“Is it possible Lola forgot to tell you about him? Or decided not to tell you?” Edmund asked with an uncharacteristically careful tone.

“Forgot is unlikely. She gave me a full report about everything that happened since the minute she received my letter. It’s possible I’m the one who doesn’t remember the section to do with Nautis,” Sylver offered.

“You usually carry those sorts of things with you, assuming you didn’t forget it-”

“My only copy was vaporized along with the rest of my body, and I didn’t think I would need it. This was supposed to be a vacation. We make sure Tuli’s still where I last saw her, spend a day sunbathing on the beach, talk to Poppy, have a feast at Novva’s place, pick up a couple of things at Torg, and glide back to Arda at a leisurely pace,” Sylver explained, as Ulvic slowed down a little, and changed the direction he was going.

“Unless you literally skimmed the page and missed it, I doubt you would forget reading about Nautis escaping,” Edmund said.

“I mean… He’s such a microscopic blip on my radar, there’s a chance I assumed he’s dead and skipped ahead when I saw his name,” Sylver said with a shrug of the shoulders.

“I see. So what’s the plan for dealing with this microscopic blip?” Edmund asked.

Sylver racked his memory, but try as he might, either he genuinely hadn’t read a single word about Nautis, skipped the section that would have been about him, or he ignored him so hard, that he literally pushed the news of his death out of his head.

It certainly wouldn’t be the first time Sylver found someone so repulsive that he willed their very existence out of his mind.

“What we could do is… The nobles that tortured him, had to keep him somewhere, right? Or if he broke out recently enough, we might get lucky with a wooden chair, or a table, and you know how difficult metal pliers are to clean,” Sylver said, as the calm expression on Edmund’s face hardened.

“You want to find a piece of skin, have me heal it so there’s more of it, then use that as a basis for a curse. Nautis dies without us having to set foot inside Tuli,” Edmund said.

“It won’t kill him, considering the distance and level of interference, but it will at the very least give him a debilitating migraine. Then again, it is possible Nautis isn’t in charge and is merely working for someone… actually… that’s a lot more likely than a demon helping Nautis,” Sylver said, as he realized that the last Nautis had been rescued, it was because Poppy needed him.

“Hmm…” Edmund said.

Now that Sylver said it out loud, it seemed downright moronic that either of them thought Nautis was in charge.

“Who’s in charge doesn’t matter. Saving Tuli is the number 1 priority, followed by defeating the demon number 2, and…” Sylver’s voice trialed off, as he tried to think of something for number 3, so killing Nautis wasn’t in the top three.

Ulvic disappeared into the shadows, Sylver landed on his feet and continued walking. The rocky ground was covered in wood chips, along with small metallic shards, that may have at one point been a piece of armor or a weapon.

Sylver and Edmund stopped in front of a giant moss-covered rock, that had a huge chunk missing on its left side. The rain had smoothed it out, but it was evident that someone had pushed the rock to the left, presumably to hide something.

Edmund walked towards the boulder and placed his left hand on it. With a gentle push, the boulder rolled backward and revealed an enchanted copper hatch.

The metal looked as if someone had just finished polishing it, untouched by time, unlike the surrounding rock which was full of cracks, and scratches, which were full of slimy vegetation, along with what Sylver assumed were the corroded tips of metal pickaxes.

Edmund pushed the boulder again and made it roll out of the way completely. Half a second after he stopped touching it, the giant boulder stopped being weightless and sunk almost 10 feet into the wet soil.

The copper hatch had 3 gray-colored gemstones embedded into it, which were linked together in an impressively effective enchantment framework.

“No wonder you were smiling,” Edmund said, as Sylver walked over to the hatch.

The sound of metal grinding against metal swept away the disarmingly peaceful atmosphere of the semi-destroyed forest, and just as suddenly as it had started, it ended with a hollow thunk.

