Divinity Rescue Corps
92- Wait For The Signal

It was three more days of Boss and his buddies going out to hunt for ways to ‘save’ their crop of Wizards. Three days of following these people around to their destination, meditating while they convinced the Wizards to put themselves in danger, and then brewing up potions to keep everybody from dying.

The Nakamamon predators were scarce and generally fed on mana, but there were some that would attack intruders or tasty snacks. Or even gross snacks. And I wasn’t wrong, they were getting smarter.

I wasn’t about to tell Boss and the Boys they were wrong. I was having to do more work, and faster, to ensure that mangled Wizards didn’t become dead Wizards. The Guardians were doing their job, as twisted and wrong as that job was, since they had put the Wizards there in the first place.

Guardians are so dumb. I’d lucked out with my choices for my team. Ivy and Isabelle for obvious reasons, including the fact that they weren’t stupid. Ivy was hyper competent. Then Larelle, obviously, and Chrysta because she was a terrifying and somehow also cute ice ghost. None of those four seemed concerned with experience points; they wanted to help out, get the job done, protect and help people.

Now that several of their buddies had unfortunately perished due to the dragons, they were taking no chances. I was guarded by two of them at all times, who watched my every move. They didn’t like the meditating or the replacement gear I required, after the Ferrosaurs.

On the third day, I hit level 20 as a Healer.

***

“Nice!” my sister said, uncharacteristically cheerful that I was getting out of the Blake situation. I knew they all wanted Blake to get his ass handed to him, or have Larelle cut him in half with a gigantic axe, but it wasn’t to be. Drat had a knife, but none of the Guardians had weapons. “Now let’s see my brother get his dumb butt out of this nonsense.”

***

Cinzy let me know that Drat would give the signal. At that time, I would need to make a break for it. They told me which way the town was. Her brother was slated to join me, somehow. Drat didn’t care about Chris, so it was up to Cinzy to make sure he was both safe and with me.

“And the rest of the Wizards?” I asked.

“What?”

“What happens to the rest of the Wizards?”

“Look…” she said uncertainly. “This is hard enough with seven of Blake’s goons, and the four Guardians on our side, but there’s also Timmy and Wendell to worry about. Sure Regina and Tara aren’t useless, but… ugh, Fletcher, don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

I looked her dead in the eye. “No, look, we save the Wizards or I’m not going.”

“You… what? No, Fletcher, no, don’t. Don’t do this.” She was massaging her temples, pinching the bridge of her nose, and looking just exquisite while doing it. “We don’t…”

“Tell Drat to help get me into the wilds,” I said. “I have an idea.”

Drat gave me the customary nonsense about how this was his plan, how it was calibrated carefully to ensure my survival and the survival of the team members, and how he had worked really hard on it.

I just shrugged and told him tough titty, said the kitty. I was still in charge of the expedition, I was still the leader. I had the leadership menu.

When the time came, I got to see Drat’s companion Nakamamon, McCauley Skulkins, up close and personal. I got to experience what the weird weasel creature was, and what it could do.

Sneaksel

Basic Nakamamon

Sneaksel are elusive creatures that dwell in dense forests, foggy marshes, and shadowy caves. Known for their uncanny ability to disappear and evade detection, they are masters of stealth and subterfuge.

Typical length: 2-5 feet from nose to tail (small)

Typical weight: 8-20 pounds

Gender: unknown

Aspect: Dark/Creature (beast)

Transformations: Sneaksel -> unknown

Sneaksel has been added to your Nakamadex.

The creature appeared before me, standing on four of its ten legs, before it dropped to the ground, raced towards me, and wound around my one leg. In a flash it was around my body and peering out at the world from over my shoulder.

“Hey there, Mr Skulkins,” I muttered, and reached behind myself to pet him a little. I succeeded a Likability check using Beast Talker. 

It chittered happily, though the sound that came out of it was strange and otherworldly. Like the chittering was coming from the other side of a void.

“You’re so soft,” I told him. This was… a lie. Kind of. It was like petting something made of cast iron, cold and unyielding. Somehow it was soft, in its own way, but the creature was a dark aspect. I hadn’t seen a single one of those before, and I definitely hadn’t petted one before.

“Shall we?” I asked it.

It chirped yet again, from the cold void, and a second later an envelope of mana expanded and covered us.

Now that was something.

Congratulations! You have gained a level of the Mana Affinity skill. Employ this skill whenever you wish to perceive the flow of mana around you. The stronger the skill level, the clearer impressions you will receive.

“Huh,” I said.

McCauley Skulkins has used Without a Trace.

