The sun had already set, but half of the island might as well be still be experiencing the setting sun from how intense the fuel supply barges had been burning. It had been more than few minutes since the fire started; the former slaves, now fresh recruits were in a scramble. None of them were listening to their superiors. More than half of them were throwing themselves into the darkened forests while the rest cowered into a small outpost near the dock’s roadside leading up further into their base. The ones who stuck around the outpost—both former slaves and their captors turned superiors—were the only witnesses to what had been happening around them, and what was happening to the ones who fled.
“You! see anything?!”
“Find him!”
One of the slaves, an owl joyan, was shouted at by the soldiers. The owl-joyan frowned. He didn’t care they would see, none of them could see the difference of his scowl and his neutral face. Only people who were in close relation to his kind could tell the difference, and the last one—his old friend—was sold to a god-kissed on their way to this island. He knew he would never see her again, but found out what these Encan rebels were trying to achieve. They need him alive, and if he did their bidding long enough he could survive till the day he could find the opportunity to look for his friend again. But that did not mean he needed to like any of these monsters.
He begrudgingly nodded when one of the soldiers finally nudged the butt-end of their weapon over his neck. He crawled outside of the outpost’s sole building and into the toppled logs these men passed of as cover in the event of an attack. The owl-joyan let his clawed arms scrape into the wood as he peered over to see beyond the darkness and the frightening screams that echoed all over them.
There was an uneasiness in the air, one that joyans—especially—could easily pick up. He was no exception. His clawed hands gripped over the wooden logs, fighting his instinct to just fly away. It was no use escaping anyway. His arms still had many of his feathers plucked before he was let out of the ship; an incentive for many of them to not cross their new masters. Instead, he did his job and looked closer. When a scream that echoed only a few trees deep into the forest occurred, he did his best to look—and immediately regretted seeing it.
It was standing over a pile of bodies while one of the slaves that escaped was trying to stab it with one of the bayonetted firearms their new masters tried to train them the past few days. Its limbs were dripping with a thick pitch-black mud, one of which was holding the slave high up. The one it caught finally fired the weapon! The bullet slammed through the monster’s chest with a plop, but did nothing else.
The owl-joyan let out a sharp gasp, one he soon regretted. The monster craned its head around, its eyes shining through the darkness as they slowly landed over to him.
“Aaaaaa—!” The owl-joyan screamed as he kicked himself away from the ground, running back into the outpost’s building.
“What did you find?”
“What the—”
Before the soldiers could let him inside, a figure flew past him and through the two guards! They were thrown back inside as the owl-joyan could fully stop himself; a body of another soldier was the thing that flew, as if it was thrown. A bulb lit up over his head, but it was too late. Another body slammed from behind him and the owl-joyan was thrown inside! The next few minutes was them being peppered by the flying bodies of the very same guards who tried to round up the escaping slaves. When the thrown bodies finally subsided, the owl-joyan found more than three dozen bodies littered around the outpost. But not a single one of them dared to get out of the building—that is, until a shout echoed from outside.
“Throw down your firearms and get out!” It was a familiar sound of one of the soldiers.
“W-what is that monster…” One of the other slaves, a bronze skinned desiertan, muttered in her own tongue.
True enough, when the owl-joyan peered outside, the soldier screaming was being held by the neck by the very same monster he saw, but now it was being reflected by the single orange street light by the road.
“Throw down your firearms and…get out…!” Listening to the soldier, his voice sounded like a desperate plea than an order. “…before we all end up like the ships!”
Both the slaves and the soldiers inside the outpost looked at each other. If that monster was responsible for burning down such gigantic ships, none of them wanted to test how far its abilities could reach. They all went out, some of them fully dropping their weapons, while the rest only pointed it down to the ground; but all of them had an arm extended placatingly, keeping themselves as less threatening as they could. The owl-joyan hoped the monster was another joyan who he failed to identify. But looking at it now, it was far from anything natural.
“W-what do you want?” The desiertan woman muttered out loud.
The monster let go of the soldier, who screamed in agony when he slammed into the ground. It dragged the soldier by his right hand, showing it to the rest of them—or what was left of it. The soldier was missing every one of his fingers save for his thumb! The owl-joyan’s eyes widened as he finally realized all of the bodies scattered around them had the same done to them.
It spoke in Ishgar; its words the owl-joyan, and many other slaves, failed to understand. But when they realized the soldiers who still had their firearms drop them on the ground, all of the slaves who were carrying theirs also did the same.