The hatch was flung open, and revealed a face that was missing an eye, an ear, and had a giant scar that covered more than half of his scalp.

“Edmund, it is with great pleasure that I introduce you to the man who made your rescue possible, Faust,” Sylver said with a gesture towards the one-eyed man.

***

“Honey! We have company!” Faust shouted as he led the two arch-mages through the maze of metal-walled tunnels. The delay between Faust’s shout and the echo was substantial.

The copper was about as thick as a piece of paper, and yet it didn’t bend when Sylver walked on it, and despite appearances, when Edmund walked on it, it didn’t sound hollow. The copper stairs and handrails were in pristine condition, and just like the rest of the structure, felt as if they were made out of treated titanium.

“Did something happen to Chrys?” Faust asked as he hopped down the stairs. He was avoiding putting weight onto his right leg. It didn’t dangle as he jumped, but it was clearly not just a simple sprain.

“She’s fine, but someone is using a metal obelisk to amplify Tuli’s natural magical interference. Nautis is helping them, and a demon is involved... Speaking of, did anyone ever mention Nautis escaping, or dying?” Sylver asked, Faust quietly hopped ahead of them.

“Who’s Nautis?” Faust asked.

Sylver tried not to smile too hard, but you could almost hear the laugh in his voice.

“Doesn’t matter. Apart from the leg, how are you?” Sylver asked.

Faust looked over his shoulder and spoke in a whisper.

“My spine is severed in 2 different places, my heart stopped beating 3 days ago, so I’ve been manually circulating my blood using Ki, and I lost my sense of hearing last night. Don’t tell Anna,” Faust said, as he continued to silently hop forward.

“Where do you find these people?” Edmund asked in a language Faust didn’t know.

“According to Poppy, I’m such a destructive force, I have my own gravitational field,” Sylver answered.

The air in the corridor had that tell-tale taste of bitterness, which meant they were breathing magically recycled oxygen. Light was provided by faint glowing pieces of glass embedded in the ceiling.

In terms of cleanliness, the walls, floor, and ceiling were downright sterile, the only evidence of Faust’s passage through these corridors were tiny flecks of blood sprinkled in the corners, that Faust very likely hadn’t been able to reach with whatever he used to clean the rest of the blood away.

“So what’s new with you?” Faust asked as he began to hop down yet another flight of stairs.

If Sylver’s count was right, they were descending towards the 11th floor. He had sent his shades out to investigate the various room, but all of them were completely empty. Rows upon rows of empty square rooms, just big enough for 4 people to sleep side by side in.

“Apart from Edmund waking up, not much. I spent about a week recovering my strength, and then we teleported into Tuli. We escape from a vein that had acidic blood flowing through it, approached a giant metal obelisk, and were teleported outside high in the air. While I was up there, I recognized the signs of you fighting someone, and then I was close enough that I could feel Will hiding in your shadow,” Sylver explained, as they reached the bottom of the stairs, and Sylver felt an odd chill in his stomach as he took in his surroundings.

Shiny metal cans were stacked to the ceiling, crates with pickax heads sticking out of them lined the walls, and as Sylver’s shades returned, they informed him that it wasn’t just the corridor that was overflowing with supplies, but every single room on this floor was filled with boxes and crates of various sizes.

Faust jumped past the crates and was helped over to his seat by his fiancé, Anastasia.

In one corner there were 2 sleeping bags, in another, there was a basket with some crushed cans, and the rest of the small space was occupied by boxes that had been placed together in the shape of a couch, and were then covered by a thick layer of torn up bright orange uniforms.

Edmund politely introduced himself to Anna, and then walked over to Faust, and removed the one-armed man’s shirt. Faust’s chest was more blue than white, an enormous bloated bruise, that had created stretch marks on the edges.

Edmund placed his palm on top of Faust’s bald burn scar-covered head, and placed his other hand up against his stomach, just below the belly button.

