There was an eerie silence when Cobal stepped out of the temple. He hadn’t really picked up on it earlier but there were no sounds of fighting at all now. Just as they were walking out into the rain they spotted movement in the nearby bushes. The sun had all but vanished beyond the horizon at this point and it was hard to see what emerged from the bushes. They quickly realized that it was Merrick. He seemed to be alone though. He quickly walked up to Eliana and the rest.
“What happened?” He asked his captain.
“A lot of things happened, but their leader got away. Where is Dana?” Eliana looked around, worried.
“She is with the prince’s guard, he got caught in a weird trap and seems to be completely paralyzed.”
“Sorry, what did you just say?” Cobal asked.
“Your friend is completely unmoving. We found him on top of a strangely drawn circle on the ground.” Merrick looked timid, having to bring bad news.
Mana and Cobal exchanged a look. “Lead us there please,” Cobal said.
Merrick looked at Eliana who nodded. “You two go with Merrick, I’ll join up with the rest.”
They followed Merrick a little bit away from the main camp until they found the spot along the way where they’d apparently been separated from Dylon. Dana was nowhere to be seen at first, but once she saw them she jumped down from the tree branch she was hiding on. “I didn’t want to touch him at all in case something would happen.”
Mana kneeled down next to the circle. “That was a smart decision, we still know very little about these kinds of magics.”
Cobal kneeled down next to her and watched along as she inspected the runes. “There’s some overlap with what we know, but the fundamentals are different.” She pointed out a pattern with several runes being scribbled in a circle. “Look, we’ve not seen something like that before.” She took out a piece of paper from a pocket inside of her shirt. With a tiny piece of charcoal she started meticulously copying the runes onto the little bit of paper. “I wish I had a better way of doing this, but it’ll have to do.”
“Good thing you brought paper.”
Mana smiled. “I figured there would be a chance that we would need it. After all, we’ve been chasing after these magic circles for a while now. I’m just glad we’ve come across some new ones. That’ll be a big help in figuring out where to go from here.” After she finished copying the runes onto the paper she looked at Cobal. “I’m about ninety percent certain the magic has become dormant since it’s activated, but if something happens to me when I touch Dylon’s shoulder, yank me back as quickly as you can, don’t worry about hurting me in the process. Do you understand?”
Cobal nodded. There was an intensity to her expression that she didn’t show often. There was not a hint of anxiety, just pure focus on the task at hand. She reached out her arm and carefully, with just one of her fingers, touched Dylon’s shoulder. She pulled back immediately, as fast as she’d touched him, she was a step away again.
“What happened?” Dana asked, looking on curiously.
“Nothing, just being careful in case something does go wrong.” She reached her hand out again, this time firmly touching his shoulder. “He’s not moving at all, but he feels very tense.” She moved her hand to his chest. “His heart’s still beating, so that’s a good sign.” She moved her hand in front of his mouth. “He doesn’t seem to be breathing though, I don’t know what sort of magic this is, but he seems to be alive while completely paralyzed.” She looked at Merrick and Dana who both shook their heads. “Never seen anything like it.” Dana said.
Mana then looked at Cobal. “Let’s bring him with us, I don’t think it’s safe to leave him here.”
Merrick stepped forward. “I can carry the lad, we can bind him to my back with some rope.”
Cobal nodded. “Let me know if it gets too heavy, we can alternate if need be.”
They tied Dylon’s paralyzed body to Merricks back and slowly went back the way they came.
“At least he’s not heavier than a regular man. If he was turned into stone by something I wouldn’t be able to lift him.
After they found their way back to the clearing in front of the temple they met up with Eliana and the rest of the crew. It turned out that Dylon wasn’t the only one who had fallen for one of these traps. Captain Ferla, as well as two of Eliana’s pirates were also found unmoving in the forest. All four of them were placed carefully in the empty space.
“So what happened?” Cobal asked Eliana.
Eliana looked at one of the members of the main force, whose name was Jarania.
“Well, we first encountered a couple of cultists, but they weren’t much of a challenge. After that we started hearing strange sounds and we realized that they were using magic to disappear. We worried they were going invisible, but after nothing happened for a while we thought they might have instead just teleported elsewhere. We’ve heard of teleportation magic before, so we figured maybe these cultists had a way to do it. We didn’t consider it likely though.”