No sooner when the last of the firearms landed on the ground purplish glass chains sprout from the ground! Even the fastest of them could only get away for a few meters before the chains crawled around their necks and pulled into the ground. The owl-joyan felt the chains dig through his feathered neck, but quickly noticed it getting slightly less tighter when he does not pull himself back up. But his thinking was quickly broken from the ugly crushing sounds. All around them, the firearms and the blades attached to them were broken and tossed aside where none of them could reach by another batch of chains before disappearing on thin air.
The monster whispered something to the closest soldier in Ishgar and the man slowly parroted what he said into Encan. The owl-joyan only understood part of what he said; that being this would happen should any of them try to break the chains. Before any of them tried to understand what it meant by those words, the monster crushed the chains holding down one of the soldiers. As quickly as the chains were broken, it rematerialized and crawled around the soldier’s face, glowing into a blinding flash before finally detonating!
When they finally could see again, the sight of the soldier’s burnt face was etched through their memory. The monster was holding the soldier up, his head still slightly bloated from the burns that resembled the chain that was just wrapped around him not too long ago.
The monster then materialized a new chain and, this time, it held tight all over the soldier’s body.
Not a single one of the soldiers were strong enough to survive one well placed punch from him. That, and the fact he let his curse crawled around his body in full glory, became a perfect way to scare and beat up most of the slaves-turned-recruits and their masters. While he did not have anything against these slaves, keeping them from doing anything unpredictable was priority. One of the soldiers, however, he had no qualms making an example for the rest of them: One of the soldier twins who had their fun of beating him up through days on end, the one named Basilio, had his face morphed into a bloating parody of itself.
He even found a breath leaving his lips before he slammed Basilio’s face through the ground, knocking him unconscious.
Satisfied, he stood up and looked at the fifty or so soldiers and recruits. He then heard the sounds of dogs and shouting from the far side of the road, further away were the sounds of vehicles coming down the mountain.
Perfect.
He gave them one last quick look before running through the darkness of the forest, looking up at the mountaintop of the island lit only by the faint moonlight.
It didn’t take Tim long to reach their main base.
The wizard was standing over a tall coconut tree bent to one side, completely sticking out of the cliff facing around the mountain where the base in question was set up. Tim crouched down, ignoring the pointy leaves slowly caressing his legs as he staked the place out. Down below him, he could see another batch of soldiers still trying to figure out how to get past the chain trap he set, though that was only for their own men; the slaves’ lives hinged over the fact they were in the same situation as the other soldiers. Some part of him didn’t want to pin them into such a situation—who knows what horrific things they had endured—except, he had just been through a rough patch of month himself. Everyone who dipped their hands in this ugly part of the world, willingly or otherwise, are up against it all. It might be the desperation in his mind creeping, twisting his morals slightly, but the less he dealt with inside the base proper, the better.
Hiding behind the excuse of urgency, Tim shook his thoughts aside and clasped his hands together as if in prayer. Purplish beams of light slightly escaped around the inside of his hands and, when he finally opened his clasped palms, shards of glass floated up. There were six pieces of molded glass floating around Tim’s outstretched palms: two pairs of concave and convex lenses, and two reflective prisms. Keeping the glass afloat with his Grav-à-tête spell, Tim laid the glass out in front of him. One of the concave and convex lenses on one end and another pair further away, and in between them the two prisms were laid out in a specific way. As if imitating an Ignazio prism inside a set of binoculars, Tim used the materialized glasses to as a spyglass to peer around the base.
“A little too purple…but it’ll have to do.” He winced at the glass’ natural tint, but kept his attention around the remaining guards around the base.
The facility itself was just a single carved structure around the mountain proper, but the scale was impressive now that he had the time to actually see it from afar.
From the foot of the mountain, all he could see was the cave-like entrance that dug through and opened into the inside of the mountain. From all the way here, the entire cave-like entrance—which could already fit a few vehicles inside—was only one of many entrances. Two were engineered with ruined stones fitting through them while another had a single crevice that ran diagonally upwards which was used as an opening for their surveillance network which composed of a few trailer-mounted satellite dishes and other communications equipment Tim had little to no knowledge about. There were no more than ten people he counted that were on patrol outside, standing by either a set of wooden and metal constructed towers by the cliffs or from one of the stone balconies carved on the mountain’s face. Tim expected fewer people to keep watch from the outside, a lot of the other soldiers went to support the distraction he made down below. And reasonably so, just trying to keep the ship’s fire from crawling into the forest was already a threat that would take a lot of manpower to suppress. The moral cost when Tim decided he would willingly burning the island and everything inside it had cross his mind, but he was no god. What he lacked was not benevolence, but the power to carry out this job without the needless casualties; yet innocents already died before he got captured. And afterwards? He was worth nothing more than other prisoners, and people will still die. But a lot less will follow if these soldiers and their desires for conquest are ended here and now.