The Mana Affinity skill informed me that Without a Trace was a dark magic ability that canceled out different methods of detection. This included sound, infrared, and even most magical means. Holy magic, otherwise known as divine magic, would cancel this out.

“Stay away from the holy jellyfish,” I muttered. “Got it.”

Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever gone invisible before, but it wasn’t like immediately clear that I was invisible. I could still see my hands and body. I could still see McCauley Skulkins.

“Fletcher?” Cinzy whispered. “You didn’t leave yet, did you?”

“I’m still here,” I told her.

A second later, she was still looking around. “Ugh, this is annoying. Fletcher? Are you there?” Finally, she rolled her eyes and stomped. “I’ll just assume you’re still here, and maybe… maybe looking at my butt. You perv. Okay, you’re supposed to get far enough away from camp to make a break for it, and turn the invisibility off, so the Guardians can try and chase you. Far enough away to make it to town, but close enough that they’ll catch sight of you. Ugh, I hope you’re still here. For all I know you could be touching me and I wouldn’t know.”

I did not try this. After all, I had my own plan to enact, and neither she nor Drat would like it.

It did convince me that the invisibility effect worked. I hopped around right in front of where Cinzy was standing, but she never even batted an eye. I then walked out of the ‘laboratory’ lean-to and passed several of the Wizards and Guardians without having a single person look my way.

Therefore McCauley Skulkins and I set out.

After some hiking, I felt secure that I wasn’t being followed, and ready. The forest had thickened, then thinned, and I got near enough to the lake to be sure I was not far from the gorge. Scanning the area, the presence of several Nakamamon stood out. I gave McCauley Skulkins a friendly head pat, tried not to feel weirded out by the unnatural sensation of his dark aspect head against my hand.

Without a Trace dropped. The envelope of invisibility fell away. I thanked Drat’s companion, turned to the Shrubbet and several flying creatures some distance overhead. Then I made a megaphone shape in front of my face and shouted for all I was worth.

***

It was some three or four hours before I returned, hungry and a bit tired. McCauley Skulkins remained wrapped around my upper body, and the thin envelope of mana was back.

The camp appeared out of nowhere, because it was in the same sort of mana envelope, but much larger, as cast by one of the Wizards. They cast it daily.

Blake’s shack had been improved each day using pure Physicality, until it resembled a log cabin. Several of the others also had their little shacks like they’d built for me, the original laboratory. As for the Wizards, they had large dome tents with those flexible wooden poles. Those were sequestered over to one side and watched, in case the Wizards tried anything.

So far, the Guardians controlled the Wizards and their ability to cast by simply restricting the material components. There were only a few spells they could cast with grass, tree bark, flower petals and the like. All that stuff was much more useful to me. This rendered the already weak Wizards completely impotent, not that they would be any danger to Blake and his people even so.

Their spells, so far as I understood it, were all about utility. There were travel spells which would’ve allowed them to escape, but those required material components, and took time to cast. By the time an ambitious Wizard got the component and began loudly casting the spell to teleport away, a Guardian would’ve been able to do whatever single violent action necessary to disrupt the spell.

A single punch would incapacitate or kill them, while a flick could send the material component flying, or mess with their vocal cords. It

So the Wizards either milled around or sat in their tents and read the tiny clay tablets they had with them. Any time they began discussing things, the Guardian on duty would lumber over and listen in. But since I’d showed up, the Wizards had been even more resigned to their fate, so they put up zero resistance.

I ducked into one tent, and saw the person inside scrunch up his face in confusion. When I asked McCauley Skulkins to drop the ability, he nearly yelped, but instead goggled at me.

“When I give the signal, we’re getting out of here, okay?”

“What signal?” he asked.

I nodded and gave him a knowing smile, then pressed a finger to my nose. “Trust me, you’ll know.”

I advanced to the next tent, with Chris in it, without forcing Drat’s Nakamamon to activate its ability again. If it was anything like Psyspeech, eventually the poor little guy would tucker himself out.

“What…”

I held my hand up to my lips in the classic ‘shush’ motion, and he cut right off.

“Just get ready for the signal,” I said, and when he began to ask ‘what signal’ I just left the tent.

I grinned, trying to imagine what was about to go down.

I earned a level of the Stealth skill for hugging to the tents and keeping out of view of the on duty guard. Four tent visits later, I asked Drat’s companion to cloak me in his invisibility power yet again, and we headed out.

All six of the Wizards who had been in their tents now exited, and were gazing around, waiting for word. Several of them seemed to get that they should be making a break for it, and ducked back into their tents in order to collect up whatever belongings they were allowed to have.