“I see. How many casualties?”
“Two, unfortunately. They were more expectant of us than we guessed, but because most of them seem to have quickly left there wasn’t much fighting. Crossbow bolts got both Kriad and Drair.” He looked at Cobal. “How did things go on your end?”
“We learned a bunch of interesting stuff, but the guy who seemed to be in charge got away.”
“We’ll talk more on the ship,” Eliana said. “Bury the bodies and bring everyone who’s been paralyzed back with you. We’re returning to Feaseral Cove where we’ll decide on our next steps.”
“Hold on,” Cobal said.” Where’s Mirgia’s group?” He looked around but didn’t spot anyone from the group.
Eliana looked at Jarania expectantly who shook his head. “We haven’t seen them at all. I worry they might have been caught in a trap too.”
“Scout the island, we need to find them. They might be paralyzed too. I also need six of you to dig graves for our fallen.”
They divided up in groups and went to work.
It took a little while before someone came running towards Cobal and Mana. They’d found traces of another magic circle. The two went over to confirm what they had worried about. It was another circle of teleportation. But there was something different about it, and Cobal wasn’t the only one who spotted it. “There’s no outer circle.”
Mana nodded. “You’re right. If our information so far has been right, that means there’s no destination added to this circle.”
“What do you think that means?” Cobal asked.
“I don’t know, but I worry it sent them to some random place. Either that, or there’s more to these circles than we know, which is very well possible.” Mana sighed. “This is bad, what do we do now?”
“I’m unsure, but I think we need to take this one step at a time. Once we’ve finished scouting the entire island, we’ll go back to Feaseral Cove and we’ll plan out the next step from there on out.”
“Let’s do that then.” By the time they all made their way back onto the ship it had fully turned into night. The journey back to the cove was a quiet one. No one was really in the mood to discuss what was pretty much a complete failure. Their only saving grace was the little bit of information they managed to get from this Mornas person. But that was all they got in return for losing some of their party and having others turned immobile. The mood was grim when the ship finally anchored.
Cobal instantly sensed the hostility between the members of Captain Ferla’s crew and the members of Captain Tidescreecher’s crew. With one group being down their captain, things felt imbalanced and sailors didn’t like this level of uncertainty. When your chain of command is down while sailing, things get complicated fast. That’s why so many of the captains you encounter are such forces of personality. They need to make sure an entire ship full of people fully listens to their commands without questioning it in the moment. Right now it was quiet. Ferla was basically a statue, unmoving and unresponsive and although Captain Tidescreecher had given some orders, she was clearly a bit shaken. While her two advisors were trying to get things back in order, Cobal, Mana and Eliana sat around the table in silence, waiting for someone to come up with an idea. It was once again late at night, and all of them were still shaken from the raid, even though time had passed. Eventually Cobal stood up. “I’m going to sleep, we need to talk this through properly in the morning, but right now I don’t think I can come up with a plan.”
Eliana nodded. “I think you’re right. I’ll go back out there and tell everyone what to expect. I’ll tell Ferla’s crew that they’re free to stay and free to go, while we figure out what to do with their captain.”
“I’m worried, but I agree we’ll have to wait until the morning,” Mana said. Cobal looked at her. Any sign of the immense capability she’d displayed before had gone quickly. The face she was making was one of worry, not of conviction. Cobal didn’t blame her, he was sure he had a similar look on his face. Kimi and Mirgia were gone. Dylon wasn’t moving, and although Cobal was initially unhappy that the guard was sent with them, he’d come to like the man as time went on. He was just doing his job, after all.
“Very well,” Eliana said. “We’ll plan things out tomorrow, get a night’s sleep first.”
Cobal and Mana went to the tent they were sharing. It was a four person tent, but they were only two now. Cobal spotted the unmoving people off to the side. They were very carefully placed towards the outer side of the cove, so no one would accidentally hit them or knock them over. It wasn’t certain if that would hurt them or not, but they didn’t want to risk it.
“We’ll fix this for you,” Cobal said to Dylon, unsure if he could hear him. “We’ll find a way to undo this.” He stayed there for a little while, before he headed into the tent, where Mana was already seemingly asleep.
Opal Kaharis 