And there was also the small matter of revenge.
Tim, courtesy of the Pancake spell, folded into a paper-thin flap and slipped past the guards by daintily falling through the entrances in one of the carved stone balconies. He knew the approximate way to the Capitan’s office, but when he finally went inside the facility he found himself drawn into a faint presence in the deepest parts of the cave system. Tim wanted to try to navigate the darkness with his magic sensory, but when he finally used the damn thing this was the first presence he actually focused on. But there was a reason to it. That way deeper into the darkness? He was just there not too long ago for more than a month, and so was someone else.
Tim ripped apart through three guards’ combination magic with his sheer strength alone as he ran through the familiar tunnels, the familiar smell of mixed piss and shame from everyone who spent any time being reduced to less than an individual in these barred niches they called cells. Each rushed step Tim took was enveloped with worry, because each of these steps he took the presence became more faint until he reached their prison cell; that was when it finally dawned on him. The presence was still the same; only, his expectation of a person’s magical presence intensifying when a wizard gets closer to them did not happen to the now sole resident of this cell. Because the presence Tim felt was never from his cellmate.
A soft voice echoed.
“Number?” Tim asked.
One man was supposed to answer. After all, he had started counting for a while now.
His rougher voice did not echo, and the piercing silence was even more painful for the younger man than what he had just been through.
Tim pulled apart the bars with one single pull; he could have done this long ago, but whether it was because of his own pride in acknowledging his strength or from the poisons they were subjected to, he couldn’t do it. The gods know he tried. But it was too late now. He stepped inside, a purplish crystal ball of light on hand to light up the whole cell. Looking at everything now, it was a miracle both of them lasted this long. Again, he threw the thoughts aside; it was too late now. The only thing he could do was walk up to his cellmate’s body and kneel beside it.
He could smell his rotting flesh, alongside the piss and shit that perfumed the whole damned cave. But he didn’t care. He could feel the older man’s stiff body, alongside the maggots crawling from beside his bloated torso. Again, he didn’t care. And when he tried to lift him up, some of his flesh started to break down while the others were too stiff and rolled to one side. He quickly let him back to how he was on the ground, just to preserve what little of his form left. Tim clad his hands a bright purple and burned the grime and maggots that crawled along his hands as he let him go.
“I lost count, old man—” Tim choked. “I…”
He burned everything except a single trinket in his hand: a single Toxiban emitting a warm heat, a small magical presence, and an even smaller source of light. Tim had seen a lot of these things. They are practically warm bags, a ‘special magic potion’ of sorts that could make anyone feel better. It’s more a placebo magic item more than anything. He never seen his cellmate use it, and reasonably so.
They would have taken it in a heartbeat.
Tim popped the cork of the bottle and its abilities slowly took its effect. The cave suddenly became brighter. The dull unflinching cave walls was lathed with the presence of nature: trees sprouted from the dry ground along with the grass, the sound of a running river echoed around him, and finally the sound of a raspy laugh pierced through the younger man’s ears. The raw arid perfume of grass tickled his senses along with the fresh air that suddenly caressed Tim’s bare torso. He looked around, trying to keep himself from breaking down and crying, and noticed the familiar look of the leaves. These trees were minstrelian beech! No sooner Tim finally noticed everything else, the forest-like sight extended even further until the bright sky finally enveloped the upper walls of the cave. The sounds of laughter and cheerful banter finally became clearer, and Tim let a single tear roll down his cheeks when he finally understood. These echoes were speaking Minstrelois.
“I never got to know your name in the end, did I? I should’ve asked. I should’ve talked to you more, old man.” He whispered. “But I was able to help your town, or what was left of it…”
He wanted it to be the case, no matter the true chances of it being nothing more than a comforting lie.