Blake’s Boys seemed to know that something was up by now. That was okay. Their discomfort and anxiety made this far more satisfying than it would’ve otherwise been.

“Where is he? Where?” Boss—Archie—was demanding. Cinzy stood there looking stricken.

“I-I don’t know,” she said, with tears threatening. I couldn’t be sure if those were staged for the benefit of lookingmeekand small, or if she really was afraid of a douchebag called Archie, but it didn’t matter either way. Not a fan of watching people get bullied, not when I have the tools to stop it.

I stalked up to him and dropped the Sneaksel’s invisibility power, staring defiantly up at the muscle-head.

“Picking on a girl?” I asked.

I used Dazzle.

Dazzle: By concentrating, you may spend 1 Affinity Token to hypnotize a target with 7 automatic successes. This is a contested Likability + Persuasion roll, and the target knows they have been hypnotized. While under the effect of hypnosis, the target will be much more truthful and compliant, though they may not be ordered to harm themselves or others.

Immediately on the heels of the Likability Token materializing and then evaporating into pure mana, twinkly fairy dust shot out of me and got all up in his eyes and nose. He sneezed.

For the briefest of moments, I experienced the pure terror of knowing you are about to die. Archie’s face was twisted into such a mask of pure hatred that I thought it might not work.

It didn’t. A whole host of Tokens appeared near Archie’s head level, spinning once before exploding into mana.

Dazzle has been resisted.

“Skulkins?” I asked.

Archie roared loudly. It was a colossal roar. It was full of righteous indignation. How dare I get out of captivity? How dare I go against whatever Blake and the Boys wished for me to do? What insanity possessed me right this moment? It was a magically enhanced roar, from Physicality, which reverberated outward in waves. Everyone around felt it, even if they weren’t the subject of the special ability.

This was the signal. These people were so fracking predictable. They could always be counted on to rage out of control.

You are under the influence of the special ability Fury. You may resist by spending 7 Durability Tokens. Even after resisting, you will suffer 50% of the ability’s effects. Would you like to resist?

Current Tokens: 6 Durability, 6 Free Tokens

I burned the Tokens even as I turned invisible, and darted out of the way when Archie’s eyes went wide. He lashed out with a broad haymaker but narrowly missed.

The effects I was suffering from: a morale debuff if I wanted to attack Archie the terrible-at-his-job Guardian, and a speed debuff if I wanted to run away.

Well, this ability had both fight and flight covered. It might have seemed impressive if it wasn’t so obvious and easily overcome by simply hiding.

“You’re going to condemn all these Wizards to death, Healer!” he thundered. “Is that the Healer way?”

I wanted to counter with the obvious: was this the Guardian way? I stopped myself though, because I wasn’t supposed to give away my position.

I remained silent, waiting.

“Well? Coward?” he screamed, then forced out a bitter laugh. “That’s it? Cut and run?”

Again, I waited.

So far, nothing. I was beginning to sweat, thinking maybe I had gone about this wrong. Maybe this really was going to result in the deaths of Cinzy’s brother and the other Wizards. Whatever happened now, there was no going back. I couldn’t simply put myself back in the hands of the people who had kept me here for weeks. Not after doing this. They would cut off one foot any time I used a healing potion to regrow it. I’d spend every single day dragged around by one of Blake’s Boys, beaten and bloodied and never able to see Cinzy or any of the others again.

Now, the only chance I had was to get all the way back to the town, through it, reconnect with the team, convince them to attack a superior force on little intel and a weak plan, and pray that somehow they would succeed. That had to happen before Blake and his people pulled up stakes and left for a new location, or they summarily killed any of the Wizards.

“I’m going to go and punch a hole in the first Wizard I find,” Archie thundered, and began stalking off towards the cluster of dome tents. “Watch one of your people die, Healer, knowing you could have prevented it, and carry that on your conscience. Watch, you sniveling—”

He caughed a large verdant shrub directly in the face.

The Shrubbet scrambled for several wonderful seconds, trying to climb his body and failing. But only for a few seconds. After that it managed to find some purchase, get its one foot on his shoulder, the other on his head, and leap off to freedom.

Archie was completely bamboozled, and I can’t say I blame him. Having a bush smash into your face, having it be a furry creature, and having that creature then launch itself off you couldn’t have been easy. He turned to watch it hop away from him, and vanish into the shrubbery not ten feet from where he stood.

When he turned around, it wasn’t a Shrubbet that barrelled into him.

This is Christopher’s plan coming to fruition.

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