Out of pure habit, Sylver lifted his arm up to his face and shielded his eyes. But instead of a literally blinding white light, Sylver saw what could at best be described as an energetic glow.

The glow flowed from Faust’s head, down to his stomach, and spread out like branches on a growing tree.

Edmund made a sound, a sort of short sigh, which meant that if he had been a less polite man, he would have said a string of derogatory words, along with a number of slurs, aimed at whoever had caused the person he’s healing this much damage and pain.

The only noise after that came from Faust, who at first gasped, as Edmund healed and restarted his heart, and then Faust began to cough, as Edmund forced the man’s lungs to breathe again.

Sylver almost forgot Anna was standing next to him, up until she spoke.

“They ambushed us. Shot us out of the sky with a bolt of lightning. Faust tried to fight them off, but every single attack came from so far away that by the time he reached them, they were already gone. They chased after us, and without any warning, stopped. When we tried to leave, they attacked us again. We camped here for a day or so, while Faust recovered,” Anna explained, in such a dispassionate tone of voice that Sylver struggled to understand her.

The only time there was so much as a hint of emotion, was when she said “Faust.” She didn’t quite purr the word or chew on it, it was barely there, but relative to the rest of her words she might as well have sung his name.

“And you discovered that they won’t attack you while you’re inside a certain section of the forest,” Sylver said, as Anna nodded her head.

“They were afraid of damaging this place,” Anna explained.

“Then why is it so broken up?” Sylver asked.

The only reason he came here was because of all of the damage he saw.

“Faust got a little upset and walked around punching things. We found this place, and this is the… 4th night we’ve spent here?” Anna guessed.

“I see… Aside from the food, tools, and uniforms, did you find anything else?” Sylver asked as Anna shook her head.

Faust sucked in a whistling breath through his teeth.

“There’s probably a hidden room here somewhere,” Sylver said, as a glowing bone gradually pushed itself out through Faust’s stump, and string by string, the bone became covered by muscles and ligaments.

Very gently, Sylver placed his hand on Anna’s shoulder, and just as gently, he pushed her along with him as he walked out of the room. They heard a muffled yelp, followed by muffled screaming, which was followed by complete silence, as Sylver finished casting his spell.

“You said he’s your brother?” Anna asked.

“We have a word for it, but “brother” is the closest thing in Eirish. Comrade doesn’t have the same depth to it, that brother does,” Sylver explained, as he gestured at a sealed crate, and used his shadow to remove the nails holding the lid closed.

Inside there were cans of food, bright orange uniforms, a couple of cooking utensils, and a miscellaneous collection of things that had been available for purchase back when there was a prison inside of Tuli.

The thing is, Nautis had been tortured for information, extensively, and the only way it was possible that he didn’t tell them about this storage vault, was that he didn’t know about it.

“Is Faust going to be alright?” Anna asked.

Once again, it was just a drop of emotion, but it was a drop of white paint on a pitch-black canvas.

“Ed’s quite literally the greatest healer that's ever lived. If he doesn’t fully heal him now, it just means he’ll heal him over a day, or week, with him it’s not a question of “if,” it’s a question of “when.” Also, Faust is a lot tougher than you think he is,” Sylver explained, as he cut open the can, and brought the contents up to his nose.

***

Edmund ended up having to operate on Faust, he had an infection in his abdomen. The process was quick, and because Ed was the one performing it, and not Sylver, painless.

Numbing nerves for a couple of hours is a lot harder to do with magic than it is to do it using drugs. It’s especially hard to do, while simultaneously healing the infected flesh wrapped around the aforementioned nerves.

But, as Sylver had said, Edmund was the best, and the only thing holding him back was his lack of mana. Healing magic is expensive. Speeding up a person’s body’s natural healing is one thing, but forcing a body to heal beyond what it’s capable of is exponentially harder.

By the time Sylver gave up searching for a hidden entrance, Faust had two arms, two functioning legs, two working eyeballs, and aside from a slight cough, and being deaf in his left ear, he was perfectly fine.