Tim took a deep breath of fresh air, and his thoughts became slightly clearer. Everything that happened to him these past weeks, it took a toll on him. He learned to be cruel, something he never truly believed to be necessary until now. There is a toxicity in this war, in the senseless cruelty every one of them inflicted over each other which corroded their very sense of right and wrong. His head became clearer now, but these thoughts of cruelty and his feral need to kill? It would truly be a fairy tale if a magic bottle would be enough to wash these thoughts away, would it?
Sadly, this wasn’t.
Tim corked the magic item back and everything—the fresh air, the pleasant smell of the tress, and the joyful laughter—were replaced with the rotting aroma of a corpse, the rancid smell of the cave, and the deafening silence of his failure. Everything left was real; as real as the rest of the sins he experienced, and inflicted, since he dipped his hands in this war.
But there was still one small matter still in his grasp, the opportunity to be cruel the ones who wronged the two of them.
There was still revenge to hold to.
It was a slaughter.
The slaughter started in the break of dawn. The Capitan knew the moment the wizard they captured declared his death within a day; he would be gunning for him as fast as he could. He even stopped the chain curse he inflicted over the new recruits and the other soldiers. One of the twins was barely alive, but his bear-like brother was fortunately livid for the incident and was now on high alert along with the other guards in the base. They knew where he was and they all knew when he would strike. After all, he already barged inside the Capitan’s office a few hours ago to tell all of them to get ready.
Crispin laughed at the wizard’s attempt. “All that and he still chooses honor?” He spat before he readied the dogs.
But the Capitan knew better; the wizard’s eyes were not one of honor, it was one of utter cruelty. The wizard knew how truly powerful he was, and he wanted them to experience it. He did not know how this man failed to use this newfound power before he was first captured, but whatever the case was, this wizard had no single excuse to hold himself back.
And when the time he promised had passed, the slaughter began.
It wasn’t a question of speed, nor technique, nor power—by the maker, it was not even a question about magic! The wizard walked down the mountain path from the top unarmed, with only the trousers he wore when he escaped, with nothing but his scarred hands and body as weapons, and his utter desire to humiliate them. He even left his sword in the Capitan’s office. All of them looked from afar how the wizard was brutalizing the incoming soldiers one by one with his bare hands.
Any soldier who had not mastered their bodies enough to match wizards of any caliber had their heads caved in by a single punch from this man. Anyone else who were tougher? They had it worse. He would first break their knees, then break their fingers before either slamming down their faces on any floor, wall, or tree he could see or outright kicking them off the mountain. These methods slowly devolved into utter madness. After the more than fifty of the Capitan’s soldiers were either beaten to near-death or thrown off the mountain, the wizard then resorted to using men’s heads as weapons. He would drag one conscious man and slam their faces against another.
All the while, he was casting not a single spell that any single one of them could notice.
“Impressive,” Crispin spat as the wizard finally reached them.
The Capitan was sweating. He knew how little chance this arrogant bear-joyan stood against this monster. But there was nothing else, no options for him to play. The ships were burned to the depths, and his only contact to the government bailed on him when he contacted for support the night prior. Should the wizard grant him his life, he would sell his contact out in a heartbeat! But looking at the wizard and Crispin’s fight unfold, he was at this point much too sooner.
There was no art in it.
Tim was slamming his fist against the bear-joyan with little technique. The was no need for anything fancy. This was how he lived through his fights at the cages. But unlike then, he had every intention to kill all of them. Even the soldiers he kicked off the mountain. He didn’t care if someone had noticed or not, but the point was for every single one of them to experience the helplessness he felt before they do so. First, he broke their knees to keep them from standing. Next, he broke their fingers to keep them from grabbing anything to help save them. And, finally, every single one of them had one of their ribs broken towards the inside and lodged into their lungs.
After the bear-joyan finally staggered to the ground, Tim walked over and slammed his fist over the man’s side and, after the familiar pop of his bone breaking, went on to break his legs with a couple of hard kicks.
“…then there was one…” Tim finally locked his bloodshot eyes to the Capitan.
And as if a snake shedding their skin, the Capitan bleed his lips explaining his contact in the Encan high command, as well as his network that linked with the Desiertan slave trade and the war. Most of the information went past Tim; partly because he was talking too fast, but mostly because he wanted it over with. And when the man finally slipped his tongue and talked about the documents about everything that he kept and how easily it could be found in the base, Tim had enough.
The man’s screams echoed.
It echoed for a while.
And then it stopped.
Afterwards, Tim let out a sigh of relief. The first one he took since he entered this island.
“And then there were none.”