It was quite easy to cut through the copper using abyss magic, but the only thing on the other side was earth. Sylver tried the floor first because that made the most sense to him, but he didn’t find any hidden ladders.

“They’re ready to go if you are,” Edmund said.

Sylver sat on the ground, while he waited to see if one of the boxes the shades were searching through had anything other than mining supplies in them.

The simplest explanation was that someone from the Black Mane had built this, and for some reason, didn’t touch it after a certain point. Another explanation was that Nautis’ master had built this, but didn’t tell him about it.

As to why Faust and Anna were safe here, the answer was obvious if you thought about it, and even more obvious once Edmund confirmed what Sylver had already guessed.

Fairies.

Or something fairy-adjacent.

Sylver had felt someone watching him, but Edmund was the one that verified the fact that this patch of dirt was infested with Fae.

The fact that they didn’t show themselves didn’t mean anything, fairies aren’t what anyone would describe as “rational.” As far as Sylver was concerned there were slightly less dangerous demons.

Less dangerous, but infinitely more annoying to deal with.

Demons at least could hold a negotiation, granted they weren’t always reasonable, but at least there was wiggle room.

With fairies, the only way to make a deal with them is if they make you an offer first.

Sometimes they ask for your firstborn child, sometimes they ask for the liver of your second favorite grandparent, sometimes they ask for two shiny red apples, sometimes they want a mirror made out of wood, and the one time Sylver was approached by a fairy, it wanted him to tear his throat open, and pull his heart out through the hole.

In return, the fairy offered him a pair of well-worn shoes.

Spirits, and that included fairies, didn’t have a high opinion of people that had pure dark souls. They weren’t just worthless, they were less than worthless, their existence spat in the face of everything the magical creatures stood for.

“This was supposed to be a vacation…” Sylver mumbled to himself, as Spring continued telling him that the shades didn’t find anything of note.

“This is better. Not to mention it will feel a million times better to go on a proper vacation after we’re done with this,” Edmund said, as he helped Sylver stand up.

Sylver’s robe wriggled around as it pushed off what little dust there was on him.

Sylver looked at Edmund’s face and cocked his head to the side.

“What if we just force our way in?” Sylver asked.

“And do what?”

“Kill everyone. I’ll corrupt the obelisk so it interferes with Nautis’ teleportation, we kill everyone inside, find out where the rest of them are and have Lola send assassins after them, while we work on speeding up Tuli’s healing process,” Sylver explained, even as his none existent stomach twisted into a knot.

Edmund stared into Sylver’s eyes and did that thing where he looked past his eyes, and stared right at his soul.

“Wow… You really don’t want to talk to that Poppy woman,” Edmund said with a tone of genuine concern in his voice.

“It’s going to turn into a whole thing! I can feel it! I’m going to talk to her, and she’ll tell me whoever hired Nautis is trying to summon a demon god, using Tuli as a sacrifice, or something equally massive and ridiculous, and then the next year of our lives will be wasted trying to stop them. And by the time we’re done, there will be another catastrophe for us to deal with,” Sylver explained, as he made a vague circular gesture with his hands.

“I wouldn’t call saving Tuli a “waste.” Not to mention how much damage we’ll prevent by killing the demon,” Edmund said.

“We’ll never get anywhere by merely reacting…” Sylver mumbled mostly to himself.

He took a deep calming breath and straightened out his robe.

“So what are we doing?” Edmund asked. Sylver waited to see if his stomach would at the very least loosen at the sound of Edmund’s voice, but if anything, the fact that Edmund seemed open to the idea only made Sylver’s stomach double down on the knot thing.

“Help me booby trap this place, and then we can go see Poppy. Since I haven’t found the secret room, no one gets to know its secrets,” Sylver said, as he and Ed shared a look.

Especially not Nautis, Sylver thought, and Edmund guessed.

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